What will give you real joy is hanging onto the Eternal Lord....

Last time somebody asked me a question "Does whatever we do in this life, whether it is in our sadhana or in our daily life depend on this life or our previous lifetime?" 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 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 me enough 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. We will not let the mind become negative, because when the mind becomes negative, we start to think negatively, and out of this negativity whatever you do in life will be negative. But if your mind is positive, then, whatever you do in life, the fruit of your labour will be positive. And it will get better and better all the time, but this is when your mind is focused on the Divine. So, like you are laughing and being happy hearing a joke, you have to be happy by chanting, by doing your prayer to the Lord, because He’s always with you. Your parents, your mum and dad, will be with you for some time, but He will always be with you. He was with you from the beginning and He will always be with you until the end, until you realise your Self and until you attain Him. He’s your best friend, He’s the only one that you can really trust, and He’s the only one that gives you solutions for everything. This is not true about human beings, because whoever gives you a solution, any human being that gives you a solution, any friends of yours who give you a solution, they will always have an expectation behind it: they will give this, but you have to do that for them. Do you know about that, no? Yes, because each human does this, you know. It’s a human reaction. So, don’t forget that within this human self you are also divine, you have part of God inside of you. I said part, remember this word, ‘part’. You are not fully God, because you hang so much onto your humanness that the Divine part gets covered. That’s why the karma of the past can affect you. But when you realise your Self, realise that the Lord is within you and you have come to a certain realisation; that your Atma is part of the Paramatma, you will transcend this human quality. It’s the same thing when you do japam. Why is it that you do japam? You do japam to realise the Divine. You do japam so that your mind continuously thinks of and chants the Name of God. So the more you chant the Divine Names, the more His qualities will reflect on you. The qualities of goodness, love, compassion, joy, all these qualities will start reflecting on you, but this will be when you chant sincerely.