Sairam. I am very happy for the opportunity to come here, your love for me has brought me here. I have been wanting to meet Bhaiya (Sumeet Thappo) for a long time and feel really happy to have met him and all of you.
Bhagawan’s love and His darshan are the beginning of everything – like the dawn of a new day or the beginning of life. Our days start with Darshan of God- what you see, talk, think – there is God in everything. If there are a lot of difficulties in life, sorrows and troubles, how do we get out of these? If we were to think in the right way, then we realize without difficulties life does not start(originate) at all. Whoever has taken birth in any form be it human or other organisms in the world, when they take birth – the inception into life means only troubles. Struggles are a medicine. But, if you think of struggles as separate from you, then you will seek different ways of to finding peace, of being free from it. You will pray – give me freedom from this trouble, that trouble and perhaps you will not be able to find liberation from the difficulties in an appropriate way. You prayed to God, what it means is you think you are separate from God. When you begin to pray in that prayers He becomes separate from you. You think of Him as a separate entity from you. But God is not separate from you and you are not separate from Him.
If the understanding of life starts with walking or with the ability to think/understand, then everyone would have understood life because everyone walks or runs. Everyone is running to get ahead in their life , working hard to move forward in life, that is a good thing. But if that was enough to understand life, then everyone would have understood life by now.
What is understanding life? There are two ways – the first is how we normally lead life but with this you will reach nowhere because the destination in this case is not where we really want to reach! Gautama Budha, Mahavir and others who reached the destination – when we examine their life, we find they sacrificed a lot, faced a lot of difficulties in their life and that’s when they reached their destination . They have shown a path, however, it is not easy to reach where they reached with just following the path because to reach where they did, you need to undertake all the effort by yourself. The life you have lead until now is not a conscious/mindful way of living. You have just been going along with whatever is happening. Let it be, this is ok, do not worry too much (laughter…). Bhagawan has himself said “Life is a game, play it”. We are not here to judge others or understand others.
But when we speak spiritually or you want to understand something deeply, there is another way i.e. leading life consciously(mindfully). And those who have made it a point to add the words consciously/mindfully to how they lead life reach the destination automatically because becoming conscious(realized) is verily the goal/destination. And when you understand something or awaken, you have already reached the destination. It is not moving from one place to another, it is not like that. Wherever you are and in whatever state you are, you awaken from that very state!
Understanding spirituality is not easy! Let’s take two people – one who is spiritually knowledgeable, the other, a simple person, who does not believe in God but does social work. So who do you think is truly spiritual in this case? Definitely not the one who claims to be spiritual!
So what is Spirituality? When you feel love towards everything in this world, when you feel love for all of God’s creation – be it flowers, animals, nature or anything else, that is when you become spiritual. There is no need to chant God’s name to become spiritual. To comprehend God is difficult for He is very ahead of us, beyond us. Before we understand anything, it is important we understand oneself first. The topic today is not to judge others, understand others or to make others understand. The topic is to only understand oneself and to ensure we understand this ourselves.
What have birth and education/training made us into? It has made us Hindu, Muslim, Christian etc. One need not study to be of a particular religion, it is a given at birth, no training is needed.
How can it be a teaching when it separates you from humanity, when it creates a separate identity in you that you are a Hindu or Muslim or he is white or black. The world was created and along with it, God created mankind. And men created sects/Jathis. From Jathis, came religions. And after this came religious Gurus, and from them came teachings and the teachings made all the work turned bad. Laughter .. How did this teachings make it bad? Because whatever the teacher knew he taught that and whatever teaching one read, they accepted and followed it and continue to do it.
If I ask you all a question – is there a God, you will all say Yes, because that is what you have been told and taught since birth – that there is a God, doing good work, puja will bring you good. If you don’t believe in God, bad things will happen to you. That’s what children are taught. So along with birth, the teachings are given about the existence of God.
I asked you – is there a God, you will all say Yes, but if you were to ask yourself (in your mind), where is the answer coming from – is it from your information or your consciousness(Bodh)? Have you really seen God? You may have experienced God, that’s why you believe in Him. Yes, there is God..
With the coming of many religious Gurus, it lead to fights because there came different paths. Example meditation – there are so many different teachings – concentrate, go deep inside, Atma is everything, there is no such thing as Parmatma, don’t do idol worship, don’t believe in stones(Lingams & Deities) etc. Even within Hindu religion – one half is bent upon proving Atma is everything and the other half of teachings are on Puja and rituals. So one is trying to prove there is no God, whatever is inside is everything and the other insists in seeing God in oneself and everything and everywhere.
I asked you – Is there God and you said Yes, and yes there is God but how will you prove this? You believe there is a power called God. Because what happens is – those who understand God, realize their own self as well and after this for this person, God is everywhere. He does not see God in not just one thing, but in everything. When his eyes are closed, open, he is sleeping, awake whatever – he sees God everywhere. And he says Yes, God exists, He talks to me. This person has understood and becomes madly in love with God and once he is in love, he loses the fear of the world, he does not care what other people or the world will say because half the people in this world live in fear of what others will think or say about them. How can we do this work – we don’t know what others will say. Or I wanted to go somewhere but didn’t because I don’t know what others will say. Why?
Because you are not able to decide what is good or bad for you. You have left this to the discretion of the world. You might be engaged in doing good work. If two people praise you, then you think – Yes, I am good and get a confidence in yourself that you are truly good, everyone is after all praising you. On the other hand, the minute some says something bad against you or criticize you, then you begin to wonder what mistake you have committed. So you have left your life and yourself to the opinions of the world. What you are, the world will decide -this attitude makes you weak and vulnerable, you become nothing by yourself. This is not how you should lead life for. You may be engaged in good work or Bhagawan’s work, but not being able to decide if this is good or bad. Usually, what we call good (know as good) is good. When you do good work, many people around you will not let you live peacefully and you will hear a lot of criticisms. Your life will move from gentle to difficult because you will face something difficult every day. Hence it is important to understand oneself first.
There are 2 ways to understand oneself – whatever is simple or easy for you, adopt that path. The first path is Love and the second path is Dhyan or Meditation.
The first path is Love – the path of true love – I call this ‘Love’ ‘Death’ because true love is complete obliteration and hence true death! What we see every day as death, that is not complete obliteration for when the body dies, the Atma comes back again in a different form! But why is true love death – because if you want to truly love GOD, you must be ready to die (not suicide etc) but as in the complete obliteration of ‘I’ from within. We know of such people from our scriptures – like Meera’s love for Lord Krishna, in that love, she completely forgot what the world would think of her. She obliterated herself (her identity) completely – she was a Queen but she destroyed those feelings of her being a Queen etc. And as soon as she obliterated herself, she began to see God everywhere, a God who was beyond her imagination, and about whom she could not tell the world or write about or really prove to others. And that’s when the people around her began to call her a mad woman, a shameless woman!. But she was able to see God everywhere but could not really prove this. He will not sign any stamp paper and give it to you as proof. So, the path of love is true death (obliteration). One cannot keep scores in love, how can one; especially when one has no sense of himself or others! The world will label him insane!
The second path is that of Dhyan or meditation; this is a measured path and one where you keep scores. Every step is counted and you walk with the count. You will become silent and you will find a lot of peace within you. Each step forward on this path is planned/measured. The path of Love on the other hand is the opposite, there are no calculations, it is a direct leap!
If you are truly afraid of what others will say, leave the path of Love and move to the path of Dhyan. And don’t say you truly love God because when one is in Love, one does not calculate- one does not say things like see how much I have done for you, how much I love you. True love is without calculations. You will learn a lot in the Dhyan marg, a calculated path, conversely on the path of Love, you won’t learn a thing, it is a direct leap!
Let me tell you a story – there were two lovers deep in love. One day, the young man had to leave for a faraway land. He wrote her letters and from the letters she knew he was alive, his whereabouts, well being etc. After a while though, the letters stopped arrived. This caused the lady much distress – where is he, why isn’t he talking to me etc and after a few months of agony, she decided to embark on the journey herself to the faraway land to find out what he is doing. She sought the way and finally reached him. The young man was in the process of composing a letter to her, when she reached him. He kept on writing, kept on writing and she thought he is busy, so let me wait for him to finish his letter. He glanced at her once or twice as he was writing his letter, but was so engrossed in writing, writing that he failed to recognise her. Once he was done with the letter though, he looked up and startled asked her where did you come from and said I even looked at you twice but did not know it was you. The lady replied – you were so engrossed in witting your letter and that you failed to realize that the person you were writing the letter to, was standing right in front of you. You were so lost in the writing.
This is the moral – make life so simple/easy so that you are not so busy calculating that you fail to see the God standing very next to you. God is right with us but we are so busy calculating is God there or not, what will happen, how will it happen, this happened to me etc, if you keep on writing all these, He will be standing in front of you and we will realize it only much later.
Why does this happen? This is no body’s fault. Our society has both good things and bad that needs to be changed. But the main thing is no one has a belief in himself anymore. I always keep repeating this – think of yourself first and leave thinking about God to a bit later because when you undertake God’s work, it is important to do it with understanding. With the education/training you have received, you may be able to build schools, universities, hospitals, associations, religious groups- but you won’t be able to gain ‘Atma -Gyan’ or ‘Knowledge of the Self’. There is no education/teaching to gain self-realization.
There is only one path to Atma Gyan – ‘Who am I?’ , this should reverberate within you whenever you have free time.
People ask me – Babaji tell me who am I? How can I answer this question? I can only say ‘You are a form of God’. Let the contemplation of ‘Who am I?’ echo within you all the time. At first, the answer to this question will be the one given by others in the world around you. To truly get to the answer of the question, destroy what is written in your slate of intellect first, wipe out what others have said about you, including my words- these are all but information not Bodh (awakening).
But if you are particular about finding the right answer, you want to truly understand this, then I can definitely help you reach the right path, but I can’t deliver you there. I can show you the way, yes, this is the way, come take it. (In 2010, there were some things that happened, that I don’t want to reveal now since it is not yet the right time to reveal these.) In 2011, I understood my mission, my area of work because before that I had never thought that I would come into this path. But this is what happened – I sacrificed my home and Fear sacrificed me. I haven’t left my home, I still stay there.
The first thing to understand is – To get something in life, you always have to give something back. You don’t receive things just like that, you have to first give up(sacrifice) to receive.
And second thing, if you are seeking a change, a change especially from bad behaviour to good, the first thing needed for the change to happen is to accept the bad behaviour, own the bad behaviour. Don’t say I haven’t done this. Others can see what you are saying, doing. Don’t hide from yourself that you haven’t thought, said or done something or gone back in promise. When one has no power to even accept(own) one’s own doing, how can he bring change? First accept that you have done something wrong.
From the day you begin to own/accept your wrong doings, from that day change will begin to occur within you, by itself.
Let’s say you go to sleep everyday at 10 p.m., automatically at this time, an internal clock tells you it is sleep time. Similarly, if a person has a rule of waking up at 4 a.m. every morning, even if he decides to wake up at 6 a.m. one day, despite this, at 4 a.m. his eyes will open for at least a few minutes. See how the human body and brain work – whatever you make a rule (niyam), these rules then begin to drive you. So make rules – I am not saying this for you to become a ascetic or a spiritual aspirants. This is for a normal regular life because even in a normal life, there is a lot of confusion and a lot of people are caught in many complex situations. There is no way to get rid of this confusion and discomfort, in trying to do so, you may get caught in more complex situations.
The answer to all these i.e. to understand yourself, to handle yourself – is to make one rule – learn Dhyan or how to meditate, fix a time and no matter what happens, close your eyes for at least 2 minutes at this time.
Once some people approached me to teach them Dhyan and I told them to come the next day at 4 a.m. Some in the group were willing, however some had excuses – how can we come at 4 a.m. we will be sleepy. I said you keep saying my fist is closed, and only since it is closed you can open it. So in life, if you want something, you need to give something.
I am not giving you Gyan, I am telling you a small practice only, do it even after dinner, don’t need to wake up at 4 am to do it, though mornings are a good time to do this, say 9 am, 10 am but with all the work around you it becomes difficult., before the sun rises, before the sun rays come, so 4 a.m., 5 a.m..
There are many rules to be followed for Sadhana as well, if you want to get something in life, you will need to follow rules. It is good to do this after dinner because you will have some free time, you will have the time to do something. Whatever time you have had until now – you have not given any of it to yourself, you have given it to your family, friends, social work, and whatever one hour you have kept aside for Puja in the morning and evening, you have given it to God, puja, rituals etc. And in all these activities, so much time of your life has passed and despite all this you remain wherever you were, with confusion and you haven’t reached where you wanted to be spiritually. Because if scriptures could lead you to Atma-Bodh or self-realization, everyone would have become self-realized by now. You may chant a lot of mantras, scriptures but why is the monkey-mind still present? (Many of you present here are wondering what I am saying – whether it is good, there are doubts about what I am saying – but let it be, these are just thoughts arising.) In spite of doing all this, the internal battle goes on, the mind cannot be controlled and because of this you become distressed. There is only one remedy and you have to be firm – everyday at this time, come what may, I will do this .You are the master of both your mind and intellect, they are both inside you after all, then what’s stopping you from being the master of both the mind and intellect? Why do you fail before these two? Please tell it – don’t distress me, at this time every day, I have decided to this practice, with that ends the matter. And do this, without fail! After a month, I can ask you about your experience. This practice is gentle and easy(saral). These days, meditation has been made into a very big-difficult thing with the result that most people shy away from it thinking it is too difficult for them. Some do try, but after a few days, find it boring or difficult and stop doing it. But if you were to make this practice a habit/rule, you will find it works.
Related to this topic, someone asked me once – my mind is very confused and I have a lot of bad thoughts, positive – negative that keep running in my mind, what should I do? I replied it is like standing in the sun and complaining the sunlight is falling on me, I am feeling hot. If you stand in the sun, you will feel hot, who asked you to stand in the sun? Move to a shade. Understand what I am saying.. we are sad, our thoughts are making us miserable, troubling us. Thoughts, by their very nature, will trouble you, especially since you are standing right in their path and are not moving away from them. You are not moving them at all. Whenever you feel confused or irritated, bring about a change in your state, don’t keep complaining about the sunlight, find the shade to become comfortable. The mind is the same. When you feel anger, when your mind is fickle, becomes negative – do whatever you enjoy doing or the actions that bring you comfort – like listening to music. Change your state – it can be as simple as moving from the room where you are angry to another room, if you like photos or watching videos, do that action that brings you comfort. Just for 2 minutes at least! With this, your temperature (fervour) will start coming down, mind will begin to become steady. Unfortunately, we don’t do this at all! We stay in the same place and decide we will not leave this today and get more and more involved in this and any negative thoughts that come up and end up battling these. Don’t get involved like this, change your state. When the state is changed, the mind becomes calm automatically, by itself.
Regarding Dhyan, all scriptures say Solitude(being alone, secluded) is the place for meditation! Finding such a place is not easy! If I were to tell you, in Himachal where I live, there are many mountains, come and sit with me there. This is not easy and even if you were to sit on some mountains, you will keep remembering your home, your family, your friends and there is really no advantage in coming to the mountains when your mind is somewhere else. It is necessary for you to stay with your family, in the same house where you currently stay, anyway you can never be alone – for, go to Himalayas and as soon you sit for meditation, thoughts of all your relatives, friends, pending work and work that is over, will start coming. You will never be alone, everyone/everything will continue within your mind. Why? Because you are trying to make a giant leap directly to Dhyan, not even knowing what/why you are trying to achieve by all this!
Instead, leave just one thing and adopt another one thing. What should you leave behind – the thought that you want to achieve something, like you want to do Dhyan, go very far ahead in Dhyan and see extraordinary things that others cannot see. Nothing of this sort will happen in Dhyan. When you do dhyan with this desire, you won’t achieve anything excepting sitting and getting up. So this is what you give up.
And what you need to adopt is yourself and believing in yourself. If I were to ask all of you now to close your eyes and go into meditation for 5 minutes, no one will go into meditation, you will all still be here, your eyes might be closed but the mind will keep running. The difficulty is in closing your eyes and meditating. So, the difficulty is all here. You are doing what the scriptures are saying – closing your eyes for 5 minutes, being in seclusion and looking deep with you, but nothing is happening. When it is difficult to close the eyes, change the state, like when you were feeling hot in the sunshine and you found a shade. Change your state and keep your eyes open. The toughest step of meditation is to meditate with the eyes open. It is difficult but to understand meditation, doing this therapy along with the mind is the appropriate method. Don’t do anything, just continue to sit. There is no need to read or talk or think like Om Namah Shivaya chanting, there is no need to do anything at all. Just continue to sit. The experience will only come when you decide a regular time daily and do it regularly, like dinner time at 9 p.m., fix the time for the practice and no matter what, do it.
For the practice, at a regular time every day, sit down, keep your eyes open and look at the same thing – a thing you like to see for example a flower or lamp or God’s picture, anything that you like looking at and this includes everything, so choose what you like to look at. Don’t think anything, just keep looking. Don’t think what should I do, I am just sitting. Sit comfortably, there is no particular position or method to keep the hands. Just sit and continue looking. and everyday look at the same thing. Become a model/example of patience, keep your mind/intellect on only the one thing before you.
When you closed your eyes for meditation, your mind was very distracted. With open eyes, you are seeing the same thing, same thing every day. When you do this practice, your eyes will close by themselves after sometime, this does not mean you become sleepy, sleep is different, one snores during sleep, it won’t be like that.
If you were to do this practice sincerely, whatever you have been trying to do within yourself until now, (if you have your Guru’s grace, even a second is more than enough), it may take a month or a year, do the practice regularly and within a month, see how you feel. When you keep your eyes open, your thoughts do not go anywhere and you learn to keep your mind centered on one thing.
When you learn this skill, then comes the next question – what is Dhyan? It is important to understand what Dhyan means before starting to do Dhyan. Dhyan is beyond every thought, scripture and assumption. Penance does not mean standing under the hot sun every day, there are many organisms, animals that are under direct sunlight every day, they do not attain Moksh/heaven. Penance does not mean fasting because there are many people who are unlucky they starve every day, they don’t go to Moksh. Fasting is equivalent to Atma-himsa, harm towards self because only the weak resort to self-harm. The strong always harm others around them, the weak on the other hand, harm themselves because only with themselves they have no fear of others saying anything to them. If you want to really understand yourself in life, go a bit beyond assumptions and beliefs because you are always caught in only one thing. How do I say such things – because I meet many people and observe all the things..
The conflicts in the name of spirituality and religion, it makes me unhappy. My mission, my work is only one – and what I say today you may not understand. But my words, words that I am writing today will enlighten the coming generations because the coming days/future will become more and more difficult. First there were postal letters and people had the patience to wait for the letters. With the coming of mobile phone, relationships break just because someone did not answer the phone. Relationships existed even before the advent of phones. People think they have gained a lot, they have moved forward in life (with all modern amenities), but have they really? They are in fact degrading, spiraling down. The height of children is decreasing, nature has changed its rules, previously people were taller.
People talk of discoveries but many people have been destroyed by these very discoveries. Technology, phone have made a lot of things worse as well. How many birds have been destroyed, how many other things. And the patience with us has been destroyed! Where there is no patience, courage, nothing will be left! What all we try to obtain, including a God who will do miracles on the spot, right in this very instant. We pray today and the very next day, the work should be done then all is well else it is nonsense. We need a miracle performing God, and if you seek such a God, you will never get God or miracles! To bring about miracles, to bring about a change in you, you will need to make yourself a ZERO first. The day you become zero, the very day you will become a Hero. Don’t go in front of God thinking who you are, become a zero! Don’t run after miracles. Miracles happen every day. Opening your eyes itself is a miracle. It is a miracle that even today you are opening your eyes.
Third thing – whatever is not in man’s control i.e. death (everything else man has obtained except death). We don’t know when it will come, just like that one day, we are gone. What else within a man’s body is in not in his control? If I were to ask you to close your eyes or mouth or nose, you can do it. But if I were to tie your hands and ask you to close your ears, can you do it? It can’t be, God has kept the ears open. Why hasn’t God given us the control to close the ears? Whatever is not in your control, from there begins spirituality(knowing of self). And how will one know one’s self, unless he hears how will one know one’s self?
Gautam Budha, Mahavir called Darshan Shashtras to be untrue because they held the view that whoever wants to have Darshan (see with their own eyes) is the weakest. Whoever says they want to see something, they are the weakest of all. Why? Because despite not doing anything, seeking/knowing anything, without any thinking, you want to see. How will you be able to see? That’s why God has kept the ears free. Before embarking on the Marg/path, listen, listen to the words, not everything you hear is bad. When you develop the habit of listening, you will move from listening to understanding and after understanding comes seeing. Don’t enter from the eyes but from the ears. So listen to things, listen and then understand, understand and then see. With this understanding, when you start leading life mindfully, that very day you will reach the destination.
What is your destination? The awareness of self or Atma-Gyan, knowledge of the self. There is no destination beyond Atma-Gyan, there is nothing to be know after Atma Gyan. Let us leave this topic of Atma Gyan, it is a bit far.
Talking about my mission, it does not include changing the world because the world cannot be changed. If I were to say in coming times, I can unite Hindustan and Pakistan, no, it is not possible, this will not happen. These things were existent even in days of yore, in Sath Yug, there were demons in those days too, battling. This is not it, when we talk of others saying they are wrong, we are correct, it is not like that – the bad we see outside is within us as well.
In my mission, I want to bring about ‘Saraltha’ (simplicity) and will bring it. Whoever joins me, there will be 10 people with me, (I don’t need the entire world with me) and if I can bring about a change in these 10 people, then my mission will be accomplished by itself because these 10 will change 10 others, and these 10 will change another 10 and multiply. My mission is to bring in Simplicity.
When you are in an Ashram, stay in an Ashram, you forget who you are. It is not necessary for you to become the Prime Minister to know God, or a big film star. To know God, you will need to come down to Earth. To know God, you will need to lose yourself. That’s why I called Love true death because it will obliterate yourself within you that you are something.
Do the dhyan practice, because with Dhyan you will become focused(ekagrah), you will attain steady intellect/equanimity (Stith Pragya), a steady intellect not disturbed by others talking or thoughts and remains steady, unaffected all the time.
Chant the “Om Namah Shivaya” mantra as many times as you can during the day, at least once because the coming year 2020 is going to be a difficult year and it’s influence will last for 5 years. There will be natural calamities, these cannot be changed but our prayers can offset these by at least 10 percent or 1 percent. Whatever is destined will happen, no one can change it.
God exists and that’s why you exist. People ask me where is God and I say where isn’t God? People ask about the proof for the existence of God and I always ask only one thing – Prove to me that you exist, prove to me who you are.
Swami Vivekananda used to visit many Gurus, asking them questions on how to see God. Who can show God? So the Gurus said come tomorrow, after a couple of days or it is not possible. Everyone had some answer but Swami Vivekananda was sharp, he realized they couldn’t. He, then approached Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and asked him too. Ramakrishna said come, I can show you God. Swami Vivekananda felt fear on hearing this answer, how wondered how Ramakrishna could say it so easily, this had never happened before. It is not like you open a door and God is present there. Swami Vivekananda was in a dilemma, he didn’t know what to say and 10 minutes just passed. Then Ramakrishna said you are asking about something that you are not even ready for, first decide what you want from your question.
Everyone has something bad in them, don’t be afraid of this. Even the bulb that is on here – has 2 phases – one positive and the other negative and both are needed for the bulb to work. If both became positive or both became negative, it wouldn’t work. That’s why God has made the brain into 2 sections – one with good thoughts and the other with negative thoughts. Don’t be afraid because these were not created by you, so why be afraid of something you have not created. Leave the fear, make yourself normal/ordinary and the only thing to remember is to do the Dhyan practice. Do the practice and you will definitely get some good experiences, and your life will become much simpler & more and more peaceful, you will feel very good. And you won’t really need to approach another person or ask anything more. Keep doing it regularly.
Please click here to view the Spanish translation of this message.