Summary: Explains the importance of practicing the virtues required for transformation, and that the need to practice discrimination is the very foundation of one’s sadhana. Stresses that the daily schedule of the Ashram is a field for such practice. Teaches that the difficulties one faces are not in the place but in oneself, and it is the Guru alone who can guide the seeker through all the challenges. Instructs that the sadhak has to develop depth in himself as a prerequisite. Speaks of the compulsion of desire and elaborates emphatically on the destruction and havoc humans are wreaking on the planet.

S.: How much time does one need to sleep?

Well, it is different for different people. Seven to eight hours is good on average: some people may require less, some more – that is only an approximation. So, whatever your body will tell you about its needs will be good. You have to be awake to your body, it should be as per your body. It all depends on how much your body is requiring at any given time, on any given day, because sometimes you may be a little more tired. During sadhana, this process, your body starts to go through certain changes and sometimes you may experience a little more tiredness so you can rest a little more, while sometimes you may be experiencing a heightened consciousness and state and may not require so much sleep. The whole rhythm starts to change. Transformation is happening to your entire being, even so the bodily system, and you must be aware of that, you must be observant of that and work from there while you keep to the routine, the discipline, the rhythm – the sadhana.

Sadhana is the basis of your life and around that your life should revolve. It has to become a rhythm – a life-rhythm of and in sadhana – then the life-energy is not scattered, dissipated and wasted, rather all of it is taken up in the sadhana for one’s growth. That is why here we have our life organised according to a daily schedule, discipline and rhythm as is indicated on the blackboard. It is required that you organise your life so that it revolves around your sadhana. And remember for us meditation also includes our activities, a complete sadhana. And it does not mean any and every meaningless and wasteful activity of life but progressively ennobling meaningful activities that keep you in the realm of meditation and sadhana, increasingly reaching divineward. So that discipline is required.

I will read something which says the very same thing. There was a great sadhu and yogi called Shivapuri Baba. In fact His picture is right there, behind the computer, the old man. He lived very long and the last years of his life he spent in Nepal, Kathmandu. Once somebody who was a little depressed, a little dejected in life, came to Him for succour. So the great man instructed him on how to organise his life, just as we have it done here – keeping within an organised field of activity. So in the words of Manandhar:

‘One fine morning in April 1936, I went to see him in Kirâteshwar (close to the temple of Pashupatinath) where he was then residing. I walked up stealthily from the back […]’¹

This person had heard about Shivapuri Baba as a truly great sage and was going to see him for the first time. Normally Shivapuri Baba would not meet with people as he used to say, “I have not come to teach, that is not my dharma.” While for me, my dharma is to teach to whatever extent it may be. It has so been sanctioned from above. So He lived a different life, a life of much solitude, while I was taken away from such solitude after six years, for the work that we are doing. Even so, He was very capable of teaching because he was a God-realised man, but he had the freedom to live his life in solitude. For me, in the past, I have lived the exclusive solitude, but now I do not have that privilege. I have to do the job entrusted to me. So it is different for different people depending on what is intended in existence.

(Reading): ‘The little window of his hut was left open […] He was sitting quite alone. When he turned towards the window, his eyes fell on me.’

This narrator was a person who lived in Kathmandu, Thakur Lal Manandhar, who later was to become one of Shivapuri Baba’s ardent devotees.

(Reading): ‘His eyes were so brilliant and penetrating. I was convinced that he knew everything of myself, and it seemed absurd to ask any of my questions. Tears rolled down from my eyes and I stood folding my hands.’

When he went to see Him for the first time, Manandhar was going through a crisis – an internal crisis – and this usually happens to people when they are on the threshold of a change in their destiny, of a special happening in their life, when there is going to be a big change in their personal life, a spiritual transformation, and in the case of Manandhar it was a meeting with a spiritual Master of an extremely high calibre. So he was going through a crisis, he found life in the world empty. He had a family but he looks at his life and sees it to be meaningless. So he is a fit person for sadhana. This is a phase even Rama went through and surely many others, even though there can be no comparison between Rama and Manandhar as individuals, and the intensity in their conditions. As a teenager, at the age of sixteen, Rama goes through intense internal turmoil because he sees everything in life to be empty; it has no meaning, no significance, the way it is ordinarily seen and lived. That is a very important moment in the life of such people, for they seek more than what the world and life can provide them externally and ordinarily. They start to see the emptiness in things of life as it is lived ordinarily, as was the case with the Buddha in his own unique way, a precursor to wisdom and realisation of Truth. So at that time Manandhar had heard of Shivapuri Baba, and he wanted to see him. Somehow his life and condition took him there. Life making available to him a Guide and Master of exemplary calibre.

(Reading): ‘Tears rolled down from my eyes and I stood folding my hands.’

Shivapuri Baba was in his kutir room. He had a place in Kathmandu, in the forest, in a place called Mrigasthali near Pashupatinath temple, it is still there, with his samadhi now.

(Reading): ‘With a kindly look he said, “You have the book of the Gîtâ in your pocket, don’t you?” Yes sir. “Read the first three verses of the sixteenth chapter.”² Before I could read them out to him, he said again, “Practice those twenty-six qualities or virtues described.” ’

There is the iteration of divine qualities and virtues in the Gîtâ that should be cultivated as a preparation and transforming of life and being that will match and be in tune for your progress in sadhana, divineward. For just as there are divine qualities, there are the demonical asuric qualities available to us in our consciousness which are in contrast and even opposition and inimical to all that is good, noble and true, which stand in the way of light and truth. Some things, some forces, some developments, some personality formations are not conducive for sadhana and they will interfere, interrupt and even disrupt. That is why it requires to discipline yourself. Otherwise the mind is always restless and wayward, whimsical and fanciful and even easily misled – now this, now that – therefore it requires a lot of discipline. That is why it is called sadhana – practice and guidance.

So Shivapuri Baba says, “Practice those twenty-six qualities and virtues described.” Practice with true and total diligence makes for development of those virtues and the elimination of the vices, unlike the modern understanding of today where everybody thinks just sitting and meditating as a technique, without any application and working with oneself and transforming, which is really hard work – is enough to become enlightened and therefore to reach to total perfection! That is utter nonsense! And this is being perpetuated by many so-called modern and new-age gurus and teachers who are not qualified to be gurus and teachers because they do not have the complete and perfect sadhana themselves! They just want to accumulate people and they perpetuate a total misunderstanding of what sadhana is and its requirement. So Shivapuri Baba says, ‘Practice this.’ He does not say, ‘Come here and meditate, I am going to enlighten you,’ rather ‘Practice these virtues first.’

And that is what we are doing here also through our activities, through organising our lives simultaneously with our meditations, ultimately for all of life to be taken up as sadhana. There will be many resistances within ourselves and there will be many things that will come up, many ideas, imaginations, misconceptions, misinterpretations, illusions and delusions. They need to be seen for what they are, recognised for what they are and regarded or disregarded or discarded. You should develop that discrimination. All part of our sadhana.

As Krishna says to Arjuna, “You must have the Yoga of discrimination.” It is called the Yoga of intelligence and added to that Yoga of action – they are complementary to each other – with the Yoga of meditation. And then from Yoga of meditation you increasingly come through your illumination into Yoga of action again and again. Otherwise it is usually the case that work and action, no one wants to do! They just want to sit and meditate which they anyway hardly manage, falling asleep instead! It does not work like that. Action is not to be given up before or after illumination, nay, rather it is a means to and a consequence of an increasing Divine manifestation in and out.

(Reading): ‘That was all he said. I came back home. I read the verses and their translations over and over again, but I could not make out what all those virtues really meant and wondered how they were to be applied.’

This is another thing, you see. People read and say, ‘Oh, I know the Gîtâ, I know this and I know that.’ They may know the theory, but they have not managed to put it into practice and therefore not understood the inner meaning with all its nuances. Without right application there can be no real knowing. And that again is what we do here. When we are involved in the environment of sadhana here and we go about works and things, we are putting theory into practice, and through that practice are asked to develop discrimination, that recognition of things for what they are. And under a Guide when one does this, that is when it becomes clear and effective. It has to become practice, not mere theoretics – that is when true meaning and understanding dawns, that is when development and transformation happens, that is when growth happens. Otherwise you do not understand – you misinterpret, you misread what you have read, you misunderstand because you do not have the practice to back you, to give you the actual picture. And under what circumstances, situation, that something is required, what is required, attitudes, sense of purpose – all this only comes from practical application and continuous self-observation and analysis, nay, even self-criticism.

(Reading): ‘I read the verses and their translations over and over again, but I could not make out what all those virtues really meant and wondered how they were to be applied. I was perplexed and after a few days approached him the second time. As soon as he saw me this time he said, “Put up a routine of your day’s work” – like we do here – “with fixed duties and go ahead.” ’

Now this is not very glamorous, you see: it is not very exciting, entertaining. This is what people today want – the glamorous, the exciting, the sensational and the continuous entertainment. It is a shallow ego thing – it does not work! You will never get to any depth of attitude and meditation. You can fool yourself, you can fool somebody else. Really, you have to deal with even the most mundane of things in your life and deal with it well, not these empty techniques of meditation with a superficial existence. This is how it is in today’s times.

(Reading): ‘Put up a routine of your day’s work with fixed duties and go ahead. Then see your success and failure in the evening.’

It means what you did during the day, how successful you were, what you failed in – meaning how was your reaction or response to a situation, work, and each other? What came up in you? How efficiently and with how much awareness and dedication was anything done? All this you have to learn to watch and observe, and then make your corrections, modifications, additions and rejections. That is why it is an ongoing thing. This transformation is a continuum required during and before you can get to any serious meditation. Yes. Even if you, because of the environment or someone, may get a glimpse, experience, or feel of something or energy, it is not going to settle in you without a complete involvement and transformation of your entire being. The whole of your consciousness must be taken up and dealt with – there are many levels to your consciousness and there will be many things that will come up, many things in and of your consciousness and from your personality.

You have a personality formation – first you have to deal with that. Then you have consciousness and its different levels, individual and universal. So you will have to deal with the contents of your consciousness, the triple consciousness of body, life and mind – higher consciousness access will come later on! Even if you were to feel something or gain access to the higher levels of consciousness because of meditation or because of the Guide, it is not over and done with, you will still have to deal with that wherein you reside most of your time, especially in the lower levels of the consciousness. And there are many things that need to be sorted out over there, recognised – some accepted, some not accepted, some discarded. And this is for everybody. It has nothing to do with this or that place. This has to be done – if you want the complete sadhana. So here we seek for such a complete sadhana.

Some people may be ahead in something, some may not; some may need to work with something which is personal to them because each has his own unique personality, his own concepts, ideas, imaginations, inhibitions and interpretations. All this needs to be sorted out – because meditation is not some concept of your mind, or your idea of how an ashram should or should not be. This is stupid. It is not going to be as per your idea for sure! The Truth abides anywhere and everywhere – when it is the Truth. It is not your idea or someone else’s idea of the Truth. And that is why the self-realised soul is the only Guide, and where he or she resides, to reside with such a one, even though it may contradict your concept and idea. And it must be so, for it is only because of your ego and its ignorant arrogance that you believe your idea and concept is right, and not necessarily because it is.

There are no different concepts of the Truth – the Truth is Truth and the Truth is one in all its wholeness.

The Guru will clear up all those mistaken ideas and concepts so that you can start to see what the right thing is: it is not as per one’s mind, for the mind can be wrong. Sometimes it may agree with your mind also, of course sometimes it may not, this one must understand. But individually one is always biased towards one’s mind and accepts its suggestions, opinions and interpretations blindly and without much inquiry. And that is why you need a realised Guru who has gone beyond his mind and therefore is the only one qualified to guide you and direct you objectively to the objective Truth – not anybody and everybody! And it is within His sangha, kulam, within his environment, within his atmosphere and the atmosphere that he has established in the outside and under his guidance that sadhana is to be done.

So (reading): ‘“Put up a routine of your day’s work with fixed duties and go ahead. Then see your success and failure in the evening.” I came back home and tried as best I could. Still I could not get at the clue. After an interval of a week, I went to see him again the third time. This time he invited me to sit before him inside the hut. It seemed he knew my difficulties and offered to help me.’

And now the Guru accepts you. You are nobody to accept the Guru; it is the Guru who accepts you when you present yourself with the right attitude and sincerity. If you have the arrogance to believe that this or that place is not yours, or is yours, because of some misconception; if you disregard a self-realised soul then it is your loss, not the Guru’s. Because you are here for yourself, you are not here for the Guru. The Guru is here for you, he is not here for himself. You can do nothing for the Guru, the self-realised soul. He has achieved and is here to help you, to give to you of his achievement. So this kind of arrogance that makes you think and say that you can accept this place or not, on whim – that just shows your ego! That is a lack in you, not in the place or the Guru! It is just that you have not yet developed the capacity to deal with the place, to deal with yourself in fact. The difficulties are in you, not in the place!

I can be anywhere. The difficulty is in you because you cannot manage in this place. And that is why it is the best place to be – because this is where you are tested and challenged to transform yourself. Otherwise it is a limitation, a lack of capacity in facing the challenge and the place. If it challenges you, that is the best place to be. Otherwise you stagnate and remain as you are, although comfortable. Life must provide you with challenges. If you are not challenged, if you are not confronted, if you are not shown the mirror how will you progress? How will you see yourself? How will you look at your own ideas in perspective? But you must be objective, for one is always biased in favour of oneself to the detriment of one’s growth, preferring to be comfortable rather than be confronted and challenged. Life’s changing and differing situations and circumstances provide you with those confrontations and challenges. To face them objectively and honestly makes for life’s growth, both outer and inner.

For example, there is this story about Gurdjieff. Two women disciples living in his institution made a beautiful garden that was much appreciated by everybody and were therefore complimented for their great work. They felt very good and impressed with themselves. When you get appreciation you feel very good, when you do not get appreciation you feel bad. If things are comfortable for you or if things go according to your likes, then you like the place. If it does not go as per your likes, then you do not like the place. This is a pretty superficial idea of life. This is not how a sadhak seeks. A sadhak has to be in sadhana in spite of likes and dislikes.

Gurdjieff saw that the women were developing the pride of egoism because of all the appreciation and decided to take them beyond their inflated egos. When one is appreciated the ego is happy and therefore conditioned by that happiness, and when one is not appreciated but criticised the ego is unhappy and therefore conditioned by that unhappiness. This therefore enslaves and conditions your behaviour. You can feel and enjoy the appreciation but not be conditioned by it. To be conditioned by it is to lose yourself and your objectivity and get attached to the appreciation, then that is not good, for non-appreciation is around the corner waiting to happen and you will lose yourself thitherto. The Guru will guide you beyond such blind conditioning. You need to be more than the appreciation. So overnight, as a lesson, he left the door to the garden open and all the cattle came in and ate up the entire garden. Now these two women having waited impatiently all night – because you get so much appreciation, it fills you with a self-important happy feeling – at daybreak couldn’t wait any longer to see their garden. They went there in earnest self-importance the very first thing. But what they saw was a horrific shock, for it was all destroyed, having been completely run over by cattle. Someone had left the gate to the garden open overnight, it appearing to their minds at first as a mistake and later as a deliberate act of jealousy, for they themselves had made sure – and obviously because it concerned their self-importance – the evening before to lock the gate for the fear of this very thing. Obviously dislike and anger must have come up. Who did this? How did this happen? Who left the gate open? Why? It was Gurdjieff’s way of taking them beyond. It was a lesson for them. So Gurus and Guides do this. They provide you with a challenge for you to look and observe yourself in different situations and go beyond attachments to things, your works, your pride, attachments to your own ideas and concepts, your reactions.

So whenever you are challenged you should be able to face that challenge. And when there is a Guide, he guides you through that challenge. That is why it is an ongoing thing. That is why in ancient India there was the gurukula where you lived with the Guru, like our place here. If one has that opportunity, it is a blessing.

So (reading): ‘It seemed he knew my difficulties and offered to help me. He said, “You can come to me and speak about your difficulties. You are now like an infant with very little understanding,” – exactly – “you need to develop your capabilities and grow up spiritually.” And he spoke of the necessity for a competent teacher who is self-realised. But when I said that such persons are rarely found, he replied saying that an aspirant, if he is really eager to find one, if he is really in earnest, naturally obtains such a guru and he will be liberated in due course.’

Otherwise you may have this person around, but you will not benefit from him or her if you are not in earnest and do not appreciate. So you have to develop that appreciation through association, unless you already have it beforehand: this is a progression, it is an ongoing progression.

(Reading): ‘He spoke of Yama, Niyama, and Swadharma which, according to the Hindu system of education, one must practice from early childhood during the period of Brahmacharya. A fixed routine of daily life, with fixed items of duties, is required. This means that a certain code of life is to be accepted.’

That is why He was talking about developing virtues. You must have a certain code in life, a certain dharma. So you should have the discrimination: this is the right thing to do, this is not the right thing to do. To live right – right life – not whatever comes to the mind, whatever you feel. No, no! Then you are only perpetuating the slavery to the mind and its whim and fancy! A seeker has to go beyond the mind. Giving in to anything and everything that the mind suggests, that is not being a seeker but a slave. And as you progress – if you progress – it gets even tougher. Normal life is easy for you live it as you please; life of sadhana is very difficult, for you stay true to it even if it means to struggle. Because if you were to progress, you increasingly enter into the subtle realms of the consciousness. There it gets even more difficult because if you do not have the capacity to discriminate, you will easily get carried away with things that seem on the face of it to be very exciting and pleasing. That is why you have to lay the foundation from the very start. You must start to develop a mastery – over the mind, over impulses, over feelings, emotions, passions, ideas – from the very first moment: and that is why the ancient system where you lived with the Guru to develop on the right lines. And it is not just living physically with the Guru: living means to accept his guidance! That is what Shivapuri Baba is explaining to Manandhar.

(Reading): ‘This means that a certain code of life is to be accepted and one must abide by the laws and principles pertaining thereto, even at the risk of one’s life.’ So there are laws, there is dharma about it – principles and law – you must abide by it – ‘Even at the risk of one’s own life’! You can see the standard he is setting – ‘Even at the risk of one’s own life’!

You know, there is a story about Babaji, the great-grand Guru of Yogananda Paramahansa. Once somebody came to Him; he was sitting on the top of the mountain with other disciples, other seekers, and this man wanted to be accepted as his disciple. Testing him, Babaji instructed, “Go and jump off this mountain.” And the man jumped with no hesitation! He broke many bones in his body. The other disciples went down where he had fallen and brought him up and placed him in front of Babaji who then accepted him as a disciple! This is indicative of the amount of commitment required. It is not some game and whim or fancy. Because, in the end, that kind of commitment will be required for your own journey. Nobody here of course will ask you to jump off the edge of the cliff, for we know that there is no such danger that you will jump! It is another matter that definitely most times sadhana is like walking on the edge of a sword, but this story is indicative of the kind of commitment that will be required. Again, this commitment does not come right away. So in this way Gurus sound your depths and commitments, and develop many qualities in you which are indispensable for the journey.

This is why Shivapuri Baba says, ‘Now you read this and practice developing these virtues over a period of time then you will start to understand.’ You will have developed your mind and character in a way that is conducive for your own progress – not the Guru’s progress. The Guru has already progressed! You cannot do anything for the Guru. In fact the Guru is here for you, you are not here for the Guru. You are here for yourself. This has to be understood. Even when you supposedly do something for the Guru, it actually benefits you.

When He says, “Even at the risk of one’s own life,” like Babaji he too maintains and expects a very high standard. So if somebody is keeping very high standards, such a person should be sought after and stuck with – because when you associate with people who keep very high standards you also go high. Even though at times it might be quite trying, quite challenging – but then in that is your growth. Associating with people with low standards brings down your standards too. You may not be comfortable but grow, and you can be comfortable and not grow. It is better to be uncomfortable and grow – so also that you learn to become comfortable in doing the right thing even in challenging and uncomfortable moments. To be comfortable in the uncomfortable – that is the idea. Then life continues to move on forward. And also to be able in those moments of challenge to develop an easiness, to develop happiness… because happiness is of your own making. If you are happy because of the comfortability of the outer situation, place, something or someone, then you are still a slave to the outside. That is so ordinarily. Ordinarily in existence that is how it is preferred and life organised. But for a seeker who seeks the extraordinary that change must start to come where he or she is happy because of himself and herself – because of an inner condition, not because of a suitable external situation which is a transient and a temporary condition.

So these are virtues. I am explaining the virtues, the qualities required of a seeker. And that is why I say, tourist and seeker – there is a difference, a vast difference. A tourist visits a place, but he never becomes of the place. When you tour somewhere what do you do? You go there, enjoy the place, you have a nice time, you exploit the place, even abuse the place and then leave. That is what tourists do. Look, tourists are spoiling the environment everywhere. Why? It is their attitude. There is no virtue in their attitude. They go somewhere, they have fun, they enjoy the place, they take from there but they give back nothing or hardly anything, rather they turn the place into a dump-hole for their rubbish, and rubbish can be of many types, not just paper and plastic! They do not give back anything. And then, when that place is finished for them and they have finished it for others at the same time, they go elsewhere, to do the same elsewhere. This is a tourist. They do not become of the place; they do not respect the place. The tourist is always seeking for some comfort, some enjoyment, some excitement, some entertainment, something for himself. But the seeker is not of that kind. The seeker deals with everything much more deeply, with much more insight and responsibility. And these are the first basic virtues and requirements for sadhana. That is why Shivapuri Baba tells him, ‘Now you read and develop those virtues mentioned in the three verses of the respective chapter from the Gîtâ.’

How will you develop them? You reflect on them and you practice them while you deal with your daily activities. You create a program for the day and apply and practice. At the end of the day you see how much of these values and virtues you have managed to apply and express. Through such working a greater understanding and development of them will progressively happen. So life is like a laboratory wherein you are constantly working with yourself.

And it can be done very comfortably once you start to get the hang of it and even joyfully, with the right attitude, if one wants to, and once you get over the initial resistances within. It is heroic and inspirational. It is up to you, how you look at things. If you get fixed in your mind with its negativity then there is always trouble. But you are not the mind – you are soul, self and spirit! So if you continue to perpetuate the mind and then expect things to be comfortable, nowhere will you find that comfort. If today you find some place comfortable or something exciting and pleasurable, that same place and thing can change and become uncomfortable, unpleasant, unexciting and lose its novelty, its sheen, after some time. And that is the stupidity that people ordinarily keep living. That is the tourist. This moment they enjoy this place; after some time, five days, ten days, they do not like it anymore – they depart for some other place, some other novelty. So while the novelty lasts the place is appreciated. When the novelty is over they move on to something new to be entertained without having gained anything because of a weak commitment and lack of spirit.

A seeker is supposed to start developing the spiritual understanding and depth and give up the shallow view of things. So he becomes deeper looking and greater in commitment. And then he finds out: ‘This is only a state of my mind. I like something now, tomorrow I may dislike it.’ It happens. But a seeker is supposed to go beyond this game of shallow existence of like and dislike and develop the virtue that makes him see things spiritually – that is what Shivapuri Baba is trying to say – not superficially. You have to organise your life, create that kind of environment so you can develop this. Otherwise it does not develop. People say, ‘I will sit, meditate, and I will do some technique and like magic it will happen.’ It is not going to happen! It only perpetuates the same ignorance.

(Reading): ‘This means that a certain code of life is to be accepted and one must abide by the laws and principles pertaining thereto, even at the risk of one’s own life. […] Then an elaborate description was given which was meant to give me a very broad idea of self-discipline, as it used to be practiced in Ancient India, by sitting with a guru and learning things practically. Stories of Lord Krishna’s discipleship under Sandipani […]’

Krishna and Rama, they too were students and had their Gurus. Today people think they do not require any teaching, that they are gurus themselves! Krishna and Rama too went to gurukulas. Krishna went to gurukula of Ṛishi Sandipani at Ujjain; he was the Guru of Krishna’s student years. And Vashishtha was the Guru of Rama, and to some extent Vishwamitra also. It is another matter that they were exceptional students from the very beginning requiring hardly any instructions and guidance that most require. Stories of Lord Krishna’s discipleship under Sandipani and a host of other celebrated personalities of the Mahâbhârata and the Râmâyaṇa were told, and how their mind and intelligence were controlled, mastered and developed as a result. Because you have to train and develop the mind that is conducive to sadhana and the ennobling of life with a higher and a greater vision – not just accepting and being fixated about whatever mind and idea of self you come with. That is the delusion. In the Guru’s presence things will start happening. An awakened Master will bring changes in you from within while expanding and widening the mind and consciousness, opening you to greater realisations of self, the nature of things and Reality. Now you will have to be guided by Him. He will guide and prepare your life accordingly. If you are open to His guidance, he will guide you through the idiosyncrasies and stupidities of the indulgent mind and the pitfalls along the way. But that is where you need to have that kind of commitment.

This is a science. Otherwise you will fool yourself. Mind will find many ways to fool you. But you think: ‘This is my mind, so it must be right.’ This happens to everybody because you are always biased towards your own mind, because you are identified with that mind as yourself. But ultimately you will see, all the foolishness that is in other people’s mind is also there in your mind.

Why does Patanjali say, “Yogaḥ chittavṛitti nirodhaḥ”: Yoga is stopping the endless modifications of the mind? Because modifications of the mind keep on happening and you have no control over it, no mastery over it; it keeps functioning compulsively suggesting things, ideas and all sorts of imaginings and even fantasies. And it is not always necessarily the right ideas. But because you are identified each time with the emergent idea or thought as it appeals to you, then you say, ‘This must be good, this is right. It is my thought, it is my idea.’ Even though sometimes it is good, sometimes it is not; sometimes it is right, sometimes it is not. Quite often it is a hit-and-miss thing and embarrassingly so, and yet very few lessons of objectivity are learnt from it all. So you have to develop the mind that is going to help you to travel this journey of self-realisation, God-realisation. And therefore the Guide is indispensable – if you can find one. If there is an earnest seeking in you, you will find one. But you must seek from deep within your soul, not from your mind. That is what happened to Manandhar. He was in a state of turmoil. It is his soul-moment!

And so it happened to Rama, albeit a different turmoil to that of Manandhar. Even though an incarnation, He has this moment in life when nothing in and of this world is appealing, an intense vairâgya besets him. And that is when He gets the teaching from Guru Vashishtha, which is now available to all, as a legacy, in the form of Yogavâsishṭha. He was ready and open for it, otherwise you can give somebody as much teaching as you like, it will not be appreciated for they have no need for it. It is said for example, if you were to ask the value of a diamond to a vegetable vendor he will not appreciate its true value because he does not know anything about the value of diamonds. Christ says the same thing about offering pearls to swine; there is no use offering pearls to the swine for they will value it not.

That is why preparation is required. Preparation so that one is able to evaluate things for their true worth. This was done in ancient India through a real education, from early childhood, in the gurukulas to which the child was sent. Even Krishna and Rama were sent. And there the young children developed the mind and being which could recognise true worth and true values and rise above human frailties and corruption, recognise and eliminate the veil of ignorance and darkness that surrounds the soul, self and spirit. They were trained to see objectively and directly the workings of the mind, with the many failings, deceptions and subterfuges that might reside in it – however appealing or repelling – thereby developing a strong and straightforward will and mind. And so when they grew up they had that mind which could see through things. They went beyond superficiality. They were made to develop physically, emotionally, mentally, intellectually and most significantly, spiritually. They were made to develop compassion and oneness with all beings. They were made to be truthful, bold and brave.

Of course it is almost all lost now: if anything, we have to begin in the later years where the mind has already hardened and fossilised, developed ideas, biases and prejudices, concepts and fixations, difficult to change and transform, with feelings, passions and emotions that are running wild… so the job is even more difficult. Sometimes it becomes almost impossible, one would say. But because there is nothing absolute in this world, I said, ‘almost impossible’. Even for one who has really filled himself or herself with all kinds of delusions there is always a chance he or she can be redeemed, if they be willing.

So even ones like Rama and Krishna, following the living tradition, were sent to gurukulas to develop thus, in Yoga. In fact it is said that Guru Sandipani, when Krishna arrived at his gurukula, was extremely delighted and joyfully exclaimed that rare is it that someone of such calibre of being comes to the Guru for learning. There are differing stories about Krishna: some talk about Krishna leaving Vrindavan as a teen never to return, and about his relationship with Radha, all the play, the lîlâ of Vrindavan before he left for Mathura. And there are stories where they say that He left much earlier at the age of eleven or twelve for Mathura on his deceptive uncle’s invitation who wanted him killed on arrival, instead only to kill off his demonical uncle and rescue his parents and the old king Ugrasena before heading off with his brother Balarama to Guru Sandipani’s gurukula for education. He is then supposed to have stayed in the gurukula till he was a young man, learning, living with the Guru, learning Yoga and the ways of life, not just these physical âsanas, kriyâs and prâṇâyâmas, which is what Yoga today is understood to be and reduced to most times and nothing more. Yoga means to live an illuminated life, divine life.

It is important to understand the true significance and meaning of Yoga. Yoga has a much greater definition and import than what is understood by many people. It has been reduced to mere physical exercise of body postures and breath regulation by today’s masses, merely for health purposes and wellbeing, nothing more. It has been reduced to something just physical, with the spiritual taken out of it. And besides, the reason is also because it has become a profitable pursuit and commodity. There was a time not so long ago when nobody gave it much importance and the world hardly knew much about it although it was practiced quite commonly in ashrams and households across the country with some spiritual people taking it across continents. The people who were involved in it understood its fuller import: that they could keep their body fit and achieve meditation and self-realisation. That was the objective but there was not so much of a hullabaloo about it. It was only one part of their disciplined living. Today it has become big because people are unwell, physically and mentally unwell, as also spiritually impoverished.

Spiritually most people are dead. Physically and mentally it has become highly stressful, a very unhealthy existence. Today Yoga has also become materially very profitable and fashionable, so many have taken to it because they can profit from it monetarily. Achieving physical good health and mental wellbeing through âsanas, kriyâs and prâṇâyâmas is a better profit, but then all this ultimately is a means for something higher – it is not an end in itself! When we do the âsanas in the morning it is only a means, it is not to be mere physical acrobatics reduced to only a very short-sighted objective, rather a means to include the physical for a greater realisation, transformation and manifestation. This is to be understood. It is another matter that even done without the higher objective it does tend to touch and even ignite a sense of something more. This is not only a means to keep the body fit and to energise, but to involve the whole of your life levels, even the physical in your sadhana. It is the platform which keeps your body fit and healthy while you are to pursue a higher life. We seek a complete transformation, not a partial one for an increasing manifestation, through the physical, mental, and spiritual transformation. That is why in our sadhana all the levels and the entire being is involved. When we discuss, debate, study, reflect, contemplate and try to understand things, we are developing the mind and intellect, developing understanding; when we do the âsanas and other physical activities, whatever they may be, like construction, etc., we are developing the body, its energy and consciousness. Every activity is Yoga and is to be made one – we must approach it with that attitude. The attitude is important. It is not just some specific type of exercises that is Yoga, limited to bending, twisting and some breathing exercises. Finally the whole of life is Yoga, when turned to the Divine.

Shivapuri Baba proceeds then to explain how avidyâ, ignorance, and delusion appear: how the mind tricks you. He says, “God has sent Wisdom with you. Wisdom is your friend. Wisdom plays with Desire” – when you have a desire, then wisdom plays with desire – “and by their unlawful contact they gave birth to Mind. This Mind marries a girl named Chapalatâ.” Chapalatâ is a Hindi word which means restlessness, fickleness, wavering: now this, now that – no focus – this moment I want to do this, next moment I want to do that. This is chapalatâ. Like a monkey – have you seen how a monkey behaves? Jumping here and there, doing this, breaking this and breaking that, restless, fickle and agitated – this is chapalatâ.

(Reading): ‘This Mind marries a girl named Chapalatâ’ – restlessness, fickleness – ‘and by this he got the five senses. This Mind has got another wife too whose name is Hope and by this second wife he got two sons namely Anger and Greed. Thus a family is set up and they make a home to live in this body.’

So desire, greed, anger – all this is connected. When you desire something you become restless until that desire is fulfilled and you employ all your ‘wisdom’, really guile and tact, to do so. And if somebody comes in the way of that desire, even if it is the Guru, you get upset, resentful and angry. And here your true wisdom goes for a toss. That is how it is. This is the sequence of how the mind works. So this is avidyâ. This unlawful playing together of wisdom and desire is avidyâ or ignorance. And then in course of time it becomes your personality. If you keep continuing to live like that, it becomes your personality – and then that becomes your reality. You then start to see and know life only in that way and get fixed in that way of living. That becomes the only model of life and that becomes your yardstick. Then to return to vidyâ becomes even more difficult because you have to struggle with your old and fixed, already-formed, personality. The difficulties are the struggles with your formed personality when you need to make changes. That is why even the Buddha from the beginning talks about ‘right action’, ‘right thought’ – why? The Eight-fold path – what does it mean? Why this code of conduct? Because it becomes difficult and sometimes even extremely difficult to change bad habits, traits and tendencies of the personality once formed, to prepare for something higher, nobler and superior in existence, and to change or leave all that which gets in the way – that’s why. So you must seek right action, the right thought, make the right and true speech – then the results and consequences of such behaviour will always lift you. You will then develop that kind of noble virtue which will ennoble your soul and not degenerate it.

(Reading): ‘And in course of time, as Mind experiences fears and anxieties through the five senses, he becomes much distracted or disturbed.’

So when your desire is not fulfilled and things do not happen as per your wish, then you get disturbed and unhappy. Sometimes you also devise, connive and conspire to do things that are not necessarily right or the right way of going about it because you want to fulfil the desire, legit or illegit and at the earliest, for the delay becomes painful and unbearable.

Today in India and everywhere in the world there is corruption. There is so much corruption because people want to fulfil their desires, legit or illegit, any which way they like, the quicker the better. They want something, but they do not want to go about it in the right way. It may not be for a very high objective, but if you go about it honestly it is good. But that is the thing, the compulsive nature of the impulse of desire is so strong that you want it right away – this very moment, and until it is done you are not at peace! It overwhelms and compels. You have to watch this. That is why you need to watch yourself – this compulsion, this compelling behaviour – and not allow yourself to be thus ruled by it, for it enslaves so totally. Being pathologically short-sighted is harmful to soul and life. And so societies are developed flawed at their core and the consequences are devastating: altering and corrupting the consciousness of the collective, affecting generations. Such societies and people can forever be decadently lost, with their moral fabric torn asunder, and no great objective and vision for the future except senseless and compassionless self-destructive consumption. Today’s human societies increasingly reflect this in their hell-bent hurry of greed to develop materially and fulfil each and every desire. The rule seems to be: if you want it you must have it by hook or by crook. Right or wrong, legit or illegit, licit or illicit, doesn’t matter. People even want things that they are not qualified for and do not have a right over, but they still want; there is no wisdom, it is pure impulse that rules – rather, if anything, clever and cunning intellect is used to manipulate and connive to procure. They will even take things belonging to someone else; they will use means, bribes, whatever, to get it done. All means are employed from manipulation to bribery, from cunning to connivance, lies to cheating to deception and even murder, but one must have it – and so it is! How can future societies and human civilization be founded on such abomination where justice is sacrificed on the altar of desire and greed in the guise of consumptive development based purely on endless desire? It is all interlinked in this way.

When you want something you want it desperately, that is the nature of desire – and because you want it that desperately, then to your mind it is right! That is how it is seen and understood. ‘Because I feel I want this then it must be right’: this is how it is seen. And you do not foresee the consequences, you become blind to them; even knowingly one blinds oneself. And if someone were to objectively put these things in front of you, the force of that impulse is so strong that you give it no importance and turn away from any such objective truth. This is how the mind has developed so far. If you want to have a more objective mind, then the old mind needs to be changed. And that is where all the resistance comes from, and the difficulties. Difficulty of the outside is of no consequence if you have no difficulty within, outside difficulty is easy to handle. If the outside does not affect the inside, you can handle any difficulty from outside. While on the other hand even if things in the outside are easy, easy environment, easy place, easy situation but you have difficulty inside, they too become difficult.

So, “God has sent wisdom with you”– the wisdom is there within you and it is your friend. Now, how does one come in contact with this wisdom? How can it come forward, be made to come forth in our lives, to give direction to our lives, light up our consciousness and life and, illumine our path? It is an urgency, a supreme urgency – for disaster is brewing round the corner in this life and world with a severe crisis of conscience and justice. Will you not seek the light in this increasing crisis of darkness? How can one lie low and carry on as usual when your life is burning and the looming horizon of catastrophe is nigh? How can you make this light and wisdom to manifest? If you stand behind as it were of the compulsions of the mind and observe, you learn to recognise the mind and its ways of working so that you start to recognise the feelings of the mind, the illusions created by the mind, the delusions created by the mind. Only then, when you become objective with yourself, with your desires, with all things, and delve deep into yourself, you begin to see things with clarity. Because wisdom is the very nature of our soul, and that is where the Master, Guru and the Guide leads you.

So (reading): ‘This unlawful playing of Wisdom and Desire is Avidyâ or Ignorance. And in course of time, as Mind experiences fears and anxieties…’

Nobody likes to live in fear; nobody likes to live in anxiety. But when you want something you do not know whether you will get, so you have fear and anxiety – ‘Will it happen, will it not, will I get it, will I not?’ This is the nature and content of your consciousness. On the flip side you may have hope, ‘maybe it will happen’ and then again the opposite thought, ‘maybe it will not happen!’ And so it can go on – a yo-yo of thoughts. Your mind is full and you have no peace. When you have this thought, ‘maybe it will not happen’ behind it there is anxiety and fear. On the other side, hope, which is a positive thing, ‘yes, it will happen’. So that keeps you going. But the anxiety and fear is also there. Where hope is, there is fear and anxiety also – because they both co-exist. It is all such a mixed-up consciousness!

So to be able to observe this – this whole sequence that happens through the everyday activity and living – and not to become them as soon as they appear, rather stand back inside, separating yourself from them and observing them, as we practice in our sitting meditation. Then you can become whatever you feel, but coming from a wisdom and a seeing, from an insight and objectivity, and a larger and wider being within that sees further and foresees the consequences and that has considered all the facts and factors. This is called progressive illumination, enlightenment. Then you will not be enslaved by your impulses. Rather, you will be a master of your action and situation. Otherwise you perpetuate ignorance and you continue to remain ignorant of your true being and self, and lifetime after lifetime you remain a slave to that ignorance. But for a seeker, the objective is to break out of the ignorance so that he or she may live and act out of the true being and self, from deeper within, out of wisdom, out of enlightenment. This will have to be progressively done. This is sadhana. I even go so far as to say you can live your desire also out of enlightenment – it would be right and appropriate because you will live an appropriate desire. You can see Krishna living his complete life, but he always establishes Dharma. Rama also lived his life. So we do not deny life – but we deny the ignorance behind the impulses, behind the workings of the mind, slavery to desire, and all that in life which is detrimental and a hurdle to sadhana and Divine manifestation.

(Reading): ‘And in course of time, as Mind experiences fears and anxieties through the five senses, he becomes much distracted or disturbed, and then turns back to his mother Wisdom and cries for help.’

So over a period of time, hopefully, having lived many lifetimes in this way, in case you reach a point when there is turbulence in life and a crisis starts to develop internally – which is what happened to Manandhar – then one seeks for wisdom, for guidance. One is then very fortunate if one finds the right Guide. Otherwise it is of no value if you feel no need for it. If liberation were to be given to you on a platter, like the tastiest of foods to one who is not hungry, it will not be appreciated, it will not be valued, it will be ignored, it will be of no worth! You see, it is only when you give food to the hungry that it is appreciated! If to one who is not hungry you give the best, the tastiest of food, it will have no value, it will be disregarded, even thrown away.

But if you were educated and nurtured from childhood to
develop your mind and culture of being for the spiritual wisdom, then it would be a living thing for you – a need, a hunger which you could not do without; like food for the body it would be food for your soul. And that was the tradition in India in the ancient gurukulas. Young children in ancient times were brought up in such gurukulas under the guidance of the Sage-Seer, Guru, the Ṛishi. And so even incarnations like Rama and Krishna went to one such. That is why in the Indian tradition, the Guru is the highest, even takes precedence before God, for without him it would be nigh impossible to safely and diligently journey your way Godward. The Guru is a self-realised man who has gone the whole journey, one who can guide you. Nowadays it has become a profession! It was never a profession. There are âchâryas, there are siddhas, and then there are Gurus. Âchâryas are teachers, not necessarily self-realised souls; they can teach various subjects, they can teach âsanas and whatever else of the many subjects available in the world. Siddhas are realised souls but may not necessarily guide. But a Guru is different. To find a Guru is rare. He has the sanction to guide. If you are earnest, if you seek from your heart, you will find one. But then you must completely commit to Him and be guided – however long and difficult. So long as you are comfortable in life you seek nothing more. It is only when you become uncomfortable with life that you start to look for something else, something more.

(Reading): ‘Wisdom then comes and consults YOU, meaning Soul, who then tells her to renounce her family and to remain in communion with YOU or Soul. This communion with Soul, is what we call Realisation or Bodha.’

Then you want to give up all those things that you found comfort in and find something more than what you have lived. Something awakens internally. This is how Shivapuri Baba was explaining to Manandhar. But if you already have been brought up and educated accordingly and properly, if you already have an environment which gives you the opportunity to develop true wisdom, then you do not even have to go through turmoil. And that is why the ancient system of education in India was so based. There were the four âúramas, wherein from childhood one developed in such a way and grew and founded one’s life spiritually. Therefore the mind was developed so as to discriminate right from wrong, true from false, the real from the unreal, light from darkness, the relative from the absolute, and to evaluate true values. Then you did not have to wait for the moment of crisis and turmoil to awaken you to seek something more from life, for you already knew. This besides the momentous spontaneous awakening of the inner restlessness, when the inner calling and longing happen to one, as it did to the great Buddha.

And life is a freedom song. You can live life free: you act from a freedom, not enslaved by the impulses. The impulses exist, the desires exist, but they do not enslave you! You are a master of them not a slave. You can pick and choose at will, without compulsion – that kind of freedom! There is external freedom, there is internal freedom: external freedom to do whatever you like in the world outside. Relatively speaking if you have money, if you have power, you have the freedom to do as you please, license really. You can buy things, you can buy people too and with power and position enforce your will, even abuse and exploit. Today you can buy people with money, even make people who get in your way disappear. This is where the human society has descended to now. Human beings like everything else have a price. Rich people do that – they manipulate, influence and buy governments, buy nations to suit their nefarious profiteering. The wealthy and powerful lord over the poor, people and nations. Situations in South America, Africa and Asia are examples of such anarchic exercise of freedom by the rich and powerful people, corporate conglomerates and nations! So if you have wealth, if you are in a position of power, then you can easily control not just situations but people too, to suit your ‘licentious freedom’, to do as you please, without conscience, without accountability. This is mostly the situation in the world presently.

But internal freedom is a different thing: freedom from one’s own ignorant petty self, not enslaved to its whims and fancies, compulsions and shenanigans, its illusions and delusions, conceits and limitations, distortions and perversions, and an opening out into a larger, wider and illumined self. And that has always been given the highest position, because the external so-called freedom will change, it being relative, dependent on external circumstances, and our skill and capacity to deal with them. Ultimately even the emperor of the entire world will die one day and become a pauper, nay will become a mere corpse. So all that he had accumulated, all that he had enjoyed, all the power that he had exercised will disappear. And the pain before separation will be so much more then, because he is leaving it all and going away permanently, going not knowing where, – his relatives, his kingdom, his dominance – he suddenly feels the futility of it all as he starts to age and he loses his happiness. ‘Oh, I am going to go one day. I am getting old, I am going to retire and I am going to die.’ Because the internal freedom is not there.

That is why the Buddha says one who has mastered himself is superior to one who has mastered the entire world, even though he may be walking barefoot on the street, the true Maharaj. And such a one is qualified even to rule the world! You see Krishna, you see Rama, you see Janaka – they were kings, who lived their life to the fullest and nobly, but they were free internally. So to be able to be free internally and then to live your actions, that is how we work here. And that is what is written on the blackboard for today: to discover yourself as being and consciousness and the contents of the consciousness. What are the contents of that consciousness? When you act, when you interact, when you relate – what comes up in you? This is the way to recognise what you have in you and what can come up in you. And then whether to give in or not, sanction it or not!

In the Gîtâ, Krishna defines the soul, self and spirit as, “Upadṛishṭânumantâ cha bhartâ bhoktâ Maheœwaraḥ.”³ Upadṛishṭâ means ‘witness and observer’. And that is what you need to do: find the witness in your meditation and even when you act. Anumantâ – anumantâ means ‘one who sanctions’. If you watch the process of expression, behaviour and your actions and even when you sit, this aspect is clear. In your actions it becomes more visible, only of course if you take time to consider. But it happens so unconsciously, you never notice. However you do speak in that way, ‘I will do that,’ or ‘I can do this,’ or ‘I will not do this, I cannot do this.’ It means there is a sanctioner in you. You are that sanctioner, the decider. Except that it is mostly bound to the compulsions that the outside and the inner workings of nature and personality place upon you.

And you have an upadṛishṭâ – one who observes: you can watch your own thoughts. There is an observer. Just as you can observe the outside workings of the world, so also you can observe the inner workings of the mind and being. That is the upadṛishṭâ, the witness, the observer. Now that same entity is also the sanctioner. There are various aspects to the same entity – witness is one, sanctioner is another, whence you decide. You have a free will, you decide, relatively speaking: I will do this or I will not do this; I will go there or I will not go there. Whether the sanction be right or wrong is another matter. You agree to it or you do not agree depending on your understanding of things and situations, self-profit or loss. In a lighter vein, if married, even if it is your wife who is making the decision you still have to agree! Usually the husband has to agree to the wife otherwise there may be no peace! But you still have to agree, whatever the compulsions! That is the situation in marriages commonly, or so the men say – the husband has to always agree with the wife. Even the puranic gods do so supposedly as per the Purâṇa! The wife is the sanctioner! But still, even in that situation the husband has to agree to it, meaning sanction to agree to it. Whether from a compulsion or not – that is another matter! You have the seeming freedom to disagree if you so decide, of course it may be to the detriment of your peace. Whether you may manage to exercise that power or seeming freedom is another matter – because of the dominating situation or person outside or inner weakness, right or wrong! This one must learn to see.

In Indian society this is very much present: ‘What will this person think? What will the neighbours say?’ They govern your life. Right or wrong is another matter and is not considered. And you agree to conform because you do not want to rock the boat or you do not want to be seen as controversial, at least openly, for you will become the butt of criticism and ridicule and that would be uncomfortable to you, and not necessarily because it is the right thing to do. They will then gossip and say all kinds of things, for this is how society is organised. That is why if you need to do the right thing you will have to break this hold. You will have to rebel against such stupidity to do the right thing. But you should know when to rebel, where to rebel, how to rebel. People from a certain ashram rebel all the time for their convenience… even when they are supposed to agree they rebel if it does not suit their convenience. They made a religion out of it. And then there are some people with no backbone who agree all the time, just to be considered ‘goody’ by the others because it is convenient and comfortable – and they made a religion out of that too! And some people agree when they feel like and rebel when they feel like. They have made a religion of that too! There are so many religions and they all seem to be for one’s convenience, not for what is true and right. Of course one must know what is true. At least it must be a sincere search for progression towards the true, and increasingly so, if not immediately so.

If you watch yourself you will observe how you react, how you make a decision, why you act now not later, why you act in one way and not another. And the more you find out, the more you recognise the nature of things and the Truth, the freer you become inside, the braver and more courageous you become. Not the kind of thing where people react on blind impulse. Fine, in that you can be very courageous but not foolish surely. A lot of times you react without thinking much: you have not considered all the factors and you make mistakes. Hopefully you learn from your mistakes and therefore grow wiser, but many keep repeating mistakes and it becomes habitual and a personality formation finally difficult to alter.

So it is good to respond – I say ‘respond’ instead of ‘react’. ‘Respond’ means you are also responsible. You have understood that, then you respond. You react to something but you are also responsible for your reaction. And that means you have looked into yourself, where you are coming from, what is the motive behind your response: whether there is a like, whether there is a dislike. Is it justified, is it not justified? Is it an illuminated, enlightened response – or is it a compulsive reaction? Sometimes it may be that, sometimes it may not be. So that is why Buddha talks about ‘right action’. And from the Vedic times they always talked about the ‘right life’. If everybody is living the right life or consciously endeavouring progressively to do so there will be harmony all-round in society, in the collective, in the samâj.

There is conflict when there are illusions and delusions, ideas and concepts, followed blindly without understanding. So the opportunity is given to you. One may make mistakes but that is fine, that is life – learn from it and keep moving on! That is how sadhana is; it is an ongoing thing. One may have not understood something and therefore may not do something right. But when one sees and recognises then you have understood and you do the right thing. It is an easy journey if you are committed to the right thing, if you are sincere, if you have integrity; then the journey is quick, your progress is quick.

Just to deviate a little bit, there was an amazing catastrophe that happened in Guatemala yesterday – in their main city, I think. Suddenly a big hole appeared in the middle of the city. This is the time now in creation when many of these events will happen. This is not the last of it; there will be many things like this happening, catastrophes – natural and man-made. That is why Shivapuri Baba says, ‘Do your sadhana. Give that the importance. Because the times will be very difficult, very bad: much devastation and destruction. Almost everything will be destroyed, something will remain to carry on into the future.’ It is rapidly happening. Much will happen in our lifetime. I mean it is already happening, you can see with all these earthquakes and sinkholes appearing. Not only sinkholes, all kinds of things, unrest, intolerance, conflicts, disasters, even wars – it is going to rapidly reach to that – becoming difficult to exist, to live. Life and human societies may seem comfortable but things are rapidly happening around the world indicative of the ominous. A lot of instability is developing both on the environmental and the human front. There is a lot of discontent coming up – in the individual and in the collective consciousness. That is why you require to do much internal work, because everybody will be affected in the consciousness. The effect is going to be collective. Everyone will be affected. You know, the external you can still avoid but in the consciousness of the individual and the collective itself changes are happening. That is exactly why I keep talking about these things. Again, as always, I give the example of a huge raging fire in the forest: not only is all the dry grass and timber consumed but even so the green – and that which survives is singed, scorched and scalded. So it will be for life here upon this earth. You must learn to become free of the preoccupations of your mind and arrive at a quietness within from where you can recognise what is happening in your consciousness and the collective. That is why sadhana becomes imperative, inner work becomes imperative.

As you see in the world now there is a lot of aggression becoming manifest, a lot of discontent and dissatisfaction. Everything is unstable, in the consciousness within and therefore also externally – you can see. The earth and life on it is going through great change. It is a period of great turmoil in creation because human beings with their destructive consciousness and their endless nefarious demands have increased to such a level that if they continue in this manner it will all be finished completely, unless things are reversed. The planet and life will not survive the outcome. So it is as if there is a natural process inherent in creation where systematic destruction is inevitable at certain periods of its existence because of the ignorance present in the life consciousness. That is why in the Indian tradition they accept the three phases to existence, individual and collective – sṛishṭi: creation and birth; sthiti: preservation and life; and then saṃhâra and laya: destruction, death and dissolution. This will not be the complete dissolution, end of the world, so to speak: when the complete one happens everything is completely dissolved. But before that there are other partial dissolutions, from small ones to large ones, where a lot of destruction happens. Because on the planet now there is such a terrible burden, time is nigh that much destruction has to happen. This even Shivapuri Baba had confirmed.

It is innate in nature, it is intrinsic in nature for this to happen and as is obvious with much help from the human species because of greed; it is so within the manifest universal consciousness of which the human is a crucial part. There will be a lot of destruction – natural and also human-induced – because of the type of consciousness. Many will not survive this period of holocaust. As I have said numerous times, when there is a raging fire in the forest, the dry grass will definitely be engulfed but even the green grass will be consumed and that which survives will be singed, scorched and scalded. There is too much load on the planet. There is an unsustainable exploitation of earth’s resources and destruction of the environment, besides great aggression in the human against each other and all other life; much greed and wastefulness; an extremely wasteful and consumptive life-existence. Nothing is respected, nothing is sacred, in the aggressive booted march of the human species for self-gratification. If only the humans were living a sustainable, simple life, respecting the bounty of the earth! Look at the kind of lifestyle human beings are living in modern times, in continuance of their demands – the kind of carbon footprint they leave as they stomp all over Mother Earth; how much of her resources are being exploited and exhausted, and rapidly, in their frenzy to get rich by hook or by crook. It is all very unsustainable.

Americans comprise only four per cent of humanity but are using up about half the planet! Now there is the remaining ninety-six per cent of humanity and they all want to have the same lifestyle as America, in having a piece of the pie, a larger one preferably – India, China, and Brazil included – and are competing and vying with each other to do so. The political leaders of every country are encouraging this kind of unsustainable, destructive, demonical development. It is not the right model of development, it is all about consumption. There is nothing humane, leave alone spiritual about it. It is all materialistic existence. There is nothing of giving back, it is all just taking – no sustainability. It is all motivated by greed. Haphazard living – chapalatâ, as Shivapuri Baba says – reckless, wrecking, restless living. Consequences of actions are completely ignored in this mad rush to get one’s hands on the pie, the larger the better – whether anything will remain at the end of it is not to be considered. In this mad rush responsibility and accountability is an altogether unknown entity.

If four per cent of humanity eats up, consumes, half the planet then taking just India and China who together are about thirty-three per cent of humanity we would require more than four planets. Over two billion of just Indians and Chinese are about one third of humanity and increasing. Now if four per cent is using up half the planet’s resources then those others in the rest of the world who are also seeking – and it seems to be everyone – to imitate and live the American dream, the number of planets required should be an easy guess for anyone with average intelligence. It is not possible for humans to continue in this way with their exploitative wasteful frenzy and have life survive. And these are only two countries in imitation of the American dream. Then you have Australia, Japan, Canada, Brazil, the Far East and Africa – besides so many other nations. How rapidly the planet is being eaten up, consumed and mutilated! But nobody is giving it a committed and serious thought in their mad rush to enrich themselves.

Since global warming the monsoons are not happening properly: everybody is being touched now – singed and scorched. Everybody will be singed. Everybody will be scorched. Even those who have lived rightly, they will also feel the ‘heat’, pun intended, of what is and what is coming. Now for example, there used to be no mosquitoes here, now mosquitoes have started to come. Why is this change happening? Because of global warming and climate change perpetrated by the type of material development that is unsustainable, greed-oriented and environment-unfriendly. You yourself may have lived well and rightly, in harmony with the environment, and not have a hand in such development, but still, now you have to suffer the mosquitoes. It is the proverbial blazing fire in the forest that will affect everyone. And there are many who are perpetuating this greed: politicians and their contractor nexus with their large, larger the better, ‘profit-making’ projects, and mafias and sharks of all types. Everyone is in on the loot or craving for such development to get rich quick without accountability and responsibility. It is going to get worse very rapidly. It is causing a lot of instability, discord, discontent too, which will lead to strife and crimes and even war.

In India as an example, the Maoist uprising has grave implications, fuelled by the activities of multinational companies and contractors in cahoots with conniving officials and policymakers who want to take away the land of the tribals for the resources they contain, all in the name of development. Discontent – because the politicians decide how you should live. They do not want the tribals to live as they have been living, in harmony, sacredness and even worship with their environment. So they forcefully and through manipulation want to take away their rights under the guise of doing ‘public good’ because they are sitting on land which has a lot of mining potential that can be turned into wealth, for the ‘greater good’ supposedly. Obviously the greater good does not include the tribals, except in the form of a one-time petty handout, devoid of every self-dignity, that they who have lived there for generations had, but includes most importantly nay even exclusively most times the nexus of politicians, administration, contractors and corporates. There is the mafia nexus of contractor-politician, land developer and builder, company corporates and their lobbyists that rule the roost and loot. It is causing discontent. People are agitating and taking up arms worldwide.

Because of greed it is not a holistic, harmonious lifestyle. In this kind of greed-motivated manipulative development the few and powerful keep getting obscenely rich while most are disenfranchised, disempowered and discontented and have no say over their lives and environment. The tribals like everyone else need proper education, they need healthcare and the freedom to choose their way of life. That should be provided for them. But the companies want to shift them from their land and start mining. Tribals do not even know their land and rights are being sold. Already contracts, MOUs⁴ have been signed and it is only when the bulldozers arrive that they come to know. Dams are built without the EIA⁵, or with cut and paste jobs without any proper research and study. They are mere eyewash. Inaugurations of projects are done even before the environmental study and EIAs are done as if they are fait accompli. Can you imagine? They are fooling the people like this. Then they use hoodlums even in the form of officials to browbeat, threaten and arm-twist to comply. They even slap false cases against those who dissent, all in the name of public good. Which public, you wonder? Obviously the rich and powerful. Where is justice in such development? It is by hook or by crook that it is mostly done. This becomes fertile ground for discontent, dissent and conflict – even instigating violence which then affects the whole nation and its people. And it is the poor and disempowered who mostly suffer while the rich and the powerful, the culprits, live cosy with security. It is a development model of commissions and projects being passed with corruption as their mainstay and not compassion and true welfare of the people and environment. All the governments think of is the GDP growth and not the destruction that ensues in the environment and the social fabric of the nation and its people. That is left to the sycophant soothsayers of officialdom to manipulate and black out or whitewash through their clever juggling of figures, facts and reports, all done with an eye on promotions. What will be the consequences of such shenanigans should be obvious, but the arrogance of those in power not just fails to foresee, but brushes aside in the madness of drunken power! Where is justice and where is goodness and true welfare and a life of harmony with all living beings and the environment? The greed of the homo sapiens is destroying the planet and causing unrest everywhere. This cannot continue and life survive. Apocalypse you may say is at hand. Much will be destroyed. Much will be burned down in this raging fire of karmic consequence.

All this because humans are not managing to rein in their illegitimate and nefarious desires and greed – that kind of
existence! The compulsions of desire, greed, motivations without check – no dharma. No doing the right thing. No virtue. The value-system has been eroded. Avaguṇa, lack of virtue predominates. Today it is all for profit: all our relationships, with each other, with other life forms, with the environment, with the planet; if it is profitable it is right, values and consequences set aside and ignored. So everybody is becoming a ‘bania’⁶, business-minded, profit-mongering and selfish without honest restraint. A craven society without conscience, with no end to its cravings which is what fuels the market and economies and makes nations run, not noble justice and fair-mindedness. A godless, soulless and arrogant living if ever there was one. It is said that in kaliyuga there will only be úûdras and vaiœyas, not by birth but by guṇa: quality and characteristics, and by karma: works. The Gîtâ does not talk about the varṇa system as being of birth but by character, trait and works. It talks about guṇa and karma, not birth. So you may be born in priesthood or so-called higher castes but actually that is all discounted, rather your character, behaviour and works is what decides who you are. By action, by behaviour is the nomenclature, and not by birth, and so it is said that in kaliyuga most people will only be vaiœyas, business-minded profit mongers, and úûdras, gross-minded. Úûdra means gross-minded, vaiœya means profiteer – those who do not have the intellect to discriminate; those of low virtue compelled by their lower nature to do things because of greed and profit. So leave alone a higher dharma, there will be no dharma: adharma will prevail. In the Œrîmad Bhâgawat they give the example of the proverbial cow representing dharma which in satyuga had all four legs. Now with the advent of kaliyuga, three legs are completely broken – and the fourth one is also on the way to breaking – increasingly so. And everybody thinks good is being done, humankind is progressing and advancing and they are doing dharma! This is the delusion. Where is justice? Where is compassion? Where the noble values? Where humanity, leave alone divinity? It is mostly an increasing selfishness and arrogance, violence and unforgivingness, rampant corruption, manipulation, treachery, inequality, fraud and falsehood, with Truth taking a beating everywhere. The only objective seems to be to become wealthy and powerful by hook or by crook, with no accountability.

And that is why those should survive who are working to further dharma, good, on this planet. And hopefully they will survive and not the others. Because otherwise this kind of degeneration will repeat. If the new order has to come, then people who have vision, who are far-sighted, who have a conscience, who have a sense of justice, who are masters of themselves, people who appreciate dharma, who are responsible to dharma, should survive. Then again the planet and life here will flourish. Otherwise now everything is being eaten up, consumed – everything – no values, no virtues, no guṇa, rather only avaguṇa.

So if you ask most Americans as also others in that copycat mould to change their lifestyle, they will not, because they have developed their personality which is used to wasteful living. They know no other way of living. Their development of material living and of their consciousness and mind has been such and functions accordingly. They do not see any better. They will say, ‘Why should we?’ But they want the others to change, in a sense they want others who are just beginning their material development journey not to have the same ‘privilege’ of wastefulness! That is the message the materially developed nations seemed to give in the Copenhagen global meet on the issue of climate change, absolving themselves of any accountability and responsibility for their part in it. ‘We will carry on living as we have been living because we cannot change – you change.’ So the rich countries do not want to take responsibility for the way they went about their development to get rich quickly. This is human nature – petty and narrow, self-centred, destructive human nature. It is another matter that economies of these nations are taking a downturn because it cannot be sustainable.

To be centred in the self is one thing, to be self-centred is something else! To be self-centred in what kind of self would be the moot question. In meditation we always centre ourselves in the self within – but that is different from these people who are self-centred in their petty and ignorant destructive selves! Yoga is to live in harmony in yourself, with yourself, with all else. That is why in the morning at the beginning of the day we apply and work with ourselves to bring this into our mind when we do the âsanas, sûryamudrâ and meditation: ‘Feel one with all beings and things, open yourself out to embrace all.’ Start to feel, empathise, with the birds, the trees, the mountains, the streams, the rivers, besides others of the same species – give them a thought too. When you act, what is the effect of your actions on them? What kind of effect is your lifestyle and living having on them and the environment? When you are deciding on a project, what is the effect on the environment, on the samâj, on society, on justice for all life, on high culture, on creation – everything? This is how a yogi thinks or one who is on the path of Yoga.

Yoga is all life. Yoga is every thought, every impulse, every feeling, every moment – these are looked at, recognised for what they are, accepted or discarded – and an increasing reaching, connecting, elevating oneself to divinity. This is the objective of Yoga. It is a continuous process.

(After a pause)

So even little things should be done well. Yoga does not differentiate in the kind of work you do. It differentiates only in how you go about it and with what motivation, with what objective, whether for the noblest and the highest. So one should be able to do any work with the right attitude and with the highest objective. The higher you keep your objective, the higher you will go – it is simple. This needs to be practiced. That is how we work here in all that we do. It is our training ground, it is our sadhana. This place gives us the opportunity to do so. You may not look at it as your work, rather differentiate and discriminate as you ordinarily do between your work and others’ work, favouring one’s own works and seeing the other as ‘Ashram work’ and therefore ‘other’ – but it is yours in truth. If you consider the Ashram to be yours then it is yours and besides that it is truly yours in the Truth of what is, but is yet not seen because of the divisive and limited nature of your mind and consciousness. That is the Truth! This Ashram is a place for you to develop yourself to the utmost progression divineward in every way. If you consider this place to be your home, then it is. If you do not, no place is your home, for all homes of physical nature are impermanent! It is all up to you – wherever you may be. It is in the attitude.

(After a pause)

Today, for the sake of quick profit people are lying and cheating. And so they perpetuate a bad environment because human consciousness at the moment is deeply entrenched in ignorance – and the governments perpetuate that, profiting from it themselves. They see economic growth as the answer to all human progress, a cure for all ills of human existence, and the only objective of a successful life: they do not see the Truth, they do not see the Reality, existence and life to be so much more. As Christ puts it succinctly: “One is more than food and raiment.” And a seeker and a sadhak is supposed to be constantly introspecting and looking into himself and herself. Look at every thought, look at every feeling, emotion, look at every impulse, look at every act – what are its consequences? Where is it coming from? Is it justified? You have to give it a lot of thought, a lot of inspection, introspection, a lot of self-criticism.

Ordinarily we are always critical of the other. We are always criticising the other, how many really criticise themselves? We always believe and act as if we are always right – it is always the other one who is wrong! Whereas the seeker is always inspecting himself and herself. Maybe this thought that has appeared, maybe this feeling, maybe this impulse, this desire that has appeared is inappropriate? Find out! So one must be looking within even while working, if one is reacting. If one is happy, why is one happy? Look at the source of that happiness. And if you are unhappy, look at the cause of that unhappiness. And look whether that cause or the belief is valid, justified or otherwise.

Like a child: when a child wants something, or wants to do something, or wants to have something that is not good for it, the parent refuses and the child reacts. (Laughingly) Everybody is mostly like that, childish, especially in today’s times! The child of course has only to do with toys and things that are mostly harmless. But grown-ups get into really harmful things in the same way. And then if they are made to look at it they do not want to because the compulsion is so strong. They do not have the correct perspective on the objective of life. That is why in the gurukulas of the past, through the education, through the upbringing, the children developed the right attitudes, behaviours, saṃskâras, culture, awareness and consciousness. Through their education and developed culture they knew what the true way of living and objective of life was. So the parent refuses the child, even beats the child if the child gets upset or throws a tantrum. The seekers and disciples are the same – (laughing) they also throw tantrums! That is why the Guru keeps something like this fly-swatter close by – to beat them up! It has a double action: it swats flies and beats disciples whenever they go a little wayward!

Arya Vihar

3 Jun 2010