Life is for Fulfilment

Rose Bank Satsang with Mohanji in Canada on 23rd August 2015, part 1

Q: What is the purpose of life and is the purpose the same for everybody?
A: The answer will depend on which context you are talking about. If it is from the angle of karma, the purpose is the same for everybody. That means exhausting karma, exhausting desires, fulfillment, happiness. That is the core reason for every incarnation. Every birth is for this purpose. Fulfilment is the purpose. But it depends on which aspect you are talking about. What is the purpose of the body? To feel the Earth, to feel the sensations, to feel whatever you can feel using the body. What is the purpose of the mind? To experience sensations, emotions… What is the purpose of the ego? Ego’s purpose is to maintain your identity. When it becomes swollen, it maintains its identity in a somewhat larger way 🙂 so it’s a nuisance for other people. What is the purpose of the intellect? Knowledge, accumulation of knowledge, collection of knowledge. So the purpose depends on which level we are talking from, which level we are operating on.
What is the purpose of the soul? The purpose of the soul is to go through this process and get back to where it came from. That is total and complete liberation.
Everybody’s purpose of life is fulfillment. But individual purpose differs. My fulfillment might be different from yours. What I came for might be different from what you came for. You can never generalise. 7.3 billion people and all the other beings have come for something. That is exactly your purpose of life. Whichever path or track of karma that destiny takes you on is exactly the purpose of existence. If you are looking for a purpose larger than that, then you may take another birth. Purpose is not different. What you are experiencing today is exactly the purpose. Because destiny takes you to the level of purpose. There are no two things about it. You cannot change it. What you are, what you will be and what you can be, is all determined. Decided. You cannot be or do something else. You cannot be at a different place. It’s impossible because the path of destiny is clearly defined. In that mode your path is clear, your purpose is clear. Is the purpose the same for everybody? It cannot be. Becauase then there would only be one person. If everybody were a doctor, an engineer, or a captain of ships or aircraft, do you think life would work? We have a huge variety and we need it. Thus everybody’s purpose and everybody’s fulfillment is not the same. Similarly, say I kept a lot of dishes here, with a variety of food. Each of you will have different food, right? Not everybody will choose the same food. Why is it so? It’s because we all have a different orientation. Our creation is like that. We have been created like that. We have our likes and dislikes, characters, constitutions. Everything has a distinction. This is how creation has happened, and so we choose only as per our orientation. There cannot be a generalisation. There can be resemblances, but none are exactly the same. You are you. Other people may resemble you, but they are not exactly you. That is why this question has been answered in this way.
In simple terms, the purpose of existence is fulfilment of karma, and whether all people’s purpose is the same, in that context YES, it’s the same. But is the fulfilment the same? The answer is NO. Fulfilment has to be different.

Q: Why is it that we sometimes feel that we lack something? We have family, children, jobs, but why is there still a feeling that something is missing?
A: There are a few reasons for this, at various levels.

Vacuum
On the one hand, imagine you have evolved from a level of awareness where you found your happiness in some of these things. Then you went above it. You evolved beyond it. You clearly understood or you realised that it’s all about role-play. You are playing the role of a mother, wife, an employer, or an employee, a shopper… At every level it’s a role-play, and nothing is permanent. So when you start connecting to the real you which is beyond all this role-play, sometimes a vacuum happens. This is because you are used to a certain pattern, and then that pattern is annihilated. Then you will come to a realisation, an awareness that this may not be me. Then, for some time before you actually enter into silence, there could be a vacuum.
Expectation
On the other hand, there could be expectation. Imagine your expectations constantly get defeated. For example, you expected to be a doctor, but eventually you became a teacher. You wanted to marry somebody whom you like, but you married somebody else. Like that, all these major things are getting defeated or diverted. Then you reach a stage where you think, “Nothing in life is per my plan!?“ That is happening because we have expectation. What you chose before birth, is what you got. However, you may not get what you’ve chosen with your mind, because the mind may not understand the whole picture. What has to happen will happen. What you’d love to happen, may not happen. Again a vacuum situation happens. You will probably become dull or resigned about the whole thing.
You can see this in animals before slaughter. When they understand they are going to be killed, some become violent and cry and shout and try to break free, while others understand they are going to be killed and just walk through the death. There are both reactions. We humans, also operate similarly in the same situation. We either accept the situation and move on, or we resist and make a lot of issues. That is when a lot of emotions come. The blame game comes. When we are completely resistant to what is happening all around, within us, around us, then resistance happens. That resistance then creates pain. When we constantly resist, life becomes a bundle of emotions. There is no positivity in it. It is all just a rolling of emotions in different forms.

Q: How do you overcome this?
A: Awareness. You need to be aware. When you know you are playing a role and that the role is changing at at each point in time, and that the experiences are different, then you start floating over it.

It means you are always watching yourself playing the role. Sometimes emotions will come and go. Nothing stays. In this way, you are constantly connected to the clear and permanent in you, but at the same time you are not affected by the temporary. The temporary is coming and going, it’s floating, you are floating to it, but at the same time you are not disconnected from it. It means you are not hating it, you are not resisting it. Nothing in you blocks anything. It is all floating, “Ok, I’ve seen all this, it’s ok, it doesn’t matter. I am none of this. I could be part of this, but I am none of this.“ That awareness changes your whole outlook. Then there is no resistance. There is no pain. Only when there is resistance, is there pain. If there is no resistance, there is no pain.

Q: We have mostly come from India. We migrated and stayed in Canada. There is a vacuum though. On the one hand, India is a land of so much spirituality, which never flourishes. People are more oriented towards material aspects, when they are supposed to be more humble, more spiritually oriented. On the other hand, people in Canada or western countries are more humble, and more loving, yet they don’t have any idea about spirituality. Why does that happen?
A: It’s a socio-psycho situation. When you are away from something, you understand the value of it. Sometimes when we are together with a person, for example with somebody in the house, especially elders, we take them for granted. They are kept on the bookshelf (ha, ha). We don’t really worry about them too much. But the moment they pass away, then we feel their absence. In the same way, we have close relationships or associations, but the moment the person leaves us, we feel we miss them. Likewise most people do not really practice religious worship. By worship, I mean systematic religions. However, they are religious. They are not aware of it. They are just following somebody’s rituals. “His grandfather was doing it, his father was doing it, my father is doing it, I am doing it.“ But they do not know whether this is valuable or not. Whether there is a reason for it. Somebody would have told them that if they did not pray to God, He would be unhappy with them. So a bit of fear, a bit of routine, and the activity goes on. One can see a lot of ritualistic bhakti in India. That brings aversion to a lot of people. Which God is binding you? People who are educated will ask the question, “How come that God is unhappy with my not going to the temple?“ If God is dependent on me, why should I be dependent on God? Such questions will come. So that is wrong understanding. This is mostly created by astrological priesthood. Community creates all this kind of thing, “If you don’t do this, God will punish you, or will be angry.“ The fear factor is thus created so that they can make money. However when you step outside and come to another country, you see the whole tapestry in a different way, the structure, the upbringing, or religious methods. Then you start realising that the real India is the spiritual India. All that you see outside are just fakes or masks of India. However you need to go outside to see inside. Sometimes it is the main thing. Though you may not see it when you are there, when you come outside and look back at it, you say,“Look here, this is beautiful! I never saw that when I was there.“ Nostalgia is part of that. When you do not have it or when it is not happening, at that time you feel, oh this is very important. Each time it’s like that. Ultimately the fundamentals of the Hindu tradition are all about liberation. If you had to sum up the Hindu tradition in one word – it would be liberation. For all aspects whether it is the tantric, ritualistic, vedic, upanishadic aspect… everything you take, the end story is – be liberated. Be liberated means that you should be liberated at this point in time, not when you are dying. At the time of death you cannot guarantee liberation. You should be liberated right now. Every aspect, puja, ritual, knowledge, every aspect of bhakti, is all pointing to, is all equal to liberation. However, when you are occupied with this religious mode activity, you may not know that this is the reason for it. Whether you are doing a shrad, a puja or performing a wedding, a mantra, everything is talking about completion, liberation. Let this aspect be complete. So it is for every aspect of your existence, whether it is brahmacharya, grihastha, or vanaprastha, every level. Vanaprastha doesn’t mean going to the forest. It means to detach from everything around you. So in every aspect it says, “Let there be completion and fulfillment so that you are liberated. If you take everything, for example parenthood or eating food as liberation, then you are living the life of a proper Hindu. Hindu means ’ha’ sun, ’indu’ moon. Combined together it means Hindu. Your heat and the cold part of you are actually united, you are Hindu i.e. your ida and pingala nadis are in full order. They are operating in the actual capacity. So the sun side of it and the moon side of it, the male and the female are together, you are in balance. This is the Shiva and Shakti aspect. Then you are a Hindu. It’s not a religion. It’s a state. Hindu is a state, not a religion. Once we understand that, we will go beyond all the rituals. Then there will be no fear, because fearlessness is our state. We can’t have fears. What is it that we are afraid of? Nothing. There is nothing to be afraid of. Where there is fear or unhappiness, or insecurity, there is non-understanding. If you are truly connected to God, if your path is liberation, every moment is fulfillment. There can’t be anything else, because everything is provided – time, space, the situation, understanding, intelligence, body, mind, intellect. Everything is provided so that you attain fulfilment every moment whether it is good or bad.
Coming back to your point. When you are in your country, you are worried more about gas cylinders, pipes, the electrician, the lightning, thunder, earthquakes, all of these things. However, when you are away, you don’t look at all those things. You look at the beauty aspect of it – a great country, a great culture, the tradition of liberation… This tradition of liberation is not happening in many places. Some people have asked me,“Why are there so many masters in India?“ I said, “The environment makes them happen.“ The environment provides facility for it. In many places you need to compromise to be in society. You cannot be clear and free. Thus how can you express? There have been great masters in every country, in every community, but they all have had to compromise with the current ministers or kings or religion. The people who created religions were enlightened. They were of high order. But those who interpreted it later on, were not of high order. The great masters who guided people in life were powerful. They knew exactly what they were talking about. They were of high order. However, later on, others used their teachings but with a different interpretation, and they used the teachings to bind. Friedrich Nietzche’s philosophy was good, but Hitler used it for a different purpose. Can you control it? This is exactly how everything is manipulated. Somebody asked me,“Mohanji can you guarantee that what you are teaching will stay after your death?“ I said, “I cannot even guarantee now!“ (laughter) What people are saying about my teachings now I do not know. The interpretations change as per the mind. The minds pick up what they would like to pick up, and use it. How could I change it? How could I control it? Similarly, the words we use can be either misinterpreted or properly interpreted. If you remember the last time I came to Canada one person asked me, “ You said the soul is already liberated. Then why are you saying ’a good soul’?“ That’s a usage. It’s not literally, you are not going deeper and saying ’your soul’. That’s not what we mean. ’Good soul’ means a good person. So understanding changes with the word, sometimes we use it to represent something…
I was talking to a saint during Kumbh Mela. I was giving a lecture, and there were various spiritual saints. I asked them,“Why do all people unite? What is the purpose? The purpose of being in society in whichever capacity is to elevate the awareness of the people. Thus if you are not worried about your name, fame, money, position, whatever, everybody can be together and just raise the awareness of society. Many of them do not come together because they are on various paths. However, if your only aim is to elevate the awareness of society, everybody can be together! All religions can be together! However religions are dividing people now for the sake of money, power, position. Then how do we attain liberation? What has happened everywhere, is that the politics and culture have become that of greed. Everywhere, not only in India. That is being reflected. The times are being reflected in every location. The sign of the times is one of greed, conquest, possessiveness, owning and ownership. I was talking about ownership, about parents owning the children. What ownership do you have? The children chose the parents. The parents did not choose the children. It is not like going to the supermarket and choosing. It’s the children that choose the parents. It’s probably not a conscious choice, or we can say the prarabdha made it happen. However, the truth is that we have no control over them. They have come with an agenda, they used part of you to come to the world for their own gratification. Similarly, we have absolutely no control over anybody. We don’t even have control over our own mind. We do not know what we are going to think in the next moment. That being the situation, what are we controlling at all? People change their minds, people change their behaviour, society changes, country changes, we talk about so many changes. We do not have a grip on any of these. In this way, erosion has affected everything, even philosophies. That is why I said every Yug has its flavour – the time of Ram, the time of Lord Krishna, the time we live in. Each Yug, each era, has a different flavour. So we are experiencing the flavour of Kali Yug where bribing is a normal thing. People bribe without any conscience. It goes like that. India, being Indian, Bharat, it’s a mixture of bha (God) and rat (love). It’s an amazing country, but sometimes you need to go outside of it to see it.

Destiny vs. Free will

Q: If there is free will, how does it happen that there is destiny which is pre-decided? If you can choose each moment to go left or right, how is it pre-decided? Are all these detours we make chosen as well?
A: What you transacted before you chose this incarnation is free will. Before you manifested in the womb of your mother, you had already traded it. As the cost was an incarnation, the choice was 100% free will. Before you took the decision for manifestation or incarnation, you had to make a plan about why you were going to Earth. This was decided in the astral plane. The question was, “Why are you going?“ You said,“I have a lot of things to do. A lot of experiences are pending.“ “Ok, in that case, you make the plan for how many years you will live, where you will live, what you will experience, who you will live with, who are the people you are going to meet, what sort of experiences you are looking at.“ Everything is defined. Once it is defined, and once you lock it, you are ready for incarnation. The rocket is ready. Then you manifest yourself. At that point in time i.e. from the time of birth, till the time of death, it’s chosen. That is the part of destiny, in Sanskrit we call it prarabda. Prarabda is fixed.
Then in your whole aspect, your body, mind, intellect and ego are a mixture. You are a mixture of these things. There is also a part called the soul. This ’man’ has full free will. He can decide ’I’m leaving’ and leave the body – finished! ’He’ can leave the body behind and go but ’he’ doesn’t do that. Why? Because the pact is that, “I will continue till the end.“ It means we agreed on a journey, “Ok, I’ll come with you“, so the soul stays on. But the soul definitely has 100% free will saying, “I have been on this journey over thousands of life times, so now it’s time“. That is why the soul pushes you towards liberation saying,“Ok, just watch and listen. Go meditate somewhere. Detach from all this mess. You’ve been through this many times.“ We do not know however because we closed that gate before we came. We do not know what happened in our past life and what provoked a new birth. However the soul knows because the soul has been experiencing this. The soul is all-knowing. It’s all encompassing and it’s also connected to the supreme consciousness, so it knows. The soul pushes you,“Go here, see.“ When it happens a few times, then awareness starts growing and you realise,“Oh, this is just a role-play. I’ve been an idiot, I didn’t know. I thought it was all real. And nothing is permanent. Everything is temporary. Emotions are temporary, people are temporary, situations are temporary, time is temporary… Oh, my God, now I realise I should catch on to the permanent.“ The only permanent companion is your soul. That is when you start listening to the soul, and asking “Oh, please tell me something.“ Then the soul guides you to the real answer, to the right places. Next you start becoming closer to your soul. It means you start looking inside. When you start looking inside and start connecting to your soul, you will get the right answers, the right directions, the right guidance. That’s the point in time when life starts shifting. Then it’s up to the process. Immediately you will start distancing yourself from whatever is not real, and you will start opting for what is real. That is when all the gurus and great mirrors come into play. They give you the total picture, your naked image,“This is you. All that you have considered are masks.“ They remove all the masks. This is you. That’s the point in time when you actually start seeing yourself. The purpose of every great master is to be a perfect mirror to society, to the people. Being a perfect mirror, they reflect you only at the time when you are looking at it. That’s what Baba said, “You look at me, I look at you.“ Only at that point in time. Otherwise nobody gives you food in the mouth, there is no spoon feeding. They guide you to the food saying you are welcome to have it, you are welcome to reject it and then – reflection. You understand, “Oh this is me! The other things are not important.“ So the lifestyle becomes one of non-violence, unconditional love, and then the purification becomes strong. You will not be interested in any violent activities, and your only expression becomes compassion. Then internally you become a saint, whether you are grihastha or a renunciate. You become a saint inside. Then it’s quick progress. The next step is liberation. Liberation is already happening in your life because you are detaching from everything which is unreal. Then you come inside and you see the real, you marry the real, and immediately the shifts happen. Other people will notice it better, more easily, because they think, “This person has gone mad!“ He is not responding to the usual gossip (laughter). So what happens? “Ok, let’s leave them alone.“ That is why I said yesterday if somebody abuses you and you don’t respond, they become surprised. The usual thing is that you would give back some abuse, right? But that’s not happening. They stop it. Whom will you call an idiot? A person who is normal, right? If you are absolutely sure a person is idiot, you won’t call him (laughter) because he wouldn’t know. If the response is not happening properly, then society is surprised. Society cannot understand people with usual problems. So how can you be peaceful when society is like this? You can do this by being connected to your inside more than to your outside. This is the point.

Transcribed by Biljana Vozarevic
Proof-read by Caroline Moscato