1. UK 80- 31 Questioner. ...... (Inaudible). Gururaj. Good. Fine. It is very easy to say for anyone that I can find my inner guru. Now if everyone was capable of finding his inner guru, each and every one of you would have been enlightened. Unfortunately you are not, so an outer guru is needed. When you go to school, standard one, two, three, four, you need a teacher and once you can read, you are taught to read, then you do not need the teacher any more. You can read by yourself. Good. So the outer guru is used as a tool that if you are sincere enough, you can draw from him the knowledge, wisdom and the understanding, and also benefit by the spiritual force he represents. Now a true guru is never really a historical person but his greatness lies in what he symbolises. If Christ or Buddha existed or not, that is not the main criteria of the teachings but they are such a symbol, whereby all our mental faculties and all that is contained within, can be focused to a focal point, not at a person but what the person represents and what flows through that person. Now you have a very simple way of judging this. And the simplest way is this, that which I am being taught by Buddha, or Christ or Krishna does it make any sense to me? Has it got any relevance to my life? Is it benefiting me at all? Am I developing a greater awareness? Am I developing a greater understanding? Are the perspectives of my life changing? And with the development of that awareness do I find anything different in my life today than what it was last year? That is your criteria. So the, so you want to pull out a screw from this piece of wood, then you just can't do it on your own, you need a screw driver to turn out the screw. But people are so screwed up that they do not realise this factor therefore this world is screwy. Good. So like a housewife, as I would always say, who wants to go to the supermarket, she makes out a list of what she wants to buy and after she has bought the things she wants she throws the list away. The list is not necessary. So in the same way the outer guru is the shopping list or the ladder to make you climb and when you have reached the height, which you yourself will understand by the inner voice that now I have found my inner self, I have found the Kingdom of Heaven within. Now, you can be misled into believing that. People live a lot in imaginations, hallucinations and in belief, they convince themselves that I have found the inner voice. Who is there to judge that you have found the inner voice? Can you judge for yourself? No you can't. You need a mirror to see your face. You cannot see your face yourself and that mirror is the outer guru, who will tell you, you have now found something so be on your way. Do not be dependent upon me, because a true guru does not want dependency, he does not want worship. What he wants is love, devotion and friendship because he is a friend to all. He knows of no hatred, he knows of no enemies. The main principle that embodies his life is this, smack me on one cheek and I shall offer thee the other. For after all, you that are seeking for the inner guru, you that are seeking for the inner guru, are none other than myself. You are not apart from me but you are a

2. UK 80- 31 part of me for nothing can exist dividedly in this universe. Nothing can exist separately, but everything exists interdependently in that oneness of our Father. So who is after all the outer guru and who are you? No difference at all except one - that the outer guru, the outer guru has travelled a certain path, he has gone through all the pitfalls of life, he has gained all the experiences, he has found that which is really worth finding and teaching you he is only sharing with you the deep love that he has found within himself. And having found that deep love within himself, he does his best to awaken that love within you, for the Kingdom of Heaven within is nothing else but love. And this love can be expressed in so many forms. So when a person who is a fragmented person, whose body pulls one way and the mind the other way and the spirit is forgotten, then when such a person talks of finding the inner guru by himself without any aid, then it is a gross mistake. Now what makes a person think this? Let’s think about it carefully. Why does a person say, ‘That I will find my own guru, I don't need anyone else?’ Why does a person say that and what is in that person to make him say that? It is his ego self that says that. It is his rational thinking mind that analyses himself and bluffs himself and he remains only on the mind level while Divinity is beyond the mind. So where is there any progress? You are just delving in the mind and swimming around in the waters of the mind and you can very easily get drowned, so there the outer guru is required. He is a good swimmer. He pulls you out. You see how important it is. When a person says that I want to find, I can find my inner guru myself, then that person will never find it. I tell you why, because to become a master of yourself you’ve got to know what discipleship is. Everyone wants to be a Master. No one, or very few, want to be real disciples. Everyone wants to be generals but no one wants to be soldiers. And yet you start in the barracks peeling potatoes. You see. There lies the difference and there you become the master of yourself when you can say that I have travelled the path and I have found now the inner guru, the Kingdom of Heaven within me and I am an integrated person where the mind, body and spirit functions in a total wholeness. Now, to go back a few steps. When a person, what makes a person say that I on my own can find the inner guru. It would be like saying that I can be born on my own without needing a mother. Impossible. Now what makes him say that is that ego self he has built up in false belief that I am all powerful. For the way to find the inner guru is humility and not haughtiness or pride. So the outer guru with his own devious ways is, gurus are funny people, you could never understand them. You've got to become like them before you can understand them. Who could understand gurus like Christ or Buddha or Mahavir, Mahavir the creator of Jainism, the Jain religion? I am sure most of you know about it. Mahavir used to go around totally naked. That was his way of teaching total humbleness that, `I am naked unto Thee my

3. UK 80- 31 Lord'. And people regarded him as a madman and for thirty long years he was chased from village to village to village and yet after he was dead, like all great masters are only known after they are dead - I don't know why they don't die sooner so that they become known sooner. They are idiots, wasting their time teaching. They are idiots wasting their time teaching, that the mind says, but the heart says I love, I can't help teaching. So Mahavir for forty long years was chased from village to village to village as a madman. Take the life of Christ. He was the most despised man existing two thousand years ago. The Pharisees, the Sadducees and Sanhedrins, the whole bang lot, his own race, the Jews everyone hated him, hated him because he was in the path of so many people. He revolutionised the minds of men. He talked of brotherhood and love but that was no good because the person that hates, what does he know of love? So that is what the outer guru teaches, that is what he teaches. Take the life of Buddha. Buddha the historical person is only - he had his problems. Mara, his arch-enemy with all his troops, made Buddha’s life a misery. And yet those teachings are so profound, so deep that they still last today. So all these great Masters that taught eternal truths, we worship them today, not because they were historical personages or not, but because what they brought to this world. Many a man in deep trouble have thought of one of these Masters and if he has thought sincerely, deeply which is learnt through meditation and spiritual practices, so much aid has come to them, so much peace has come. So Masters, be they living or dead, can impart the same grace, for to impart the human impulse to another human, you need a human. That is why to take the path of trial and error that I will find my own inner guru, very good, it’s a long arduous path. The easier one is to go to the teacher. If I want to learn maths, there is no sense me struggling about with all these formulas. Go to a Maths teacher; he will explain me the formulas and I could work out the problems. And that is what is needed so much in this world today than ever before because as soon as a person takes the assistance - you talk of gurus, why don’t you take ordinary examples, if your tap is leaking, why do you call a plumber instead of getting your whole house filled with water, banging on the pipes. Or you feel ill, why do you go to a doctor? Why don’t you cure yourself? All this falls under the same category, for the true guru is a spiritual doctor. The M.D. round the corner, the M.B.C.H.B., F.R.C.P.S. etc. is a physical doctor. And those that have studied and learnt and experienced the power and the flow of Divinity, will know how to guide, how to teach. Sometimes the outer guru has to use cruel methods. There is a story from Zen. A Guru was sitting around with his disciples - some of you may have heard this story, I have repeated, I've said it before - was sitting round the fire with his disciples one cold night. So all of a sudden the guru takes a burning stick out of the fire and burns one of the Chelas o n the arm. Everyone was aghast. 'Guruji, what are you doing?' But the guru he sees further than his nose. He sees round corners too. So after pleading, after the other Chelas pleading to him, he said, ‘The fate of this man was to be burnt alive

4. UK 80- 31 and I have just prevented that’. So outwardly it might seem cruel, unconventional. Gurus are never conventional people. Christ was not a conventional man. Mahavir was not a conventional man and neither was Buddha. You see. But they know what they are doing. If you study the Gita, Krishna says to Arjuna, ‘That we have been on this earth, you and I, many times before. The difference is this that you do not know your past lives but I do’. You see. Now that is the mark of the true guru. For example, I am sitting in a room and you are passing by the window and I give a slap to a young lady. I slap her face and you are passing there outside and you see this through the window. You would say, ‘Is Guruji gone mad? He slapped this woman, he is so cruel’. That you saw from outside the window. But would you know that the girl was in such a hysterical state, that I would have to slap her just to shock her to get her steady. You see the methods, so many methods, and yet in that lies the greatest kindness to bring stability to this young lady for who slaps a young woman? Only a brute does or a guru. You see the difference. So the actions of real Masters could never be understood on face value. Therefore people, some people try to find the inner guru themselves because they know that the guru he might be so loving and sweet, loving and sweet today and tomorrow you don't understand him. I know of my guru. For eight months I hung around in the Ashram and he wouldn't say a word to me, not a word. And I was thinking to myself, ‘I have come all these miles right through the Himalayan jungles and through the snow and all, finding Swami Pavitranandaji, - that was his name and for eight months, I'm hanging around and he would not say a word to me. Then all of a sudden he says, ‘Come along, let’s sit down to meditate’. Just like that. What he was doing was to try and break the pride and arrogance in me. He was testing me to see if I have sufficient patience and perseverance and fortitude, because to find the inner guru, to find the Kingdom of Heaven within, is no child's play. It is a path of heroes. It is a difficult path for what could be the most greatest thing one could gain in life? The greatest thing one could gain in this life is God and do you think He is so easily found if you are not sincere even if you do not have the humility to accept the help from others which is freely given to you with love. See, so therefore that which says that I will find my own inner guru, that man is talking only from his ego level, mind level only. He has not touched the heart because a guru is there to love because he loves you. It is a sharing, a communication not only of minds but of the heart and he stirs and quickens your heart. He combines your reasoning faculty with that inexplicable faculty which is called the heart. The inner core of your personality is stirred so that the Divinity within you is brought to the fore and then it starts permeating everything. Everything you see is Divine. Everything you see is good. Everything you see has a purpose and you function as an integrated person in the world but not of the world. In the world, but not of the world. Partake of everything and yet totally non-attached to everything. I

5. UK 80- 31 would enjoy a lovely cup of tea, a ‘cup of cha’, I would enjoy it but I am not attached to it. If it is not there, okay. If it is there fine. But the person of the ego will be craving for that cup of cha, too attached to it. So the outer guru teaches you how to cleanse the ego so that the light of Divinity can shine through. And in our organisation most of you that are in it know, that that hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people have benefited so much, the very sincere ones more, the less sincere ones, less and the non-sincere ones, none. Whose fault is it? The guru's or yours? The mentality of the world today is this, they want everything overnight, forgetting that we are a product of millions of years of conditioning. Great Masters, the Son of God, Jesus, why didn't he change the entire population of the world, the consciousness of the entire population of the world, with one wave of a hand? Do you think real gurus are incapable of doing that? They are capable but no even the true gurus, great Masters, Buddha, Krishna, Christ, they can never go against the laws of nature. They would be doing you a disfavour. They would be doing you a disfavour, because you have to evolve yourself. You have to find your own inner guru. You have to walk with your own two feet and the guru shines the light on your path so that you don't stumble and fall. And even if you stumble and fall in light, it's not as bad as stumbling and falling in darkness. So that is how gradually your mind becomes enlightened and you have, Eureka, found your own inner guru. Look how long it takes to prepare a meal but you sit down at the table and gobble it up in ten minutes. And this is how it works. So that it is all the preparation where the guru and the chela takes of the closeness of heart because the guru knowing his job. You have a lot of amateur gurus nowadays, would-be gurus, they try to be gurus - blind leading the blind. It is a great crime, a great crime. Many other ways to earn a living. You don't need to make a living teaching things that you know nothing about. If you don't know how to make vegetable soup, how are you going to teach me? Listen. Why are we using kitchen examples? More ladies, ah, yes, yes. You see. So teachers are necessary in this world, be they in geography, history, maths, or spirituality, the help is necessary all the time. I cannot function either as a spiritual teacher without my guru, even now when I have found my real guru, who is inside here. So with all the help and the aid we can get we must use - gurus are there for using. Gurus are - a guru is your servant. You are the boss. He is a servant because he wants to serve. The one that serves is a servant. But there comes a time when he makes you feel like a servant. There would be a purpose for it. Sometimes he makes you feel like a boss. There would be a purpose for it. So in this relationship, there has to be some amount of obedience and if there is real love and flow, the obedience comes spontaneously, it is not something that is arduous. It comes spontaneously. You love your husband and the husband loves the wife. You don't regard what you do for your wife or

6. UK 80- 31 husband as a chore. You do it with love and that very love makes it so pleasurable. Washing his dirty, stinking socks, you don't feel the stink or the dirt. It’s no a chore, it's not work. The 'erk' is gone out of work. Because the love is there, love is there, the 'w' is left, wonderful love. You see. The secret of life. And then I march around saying I will find my own inner guru and blah, blah, blah. Absolute piffle. What does that mean? I don't. So in all humility, we search for a Teacher if we are keen to find our way on the spiritual path, if we are keen to find God, or forget the word God. If you are keen to find that happiness, that joy within ourselves, let us seek someone that could aid us. And if he does not aid after you have persevered long enough, tried long enough, find someone else, because a true guru never ties you down. He always says you are my chela but you are free. The door is open always, never closed. Go out or come in but don't play the bloody fool that’s all. Don't play the fool because you are wasting your time. My time is not wasted, the true Teacher will say because I live in the dimension of timelessness. I am not bound by time. How can eternal truths ever be bound by time? If they are bound by time they cease to be eternal and that is what life is all about. So, on this journey to God or truth, we that are bound in time become boundless and timeless. Then there is no life or death, it is all it, that existence of pure bliss, pure joy, total integration. And you don't only feel it and experience it within yourself but you feel it and experience it outside yourself. For all is one. We always say God is omnipresent. And if He is everywhere, then He is the only one, where are you with your ego trying to find the inner guru? Your ego is trying to find your inner guru and if your little ego cannot stop in its wanderings to an outer guru, then how will it be able to stop its wanderings and meanderings to the inner guru? How do you know of the abstract inner guru when you cannot appreciate the concrete outer guru? That is why we have Christ and Krishna and Buddha and Mahavir and all that. You see. And as man progresses on the spiritual path he becomes totally self-surrendered. He has surrendered his little self to his bigger Self, the small 'i' to the big 'I'. It starts from the concrete which is limited and reaches the abstract, unlimited, inexpressible vastness. That, those are the mechanics of it. So read all the literatures you can of the world. Search in every direction. That is what the true guru will tell you. If you are studying history at school, the teacher will tell you, don't only go through the syllabus, get other books on history as well. Read them too, study all because all that will strengthen you in your study of your particular history book that yo u need for that class. You see. So all these are little aids to find the Kingdom of Heaven within. Our Scriptures always say, 'Man know thyself' and this is how you learn to know yourself. So with all these meditational and spiritual practices you start learning to accept life. You accept the ups and downs. You come to terms with yourself until you rise above the ups

7. UK 80- 31 and downs. And once you rise above the ups and downs once you go beyond the seesaw of the mind then that does not mean you are away from the see saw, you’re still up and down on the seesaw, but your perspective is different. The ego self will go up and down but the real Self within you stands still. You find that unchanging quality within you, amidst all the change in life. Even true Masters, great Masters like Buddha and Christ, they were also having a physical body, subjected to intense suffering, and their suffering is more intense because they are more sensitive, more refined. Yet they accepted it in good spirit, where they said the mind and body suffers. I, the real I can never suffer. And just diverting t he attention to the real I, they became observers of the small ‘i’, that becomes extinguished or dissolved at the time the body is shed. You see. That's how it works. So in the quest, so in the quest for the inner guru, take outward aids. If your leg is sore, you are limping, why limp along? Take a crutch, use the crutch until that leg heals and becomes strong. Why bring upon yourself unnecessary strife, struggle, turmoil, turbulence, confusion. Why? It’s just a matter of love and acceptance, not to a personality, that is not important, but to what that personality represents, what he portrays, how great, how much he can love, how much grace flows through him to you. Even his presence is enough for that Grace to flow through him who is a channel, a channel of Divine Force. Even the words he speak, contains a power that your mind could never explain but touches your heart, stirs your inner being to awaken, enliven, the dormant spirit in you. It is forever awake but you have put it to slee p with your little ego self. Forty five minutes? Are we going to have tea now? What have I to say of the Law of Retribution, because it is a law that has eternal existence. Shortly, retribution forms part and parcel of Karma and that means every action has its reaction. Every action has its reaction. A good action will have a good reaction while wrong action will have wrong reaction, which we call retribution. So the Law of Retribution is part and parcel of the Law of Karma. Now what do we mean by retribution? Do we really mean it is punishment? Even if a person has done wrong acts in his life, the question would remain that according to the Law of Retribution will he be punished and will he suffer? Now we all know whatever you sow you will reap but there is an art in reaping. You can never escape your actions. There are those that do escape their actions. Those that are not bound by their actions and in order not to be bound by one's action one has to rise above all action and yet perform action. That means as the Gita would say, 'To find action in inaction and inaction in action.' So there lies the secret, how to go beyond the Law of Retribution. So the common analogy I normally use, I have spoken on this subject on various occasions - it is this, that if you kill ten people it would not mean you would be killed ten times. Now in that lifetime when you have killed ten people,

8. UK 80- 31 there might have been other deeds that you have done that were good. And yet they were not sufficient enough to overcome the action of killing ten people but by offsetting it, by trying to create a balance, you would perhaps be born in this life with the tendencies of a doctor, where you will save eleven lives, so you are one in the credit balance. So, that is the way, although the Law is whatever you sow you will reap, one can go beyond reaping, because when through experience in life, one acts for the purpose of action only and not for the fruits thereof, then the question of reaping does not remain because you are not interested in the fruits. For what do we do with the fruits? We offer it to Divinity and then we say in all our actions that I am an instrument, and whatever I do is an offering unto the Lord and you take charge of it. Now if in past lives or even in this life, perhaps some wrong actions were performed, why were they performed, that is the question. Why were they performed so that we feel the wrath of retribution? This comes from conditioning of the mind. Through many lifetimes so many actions performed, so many thoughts thought have left impressions on the mind and those impressions that are left in the vastness of the mind has to be expressed. Now, in the Law of Retribution the energy that is involved can be directed. The force of water flowing in the river will flow through whatever banks there are, it will flow in that channel but those banks by meditations and spiritual practices and right action, those banks can be changed, the course of the river can be altered. So, the water will still flow but not to its original goal, not according to the tendencies that had been established or patterned, for here you have created another pattern by changing the course of the flow. So you are not stopping the flow, you are not stopping the Law, it is impossible, but you can redirect those energies or the law into a different way. You can. The water is flowing, the river water to the ocean but you can change the banks and let it flow to the fields where fruit and flowers and food is growing. And that is how we have the upper hand in this case. Now this requires self-effort which we in our organisation call self-help. Now the water that is flowing, that is Grace and you are offsetting the force of retribution by the law of Grace. You are altering the course, by the Law of Grace but grace cannot come, Grace can never descend upon you unless you help yourself to draw that Grace. Now, in order to draw this grace, in order to give a different direction to the momentum of karma, Grace is definitely required. You cannot do it yourself. You can only draw Grace to yourself but you cannot create Grace. Grace is a universal force and it can come to you through so many different channels. And the strongest channel is the human impulse, the architect that shows you how to alter the course of the water. So, in retribution many people feel afraid, they feel guilt or guilty that I have done such and such a thing so I will suffer such and such a thing. Now it does not work that way. If you have performed a certain deed, you are not going to be punished by a similar deed but the sum totality of various deeds are put together in which one particular deed is incorporated will produce results in such a manner that you will not be able to

9. UK 80- 31 recognise it. And that is why all psycho-analysis fails because psycho-analysis there again depends on swirling the mind around, just moving energies in the mind from one place to the other. That’s all psycho-analysis does. But we on the spiritual path, we have a great reliance on Grace, so that whenever, even if ever retribution comes and the course has not been altered, we will not feel the full impact. It won't be a flooding river but a calm river flowing to the ocean. And this is the possibility that every human being has. All these impressions or samskaras are contained within the human mind and we use the mind as a tool to overcome itself and by overcoming itself, we automatically discard the mind. So we start with the mind even in spiritual practices, even in meditation the mind although filled with samskaras, the mind is nothing else but impressions and accumulations of impressions. So what we do in meditation is this, that we bring a greater quietude to the turbulent waves of the samskaras which are going to sprout as a seed would sprout into a plant, which is going to manifest itself. But through the practice of meditation and other spiritual practices, we bring the mind to a stillness, or certain levels of stillness depending how much we have progressed. Now what happens here is this, that you cannot destroy the impressions, you cannot annihilate the samskaras, but you can shed them off in a smooth manner, so that it would disintegrate and go back to its original elements. If there is a bad thought - I do not like to use the word bad because in the eyes of God everything is good. He is beyond good and bad. Nevertheless, for the purpose of the talk, if you have a bad thought in mind and through meditation what would happen, that you would disperse the energy of the bad thought so that those energies are discarded from you, not destroyed; discarded from you and will reach another source that is similar to it. That is why all Scriptures tell us that have good thoughts in the mind. By having good thoughts, you attract good thoughts that are floating around in the atmosphere as sound waves, as broadcasts from thousands of transmitting stations are at present floating around in this hall. So what happens to your bad thoughts? Through spiritual practices and self-help and self-effort is that you discard those bad thoughts and they go where they are needed or where those thoughts find a certain kind of compatibility. Birds of a feather flock together. Now, so there is nothing to fear as far as the Law of Retribution goes. If we do nothing about it the circumstances are going to be there and we will feel its full effect. But it does not end there, it makes matters worse because by feeling the full impact according to the Law of Retribution of certain actions we are strengthening that impression, we are not discarding it. We are strengthening that impression and we are adding more to samskaras. Now, if we try to force a bad thought away from the mind, the stronger it will become. They cannot be repressed. We bluff ourselves in thinking that

10. UK 80- 31 we can control those thought forces. We cannot control them. They are there waiting for expression but if you would like to use the word control, we can only bring in a substitute whereby those forces will be pushed out, pushed away to go wherever they have to go. And that is how we avoid the agony of retribution. Now, as we go on our spiritual practices, as we continue, a certain strength grows in us where because of the strength you would be able to observe the actions of your ego self and the ego self is none else but the mind which in turn is none else but a collection of impressions. So by being established, as the Gita would say, be established in Self and then perform action. For if you are established in self, no ego action of yours that is done at a given moment would leave any impression upon your mind. You then are free from bondage for what binds man is just those thought forces which is the ego self. So here too the ego self being none other than thought forces cannot be destroyed, but as the energies are dissipated and thrown off the ego self is cleansed. It becomes more transparent and the force and the power that is stirred up within shines in its fullest glory, for the glass is clean, not dirty. And that is how, although man has millions of years behind him, with millions and trillions and trillion, trillions of impressions there in this one very lifetime he can overcome them. By overcoming, I mean he can go beyond them. So that is why we say there is no hope lost. There is no hope lost for anyone but if a person goes about with a sense of fear, of retribution, then that fear would materialise and fear is also a thought created in the mind. Now how do we know what the reaction of a certain action is going to be? For this operates here in the mundane world, if you plant potatoes you cannot reap onions. Okay. But in that dimension, in that subtle dimension, you can plant stones and grow diamonds, for, or coal, you can plant coal and grow diamonds for the composition of the coal and the diamond is carbon, same, but its molecules are differently structured. So man could never predict what the reaction, man could never predict with his mind the reaction of any action but to help us in our path towards Divinity, to find the Kingdom of Heaven within. As I quoted just now the Gita says `Be established in self and then perform’. The Bible says the same thing, 'Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven within and all else will come. All else shall be added unto thee.' Essentially it means the same but in different words. So, the thing we have to get rid of is a guilt, fear. Those are the two most important things that makes man's life a misery. So, what do we do? If I have performed a bad action, am I going to mope about it? Look, I have slipped up and done this, what am I going to do about it? That is my question. Let me do other deeds that will overcome the effect of some wrong deed. Now with that attitude we approach ourselves, our samskaric self, in a positive manner. We approach it with strength. Anything approached with fear, is from the angle of weakness and weakness can only breed weakness. So if it’s approached with strength then the weakness is overcome.

11. UK 80- 31 Now, how to approach life with strength? There are so many ways. The best and easiest is meditation and spiritual practices which draw from that infinite store of Divine energy from within. That is one way, easy way. The other way is, 'Thy Will be done’. That is the other way but it is a difficult way. That is the problem. So easy to say but so difficult to practise because really to say and realise the import of those three words, 'Thy Will be Done' - four words requires a great amount of faith and who, what man has that faith? The Scriptures also say faith can move mountains, but so why not the Law of Retribution? But what man has that faith? Therefore all the great Masters shouted over and over again 'Be ye of good faith, not of doubt and mistrust’. You see it is difficult because here we are approaching faith and trust through our analytical minds and what ever we observe anyone else's actions or any situation that we are involved in, is approached by our minds and that means it is our own mental projection. For who am I to know what you are doing? I could only see the surface and that applies to ordinary people and if you can't see beyond the surface of the ordinary man, how can you see beyond the surface of a Master? Do you see? So 'Thy will be done' is another way how to overcome or redirect the Law of Retribution but this requires intense faith, intense determination, perseverance, trust, come what may and for that we go back to square one, we need strength. So therefore, so therefore, every Scripture in this world has talked of meditation and prayer. Now to really know and mean the real meaning of 'Thy will be done' there has to be trust, faith and also surrender, surrender to a force that is abstract and unknown to you, now. Your mind can only conceive of surrender in the form of giving oneself over. That is what the mind thinks. Surrender is not that. You don't lose your individuality. You don't lose your personality. Surrende r is not that. Surrender is something whereby you unite your individual will, your free will with Divine will. It is a unity that is formed. It is not annihilation of yourself but it is a unification of yourself to a higher self and this can be done with strength, with realisations, with understanding, courage. It’s very easy to doubt. Any fool doubts and as a matter of fact only fools doubt. A wise man never doubts. He has trust and faith. He has trust and faith in the vilest person for he sees nothing else but Divinity even in a vile act, for how did that vile act come about? From where was that energy received when there is only one energy? It might have been mangled up and twisted, yes, but in essence? So the wise man sees the essence. The unwise see the surface. The wise man sees the gold. The unwise sees the ornament which is subject to change day by day. The bracelet can be made into a necklace tomorrow but the gold remains. You see? So the Law of Retribution is a eternal law. You cannot escape it but you can change its course. You can take away the sting of it and that which will bring adverse circumstances can be made into opportune circumstances, because here through meditation and spiritual practices you have gained the strength that even if the mountain is toppling down you won’t bat an eyelid. So if topples down what? What’s the difference between me and that mountain? I am made of the

12. UK 80- 31 same substance, the same atomic structure and I am not lost. I cannot die. This body will go and another body will be taken, going from one room into another room, changing one suit and putting on another suit so what's the difference? Changing the bangle into a necklace, gold remains. The soul is immortal and because of the immortality of the soul that could never be destroyed the Law of Retribution cannot affect the spirit of man, the soul of man. So we come to the second point that the Law of Retribution functions on the mind and thought level only. The Law of Retribution, the Law of Karma, the Law of Reincarnation, they have nothing to do with your spirit, they are of mind value only. The mind creates the actions and the mind creates the reactions and the mind can formulate ways and means whereby the direction is changed. So, as I said, the easy way is this, is to go beyond the mind and not be affected by what the mind does. Let it do what it wants to. It is subjected to these laws we spoke about. So changing the direction of the Law of Retribution requires a lot of effort but if you go beyond the mind, through simple techniques of meditation then all that effort is not required. All that effort is not required because by going beyond the mind which is relative you are going to a sphere, the sphere of grace. So here you come with a broom of grace and it sweeps the dirt away, it sweeps the dirt away, so beautifully and smoothly. Soft, lovely, velvety broom, it does not even scratch the floor but the dirt is gone and when the dirt is gone the mind becomes clarified. And when the mind is clarified the full import of that grace, your spirit force, call it God, call it by whatever name you like, gurushakti, whatever you like takes hold of you, your life is that grace becomes that grace. It reverts back to its original nature. And when man lives spontaneously within that grace then the Devil may care as far as the mind goes. So, we suffer with our mind, we act with the mind, we react with the mind, the body is just a lump of clay. It is the mind that can be used as an instrument in one method to overcome these things but it is hard. It is a method of analysis, it is a method of severe torture to the mind, where you force the mind but in forcing the mind remember, you are not annihilating, you are just creating new patterns and those new patterns has to manifest itself again. It can manifest in a far more easier manner, but it is still on the level of the mind. The other way is the heart, the inner core of one's personality where through the power of grace and techniques, one stirs the heart, enlivens it and it flows and manifests itself, so that the doings of the mind assumes no importance. And as you know in life, when you do not put any importance upon something, it does not hurt you. It does not hurt you. It is only when you attach importance to something, you have a beautiful piece of furniture and something happens. The piece of furniture gets stolen or broken. You feel hurt? Why do you feel hurt? Because you have attached importance to that piece of furniture. But if you had not attached importance to it, knowing that it is something changing and destructible, its here today and gone tomorrow and this body is also here today and gone tomorrow, and I am not taking this chair with me. So how can I attach any

13. UK 80- 31 importance to it? Rather diverting the attention and attaching importance to that which is immortal and eternal, that Kingdom of Heaven within. Ah. That is always with me. That is me. That Divine spirit is me. I am Divine but just being muddled and covered up because of the, through the process of evolution, all the that has been stirred up, is covering it now but really that’s not me. Really that is not me and all that which keeps on changing, changing, changing, has no value. This is a thought? What value has a thought as far as your real self is concerned? Thoughts are forever changing, th e coming, going, disappearing, recreating themselves and by its own recreation and self-perpetuation, all the hurts and strifes and turmoils come. I’d rather be mad, but that is not going to solve the problem, not the ordinary kind of madness. Divine madness, yes. Ah, then I am with my real self for I have gone beyond the mind. And yet in everyday living with little effort the mind can be trained, attitudes can be changed. What is the difference between a negative mind and a positive mind? It is just a shift of energies, that's all. The mind is composed of a certain ‘X’ amount of energy. You cannot add more to it and neither can you subtract anything from it but the energies in there can be shifted around, shifting it to the left, it becomes negative, shifting it to the right, it becomes positive. And by this we mean the right and left hemispheres of the brain. One is the analytical side and other is the intuitive side and through the method of meditations and spiritual practices we draw from within, take it up in the mind to the organ of the brain, the right hemisphere and from there reinforce all the time the left hemisphere, the analytical part. And by reinforcing the analytical part, we still analyse but in a positive manner. You see, but by blocking off the right hemisphere of the brain, you cannot allow these forces intuitive forces to enter the left hemisphere. So what does it do? It stagnates and stagnation is negativity. All that flows is alive. All that stagnates is dead. So negativity is death, positivity is life. You see how it works, the mechanics - so simple, so simple, so simple. And then, when we have this understanding, when we start experiencing this power, this force that is within, then the Law of Retribution can go you know where, for the importance is not attached, importance is not attached to the mind at all. Now people talk of deeds. You can only judge the action of a man. Say a man is a thief and when he steals something you call him a thief but the very thought the man has of stealing is an action in itself, it is theft. Do you see? And that very thought - he might not have the guts to do it. Even thieving requires courage. Even thieving requires thinking and because of lack of courage, because he is a coward, he hasn't got the guts to go and steal but his mind has stolen already and that alone is enough. He has planted the seeds there for greater and greater samskaras, negative samskaras. It is there. Now if the inner force is infused to that analytical side then those thoughts even if they occur does not stick. They are blown away and they are seen as a passing show, a passing show and that is how we become free of

14. UK 80- 31 all karma. That is how any action cannot touch us. That is how we are free of the Law of Reincarnation, Its no birth or death in this mundane plane, there is everlasting life. So all these things they work together, Law of Karma, Law of Retribution, Law of Reincarnation. The spirit never reincarnates. It does not know good nor bad. It is beyond it all. It does not act and yet is the greatest doer, the greatest actor that enforces, that gives energy as a neutral force to everything that exists. I cannot even lift my hand without that force going through me and neither can you. You see. So we start off by positive thoughts. The Law of Retribution does come. I accept it, so what? I shall not fear it, I accept it. I shall not fear it and whatever its results, good or bad, I surrender to my Lord. But I will do my bit also. I will do my spiritual practices. I will try and help myself to better the circumstances. I shall be in holy company where my mind can always be filled with good thoughts. I will read good books instead of cheap novels and fill my mind with good thoughts. These are the little ruses, little ways how the mind automatically becomes tamed. You can't tame it. It automatically becomes tamed. I always say the mind is such a cunning animal, it bluffs itself all the time. You cannot use the mind to get rid of the mind. It will get rid of itself if these little understandings are gained inside the heart, felt, realised and acted upon. Fifty minutes, okay. So there are many laws in action that we know of. We know of the Law of Karma as I said, of Retribution, of Reincarnation but there are subtler laws that offset all these laws and these subtler laws are not in the range of the mind. The subtle law of Love is not in the range of the mind. If you think you love me then you are not loving me. If you think you know grace, you are not knowing grace. It is a happening. It is an automatic, spontaneous flowering. Does the flower know that it is growing? No. It is expressing, expressing, expressing its fragrance all the time. And like that there are very subtle spiritual laws of which you can feel the benefits but you can't understand them. And that is the peace that passeth all understanding. Who can explain peace? Who can explain love? No one can. Some days you feel nice and quiet. 'I am so peaceful'. Huh, peaceful! If you really know peace, tomorrow you will not be at unease. Because you have not known what real peace is, tomorrow the opposite of it comes because the peace that you are talking about, is a mental thought. It is not a spiritual peace. You see, you see. Because spiritual peace or real love does not know its opposites. We say love and hate has a thin dividing line. What love? Mental love, yes. But not real love. Love of the real self within man. That self has no opposites at all. And that is what we mean by eternal peace, eternal love, eternal existence, eternal bliss, absolute bliss, without a second, without an opposite because it permeates entirety, eternity, infinity. That is what we are striving for. So if we dwell too much on the Law of Retribution or Law of Karma, we are still involved in it. The very thought of karma involves

15. UK 80- 31 you in karma. The very thought of retribution, involves you in retribution. Reach inside. Reach inside, there is a direct line where the heart over floods the mind, where the mind does not analyse or think and the heart just is. It is a celebration, it just happens. And that very happening, that very moment is eternity. That one moment for this entire uni verse is no longer than one moment. Una momenta, one moment. And here we struggle, fish in the water and still remaining thirsty. What fools we are! We are in the water of Divinity and we thirst. How can that be? Poor mind. Poor mind. Let me rather have no mind. Namaste. END