Satsang in Novi Sad, Serbia on 1st March 2015, Part 1
Mohanji started answering the questions directly from the list prepared from emails so that no time is wasted on waiting until somebody breaks the ice… He looked at the list and said, ”I could answer all these questions in a one-word sentence – AWARENESS. Awareness is the key. Awareness opens the door and wisdom flows.”
But he patiently talked more for the sake of clarity, feeding and soothing the hungry minds hoping there will be more inner silence and peace inside everybody. After the satsang, during the inverted pyramid cleansing technique, tears of bliss and relief from discarded heaviness of mind were rolling down some faces…
it was the preparation for shaktipat – gifted directly by Mohanji, people were thirstily soaking in as much divine energy as they could take…
Q: Could you explain the difference the difference between pathlessness and non-commitment?
A: Pathlessness is our daily life. Look at what thought is going to happen in the next moment. Do you know what you are going to think in the next moment? Only when a thought happens you understand or realize that a particular thought has happened, and one thought leads to another, and that one leads to another… This is our existence.
This is exactly the pathlessness. We flow just like a river, the river flows in its own way and reaches its destination – the ocean. As the river eventually becomes the ocean, limited beings flow through lifetimes and finally when all their individual karma ends attains immortality.
This is pathlessness. It means accepting the reality as it is and also accepting the environment as it is. Accepting yourself and the environment fully and completely and flowing with life without fear, guilt, judgement or self-pity is pathless-path.
Non-commitment is something from the mind. That too, only from the waking mind. You cannot have non-commitment when you are sleeping, or when you are dreaming. You can have non-commitment only when you are awake, and that is completely with the mind or the intellect.
It has nothing to do with your true reality. You are committing or non-committing based on your likes and dislikes, not based on the reality. Reality could be something else because you see the world as you are. You do not see the world as it really is or as it is. You see the world as you are.
That is why I explained the story of five people going to see “The Titanic“ in the previous satsang. Five people had five different opinions about the film. Why is it so? It is the same cinema, the same director, the same actors, everything is the same, but five people had five different opinions about the film.
This is because each individual and each person is completely original, not duplicated. Every person is original, that is why everybody has original opinion, original understanding. In our path, we call it pathlessness because whatever comes is accepted. Whatever happens is accepted. There is no resistance.
You can see pathlessness in action with animals very well. A car hit a cat on the road and one of its legs was broken. It cried for some time and soon it pulled itself to one side of the road, safe from traffic, stopped crying and started licking its wound and it started adjusting to its new life realities. Look at ourselves – We would have cried all the time until the leg is fully healed!
This is because of non-connection to the reality and emotions churned out by concepts as well as expectations. We compare, “My neighbour didn’t have an accident. I had an accident, so it is not justified.“ We always ask “Why Me?” whenever there is a personal sorrow. We compare and we suffer. We manipulate it in the mind. We think and manipulate.
Otherwise the reality is happening, “Ok, it is raining so I need an umbrella.“ So you’re adapting to the time, adapting to the situation. Pathlessness is being in the now, being in the present, and being in the reality, accepting the reality as it is and ourselves as we are. We cannot be another person, everybody else has already been taken 🙂
We can only be ourselves, hence we have to accept ourselves completely. And nobody is higher or lower in creation. Please understand that clearly. Nobody is permanently a guru or a disciple. A guru happens only when there is a disciple. When a person decides that he is a disciple, then there is a guru. Otherwise it’s all human beings… or just beings.
And also they are just functional roles such as a guru can also be a father, a husband, a son, a lover, a brother, an employer or an employee or something else – or all of it – everything. He is not a guru all the time. So everything is relative in this creation. We must understand that it’s a flow.
The flow is going on. It’s happening beautifully all through the time and in the world. So don’t be stagnated at any point. Do not be bound by any concept. Take what is good for you, leave what is not good for you. When I’m talking to you, I assume the role of a teacher. When I walk in the street, I’m a pedestrian. When I’m playing with Mila, I’m her father. So each time it’s not the same. There is one individual and his various dimensions.
The moment you stick yourself to one dimension and consider yourself as that, you’re stuck. Then there is no movement. You are stagnated and suffocated too. Otherwise, you are flowing. You are flowing through each dimension and you are happy in each dimension. There is completion at each level. Happiness is a perpetual thing.
It cannot be only at certain times. It has to be together, it’s a flow. So happiness is flowing and you are in various roles at various times. In literature, there is a term called “round character“. Round character is something which everybody can connect to at every level. It says, Lord Krishna is one of the prime examples of round character.
He had a life of everything. He was playing around as a child, he was a king, he was also a good politician, a lover, a husband, God… every angle you take, Lord Krishna can fit into it. likewise, all of us have multiple roles. Why aren’t we able to become a round character all the time is because we do not adjust to every level. We do not accept it.
We do not accept, not that others do not accept. But one person will be looking at you as a friend. Another person will be looking at you as a lover, another will be looking at you as a father… like that various people will be looking at you in various dimensions from their own perspective, so everything is you.
There cannot be something which is not you, whether your mind accepts it or not. This is the truth. So the pathlessness is being yourself 100% and being with the time, flowing with the time, and being fluid, being like water. This is pathlessness.
Non-commitment is a mental thing and it can change. Whatever is in the mind changes, and keeps changing. So non-commitment is a thing from the mind, and only when you are awake, so it’s very small and no comparison to the state of pathlessness.
Q: Spiritual people are depressive because they are anti-world…
A: This is absolutely a terribly wrong understanding. If spiritual people are escapists, then they are definitely depressive to the other people. (laughing) There is a big difference. When you are in depression, and are in no mood to meet people, and you are in isolation, this is totally different.
But in spirituality, when you attained inner peace and you are absolutely still inside, and you are not pushed into speaking, pushed into acting, or even pushed into thinking, this is a completely different state. From outside it all looks the same.
The key reason for every depression is expectation. You are expecting something from the world, or the people, or the time, or the situations, or environment and from yourself. If it consistently does not happen, the person falls into depression. It can be that we can neither handle our expectation, nor others’ expectation. Both can lead to the same situation.
But in spirituality, step by step, you are withdrawing from everything which is probably binding you on earth, and you are connecting to your inner core and you are bringing all your senses, the mind, intellect, everything onto one point, and you are absolutely still inside, the mind is absolutely still, it’s absolute peace, absolute silence, and absolute stillness. When you look from the outside, you may not know the difference.
STORY 1 – Sitting quiet saint
In one temple, there was one saint who was called “sitting quiet saint”. Nobody knew his real name. There were many saints who used to live in the temple premises along with our Sitting Quiet Saint.
The temple was a rich temple. The other saints used to help in some chores of the temple while this saint never used to do anything. He just kept being quiet and totally idle. As the other saints were staying in the temple, but they were all participating in various activities, while this man was not doing anything and he just sat in the corner, quiet, the authorities of the temple became unhappy.
Even when the people come to sweep the floor in that area, he wouldn’t move. They all got annoyed with him. The temple used to give food to all the saints there. All the people working at the temple, used to get food from the temple. One day the authorities decided, ”This man should not be given food. He is not doing anything.”
And they didn’t give him food for a couple of days. He didn’t say anything, he just sat at the same place without food. One wise man told the authorities, ”Can one of you try doing the same? Can you sit idle without any talk or any movement for two hours?” Nobody, not even the other saints could sit quietly for a few hours.
Then they understood that this man has completely silenced his mind. So, from outside, you can never understand the consciousness. You can only have the physical form and the expressions. Unfortunately that is the only understanding you will get. But the moment you start connecting to yourself, to your inner core, you will start to understand the inner core of other people, too.
So it is important that you have to go inside, to see outside. That may look like depression to people.But, the effect of inner silence is fulfillment, contentment, absolute stillness and state of bliss. So I already destroyed this question or rather statement HA HA Spiritual people are not anti-world. They have nothing to do with the world.
That is why. They have nothing to do with people, they have nothing to do with time, situations, money, nothing. So you may think they are anti-world. They are very happy with the world, but they want nothing from it.
This is actually a very funny statement for me that saints are depressive, ha, ha. No complaints to the question, I see it from the other angle, that’s why I am laughing. Ignorance of the world. What else?
STORY 2 – Concepts buster
There was a great saint called Shankar Maharaj. He left his body many years ago. His tomb is in Pune in India, near Mumbai. He was an amazingly powerful master. Do you know what he used to do full-time? Drink alcohol. He used to sit in one corner and drink. people would come to see him, give him alcohol and he would drink and smoke. A lot of people would sit in front of him. He would not be doing anything. He would be sitting and drinking alcohol. All the people around him would be drunk without consuming a drop of it. He would still be fine. He was not sharing any alcohol, he was drinking it all himself.
But everybody got intoxicated, and nothing happened to him. Even today, people offer cigarettes at his tomb. Instead of incense sticks and flowers they offer cigarettes. And they give the ash of cigarette as a his blessing. Why did he do that? Just to destroy the concepts of people.
If we start drinking because our guru did, we will just become drunkards and we would not become enlightened, ha, ha, ha. But why did he do that? Because we have a concept of a guru. We say, ”Guru should be like this… ” or a spiritual person should be like this, he should not do this or he should not do that… He wanted to destroy the whole thing.
Now, how do we know then that he is a real master? There are various stories. He would suddenly go to a house at random, when the master of the house was probably not there. He would tell the ladies of the house, ”Please bathe me.” What would the ladies do? It’s a big embarrassment right – to bathe a complete stranger.
If a stranger comes into your house, and asks you, ”Please bathe me.” What would we feel? Sankar Maharaj would understand that they are embarrassed and didn’t know what to do with his request. Suddenly, he would become a small child. Then they would bathe him, and once he goes out, he would become normal again.
He was so powerful. He could change his form, he could have multiple dimensions, but he lived a life which is probably not agreeable to many people of the society. This is what I mean to say. They are not anti-world. They are destroying your illusions.
There have been many people. Shirdi Sai Baba, for example. He used to sit in one corner and smoke. When he smoked, other people’s karmas would get burned. And at that time, because he smoked and ate onion, many people said, ”We don’t want to follow a master like this.”
Who lost the opportunity? People lost the great opportunity because of their concepts. This is how it is, ”Everybody should look like Jesus,” ”Everybody should look like Krishna or Buddha…”, We have this thing in our mind. So what we do is we do not accept a living master. We accept somebody who is already in the past, who has been approved.
There was also a very powerful master Adi Shankaracharya. He lived only 32 years, yet he did so many things. One day, while he was wandering, he suddenly became hungry. So he went to one house and said, ”Please give me some food.” They were a very poor family. The lady came and said, ”There is nothing in the house.
Even we do not have any food to eat, here.” But they were very pious people, very good people. He told the lady, ”Please go to the kitchen and check, there will be something.” She said, ”No, I’m coming from the kitchen, there is nothing there.” He insisted, and she decided to go and check again. She checked every place, there was nothing.
Then in one bottle, there was one gooseberry, the small fruit. There was just one. She brought it and gave it to him. He said, ”I told you, there will be something.” He ate that fruit and threw its seed away, there was immediately a sudden shower of golden gooseberries on the ground outside. Wealth in the form of Golden gooseberries flowed to them.
They became very rich. This family still exists. It is a true story. In the past, no household used to leave any wandering saints without giving them some food to eat. And they used to shower blessings on the household. A wandering monk! We may not even feel anything, but there are very high potential masters, and they wander like nothing. Not because they are anti-world, they have nothing to do with the world.
Q: How to develop proper relationship with the world of Maya (illusion) which gives one joy, but not to be attached to it?
A: This is very simple. There are temporary pleasures, and there is perpetual HAPPINESS. Discriminate between these.
E.g. I am having a good meal, at that time I’m happy, then I need another meal at another time. This is our usual thing. One pleasure leads to another, then to another and another…
Because there is no way we can extend these pleasures. You need to connect to something which gives you permanent happiness. That CANNOT be a material outside of you! Because whatever is outside of you whether it is a person, a time, a situation or an event is temporary. It changes.
The moment it changes, it starts affecting us. When someone who we used to live with dies, we cry ”Oh, if only the person is alive!” But when the person is alive, all our concerns will be such that he is snoring or he is boring, or he is drinking rakija (Serbian brandy), all such things…
We fail to appreciate the goodness in anyone and we fail to love them. HA, HA. The moment he dies, we wail ”Oh God, You took him away, what will I do now?” This is human life.
The world of illusion is something which gives you temporary pleasures. The world of spirituality is one which always keeps you permanently happy. This is the discrimination which we should have. And how will you have it? Only when you start connecting to yourself.
You are happy when a person is around, you are happy when the person is not there, too. If you are bound by a time, a situation, a place, a material, food, anything…, you are not happy. Because if you don’t have that, you will become sad. But if you are comfortable whether it’s there or not, you’ll always be happy.
This is the difference. This is the understanding we need to have. Understand what is binding you, whether it is a place, a situation, a time… be careful… anything. Be aware of the things that bind you. Even if it is a guru or a method, a teaching, religion.
Anything without which you cannot survive means you are bound. You are born free and you will die free. You are born alone and you will die alone. There is no compromise here. This is the way we operate. We are all human beings, we are all equally powerful, everybody has every potential.
Don’t think that enlightenment is coming from outside into you. Enlightenment is sitting inside you. When you remove all your inner darkness, enlightenment happens inside you! It must sprout from within, not from outside of us.
We are all searching outside for knowledge, enlightenment… all these things. That is why we fall into ritualistic activity. And that is why we cannot find it easily. We are searching at the wrong places for the right thing. All the time whatever you ever needed is within you. So how to develop a proper relationship between illusion and joy? Awareness. Simple.
Be always aware. You can mainly be aware when you are in a waking state. But you can also be aware when you are sleeping as well. You will not “fall” into sleep, instead you will slip into sleep. When you are constantly aware of your waking time, which means you are aware of your time, your space, your movements, activity, thinking, talking, everything you are aware of, then it will transcend to moving into sleep state, too.
So your awareness will always be above you. It will reach a state like that. You are going above and you are going through the states i.e. waking state, dreaming state, deep sleep state, all the time you are watching from above. You are not bound by anything on earth. At the same time you are fully active on earth, because you are like a child, innocent and happy.
You are happy with people, with situations, you are happy with good and bad, happiness or sorrow, night and day etc. Otherwise you are always in the doing mode, ”I have to do this, I have to do that…” working, stressing, heart beating faster, and tired and exhausted. This is the difference. This exhaustion is non-understanding, freedom is understanding.
You are born free, and you have to die free. This is the understanding. Children express freedom full-time! If they don’t get the chocolate, they will cry. We also like to cry, but we consider ourselves as adults. This is the big problem. Do we have to fall into the ”brackets” of being an adult if the cost is detachment from spontaneity and our very nature?
Or if the cost is masking or losing ourselves, our individuality, naturality and flexibility? This is not necessary. Being ourselves is very important rather than “doing” ourselves. We are in a hurry to “do” ourselves based on our acquired concepts. In this rush, we fail to “be” ourselves. This is the cause of all insecurities and fear of failures.
If we are being ourselves, there is no room for any fear. When we are ourselves, we are complete. When we have to be someone else, we are unnatural. This is the same with living and managing expectations of others as well. Whatever affects our naturality is not good for us. Be Aware.
Recorded and transcribed by Biljana Vozarevic