Philadelphia 13th June 2012
– Part 1
Offering unconditional surrender and prostrations with deep love and reverence at the Lotus Feet of beloved Master Shiva Bala Yogi, I greet you all with my love and blessings.
Every day, every moment, every time, before embarking on something, remembering the Master with gratitude, with reverence, with love. Though He dropped His physical body, the body that is visible in the photo, nearly eighteen years ago. But He is there, not that He has gone away, there is no question of passing away. Not in any physical body, but as the All-Pervaded, Supreme Spirit, in Mahasamadhi. That is how a Yogi is recognized when He drops His physical body. In total stand-stillness in Itself.
It was like God who had
come to live with us.
It was like a just-born baby and its mother, the relationship between them. That was how we were at the Lotus Feet of the Master, when He was with us in the physical form. It was like God who had come to live with us. Such an amazing knowledge and wisdom from a personality who had never had any academic education, qualification, nothing, no status at the age of fourteen that He started doing Tapas. He had some inborn qualities, probably which were coming to Him since a long time, previous lives, time immemorial. A great honesty. Honesty, sincerity means, that’s how He could be trusted, if He committed to a certain thing, He would do it. If He wanted to do it, He would do it. He had that determination. And a great observation power, of the application of the intelligence. He was very sharp in observing things surrounding Him, any such thing that’s given. He became the Chosen One. He was trying to overcome the poverty of the family. That was the circumstance to which He was born.
You need to be sincere to yourself.
Then God will help,
the whole world will help.
You will be helping yourself.
Sometimes when we become handicapped in a particular way, like we are poor or we don’t have the status, we don’t have enough money, we feel quite embarrassed, and we feel much shame. But that was not the case. He learnt this from His uncle, that any poverty is not a thing to be ashamed of. It was beyond His capacity, He was just born there, that was it. It’s simply a situation, a circumstance. By a determination, by honesty, being sincere means, that’s what Swamiji, my Guru, used to tell; if you are sincere – which is very, very essential – then you would do it for yourself. Whatever you undertake you would do it sincerely. You won’t be postponing, you won’t become casual, you won’t become lazy or you won’t be doubting anything. That is the sincerity He always emphasized. You need to be sincere to yourself. Then God will help, the whole world will help. You will be helping yourself.
The whole world helps means, we expect help coming in the way that we would imagine. My Master considered everything we should see as a help. If somebody gives me ten dollars that is also help, if somebody snatches ten dollars, that is also help. That was the way He taught – everything to get converted into a positive thing that we learn. When we learn, that is a help. If there is an enemy, He used to say, He would put us on alert all the time. And He would put us on total determination, that we are going to go on this path and we are going to achieve. And we are going to be alert, careful, we won’t be casual, or careless, losing stamina. We cannot afford to. So that is what He meant to be helping, means the whole world helps, good or bad, right or wrong, we fall down or we stand up. Everything helps, it’s a training. We take it positively, we become more alert, we become more careful in life. If someone were criticizing, He would take it easily and say, “We will be more careful, we will need to be, they are the ones who keep us alert always, we don’t have to feel embarrassed, nothing. It is their perception, their thinking, their judgment that they are trying to show. They are trying to show their culture, their character. We won’t be affected in our character. It is not they who certify.” He used to say, “The Truth does not need any certification. It is already there.”
That was the beautiful relationship we enjoyed. Thus He helped us in every way. When He smiled at us, when He was annoyed with us, when He took care like a mother and when He pulled us up, when He shouted and when He spoke very softly, affectionately, every way He helped us to get over that ego in us, and become more determined and more courageous and more disciplined.
Practice. These are the mantras He always emphasized with these words. “Practice, practice, practice”, He used to say, “Will make perfect.” It is always better to understand why the meditation is recommended, why we do need to meditate, what are we going to achieve, what is wrong within us, what it is.
That primary want is our happiness
and peace, and never going into any
frustration, disappointment,
all the time accepting and at peace.
If everything does not go according to our want, means that primary want is our happiness and peace, and never going into any frustration, disappointment, all the time accepting and at peace. This is possible when the mind is stronger, when that consciousness is purified. Just like if we have fifty acres of land, then the next generation gets it divided into ten acres each, five people and then it is divided into five acres each, one acre each. As it goes on getting divided, that land loses its power to give that much of crop. A land of twenty acres or fifty acres of fertile land that could give a certain crop, but the same, if it becomes one acre of fertile land, it can give only that much. That is how in the human mind, that mind would have lost its power of remaining concentrated, and deliver the best thing, the best happiness, a permanent happiness. Every incarnation it gets diluted, because of its visualization, its imagination, its assumptions, judgments, and getting into such ideas.
When the mind gets into a certain idea, that mind itself takes the shape of that idea. Like when you think of a bad man, your mind becomes a bad man in itself. So that is how a bad man will appear for you within the mind. And then that mind conditions itself to that habit. So that is how it gets affected, it gets diluted, distracted. Then this becomes confused very often, it becomes fearful, it gives a lot of stress – because it is becoming diluted. What it could have given as a hundred thousand potency unit, it is unable to give as just a hundred potency unit, it cannot. Even that hundred unit also gets disturbed because of its own habits of getting distractions, distracted. A person is unable to get through the examinations in university, his mind is distracted. The world appears to be so charming for the person and gets distracted.
Very often we are unable to think or
select the things that we really need.
Very often we are unable to think or select the things that we really need. We simply get attracted to all like junk food type of things into this world. Whether we need it or not we get attracted, with the hope that we are going to get happiness. That is what we are looking for. If it doesn’t happen then there is frustration, there is unhappiness. Even before it happens or doesn’t happen also, mind becomes so anxious with the fear ‘What if it happens, what if it does not happen?’. So that is how, every time, a life, an incarnation when we are born into a body, it gets diluted. How? Throughout the life, in one life also if we just see, it acquires habits, it becomes habitual, conditions itself into certain thinking, thus it hypnotizes itself. ‘This person is bad’ means it is always bad, even he becomes good or if he has been good also, because my mind tells, and it is bad, for me, it is bad. So that mind itself becomes badly conditioned all the time, thinking of the wrong things, bad things. It takes the same shape – whatever it thinks, it becomes. And then it visualizes the same thing. Then the whole world can appear as bad, depending on the people’s attitude.
There is in the old legendary Mahabharata, just one part of the small, four line story. Once, both Yudhishthira, he was the righteous, pious personality of the story, always honest and had consideration to others, he was a very righteous personality, whereas Duryodhana, the opponent, his cousin, who was always greedy, who wanted to cheat his cousins and snatch the kingdom from them and own it for himself, all the time wicked planning, wicked thinking, in the company of the wicked, like that. So he had developed such wicked things in his mind, visualizations. Once, Bhishma, the grand sire of the family, sent them on a pilgrimage of the kingdom to see how the country is faring, how the people were, what the world is. So the story says when Yudhishthira came back he reported all the good things, “People are very noble, they are good, they are spiritual, they are considerate to each other, they are very honest, hard working.” Whereas when Duryodhana came, he reported of all the bad things. “People are very bad, they are cheating, nobody can be trusted.” Like that he reported, because he himself could not be trusted. He was into cheating. That is how we see people in the society.
But nobody has seen the mind as it is,
when the mind would not be into any
imaginations, what is it?
A robber will never trust anybody that somebody else will also not rob, he thinks that if I can rob, others will also rob me. He knows that one. So that is the essence and effect of the mind that happens. An attitude builds up, and then we visualize the world in the same way, and almost by habit we become like that only. And we lose our happiness, peace, stress comes in, everything. So thus the mind, the consciousness, means first it is the mind, the name of our mind we take, because you all understand mind means when your mind thinks. ‘My mind wants to do this, my mind wants to do that.’ But what is this mind? Can you show it to anybody, do you know the form? What it is, what is its formation, what is its color, what is the substance? Simply we know the thoughts that are in the mind, shapes the ideas, the labels, that are in the mind, of good or bad, right or wrong about this world, and about the imaginations that we have a separate world that we would have built up. But nobody has seen the mind as it is, when the mind would not be into any imaginations, what is it? That is the substance mass of a Pure Consciousness and Energy. When it is pure, it is simply Purely Consciousness Energy of Existence. But, when it becomes impure with its own dirt and imagination effects and getting conditioned, it is unable to know about itself, it is unable to watch itself, that it is a Pure Consciousness. A Pure Consciousness would have become impure thoughts and wrong habits.
And thus, long time has passed by, we don’t know, time immemorial mind has become habitual. The mind is the Pure Consciousness. Eventually if we are able to cleanse this mind, then we realize that we ourselves are that Supreme Consciousness of Existence, we are that purest form. We have become the mind, actually. Mind is nothing but us. That Consciousness is nothing but us. When we become aware that we are that purest form of existence, that awareness, when that happens, it settles there, that awareness. That is Supremely Peaceful, that is Immortal in Existence, Eternal, at all times. Supremely Peaceful, that is needed, and it can remain contented there. Because that formation does not require anything for its own existence. So that is what one can achieve, that is what is recommended.
