2. SA77- 56 secure at that tiny age. So now it is the duty of every parent to see that the child progresses karmically. That is the duty and that duty must be done without expecting any reward. I will do this for my child and when the child grows up, the child will do this for me. That is totally wrong. Now if the child wants to be thankful to the parents, then when that child grows up and gives birth or becomes a parent, it must do likewise to their children and that is how the debt to the parent is repaid. Now when the child starts thinking, at first upto a few years, it is only guided by feeling and that feeling must be nurtured and nurtured in a loving way so that the child becomes a loving person. Now if the child is not given the security of love, then that child will grow up to become an insecure person and with insecurities the child develops feelings of inadequacies and that is where all the problems begin. When the child starts thinking and is able to discriminate, it will have greater power of discrimination towards good, but if the child has been brought up in an insecure way, the same discriminatory power could be used for that which is not good. So immediately the child starts thinking, it will start gathering more karma or it will start gathering less karma. Fine. Now with the backlog the child has brought, what we mean by gathering good karma would be gathering positivity in life and as positivity increases, the negativity decreases, but that is not the end because po sitive karma and negative karma, they both are binding, but that is the way is to accumulate having the bank balance, positive karma and by having positive karma, one learns to go beyond the karma. One transcends karma, one transcends good and bad. Now why does a person want to have good karma and not bad karma? The reason is this that by good karma, a person’s life becomes more stable, more secure, more adequate and therefore more happy. The root of all happiness in life is good karma. The root of all unhappiness in life is because of bad karma. Now bad karma is carried with us all the time in the mind box, all the impressions are there. Someone was telling me this week I was having a discussion, a young lady was attracting to herself all kinds of negative influences, every friend she met caused some unhappiness to her, caused strive, stress, strain. Now why must this person always be attracting those kinds of influences? It is because that person herself is totally on the negative path, thinking negatively. Now our minds forever are radiating certain influences in the environment. Now with good karma, we'd be sending out positivity and by sending out, emanating positivity, we attract positivity, but if we emanate negativity, then we can only attract negativity. Then a person asks why is my life so unhappy? The secret of happiness is to forever emanate from ourselves this radiation of mind force, thought force must always be positive and within a few months of doing meditational practices, we automatically start thinking in a positive way. Within a few months of meditation, we automatically start thinking in a positive way because through meditation we can go to the deeper layers of the mind and at the subtler layers of the mind the force is more powerful which we in turn bring to the outerself of daily living. Now if a person that meditates persists on thinking negative thoughts, then remember those negative thoughts can become

3. SA77- 56 equally powerful as positive thoughts. So therefore every meditator is always asked to do right thinking and right acting. By doing right thinking and right acting, then that power that is radiated from us who can only attract good to us. So the child has to be given that love and warmth which it feels and recognises in its infancy, and that can go a long way, that can go a long way in determining a lot of things in the child’s life when it grows up because when it starts thinking, that is when karmic ties are added unto it and not only that, but when it starts thinking, it also brings to the fore the burden that you have brought with. There's not a single scripture in the world, there's not a single scripture in the world that will tell you to think negatively. Every scripture in the world says, “do good, be good” and then see – and then see the influences that you will attract to you where even a negative influence becomes positive for you. That is the secret of happiness. If a person starts mopping over a problem all the time, that problem is not solved. That problem is only strengthened, you are adding fuel to the fire. Now there cannot be any life without problems, but how we handle the problem, there is the secret of happiness. Now the best way to handle any problem, let us assume that the child has been brought up in such insecurity, right . and because of that, all the problems could be magnified. Because basically the grownup child feels insecure and an insecure person always magnifies a problem. Now say the child was unfortunate in being brought up that way and a problem comes up, what is that person to do? Therefore we always teach – we always teach, look at the problem objectively and when a problem is looked at objectively, then the sting of the problem is gone. Now when the sting of the problem is gone, it would mean that we are looking at the problem with a more calmer mind. When a person looks at a problem with a more calmer mind, he very easily becomes emotionally detached from the problem. Now when he becomes emotionally detached from the problem, then he does not feel the impact. That is why the child is brought up the first few years just on feeling level. That feeling level is strengthened with love, then that child when it grows up would be able to more easily to detach itself from the problem and view the problem objectively. Now that is adding on good karma. That is a strengthening and when we add on good karma to ourselves, it snowballs – it snowballs and we attract to ourselves greater and greater good. So those few years of the child’s life is so – so important. We, in western society don’t realise the importance of those first two or three formative years. After all man is more feeling than thinking. The feeling aspect of man, the emotional aspect of man has a far greater effect upon a person's life than the thinking aspect. The mind with all its thoughts can whirl and whirl and whirl and yet if the whirling of the mind does not affect the feeling aspect of man, then the mind can keep on whirling, we take no notice of it. We take no notice of it and having developed to this detachment or non-attachment rather, that we do not feel the impact of any problem that might beset us and this all starts, this all starts from infancy. So it is so – so important, so – so important for the mother and father to give the child little infant feeling because it is a creature that feels, not thinks and feeling can only be returned

5. SA77- 56 Gururaj: Yes. Public: < 0:24:00.7 > Gururaj: Good, fine! That's a lovely question. What does it mean when it says in the Bible that sins of the fathers are visited upon the children? Now the factor that is taken into account here is the hereditary factor where the child inherits certain characteristics of the parents, but then – but then there is no one that could evolve you, you have to evolve yourself. All the karmic ties you have, all the bondages you have are bondages which you yourself has earned. All the bondages have been earned by you. Why does the Bible say that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children? It says this so that parents can live a good moral life. The whole idea behind that saying is a question of ethics and morality . Now the sins of the parents are visited upon the children not because it is something thrown upon the children. The child has chosen its parents and if it had not certain karmic bondages, it would have not chosen those parents. So this is a statement of fact, a statement of natural law that you can only attract, that too yourself which you deserve. If a child is born to sinful parents, it is because the child in previous lives have deserved that, but – but if the parents are more purer, if the parents stick to moral and ethical codes, then the parents will bring into this world souls of a higher quality. Now there will always be an imbalance in this world. For millions of years this world has been existing and this world has yet not become heaven. By heaven here, we mean a happy world. There will always be happiness and unhappiness, there will always be strife and misery and there will always be joy and one balances the other. So if we – if we improve the quality of our lives, then be sure to know that the quality of the lives of our children will also be improved or we would be attracting souls of a similar calibre -- we will be attracting souls of a similar calibre. Now when it says the sins of the parents are visited upon the children, it is not the child so much in question, but the parent is in question. This injunction is not for the child, but for the parent. This injunction should spur us on to live a better kind of life. And by living a better kind of life, we can feel proud in a sense that we will bring into this world better souls, better children. Now is that not our duty towards society? To bring into this world good blood. That is our duty to society. We are born in society and we have a debt to society. If we did not have a debt to society, then we would not be born in the society, we have come into this world to repay our debts and by repaying our debts, we will find freedom. The basic factor is to find freedom and to find that freedom, we got to pay our debts. There is karmic bondages and we free ourselves from those shackles and this is one way how we can pay our debts to society, is by bringing forth good children, good souls and we can only bring forth good souls if we develop within ourselves a higher standards of ethics and morality. We come back to the old saying “be good, do good”. So to repeat again, this injunction is for parents to take

6. SA77- 56 heed that let me not get into more debt to society by bringing, issuing forth bad blood. For man, for every man is responsible for himself for his own actions and that is an irrefutable law of karma. Okay? Fine! Public: < 0:30:38.5 > law of doctrine and there is one thing that's inexplicable to me and that is what – what is the purpose of a child being born and then dying? That happens quite a lot actuall y. Gururaj: Yes, that question was answered a few weeks ago. Public: Then I’ll re – I’ll listen to the tape. Gururaj: Good, nevertheless but I – I could tell you very briefly, do listen to the tape. What is the purpose of a child being born and then just dying? What is the purpose of a child being born abnormal or mentally retarded where it does not reach the thinking principle, just only the feeling principle and that also to a less – a lesser measure? The purpose is to gain a certain experience which is needed by the child, by that evolving soul of just being born, going through the experience of birth and then leaving the body again. Now we know that the soul within man is forever immortal, but being covered with veils of ignorance, of nascence, that all these various experiences are necessary to free ourselves from bondage. To free ourselves from bondage, even that little experience was necessary. I could give you an example of a very highly evolved soul that got born – that got born retarded, lived for a few months and passed away. It just needed that one little experience of birth to attain salvation. Good. The child being born and passing away might also be necessary, a necessary experience for certain actions that that soul might have performed in a previous life and it could also be to promote a certain feeling level in the child which is necessary or could have been the stumbling block for its progress on the evolutionary path. So all these things are worked precisely, there is a precision to it, nothing is by chance. Everything that happens in our lives is worked out precisely and everything that happens is dependent upon our actions in the past. So there is a force, a balancing factor that determines every step of our way, although every step we take has been conditioned by the steps we have taken previously. Now what works out the balancing factor? There is a law – there is a law that works out the balancing factor, there is a law that makes you experience certain things and that law we call divinity. That law we call divinity. There is no person sitting up there in heaven judging you and passing sentence upon you. There is no such thing. The sentence that is passed upon you is by yourself. You can never escape your own actions and those actions has a reaction. Every cause has its effect and that is a precise law and that is the law that rewards or punishes. And you yourself has put that law into motion and no one besides yourself. Right? Good. Fine!

8. SA77- 56 Public: What is the difference between non-attachment and indifference? Gururaj: Ah, yes – yes, beautiful. Now what is the difference between non-attachment and indifference? Now indifference – Pr etty would you please sit down or go out? One of the two? The difference between non-attachment and indifference is this that within indifference, there is detachment where you detach yourself from circumstances. You detach yourself from the world, you seclude yourself. You seclude yourself as a form of escapism and when you escape, you become indifferent, you become feelingless and indifferent person cannot love. So that is indifference, but non-attachment, the very phrase, the very word has attachment in it. So this would mean, this would mean to be not indifferent, to be with all, to be with everything and yet, be non-attached to it. Non-attachment teaches be in the world, but not of the world. Indifference is escapism, running away with drawing within yourself where you cannot tackle life's problems and you become, through desperation, you become indifferent. That is not non-attachment. Non-attachment is to be involved thoroughly in the world, is to be involved in all circumstances of life and not be affected by it. And this non-effect is brought about by non-attachment. If a man, if a man goes on the road and he loses his wallet, now the money contained in the wallet could be very – very necessary for him, he has to pay his rents or lights or whatever, good. Now he loses his wallet. Now if he has a sense of non-attachment, losing the wallet will not affect him too much. If he has a sense of non- attachment, it might not even affect him at all. Now when he views the situation from the standpoint of non-attachment, then he has a calmer mind, he is more an integrated person, he becomes integrated because of the calmness of his mind. Now in that state of integration and calm, he will work out a plan how to go and earn some money to do double work to pay the rent and the lights. Good. That can be brought about by non-attachment and he becomes non-affected by the loss. But a person who is attached to that wallet although the wallet is lost, his attachment, his mind is still working in the wallet, swirling around, swirling and whirling around.

4. SA77- 56 with feeling. Hold the child closely to you. Give it the warmth, remember it has been accustomed to that warmth in the mother's womb and now it is in a foreign place, in an outside world. Kiss, cuddle the child, make it feel loved. Now love does not require thinking. Love does not require thinking. Love requires feeling. Now when the child feels that love flowing to it, through touch, through cuddling, through embrace. When the child feels that, then it feels that it is still tied to the mother and the child feels secure, mother is there. So we have to change a lot. Western society has to make drastic changes in this aspect. It is important, it has to make drastic aspect if we want a better society and then we talk of child delinquency, juvenile delinquency. Who is the cause of juvenile delinquency? We, the parents. We have not given the child security because the child, to repeat again is a feeling creature, not a thinking creature and but when the child starts thinking and it is not supported with the feeling of love, when the heart and the mind do not function in harmony, that is when all the child's problems begin and those problems could be karmically binding. So we that do not give the child love, we are sending our own flesh and blood into a direction which is not evolutionary. See so how important – how important this factor is. How important this factor is where we from infancy of the child can put it in the right direction so the karmic burden the child has brought can be lightened for the child. That is the greatest service you can do for your child. That is the greatest service. All the amount of education you could give the child afterwards, the child could have hal f a dozen degrees behind his name, but if he does not have the firm foundation of security within himself, then all those degrees are of no value. All those thousands of pounds you would spend sending the child to universities are of no value because they are on the surface and how many professors and people haven’t I met? How many intellectuals haven’t I met that are totally insecure and it started in infancy. So if we want to help the child karmically, this is what we have to do by giving it total warmth and love. Western society today likes to love his children from a distance. Yes, from a distance. That is wrong – that is wrong. Many women have to go to work because of circumstance that is understood, but if the structure of society is changed in such a way where the mother could be with the child all the time in the formative years, then we will bring up better human beings. Better human beings which will make society and this world a better place to live in. So to go back on the question, the karmic ties or the karmic bondage of a child begins as soon as it starts thinking. What we have to do is give the love required during the time of pre-thinking days. Give it the love in the feeling days and that will bring security to the child. Okay? Public: < 0:23 :58.0 >

7. SA77- 56 Public: Gururaj can you tell us what it means by not desiring anything other than just being? Gururaj: Not desiring anything than just? Public: In your life other than just being? Gururaj: Now what do – what do you mean by being? Are you referring -- Public: < 0:35:58.4 > Gururaj: Aha! By being that divinity that is within you, fine! Now we can work our lives in a mathematical precision. We can run our lives in such a way where we could govern the effects that will come in our lives. Fine. Now desire is binding, desire is binding. So therefore it is said that if you have to desire, desire divinity. Man at his present state of evolution is too weak to become desireless. So use the power of desiring, but desire divinity. Desire divinity. Now by desiring divinity, we realise the eternity of being, we realise the immortality of being and we also realise that that eternity, that immortality is within us. When we realise that within us is that immortal self and the permanent self, then our desires for things transient become less and less. Our desire for material things in life become less and less. Now this does not mean that you must not go out and earn a million pounds. This does not mean that you must not live in a mansion, by all means do, but how attached are you to it determines your state of desire or desirelessness. Now it is very difficult for ordinary man to stop desiring. All the material things, all the transient things of life. So what he has to do is take the same desire, same power, the same force and divert it to something that is permanent. Now when a person desires divinity, when a person desires permanency, when a person desires eternity and immortality, that too is binding. But that is the way because that is the tool we have in our hands. So when we use the tool that is in our hands for divinity, then we progress towards divinity. And when we have reached, when we have reached divinity, then we do not desire divinity anymore because desire means a separation. I desire that, I find a distinct duality there that I and – I am separate from that and therefore I desire that, but when we reach that stage where we realise that he and I are one, then desire too disappears because you are it, you are being and when you are being, what desire is there for anything? Because you are all and that is how, that is how we start by converting mundane desires into divine desires and then becoming one with divinity. Even that desire for the divine disappears because then I and my father have become one. In Sanskrit, the atman and the Brahman has become one, it is the same, no difference. Okay? Good. Anyone?

1. SA77- 56 10 th of December , 1977, Satsang 56 Public: Bapuji at what stage in the child’s life does he actually become – he or she actually become karmically responsible for the acts that he does? Gururaj: Beautiful question! At what stage in the child's life does he become karmically responsible for its actions? Good. Now when a child is born, it gets born into this world with a bundle of karma and the duty which the child will develop as it grows would be to lessen the burden – lessen the burden of karma which will make its life more smoother, and not only smoother, it will make life much more easier and that is what is meant by evolution. Now when a child is born with a bundle of karma, not having the intellect developed, it acts very instinctively, if you would like to use that word. So every action performed by a child is non-binding, it is only – it is only when the child grows and starts thinking, that is the time when karma becomes binding or also where karma could be lessened. When the child is born, it is influenced more by its feeling self, than by the mind self or the mental self. Now these feelings – these feelings would have certain tendencies because of the karma it has brought with. Now if one allows those tendencies to blossom on their own, that would require certain amount of guidance. And this always starts with the mother. The child requires the warmth of the mother. In modern day, bringing up children, a lot of warmth is lacking and the child is just seen by the mother at feeding times and most of the time the child is with a nanny. Now every person has some good karma and every person has some bad karma. Now with the mother giving the child that warmth, remember it has gone through nine months of warmth within the mother's womb. Now it has come into this world and this pain, this birth that the child takes, the pain it goes through could be very severe and the child feels the severity if it is not treated with love and warmth. Many mothers do not even want to breastfeed their children. They try as soon as possible to give it artificial milk, milk which does not come from the mother herself. Now the mother's milk, the mother's warmth that is given to the child can never be substituted by the warmth of a bottle and that is the mistake of our present civilisation. It is to be realised – it is to be realised that the child is part of a continuum, a continuing process, it has had a past in his evolution and it will have its future in evolution. So for the first three to five years, the child requires warmth and love. Now, by giving the child warmth and love, the child can very well be guided to become more warmer himself and more loving himself. Good. Now this would be conducive – this would be conducive to make the child evolve. This would be conducive in the child's evolutionary process where a child can develop into a good responsible human being. Many times we find people with maladjustments in this world. Now you can be sure to know that a lot of those maladjustments have been brought about because the child was not made to feel