Always remind the mind that it’s God that does everything...

Many people take Ghandi as an example; many great people take him as an example for what he did for the world. But above all, when you go deeper into his life, you see he was the model of bhakti itself. He was the model of devotion. Whatever he was doing, he forgot about himself first. It was about devotion to the people, to his country. It’s not just that he wanted to make his country free, but he showed a way to free the country through non-violence. The basis of nonviolence is Love. That’s the greatest thing. Without Love there is no non-violence, there is no peace. Of course, his life was not only joyful. He had lots of tribulations; there were lots of tests on the way that he had to go through. We see how he was, how he died. Yet, even at the time of death, he forgave. He said “Let him be free. He did it through ignorance, let him be free”. We have to take such a life as an example, but of course, we can’t make for ourselves what Gandhi came here to do! But, in our own way, each one can participate in it. Each one can become a model of devotion and peace. And for that you have to cultivate humility. He had a great simplicity. Of course he had fame, names, everything, so that he could have put himself very high up, but yet, he put himself the lowest of all. Such is the life of the Master. Very often we see masters high up and people say “Oh, they are very high”. We are here to serve. It’s not you who are serving the Master, but the Master who is serving you, all the time. Whether you know it or you don’t know it, it’s the Master that is serving you. The Masters don’t come here for themselves. They come to lift you all up. So taking the example of the life of saints, taking the example of the life of great ones, we learn a lot; we learn how to develop selfless Love, unconditional Love and humility.People will say “Swamiji, you talk about humility, but how do we cultivate it?” It’s so simple, I tell you, really. It’s the simplest thing that you can do. Love is there, in the heart, but humility is in the mind. How will we make this mind, which is so ferocious - this big beast - how will we make this mind humble? We always say that it’s our mind, but we don’t say we are the mind, do we? Or do we say we are the mind? No! The truth is that the mind is something apart from man. Man is the master of the mind. Man is the master of all the negative qualities that emerge from the mind, but illusion is so great that it seems that they are the master. We need to remind the mind continuously who is the master to build up humility. It’s not that I am telling you to flagellate yourself every time you have a thought, no, but flagellate the mind with the Divine Names.Always remind the mind that it’s God that does everything. He’s the cause of everything. Every thought is Him. Remind the mind continuously. Whenever the mind becomes negative, say “Mind, it’s not you, it’s only the Lord himself”. It’s only God. If God didn’t allow you to think, where would you get the power to think? In the Gita, Krishna said, “If the Lord didn’t allow the leaves to move, the leaves would not move”. Even if there was a great wind blowing, the leaves would not move. Such is the power. So if He who governs everything is inside each one of you, he’s seated in each one’s heart equally! So how can we forget about Him? So train the mind to remember that it is not this pride; it is not this big ‘I’ - which is the ego - the ‘me’, ‘myself’, you know. Transcend this pride and say “God, it’s You”, and continuously talk to Him.