Religion progresses in this manner. A person gradually becomes a devotee. He starts loving God, wants to be devoted to God always, but he finds that ever since he wakes up in the morning, he has only secular involvement, worldly involvement and occupation. So, there comes a crisis. How long can you be religiously involved? Maybe half an hour or one hour. But the day consists of 24 hours! Suppose you deduct the hours of sleep – 7 or 8, then 16 hours, of which half an hour of religious involvement will not make anything. Every day you occupy yourself religiously for half an hour and you occupy yourself secularly for the rest of the period. So when are you going to divinize yourself or feel a touch of divinity? So there comes a crisis! This crisis is sought to be resolved by spiritual and philosophical thinking and a change of the attitude in oneself.

All beings are made active and functional in this world by the three gunas of prakriti over which you have no control. So where is the question of I am doing? Everybody is doing. The animals are doing, mosquito is doing, the turtle is doing, the tortoise is doing, the rabbit is doing. See the birds in the sky, early in the morning they go out in search of their prey. So who is not doing in this world? The wind is blowing, the water is flowing, the earth is revolving, the fire is blazing. Everyone is doing in this world. So, don’t say Karma yoga is doing of an action. Certainly not. So, What is Karma yoga? ...

If the whole world is transitory, and our personality, with which we interact with it, is also transitory, the question necessarily arises – are we to live a transitory life with transitory belongings and possessions, or is there anything greater, or more to be done? This is how the viveka is applied. Now the viveka is given an answer. What is that?

The seeker or enquirer is introduced in this manner to the Subject, “You have to realize God. You have to know Brahman, the ultimate reality. You have to discover and realize your Self. So Self Knowledge, God experience and Brahmic knowledge – these are considered to be the goal of human life.” After having said it and revealed what is God, what is Brahman, and what is philosophy, the supreme reality - the subject begins to work. And as it progresses, you will find, all the things necessary in human life to make life comfortable, good, noble, great, benevolent, all these lakshanas are grafted in the exposition. This is what all of you should understand.

Everywhere I found this spirituality has a very deep connection with our mind, our character, our behavior, and interaction. When we speak of character, behavior, and interaction many people think in a big and high level. But our character is constant with us. Behavior is visible and intermittent. Interactions also are so. But this character, behavior, and interaction are primarily centered in one’s own family. How do you deal or how do you conduct yourself within the household?

You polish a table, the more and more you polish it, you will find the unpolished dots will show off. Initially there will be nothing. Polish it well. Then you will find altogether 50 spots are there. Polish it further, the 50 will get reduced to 10. Polish it further. it will get reduced to 5. Then finally you will find everything is polished, 2 places it is not. So the 2 will be glaringly seen. It is not that the polish is not alright. The polish is so well done, that is why the unpolished spots show off so much. So I think I would like you to have a new insight about purity.

If the idol and picture are mute Gods, aacharya is a vibrant, sentient and articulate God. When you go and prostrate before Him, He knows that somebody has come. He looks at him, studies his features and he makes his own assessments. The manner in which you conduct, how you speak, what are the emotions displayed by your words everything becomes a pointer to your inner personality and the qualities you have and the qualities you are likely to have from the interaction with the teacher. So this aachaarya upaasana is something very, very sublime and important.

The entire kshetra is perishable and transforming, Krishna says, and the kshetrajna alone is imperishable. Then he goes on explaining what is jnana – knowledge, and what is jneya - the thing to be known, and what is that kshetra, all these he explains. Finally he comes to the conclusion that the only thing to be known here is the kshetrajna. The kshetrajna though initially identified with the body, its magnitude is infinite.

Sukha and dukha are there in swarga and naraka as they are here. If nothing more than what you already have in your life here upon the earth is there anywhere in the rest of the world then should be you running after anything like heaven and higher regions in the form of rituals and the like? Certainly not. So keep away from them and look for whatever is greater than what you have now here. And what is greater? What is greater? ... 

We have an idol denoting Lord Shiva and this idol we are worshipping with dhara, pouring of water, offering of flowers, offering of pudding and all that. But if Shiva is a Consciousness that animates the living body, what kind of worship is applicable to him? If you pick up an idol, a stone from the earth, place it somewhere, pluck flowers and offer them to the idol, can it be a worship of the inner Consciousness? Not at all. So, what is the worship?

Any extended spiritual pursuit with austere and ascetic background will not have any purpose unless you penetrate in to your mind and make the mind pure, sublime, harmonious and expansive during your day-to-day interactional life. My dear souls this is great discovery that I am telling you.

So, two propositions I find there. One is - mind has got full power over matter. Another is - keeping the mind with you, you are not supposed to make it act on matter unnecessarily. Understand the futility of all such endeavors, and then use the same mind to think of God in the absolute and all-pervading manner. When you are able to do so, all the desires will fall. You will become so great, so huge and so potent, he says, you can reach any limit.

As a human personality, right from the body inward, everything in us is superior to the objects of the world. This is something that I want you to clearly know about. We always feel that we are inferior, but it is not so. Bodily the world may be bigger and you may be smaller. But inwardly, you are bigger and the world is greatly small. Are you prepared to accept this finding, this revelation, this exhortation?

Now coming to what is this inward sublimity, you should be happy in the presence of others, in the presence of the ashramites. Each member should be happy in the company of the others. Everybody should become mutual with the rest. The mind should be constantly examined to get rid of unwelcome and undesirable feelings. So I always say, you must be happy if not anything else.

Knowing such a Soul, what should be done? Any kind of a difficulty, torment or suffering which the body causes must have its solution in the knowledge of the Soul. It may not be absolute and 100 percent. At least everyone should strive to have it as much as possible and as soon as possible.

Every time the focus, so far as you are concerned, should be your mind. And the focus should imply what? There must be progressive enrichment for the mind, no matter what the day is and how you spend it. The day should have been enriching. It should be enriching to you and also enriching to the world so far as your performance and your contribution is concerned. What is this enrichment? It is greater well-being, greater expansion, greater inclusion in your mind of more and more people and the world at large.