6. U S 82 - 29 I remember we had just got a blanket at home. It was a very nice blanket. And we were saving up to buy this beautiful blanket. And we, as a hab it, won't use it when it comes out of the box, it must get a wash. It comes from those factories, handled by thousands of people and what have you. It must go into the wash first. And it was hung up on the line. And during the night someone pinched it. So, Lata, that's my wife, was very disappointed. We had saved for it and wanted it. Beautiful blanket. So, she was disappointed that we got this we'd been trying to get it for the whole year and we managed to get it and here overnight it got pinched . So, I told her, "Perhaps the person that took it needed it more than what we needed it." It is our own minds that determine the happenings around us and in us. So, I never paid it a second thought. Gone, gone. Okay. Someone else needs it more than m e. Take. Why not? What do I possess in any case? What do any of us possess in any case? You don't even possess yourself. Do you see. So, it is our own perspectives, our own awareness or lack of awareness that make us seem something to be good or to b e bad. But the integrated person sees neither, he rises above it all. I will tell you of a personal experience of mine. I had offices in the center of the city of Cape Town. And I live about twenty miles away from the center. The little car, little ja lopy I was driving at that time, couldn't start. So, I had to take a bus to reach home to change about three buses to reach home. But there was quite a long walk I had to take before reaching the bus stop. Now, it was a Saturday afternoon. I was worki ng until about four in the office. And by that time the city is fairly empty. People have gone home or have gone to their various occupations, sports and what have you. Saturday afternoons is always dull in a city. I don't know how it is here in Cincin nati. Fine. So, I was walking down this road, I remember the road so well, [Howt?] Street. And as I walked down that road three thugs apprehended me, approached me, and took off my watch. And I had about thirty bucks in my pocket, took that away. And t hey pushed me in between some, you know, doorway with the windows, they pushed me in there. One of them had a sharp knife there. Although, when I left I was offered a lift, you know, "Gururaj, let's take you home." I said, "No, no, no, no, no. For you t o drive twenty miles and bring me back, I don't want you to take that trouble. Let me take a bus, it will be a nice experience . Let me see around me the people." I love watching people, seeing the faces of people. And I could see what's happening within them. Feel their sorrows, feel their joys. Fine. So, these thugs got my watch and got the money I had on me, and they were running away. And then I shouted after them, I say, "Hey, you guys have forgotten something. I've got an expensive Parker fount ain pen here. Why don't you take this as well?" And they turned back. And they looked at me when I offered this pen to them. And then I had some loose change also, about two, three, dollars, I suppose. I took that out. "Please take this also. Why onl y the watch and the money I have? Take this also." You know what they did? They gave me back my watch, and they gave me back my money. And they were Afrikaans speaking thugs and they said

1. U S 82 - 29 EVIL GURURAJ: ...if there is so much evil in the world today. FIRST VOICE: [INAUDIBLE] that question, is there evil? SECOND VOICE: You've alluded several times to the basic goodness within mankind and the like. When you get down past the garbage to what is real spiritual person, I'd like to hear more. THIRD VOICE: On the same lines, you mentioned something earlier to day about there being no right or wrong or good or bad. And I just wondered is that true, even when it involves someone else? I mean, if you took something, if anybody inflicts something on somebody else, then could that be considered wrong then, because it's against what they want? FOURTH VOICE: Earlier today you mentioned even a rock has consciousness. If we are of God and all living things, and all inanimate things have some form of consciousness, is that not a totality of God? GURURAJ: Um hm. Th e answer to all your questions is yes. Next question. [MUCH LAUGHTER] You are right in posing the question, "is there evil?" And the answer is no. There is no evil in this world at all. There is no evil. Fine. Evil is normally an interpretation of m an's mind, through man's patterned, conditioned mind that we have spoken about so many times. There is no saint that has not had a past, and there is no sinner that has not a future. So the balance between these two factors would suggest to you that ther e is no evil, and it is only our interpretation of a situation that constitutes evil. Now, what do we mean by evil? What is really meant by evil is when we do not flow with the laws of nature, but we flow against the laws of nature. In other words, we are trying to swim against the current instead of with the current. Now, when you swim against the current, you have a hard time. And that very hard time that you have swimming against the current, you feel it to be bad or you feel it to be evil. So you are not inflicting any evil against anyone, but you are inflicting it against yourself; which I will not call evil, but I would call a stagnation in the process of your evolution. You are stagnating. You are slowing down the process of flowing against th e current of the water, instead of flowing with the current of the water of life. So, then that would constitute evil.

2. U S 82 - 29 You could never inflict evil on anyone. You might hate someone. Who are you effecting most? Not the person you hate. But you are effe cting yourself by going into the whirlpool of those negative currents of hatred, and you are harming yourself. And that you could call contrary to the laws of nature, when there is such a thin dividing line, as you all would know, between love and hatred. The deepest love could be turned into hatred, and the deepest hatred could be turned into love. Two sides of the same coin. Two sides of the same coin, and the value of either side is determined by you. And, yet, if you determine only the value of one side the coin is useless. You efface one side and you go and try and spend that silver dollar and they would reject it. So, all these qualities of good and bad so called, remember the word "so called" are inherent in you. Now, let us go to higher realm s. Who says God is good? Hm? VOICE: Everybody. GURURAJ: Everyone says God is good. Huh? And everyone says God is good because of the conceptions he has formed in his mind. He is seeking an ideal, which is supposed to be all good. And why do you seek that ideal? Because you find yourself to be all bad. So you are forever seeking for the opposite and not recognizing the truth as truth what it should be. Now, I tell you this, that the divine energies which constitute this universe...and that divine energy you could label as energy or God or matter or what level you want to interpret it to be. Now, this entire universe functions, as I might have mentioned before, through contraction and expansion. Now, would you call contraction good, and would you call expansion bad? Would you call expansion bad or contraction good, hm? So, you have formulated your concept of God. Who can prove to me that there is a God? I can give you one million arguments to prove to you that there is no God. And at the same time I can give you two million arguments to prov e to you that there is a God. Do you see. It is all the happenings contained within man's mind. Has God created you, or have you created God? Ask that question to yourself. Have you created God, or has God created you? And you'd find the overwhelming balance to favor that you have created God. You, with your minds, have created an ideal that you want to worship. Right. You have created an ideal, an unknown ideal that you know nothing about. I've said before, "You do not even know the known. How co uld you know the unknown and have such great belief and faith in the unknown which you have not experienced, but which is just but a formulation, a fixture, of your own mind?" There is reality. I said in some talk somewhere, in the beginning there is real ity, and in the end; and in between is a fixture of your mind. It is fiction. And therefore, all these theologians have different conceptions of God. The Hindus fi nd their God to be a person with four arms, one holding the discus and one holding the lot us and the other holding something

3. U S 82 - 29 else. Others have the conception of an old man sitting up there on a throne with a long beard judging you. So many conceptions I could tell you of the conceptions of man's mind. Now, which is the true conception? None. Because they are manufactured, man ufactured, by your mind. And it is not only manufactured by your mind, but you have been subjected to it since childhood by your parents, by your teachers, and by the churches and the preachers. They condition you to believe that there is a God. They condition you. Why do you use Palmolive soap? Or why do you use X, Y, Zed cereal? Or bran flakes, or whatever? Why? Do you know why? Because you watch the newspapers and the TVS all the time. And they throw it in yo ur mind, "The best soap to use is Palmolive." "The best soap is Palmolive." "The best cereal is Rice Krispies." "The best cereal is Rice Krispies." "The best toothpaste is Colgate." "The best toothpaste is Colgate's." And all these thoughts are infli cted upon you, and you are so susceptible to these thoughts that you accept that to be a reality. Who says Colgate is the best toothpaste? Who says Rice Krispies is the best cereal? Hm? But because of all these thoughts inflicted upon you, you start be lieving it that Rice Krispies is the best cereal, Palmolive soap is the best soap, and Colgate toothpaste is the best toothpaste. And you start believing an idea that has been thrust upon you because you live a fragmented life. But when you become you b ecome integrated through the practices of meditation, you become immune to all that which is inflicted upon you. You do not get influenced. By total integration you will start hearing that inner voice within yourself , and not what the world tells you. A nd it starts at home. Where does fear start in you as a little child? Hm? You get told, "Don't do this, the bogey man will come and get you and put you in the bag." "Don't do this, and this will happen." Like that you start off. And every moment of y our life is lead with fear, from a smaller fear to a bigger fear to a bigger fear. You are qualified in your job, but yet you feel, you have the fear, that the boss might just sack you. So you live on fear, fear, fear. And then the church took advantage , all the churches and temples and religions and theologies took the advantage of the fear that "If you don't believe in God, you shall have eternal condemnation." Now, those that teach you of eternal condemnation, what do they know of eternal condemnatio n? So, you believe in fiction all the time, things thrust upon you through the various media of newspapers and books and television and whatnot, and by teachers and preachers and gurus that channel your mind into a groove and you get into a rut. And ther efore, you are bound. You are in bondage, when your true nature is freedom and that freedom that is within you. The freedom that is within you is the true reality. And that true reality you can label it in any form you like. You can ca ll it God. You ca n call it energy. Call it whatever you like, for there is a higher power. There is a deeper self to the physical and mental self that you know of, and in most cases that you really don't know of. But there definitely is a higher force. A sublimer force that could bring that joy and peace into your life, so that you don't believe in a God anymore, that you don't have faith in God anymore, but you become a living god. That's the God we want. That's the Divinity we want. And in

4. U S 82 - 29 that Divinity all the ele ments are so mixed. As Shakespeare would say in Julius Caesar that, "The elements were so mixed in him that the world could stand up and say, `He was a man.'" Now, our perception of good or bad, our perception of evil is conditioned by our own minds, our own conceptions, our own perceptions. Something that might be evil in a certain circumstance might not be evil in another circumstance. It is the nature of a tiger to kill; it is natural. But it is not the nature of man to kill; it is unnatural. The p rinciple here is not the tiger nor the man, the principle is killing. So, is killing good or bad? From which viewpoint are you viewing it? Do you see. And yet man indulges in all these wars. And the greatest war is not those with atom bombs and machin e guns and nuclear weapons, subatomic submarines. Those are not the wars. The real war is in you, the conflict in you that you have produced within yourself which makes you think something is bad and something is good; this is evil, and that is not evil. The conflict in your mind makes you feel that; and therefore you suffer, and therefore all the misery in this world. Therefore, I always say that by meditational practices, when you become an integrated person, you will see good in everything. You will see good in a murderer. You will see good in a thief. You will see good in everything around you, because beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. So the determination between good and bad depends upon your own mind. When the prostitute came to Jesus, wh at did he say to her? Did he condemn her that you are evil, you are a bad woman? He just said, "I forgive you, but sin no more." Do not go in the way that causes you harm, or causes another harm another person a harm. And yet, let me tell you those pr ostitutes are better than our American and English and South African and Japanese business people. They are better. They are selling their own flesh and blood, while all these big business guys are cutting the throats of people exploitation without any r eturn. Do you see. Exploiting, exploiting, exploiting the weaknesses of man. So, the only way out of the dilemma is to strengthen ourselves, to become integrated where neither good nor evil can effect us whatsoever. If this beautiful tree outside here i n the storm falls down are you going to call it bad, or are you going to call it good? It had to happen, and it happened. You have risen above that intellectualization of good and bad. I t is an acceptance of any happening. Your wife is unfaithful to you . You call her bad. Have you analyzed yourself? Are you perhaps not the cause of her infidelity, or his infidelity? Hm? So we go on blaming this one and that one you blame the wife and you blame the husband and you blame the children and you blame th e boss and then you blame the guru. And when you can't get away from all that you blame God, who has nothing to do with your thought and your actions, for Divinity is a neutral energy. And I always say it is like electricity: connect it to a stove and yo u have heat, connect it to a fridge and you have coldness. Hm? Do you see. So, the electricity is above it all. It is the usage according to the interpretation of your mind that mak es it hot or cold, good or bad. Do you see. But become one with elect ricity. Huh. Become the electricity. For in this very

5. U S 82 - 29 light that burns, you have the negative and the positive current for the light to burn. So, would you call the negative current bad and the positive current good, when both are necessary for this li ght to burn? So, there is no good and there is no bad. It is your mind that is good or bad, according to your thinking, according to your molding, according to the things that have been thrust above you. And you, in many cases, inadvertently accept all that which is thrust upon you because we have made ourselves subject to the weakness. So the man of strength that is unaffected by it all stands alone non affected. He is not lonely, but he can stand alone. That is the secret of life: to be able to stan d on your own feet and not to be swayed by all the teachings and teachers and preachers. A true spiritual master will not bring you into bondage of beliefs or of belief systems he will bring to you freedom, although you are in a relative bondage. It is like a poem. Life is like a poem where you are controlled in a certain metrical system, but totally free to express. So, this all goes together. When it is dark down here and the sky is overcast with clouds, we say what a bad day, a dull day. Good. But who has caused this dullness? To use this little analogy, it is the very sun, the very light which is opposed to darkness, that very sun has evaporated the water from the rivers and the oceans and took it up by various forces, natural forces, to formulat e the cloud and obscure itself so it is dark down here. Could you call the cloud bad? Huh? Can you call the cloud bad when the sun itself, the source of light, has produced the darkness? So, everything has been produced according to the laws of nature. And everything is subjected to the laws of nature. But you can alter the course of the river that flows. You can alter the course of the river that flows; for the water is here at the beginning, the water is in the middle, and the wat er is at the end. It is one river. But we, because of our weaknesses, because of our turbulent minds, our attention is directed only to the turbulent portion of the river. I think you call it the rapids or something. But look further down, it is so calm. Look further up , it might be calmer still. So, where is your attention? That is important. The more you focus on the evils of the world, or so called evils, remember one thing, that it is only known to you because of your mind. If you have evil in your mind, then that which you behold will seem evil to you. Do you see. So, it becomes a projection. You are projecting your own personal makeup onto the object. But if the subject itself is clear and clean, then you can only project cleanliness. You know the three monke ys: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. So simple and so practical. Do you see. So evil in itself does not exist. And what we find to be evil is a superimposition upon that which is real. And the same thing applies what we term to be good. Good i s also a superimposition upon that which is real, because reality is neutral and above the workings of good and evil, for the workings of good and evil are only on the relative plane of existence. So when you rise above, all becomes equal. You will love the murderer just as much; you will love the prostitute just as much; you will love the thief just as much.

7. U S 82 - 29 in Afrikaans, [QUOTES IN AFRIKAANS]. It means, "This is a diffe rent kind of man." And they gave it all back to me. And they went away. If you want to take this, take all for God's sake. Do you see. Why? Why did this happen? What are the mechanics of this incident? What are the mechanics? Because I could only e xpress love, even for those thugs. I knew I needed those thirty bucks I had in my pocket to give the wife here at home to buy groceries and food. I said, "So, we'll stay without it. So what?" I only had love for them, and therefore they came back and g ave it back to me. Do you see. It is our own perspectives. It is how integrated we are that makes these things happen spontaneously and automatically. I could give you so many instances of my life. I drive in a car and the car gets stuck. No petrol or something. Gas, you call it. Within a few minutes and this has happened over and over again, because I'm always broke, and I try to make do the best I can even if the needle shows empty and within a few minutes someone would just come and stop and say, "Can I help you? What is the trouble?" I said, "It seems to me I have got no gas." They'll take all the trouble to run, go with their car to some gas station and bring a gallon, a tin of petrol, and put it in themselves for me. And in five minutes tim e I'm on the way. And this has happened in front of so many people that were with me, so many witnesses. I could give you so many incidences. If you have the integration, if you have the love, if you have God within you nothing can be against you. And y ou don't see good or evil, you see a sameness in everything. You develop an equal eye. An equal eye to good or bad because you are merged into Divinity all the time, which is beyond all these workings. Do you see. I'll give you another incident which I 've mentioned before. You might have heard the tape, I don't know. I was trudging along in the forests of India from one place to the other, and at one spot a tiger came straight in my direction man eating tiger. So, at it was coming I looked straight i nto its eyes, and I just sat down. Looked straight into its eyes and I said to myself not said, not verbalizing it, but really felt it within myself that "You and I are one. If you put my flesh in your body, where is it going to when there is oneness b etween you and me? Are we but apart from each other? Is the meanest little ant on the floor not also me? Isn't it just but one life force? So, eating my flesh or killing me, is it going to diminish or detract from the totality of life force in this wor ld or in this universe? It is not going to. My soul is immortal and so is yours, beloved Tiger. Who is killing who?" And I felt so much love for that animal. I sat still, it came near me and just turned around and slinked away. Gone. Why? Why do these things happen? It is because of the integration that is created in you by spiritual practices, where you emanate this love. You don't even need to demonstrate it. You don't even need to be demonstrative. But when your whole being just ooze s, emanates with the totality of love, then there is nothing in this world that can be against you or resist you. Do you see. That is how life works. That is how life becomes God, and God becomes your very living being

8. U S 82 - 29 the living God. Then you can say , "Brahmasmi, I am Brahma." Then you can say, "The Father and I am one." For who gives, who takes? Nothing happens. This universe of which we are just a little piece of dust is nothing at all. This entire universe, the duration of this universe, is a f licker of an eyelid. [END SIDE ONE] GURURAJ: I've said before...I've said before, many times, that at this very moment there are thousands upon thousands of universes exploding and going into oblivion, being sucked into the black hole; and there are tho usands and thousands of new universes being created. And everything is filled with life. If that tiger had to attack me and bite me to bits and eaten my flesh, where would it have gone? Flesh to flesh? My soul is immortal. There is no death. This com es with realization and a wider perspective of life. This afternoon I was listening to trains going by here. The railroad is quite near. There was this church in Elm Street, near Chicago, and very near the church there was a railway station. So, one irat e person that belonged to this parish, to this congregation, went up to the official of the railway station. And he tells this he was very irate and cross and angry and he tells this railway official that, "We don't want your train to stop here on Sunda ys. You must alter the whole situation." So, this official, being a civil servant at least some of them, some civil servants are quite courteous and he said, "But why, sir? Why must I not allow the train to stop on Sundays?" So, this man explains tha t, "Our church is very near your station, and the pastor of the church stops his sermon when he hears the whistle. And last Sunday your train blew the whistle thirty five minutes late." [LAUGHTER] Oh, yes, my beloveds. So, you see, we see evil and good and all these things around us. We see pains and pleasures. We see hatred and we see love. Where does it come from? Is it our own projections, or is it reality? There is only one reality, and that is love true love of an integrated person. Only he k nows what love is all about. For the others, they will always have this superimposition: the sun will always be clouded to obscure its light, and this superimposition is what we call hate. Yet, when the clouds disperse with rain, when hatred disperses th rough our spiritual practices, the full glory of the sun shines again forever luminous and self luminescent. Hm? Okay. Fine. I think that was an hour. Good. Right. Now, what would you like to do? We're going to have a communion practice tonight. Do you want to have a tea break? Hm, or to go and powder your noses or whatever? How many minutes can be allowed? VIDYA: How much would you like?

9. U S 82 - 29 GURURAJ: Ten, fifteen minutes? **** END ****