.... Well it depends on both, actually. The majority of whatever
you do in this life depends on what you have done in your past
life. Sometimes
you have a great plan, but when you have such a plan it doesn’t
turn out the way you planned it. How many of you have a plan
in life? Has it turned out the same way as you have planned? No,
it doesn’t turn out the same way, because in this life your mind functions
in a certain way to create what you perceive you need to be
happy, but still, there is karma from
the past that you have to burn.
So, that’s why, very often, when you have a plan, it doesn’t turn
out the way you wanted because of these past karmas. When
you look at this world, what is permanent in this world? Nothing!
With time, everything changes. With time, everything gets
destroyed, but, yet, one hangs onto these perishable things, forgetting
the eternal. So, as long as one hangs onto perishable things,
there will be suffering, because what will give you real joy is hanging
onto the Eternal Lord. Only when you are wholly directed towards
Him, He will turn wholly towards you. And
you can do that through your sadhana.
You do japam,
chant the
name of the Lord, you do your spiritual practices, and you do service.
Through service, you realise that you are serving not out of
ego, not out of pride, but you’re serving through your heart. Of course,
when you start to serve, you know, there’s always the pride in it. You are proud of how much you are doing. You
say “Look how much
I am doing.” I, the big I is always there, and you are forgetting that
it’s only Him who is doing through you. The more you serve the
more it comes to a point where it is transcended. Then you start to
realise that whatever way you are serving, you are serving only Him,
and it’s only Him who is serving. So
then you have peace, because if you look for peace in this world, if you
look for joy, you will not find it. Everybody is looking for peace. Who
doesn’t want to be peaceful? Is there among you somebody who
doesn’t want to be peaceful? So, all of you, you are just looking for
one thing: to be peaceful. But looking at the world itself: in Sanskrit
we call it Jagad.
If you translate
Jagad, it means ceaseless motion.
It’s always on the move, you
know. The world, however we look
at it, is always on the move. When
we take time and calmly we look
at ourselves; when we look at human
beings, they are constantly on
the move. Even sitting here, they are far away, somewhere else, you
know. They are sitting here, they are listening, but the mind is somewhere
else, doing something else. So, how can there be peace, when
one is not in peace within oneself, when one can’t take five minutes
to sit down here and bring the body, mind and spirit here, in
the same spot? And yet, human beings are looking for peace. So,
to have this peace, one has to learn to calm oneself. It’s like everything
else. You see, if you want your child to study, what do
you do? You make the child sit and then you make the child study,
no? First you have to make the child sit down, then study. In
the same way, without an effort from you, without disciplining yourself
and sitting down and practising your sadhana,
it’s difficult to
find real peace. With everything else, today you have something, but
you don’t know tomorrow if you will have it or not. It’s the same
thing with real peace, you know: if you have attained real peace,
once you have it, you will have it always. It’s the same thing with
Love, real Love I’m talking about, pure Love. Once you have realised
it, you will always have it with you. You
see, in this world, people like to hang onto their problems and
onto their worries. You see, whenever a problem arises, the solution
is also there, but mankind is so easily focusing on the problem
rather than on the solution. Do you like problems? No. So
then, why do you let yourself be drawn towards your worry? Because
it doesn’t give you peace, eh? So, the more you hang onto the
problems, the more problems you will have; the more you hang
onto the worry, the more you will not see the solution. But if you
take a little bit of time, sit in your prayer room, and sincerely surrender
to the Divine, the problem will get solved. Whenever
there is a problem, what do you do? You run to the temple,
no? Then you pray “Oh God, I have this problem,” or “I have that
problem,” because you know deep inside of you that He’s the only
one that can solve your problem, nobody else. You can tell your problem
to a hundred people and what will they do? They will say “Oh,
poor you, you have a problem.” Very often they say “Poor you” outside,
but inside they are saying “Good for you.” So, who is your best
friend? Who is the real one looking after you? Who is the one really
listening to you? It’s only Him. It’s only the Lord Himself. You
see that, as long as there is happiness in life, people give very little
importance to their spiritual practice. They say “When I become
very old, then I will have time to do that.” But that’s why often
there are problems on the path, why there are problems in life, so
that continuously we can remember God. It’s like the
Pandava’s mother said. After the Mahabharat war finished, Krishna went to His aunty to take her blessing and He asked His aunty “What can I do for you?” She said “One thing You can do is You can give meenough problems that I will never forget You.” This was how much Love she had for the Lord that she asked the Lord “Give me many problems that I can always remember you.” This is how it is, also, in this life. Things happen in life so that we can always remember God But we don’t like to continuously remember God, you know; we like to continuously remember the problem. We like to focus our mind, all our attention, all our energy, on the problem, thinking that we will get the solution. But you will not, because you have a certain limitation. You are limited with your mind. Your mind is limited to only matter. So, like that, if we concentrate on God, no matter what comes in our lives, we will accept it, we will take it in a positive way. Humans are hanging onto the outside and not much onto the inside, because you don’t know about the inside. You know only what is in the outside, what you can see and what you can touch. From these two things, you think you will be happy, but you have one thing, which is not seen, and that is your Atma. You can talk about the Atma, you can say “Yes, we have the spirit inside of us, you know, we have the soul inside of us”, but how many really know about the Atma? In realising the Atma, letting the Atma reveal itself to you, you will have the greatest joy, actually. You will always be happy. Even when problems come, you will be happy, because you will have attained the purpose of life, of lives! You will have attained the purpose no only of one life, but of lives. So, try your best to do your sadhana. Try your best to remember God in whatever you do, even if you don’t consider it as seva, but in whatever action you do in life, try to think of God. If you have five minutes during the day, try to sit down quietly. For these five minutes forget about husband, wife, children, everybody. When you sit in your prayer room, just sit - you and God. Remember Him every day. I will not say all day, because you will not, but at least morning and evening, for one minute in the morning and one minute in the evening, you can remember Him. He has a multitude of forms that He appears in, you know. Each one feels close to a certain form of divinity, though it’s only one.So, try to realise this unity and build up this relationship with the Divine. The more your relationship with the Divine becomes intense, the more He will reveal Himself to you. It’s like when you’re in love. At the beginning you say “Yes, I have a feeling for that person”, but yet, you don’t know that person. How do you know the person? By being close to that person, by being near to that person, you will start to know the person, no? So, the more you become close to that person, the more you know the person, the more the love grows, more and more. So, it’s the same thing with Bhagavan, you know. The more you remember Him, the more you chant His name the more He will reveal Himself to you. So, little by little you will start to feel Him. Little by little you will start to realise Him and that He’s next to you. Sometimes you will see Him in dreams and sometimes you will see Him manifested in front of you. Then, as time goes on, the objects wherein He manifested start to disappear, only He stays. So wherever you go, you will just see Him only. So, the more your Love grows, you will see Him inside of you, you will see Him outside of you and soon you will realise that it’s just Him. We’re just doing a big play. He’s just playing with all of us. He’s acting through all of us. He’s doing what He has to do through each one of us.
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