Need for change, fear, enlightenment, success, disease and death, spirituality, health, truth, suffering, self-mastery, religion.....? So you want to discuss all these topics right.
Well I say I don’t know anything about any of these topics then what shall we do now? (Crowd laughter). You know all these different topics that you requested, you already know something about them don’t you, and there are libraries full of them, anytime, any subject right? So what shall we do now? (Crowd laughter again).
Request – Why don’t you guide us in a meditation?
Ok, now I’ll ask you a question. Do you know what is the first act of life that you did. Cry? No. First you inhaled isn’t it? First act we inhale, second is cry. And the last act is exhaling and making others cry (laughter). Between this first act and last act of life, the whole life somewhere or other we keep on crying and we do the same thing breath in and breath out isn’t it. Yet we have not attended to our breath fully. We’re not conscious that we are breathing. Though we experience several emotions, we do not notice that every emotion has a particular pattern of breath.
Have you observed this? When you’re angry, calm, serene, it all flows differently. And this has been referred from ages to control the mind, be stable. But we don’t get success until we look into the breath. We do some work with the breath. See now what is happening in the mind right now? As I’m saying a few sentences a mind goes saying yes yes or it says no no. Are you all aware of this phenomenon, it’s happening right now, as you’re listening, your mind is saying yes or no how could that be?
Being aware of our own dialogue, this is awareness. It does not matter what you may agree or disagree with, but if we are aware of what our mind tells us. Then we have attained a very good, mature state of mind. What’s happening now?
See information you can get in books, knowledge about our own mind, awareness, this needed to be pointed out to you. Do you see what I’m saying? Are you aware of your yes or your no? You see certain questions indicate the maturity of our mind, you know what those questions are? What is life? What is the purpose of life? Why am I here? What do I want? If these questions arise in our mind, that is a sign of the mind or the intellect getting matured. Then our intellect isn’t in the same routine, just doing the same thing again and again, not even introspective. Looking into the source of life. What is life? Who am I? Where am I? Consider 3 questions very vital and important.
One is the knowledge of where am I? We all know we are in Washington right? You know you’re all in this NIH building. Are you aware you’re on planet earth. Have you ever thought about it, I am on the planet earth and this planet earth is part of the solar system. I am in the solar system. The solar system is just a dot in the Milky Way, I am in the milky way.
This expansion of the awareness into the macrocosm. And being aware ‘where am I in the body’. Just sit with eyes closed… where am I in this body? Am I in the head, in the nose, the head, the heart? Then the sharpness of mind happens, awareness happens. You are able to perceive that you are nowhere and everywhere in the body. A shift in the quality of awareness happens immediately, instantaneously.
And it is this awareness that can eliminate stresses and sorrow from life. This awareness is called wisdom.
See every living being, everyone wants happiness, everyone wants to be in love, and wants love, wants to be loved and to give love. Not a single creature on this planet that does not like love or won’t love. Even a dog, a puppy in your home shows so much love. When you are away even half an hour and you come back home they jump all over the place and they show their love to you. And you know something?
Love is the cause of all misery and sorry also. Love is the cause of anger, jealousy, fear, hatred, everything. The basis of all problems in the world is again love. Either you be indifferent or be in love and go through all the suffering. Is there any other 3rd hope for being in love and not facing misery? Yes, it is through awareness, when we raise our consciousness become more aware of the sensation that is happening in the body and we see these sensations change, an intense sensation that is pain, an intense sensation that is pleasure becomes both pleasurable.
Love and pain are very closely related. I often take this as a symbol… Jesus on the cross. Means the cross is pain, Jesus is love. One is with the other.
The transformation of this pain into bliss, the love into bliss, is what happens with awareness, when you become aware of this phenomenon. Watch this.
Same thing with doubts, you know sometimes you have lot of doubts in the mind, that time you do some breathing exercise, increase the energy in your body and you’ll see the doubts disappear. Mind clarity comes, confusion goes away from the mind.
And have you noticed the doubt is always about something that is positive, you never doubt something that is negative in life. You never doubt someone else’s anger or your anger. You don’t say wait a minute am I really angry. You don’t wonder. You never doubt your depression. But when one is happy they doubt am I really happy? Is that what I want? If someone tells you I hate you, you never doubt but if someone tells you I love you, you ask really? (laughter) Are you sure? Or you try to see maybe they have some motive behind this. There is a doubt about love, but why don’t we doubt somebody’s negative mode? They’re not really negative, but out of some stresses out of some circumstances they’re acting like that. If we can doubt the negativity of people we can become close to the reality. Do you see what I’m saying?
We take it for granted that everybody is a hoax, everybody is a fraud and then we try to find somebody we can trust. Become so difficult in the world. See without this awareness in us the mind shrinks, when the mind shrinks joy gets reduced in life. The definition of joy in Sanskrit is the expansion of mind, I’m sure this is all our experiences whenever we are happy we feel that something in us is bloating is expanding.
And expression of sadness is contraction of mind, that’s why whenever you feel sad or sorrowful you feel intensity. The mind contracts and meditation is a technique where mind expands, relaxes. And whenever we are relaxed we expand automatically.
When we are joyful, in love, there is an expansion. And its worth knowing this expansion in life. That nothing can disturb or take the smile away from us. Otherwise see some small things can just throw us off the balance. A few words from somebody, someone’s lips moving in a particular direction, tongue rolling in a direction and the sound comes and hits our ears and the head starts boiling. Its not worth letting our mind our life undergo such suffering such misery. You see that?
So one is awareness of space that we considered, another is awareness of time. You know we plan our life, plan our business, plan our schedules but have we planned our life.
Just take an estimation of how many hours we spend in what in life. It’s amazing, you’ll be stunned. Suppose we live for 80 years, you know 40 we spend in sleeping. About 8 years we spend in dining tables. And 8 years in bathrooms and toilets, 8 to 10 years. If we have constipation a little longer. (laughter). 10-15 years on the freeways. 15-20 years on the desk, in the working place. How much time we have spent in our lives in the whole span of 80 years with real joy, really being happy, relaxed. Hardly 2-3 years
And this is the time we have really lived our lives, rest is in preparation to leave. It’s like making the bed all night and having no time to sleep. Putting the sheets, putting the pillow cases, I want to be relaxed, want to sleep, be happy and by that time… it’s all finished. Isn’t it? In our thinking, in our signs, how to handle our life, how to handle our health, how to handle our circumstances situations its high time we learn to manage our mind too. It’s very basic. And this is spirituality. Spirituality is what? Not just sitting somewhere and thinking something, which is out of the world. It is recognizing this whole world is run by spirit. If my hand is moving up and down its because of the spirit.
All actions in the world happen by life, through life, for life. A plant grows because there is life inside and the life is the factor, is the catalyst which make a plant grow. The body grows because there is life in it. Everything that is growing, everything that is moving, everything that is, is life.
We are in a ocean of life, all these bodies are just like shells in one body of water that is life. Recognizing this factor as ones experience is spirituality. Now one thing, just remember/imagine how many people are in this world. 5-6 billion people and 6 billion people have 6 billion minds and each mind has got a thought at this moment and next moment it’s a different thought. Even here we’re 4-5 hundred of us here. In each of our mind, our brain, some thoughts are coming and its vanishing. Next moment another thought, every second new thoughts come and they go
Just like the water in the ocean produce many waves. The life force produces many thoughts many ideas. Many waves are coming up in the consciousness, isn’t it? Can you open yourself up to this reality, this is anyway happening weather you notice it or not. If you notice it you’re happy if you don’t notice it you become miserable. Then you think, oh that person said this to me and he is having this opinion, she is having this opinion about me. Like that we go on, our mind goes on and on and on.
We see intension behind somebody else’s mistake. You see that. If we can understand the phenomenon of thought, somebody’s thinking negative or not in good terms with you, know that there is a lot of stresses and strain in them and that is making them come up with such funny idea or thought.
And that’s finished then your mind remains undisturbed unperturbed about somebody else’s imperfection. Or we are bothered about some thought we got in ourselves. You know either we are angry at somebody else or ourselves.
But with opening into this awareness, this will not happen, we laugh at all these phenomenon’s that happen. And then that smile, that joy in our life, nothing what so ever can take it away from us. And such a peace is worth attaining. Its not very difficult, simple thing, you attend to your breath.
Just a little bit of attention on the breath, it removes all the toxins and all the stored emotions and every cell of the body gets released. Its very simple, 5-10 minutes some breathing techniques you do everyday. Have we covered all the topics? Anything left? (Laughter)
For spiritual growth to happen the fastest, strongest… relax. Have patience. The fastest way is to be slow. (Guruji and rest laugh).
Your hurry is an obstacle, your hurry is racing you, taking you away from the driveway. You’re in a hurry to get into the house but you’re running in the opposite direction, into the street. Slow down, relax, rest.
Offer to the divine all your wants, your aversions, your cravings. Rest deep in a state of contentment and look what all has been given to you. Look around see how rich your life is. How beautiful the world is.
You’ll be taken up by waves of gratitude. And if you can be grateful, you are near the goal. And if gratefulness has not dawned in life, if you’re grumbling, complaining, forget about your growth. Just simply forget. Let things go however it is going. Do you see what I’m saying?
