1. SA76- 13 Gururaj: In this lovely fine morning who shall start me up with questions? Public: Bapuji, can I ask, it’s the perennial question about will – umm -- this thought occurs, as one develops that the power of will and the power of achieving ends is going to increase. Now some people actually through mind, through training their minds exercising their minds develop the power of will. What I wanted to know, is it necessary we go detaching to exert the will? Is – if god is going to supply if one leads merely – if one leads a harmonious life. Is it actually necessary to put one’s mind out and say this will happen, this will happen, the other will happen because if will – if one's mind is true? Gururaj: Now what we have to examine as far as will is concerned is that there are two kinds of will, man's will and divine will and the purpose of man's will will always be to be in conformity and work in harmony with divine will. Now how to know divine will? How to know what patterns our set for us and how those patterns are to be carried out and what can man with his small will which is of course naturally mixed with this ego, what can man with his small will do, how can he do it, why should he do it and if he should do it, would it be of any benefit to him and his environment. Now these are all the questions that have to be considered when we speak of will. Now the kind of will that you speak about is the will that a man exercises for achieving something. Now will can be developed by the concentration of one's mental and physical energies, they are practices whereby we can develop that strength through which we can make our thoughts more powerful. Now to make one's thoughts more powerful can be a good thing and it could be a bad thing. Bad in the sense that some people that do not have good intentions might use the same power, might use the same power to achieve selfish ends while a person whose mind is purified and also has the strength of thought, power of thought, such a person will use that same power through his will. Now when we say will, you must remember that will is only a channelling. Will is only a channelling of the forces that are within man. So will could be regarded to be the banks of a river that guides the water flowing, that is all what will is. Will is not some separate entity that we have within ourselves or for a special portion of the brain or the mind that we can categorise and say this is will. Will is generally the banks of the river that guides all the thought forces and the energies within us to proceed on our paths to the ocean, fine. Now to find the methods, to find the ways and means of strengthening those thoughts as will and to direct them there are certain practices but in those practices, the guru always has to be very careful that has this person now develop sufficiently enough to be given those practices to strengthen his thought power. Has he developed sufficiently enough in purity and in moral values, ethical values so that when he gains this power, he could use it for benefit because this power can be achieved by anyone in a very short time, few months, four months, five months, six months. Everyone can develop

2. SA76- 13 that powerful thought force that could be sent forth, but as I said, in the wrong hands it could be dangerous. This little story which I told someone during this week, a chela went to a guru, the chela wanted to develop a certain power, a certain city. The guru kept on refusing him, saying that this power is no good for you, but this chela was persistent and at last in desperation, the guru says, “Okay, come tomorrow at 2:00 o’clock and I will show you the secret of how to gain this power.” Good. The chela come for the appointed time and gurus, real gurus have to be truthful, otherwise they are not gurus. He promised the man I will teach you the secret and he has to teach it truthfully. So this man was taught the secret of the power that he sought. But then after teaching him that, he said – the guru said that every time you sit down to do this practice, do not think of a monkey, that's all and do your practice. Now what happened was this (laughs) – now what happened was this that every time this man sat down to do this practice, the thought of monkey would be there (laughs) true and he couldn’t acquire this power. What the guru did there that truthfully – very truthfully he gave the proper practice and at the same time he gave a stop to prevent him from acquiring that power. So therefore the mind can be developed by anyone, mind power can be had, but to whom must it be given? That is important. When it comes to the question to whom mind power has to be given, there depends the judgement of the person helping to gain the mind power, helping the chela to gain the mind power, great discretion has to be exercised, great discretion, because that very same power can be misused, as I’ve said over and over again. Now what are the qualifications of the chela for him to acquire this mind about? The qualification is this that the chela must be sufficiently pure so that he could use that will or will power, if you want to call it that, use that willpower so that it works in harmony with divine power. Every pow er existent on earth is divine, every power existent on earth is divine but we use the same power through our little egos that are conditioned by our minds and use them wrongly. Its like giving a knife to a teddy boy who will just go and kill someone while the same knife in the hands of a skilled surgeon will save someone's life. So when we develop the inner purity within us and – and straightforwardness, goodness of thought and love for humanity and all existence, then you will know that the power generated through your mind, through your will will always be used in good will which is divine. Now we have to progress in our paths to purify our minds so that that power can flow through goodly and godly. So the power can flow through goodly and godly and how do we achieve that? We achieve that by doing our practices and each and every meditator will know that as they advance in their practices, as their hearts opened through the practices, as their minds attain a finer quality, then more and more power is automatically given to them. There are commercial institutions in the world and I believe some branches in South Africa too that teaches how to develop the mind and have mind power. Come and pay a 150 Rand fees and in four days you'd be given the secret. That is happening. Which could be very – very dangerous. When the splitting of the atom was discovered, we did not think that millions of people will be blown up in Hiroshima. Misuse of power, misuse of the signs – the signs of the mind, misuse. Misuse of mind power. Mind is so vast,

3. SA76- 13 as we always say. It is as vast as the entire universe and if it is as vast as the entire universe, all the powers of the universe can be channelled through it. Now these are the possibilities each and every one of us have but to use those possibilities, to develop to those possibilities, it is essential to develop that purity – to develop that purity. If we pour clean wate r through a dirty sink, the water will come outside on the other side stinking and dirty. That beautiful pure water must be poured through a clean sink or clean filter, whatever you call it, must be clean, then it has value, then life is well lived, then life is really dynamic because divine will is so now infused in man's will and man's will then becomes divine will. No separation is left, a oneness is developed where man and god becomes one, small will and the big will becomes one and then there is only good will. Okay? (Laughs) fine. Next? Public: Guruji, in this willpower, in order to discipline yourself to get down to meditation, you got to use your willpower, because no willpower will achieve nothing Gururaj: True, very true. Public: That is the same willpower isn’t it? Gururaj: True, same willpower. Now meditation as we know is effortless, but in the waking state of life, there has to be some effort. If someone comes to tell you that 20 minutes or half an hour meditation in the morning and likewise in the evening will change everything, that cannot be taken for granted, that cannot be taken for granted and if it is so, it would be a process of a few million years, we want the results now. We do know that meditation gives us that added energy, it gi ves us that added subtleness, it makes us dive deeper within ourselves to draw from ourselves a more powerful, subtler power, we know all that that can happen, but the drawing of that subtle power will take millions of years to find complete fulfilment. So what we do to expiate the matters is to use the same subtle powers that we gain through our meditation and use them in our daily life so that all activity of daily life is bettered, it is no sense a man meditating in the morning and the evening and then the whole day though. He would not use his will, his little will to control his life, to control his base self because in man there is three aspects, you have the devil, you have the man and the god. To put it in theological terms, because man has the combination of animalism in him, manliness in him and godliness in him. Man is a combination of the three.

4. SA76- 13 Now the quality of man's life is judged by which quality or which aspect predominates. How many people don’t we see in the world that have really abused this beautiful human existence, they live entirely like animals, their lives are completely based on animal instincts and sensuality. Right. So will is required. Our own little wills are required to curb us, to curb us and not act in a manner which is not worthy of man. If a tiger kills a man, it is the nature of the tiger to kill but if man kills man, it is not the nature of man to kill. What man is doing there in this act is that he is displaying his animal nature. Now why do we have animal nature in us? Why do we have god nature in us? Why can't we just have man nature? It is because from the primal spark when man became an individual spirit, he had to progress through evolutionary processes, through all those kingdoms, mineral, plant, animal and then man . So in his mind the memories of the animal kingdom is still stored, it is there. It is there and it will always be there until he has reached enlightenment. The complete memory would always be there, but on reaching enlightenment, he divorces himself from those memories. Now the memories of the animal life that we have in ourselves is not bad, that memory is not bad because when we were animals, we behaved like animals and it is quite natural for an animal to behave like an animal, it is only bad when man behaves like an animal because there is no living one’s true self, there is no progression, there is reprogression. So when it comes to meditation as the questioner asked, people lived such a hectic life, they are so rushed of their feet all the time, million and one things to do, they have to exercise some little will to sit down to meditate. In the beginning – in the beginning they have to exercise some little will knowing that this is good for me, I will benefit by it. I put petrol and I rushed to the garage to put petrol in the car because I know the garage is closing and I will be needing the car tomorrow. So we put petrol in our systems that energy by meditation we gain in our systems because we know we have to use those energies tomorrow. So in the beginning, people – because it is new to them, people’s lives are lived in a pattern, in a mode which they themselves have created. So people live on a certain routine. Now to add on something else to that routine, one has to exercise a certain amount of co nscious effort, but now by exercising that conscious effort for a little while, two weeks, three weeks, one month, that too becomes part of the pattern then and then by finding that beauty in meditation, we would look forward to meditation. Then no effort of will would be required to meditate, to sit down to meditate. It will come naturally. It will come naturally as hunger comes naturally, as thirst comes naturally, as all other needs of mind or body come naturally. So too our aspirations to go deeper within ourselves would also come naturally. So that is what we aim for. We aim for the spontaneity of life, the spontaneousness of life so that everything in life, everything we do, everything we say is just but a natural flow and through our meditations we know that mind, body and spirit are so well combined, they flow together. They flow together. Even the carburettor of a motor car cannot function with petrol only. It has to have the right mixture of air as well. So then only there's a natural flow. We got to use our minds and bodies

5. SA76- 13 consciously in the beginning yes, to sit down to meditate and that natural flow within the spirit by mind and body will be so spontaneously created and greater and greater and greater joy is felt. Greater and greater joy is felt. Now it works in a beautiful circle. The more joy you feel, the more you want to meditate. The more you meditate, the more joy you feel. So that is how we become regular in our practices and regularity is the most important thing in everything else. I never stop repeating this to anyone, be regular, be regular. So in the beginning, a little conscious effort is required to make up your minds and look I must meditate tonight or this morning and then after that it becomes part and parcel of ourselves. This is drinking water and eating food becomes part and parcel of ourselves, then meditation too becomes part and parcel of our daily living for better living, improved living and living real life and as we said last time, the – the way to live life is the combination of life, love and laughter. Okay? (Laughs) Good. Fine. Public: Somebody uses < 0:21:18.5 > isn’t there a tendency for a psychic backlash against that person? Gururaj: Oh yes, oh yes. If a person uses his will power, his strengthened will by whichever means he has gained it, if a person uses that willpower for evil purposes, there would be a backlash because here as we have discussed on many occasions the law of karma, the law of retribution, the law of action. If you plant onions, only onions can grow and not potatoes. So therefore, one has to be very careful and those miserable beings that used, that have acquired a little ability to use their minds powerfully and if it is used unwisely, then they suffer very much for it. They would be creating a debt not only to society, but to themselves and that debt has to be repaid, there is nothing for nothing. One cannot escape, one can escape the whole world, one can escape anything, but one can never escape from one's self and that is where – that is where the conscious effort of directing one’s life is required. Ancient sages have said over and over again that the conscious effort of living, of trying in the beginning, trying to live a better life is very – very important and by doing that, our meditations also become better and by the meditations becoming better, the conscious life, the waking life becomes more and more better, but the two form part and parcel of the whole. We cannot say that I do meditation only an everything is fine. It has its effect, it has a little effect, but not as much as we want it. Not as much as we want it, it might send off a few rough corners, but that's about all. We want the whole plain of life to be sanded and cleaned and beautiful and sparkling , really polished. So life is the school where we polish ourselves, where we polish ourselves, where we clean our minds and bodies so that to allow that divine spark within us, divine spirit within us to flow and flow to greater and greater glory and that is what we mean when we say the glory of god, that is the glory, that is the glory. Otherwise we live life in blasphemy, yes. So we do direct our self consciously to better ourselves. It is our own benefit, no one else's. We benefit more by our living a better life, we are benefiting ourselves more than anything else. The benefit to society is only a side effect

6. SA76- 13 because no one can evolve another person. One has to evolve and find enlightenment oneself. The guides are there and they're always prepared to help and guide of course. Good, right, fine. Next? Public: Guruji, -- umm—last week you mentioned that – that – there will be a tendency for a couple to incarnate again and <0:25:06.6> their relationship being fulfilled. What actually is the alternate goal of their – of a relationship between two people? Can that be a spiritual path mixed up? Gururaj: The -- the ultimate goal of the relationship of man and woman, the ultimate goal is not only a spiritual path, but it is the end and aim of all spirituality. We that are householders find that nirvana, if you wish to use that term or find enlightenment, through our married lives, therefore we are householders. Now what happens is this that through man or a woman directing one pointedly, all their energies to the beloved, then that direction being one pointed has a piercing effect, it pierces not only the man's outward body or his mental body, but it also pierces and becomes one and gets in touch with the spiritual side of the man and likewise vice versa for the woman. So here in that unity, in that unity that is created of mind, body and spirit, between man and woman, the creation of unity itself is spirituality. The creation of unity itself is spiritual value being lived in practical life. That is the purpose. So to find self realisation, loving one's wife or loving one's husband is also a way, it is also a way and the finest way for a person living a householder's life. It is a good way, but of course the necessary conditions would be honesty and sincerity. Now if honesty and sincerity were not there, then the spiritual self of each other could never be touched, that would be the stumbling block. That would be the iron wall because what does a woman see in the man she loves? If she sees only the body, then that is not love, or very partial love. If she sees only his brilliant brain, that too is very partial love but when she sees in him the divinity, that divine spirit, then that is complete love. When she sees in him the divinity, the divine spirit, then she draws on the divine spirit of the man to herself and in return she gives him her spiritual life, her spiritual self. So here in that manner, two individual souls become one soul and that is what is meant by soul mate really. That is what is meant, we can interpret that, that now here two souls have united into a beautiful oneness and it can be experienced, it can be experienced because glowing or being in touch with that spirit of the beloved, one automatically draws it through the various levels of man. Now the – from the spirit the other finer level would be the mind and from mind to body. So from the subtle to the grossest, a chance is given to draw out that spirit and that spirit, the individual spirit has its roots in the universal spirit. Now look at the range, look at the scope, look at the vastness. If man can truly love his beloved or the other way around really and truly, completely, then know that man has found god because in loving his beloved, he has known himself, he too has opened himself to divinity and become one with divinity, then that is also the way for self realisation and self

7. SA76- 13 realisation is god realisation. That’s all there is to it, it's so simple. So the qualities required, sincerity and honesty – sincerity and honesty. We have so many common problems in the world today most of them are psychological and being not so pure, we have a sense of retaliation in us. “Oh he does not love me so why must I love him? ” Right, and the man says the same, “She doesn’t love me, why must I love her?” Fine, but if they have come together, if they have committed themselves to each other, then primarily there was some attraction. Let us start with – primarily there was physical attraction, the physical attraction has also been greatly influenced by the mental attraction. So we found some beauty in the body and the mind. Good. And in that process, if something goes wrong, and the person ceases loving you in spite of your attraction, although the attraction has been mutual, what do we do? Do we retaliate? “He has stopped loving me so I must stop loving him.” No, we keep on loving. We keep on loving and what the power of that love will do is this, he has stopped loving in spite of the initial mutual attraction, he has been overcome by his lower self. Now by carrying on loving that person, we are annihilating the lower self of that man and drawing out his higher self and love is such a powerful weapon, its such a powerful weapon that it must succeed, it can find no barrier, it would take time, it would take time, but all barriers could be destroyed by that power because love is god, god is love, we know that. So with that purity and sincerity of love for the person although he has built a wall round him now, we with that power break down that wall for love conquers always forever and we are not only then gaining what we needed, the love of that person but we are helping that person too in loving. So it is a mutual interaction. If a young girl comes to me and tells me that I have loved such and such a one for past two years and now he’s become hard against me. He doesn’t seem to love me anymore. I would ask how were the past two years? What was the cause of the mutual attraction? Right, and if they were very happy then, then I would say there’s no condition, no reason why you would be unhappy now. So instead of changing him, change yourself. Change yourself by loving more powerfully, more devotedly. Greater sacrifice, try it. Just a few months, try it and see how it will work. See the gains you will have because your desire is not selfish, your desire i s for pure love. Your desire is for pure love and therefore you must succeed – you must succeed and man or woman, human beings think that they have strong – such strong defences, but that is just a fixture of mind. Human beings are very weak people, the way they live and the way they behave. Yeah, but inside them there is strength, oh yes. So we don’t try to change their weakness by drawing the strength out of them, no, we give them strength by giving them more love. We give them strength and their weaknesses disappear. That’s the way it works, those are the mechanics. Those are the beautiful – beautiful mechanics because as we discuss last week that real marriage, real marriages, true marriages in real love are made in heaven – made in heaven. There was such a powerful attraction of that time and such a powerful bond, there was such a powerful need for fulfilment with each other that even on the way in this life, if some little thing goes wrong, a person looses the main road and goes off into a side street. The power of love will bring the person back to the

8. SA76- 13 main road, always and forever unfailingly. It is a law that cannot be denied nor disputed nor discarded nor destroyed. It is the ever living law, the law of love. Christ also taught that, love. Okay? (laughs) fine, who’s next? Public: Bapuji may I carry on with the question I want to ask before and its -- Gururaj: Good. Public: -- About the nature of attract – umm – attachment to beauty, what we term beauty and you’ve been talking about that now. How does one transform one's appreciation of beauty to such an extent to – to the state where one can transcend any attachment? Gururaj: You – yeah, attachment to beauty, if you examine it closely is rather a contradiction of terms. Attachment to beauty is rather a contradiction of terms because beauty – real beauty does not attach, they would be non-attachment. In real beauty there would be non-attachment. See a beautiful flower – flower's immense beauty – immense beauty, but if you really appreciated the flower, you would be appreciating it non-attachedly. Now when your appreciation of the flower carries any attachment, then know that your appreciation is not complete, it is a selfish desire, the selfish desire has created the attachment of the flower to the flower and thereby falsifying and diminishing the power of appreciation. So real attachment, real appreciation of beauty is for the thing in itself. The real appreciation of a human being or anything is for that person himself and not because of any selfish desire that we might have because love and selfishness do not go together. Really speaking, they are a contradiction of terms and yet we see around us selfish love, because real – where is selfishness in love? Real love is selfless. So when we use the term selfish love, it means it is a kind of love, partial love mixed a lot with our own ego or what we would like to interpret into the object, into the situation. When a woman sees a man, she must see in him the divinity for its own sake and not her own mental ideas of what he should be, then it is love. Otherwise it is selfish. If a man has the idea that this woman must be like that or like this or like this, must have certain characteristics, what we are doing then is imposing our own characteristics or desires or perhaps aspirations on someone else. How selfish we are to do that, no. And that is what is meant when people say love for the sake of love, beauty for the sake of beauty and it carries no attachment then. But to bring it – that is the ideal, but to bring it down to practical terms, who is so strong enough, who is so pure enough to love for the sake of love or beauty for the sake of beauty? No, no, we are still on the path to reach that ideal state, but what we can do is make the best of it and by analysing the situation, analysing what we are trying to project on the – on the object, what we are trying to project on the object, we can analyse

9. SA76- 13 it sanely and if unable to do so, to get help to – help analyse the problem then we can ask ourselves the question that am I being selfish and by gaining some understanding of it, do know this that you have now started on the path. If a man is drowning in the water, he will try and save himself. In like way, if we are being drowned in a situation or circumstance, why should we allow ourselves to drown when help can be had to save us so that we ourselves can avoid the pitfalls? Because the greater the desire in the attachment, the greater will be the suffering. We think we delude ourselves that it is by attachment to desires that we will find joy, joy can only come by desirelessness and that is why we always say we live for now and not in the past and not in the future. Our desires are based entirely upon tomorrow. That is the seed of all desire. If I will do this now, then tomorrow I will get that always but I don’t do this now for the sake of just doing it now. I am looking for results and rewards, rewards not for the good, but rewards for our small little selfishness, selfish self. That too is animalism. You train the dog to go and get something, go fetch the ball and you reward the dog. We are non-different. Every action must have its reward, that too is animalism, a kind of animalism. But when we learn to live a life for the sake of living the life, working for the sake of working, the Gita talks on this. Working for the sake of working and not desiring the rewards, loving the beloved for the sake of loving him and not desiring return, then that is the highest form of love. But while we are still on the path, we analyse the situation, we get help on the path and then ask ourselves truly, am I being selfish? And if the answer is that I am selfish, then I ask what do I do to become less selfish, and for that there is always an answer. And – and once we ask the question that am I selfish? The answer itself comes up immediately to us, immediately the answer is there. So we become less selfish, in other words, less ego oriented and by doing that, greater and greater love flows from us. If you can picture two wedges which is quite a – a – I'm fond of that illustration, two wedges, one upon each other. Now you know what a wedge looks like, thin end and of course the broad end. So as we proceed with lessening the negativity from the broad edge, so here the positivity widens. Thin edge of negativity where there in that oblong shape, there is the maximum positivity. Life cannot remain a vacuum, we can fill it with desire or desirelessnes s. Desirelessness is also a quality. It is a quality which has its roots in the highest form of nature because it is our natural self. Now how have we acquired these desires? Where does it all come from? Why should we have these desires and in fulfilling these desires suffer so much? And in the suffering creates more desires whereby we will suffer so much more. What a circle! What is happening? The answers philosophers will give you would be that though from the first part of creation, man is born pure, man is born pure as the first primal cell. Okay? But now the primal cell has the ability to perpetuate itself, to recreate itself and in the recreation of itself into ever reproducing units and the interchange of these various units has produced this negativity, from the absolute point of view, this is not negative, but we are talking now from the relative level, from the

10. SA76- 13 relative level as all these various elements combined, certain new forms were produced. New forms combining with other forms produced many – many more other forms and they in turn combine and recombined. They in turn combined and re - combined until it reach the stage of man when man could start thinking. In the beginning the first created man, his thoughts were pure, he had the ability to think and his thoughts were pure, but even purity with its combination of other kinds of elements produced different qualities and different attributes and different tendencies in that very primal evolving man. This has all been done because when the first spark of individuation started, it got mixed up and was controlled by the laws of nature. Now this is what is meant in the bible when they talk to you about Adam and Eve, the fall of man. With this we are analysing that from a scientific aspect. The real trouble only started when man was getting more and more influenced by the environment he was put in and with the power of thought, with the power of discrimination which was his natural right to acquire. He, through the very power of discrimination, primally pure which he had as his birthright started misusing itself, discrimination started misusing itself so it became indiscriminate. That is how all problems started. Now why do we have to go through this process? Why do we have to go through this process of bringing back, coming back from indiscrimination to discrimination? What is the purpose? There another law is involved. I hope I'm not getting too – too deep into this. Are you with me? Public: Yes. Gururaj Good. There another law is involved because contained in that primal spark was that divine energy: contained in that spark was the divine energy and that divine energy has a magnetic pull. So therefore I always say that man consciously or unconsciously want to be happy and happiness is divinity. So man progresses through these trials and tribulations because of the magnetic pull that is withi n each man. When scriptures say that god expresses himself, this is what is meant that man tries to express the divinity through himself for the sake of divinity by divinity. Okay? That is what is meant by expression. So because of the magnetic pull within us, we cannot but help wanting to reach home. We cannot help wanting to reach divinity and the experience we go through, all the experiences we go through are worthwhile, good experiences. Even the experience of unhappiness is a worthwhile good experience because that will, in some way or the other teach us. But when we wilfully, with the power of the will, know something to be wrong and do it, then we enmeshed ourselves into more trouble. So that experience too has its result, but it results in negativity which in turn one has to pay for. One has to pay for because that is the law of retribution. So we stand in the situation today where we are born with past memories, past samskaras, tendencies in our present lives and we have to overcome those tendencies. We have to overcome the impurities in us in order to reach the purity and for that we have our practices and meditational systems. We have them.

11. SA76- 13 Now that would be one school of thought. The other school of thought says that all these is not real, it is all a dream. But who said that? The one that said that, the sage that said that was one who went beyond those dreams. We are still dreaming. We are still dreaming because we find everything to be real here. But when we go beyond dream and become the sage, the we can look back and say, ah that was a dream? Fine. But until we are enmeshed in the dream and have not gone beyond it, we must regard, even the dream to be real. We must regard even the dream to be real, because if you have a good dream, how beautiful and happy you have felt in that dream, it was real to you then. If you had a bad dream, how unhappy were you in that dream. You were experiencing it, you were living it just as we are living this worldly dream here and now which we must regard to be real because we have not yet gone beyond and that is why we have these practices. That is why teachers teach, that is why gurus give their lives, one purpose, one purpose only. Let us get out of the dream and let us wake up in divinity. Let us get out of this dream, let us wake up to divinity. Now if we have to follow the path of evolution, if we have to follow the path of evolution and ultimately reach divinity and that was part of your question earlier, then why should we try? In any case we are going to reach there. That was part of your question. Why should we try? Ultimately we are going to become one with divinity because that is the goal, the attraction, the magnetism, the end and aim, we have to reach home. We try to reach home quicker, we try to reach home quicker because we want to overcome all the stumbling blocks on the road, we want to – we want to bypass all the traffic. Now if you live 20 miles away, if your home is 20 miles away, how fast you go or how slow you go is not the criteria. You still got to go 20 miles – you still got to go 20 miles. So we try to reach home quicker, we try to reach home quicker so that we can overcome the suffering we go through. Cause it finished with it, why carry along and keep on suffering? If there's a clear road to – to go through the 20 miles, just reach home through the clear road, why through this peak hour traffic? Its not necessary and our practices are designed for – to make our roads clear and reach home quicker because everyone desires to go home. Everyone de sires happiness. So we choose the best path, the quickest path for us, we choose and we go home and rest. Okay? (Laughs) Public: Gururaj, coming back to selfishness, why if you see beauty in flowers, to deprive them of their life. Isn’t that selfishness? Gururaj: True, if you see beauty in the flower, if we cut the flower, why should we deprive the flower of its life is that not selfishness? Beautiful question. Public: Because we know that flower has got to die.

12. SA76- 13 Gururaj: Beautiful question. It has, lovely little story –umm— in India, people when they go to the temple, they always take flowers, right. So I said that “Is your god in the temple only or is he everywhere?” So the person says, “everywhere” . So I said, “ Why do you remove if god is everywhere, god must be there in the field of the garden where the flower is too. So why do you take flower from god to take it to god? Why don’t you leave the flower there?” because if god is omnipresent, its not necessary to take it – take the flowers only to the temple, because he’s not only in the temple alone. Now why do we do that? We do it for the purpose of uplifting ourselves by taking the flower to the temple. We are creating within us a greater love and devotion and regard and appreciation of the garden in the temple. Now if a flower, a flower has life. But if a lesser life can be used purposefully for a greater life, then it is permissible. It is permissible because adding greater beauty to a thinking mind is definitely more better than adding beauty to the unthinking field. That is the purpose. It is also like we said one day, we breathe, we kill millions of bacteria around us. Now if we should think that way, then we won't breathe. Right. Now in killing the millions of bacteria around here which is life, living life, we are preserving a higher form of life. So in the law of nature, in the laws of nature rather, this is happening all the time, but we must remember that it is not a destruction, it is a dissolution or it is a transformation. We are transforming the very breath that we take in into something better or into something different, which could help us to betterment, because no one can live without breathing. So a lower form of life, a lower form of life does help a higher form of life but the harm that is done must be the least wherever possible. If we cut a cabbage, there has been a scientist who has given us the heartbeat in a cabbage. He has given us the pulse of the cabbage. Now we can eat the cabbage, we can because its going to sustain a much higher form of life but apart from cabbage, there might be other higher forms of life which we do not need to, to consume because we have an alternative. So everytime when it comes to everything is life, everything is living, this chair, this table, this – ev erything around here is living, there's life in everything and we must -- having discrimination, we must try and destroy or dissolve the least, the lesser form rather than a higher form. Okay? (laughs) Public: Guruji. Gururaj: Yes Public: If a person di es and < 1:03:16.2 >

13. SA76- 13 Gururaj: Now if a person dies and before dying bequeaths his eyes or any organ for medical purposes and he dies thereafter, there won't be any attachment – there won’t be any attachment to the – to the physical body that has been left behind by the entity that had previously occupied that body. As a matter of fact, it is very uplifting for a person to have such a noble thought in thinking that when this physical body of mine is not going to be of use to me anymore, may it be useful to someone else. Its a good uplifting thought. So good –good uplifting thought, yes. Let— let every part us – of ourselves be useful. When we discard this body, this body is non-better, its – its a non-better form of life than this piece of wood and if it can be used to help someone, then it must be encouraged, oh yes, it must be encouraged. Public: Guruaj, can – can we as individuals or group by putting out what's called positive thought, can we make any affect on the climate of hatred which is so prevalent in the world <1:04:57.7 > Gururaj: Beautiful – beautiful. If we as a group and as the group expands and expands and expands, will it have – will the positive thoughts have any effect upon the negativity in the world? It definitely has, it definitely has. One of the most powerful things in the world is thought, it is – it is a thing, perhaps not seen by the five physical senses, but it can seen, thoughts can be seen. They can be felt, they can be heard. There are people with the ability to hear the murmurings in other people's minds. Oh yes – oh yes. So by – by increasing and growing our family of the foundations of spiritual unfoldment, we are definitely not only doing something for ourselves, but also to our brother men and that would be a beautiful interpretation of the saying, love thy neighbour as thyself. A beautiful interpretation because here, very naturally and spontaneously by bettering ourselves, more positive thought, we are helping him and to help someone else is the be st possible expression of loving someone because love always contains the other person. Oh yes, oh yes, beautiful – beautiful, very nice. Good. Anything else? Public: < 1:06:39.7 > beautiful flower, well isn’t it selfish or is it gives you pleasure? Gururaj: Yes, very beautiful (laughs ) < 1:06:52.3 > wonderful. If we look at a beautiful flower and we find beauty in it, now isn’t it selfish for us to appreciate it? (Laughs) that depends – that depends a lot on the conditions – on the conditioning of your mind, of our minds, right. When I l ook at a beautiful flower and it gives me pleasure, immediately I see in that pleasure, divinity. I see immediately in that pleasure divinity because the divinity in the flower has touched the divinity within me. Now if my appreciations of that flower is o nly of the mind, if my appreciation of the flower is only limited to the mind, that could be selfish. How many times a person sits in his home and – and – and he’s depressed or feeling unhappy, then he says, “ oh, let me go out to the garden,” he goes out t o the garden and sees the beautiful flowers,

14. SA76- 13 appreciates the flowers and thereby gets rid of his depression. In other words, he has used the flower as a means of escape from himself. That is selfish. But if I can see the flower and see the divinity in it, and the divinity in the flower touches the divinity within me, to be expressed with a pleasure ful l – pleasure full mind, then it is not selfish. So it depends entirely upon ourselves, ourselves, how we view things and why we view things and for what purpose we view things. To appreciate the flower on its own as a flower could be unselfish, still better to find a divinity in the flower and make it one with the divinity within ourselves that is still better, but to find the beauty of the flower for our own needs, our own weaknesses, then that is selfish, that is selfish. A man, many men go home in the evening and take a bunch of flowers to the wife. It’s a beautiful act. Today that is done almost mechanically. I will make her feel nice by taking her a bunch o f fl owers. But why do I want to make her feel nice? Do I ask myself that question? Do I have any personal desire? Any selfish motive in doing that? Now if I have any selfish motive in taking a bunch of flowers home, then that is wrong. Because here I am motivated for my own mean. But if I take the bunch of flowers home not for what I am going to get in return for it, but just for the – the – the beauty of giving it to my beloved, then I'm adding beauty to beauty with the third beauty which is the beloved. Now that is a beautiful trinity. You see (laughs) that was a lovely question May, beautiful – beautiful. Public: But – umm — that if – if one is say < 1:10:54.1 > but the divinity in the flowers are lifting the ability in you, isn’t that an < 1:11:05.1 > Gurura j: Oh yes, oh yes, anything that uplifts you, remember divinity has its hand because divinity is an uplifting force. But how do we use it? If we use it as scepticism, then we are not helping ourselves, because any kind of escapism is never a help, you're escaping from the situation. So tomorrow you go sit in your room again and you'll feel depressed again and then you'll run out to the garden, have a look at the flower, feel better and its just a continuous cycle. We have done nothing about the depression. That is the point (laughs) beautiful – beautiful. Public: Bapuji, how will one know -- carrying Vijay’s questions further, if – if say, for example, quite often I experienced if I get just tired even just physically too tired, then a lot of psychological things that are not by any means always there start coming in one's attention goes to the area of one's self. Now if by, say keeping a good level of rest and that balance, these things will not happen. How do I know that I'm escaping them because I might get tired some other day and <1:12:25.2> and down in depression again. How to – this is actually worst trying to get up with – umm – asking about will as well. Umm— where does one <1:12:38.2 >

15. SA76- 13 Gururaj: (Laughs) Now if you feel that the depressions that come upon you are because of physical tiredness, then use the little will you have not to get physically tired. Its so simple. Balance the day’s activity in such a way – balance the day’s activity in such a way that we would not get that physical tiredness which in turn will bring on mental depressions. Of course depressions has – depressions come about through many – many means, but you using the physical as an example. Fine. So if we regulate and balance our physical activities in such a way that we don’t get over tired and it is not necessary for anyone to get overtired. It is not necessary if we do our practices regularly and properly, we will find that we will be achieving the same amount of work with the least amount of effort. If I am sitting, driving a car and I have to travel 20 miles, now I can sit very tense behind the wheel to drive at 60 kilometres an hour. And I can also sit relaxedly behind the wheel and still drive 60 kilometres an hour and still arrive at the same destination in the same time and not so tired. You see – you see how simple it is really. How simple it is. So here what is happening that depressions has caused a mental tension, the mental tension in turn causes physical exhaustion and physical exhaustion in turn causes more mental te nsions and depressions. A viscous circle, absolute vicious circle. You get the point? Fine. Public: But I'm thinking guruji, about things which are not necessarily related to one's physical state. And the principle underlying that is that just when you are generally and slightly weakish. Then what pays more attention to samskaras that you know are not yet guarded. Whereas one feels --- if one feels very bouncy, then although the same things are there, you can afford not to notice them. Gururaj: That is very true. It is like saying that when your resistance is low, you are prone to catch a cold. You can go out in the coldest weather, but if you have resistance in the body, you will not catch a cold. You caught a cold because the resistance in your body has been lowered. So what we do is increase the resistance. Depressions come about because the mental resistances we have have been decreased and to increase mental resistances, we have our practices. We have our practices whereby gradually the depressions will become less and less and less. We build up the resistance that that bacteria of depression don’t attack us anymore. They can't attack us. Weakness or strength is not something outside, it is inside us. So therefore we always say if we become stronger, then we can face the world. A person – say a person I always tell this that sitting in the office, a very highly nervous tensed person, if she hears a tire burst, she might jump through the roof, the ceiling. Right. I could sit there and the whole of Table Mountain can topple down now and I would not bat an eyelid. You see, so what we do is develop our resistances, when we become strong, nothing can effect us and that is common knowledge. If we are strong, nothing can effect us and we have our practices, we have our methods whereby we gain more and more and more strength.

16. SA76- 13 Public: The strength is there most of the time, guruji, can anyone say that is little things outgoing in any event to dissolve? Gururaj: Oh yes, strength is always there so therefore we don’t call our foundation spiritual development, but spiritual unfoldment, it is there and our practices unfold, yes (laughs). Good, fine. Shall we break for tea? Okay? Public: Okay.