Towards Liberation

Visualisation

Q: When you say everything happens, it’s not really us in control. It’s the divine coming and working through us. What about these documentaries like “The Secret”, etc. where if you visualise something, you can get that, and have this experience?

A: Actually, has anybody had that experience? I’m not talking about you. Did you read any testimonials at all? “The Secret” has sold well, I understand. I’ll answer that when I come to it later.

Q: That visualisation has changed things, yet certainly not the overall picture. Isn’t visualisation like a wish?

A: Yes. It is not the divine working through you. Divine is always available. The part of the divine is your soul. Before we started this journey, before your incarnation, you chose what you wanted in this life, including whom you would meet and what things you would achieve. That is where free will entered. The moment you entered into your womb, you started your journey. 

Then it is a pre-planned trip. That means you drew your map before the journey. You said, “This is where I want to go and I need this much time for the journey.” One hundred years, two hundred years, however long you want to stay in your body. That is chosen. Thus the journey is chosen, where you will take your birth is chosen, all this is chosen and you come forward. 

Once you start the journey, it’s basically the road map, or destiny, taking you. That is where your free will ended. This is how you started the journey. In this case, if you say, “I want this particular thing, let’s say, a Mercedes car.” If you think you need to have a Mercedes car, you decide to have it, and you are visualizing. 

I don’t know how “The Secret” tells you to do it, but you visualize whatever you are doing in that picture. Where did this thought of a Mercedes car come from? Why a Mercedes car in the first place? That ingredient already sat in you. Why didn’t you choose a bicycle? Or an aircraft? There is a saying, if you dream, dream like a king, not a minister. 

So, what actually gave you the thought of this particular thing? It’s because that ingredient had already been sitting in you. If you do not have an inclination for having alcohol, you will not even have a thought of having alcohol. 

So the ingredients are already there. And then, what are you doing with this visualisation (or you can look at it as meditation) is that you are focusing on one aspect which you really want so that the other things move away. The clutter is removed and you focus on that thing. Then it manifests, because it was supposed to manifest anyway. You see? This is the truth. Think about it.

Don’t just accept what I say. Think about how it works. Where does the thought come from? A wish? A desire? There is something in you which tells you that you need a particular thing. There are so many things in the world which you do not need at all, or that you are not even aware of. However you need a particular thing. 

Where is the thought coming from? The desire. The inclination for that thing. Where does the inclination come from? From karma. That is what moved you here. That is what made you take birth. 

So the karma gave you the inclination, or the desire, and the desire gave you the thought, thought gave you the word, or visualisation, image, whatever, and then it became an action. Then you think, “I visualised enough, so it materialised.” I say, “Congratulations. :)” (laughter) Because I always see the gimmicks in it. 

You are trying to manipulate your mind and make it believe that you achieved it. That is the doership issue, “I am doing it.” So you feel happy, “Oh, I’m amazing!” But actually what has happened, ha, ha? You just removed the clutter. So many things were there. You focused on one thing, so it happened. It was supposed to happen anyway.

Wealth and true charity

You can see very, very rich people with very poor hearts. Have you seen? You can see it in our society. Extremely rich, they don’t know what to do with their money, but very, very poor hearts. They will not give anything to you, or anything for a good purpose. But they will hoard, they will hold all their money like this and they will die. 

And the children will come and waste the whole thing. You can see this. Especially first generation rich men, most of them are just watchmen. They live like watchmen of their wealth, and then the next generation comes. They have no clue where the wealth came from, and they will destroy it. 

Because they were born in money. Why is this happening? It is because in one life time they will be craving wealth. But if you have wealth and no maturity, you will be much poorer than the poorest man. If you have wealth as well as maturity, you will have a balanced existence. I always tell people, if you have wealth, be grateful. 

And also, share it with people. Not the whole thing, I am not saying to blow it away, I am saying, keep whatever you need, it doesn’t matter. If you are able to have a Rolls Royce, have a Rolls Royce. That is probably what you wanted in life. Enjoy it. Be here, enjoy, have good food, have whatever you need. But understand, do not be dependent on that. That is not moving you. Enjoy it while you can. 

At the same time, share so that you feel wealthier. You will actually feel the wealth. Only when you share and spread the happiness, can you actually feel that you are good enough. I was discussing the Daan. Daan means giving away.

Daan should always be with a flavour that you are grateful to the person who is receiving because he is relieving you from your karmas. If you give something to a person say, “Thank you for accepting this from me, and please enjoy. Thank you for relieving me from my afflictions, my karmas because of this, I’m grateful to you.” This is true charity. 

Not that, “I’m a richman, ok, you are very poor, please be poor so that I can keep giving to you.” This is sadism, this is not good. These are subtle variations of the whole thing. I am saying this because we must be clear where we stand. E.g. “I’ve donated 10,000 USD to charity.” 

Excellent, it’s out of 10 million, it is still ok, but the attitude of charity is what? “I’m also looking after the poor people. But I like them being poor so that I can keep paying them and feel gratified.” That is not exactly charity. That is a sadistic pleasure. 

We should give so that it makes us happy, and the receiver is happy and gratefulness sprouts in us. If gratefulness sprouts in us, we are liberated all the time. We stay liberated. This is one aspect.

A STORY OF A BEGGAR IN THE PALACE

A man is sitting and begging in the palace of the king. He can see very rich princes and princesses and all the people going up and down and he aspired, “I should go inside.” And he dies and takes the next birth as the princess’s son. So he is inside the palace. 

But he still had the attitude and characteristics of the beggar. All the while he had been standing outside, but now he had taken birth inside. In that life he couldn’t have gone inside. But in this life he came inside. But the outlook is the same. 

A poor servant comes in and asks, “My child is sick, please can you give me some money?” The man says, “Oh, no, no… I cannot give you anything.” That will be the attitude. Why? Because inside the beggarhood still continues. You can see this in life.

So manifestation of anything also needs eligibility. Eligibility has to be acquired. And the highest eligibility is where you have everything, but you are not dependent on anything. That is the highest possible eligibility, and that is also liberation. 

All I am talking about is pointing towards liberation. Understand this from every angle. If you assimilate all this, you will know the path of life, the path of the pathless. And you will be able to see through the world, to see through situations, to see through people. Because these are obvious things.

So doing as the books say, this is all probably good. These practices are definitely beneficial to remove clutter from the mind. They leave the mind free, empty. This is all nice, but what is the objective? I know so many people, day in and day out praying for wealth and richness, but not for wisdom. 

If you have money, but no wisdom, what’s the use? If you have money, but no maturity, that is even more detrimental. It pulls you down further and you do all sorts of atrocities with the money. 

Because the ego comes forward as well. “I have purchasing power, I have wealth, I am a rich man. I am much better than you.” Ego, pride, lust, all these come forward and you get contaminated further. However at the same time, if you have wealth, you are grateful for it, you are enjoying it, and you are using the wealth for your own benefit as well as for others’ benefit, it is a beautiful scenario.

Money and wealth come to you when your stature grows. Money comes to you when you elevate yourself, your consciousness, because you grow more and more into the subtle plane of energy. Money is matter. It conglomerates to you, it comes to you. 

You don’t have to run after money. If you run after money, there is no guarantee you will get it. But when your stature grows, money flows. Please remember this clearly. 

When your stature grows, when you are operating more and more in the plane of energy, of subtlety, the gross aspect comes to you. Then you may not even need it. That is what I am saying, you may have everything, but you are not bound by anything. That is freedom. That is liberation. 

You have millions, but you say, ok, that is fine, you can still only eat as much as your stomach can contain. You cannot eat currency. This aspect will always maintain your maturity, your wisdom level. At that time you will have everything you need, but will not be bound by anything. That is absolute freedom. As your stature grows, money flows.

Q: Is all the money that comes into our hands meant to be, is it all part of our karma?

A: Yes, right. The nature of money is that it is valid only when it is moving. If it is sitting inside a box, it has no validity. Of course, money has its value, but its movement is its life. Money is energy. Money is transactional. When it is transactional, when it is moving, it has validity.

The hoarding of money is not a good idea, because that is not satisfying anybody. It’s only satisfying some insecurity of the individual who hoards the money. Money needs to be moving. 

It’s like drawing water from the well. The more water you draw water from the well, the more water comes in and equalises. If you are naturally creating that recycling of money, more and more money will flow, you will be fine. 

Whether it’s the money that you keep with you or money that is flowing through you, it doesn’t matter, as long as you are on a perpetual happy path. Let the money flow, it comes and goes. You are fine, things are taken care of, you are happy.

But the moment you start chasing money, then you have all the associated problems. You will tend to hold on to money, you will tend to store money, you will have insecurities, you will have anxieties that somebody will come and steal it. 

That is why when we become richer and richer, what happens is that we build more and more cages around ourselves. We destroy our freedom and we depend on other people to protect us. This is another aspect.

The worst aspect is when you sell your integrity, your soul to make money. That is very bad. Many people do that. They are greedy, they want money, so they do things which are completely unethical. They make money and they try to regain their stature or status through using the money. But I’ll tell you one thing. 

Once the inside is contaminated, cleansing is very difficult. Keep this clean. Do the right thing. The best thing is to stay with the truth. Always stick to the truth. 

Do what is right. What is right is what does not damage your conscience. If something does not damage your conscience, it is good for you. It will maintain you. It will stabilise you and it will take you forward. Whether you are rich or not, peace of mind is more important.

If you are very rich and there is no peace of mind, what is the use? You will have an excellent bed, but no sleep.

Operating in the Now

Q: If I am supposed to live in the present and doing meditation makes that easier, how do I make plans and set priorities for the future?

A: The answer itself is in the question. If your purpose of now is to make a plan for tomorrow, you must do that. Like, you were planning for my trip here. If you say, “I will not make any plans for Mohanji’s arrival from the airport, then how will people come and meet me?“ So at that point in time you have to make a plan for my coming to South Africa, these are the venues, these are the programmes, and to announce it. 

That is operation in the now. That is not contradicting that point. The point is that you are operating only in the now. You are not influenced by the guilt of the past, nor anxieties of the future. This is the point. I am operating in the now. What am I supposed to do now? This is the question. 

”At this point in time, the thing on my table is Mohanji’s visit to South Africa,” and then, ”What should I do about it?” Dissect it. ”These are the available dates. These are the possible programmes. These are the venues which could be possible. Contact the corresponding people, put things in order and announce it.” That has to be happening now. 

But the activity is happening in the future. That is not contradictory. You do what you are supposed to do, even if it is planning for an event in the future, now. It is not that you worry about something in the future, ”Oh, Mohanji is coming, I’m worried…” What for? That is not solving the point. Be in the present, do whatever it takes to make the present fulfilled, complete.

Excerpt from Sediba retreat in South Africa, September 2013