Counter Negativity with Positive Action

Satsang in Vrsac, Serbia, part 2

10th May, 2016

Q: How to control our thoughts? Even if we are to be here and now, we need to control ourselves, don’t we?

A: Who will control? This is something which you cannot control. Thoughts are like our children. We don’t know who is coming. We become aware of thoughts only after they take birth. We do not know what we are going to think in the next hour. So thoughts can’t be controlled. What can we do about it? Don’t do anything, just watch them. Just let the thoughts come and go. You know that thoughts are happening, it’s coming, it’s manifesting, it’s going, it’s happening, you are not doing anything, you are not controlling. When I say control anything, control means violence . It means you need to put some pressure. How much pressure can you put? Just imagine a small glass. Try to hold it up in your hand for half an hour. You will have severe pain in the shoulder and hand. It’s not heavy. It is not about weight, but you cannot make pressure for a long time. Nothing which is violent will help us. Even if it is at the thought level, if there is violence, it hurts.

How do we look at our children? With a lot of love. Look at all your thoughts with love, but don’t participate. Just love. Let it be good thoughts, bad thoughts, ugly thoughts, dirty thoughts, no problem. All are your children. They are all your thoughts, just look at them it’s ok. Keep watching. The moment you start accepting your thoughts, you become free. The moment we start sitting and censoring our thoughts, we become bound.

Primarily we need to accept ourselves, this incarnation. You as an incarnation are absolutely wonderful – that acceptance should be there. Then only can we lean forward. When you start connecting to the person behind the personality, you only see beauty. Every thought is beautiful, every word is beautiful, every action is beautiful, all people are beautiful, so we see only love and beauty. That’s what we need to see. What do you want to see otherwise? We feel that we must talk all the time because we are used to talking. When two people meet, even if there is nothing to talk about, they talk. So, you know, ok he is a good guy, he talks. Otherwise, we think it’s rude not to talk. This is something in here (Mohanji points to his head, alluding to the mind). It is sometimes good not to talk. Not because you hate the person, but because love can be transferred through the eyes. The eyes will talk better than the mouth. We tell people, “You know something, I love you.” Then after some time, we say, “I never meant it.”

Audience: (Laughter)

So who are we cheating? Not the other person. We are cheating ourselves. It’s better not to say such things and convey the message through the eyes so that everybody understands. Animals understand. They see your eyes and they recognize you. You don’t need to tell them, “I love you, dog.” They know. With your very presence, they know whether you love or hate.

So this is something which we must always remember.

I used to go to the Himalayas a lot. Now I don’t have much privacy. When I used to go to the Himalayas a long time ago, I used to go alone. I used to sit with an old saint. He is still very close to me but he is very old. We were looking at the river Ganga. We would not even talk. I would be sitting, he would be sitting, looking at the Ganga, it’s like a meditation. We were looking at the Ganga for a long time, we would sit for three or four hours together but without saying a word. When it was time to leave, we would nod and go. Never ever did I feel compelled to talk to him. He is sitting next to me, I must talk – there is nothing like it. It was good to not talk. I still remember.

Sometimes he would suddenly say something and this has come true. Once, much before I founded the Ammucare/ACT Foundation charity platform, he said “Mohanji, do something for the children of mother Earth. You will have eternal peace. You will have glory.”  At that time I didn’t have any plan to start any charity institution. I was thinking if I start something, it will affect my freedom. Because it is an organization, I must spend time with it, and I was so busy as a CEO of a company in Dubai. I didn’t want to add to my pressure. But later on, in 2003 it started. Today, we are in India, America, UK, South Africa, Macedonia, Serbia… in so many countries and new countries are coming up. His words were like written on stone. It happened.

Likewise, another time he said, “Mohanji, you cannot hide for long. People will start recognizing you.” I joked with him, “Swamiji, let me hide as long as I can. When people recognise me, I will come out.” It has also come true. A lot of people come to see me in every country.

This is what I am saying: sometimes when you start to feel life, you will have much more clarity about life and existence. We are not feeling life, we are doing, doing, doing it all the time. So we are not catching the feeling of life every moment, the feeling of being you, the feeling of being you as a relative, the feeling of being you as a citizen or…In every aspect feel yourself, every answer is within you, it will all come out.

Q: Throughout history, a large number of people have been exposed to wars, to extreme stress. So after that, it appears in life and in their dreams. How can one deal with these traumas which have remained in our subconscious memory?

A: This is in every country. In whichever country I go, some of them were slaves a few generations before, and in some countries there were wars. I always tell people, “When you are forced to experience negativity, the best way is to forcefully do positive things. Not try to contain negativity because it will not work that way. You need to increase the positivity. That is the best way to come out of it. If you try to address negativity or contain negativity, what happens is all this will come back to you and put you down. Because the moment you start touching the negativity your hands will become dirty. Instead, let it be there. At the same time, increase positivity. Try to help the helpless, try to do something in the society, even buying a tea to a man sitting in the cold is a positive action. In some way add value to the society. The question should not be ‘What can I do for you?’ but instead ‘What else can I do for you?’ That means you should be always doing something positive. Basically, the action of love is a positive action. It doesn’t need to be money. It can be just hugging somebody else saying,“Don’t worry. I’m with you.” That’s enough. It’s not how much money you spend, it’s about the attitude towards life.

Wars and destructions have happened because of the ignorance, non-understanding of people. Because death, destruction, assault, all these things are coming out of sickness, illness of the mind. Otherwise there is only love. So we should not sponsor or nurture it. We should cultivate love in every action. Just be love. Today, what have we done? One positive act. Start from there. Then it goes on and on. This is especially important for schools, small children. They should learn to love everybody. I saw a video of a small class in Japan, as soon as they come, everybody had to hug each other, express their love to each other, before they sit down in the class. They learnt to understand each other. They learn to connect to each other. This is important.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQomeq3SaLU&w=560&h=315]

The world, the countries, the citizens… we are dividing people. We are dividing people in the name of religion, countries, cast, culture, colour…it’s all wrong, it’s all violence. There’s no division. The same heart, colour of blood, feelings, everything. This is something which we must experience and also share. It’s important. When my daughter passed away, there was a huge vacuum. I was very close to her. She was very integral in my life. I was thinking, what next? What will I do? Later on, that whole pain became a purpose. If you convert a pain to a purpose, your life becomes successful. Not only yours – you will touch hundreds of lives in a successful way. So we have the potential to make every pain, every trauma into a purpose. That means convert the pain into a purpose.

Likewise, if you look at the life of Jesus, he used to walk days on without food or water. He used to do things which were sometimes extremely difficult. But what was his driving force? Definitely not the people around him. Nobody was encouraging him. Nobody told him, “You should do all this.” Purpose was driving him. Purpose was powerful. Purpose makes you fearless. Purpose gives you courage, determination, everything is provided by purpose.

If you ask one question, what drives me, what is my driving force, there is one answer – purpose. Purpose is my driving force. That is what is taking me to all these countries. It’s not comfortable, different time zones, different people, different food, climate, sometimes it’s not good, but purpose drives me. Purpose takes me to places and purpose is also the fulfilling factor. So increase purpose.

Q: Everybody watches concerts and the audience cries, children cry, too. Why is there pain in love and how to deal with it?   

A: Don’t deal with it (smiles)… just experience it.

Audience: Just cry. (Laughter)

A: Yes, just cry, just experience the crying 100 percent. When you laugh, experience the laughter 100 percent, when you cry, experience the crying 100 percent, so that everything, every moment is fulfilling. This is what makes our life. When you laugh, you think about the sorrow then you neither laugh nor cry. Or when you cry, you are thinking about something. That should not happen. When you do something, do it 100 percent. For example, we are sitting and talking, we are sharing information, this receptivity should be like this, 100 percent.

Q: Some parts of life are boring, tedious, like scrubbing the toilet or washing the dishes. How to enjoy them 100 percent?

A: A beautiful question, I’ll also give you a beautiful answer. I don’t think that anybody in the world would say that washing the dishes is a pleasure, eating is a pleasure, but not washing the dishes! (Laughs)

Audience: Just to go through that experience?

A: I’ll give you the answer. Where is the tedium or boredom coming from? Where is the seed of boredom? There is an expectation. So the expectation is something new, but the result is monotonous  – the same thing. This is what is creating the tedium or boredom. There is a particular mantra in the scriptures. Roughly translated, it says,“When I am taking a step into today, let this step be towards You (to God). Whatever I am eating, let this be your gift to me.  Whatever I am saying, let it be your praises. It may not be chanting, but whatever I speak today, let it be like flowers at your feet.” Likewise whatever dishes you are washing, let them be God’s dishes. 🙂

Audience: (Uproarious laughter)

A: Then it becomes a meditation.

Audience: Changing the attitude?

A: Absolutely. But I like your question, you are very intelligent,  a nice question. I like these questions, it should be fun. People ask tedious questions, like about enlightenment, who wants it? Like this, first let’s talk about washing the dishes, then we will talk about enlightenment if we have time. 🙂

Q: I work at a school and have a problem with children who are rude and misbehave. It is obvious that they bring problems from home. How to help them?

A:  We have to continuously express our frequency, from the basis of love, so that they get an alternative. Otherwise, children do not get an alternative. They sometimes get influenced by the negative attitude of senior people and they believe that the whole world is like that. But when somebody behaves in a different way, with love, they start thinking, hey, look, there is something else here. You know the story of Jean Valjean called “Les Misérables” (by Victor Hugo, made into a movie in 2012)?

This man was rejected by the society. Nobody wanted him, an ex-convict. The bishop gave him accommodation, food, and what he did was he stole the bishop’s silver plates and ran away. Later the police caught him, brought him to the bishop. The bishop said, ”I gifted it to him.” That changed him. How can somebody be so good!? The bishop did not betray him or said that he had stolen it. The bishop actually lied, but that lie was so powerful that it changed the man. Eventually, he became much greater than the bishop. When he told the truth in public forgetting about his status, forgetting about his stature, forgetting about his social standing, he said, ”I was an ex-convict.” That guts came, that courage came to him because of the incident of the past. So we must only give love. It doesn’t matter how the children are. They collected from outside all the seeds of negative things. We give positivity. We give love. When we become consistent and stable, the children will love you, because they are used to unstable, inconsistent people. So we stay consistent, stable any time they come to us. For example, I look at everybody as my children. When they come to me, I give the same hug to everybody. So they say, “Yesterday, today, and tomorrow you are the same.” So there is one point they can be sure about. That’s all you need to give to the world, the world will be ok.

Remember we are all soulmates, let us be together. Love you all.

Recorded and transcribed by Biljana Vozarevic