2. U S 79 - 22 Now, it is very easy to say thy faith has made thee whole. What do we understand by it? What are the mechanics that are involved in the creation of this faith? How do we become faithful or full of faith? What steps are to be taken to reach the stage where this faith develops? Now, this is a very, very easy thing. We are doing it dai ly without realizing it, for faith and trust are synonymous. They mean the same thing. The greatest business deals are done over the luncheon table. The contracts only follow weeks later, when the typist types them out. The deal is done on a shake of a hand. There is faith and trust. I've done a deal with you, and I trust, I have faith that it will be so. At home the relationship between man and wife is also primarily of trust. There is trust in a happy home that my wife won't do anything harmful to the home or to me. And the wife has the same trust in the husband, the same faith that he will not do anything harmful to the home and to me. When it comes to our children, you send them to school in the morning, and you have faith that they will return home safely in the afternoon after school. They could have many accidents. They occur by the dozens, scores, hundreds every day. But you have that faith that they will return. You take the word of your mother that Mr. X Y Zed is your father. You take h er word on trust and faith. How do you know? Even paternity tests are not valid in court nowadays. How do you know? You have the faith and trust. Right. Everything we do, we jump into our car to reach from here to some town nearby, we have faith that we will reach there. We make an appointment, we have faith that our friend will be there at the appointed place. So everything we are doing we have that inner faith that this is not my last breath, I'm gonna have another breath after that and I am alive . Everything in life is based upon trust and faith. The only thing that is lacking is faith in Divinity. Why? To me it is so illogical when all the faith we have in all mundane things of life are inspired and engendered and empowered by the strength of Divinity. And yet we have no faith in Divinity. Good. So, when we don't have faith, what do we have? What replaces faith? What replaces trust? Mistrust. It's always the opposite that replaces. So when we don't have trust and faith in God, then we h ave mistrust. What's the opposite of faith? Faithlessness? VOICES: [VARIOUS SUGGESTIONS] GURURAJ: Doubt. Doubt. Doubt. So we have mistrust and we have doubt in the very essence that constitutes our being. And is that not a shame, really, when we have faith in all these mundane things? We have faith that tomorrow morning at half past eigh t breakfast will be served. There won't be an earthquake here this time. [LAUGHTER] VOICE: Promise.

3. U S 79 - 22 GURURAJ: Yah. So we have faith in that. So now what to do about this mistrust and doubt we have in our minds. What do we do about them? There is o nly one way. When we say "be ye faithful," it is not going to create faith in you. It was very good, very fine, in those times when the human mind was not so complex and not so sophisticated that you could tell the people, "Believe. Have faith." And the y will have faith and believe in your word to believe and have faith. But today what man needs is experience. Because of the complexities, because of the samskaras, because of the experiences which are conflicting around in his mind, because of the circu mstances and the various influences inflicted upon man's mind, he has become faithless, full of doubt and mistrust. And this is thrust upon us every day. Every child witnesses thirteen thousand murders on the TV screen per year in America. And this app lies to other countries, as well. All the stories you find in the news media television, newspapers, magazines are all based on that which is not faith inspiring. All those romance magazines, what do they talk about? Not of [Sahasratee?] that sacrifice d her life for her husband, or Sita that went into banishment for fourteen years to be at her husband's side. Not such stories, no. Yah. All those stories are about triangles, and triangles within triangles, and further triangles within the triangle. T hose are the kind of stories that we read in papers, that we see on the television screen murder, lust, rape, pillage. So is it a wonder that man has started losing faith? And he has not only lost faith in his fellow man, but he has lost faith in himself . And that is why you mentioned A.M.S. and The International Foundation for Spiritual Unfoldment. It is there to recreate, regenerate faith in man, faith in himself that I am Divine, Divinity resides in me, and Divinity is at my beck and call if I do my part, if I help myself. If I take one step forward, Divinity takes ten steps towards me. Now, to change the environment, to change the whole economic structure upon which all politics of the world is based, upon which all art forms is based, would be hard , would be difficult. Wars are created because of economics and gain. All problems are created based upon the basis of economics, which is another very nice word for engendering greed with the pretext of preserving a stability. With the pretext of preser ving a certain kind of democracy. There's no true democracy anywhere in the world. We think that there is democracy. But if you study it deeply, you will find that it is either bureaucracy, autocracy, and all the other kind of 'cracys crazies. [LAUGHT ER] Right. So if we are powerless to change the social structure of humanity, there is one thing we can do which is within our power, is to create faith in ourselves. And that faith is created through meditation and spiritual practices, whose aim...a v ery systematic and scientific method which makes man delve deep within himself beyond the conscious level of analysis,

4. U S 79 - 22 beyond the subconscious level where all the samskaras and impressions are tumbling up and down, creating a turmoil and turbulence, and be yond that to the area where there is that silence. For if you really want to hear, you can hear in silence, not amidst the den and tumult of daily life. And that little time spent is well worth spending. Nobody demands too much of you. Just that little attention within. So through this as we reach the Kingdom of Heaven deep within, we draw a spiritual force. And by drawing upon the storehouse of spiritual force, it has to permeate the subconscious mind and the conscious mind. And that which is consti tuted of light will enlighten the subconscious and the conscious levels of our existence. And with that energy, that power, faith is spontaneously created. The greatest disease in mankind today is lack of self confidence. He is not confident in himself. He is not confident in himself, so he expresses it as an inferiority complex or a superiority complex; meanwhile, the basis is lack of confidence. How to regain this confidence within oneself, which is one's birthright. And that is done through meditati on, for when this force permeates our minds, permeates our thinking level, then our entire patterned mind is repatterned by this powerful force, and man starts trusting himself. And when he can trust himself, he can trust his brother. Then truly will he be his brother's keeper. So, thy faith has healed thee. Let us study the woman to whom Jesus said these words. Let us think of her deep yearning she had in her heart to touch his hem. Let us think of the deep love that inspired her to battle through the milling crowds to reach him. Let us think of all the problems and troubles she might have gone through just to be in the presence of such a being, and asking permission not to hug him or kiss him, but just to touch the hem of his garment. Huh? What gre at preparation went in that little act! Think. Think. Think. How pure was the woman's mind? How tinged was every cell of her body with that love for Christ! And when you have this love for Divinity, or the expression, the embodied expression of Divin ity on Earth, then your sufferings disappear. They disappear more quicker and sooner than they appeared. Oh, yes. It's like the old story of the housewife spending four, five hours...Beth here, for example, spending four, five hours at the stove cooking. And I sit there and gobble it up in ten minutes. [LAUGHTER] So it took four, five hours to make it appear. But to make it disappear, ten minutes. You see. Like that, like that all our sorrows can disappear. All our sufferings can disappear if we hav e the faith. And we know faith can move mountains. It's an old saying. But the greatest word here is "if." I IF: International Foundation. [LAUGHTER] What can I do? [LAUGHTER] Vat to do? [LAUGHTER] I heard some guru saying that: vat to do. Bleees consciousness. He said it so well. I was quite amused by it. [LAUGHTER] So, if. If we have faith. Let us forget faith, if we would do our practices regularly and that is not a very big if. You can even do gurushakti practice while driving in you r car or on a tram or a bus. You can do the activation of your chakras which are sluggish and

5. U S 79 - 22 asked to work upon even while cooking or washing the pots. It is done so automatically, spontaneously. No preparation is required, so no if's and but's are req uired. Like that. Like that. Like that gradually faith increases. And when faith increases it has a great snowballing effect. And it snowballs and becomes more and more and more powerful. And I promise you this, that when you reach a certain stage, w hich is not even a very high stage, it is still far from Divinity, in a few years time when you reach a certain stage, and some of you are reaching it already, I can see it, where every thought you think becomes a reality. Yes. And many of you that have written to me experiences this. Yes. You just think a thought which is not filled with greed or lust or selfishness, but a thought, a good thought, and it materializes. So as this happens it can only produce faith in you. As things become smoother in li fe, as a person becomes more and more integrated, mind, body, and spirit, one gains that inner strength. And that inner strength has to be expressed. And the way it is expressed is through trust and faith and love. That is the expression. Because that f orce is so powerful within you that if its not found an outlet, a release, you will burst. So that is how it develops. Gradual development for some an d faster development for others, dependent upon the amount of sincerity, dependent upon one's one pointe dness. You have to be one pointed in anything you do. And all success depends upon one pointedness, instead of having one's energies scattered all over the show, instead of living a fragmented life, where each part of you pulls in a different direction. So when that is gathered through meditational and spiritual practices, you very spontaneously receive the power of faith. For faith is a power. And that power... because you have attained that power, you will always use it, without doubt, in a good and r ight way. I have a friend who's a very brilliant doctor. He's actually the family doctor. Do you have that here, family doctor? We have family doctor because he attends to the entire family. Good. Now, he has a wife. And whenever the wife is ill she would not allow him to treat her. He has to call a specialist, another doctor. And this man I know him very personally, a good friend, meditator a very brilliant man. For if I wanted to have someone consulting me, I would go to him. So you can take it from me that he is a very brilliant doctor. But his wife has no faith in him. It's a question of familiarity breeding contempt, or something like that. [LAUGHTER] Yah. Because at home she sees him as a man, not as a brilliant doctor. And man with h is faults and frailties, she hasn't got the faith. So here Megan would phone up the specialist and tell the specialist to come and visit his wife, and he would advise the specialist what kind of medicines to give. [LAUGHTER] You see. You see. So the sp ecialist, you know, just pops in, "Hello, Mrs. This that, you're not too well." Fine. And takes that thing and prongs her here, there and everywhere. Frontside and backside and shoulder and this that. "Ah, you need an injection." And there's nothing in the injection, just vitamin k or... [LAUGHTER] Nothing. And then prescribe some tablets. And in a day or two she feels better. "How wonderful that doctor is." You see. You see how you can lose faith? And how you can gain faith.

6. U S 79 - 22 Now, faith can very ea sily be lost. It is harder to gain faith than to lose faith. It could very easily be lost, because faith is dependent upon your own personal conception, your own personal ideal of the person in whom you should have faith, especially when it comes to reli gious and spiritual matters. Now, are you qualified to analyze that? Are you qualified to analyze that a spiritual leader is worthy of your faith? What qualifications has man got? He will use that little ten perce nt of his analytical mind. And his min d might misconstrue an action of his teacher and lose faith in his teacher. Whose loss is it? Not the teacher's. The loss is of the student. A child comes to me. He doesn't like maths. He says, "My teacher is no good. He teaches me maths, which I'm not going to use ever in my life in the kind of work I'm going to do. This math is a waste of time." So then I'd explained this matriculant, seventeen year old boy, I explained to him that it is not the maths that's important. What math is doing for you is making you think, making you rationalize, making you work out formulas, awakening some of the dormant cells in your brain. And there's twelve billions of them. Right. So even if you do not have to use maths in the work that you are going to do, it w ill still help you in every aspect of life because you can think. So the purpose of maths is to make you think, not that you are going to be a professor of mathematics. And the boy was convinced. And he started liking his teacher. Before, his teacher w as no good because he did not understand the teacher. Right. And a real teacher is very difficult to understand. A real guru is very difficult to understand. They are very funny people . [LAUGHTER] Oh, yes, very funny people. He'll pat you on the back at one moment, and kick your backside the next. But for a purpose. For a purpose. And whatever action performed is always with love; unselfish, unmotivated love to see his beloveds become more happier, more harmonious, and closer and closer to the Divin ity that is. There's a little Zen story that some of you might know. The guru was sitting around the fire with his chelas. And the guru took a piece of burning coal and burned the chela's arm. So everyone was astounded, surprised, amazed. They said, "G uruji, what did you do?" They could not understand him, because on the surface it appeared such a cruel act. And then after prodding the guru very much he explained. He says, "This man was destined to die a very horrible death by fire. And by burning h im here with this coal, I have averted the horribleness of his death." So how can you understand such a guru? And it's not incumbent or necessary for the guru to explain. He will do what he does. But today people want explanations, so you explain... [L AUGHTER] You explain. You explain. Actually, in all these lectures and explanations for example, on our courses can be summed up in three words: I love you. That's all. That's all. The rest is just to please the mind. Make the mind think a bit. And when the mind thinks a bit, it might put you into action. [LAUGHTER] It might activate you. It might make you meditate regularly. [LAUGHTER] It might make you do your spiritual practices. You might have been lagging behind. To inspire a little, that 's all. But the greatest thing is the activation of the spiritual forces that are already within you, through a very subtle level, to activate that force so you fe el

7. U S 79 - 22 something. And when you feel that something, you start having faith. Never faith in the man, perhaps, but faith in the teachings and what he represents. You see. So faith can move mountains. That is one path. That is bhakti yoga, as we call it. In our movement we combine bhakti yoga, love and devotion. That is bhakti yoga. Not surre nder. Any guru that tells you "surrender to me" is doing things very wrongly. Because when he asks you, you know, to prostrate yourself in front of him in total surrender, he also expects the wallet to fall out of your pocket. [LAUGHTER] Because bending down like that, you know, pocket stretches and it falls out. [LAUGHTER] No. Surrender is the culmination of spiritual practices. Love and devotion. When that develops to a pitch there comes a surrender, and that surrender is not between you to me, no. It is between you to me, and me to you. Did Jesus not wash the feet of his disciples? Was he not as humble as the woman who begged to touch the hem of his garment? Huh? So what is born in that deep humility between teacher and student is a mutuality. Y ou surrender to me, I surrender myself to you. I have surrendered myself to you the very moment I initiated you. The very moment I sat down in meditation and communicated with your psyche, your entire being, your entire makeup, hearing, seeing you, liste ning to your vibration, and from that vibration at a very fine subtle level and bringing it to a gross audible, speakable level, in that very process the entirety of the spirit of within me was involved and that mantra was given to you with that great spir itual force. That is what helps most. Your own working with your own vibration helps. But the greater help is the spiritual force that goes behind imparting that mantra. When Ramakrishna initiated his wife, Sarada Devi, what did he do? He was an illite rate man. He told her.... They lived a brother and sister existence. They were married because to comply with the needs of society, because everyone thought that Ramakrishna was mad, he was going off his rocker. They saw him one day sitting down eating out of a dog's dish with the dog. They thought he was mad. But to him it was the greatest sanity, for he saw no difference between himself and the dog. He found that Divinity that is within him to be the same Divinity in the dog, so why can't we share t he plate? Divinity shares with Divinity in that oneness. For the dog and Ramakrishna and the bowl and the food was all but one, same essence. So they thought he was mad. And they felt that to bring him in order, "Let us get him married." So not to dis appoint them... [LAUGHTER] Now, I don't know if that solution could apply in our world. [LAUGHTER] I don't know if that solution could apply in our world. It could to a great extent. Oh, yes. Marriage is one of the most wonderful institutions that has been created stability. But our problem is very different here. We want to fall we spoke about it this morning you want to fall totally in love and then get married. Instead of having a mutua l attraction, get married and the two develop together flower in love.

8. U S 79 - 22 [END SIDE ONE] GURURAJ: Develop together. Flower in love, for love is a flowering. It's not an instant pudding. [LAUGHTER] It is a growing. You grow in love. I told you this morning if two people, young people, come to me, "Oh, we've fallen in love with each other." No. You can't fall in love, you are elevated in love. I said that this morning. You can only fall from a six story building. And you know what the conclusion would be. [LAUGHTER] You see. You see. Right. If you have a mutual attraction to a woman, and man to a...a woman to a man, and man to a woman, and if you don't have the faith and the trust in yourself that we can make this work to our mutual happiness , then don't get married because faith and trust is the basic quality. Meeting and courting and this that and the other... trying before buying, that's all. [LAUGHTER] Mmm. [LAUGHTER] Mind you, there's some sense in it. You know if you go to the Indi an markets in the villages and you want to buy a watermelon, you know, they take a sharp knife and cut a chip and take it out, and give it to you to see if it's now really ripe. But that is buying the watermelon. You don't buy your wife or your husband. You see. That is togetherness, a fair exchange of each other, to each other, with each other. You see. So love grows. And that too requires faith. So here, nevertheless, to get back to our story, they thought by getting him married, you know, he will s top being mad. His wife will bring him right. But it worked the other way around. [LAUGHTER] Yes. His wife became more religious. That even today the people of the Ramakrishna order worship her as a mother, Sarada Devi. Oh, yes. And their relationsh ip was totally as god and goddess would have. Now, there's one thing I don't know, and which I can't tell you about, that if gods and goddesses have physical relationships. I don't know. [LAUGHTER] So don't ask me. [LAUGHTER] Yes. So.... You're sti ll laughing. [LAUGHTER] Yes. So we don't know if that is the solution in our modern times. But one thing is definitely known that we can if we want to develop faith in anything we do. We can develop that self confidence. We start a little busines s venture. Dale starts selling his crystals on Forty second Street, and opens up a branch in Covent Garden, London. He has the faith. Yes. There's the will to win. Those crystals will turn into diamonds. Yes. Likewise, in everything. And that makes us whole. To heal is to be made whole. An integrated personality is a whole personality. For all the forces of the grosser levels of life and the subtler levels of life merge, interpenetrate each other. Like salt in the sea, inseparable. That mak es sea water. You see, like that in everything: business life, work life, home life. And if all that has the underlying factor of the god life, which creates that faith, then all the other facets become successful, joyous, happy, as we want it. That coul d hap pen.

9. U S 79 - 22 Man is what he thinks, he is nothing else. His mind is nothing else but a whole bundle of thoughts of past and present and so called future. Right. What is his body? Nothing else but food. So, thoughts and food, that's all you have. Is tha t what you think? VOICE: [Yeah?]. GURURAJ: There is a higher life within. There's a higher life within. Thought influences the body; the body influences the thought; food influences thought; and thought influences the food, which is your body. So in this very mundane.... Thought is also matter of a very finer nature, subtler nature. The body is of a grosser nature. What it requires is that injection, or infusion, of the higher nature, or the Divine nature which is forever in man. And that is why we me ditate, to draw from that force. It is our birthright. It is forever present. You don't need a lantern to walk through the streets lo oking for it. It is there for the uncovering, unveiling, bypassing the thought processes of the mind, bypassing the age old impressions in the mind, the samskaras, and drawing forth that power from within, so that everything else is permeated by that light that is within. And therefore the Bible says, and I love to repeat this a million times, "Seek ye first the Kingd om o f Heaven within, and all else shall be added unto thee." And in that "all else" we can add the greatest word in the English language: peace. For if you find that peace within, then everything else is peaceful. Outer circumstances might not change, but by having this peace within, which is the counterpart of faith and created by faith, then we see life. Really see it. For is it not said that those that wants to see will see; those that want to hear will hear? And then we remove the rose colored glasses from our eyes, or any colored glasses from our eyes, and see truth in reality instead of looking at things with jaundiced eyes. When you have jaundice everything just seems yellow. You see. So that is how faith works. That is the mechanism of faith. Fa ith is an outcome of the infusion of the inner reality with the outer reality. Faith is the result. And that is what faith is. Hm? Okay. Fine. How far are we, Amrit? AMRIT: [????????????] lunchtime. GURURAJ: Not enough time. AMRIT: [INAUDIBLE]

10. U S 79 - 22 G URURAJ: Do we have more time? VOICES: [VARIOUS REMARKS] GURURAJ: It's up to you. VOICE: More. GURURAJ: More, more, more, more. Short one. AMRIT: Short one. [LAUGHTER] Do you want to ask the short one that you weren't able to ask today? FEMALE VOICE: It's been answered [INAUDIBLE]. [LAUGHTER] GURURAJ: Okay. AMRIT: Okay. Here we go. Jessie. GURURAJ: So, faith is the outcome. Love is the outcome. Joy is the outcome. The net result of diving deep within. The pearls, the oyste rs, don't float on the surface. You've got to dive in to find them. And once you find the oyster, you still have to open it. To open the lid, and there the pearl sparkles. It's a beautiful ornament. But when you find the pearl, yo u are not going to ke ep the pearl. You will offer it to Divinity, because the faith is so much there. Where even amongst the poor such an expensive oil, three hundred dinars, was used to anoint Jesus' head and to clean his feet. That's life. Sorry, Jessie. JESSIE: My ple asure. GURURAJ: Thank you.

11. U S 79 - 22 JESSIE: Beloved Guruji, since I've been in America I've heard a great deal about affirmation. Almost as a kind of technique which we should be using in conjunction with our practices. Could you please explain the mechanics and effects of affirmation? GURURAJ: Um hm. Good. I have spoken about affirmation somewhere on the East Coast. Good. It would be good to have that tape; nevertheless, we could add on some things to that. Affirmation is a good thing, it has some valu e. Affirmation should be to, as the word explains, to affirm to yourself a certain good principle. It's no good affirming a principle to yourself if you do not activate that principle. I affirm to m yself that I am going to lose ten pounds in weight. Ve ry good. Nothing wrong in that. But then don't start eating big meals. [LAUGHTER] So what is that affirmation worth? Nothing at all. I know people that have ten different affirmations every day of the week. What good is it? Affirmation should always be one pointed. And affirmation should only be made when we are thoroughly convinced of a particular weakness within us. So what is a weakness? A weakness is produced by a certain kind of patterning of the mind. Now, by affirming to ourselves something w hich is contrary to that which is happening, we are unpatterning the mind. It is like a piece of string which you wrap around your finger, and to take if off you unwrap it in the opposite direction. And that is where affirmation helps. The whole of the Yogananda Foundation is founded upon kriya and affirmation. Kriya means action. It's another word. Although, of course, their system is very ritualistic. But the real meaning of kriya is "to act." Now, when you affirm to yourself a certain thing and you do not act upon it, then that affirmation is worth nothing. For an affirmation must also contain within itself the element of faith. You must have faith in yourself first to make your affirmat ion wo rk I affirm to myself that I will be able to finish my painting in six weeks time, or finish my symphony in six weeks time. I affirm that. But if I sit and do nothing about it, that symphony is not going to be finished. And neither is my painting going to be finished. So I have to work. Now, by working, that affirmation becomes stronger and stronger in the mind. Affirmation has value only on the mental level, which is the superficial level, but useful in certain circumstances. Good. It makes one thi nk on the conscious level, and that very thought gets driven down deep into the subconscious level of the mind. So with driving of that thought deep into the subconscious level of the mind where all the impressions or samskaras reside, what we are really doing is just shifting energies. An affirmation can never destroy a samskara. An affirmation can never destroy an impression. The only thing that can destroy samskaras or dissolve them or dissipate them or send them back to where they belong is the powe r of grace, is the spiritual force which we draw deep from within ourselves.

12. U S 79 - 22 So affirmations, in certain cases, has a limited value, a good value. Emile Coue started a series of clinics, he started in France, and the only thing he taught was this, that f or sick people he taught that every morning and night before you go to bed you repeat to yourself over and over again, "I am getting better and better, day by day." You affirm that in the morning, and you affirm that in the evening. It's a psychological device whereby the person does get better and better. Because many ills have a psychosomatic origin. So here is a method of autosuggestion. Affirmation is nothing else but autosuggestion. You are suggesting to your mind certain thoughts. Now, if affirm ations are done wrongly it could become a form of hypnosis, where you self hypnotize yourself self hypnosis. Now, when it leads to that, then it will manifest itself in a different way or form. Good. So, in other words, by affirmation you cure the heada che and you might develop a toe ache. Huh? You see. So one has to be very, very careful with affirmations. The truest and the greatest affirmation one could have is this, that will not be autosuggestion, that will not be self hypnosis, and that affir mation is this, that, "Lord I am nothing. Not my will, but let Thy will be done." That is the greatest affirmation that one could ever have, because here you are offering yourself to a power greater than yourself. All selfishness is removed. I affirm th at by the end of this month I will earn ten thousand dollars selfish motivation. Right. I want to earn it for my pockets or my greed, for whatever purpose, huh. There's selfishness involved. Or, so my business could run and salaries could be paid. Ri ght. So the true affirmation is not, "My will, my Lord" but, "Thy will be done." For who knows your needs? Do you really know your needs in life? No. You don't. You only know your wants, not your needs. Divinity knows your needs. So let His will be done, and when He sees you need something it is given to you. Knock and the door is opened. What's the sense of affirming uselessly that within one year I'll have a million dollars in my pocket? Huh? What's the sense of that? Makes nothing. Yes, the million dollars might come if you plan and work and this, that and the other, but remember this also, a million dollars in notes and also two million dollars in that which is not peace. Anti peace. Anti peace is anti Christ. You see, all this comes. All this comes. And yet, and yet, all the problems in the world is caused, as I said in answer to the first question, that everything is based on economics. And yet, on our dollar what do we read, "In God We Trust." [LAUGHTER] That bloody printer must be s hot. [LAUGHTER] You see. So if affirmation is selfless, if affirmation becomes an offering, then it is not autosuggestion and it is not self hypnosis . So with the spiritual practices it's good to offer oneself: Let Thy will be done, my Lord. Who am I? Thou are the Almighty. And let me through my humility, through my childlikeness, merge into thee and experience Thy almightyness, not mine. You see. That is how affirmations could work.

13. U S 79 - 22 Now, I told this story the other day about affirmations that could go the wrong way. I wonder if I should tell it now? [LAUGHTER] You see, they started laughing already. [LAUGHTER] You see, affirmations could also... [HE LAUGHS] Affirmations could also work the wrong way. Do you know, all truck drivers... AUDIENCE : Oh, no. GURURAJ: Do you know that one? [LAUGHTER] AUDIENCE: [YES'S AND NO'S] GURURAJ: No, you don't. No. VOICES: Tell it. GURURAJ: I'll tell it, you know, because there's nothing wrong with it. We all do it, in any case. [LAUGHTER] All tr uck drivers suffer of constipation. Because in every sentence they utter they said, "No shit!" [MUCH LAUGHTER] You see? So be very careful... [LAUGHTER] So be very careful with your affirmation, and do not get constipation. [LAUGHTER] Good. On this n ote... [MUCH LAUGHTER] Affirmation has its values if practiced properly. That is the point. If practiced wrongly they could have an adverse effect , because you are drumming into your head, into your mind, thoughts that could be very selfish. And selfish ness must manifest itself. Every action must have its reaction. Whatever you sow, you have to reap. So affirmations are good, properly done. They are good. They have some value if added to one's spiritual progress. Good. There are certain other kinds of affirmations. Where a person seriously requires an operation, inflamed appendicitis... appendix, and he can affirm from morning to night that I won't need an operation. It's not going to help him, that appendix is going to burst. If he needs the op eration, he must go for the operation. Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's, unto God what is God's. Let the physicians look after the body whenever it is necessary. But when man reaches that stage of strength and integration, then he can get rid of the ap pendix without the help of the doctor. But we are not at that stage yet. So affirmations has its value, but let it be very practical. And let the affirmation be an offering. Let the affirmation con tain the humility of Thy will be done. And you will find , in that surrender to that will, whatever your heart desires in total

1. U S 79 - 22 GURURAJ: Good. What shall we talk about tonight? You know, when it comes to talking, you know, people do the same things with their friends they do with God: they do all the ta lking, never the listening. [long pause] Bhakti yoga. VOICE: Beloved Guruji, my heart has always been touched by the beautiful story in the gospels of the faith of the woman who knew if she could only press through the crowd and touch the hem of Christ' s robe that she would be... GURURAJ: [INTERRUPTING] Bhakti yoga. [LAUGHTER] Sorry, the interruption. Carry on. I'm enjoying the question. VOICE: She so touched, and Christ felt the touch and turned to find her, saying, "Your faith has made you who le." You have said that if we but have the simple faith of a child, do our meditations and spiritual practices regularly, that our fai th will grow and grow and all glory will be ours. Could you speak to us about the nature of faith and how it can make us whole? And what role it plays in our unfoldment, and the unfoldment of The American Meditation Society and The International Foundation for Spiritual Unfoldment? GURURAJ: Bhakti yoga. [LAUGHTER] Next question. [MUCH LAUGHTER] It's so simple to read the minds and hearts of men. And just by looking into their eyes, you could see how the minds function. Very simple. Next lesson we'll teach you that. Okay. Next April. Good. Now, when Christ said, "Thy faith shall make thee whole," it is one of the t ruest and greatest statements that has ever been uttered. Here a man of God, an incarnation, is showing his dependence upon the faith of the person concerned. Look at the responsibility there is involved in this when he says, "Thy faith had made thee who le." So here Christ is denying to himself that I can't make you whole, but your faith can. He's telling us that, be of faith. Do you see the great significance? Even when it is said, and we all know the saying, that God only helps those that helps them selves. That means that God can't even help you, even if He tried. What is the reason of this? What is the reason for this? The reason is so simple, that everything has to come from you and not from an outside source. You have to keep the electrical b ulbs in order and the mechanism in order for light. The electricity is there, but you have to channel the electricity. So a lot depends upon you. All teachers and gurus and all these great masters say the same thing: you, you, you. Today people look fo r miracles. There are no such things as miracles. I've said this over and over again. It is just an understanding or the awakening of subtler laws that you do not yet mentally comprehend. But as meditational and spiritual practices are done on a regula r basis, we unfold within ourselves those deeper layers of knowledge that does not even need cognition by the conscious mind, but it is knowing on the level of knowingness.

14. U S 79 - 22 sincerity will come to pass. It must happen! That is the law of nature. And man, in reality, is the master of nature. And not it's slave. We have taken slavery upon ourselves, by o urselves and none other. And if we want to free ourselves, if we are fettered with chains leg irons we can't take it off ourselves, we go to the blacksmith for him to hammer it off, hea t it up and hammer if off. And that blacksmith is wonderful. He ca n remove all the chains if you just say, "Look, do it your way. Thy will be done." Good. So it woiks. [LAUGHTER] **** END ****