Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.

For any kind of a spiritual seeker, I feel the only lesson to be learnt and practiced is the lesson about the mind. We are eating and drinking because we feel hungry and thirsty. Suppose there is no hunger and there is no thirst, I don’t think we would be taking food or drink at all. What does it mean? Eating is something that follows our hunger. Hunger is not something caused by another. It is caused by our own system. Our mind feels, I am hungry, the stomach needs food. So, the hunger is partly a stomach creation and appeasement is partly a tongue creation, mouth creation. We are remaining active after having our nourishing food because the food builds up energy and this energy calls for a proper utilization or expression.

We used to keep cows here, not many, one or two. When the cow delivers, the first ten days the calf suckles all the milk. If there is anything left aside, we milk and throw away the milk. But after ten days, our calf used to be given eight hours of milk from the cow and sixteen hours of milk we would extract. Every time, the calf gets enough milk. Soon after suckling, the calf will start running, running, lifting its tail, running very long distances very beautifully. One of the sights that has always been delightful to me is the sight of these calves running in full gay. Why were they running? Because their stomach is full and there is a lot of nourishment. On the one hand, it is an expression of the nourishing food that they had and on the other hand, it is an exercise for the body also. One is an expression, another a need and its fulfillment.

My dear souls, will you understand thus that everything in your life proceeds from the mind? Ten people are standing before you, you look at them. The eyes look all the ten. Out of the ten, five people you like and five you dislike. This liking five and disliking another five, tell me very clearly, are they creations of the people who you see or are they creations of your own mind? This one lesson, will you learn from this Ashram?

Right at the time of birth, everybody is gripped by a delusion in the way of iccha and dvesha, desire and hatred. It may not be stark hatred, it may be dislike, resentment. This is a moha, delusion that grips every one. The only way this moha (delusion) can be overcome or mitigated is either by spiritual wisdom and pursuit or by pure and wholesome devotion.

By various kinds of punya karma, when this delusion mitigates, then only we are able to worship God without any interruption or any kind of a distraction. Whenever you dislike anybody, understand that the dislike is not arising from the object you dislike. It is arising from your own mind. You may disapprove of something but you cannot dislike anybody or anything. What is there to be disliked in this world? First of all, something is present in the world and then only you like or dislike it. But everything in this world has got a right to exist. That is why it is there. The world is not yours. It is not your creation. Who are you to say? Including yourself, everything being world’s creation who are you to say, this is not right and that is not right? 'I have created the world in my manner. You are one of the creations. You live if you want; otherwise you do what you like.’ This is what nature says.

I would like to repeatedly say that our mind alone causes likes and dislikes. We speak about spirituality, liberation and so many other things. What is this liberation? Being able to do what you dislike and being able not to do what you like. Being able to do what another likes and not doing what another dislikes. In a house there are many members. You may like something. The other members may not like. So you must be able to accept their dislike and act upon it. 'I propose to do this, I like it. If all of you agree, it is okay. Otherwise I withdraw.' Can you not have this kind of an attitude, understanding that to be the real spiritual or successful way of living?

Any unhappiness is caused by our mind. Any happiness is again generated by our mind. And the secret and the success of human life is to float over the so-called success and failure and remaining in harmony with both. ‘S’ rang me up to say that he had an engineer working under him. He migrated to America and for the past so many years, I don’t know 20 or more years he has been there. He had a heart operation and he survived it. Very recently he had some other trouble. So the doctors there examined and said that, “Let us go according to all medical precautions, findings etc. in a very patient manner.” So, after making sure his health parameters were acceptable, they decided to do another open heart surgery. He was unwilling to do. So the wife and the son, both of them persuaded him to go and he died in the hospital during the operation. So both of them feel extremely guilty. Why this guilt? “We persuaded him to go.”

Did he die because they persuaded him? Suppose they did not persuade and he did not go to the hospital, do you think the trouble would not have occurred? Maybe a few days delay. In any given situation, we can take a certain decision. The decision may be wrong but you cannot have a sense of guilt saying that "it was wrong, I should have, I should have, I should have". An event once taking place, okay gone; nothing can be done about it. Maybe it was wrong, maybe it was right. At a particular time, a decision had to be taken. It was taken. Learn from it. But they are extremely suffering.

So, ‘S’ was asking me, “What kind of a consolation can I give?” I said this kind of an interpretation saying that, “We asked him to go, therefore he went. If we had not asked him and insisted upon his going, he would not have gone and therefore he would not have died.” All these counter thoughts and counter arguments are not necessary at all.

We have a number of roads in our country. Every year, more than a lakh of people are dying on the road. This death is certainly made by us, created by us. Therefore, do you mean to say our roads are to be scrapped and no road travel should be there? As long as we develop, roads are built and vehicular traffic is permitted. Some accidents are bound to be. We will try to mitigate them. When somebody dies, certainly it is because of our roads, our vehicles and our traffic rules and not enforcing them properly. Thinking in this manner, do you mean to say the responsibility for all these deaths have to be psychologically taken by the authorities, engineers and the others? It is very wrong.

And when somebody dies on the road, we look for a religious cause. Why did he die? He died because road accidents are very natural and inevitable and he happened to be a victim one day, that is all. I don’t think any further explanation is necessary. When a driver hits a man, and the person is killed, the driver doesn’t think that he is responsible for it. But others think he is responsible.  The same event interpreted differently. The police people sometimes do lathi charge and in the lathi charge, many confusions take place and some persons are affected or adversely hit for the whole life.  Do you mean to say the police should think that it is sinful on his part? I think all these points we have to look at in a pragmatic, practical manner and arrive at our own conclusions.

So, why I say this? Understand that your mind is responsible for the likes and dislikes and the consequent pleasure and displeasure that you have. The object comes next, mind comes first and spirituality wants to train you and teach you and take you to a level where your mind will be joyous and peaceful, looking at everything, meeting everything, undergoing everything. Maybe hundred percent may not be possible. Maybe 50%, 30%, 40%, 70, 80 like that, but this is certainly possible and practicable.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.