1. UK 77-4 Gururaj. We’ll get right down to it. Questioner. Gururaj, could you tell us if there is a turning point in our progress where we have a big breakthrough, if there's a turning point where it all sort of comes easier, or is it always the same, sort of plodding? (General laughter) Gururaj. Yes. Is there ever a turning point in our lives or do we just carry plodding on? Good. Now there is a turning point if we want to turn. There is a turning point if we want to turn, and we could plod on and on, if we want to do that also. The choice is ours. Good. Man should never rely on cosmic forces to engineer the turning point for him. Good. There comes a time when things happen in our lives, and we feel that this has happened by some outside agency. But if we examine that closely, what outside agency was there, to do that? What activated that agency? What is that agency? And what is its relationship to me? Am I not the master of my destiny? Anything that happens to me, was it not engineered by my own actions? Yet, the turning points come in such a subtle form, that our minds fail to recognise the cause of it. We only see the effects, because many times the cause could be so far, far distant. Even in our daily lives now, we might have done something last year and the reward or the punishment of which we are receiving today, and yet we have forgotten what we have done last year. Like that, it could go back years, and years and years, and it could go back to lifetimes and lifetimes and lifetimes. But know this for sure, that our path has been set out by us. No one else. We are in the flow of nature. There are certain currents of nature that pulls us, in a certain direction, but all the stumbling blocks or all the plodding has been planned by us. Nature never planned our path to be rough. The workings of nature itself is smooth. Good. Because, real nature, as we know it, at it's, this subtlest level, is but the reflection of Divinity. And for Divinity to express itself, it has first to come to the subtler levels of nature, and then to the grosser levels, and then only would they become perceptible to our senses, so that we are could recognise them, and we could say, ‘Oh, here is a turning point, and this is a plodding point’. Yes. So everything that happens to us is but a collection, the outcome, the totality, the sum total of the actions we have performed. Now, if today life seems very, very, plodding, life seems very difficult, what do we do? That should be the question. Shall we escape from what is ahead of us? Shall we avoid the hill in front of us? Shall we try and circumvent it, and walk another five lifetimes around it, to reach the other side? Or shall we climb the hill, or shall we escape in the opposite direction? There might just be at a big lake and we’ll drown. Good. So, what we have to do is face life. If there is a hill in front of our path, we are to climb that hill. And that hill too might seem so difficult from a distance but it might be so easy

2. UK 77-4 to climb. I know some years ago, I was taken on a mountain-climbing expedition. I was about twenty, twenty-five, and I do distinctly remember a place called the Skeleton Gorge. It went up a mountain and when I stood down there, it looked so terrible, and it looked so steep. And I said, ‘Would I be able to climb this?’ But as we started taking the climb, it was not so steep at all. So basically my fear was assumed. To me, in appearance, it seemed so steep. Likewise, all our troubles might seem insuperable. They might seem very steep, but once we tackle them, we’d find that they are not so difficult as they seem, because within every problem, the solution is inherent. A problem can never be created without it having the solution as a built-in factor. Now, through our meditations and spiritual practices, we develop a greater awareness. And by the expanded awareness we can see the answer, we could see the solution to the problem. Now, we do not always look for simple answers, or smooth answers. Some answers are difficult, by all means. But by having the strength, that difficulty becomes minimised, and there, that is how our plodding becomes easier. So, in fact what we do is, we are these creators of the plodding, and we are the engineers of the turning point. We have to turn, no one that turns for us. We have to do, or die. So it is us, us, us. All problems, and all psychiatrists and psychologists will tell you that the patients they get in their rooms, come because of one purpose only. Escaping. People try to escape from what is in front of them, and that in turn, that escapism, causes all forms of psychosis and neurosis, and that in turn breaks out into different kinds of troubles. So the best way to stop plodding is to plod. Yes. How to plod? There is the secret, where we accept the fact. There is no Scripture in the world that does not teach of acceptance. There is no Scripture that does not teach of hope. There is no Scripture that would say, ‘You are hopeless, plod on, my son’. It doesn’t say, it doesn’t say that. All Scriptures say, ‘Be hopeful’. And it is all there for you. It is the determination that we develop that helps us to accept. Every virtue or every vice have a group of associates. When we have determination, we develop acceptance. When we develop acceptance, we develop perseverance. We develop a will to do, and that is how we minimise that which we call such a big problem. Yet if we can only understand that all problems in life have been caused by us, if people do believe in Divinity and Divinity is supposed to be love and compassion and justice, then why should that Divinity be unkind to one and kind to another? Why dry bread for one and butter and jam for the other? It would not be Divinity. Divinity is a law, a law that works equably and in fairness to all so, so it is us. It is us to plod or to find the turning point. Now, to find the turning point in life, let us examine the tools we can use to find the turning point. And the greatest tool or instrument available to us is the mind. Good. It is the mind that created the problem and it is through the mind that we can eradicate an ordinary problem of day- to -day living. Good. Now, the composition of the mind has certain factors.

3. UK 77-4 There is the intellectual factor, which means the analytical factor, the discriminating factor that weighs the pros and cons. Then there is another factor in the mind, which in Sanskrit is called Manas, which means the carrier of impressions. Then, further on, we have a factor called the ego, which is the lawyer. The prosecutor. So here we have the analyser, we have the carrier, the messenger, and then we have the prosecutor but the prosecutor cannot prosecute or pass judgement. It still has to present its case to the judge, which is the real self in us. And when the judge gives its judgement, it gets passed back through the same channels again. And then that is how we get rewarded or punished. Fine. So now if the mind can be cultured and cultivated to a certain level, where we can receive the truest impressions of that which is within us, the judge that is within us, then all our actions become smoother. But in the whole composition of the mind, there are three subtle factors which activate the mind. We have for the conscious mind, we have the subconscious mind, and we have the superconscious. Now the superconscious mind could be called the judge, the finest level. The conscious mind could be called the cognising mind, and in as between the conscious mind and the superconscious mind, we have the subconscious mind, the storehouse of all impressions of the past and of what we are made up of today. Good. Now, psychologists will tell you that all problems of the conscious mind stem from the subconscious mind. Fine. But governing, governing the subconscious and the conscious mind, there are again three factors, which in Sanskrit are called Rajas, Tamas and Sattva. You would know that Tamas is inertia, ignorance. Rajas is passion and activity, and Sattva is purity and light. Good. Now the Sattva section of the subconscious mind is most nearest to the subconscious mind. Fine. In other words, being most nearest to the superconscious mind, the Sattvic section of the mind receives the purest blast. When it receives the purest blast, it in turn has to come to the conscious level, the conscious mind, and depending how clean the conscious mind is, - how clean it is means how much inertia is there or how much ignorance is there - and that acts as the filtration plant. So within these three factors, within these three factors, we find that the gross level of the conscious mind is associated with Tamas, ignorance, inertia, darkness, while the finer level of the mind is Sattva, which receives the light from the superconscious. So the subconscious mind is the middleman, middleman. Fine. Now, how to allow, how to allow the superconscious to shine through, would be to start working from the gross conscious level. Fine. And one of the methods to rid darkness would be through analysis. But there is a danger with analysis, the analysis and logic could be wrong, could be misguided, could be built on a false foundation. Then the other method is affirmation. If one affirms to oneself a positive thought, it could have great power in affecting the conscious mind and through the conscious mind subduing the turbulence of the sub-conscious. And the Scriptures will tell you too, positive affirmations. For example, we find people saying, ‘I’m a sinner, I’m a sinner, I’m a sinner’, people saying, ‘I’m

4. UK 77-4 weak, I’m weak, I’m weak.’ And by affirming that all the time, remember you would always be weak, you’d always be a sinner. But if one goes to the deeper level and knows, just from a sense of knowingness that within me there is Divinity and that ‘I’m Divine, I’m Divine, I’m Divine’, then we would allow Divinity to penetrate through us more, because with that positive thought, we are subduing the negativity that is in the subconscious mind. Fine. There has been experiments made by Emile Coey, I think it is, a Frenchman, where he built a clinic, where sick people went to and he just works on this principle and many of the cures there were practically miraculous. And it was so simple, that every morning and evening the person would affirm to himself that ‘I’m getting better and better. I’m getting better and better’. He would start with that positive affirmation, and it works! It works, because the mind could never remain a blank. (Gururaj laughs) The mind could never remain a blank. If you can picture an oblong piece of wood and you cut it diagonally, fine, then you would have two wedges, one on top of the other. Now one wedge is negativity and the other wedge is positivity. Now at the thin end of the negative wedge, would be the broad end of the positive wedge. And at the broad end of the negative wedge, would be the thin end of the positive wedge. Do you get the picture? Two wedges. Fine. So, as we travel from the broader end of the negative wedge to the finer end then automatically we are going to the broader end of the positive wedge, which virtually means that lesser the negativity, more the positivity, more the positivity, lesser the negativity. Because the mind will forever remain that oblong shaped piece of wood. And when they say there is sawdust in your head, there is some truth in it! (General laughter) Yes, fine. So, so, the whole idea, the whole idea that if a person uses positive affirmations - people with problems for example, the wife would say, ‘Oh my husband is terrible, my husband is terrible, my husband is a terrible’ or the wife would say, ‘Oh’ - the husband - what did I say? The wife would say, ‘My husband is terrible’ and the husband would say, ‘Oh, my wife is a witch.‘ Okay. Now by saying that what you are actually doing is making your husband terrible. And by calling your wife a witch, you are actually turning her into a witch! Some other word also goes there in place of the w. (General laughter). They can be bitches sometimes. Censor! (General laughter). Nevertheless, the point is this, - we’ve got to relieve the tension and have a few laughs. You know our motto, the three L's, Life, Love and Laughter. Good. Right. So, by having these negative thoughts all the time, we are influencing the atmosphere and specially those that are close and near to us. Fine. And by our own affirmations be they positive or negative, we are creating circumstances for us. If a man goes about never trusting his wife, he is deliberately pushing her to do things wrong. If a woman goes about, a wife goes about, never trusting the husband, she in a way is pushing him to do something wrong. So you see how we have the turning point in the palm of our hands. And then, if we can't blame the wife for something that goes wrong or the

5. UK 77-4 wife can't blame the husband for something that goes wrong and they can’t blame the children or the dog, yah, and when they just can't blame anyone any more then they blame the guru or they blame God! (General laughter) You see? We come back to the same point again, how the surgeries, the consulting rooms of psychiatrists get filled. That is how psychiatrists, - psychiatric wards are full because people want to escape. They do not want to accept, when the turning point in a person's life is there and then. On many a Form that comes to me from England or Australia, or America or wherever, and I study the whole personality from the deepest level of the individual human soul, and I write on the Form that ‘From today, your life has taken a new turn’. And believe you me it happens, not because I say so. No, it is because it is there and the person has reached a certain level, whereby the mind and the body is now ready to turn, or otherwise they wouldn't worry to become initiated. Yes. And this is more applicable to some people than others. So all turning points are never governed, that's coming back to Keith's question, all turning points are never governed by exterior circumstances. My boss gave me the sack. Right, fine. So, I blame the boss, he gave me the sack. But do I ever ask myself that in this turning point, this kind of turning point, that leaves me broke, have I done anything wrong? We never ask that. No, the boss was terrible. He could never appreciate me. Now how can he appreciate me if I don't really work enough for the wages he pays me? And yet I want appreciation. You see? So all turning points in life, in every aspect of life, work life, home life, life in the social circumstances, the environment, the turning point is under our complete control, always under our complete control. When you came here to Derby and you had to turn off on the three, four, five, six, seven, eight, what is the route? (M1), M1. Good. Yes. You did not expect the car to turn by itself. You had to turn it. Now why can't we turn our lives? That is the turning point. And that really is the point. Yes. It’s in our hands. So just a bit of good sense, just a bit of analysis and if we are incapable to analyse a situation for ourselves, we have Counsellors. Fine. If it is a problem with our taps in the house, we go to a plumber. If it’s a problem with our shoes, we go to a shoemaker. If it’s a problem with the health, we go to a physician. Something wrong with the mind, we go to a psychologist. And if we find that we have tried the doctors of the mind and the body and yet the solutions are not found, then we go to the doctor who treats the spirit. And there are Counsellors that could help in that respect. It is only for us to ask it and it is so, so freely given. And that marks a turning point. Do you see? It’s so simple; it is just common, commo n sense. Common sense. So therefore I say that man need not suffer. Man need not suffer. All this is available to him for the asking. If the room is stuffy and no air comes in and then he gets suffocated, and he knows there are twenty windows there, but if he is too lazy and he doesn't want to open the windows, then he deserves being suffocated. God bless his soul! (General

6. UK 77-4 laughter) Yes. So like that we could go on, and on, and on, with various instances. Perhaps I try and make them humorous so that we can have a laugh together but really speaking they are very ironic. It pains. The only problem for example I have is to see the problems of others. That is my problem. Now how do I get over that problem? And the solution is this, that let us walk together hand in hand and let me be of some little assistance, some little assistance, to the turning point, the turning point. That’s all. The rest, you do. As I always say, that once the housewife goes to the supermarket and makes a list of the things she wants to buy and after she has bought the things she wants to buy, and of course when you go to supermarkets its very seldom you stick to the list, but that's by the by. You go and buy five items and you come home with ten. Business. (Gururaj laughs) Yes. But nevertheless after the things that have been bought according to the list, you discard the list. When you want to climb the stairs, you hold on to the railing, and after you have climbed the stairs, you don't need the railing any more. And that is what we do in our Foundation, just that little railing to hold on to and when you hold on well, you won’t slip. And even if your foot slips, your grip is tight. You don't get hurt. Then you don't plod, you climb. Plodding is never climbing. Plodding is just going on and on and on, without reaching nowhere. That’s what plodding means, you just go on and on and on and you reach nowhere, while climbing you are going somewhere, there is a purpose. And to fulfil that purpose in life, to find the turning point in life, the turning poin t towards happiness, towards joy, all sacrifices are worthwhile. So we start off by finding the fault in ourselves. If the world treats me bad, why should it treat me bad? Ninety nine point nine, nine, nine percent of the world blame the world. The world treats me bad because the world is bad. But the turning point would be when I say, ‘Ah, the world treats me bad, perhaps there is something wrong with me’. So that's where we start. And when we just ask ourselves that question, is there something wrong with me, then answers would dawn, then we start analysing, then we measure our strengths and weaknesses, then we measure our kindnesses and unkindnesses. Like this, every human being thinks he is wonderful. Every human being thinks he is kind. Every human being thinks he is loving, adorable. Gor blimey! (General laughter) Do you say, Gor Blimey or Cor Blimey? What does it mean, by the way? I don't know. Voice. God bless you. Gururaj. Is that what it means? Oh, I do hope so. Gor blimey! God bless me! You see.

7. UK 77-4 So every person thinks he’s wonderful, really and that is the delusion, that is the Maya that we talk of sometimes, the illusion in man thinking that he is wonderful. Yes. And when man thinks he is just wonderful, he fails to analyse himself and he blames the world and not himself because he is too wonderful, untouchable. So that is how we reach the turning point and the turning point, funnily enough, is at every turn. The turning point is at every turn, and if you would calculate, during the day, how many turns you have made you would be surprised. You have made turns with the body, with the mind, how those thoughts, thousands and thousands of them have flickered through your mind through the day, and every thought that rose there, could be a turning point, could be used to the best advantage for self betterment, for greater joy. So Keith, that's the plodding and that's the turning. Okay? So stop plodding. Turn. Namaste. It’s another turning point. She thinks I need water, and that comes from kindness. Questioner. Myths and fairy tales so often tell of the searchings and wanderings of their hero, who wishes to find the beloved or the jewel beyond price. Christ taught that except a man was born again he could not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Is it possible, however, for a child to grow and develop a sense of himself and his own worth, while still retaining that original experience of unity or must we all inevitably experience a sense of separation and loss in order to be created and to create? Gururaj. Oh, beautiful. Just the last sentence again, because I couldn't take in the whole book at the same time. (General laughter) Sorry. I’m very fun-loving.. Questioner. Is it possible, however, for a child to grow and develop a sense of himself and his own worth, while still retaining that original experience of unity or must we all inevitably experience a sense of separation and loss in order to be created and to create? Gururaj. Beautiful, beautiful. Very beautiful. Now we have to understand what we mean by the child. Right? Normally, we say a child is innocent, the child is simple, the child has a sense of unity. Good. Fine. But what underlies that innocence? What underlies that sense of unity? Does the child really have a sense of unity? And when one is in the unitive state, does one require any sense to sense it? There could be many misconceptions there. We use the child as an example to express some very beautiful sentiments and even some very beautiful truths, but is it truthful in fact?

8. UK 77-4 Good. A primitive man, a very undeveloped man in darkest Africa for example, that has not touched civilisation, he could be a happy man. He is very happy. He's very happy in his primitiveness. His needs are so few. Things are so conducive there for him. He does not need to worry about petrol rationing, or neither the high cost of living. He lives with the natural laws, and his mind has just a development to be able to appreciate the things that are around him. His needs are little and therefore he is happy. Good. Then from the primitive man one progresses, so-called progress, into a civilised man who increases his needs so much, who increases, who distorts simplicity to such an extent that he becomes a complex being. Right. After he becomes a complex being and goes through all the sufferings which complexities bring, he tries to find a way of becomin g simple again. The reason he wants to do this, is to find happiness and peace. But now he reaches, he reaches to a beautiful simplicity of enlightenment where he finds peace. But there is a great difference the peace between a primitive man and the peace and that is in an enlightened man is completely different. One is a peace that is unconscious, the other is a peace which is in the realms of the superconscious. Fine. And yet the unconscious peace of a little child contains the germs of unrest, and that which is not peace, the peace we observe in the child, the innocence we observe in the child is superficial. It is superficial because nothing can come from nothing. If something is produced, if the child grows up in a certain way then naturally the child has certain inherent tendencies, good, inherent tendencies from his parents and from his past circumstances in other lifetimes. So in the child are tendencies that would manifest itself as it becomes a thinking being. Good. So the child's consciousness does not develop, it does not develop in the sense that all the tendencies are inherent in there. Good. And it develops in the sense that they manifest themselves. So, when we see a child so peaceful and so innocent, we are looking at the superficial value, but the superficial value is so beautiful that we could learn lessons from it. Therefore we use the child as an analogy. Good. Now a seed, we know contains the whole tree. The seed has within it the possibility of the whole tree. So what happens is so simple, that the seed develops or unfolds its potentiality into the tree. So, from that childlike innocence to the non-innocent grown up, we can be assured of the fact that even in our childhood state, we came here as a child, as a n infant, but we also had within us all those Samskaras, all those tendencies which will manifest. Now, those tendencies, those Samskaras we have within ourselves, will spontaneously and very naturally create the circumstances for us to manifest those tendencies. That is why you would find a child with certain tendencies would just automatically form certain friendships. You’d find another child with other tendencies, he would automatically formulate other kinds of friendships. And because of the tendencies, we are guided into the circumstances that we are placed in. So from the moment of our birth, seemingly so innocent, we are filled with all these tendencies which would manifest.

9. UK 77-4 Now, we can not subdue those tendencies expression. Now, if a child has murderous tendencies, it does not mean that he must grow up and commit murder. That is too literal a statement but if the child has murderous tendencies, he can express those same tendencies in chopping wood, using an axe. Right. So he has to outlive, it is the same energy the same expression, right, the same tendency of destruction. He's destroying the tree, yes, but that destruction, that cutting down of the tree can become useful. Therefore we find this place wood-panelled, wooden floors. So whatever tendencies we have in ourselves, we can convert them to a very useful way, convert them in a very useful way. And that is how evolution takes place. Now there has always been a misconception that you just allow a child what it wants to do. And after thirty years of teaching, Dr Benjamin Spock I think it is, Spock, yes, he admitted that he was wrong. Good. So the parent's duty would be there to discipline the child in such a way that he would grow up more responsibly and that is how the base tendencies, latent in the child, can be brought to a greater fruitfulness and usefulness. Good. Now, if that path is chosen, if that path is chosen then the child’s growing-up days would become happier. Now if the parents themselves are not disciplined then how could the children be disciplined? Good. So, from the so-called innocence of a child, when it comes upon the complexities of life, remember this, that the child had those tendencies and when grown-ups start meditating, they are performing a useful service, not only to themselves but to the offspring as well because in that atmosphere, the child will feel a greater security and greater love because that is what meditation does to us. And that is how we reach back to our primal innocence, not the superficial innocence of the child, but the primal innocence that is tendency-less. So what we are in fact doing is that we are getting rid of all tendencies and tendencies are like waves on the surface of the ocean and those waves are stilled. And when they become stilled, the ocean is calm. So, it is not necessary to start from innocence of the child and go through all of the problems of a grown-up life and then return to the innocence again. One can start from those tendencies of the child, superficially innocent, and with proper guidance of the parents, those tendencies can be eradicated; not subdued but eradicated, where the child itself will find pure innocence. And that is the innocence we are all striving for, and that is creativity. That is creativeness, that is constructiveness and not destructiveness. Right, so we are all aiming to reach back to that primal innocence? We are all aiming to reach it again. How? We have the ways, and means and methods at our command. And we can. There, is no hope lost there. Good. But here is one little lesson that is learnt, that the child-like innocence can, the superficial innocence that we see, can be kept innocent and its tendencies could be brought out but usefully channelled so that it

10. UK 77-4 does not remain destructive but constructive and in that constructiveness, the child when grown up can find true innocence. Okay. Next. Questioner. This is a question about competition. Gururaj. Oh, which lottery is that? Questioner(Cont’d). The lottery of every day life. Competition is everywhere around us and it seems to have a positive side and a negative side. Now on the positive side, men only want to fulfil certain abilities, in sport for example. On the negative side, it encourages envy, anger and so on. Now is competitiveness an essential step in man's evolution, in which we must go through certain competitions to reach non-competition or does it lead only in to a cul- de -sac which could be avoided? Gururaj. Beautiful, beautiful. Yes, yes. Well I hope in the next Courses we have the same trend. It would be very nice. The only competition, which could not be conducive to one’s evolution, would be the competition that we have with others. The real competition should be within one’s self. The real competition should be, within ourselves because the very tendencies that you mentioned now, competitions of greed, for greed and gain, and other competitions where there is a greater givingness or sport, for sport’s sake, that is all within ourselves. And that is a true battleground that one competes upon. Good. Today on sports fields for example, there are very few games that are played for the game itself. Games are played either for the gate money or the prestige, or who’s first on the log. Do you see the motivation there? Now that competition is unhealthy. There is competition in business where I would try and outdo my opposition. That competition is unhealthy. Good. Now, all these various types of outward competitions are only expressions of our inner competitions and our inner competitions are created by conflicts. Therefore ever in man is the competition or the conflict of give and take, give or gain. Good. And that is the real battleground. And that is really the true essence of the Gita, that most of you have read. The forces of good and evil, right, give or gain - that competition is truly within ourselves. And that is where we are the competitors and we are at the same time the referee and the judges. What a mixture we are? Yes. Now, the referee that we have within us might be a very biased referee, so who do we fix up first? The competing forces within ourselves or the referee? Now, the referee could be conditioned, the referee could be tutored by the things

11. UK 77-4 we learn from Scriptures. Scriptural injunctions, moral codes, ethical codes could be the yardstick of the referee. And when other instincts within us, good instincts or bad instincts, which ever takes the upper hand, can be well controlled by the referee, if the referee is tutored first. So instead of starting with the competitors within us, we start with the referee. Now that referee is of course our ego. Now if we can the use that same ego, not to annihilate him, not to destroy him, but the ego, to develop a sense of givingness, then it will lose its sense of gaining. Now when the ego has the sense, develops the sense, this is of course on the relative level, worldly level, when the ego within us develops the sense of giving then it will automatically guide the other senses within us that could be acquisitive and non-giving. So, the real competition always lies within man. He creates the competition and he tears himself into two, to compete and that is why people are disintegrated. Disintegration means tearing apart of our personalities, when personalities do not act as a whole, they do not act as one. So, when the personality is torn, when these conflicts are created within ourselves then all strife begins and strife is another word for competition. Good. So when through our meditational and spiritual practices, we become a more integrated beings then disintegration disappears. The two opposites here can never live together. When the light shines, darkness disappears. When the darkness is there, there is no light. Like that, by proper tutoring of our little ego personalities, the competition, the conflicts within us can be eradicated. And when we eradicate those conflicts within us then we are not at conflict with the environment. So competition is good and progressive as far as worldly exterior things are concerned. Its good as far as business is concerned, sport is concerned and various other factors are concerned, where industries are concerned where one would make a better product than the other. Fine. That competition could be good. But what is the motivation? Motivation governs every thing. And who are the motivators? Are the owners of the company. And who owns the owners? Their little ego selves. So it's the same the old circle everywhere and the circle ever widens and widens and widens. But for personal progress, for personal progress all competition within us must cease. A integration, a unity must be brought about within us, where there is no conflict and that is how competition ceases and we live as a complete whole. And when we live as a whole then everything around us does not require competing with. This whole idea of competition also leads one to being better than the Jones’s. That’s competition. So Mr X drives a Mercedes, so I must buy a Rolls Royce. So because of the conflict within us, we are creating a conflict or competition with the environment. So when we have no conflict within ourselves and we are not competing against ourselves, then there exists no necessity to compete with anyone else. So when you go to the next party and Mrs Roberts can have a better dress than what you have on. You are self-satisfied, even if you have worn it to ten parties, it’s still your dress and

12. UK 77-4 you like it. You don’t need to run to your dressmaker for that special party and have a new dress made in case Mrs Roberts’s dress is better than mine. No, you are competing with yourself. Good. So when self-competition ceases then competition in the environment ceases automatically. After all, what are we trying to prove? By, by Mrs James having a better dress on than Mrs Jones, what is she proving? They will both get home drunk in any case. (General laughter). Yes. What are they trying to prove? They have only proved one thing very successfully, that they are both disintegrated people. It’s very apparent. It’s very apparent. Like that, life goes on and competition goes on, so we don’t try and reform the outside competing world, but we try and still the competition and the conflicts within us. There is only one thing that will happen, that the Psychiatrists will have to sign on for National - what do call that? - Assistance, National Assistance. That's all that will happen. Good. Okay. Gururaj. Can't we talk for another half an hour? What time is the other meeting? Aide. As soon as this meeting is over, the other meeting will begin. Gururaj. Good. Let's have one more question. Aide. One more question. Questioner. Guruji, I have read that our activity and our experience is food for the soul, that we digest our experience and that in so doing, positive energies are structured into our causal body, so that we gradually develop a perfect or complete, causal body. Is this true and if so, how does this process relate to the dissolving or resolving of Samskaras? Gururaj. Beautiful. Yes. Now the first part of the question is true, but there we will have to interpret the meaning of soul. Good. Now, if soul is meant to be, if soul is meant to be pure consciousness or the pure spirit within us, it does not require food. It does not require food, it is fed-up already! (Gururaj laughs) Good. But, if by soul we mean that individual human personality, then of course that personality, the individualised being, the bubble on the surface of the pond, does require the air to make it into a bubble. It does require food. And all these things you have talked about are necessary for that bubble, for that individuality to exist. Good.

13. UK 77-4 Now, the mechanics of the creation of individuality are very complex and yet very simple. Good. We discussed it this morning or yesterday, how from the state of silence, the very little atomic particle was forced through this mighty explosion, and is forever propelled on. Good. From the very moment of its propulsion, it became individualised. And that is, incidentally, one of the aspects of your mantra, for those that are on mantra meditation. When the individuality is created, then that individuality has to be nurtured and fostered and therefore the food you speak about is necessary. Good. Now, it is by excessive feeding of that individuality that it develops indigestion. Yes. Yes. Yes. Good. By that I mean that the indigestion created in that individuality is due to ego, which the individuality has created. Such a vicious circle. Individuality creates ego and ego fosters individuality. Good. That is the process. So we have to de-process it and go back the same way, and go back the same way in subduing that ego. And by subduing that ego, we lose individuality and gain universality. So this, too, is very similar to the first question, that one has to go through this process, one has to go through this process, because that very force of nature that engineered this, did it for the purpose of, as theology would call it, expression. Good. So it has to be expressed. Milk is created in a mother's breast. It has to be expressed, or else it hurts or dries up. So, in order for the milk to have its fullest value it has to be expressed and that is how the child is fed. In our case, what happens, the ego is fed. And there are more little babies suffering from indigestion than not. Mothers overfeed their children, more times than not. Good. So, the process, the mechanics would have to be under-feeding. The mechanics would have to be starving the ego, so that even in its individual progress, would mean that of starvation where it is not inflated more but deflated. And that is how it would reach back to its original self. It would reach back to its primal source. It is the very energy of Divinity that is part and parcel of creating individuality. It is universality that creates individuality and it is because of individuality that universality can exist. They are such a part and parcel of each other. And the way out is to merge the individuality into the universality, into one's primal self again. Good. These are the mechanics and this is the process. Through meditational means we reach nearer and nearer to it. That is how creativity expresses itself outwardly and inwardly, until the exterior and interior fails to find the dividing line, where exterior does not remain the exterior, and the interior does not remain interior any more, because the dividing line of the ego has been subdued and that seemingly too becomes one and there too, conflicts cease. So all this creation, all this explosion, this evolution, this development is just because of friction and the whole idea is to get rid of friction, to become friction-less. And that is merging back into the divine being, where there is no friction any more. And that is the bliss that we are all after, absolute existence, absolute bliss, absolute knowledge. Okay.

14. UK 77-4 Questioner. Am I allowed to ask a follow-up? Gururaj. Follow-up? Sure. I will have to cut this short because of the next meeting. Questioner(Cont’d). Is there some point at which are above all, for without which the expressive force turns towards seeking back to the source. We must need the expressive of a ....... (Inaudible) Gururaj. Yes, that's true, that very easily answered. The impression causes the expression, and the expression returns back to the impression. Namaste. END