"It is only when you dilute your personality with awareness that you can be fresh with everybody, at every moment. Be life, feel life. There will be no particular character traits which are overwhelming. In that case, you are always flowing. "
Q: I sometimes struggle to practise kindness with certain people, for straight reasons or reasons clear to me. How can I overcome this?
A: Impression is the root cause for all your expressions. If you’ve had a bad experience with something, then you’ll project it on everything which is similar. In turn, your response becomes like that. Remember that a response always comes from the intellect. It is non-violent. A reaction however, always come from the emotions – from the mind. It is violent. Understand that these are the two ways we operate every day. One is a reaction from the mind, while the other is a response from the intellect. Response is never violent. If you consider responding, it means you are using your intellect and the mind is already coiled. The intellect says, ok this is happening. For example, somebody abuses you, you respond. When you respond, there is no violence to it. That person will stop abusing you because you are already responding. However, if you are reacting, the mind fires up. It gets aggravated. Thus, reaction and response are two ways of dealing with our daily existence. The result will depend on the faculty you are using.
When you are not able to express kindness to somebody, it means you have stored certain impressions which you are projecting onto those people. That’s why I said previously, it is only when you dilute your personality with awareness that you can be fresh with everybody, at every moment. Otherwise it will always be a case of reaction. Reaction or response. This is usual. There is no effort in it because you are by nature in that mode. You are just doing it. When you ’do’ life, this is the result. When you ’be’ life this is different. Be life, feel life. There will be no particular character traits which are overwhelming. You will look at the same life and say, ok, life is happening, this is fine. In that case, you are always flowing. You flow and you are fine with that flow.
Q: How can one open oneself to blessings?
A: You don’t have to open up to blessings. Blessings are there. Grace is like the sunshine. However, you have to open the windows to see the sunshine. How do you open the windows? By having faith. What can you have faith in? Firstly, yourself. The best, the easiest and the most important faith is in yourself. When I say yourself, this is the beginning of the journey. You may have faith in a God outside. This is also sometimes escapism. We rely too much on a God outside and think,“God is coming to help…“ Of course, God has value, I am not saying it does not have value. Yet, whenever you are weak, your expressions are also weak. How can you be strong? Have firm faith in yourself, or at least in your existence. “I am alive and I am fine with being alive.“ It has nothing to do with others’ opinion. Others can say anything they like. Others can say that you are whoever, for example a donkey. That’s fine, because it is their opinion. They can have their opinion, and it should not affect us. Have faith in yourself, have faith in your own existence, and then at a third level, you have faith in Divinity or the Divine aspect which runs the show.
Divinity, or the Divine aspect which runs the show is like the petrol of a car. The petrol of the car is your soul, and your soul or the petrol has no interest in any destination. It merely helps your journey. Without petrol you cannot drive a car. Petrol never demands a particular destination. Petrol never says, “I need to go here.“ Petrol helps your journey, your soul is neutral. It is in a completely tranquil mode, and it needs no awareness to grow or develop. It is simply aiding your journey, just like petrol of the car. Have faith in that. This is your prime guru. Your biggest and primary guru is your own being, your own soul. You can only connect to the soul when you BE. When you feel. When you empty yourself. All the sounds are only happening in the mind. Remove all the calamities. So many calamities are seen. Ask yourself, what is not affected by any of these calamities? Then you will reach the soul. That is the only time you start connecting to yourself. Otherwise we are just sponsoring sounds. When you go to some place, get involved in an activity, you are sponsoring more and more sounds. The more you sponsor these sounds, the more you become agitated. You are dissatisfied. Why is there dissatisfaction? It’s because the mind is turbulent by nature. The mind means movement. When the mind is always on the move, when there is movement, the mind is agitated. What is your fruit actually? Stillness. Stillness is only available when you are being with your soul. You need to connect with your soul to be with your soul. When you are connected to your soul, grace is like sunshine. It flows constantly.
Understand that no guru has priorities. No guru needs anything from you. No God needs anything from you, even your puja or chanting. God is not interested. Actually we are making a lot of noise. What is this noise for? What YOU actually need is to feel the power of God. By God we mean energy, which is the basis of every creation. Everything which is moving and not moving has the same energy. Don’t think that this table has no energy. Go to the molecular and atom levels, and you will see the vibration. Everything is vibrating. Everything has a frequency and that frequency is God. Unless you connect to the tiniest at the macropoint, you will not see God or be God. This is your effort in spirituality. What you are trying to do is to be you and go to the core of you where you can actually experience God. That’s only grace, nothing else. If you have your senses to listen today, it is grace. If you are breathing today, it is grace.
I recently replied to one person who asked me,“Give me a reason to be alive.“ I said,“The reason is that you are alive.“ He was depressed, he wanted more reasons. I said,“Breathe. You have shelter, food to eat, money, your vehicle to drive. Aren’t these enough reasons to be alive?“ Now, what exactly do you need? Imagine you have a million dollars. Your stomach capacity will still be the same. Don’t think that more things will make you happy, it is not so. This is a mind thing. However, if you are able to add value to the world outside, you will always be rich. Your richness is proportional to how much value you add to the world outside, not how much you consume from the Earth.
Consuming is what everybody is doing. Seven billion people, animals, birds are eating. What are we giving to the world? We never think that way. Karma yoga purifies you better than any activity. On the other hand karma yoga cannot give liberation, but purity can give you liberation. So karma yoga is an essential part of any religion. Karma yoga means selfless service, selfless activity, and non-selfishness. This is important for every religion because it purifies you much more than any other activity. Make one decision,“I will give back to the Earth much more than I take from it.“ This is the only decision you need to make. Decide that every activity to come, will be related to karma yoga, to selfless service. Once you start moving in that line, other things will fall in place because your value to society grows, because you are not selfish any more and love grows. This love that grows into you brings all the grace. Grace comes in abundance. A selfish person can never ask for grace. The more selfless you become, the more grace there will be. Everything will come to you.
Some people were starting annandan (food seva) in Bombay. They said, Mohanji we are not sure when funding will come through. I said, “Start it. The funds will come.“ Until now, it has never stopped. Everything is flowing. Take for example those in Pune who started Mohanji Ka Aangan for slum children. It is also happening. It is not because we have a bank balance, but its very nature made sure it happened. What I am saying is that make one sole decision that you will add more value to the world than you take from the Earth. Through our emotions, our appetite, we consume a lot, but we should give back more. This is the way to go. Thus grace is spontaneous. Grace flows provided you want nothing from here.
Mohanji
COMMENT