*Chapter 2 - Energy Centres*
*Day 11*
Why is skill needed? Skill is not needed to be unhappy. Skill is needed only to avoid misery. Yoga and sadhana are the path to overcome misery.
Yoga does not only mean physical postures. When you are surrounded by light, there is no question of darkness. Where is misery when you are drowning in joy?
Where is poverty if you are rich inside? So never sav, "I will do sadhana only when God asks me to do it." or I will meditate only when Gurudev makes me meditate."
Has Gurudev not invited you? Does God not want you to do sadhana? God is shouting at the top of his voice. All the rishis from Maharishi Vasa's time are calling to you in one loud voice, inviting you.
They have spoken so many times, "Move ahead. Wake up. Stand up'. We say, "Let it happen if God wishes," only when we do not want to act.
If you want to do something good, do it immediately, but if you want to do something bad, brush it aside. Once when I was in Canada for a satsang, two and a half hours, at 12:30 in the night, an elderly Indian lady came.
One of the volunteers asked her to return the next morning, but she insisted and started knocking on my door, demanding, "I need to see Gurudev right now."
I came out and asked her, "What's the matter?" She said, "I have decided to donate $200 to children." I said, "Okay, but why the great hurry?
It is past mid-night, and you have come from so far in the middle of the night when you could have donated it tomorrow or the day after.
I will be here for some time. Why did you come so late?" She said, "Gurudev, I can't trust my own mind. Today I feel like giving, so I am giving right now."
Then, at 1 am, she narrated a story to me. She said, "Gurudev, I would like to tell you a story." I replied, "Okay, tell me the story.
She started - “A trader was going to Kashi by boat. On the way, his boat started sinking. He saw a fisherman on a nearby boat and asked him to take him aboard and save him”.
He told the fisherman that otherwise he would drown and die. And that if he took him aboard, then he would give him all his property. The fisherman agreed.
Once the boat started moving safely towards the shore, the trader regained his senses and started repenting for having offered all his property to the fisherman.
Then he told the fisherman
that although he was ready to give him all his property, his wife would not agree to it, so he would only give him half of it, as he had to give the other half to his wife and family.
For that he was helpless, as they also needed the property. The fisherman kept silent and continued rowing towards the shore. Then the trader wondered why he had offered him half his property.
What great thing had he done by saving him from the river? It is his duty to ferry people across, and after all protecting others is only humane.
He was just doing his duty and would have committed a sin if had he not saved him. He had actually protected the fisherman from committing a sin.
So he told the fisherman he would only give him a quarter of his property. The fisherman did not make a sound. Then, when they reached the shore, the trader gave him a five rupee coin, but the fisherman said that he did not need his money.
Shocked, the trader insisted, 'No, no, you take this. Have tea for yourself and get some biscuits for your children." Then the elderly woman said, "Gurudev, such is the game of the mind. If one has to do some good work”.
“it is best to do it immediately or else one keeps postponing it and never does it. That is why I have come in the middle of the night."
