Perth, 29 April 2008

Om, Brahmananadam Parama Sukadham, Kevalam Jnaanamoorthim
Dvandhvaatheetam Gagana Sadhrisham, Tatvamasyaadhi Lakshyam
Ekam Nithyam Vimalamachalam, Sarvaadhee Saakshibhootam
Bhavaatheetham Trigunarahitham, Sadgurum Tvam Namaamee.

Offering my unconditional surrender at the Lotus Feet of my beloved Master, I greet you all with my love and blessings this evening.

This year it is our fourteenth visit. Every year I have been coming twice. Seven years are over and it is the eighth year that we have been coming to Australia. It has been such a beautiful time every time that we have come, to see people coming with enthusiasm. I have always tried to stay in a particular township or city at least for six to eight days and conducting six to seven days of continuous daily programmes so that people can come, sit with me, practice this meditation and participate in this workshop. Though we have not prescribed anything I would definitely advise that if you can come on all the days, participate and practice, then you can definitely see some change within you, in your mind, in your thinking, in the mind’s peace, all such things, and you should be able to go closer to the Truth.

The word that is used is bhagyam, soubhagyam, means the luckiest. If a person, when one is a child, gets a chance to ponder over this Truth – truth of happiness, truth of existence, truth about God and truth about the mind, about this world, we can consider ourselves to be the super lucky- the supremely lucky – that as a child it has become possible. My Master was only a fourteen year old child when He was introduced to spirituality by the Divine Himself. The Divine came out of a fruit. Such an amazing thing happened and He made the boy to sit into the lotus posture, close the eyes and He pressed in between the eyebrows. As the boy went on doing meditation, deeper meditation, called Tapas, He experienced amazing knowledge and wisdom about the Truth, of the Self’s existence, the Divine, and the connection between the individual soul and the Divine, mind and God, all such things. Before that He had not studied any scriptures and He had not gone to any academic universities. He had dropped out of school as a child of five years of age, to support the family. He had been practicing to weave cloths and saris so that He could earn some livelihood for His family, but amazing knowledge and wisdom was in His luck and He was simply ordained so He became the chosen one.

Whereas in our childhood, the thoughts started coming on their own and by listening to a song or looking into certain things about birth, about death and about the happiness that has to be all twenty four hours, that repeatedly I have been telling in my talks – this is what I thought as a child. About death also, “What is this death? Are we going to be existing after death? What is the secret of this mind?” These are the things which came. If as a youngster you come to this path, or a little before middle age if it would be possible, still one is lucky. If one comes to know and starts thinking in the old age, we cannot call them unlucky. They are still lucky as far as I am concerned, though the time could be shorter for them to practice the needed sadhana. But however in spirituality the assurance is, as long as it comes to you, it is better late than never.

So for me, all are equally lucky, as long as you can have the determination and you can practice because it is assured that this can continue into the next incarnation also. If at all you have to be born, the tendencies that you can pick up, some understandings that you can pick up about the Truth, these are all picked up by the mind which can carry into the next incarnation. In the same way, if we go back, like as a child I started thinking on this direction; that means definitely in the previous lives, some effort was there, some thinking, some emphasis, some guidance, some enlightenment about these things definitely was there. So then it continued as a child, the same symptoms of such observations, such understandings, such thinking, these things did happen.

So that is how it continues, so nobody needs to feel sad or frustrated. Everyone is lucky, no matter if it comes as a child, if it comes in youth, or if it comes in old age, as long as you have the determination, as long as you can try to practice something, put in your efforts. That is what Sri Krishna also assures in Bhagavad Gita, “Arjuna, when you are practicing the spiritual sadhanas, if for some reason the body attains death, if the body gives way, all the symptoms and tendencies, intensity of thoughts should carry into the next life. When you are born, you should be blessed to be born in such an atmosphere that you should have such parents, and such elders around and you should attain such Masters who can teach you this amazing Truth of Peace and Truth of the Self and Truth of the Reality, about God, all such things. You will be able to continue more vigorously.”

So at all times it is guaranteed that every moment’s effort is not going to be wasted at all. It will be like you are putting some amount into a term deposit – it is going to add, add to your balance, every practice. That is why we should never look back and never feel sad and never feel frustrated, never feel negative at all. So this is the most important thing that we need to understand when we practice. So that is why I always — as ordained by my Master, my Divine Guru in my Tapas — try to stay as much as possible with you, for several days, perhaps six or seven, so that you can come every evening.

So that is my advice, that it will be for your benefit, for your advantage if you are determined and come every day and participate in this workshop of meditation. Moreover, I try to give a chance to people, like all of you who come to me, to ask questions. Sometimes there might be a conclusive answer that I have experienced and I do not hesitate to tell that truth and sometimes the answer may not be very conclusive. I do not hesitate to tell that also. That is what my Guru always emphasized, “When you become a teacher, you should be truthful to yourself and truthful to your students. If you do not know, you should say, ‘There is no conclusive answer,’ instead of trying to put a wrong answer and give a wrong feeding to them. It will be much more a sin for a Guru. If you do not import the knowledge it is okay, but if you import the wrong knowledge, the wrong things, that is much more a sin.” He used to say always, “Whenever you talk, you must talk the truth so that they can be benefited, the people who listen to you. The people who practice on your advice shall be benefited at all times from the Truth, because the truth is very often bitter and hard to digest, understand and practice.”

One of the greatest weaknesses of humanity, everywhere when I tour around the world, this question every year comes up. Every visit somewhere these things come up, “What is the easiest method? What is the shortest time that we can achieve?” I do consider this as a weakness because humanity wants everything like an instant cup of coffee. Mind is so slippery and it is so infinite, so when you are embarking upon the practice, you are going on a mission for yourself to catch hold of your own mind which is so slippery. Since time immemorial this mind has cheated you by getting involved into the brain’s reflections of illusion. The mind has absorbed such imprints, has been running and running uncontrollably all the time giving troubles to you. Do you all agree that this mind has not allowed you to sit peacefully? This peace and happiness that you have been looking for would have been so illusive in this world when we look for this peace outside. Trying to obtain an object and find peace, it has always been illusive.

So we need to understand the Truth, that the Peace is within you. When the mind can come under your control, you as the immortal soul, this mind is your conscious energy. There is no difference – just like the droplet of the ocean is to the ocean and sun’s ray is to the sun; it is nearer than that. So the mind is nothing but you ultimately. As long as you are thinking, the mind appears to be a different entity and this mind’s imagination gives a different entity about yourself which also is not you actually.

So this is how the trouble always starts and you get involved into the whirlpool of hypnotizing yourself by thinking and thinking and thinking and making analysations and finally making such judgments which are not at all nearer to the Truth, about yourself, about the path, about the things you have to do to obtain peace, whereas, if one can understand, it is really so simple. The mind has to become quiet, doesn’t it? But however you have completely deluded yourself so much, so when you try to quieten your mind it appears so complicated. But to begin with, if you can be determined, if you have that positive thinking, “I want to do it and I can do it. I need it,” so that will be so easy again to do it. You need a God so that you can be protected, you can have peace, and you can overcome all calamities in this world, you can overcome the ills of this world. That God is very near to you, within you and you are in that God. You are one with that ocean. You as the droplet and the ocean as the God, it is always there.

So blessed are they who chose to go on this path no matter whether they are in their childhood or in their youth or in their old age. All of them are really blessed if once they decide that they want the Truth, they want to know about themselves, they want the real Peace. Because this Peace is the thing which can give happiness and that happiness only can give you the enjoyment that I am enjoying at all times – all the moment in whatever condition that I am. I left home years ago, I enjoyed. I am not advising that you all have to leave home. I am just telling something about me, how it happened to me. I went to my Master, I enjoyed all the time. I started meditating and I enjoyed. I practiced and I achieved and I enjoyed all the time because all the time I was positively thinking. All the time I wanted it to happen, I wanted a permanent solution for this unhappiness and loss of peace, agony, any such thing, once and for all. No more agony should be there, and I wanted to know about my Self. “Enough of this birth and death and all of these problems. So many times we would have been born and we are going to die now also, so before this death can come to this body, enough, I must know my Self.” So that was the determination, “Enough is enough.” So then you can go for it. Then things become very easy and simple and the complications get dissolved totally. Then you are positive. So this is what is required to understand, to know.

So when you can get rid of your own imagination, it is all the problems you have created for yourself and you have to solve. My Master used to say sometimes – if suppose two of His devotees are fighting, they have some conflict and they used to come with complaints, both of them, He simply use to say, “If both of you can understand your own faults, this conflict can come to an end in no time. As long as you try to see the fault in the other, the conflict will always continue. It is so simple,” so this is what He always said. If you know whether you have made a mistake, whether you are at fault, the conflict ends, finished. That is what we tried to understand as a student. We tried to devote our time. So many places we gave up our ego.

Many times our friends thought us to be foolish, idiots. This is what normally people who try to go on the spiritual path or who want to be noble, they are known as in this world. They called us foolish, but we never bothered. I thought , “Because time is very little for me, I must concentrate on getting rid of my own faults and my own wrong things and my own mistakes that the mind has acquired. So let me not judge about any person.” This was one resolution the mind took and stop judging about people, “He is good. He is bad. This is very wicked, this is so nice. He might be helpful to me, he might not be helpful to me,” this type of business thinking that the human mind keeps doing. So I stopped all such things, it is a waste of energy; it is a waste of time. All are simply Divine. God is everywhere. It is God who is helping me everywhere, by showing love, by showing hatred – it is the same God. And it really happened in that way. God came to hate me and help me, God came to love me and help me. In this way we experienced, every way we experienced the Divine. We saw God everywhere. When we saw God everywhere, everything came as a boon, as a blessing, as help, so that we could lose our imaginations, we could control our mind and we could regain the energies of our mind back to ourselves and we could go back to ourselves and I could gain my Self. I could understand, I could become aware of it, could experience this Truth and that gave Supreme Peace and Happiness at all times. That gave so much contentment and so much security and the conflict ended. It came to an end once and for all. So that is how we need to practice, by understanding, by knowing.

“Only such people can become great, those who can understand their faults, those who can catch hold of their mistakes.”

So again and again my Master said that, “Only such people can become great, those who can understand their faults, those who can catch hold of their mistakes.” It is not easy in this world to catch hold of one’s own mistakes; ego troubles everyone. They do become great people always, all those who can do this. When we practice meditation we are actually trying to overcome our own mistakes that we committed by making judgments and absorbing imprints. When we keep talking about this subject always the conflict comes,”How to live in this world in that case, if we cannot make any judgments?” I lived, we went ahead, we tried to be careful when a wicked person came. Only that mentally we did not bother about the wickedness, we took it as a God-send, a boon, and we became more alert, more determined on our path, more careful so that we do not do any such mistakes. That is how we went ahead. If a person tried to be an enemy for us we took it as, “God is trying to be an enemy so that He can keep me alert at all times.” I did not judge him as an enemy, I judged him as a God, so the mind was peaceful, it did not get agitated, “Oh, this is an enemy at all times, so he might do something wrong to me. He might do some politics, he might be back stabbing,” all these insecurity feelings happen to humans. That did not happen because I was totally secure, it is only the Divine who is behaving like an enemy, and keeping me alert. So thus I took it in to one judgment at all times – everywhere it is God – and kept myself alert, so that I can live peacefully, I can live happily, so I can survive also.

This was how I adopted the methods, survived and lived and achieved our own things, quietly went on practicing our own thing. At the same time, we faced every trial of this world. We faced the society, we faced the human beings, we faced everyone, so thus it would be possible if you practice one hour of meditation every day, your mind gains such ability, such capabilities that you would be able to judge properly – yet you would not absorb the imprints of that particular action, or that particular role of illusion, because the trouble arises only when you absorb the imprints of such particular role. Suppose you start thinking, “This person is wicked, this person is wicked.” It is you, your mind which is becoming wicked by constantly thinking of that wickedness, wickedness, wickedness – your mind gets absorbed. Like this your mind absorbs imprints and starts troubling everyone. This is how you get rid of things. If you practice meditation then only you gain the ability.

These are some of the points of meditation. In the coming days, whenever I sit, I will try to entertain you, enlighten you with more points about the mind, its secrets, God and His secrets.

Copyright © 2008 SRBY, All rights reserved.