Words from the Master

Another small story:

A man was running in a 1000-meter race.
After running 200 metres, he looked back and saw that the rest of the runners were after him. Happily he ran on.
After 500 meters, he looked back again and was happy that he was still leading and ran on.
Every few meters, he did the same thing and finally won the race.

If the man had not looked back and concentrated only on running faster, he would have won the race in a much shorter span of time. He would have probably set a new record! In the same way, in our lives also, if our concentration is always fully on our own progress instead of on others, we can actualize our entire potential. But we keep looking at others and miss out on realizing our full potential.

Just lock yourself in a room and analyze how much of time and energy you waste in comparison with others; more than 60% I am sure. Especially comparison and jealousy can sap your energy like nothing else can. Your mind can get so busy, working out and calculating how the other person has managed whatever he possesses. Your mind can get so heated up. Your whole system can get sapped because of these unwanted calculations. You can simply drain your energy in no time because of comparison and jealousy.

We are all the time talking of conserving petrol, water and electricity. What about conserving our own energy? What about using our own energy in a proper way? Why are we not conscious of our own energy? We don’t see ourselves as blessed with energy; that is the reason. We are able to see outside sources of energy being wasted because we see the energy in tangible form. Whereas our own energy, we simply dissipate it in deep unconscious ways and then complain that we have not been given enough.

If you used all your energy for your own expansion, just imagine how much you can achieve. You can simply expand and enjoy with a feeling of liberation.

See, the thing about comparison is, you always measure yourself with the weakest link in yourself or your performance. This is the trouble. Why do you want to do that? Never measure yourself with the weakest link. You don’t have to be egoistic and claim yourself to something great. But you can have some self-respect and see that you are unique unto yourself. Then you won’t measure yourself in this way.

When you have self-respect, you appreciate that each one is unique and understand that there is no scope for comparison. This is also the first step towards feeling grateful for just being!

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

Each individual is unique. Can you compare a lion and a horse? Do we ever compare ourselves to flowers or birds or mountains? We simply enjoy their beauty, is it not? In the same way, why can’t you see and enjoy other human beings also?

Although human beings appear to be the same, each one is unique and traveling on a different path. As long as you travel on your path with full concentration, you will experience fulfillment every minute. You won’t even know what it means to look at another person’s track.

A small story:

One man was driving along a dark village road where there were no streetlights.
He decided to follow the car in front of him to play it safe.
They went on for some distance and suddenly the lead car stopped.
The man went and crashed into it.
“Why didn’t you signal that you were going to stop?” he screamed out.
The driver put his head out and asked, “Inside my own garage?”

(Loud laughter!)

If you concentrate on your own track, you will be continuously progressing and expanding your own capacity. You need to compare yourself with only yourself, never with others. You need to win yourself only by yourself, not by others. Every minute of comparison with others is a waste of time in your own progress.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

People ask me, “Swamiji, unless we compare, how will we know where we stand?”

You see: There are two kinds of comparison: constructive comparison and destructive comparison.

In constructive comparison, you see what others have and get an idea or some information about the things that you are not aware of. You increase your practical knowledge by seeing the things around you. You get an idea of how better things can be done.

In fact, this cannot even be called as comparison; it can be called as gaining knowledge or improving your practical awareness. Also, you don’t feel any jealousy or undesirable feelings when you see others having it. This is the most important thing about this.

The real comparison we are talking about is destructive comparison wherein, you see what others have and are unable to accept the fact that they have it. You are not able to bear to see them enjoying it, be it beauty, money, knowledge or status. It is then that you start wanting to possess that yourself and get into the cycle of borrowed desires. This is what leads to jealousy.

In the whole world, someone is sure to be better than you at whatever you do. 99.99% chances are that you’re not the world’s best engineer, the fastest runner or the most talented painter. Does that mean that you enjoy these things any less? Only when you think that you might be enjoying lesser than someone else, you start enjoying less! The moment the thought that ‘someone else might be enjoying more than you’ comes in, your whole flavor changes. You become uneasy and jealous.

You see, poverty itself doesn’t trouble us. The thought that we are poor troubles us. We might be leading a peaceful life as we are, but when the thought that we are poor enters us, we suffer. And how does this thought come? By seeing others and comparing. We feel this way because this thought directly hits our ego and we shrink - like a mango.

A small story:

There were two shops across the street to each other, selling the same kinds of things.
There was always a stiff competition between them.
The shopkeeper of one of the shops came out one day and put up a signboard outside his shop: Established in the year 1929.
The shopkeeper of the shop across the street was watching this from inside his shop.
The next day, he came out and put up a signboard in front of his shop: All fresh stock. No old goods.

(Laughter!)

If you are comparing yourself to others and reacting to it, it simply means that you don’t appreciate yourself enough. You are reacting simply out of the cerebral mind, not out of intelligence. Your cerebral mind stores all that it sees and becomes a ready reckoner for you to react in an illogical way. Whereas your inner intelligence sees things as they are and moves on.

When you don’t understand the potential you have been blessed with, when you have not discovered that you are enough unto yourself, you automatically don’t feel confident about the stuff inside you, and you start following others.

Buddha says: Nothing exists except in relationship. Suppose you were the only person on a new planet, will you call yourself tall or short? Ugly or beautiful? Rich or poor? Tell me! You can’t call yourself anything, am I right? You will simply be you! That’s all! Understand: This is the Truth even when you are on this planet.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

Do you ever compare yourself with people who don’t have eyesight and thank God that you have been given eyesight? Have you ever spontaneously felt thankful for your eyesight? No! Why not? Because whatever has been given to you is always taken for granted. That is the reason. You think: It is anywhere there, let us go to what next.

We all function around these three axes: doing, having and being. Doing for having, without enjoying being, is the sole cause of all our misery. Doing never catches up with having! Every time we work hard and fulfill one desire, there are more desires to make us run.

Never think, Let me work now, I can enjoy later. Don’t think you can come back later and enjoy! I tell you, it will never happen. Every tomorrow comes in the form of today only. Doing should lead to being every moment, only then you are on the right track.

Don’t postpone living! Celebrate! Enjoy life – it is now or never. We all run throughout our lives thinking that we can enjoy later, but we land up finally running into the graveyard. When you get onto the running track, you lose your real capacity to enjoy. You forget how to enjoy.

As they say, There is more pleasure in the pursuit than in the attainment! Always, as long as you are chasing something, it seems that it is worth the whole world – but after you get it, somehow it is not important any longer! If you become aware of yourself and understand what exactly you want, and try to do that alone, you will never find yourself in this kind of a self-contradictory and fragmented situation.

Raman Maharshi beautifully says:
Adaivadar mun kadugey aanaalum malayaay kaatti
Adainda pin malayey aanaalum kadugai kaattum maya manam

It means: Mind is that Illusion which shows a tiny mustard seed to be a huge mountain until it is attained, and a mountain to be as insignificant as a mustard seed once it has been attained!

Comparison is the root cause for this kind of attitude. The mind simply sees everything around it and plays up. I am not asking you to renounce all your desires. I am not asking you not to compare. I am only saying: Bring clarity into your comparison. Bring clarity into jealousy. Be clear as to why you are running. Don’t run because someone else is running, that’s all.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

Another small story:

Chanda Basu was found crying at the doorstep of his house.
His friend asked him what the matter was.
He said, “My grand aunt has died leaving all her wealth to me.”
The friend was puzzled and said, “But she was really old and besides she has left all her wealth to you. Why are you crying?”
Chanda replied, “You don’t know – the week before that, my uncle died and left all his wealth to me.”
The friend was puzzled and asked, “Why are you then crying?”
Chanda continued, “And the week before that, my aunt passed away and left all her wealth to me.”
The friend could not understand why all this was causing Chanda to cry.
He asked, “Chanda, please tell me why you are crying for all this?”
Chanda said, “You don’t know, there are no more relatives who will die and leave me wealth!”

(Uproarious laughter!)

Of course, this is an exaggerated story, but we are like this, be very clear. We are all looking for what we can grab from life every minute. All our so-called love is nothing but a bargain. In some cases, it is gross and can be seen by all, and in other cases, it is subtle and cannot be easily perceived. In fact, it is played so unconsciously by you that you think it is genuine love.

The basic reason for comparison is, we don’t feel fulfilled within ourselves; we don’t feel happy with all the things that we have. For just 24 hours, from morning till night, just imagine that you have lost your eyesight. Try going about your work keeping your eyes closed. In just a few minutes, you will realize that your seamless routine has become unimaginable. Why 24 hours, in just a few minutes, you will understand the difficulty. It will be such a relief to open your eyes and see the world again. You will probably then thank God for your eyesight!

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

A small story:

One man was doing rigorous penance in a jungle for God to appear.
God condescended and appeared before him. He told him to ask what he wanted.
The man was overjoyed and said that he was a landlord and had lost all his wealth and that he wished to become wealthy again.
God took pity on him and said that the following day, if the man ran from dawn to dusk, all the area covered by him would be his.
The Man was extremely happy.
The next day he started running even before dawn.
He ran as fast as he could.
Close to noon, hunger beckoned but he didn’t pay heed and kept running.
Early in the evening, thirst and fatigue gripped him but he was goaded on by the thought of the neighboring landlord who owned many acres of land. Pictures of all his wealthy contemporaries came to him and he ran on.
A little before sunset, he felt giddy and weak but managed a few more steps.
At twilight, he faltered…and fell dead.

This is how we all live our lives. We run the race without even stopping to think why we are running! We run because everyone else is running! Shankaracharya beautifully describes this as ‘thatha kim, thatha kim…’ meaning ‘what next, what next…’ We are all the time thinking ‘what next’. This is what causes us to run.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

In some places in India, you can see: There will be monkey trainers who make a living out of training monkeys.

They will carry a stick with them and use it to prod the monkey to do whatever they want it to do.

They will wave the stick and shout, “Dance Rama! Dance!” and the monkey will dance!
Then they will say, “Turn cart wheels Rama! Turn cartwheels!” and the monkey would turn cartwheels.

The monkey will simply dance to the tunes of the stick.

Like this, we allow a stick called comparison to run our lives. We dance to its tunes, doing things that are not our own things but things that are dictated by the stick.

There is no end to comparison, no end to our expectations. We are all the time asking for more, more and more. You are constantly in the rat race. How will you then relax and enjoy and feel fulfilled? And the thing about being in the rat race is, even if you win, you are only a rat!

But somehow, late in life, at some point in time, you understand that even success in the rat race doesn’t give you a sense of fulfillment; even success leads to a deep sense of discontentment. This is because, while you may have fulfilled all the material desires in the outer world, you have ignored your Being all the time.

The call of discontentment is from your Being. When you understand that, you turn towards spirituality even if it is too late. But when you don’t understand that, you turn towards depression, because you don’t know where you are missing; you don’t know where the thread is; you don’t know where you lost it; you don’t know where you went wrong.

I can tell you from my experience – Existence is always showering upon us. There is such abundance! But we are so well trained in the discipline of discontent! We have become so insensitive to what we receive. We always want more because someone or the other has more, because comparison has become an unconscious process within ourselves; because we don’t know how to live a fulfilling life with a center within ourselves.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

If you are able to live out only your desires, you will die a peaceful death, full of satisfaction even if it is on the platform. If you live your whole life with borrowed desires, you would never have seen real fulfillment and even if you are living in a marble house, you will have a prolonged death, pulling and pushing, unable to get liberated from your unfulfilled borrowed desires.

In Jainism, there is a belief that when you are born, the entire quantity of food and energy that you will need during your lifetime is sent along with you. This is a way of saying that whatever your true requirements in this birth are, Existence equips you with the energy to fulfill them before sending you to planet Earth.

But when you start using this energy to realize borrowed desires, you start feeling that nothing has been given to you; that nothing is enough. You feel tired, exhausted and frustrated that nothing is happening. This is how the problem starts.

You see: There is a difference between needs and wants. Your needs are already taken care of in some way. It is possible to satisfy your needs, but it becomes impossible to satisfy your wants because they are changing and unclear all the time. Every time one want or desire is fulfilled, a hundred more come up.

It is our nature to desire endlessly, because continuously we are seeing what others are having and wanting all that for ourselves. You may not own up to this fact at the outset, but if you deeply analyze yourself, you will see that this is true. Your mind plays so cunningly and passively that you will not own up to this at the first instance.

For example: You go to the shop to buy a fan for your house. But on the way you meet some friends on the road, who tell you that they are going to buy some other things in other shops. Immediately, you are tempted to buy them and so you change your track and go and buy along with them. Then you find that you don’t have enough money to buy your fan!

If you start comparing and living out others’ desires, you will land yourself in deep trouble because you will not know where you stand. Always measure yourself with your own meter, never with others’ meters. It is the most foolish and dangerous thing to do.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

When you are on your own at home, you will think that it is enough if you have a home and car for yourself. You will feel relaxed at this thought. You will feel moments of gratitude and fulfillment. After some time, when you step out of your house in your car, and stop by at a traffic light, what happens? A Mercedes Benz pulls up beside your car…and your mind simply switches its thinking. You start thinking that your car is just no good. You start thinking that it is high time that you bought a new car - if not a Mercedes Benz.

Just a few minutes earlier you were happy with your own things, but now what has happened? You are starting to work out a new desire, a borrowed desire. Be very clear: This is not your own desire. It is a borrowed desire belonging to someone else. It is the desire of the owner of the Benz car. This is how you start working out others’ desires in your mind as a result of comparison and jealousy.

You may never have felt the need for a refrigerator in your house, but if your neighbor buys a refrigerator, immediately you will feel that you cannot do without it! Immediately you will find all the reasons in the world why you need a refrigerator. All these days you were managing without a refrigerator! Nothing has changed, but what has happened? Your mind has stepped in with comparison.

Of course, you will never own up to borrowed desires. It happens so subtly in your mind, that the exact source of the borrowed desire goes unsaid. It is a cunning and subtle game of the mind. And we will always say that we are not bothered about others.

A small story:

One man returned to his neighborhood after almost 10 years.
He went around the neighborhood with his friend.
He was surprised to see the many changes in the place.
He commented to this friend, “Prosperity has changed the face of this whole neighborhood!”
The friend replied, “No, not prosperity, just plain jealousy.”

We are all the time trying to beat the other. When you are after borrowed desires, you will never stop, because when you are on the verge of realizing any one of them, another borrowed desire will come up from somewhere and you will be on the track once more!

You will keep running because you are not centered within yourself. Your center keeps changing. Your center is on other people, not inside yourself! And their center is elsewhere, not inside themselves! Imagine how much you have to run, how much you have to pull and push according to the mass sway of off-centric thoughts and emotions! You become a puppet.

I tell you: Every time you want something, sit by yourself and think if you really want it or you want it because someone else had it. Do an honest analysis of each of your desires when they surface. Drop all your prestige problems and do a self-analysis. If you can’t drop your prestige when you are alone, how will you drop it when you are with people?

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

In Sanskrit, the word illusion is translated as Maya.

We say, ya ma iti Maya, which means that which does not exist is Maya!

That which does not exist, but which continuously disturbs! That is the property of Maya! You simply give life to it, that’s all. Comparison is pure illusion. Yes…?

Swamiji, it is better that we don’t look at either side of the line!

Why do you say that? And anyway, why should you fear to look? The fact that you are afraid to look itself shows that you are running away from your own mind. If you can look, but not be affected by what you see – then you have found the right way.

When you are able to look at everything, what you have and what others have and feel fulfillment all the time, then this chakra will be in an energized condition. See, be very clear: I am not using the word ‘contentment’. People often say, “Learn to be contented.” You can never learn to be contented.

Contentment has to flower as a result of an experiential understanding of the negative existence of comparison and jealousy. It has to flower out of a deep feeling of gratitude for whatever has been given to you. This cannot be imposed from outside. It has to flower from within.

Just try to understand clearly whatever is being told to you. By repeatedly listening to the truth, you can open up a space within you where it can be experienced. Every problem has the solution in it if you are willing to look into it deeply and with a sincere mind. If you just look into comparison and jealousy deeply and consciously, you will be able to see that it is a mere play of your mind, and nothing more than that.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

Let me explain to you what I mean by negative existence. Take this bell here that is beside me. If I want to remove this bell, I can simply take it and leave it outside the room and it will not be here any more, am I right? This bell has a positive existence and so it is possible for me to do this. Now, let us say there is darkness in this room. Is it possible for you to take the darkness and keep it out?

No…

But if I bring light into this room, the darkness will disappear on its own, right? This is because, darkness does not have a positive existence; it has a negative existence. Because it has a negative existence, we cannot simply remove it.

In the same way, comparison does not have a positive existence. It exists only in our minds; it happens only when we exercise a certain thought in our mind. Because comparison does not exist in reality, you cannot overcome it by simply asking it to go away. You can overcome it by bringing in an understanding about it in your mind, just like how when you bring in light, the darkness disappears.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

What is Comparison?

Can someone tell me, what are the major areas where you normally compare? I am sure you will be able to readily come out with it!

(Audience venture…)
Beauty Swamiji..

Ha! Beauty! Each one has his or her own comparison areas! Alright, next!

Wealth…
Name and fame…
Power, prestige…
Knowledge…
Health…

Alright, these are all areas of comparison where we normally compare ourselves with others, is it not? We can categorize these under 4 major categories: money, knowledge, beauty which includes health, and status. All your problems, all your complexes are nothing but these four things, am I right?

Now…let us say that you queue up all the people in the world in ascending order of money. You are also part of that queue. Where would you think you would be?

Somewhere in the middle Swamiji…

Exactly! You will be somewhere in the middle, is it not? You will not even be able to count the number of people on either side of you in the queue. The people in front of you will be so many in number and the people behind you will also be so many in number.

And the people might have to keep shifting their places also because the amount of money that they have keeps changing every minute! Now, with your thoughts, you have to decide, if you are going to look at the length of queue in front of you and feel jealous or look at the length of queue behind you and feel relaxed and grateful to God! It is in your hands.

You very well know that nothing can be told about where you are in the queue, but the thought disturbs you all the time! We are haunted by a phenomenon that does not really exist! It has got a negative existence!

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

A small story:

One man was part of a music group that gave live shows all over the world.
In one particular stage performance, he decided to wear a particular black wig for a few songs and a red wig for other songs.
He alternated the wigs and finished the first half of the program.
During the intermission, the show director came up to him in the dressing room and told him, “Sir, you would have to wear only the red wig for the remaining part of the show.”
The man was surprised and asked him why.
The director replied, “The people like the red haired one’s voice a lot better than the black haired one’s!”

(Laughter!)

We are so busy comparing all the time that we never see things as they are! Our mind is so caught up in comparison that it misses the actual quality of what it sees. We need to drop the comparing attitude to be able to see things as they are.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

Let us now look into the Vishuddhi chakra which is located in the throat area.

In Sanskrit, Vishuddhi means ‘beyond purity and impurity’.

This chakra is locked by comparison and jealousy and it can be made to flower, when we exhibit our individuality without worrying about others, and express fully our capacity, uniqueness and creativity.

(Meditation Technique: Shakti Sagar Meditation - a technique from Zen Buddhism.)

We always compare ourselves with others, and more often than not we feel what others have or what they have achieved is more than what we have, and we start feeling jealous. When we are not able to bear others’ excellence, we get jealous. Comparison is the seed and jealousy is the fruit!

Comparison and jealousy are both actually non-existent! We create them ourselves and talk endlessly on how to overcome them. This concept can be clearly understood by looking into the very name of this chakra that is Vishuddhi.

Shuddhi means pure. Ashuddhi means Impure. Vishuddhi means beyond both pure and impure. The name therefore means that this chakra can never get impure and hence never needs to be cleansed. That is why, Comparison, which locks this chakra is like a shadow without an object. There is no basis for the concept of comparison. It is purely a figment of our imagination.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Make yourself stress proof

THE world is made up of two categories of people: those who are stressed and those who are not. Stressful people are those who desire to control life. They like to mould life in the way they wish it to be. They are focused only on themselves. Those who have no stress are those who accept what life offers them without complaints. Their focus is about what they can do for others.

We are merely a bio-machine as long as we believe we are mind and body. The purpose of human life is to transcend the mind and ascend to a higher state of consciousness. In that state we are truly in the divinity that we descended from. Until we reach that state of unity with what we truly are, we are in turmoil. Stress or tension can be identified as this turmoil, this confusion between our true nature and what we pretend, struggle and strive to become.

The reasons for stress in one person does not necessarily cause stress in another. Someone said that the reverse of ‘stressed’ reads as ‘desserts’! Nowadays, talking about stress and offering solutions that work temporarily at best is a huge business.

Rather than fixing what is wrong within, people try fighting or dissolving stress by manipulating the field of outside circumstances. How long can you run? From what will you run away?

Stress becomes an inevitable part of life because we feel it is connected to the fast world outside of us. We feel there can be no life without what we term ‘stress’. The truth is, stress is just our own mind-body’s response to what happens outside of us. It is not the disturbance outside that creates trouble, tension and stress. It is the disturbance inside that does it.

Stress can be avoided by changing yourself. You can make yourself stress-proof. This is very simple. Choose not to be affected by what happens outside you. This is not impractical. It is your conditioning that influences you to get affected by what happens to you through events that are beyond your control. Nothing is inherently good or bad except what we judge them to be.

Drop your judgement about yourself, about the people around you and about the situations. You will get freedom from stress. You experience stress when you flow against the current, not when you flow with it. You lose yourself when you flow with the current. It helps you reach the restful mind state from which you can witness events around you without being touched by them. You really have nothing to lose by trying, except your stress! Be Blissful!

Worship is seeing everything as God

EXISTENCE is pure love and society is always against pure love. Deep inside, society is actually against Existence or God. All its worship is mere hypocrisy. It hides behind worship. The best way not to follow anything deeply is to start worshipping it! Society escapes in the name of worship.

When we worship, we don’t have to do anything else! And people will not trouble us because we are worshipping! But what happens to our inner space? No growth happens and it remains where it was.

Society would never approve of us if we were to let go and love every plant and animal with endless love. It would tell us that we are mad. It will approve only of societal love; love that is governed by give and take; love that comes in with a reason.

But I tell you; don’t give up. Keep on loving with all your heart. See Existence in everything. Feel the plants with tenderness in your heart. See the animals as if they were your own. See every human being as a part of God. That is real worship.

It is easy to worship God in the temple but the real worship is seeing everything as God; seeing your neighbour as God.

People never go to the root of anything; that is the problem. The root of God is love. The root of God lies in seeing Him in everything. People are afraid to go to the root and so they delude themselves in superficial layers.

They don’t have the courage to explore beyond a certain point, in anything in life. That is why they don’t allow us also to explore. They tell us that what they have found is the truth. They tell us that it is enough if you follow what they are saying.

Have the courage to go deep inside and love. You will start feeling the common thread of Existence in all that you see. You will understand that all that you see are illusory happenings held together by the real thread that is Existence. Automatically, you will start loving everything in the same way without any trouble because you will see only Existence in everyone and everything.

Existence is waiting with open arms to engulf you, to dissolve you into itself, but only if you are ready to let go. Just have the courage to let go with an open heart. You will meet and merge with it!

When you are ready to feel the embrace of Existence, you rise into a higher plane; a plane of higher consciousness. You enter into a space you never even knew existed. With Existence, you always fall in to rise.

Be Blissful!

Awareness in pain brings you bliss

PAIN — whether physical, mental or emotional — has only a negative existence, like darkness. Darkness exists only in the absence of light. As such, it has no positive existence of its own. In the same way, pain exists only in the absence of awareness.

Just as darkness disappears automatically when light is brought into a room, pain dissolves automatically when the energy of your awareness is focused on it. When you face any pain with awareness you become aware that you are not just the body. You become aware that no pain can touch the real ‘you’.

Any mental or emotional pain that you carry is just the tip of the iceberg. You need to work on the root cause of it and heal it. I tell people, ‘If you have pain, just drop everything and work on it. See that the root is healed.’

Once you realise that you are beyond pain, you rise above pain to become a dukkha ateeta (one who has gone beyond sorrow). You experience the rare freedom that arises with non-attachment to the body. You leave mundane life behind and enter into a spiritual plane. The pain will evaporate of its own accord when you see the nature and cause of pain with intense inner clarity because the clarity evaporates the reasons for the pain to exist in you. And this realisation brings with it a state of absolute bliss, the state of enlightenment.

Pain is actually the absence of attention, so the solution is ‘giving your presence’. There is a simple and beautiful self-healing meditation technique that channels your presence into the diseased limb or the suffering mind. Just try this.

Suppose you have pain in your leg or you are suffering because of some external incident. Lie down in a dark room. Make a conscious effort to forget about your whole body except the spot which is causing you pain. Focus only on that spot. If it is mental suffering, then forget your whole body and focus only on that incident that caused you suffering.

As you experience the pain, deliberately drop the word ‘pain’ from your mind. Your mental chatter will continue to tell you that you feel pain. Switch it off. Feel deeply; experience with an open mind. Look into what is happening inside your mind while you are focused on that spot. You will soon see that your mind was just exaggerating the pain. Put all your awareness on the centre of the pain, and it will soon shrink to become just a tiny point of pain. Concentrate completely on this point and you will discover in a sudden moment that the pain disappears, and in its place there is bliss! Be Blissful!

Serving others is leadership

LEADERSHIP is the result of a conscious choice made by an individual. Most of us achieve the status of a leader, but not the state. State is totally different from status. Status comes from society. If we are leading a group of people, or if we are forced to take the responsibility of some department or if we take the responsibility out of greed, the status comes.

Leadership ‘state’ is totally different. When I use the word ‘state’ I mean our inner space or our being should be mature enough to handle what we are entering or the responsibility which we are assuming.

When we just get the status without achieving the state, all the problems which exist in the corporate world start — stress and tension at the personal level, and backbiting and politics at the level of the team. When we become responsible for others, we no longer are focused on ourselves. We move towards serving other people. Serving other people is leadership. Caring for our own needs without shifting the focus to others is absence of leadership.

A responsible leader is a person who is able to respond spontaneously to situations, who is fresh and continuously keeps himself alive. However, most of us are constantly taking decisions, unaware and unconsciously through our past memories or engrams.

As long as we are caught in our unconscious engrams, we can never achieve the state of a leader. We may achieve the status of a leader with a lot of suffering and struggle. When we sit in the leader’s chair with a lot of suffering and struggle, we tend to create the same suffering and struggle for our subordinates. These engrams dictate our productivity, interpersonal skills, teamwork, judgement — all our responses and behaviour. But engrams are never understood or given any importance in the field of corporate training and leadership development.

Eastern mystics have spent thousands of years exploring and discovering the inner world. They have created tools and techniques to create the right ‘inner software’ to cultivate leadership skills. Meditation techniques are the software that help us eradicate the engrams.

Our goal should be achieving the state of consciousness of a leader and not the status that is achieved by becoming a leader. Let us all start shifting our energy to achieving the state of leadership. There is an invaluable feeling of fulfilment that happens to beings who achieve leader consciousness. Be Blissful!

We can’t have two thoughts at a time

THE moment a new thought comes inside our system, it means that the old thought has lost its power or influence over us. If the new thought has entered us, it means the old thought has been renounced because we cannot have two thoughts at a time.

There is a beautiful story by Ramakrishna Paramahamsa:

A king who was inside a huge fort was once attacked by an army that was two million strong. The king only had two or three people around him and got very frightened. He told his adviser: ‘Two million people, and I am all alone. They will kill me!’ The royal adviser said, ‘Don’t worry, Sir. Open only one door. Surely through one door only one person can come in at a time. As they come in, stand on this side of the door and kill them one by one. Over! Do not try to fight with the whole crowd.’

If we think all our enemies are gathered together, we will start having unnecessary fears. Whether we accept it or not, our mind which is filled with thoughts seems to be our first enemy. Understand: we cannot have even two thoughts at a time, leave alone a crowd of thoughts. Understand very clearly that we can have only one thought at a time. Unless the old thought is pushed out, the second thought cannot come. Any thought that comes in and pushes the old thought out is more powerful than the old thought.

The problem arises when we create the belief that our thoughts are connected to each other. When we connect our thoughts, out of the connection a problem takes shape. Our belief we have some problem is our only problem.

Every moment our inner space is purified by the new incoming thoughts. If we allow this process to continue, it will happen by itself and clean itself also. There is no need for us to clean our mind. All we need to do is just get out — just get out of the system so that the system can proceed on its own.

One important truth we should know is that even if we want, we cannot possess or hold onto our suffering for long. Even if we try to hold it, we cannot hold our suffering because continuously, our thought that creates suffering is also replaced by newer thoughts!

Understand that if you nurture the fact that any suffering can be replaced by a stream of fresh thoughts, then that becomes reality for you. Then there is no suffering. You have the power to bring on a new thought, which proves you have the power to drop the old thought. Allow your thoughts to be replaced. Tremendous awareness, energy and intelligence will happen in your system. Be Blissful!

Become responsible, be a leader!

IN OUR lives we claim responsibility for anything good that happens, but we don’t take responsibility for anything bad that happens. Only if we take up responsibility for everything that happens in our lives will we start growing. Swami Vivekananda says: “Take as much responsibility as you can shoulder. The more responsibility you take, the more you expand. Expansion is the only growth; without expansion, you will contract and die.”

A small story:

Once a man was giving a talk on Responsibility at the Charity Club. He gave an example of what happened a few days earlier. He said, “A friend and I were walking down the street towards the park when we saw a helpless man lying unconscious on the road.” He paused and looked at the concerned faces of the audience.

Then he continued, “Nobody had bothered to help him. Not only that, when we came back after our walk, the poor man was still lying there!”

It never occurred to the man that he could help! Instead of blaming others, let us look into ourselves and see what we are doing to solve the problem! We always find fault with others. But how many times do we ourselves do something to address the issue?

Understand: when we declare that we will do whatever we can for people, when we stand up with responsibility, we expand and the divine energy flows through us.

Can air flow through a blocked bamboo? No! A blocked bamboo will only help carry a corpse to the graveyard. The same bamboo will become a flute when it is hollowed out! As long as you are self-centred, you will serve like the blocked bamboo. When you are free from ego and stand up with responsibility, the expansion happens and you become like the bamboo flute. Then, just as the air that enters the bamboo leaves it as music, so, too, will the air that enters you flow through you as energy, and things will happen through you!

If you feel responsible for whatever is happening around you, you start transforming your life and others’ lives. Responsibility is one of the ways to consciously grow. You only need to do two things: trust that life is good and know that you can expand to the responsibilities that you take up.

Most of us wait for the status to come in order to take up the responsibility. Be very clear, it never works that way. Only if you take up responsibility will the status come. The more responsibility you take up, the more you grow. Only when you feel responsible for all that is happening around you do you become a leader. Until then you are just a follower. Be blissful!

Words from the Master

Fear in general is so overpowering that it can completely throw you out of control.

A small story:

A disciple kept bothering a Sufi Master to give him initiation.

Finally the Master told him that he would initiate him on a condition that he went into the nearest town and kissed a woman in burkha and proceeded to the forest beyond to beat a tiger with his stick.

The other disciples protested saying that this was too simple.

The Master just smiled and asked them to wait.

A week later the disciple returned. He was terribly wounded and bleeding.

The Master asked him what had happened.

The disciple spoke, “I don’t know why, but I beat the woman and kissed the tiger.”

(Loud laughter!)

Fear can simply blind you! It can take away your thinking and intelligence altogether for a few moments. That is why you need to deeply understand fear and overcome it.

In so many cases, you might have heard: When there is some fire or some calamity happening, people will be running in all directions out of fear; they will be opening doors in the wrong direction; they will be running towards the wrong exit although they know during normal times that it is not the right exit. All these things sometimes even cause them to lose their lives in the given emergency situation. Fear is so blinding.

I tell you to be aware of your fear all the time because, only through awareness you can transform base energies to higher energies. Just like how lust can change to love through awareness, fear can change to fearlessness and intelligence out of pure awareness.

Anything suppressed only takes up another form. It doesn’t get uprooted totally. So suppression is not the way to overcome fear. Awareness is the way. In fact, if you suppress fear, you are missing a chance of overcoming it.

When you continuously look into your fears with awareness, even when death comes, you will look into it with awareness and allow it to happen to you. It is important to be able to do this because ultimately all your fears are nothing but the fear of death. When you work on your day-to-day fears, your fear of death decreases unconsciously, and when your fear of death decreases, your day-to-day fears decrease.

Yes…We will now do a beautiful meditation called the Nirbhaya Dhyana*, to work directly upon the swadhishtana chakra.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

* To learn and experience Nirbhaya Dhyana (meditation) under a qualified instructor, kindly enroll for Ananda Spurana Program (ASP) at a center close to you.

Words from the Master

Yes…?

Swamiji, when we have fear, you ask us to be more aware of it and look into it. But sometimes, the fear is so sudden. It comes and goes - like a sudden shock. Then we won’t have time to look into it…

Yes… you are talking about what is called fear stroke.

Fear strokes are short spikes of fear. They just come and go in a few seconds’ time. For example, you may be walking on the road. Suddenly you see a rope and think it is a snake. You experience a sudden rise of fear, which subsides in just a few seconds because by that time, you realize it is only a rope. This is a fear stroke.

You see: It is like this: There is always a current of fear in us. At times, it rises to a peak, that’s all. These fear strokes can happen with great intensity although they are for a short duration of time. Fear strokes weaken the immune system. They release depression-inducing chemicals and even accelerate our ageing process. They can even cause a heart attack or make our hair turn white.

On an average, every one has about 6 fear strokes a day consciously or unconsciously. Conscious fear strokes are to do with things like - just the telephone ringing well past midnight, or just while in the car and a motorist suddenly swerves to your side or when you are watching a horror movie someone taps you on your shoulder; so many things like these.

You get fear strokes in your dreams also, but you forget them when you wake up. Fear strokes are like shaking the roots of the rose plant. It is very dangerous for the system.

As you said, at the time of the fear stroke, you will not have any time to go into awareness; you don’t have time to chant any God’s name and go through the stroke because it is just a spike. But after the fear stroke, you can very well analyze the stroke and get a deeper imprint of the understanding of your fears. This will help in dissolving the whole idea of fear.

The intensity and frequency of fear strokes can be greatly reduced by reducing the intensity and the depth of the regular fear that is in us. Only from this regular fear, the fear strokes arise. If deeper understanding and clarity can reduce the regular fear, the fear strokes will also reduce.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

Yes…

Swamiji, we often wonder – whatever is happening to us, is it fate or is it our choice?

(Swamiji laughs!) A very commonly asked question!

See understand: Your present moment is the totality of all your past decisions. Now you are here in this place. You decided to wake up early in the morning, take the proper route, come here, sit, and continue to sit, am I right?

Like this, all your past decisions form your present – like being here right now. Like this, your future is going to be a result of all your present decisions. Now, why do we think that it is fate? It is because we make our decisions unconsciously and don’t expect some of the results that come our way. When unexpected or unfavorable results happen, we call it fate.

When we make conscious decisions, we will be aware of the side-effects and after-effects. When we are not aware of the side-effects and after-effects, we call it fate. Actually, Life is your pure choice. It is we who make the decisions, never somebody else for us.

God is so gracious, even though the world is His, He allows us to have our choice! The only way you can make the right decisions is, by infusing awareness into your very breath so that every action of yours, every decision of yours happens with awareness and you never slip into any subconscious or unconscious decision-making, that’s all. Then you don’t have to worry about fate and destiny.

And understand one thing: No one is waiting to lay their hands on your wealth and cause you so called ill-fate. Somehow, we live with the constant fear that people are waiting to rob us of our wealth. This is the fear of losing our wealth.

In this fear, we build many walls around us. Finally we find ourselves entrapped in our own cell. That is why I say, “Open the door, let the breeze in.” Have faith that the Life Force will take care of you. Be very clear: I am not saying “Don’t lock your houses!” You need to lock your houses at the physical level. I am saying that at the mental level, drop the obsession with the lock, that’s all.

Just take for example you are traveling in a train. As soon as you settle down in your compartment, what do you do? You start conversing with the person next to you. You ask them where they are from. You try to make out what religion they might be from. You ask questions about their background etc. Why? Is it because you are genuinely interested in their details? No! It is because you see them as unknown and if you know all these things about them, psychologically your fear of the unknown reduces, and you will be at ease, that’s all.

If you are a Hindu and they are also Hindu, you feel relaxed. If your are Hindu and you find out that they are Muslim, you start feeling uneasy and afraid; you start eyeing them suspiciously. You might even start thinking about changing your seat. This is how your fear works. You are always unconsciously in fear of losing your property.

Sharada Devi says, “Trust others even if you are exploited. The very quality of trusting the Universe in your Being will make you live like God on Earth.”

When intellect sharpens, you will be able to understand like a scientist; when emotions sharpen, trust flowers; when feelings sharpen, Enlightenment flowers. So drop your fears and allow understanding and trust to happen in you.

So drop your fears about your property. Understand one thing: Everything belongs to Existence. You are a temporary possessor of it, that’s all. If you can understand this at a deep level, you will not allow yourself to be consumed by fear for your property.

We spoke of fear of strangers in the context of property. But take the case of how fear works in the case of prestige. Suppose someone wants to do certain things that society will not approve of, like having an extra-marital relationship or just a fling, what do they do? They have their fun with some unknown person, who will not in any way identify themselves with them in the eyes of society.

In this case, the unknown becomes an ally for the fear. Here, commitment and involvement give rise to fear and so you look to lesser-known people where commitment and involvement can be minimized if not totally avoided. Just see how fear plays! Just see how you are under the clutches of fear all the time.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

When you start relating with Existence or God, you start relating with yourself much better than before. You will know what exactly is going on inside you. Clarity will step in. Your inner intelligence will grow. Your fears will drop. You will learn to look properly into anything before feeling fear for it. You will not feel any compulsion to do anything because intelligence will replace fear. You will be more relaxed and joyful. You will feel liberated.

When you understand this about Existence, all the wars that go on in the name of religion will not be there. The people who are in fear of their religion, the people who fight for their religion are people who have not understood clearly the loving Existence. They are just continuously missing the whole thing. They are like blind people fighting with one another.

And most important: Please don’t pass on your ideas about God to your children and instill fear of God in them. Teach them to embrace God. Teach them that God is the all-pervading Existence that is all embracing. Teach them that God is pure love and nothing else. Help them to grow up with a loving attitude towards God and Existence as a whole. This way, they will not grow up with much of the fears that they normally grow up with.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

Let me narrate to you one incident:

I went to a Shiva temple in a remote village in India.

At the entrance of the main deity, there was a tubelight burning.

The light was hardly visible because on it was written in black ink, Vishnunathan B.Sc.

I was wondering how Lord Shiva was called Vishnunathan. Then under that I saw in small font written, Kailasanathan – the correct name for Shiva.

Vishnunathan was the name of the person who donated the tubelight!
(Laughter!)

We are so fearful of missing out on collecting good deeds in our lives, that we become materialistic and start creating bank balances of good deeds for ourselves. And we don’t stop at that. We inform God repeatedly about all the good things that we have done so that he doesn’t forget! We become so materialistic even when it comes to matters concerning God!

Understand: God is not running a resort in heaven wherein you can get an entry by doing the so-called good things on earth. When you live, you are always trying to do these kinds of material things with no idea or feeling of the Truth behind them. With these things, you build a big castle called punya. Then you expect that castle to stand by you at the time of death.

It is something like this: You build a house in your dream, paint it, decorate it and enjoy it. What happens when you wake up from your dream? Where is the house? Is it of any use to you after you wake up? No! In the same way, you are only deluding yourself by this punya concept. We reduce everything including the Divine to ‘simple trade’, that’s all.

I have seen people: They will decide to visit a particular deity in a particular temple with an offering, every Saturday of the week. If they are not able to make it on a particular Saturday, they will send their driver with the offering to the deity! Be very clear: The material world will not come with you when you are dying. Only moments of awareness, consciousness and meditation will come with you.

And understand this one thing: God knows all about you better than you know yourself. You cannot hide anything from him because he knows. So, there is no reason to fear him and please him. If God cannot understand you, then there is no understanding in the whole world.

Even better than your mother or father, God knows you. He knows you not only in this birth but in all the lives that you have taken birth till now. So there is nothing to be afraid of. You are an open book in front of him. He can refer to any page at any time!

So drop your fear of God and look upon him as a totality of Existence. Look upon him as a friend. However hard society tries to make you afraid of God, don’t listen to it. Develop your own relationship with God - a solid and trusting one; the only relationship that is required in one’s life.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

Now coming to the fear of God, God is also unknown to us and so we fear God. Understand: God is nothing but the name that we give to Existence, to Cosmos, to the Existential Energy, to the Life Force that pervades this Universe. This Existence, this Universal Energy knows only to love. If you can understand this much, automatically all your fears will drop. People fear God so much. People ask me, “Swamiji, people say that if we do good deeds or punya instead of doing bad deeds or paapa, we will go to heaven and not to hell. Is this true?”

First of all, understand that Hell and Heaven are not geographic. There is no heaven or hell located above your head. They are terms created just to instill fear and greed in man, that’s all. Hell or heaven can be interpreted as having either a tumultuous death or having a peaceful and conscious death, that’s all.

Any moment in your life that you have spent in meditation is a moment of punya or good deed. When I say meditation, I don’t mean closing your eyes and sitting. I mean, moments that you have been consciously in the present; when your consciousness has been with you; moments when you come out of your normally subconscious state and are in the present; moments when you have felt and resonated with the Existential Energy.

Any moment that has not been spent in such states is paapa. All the moments of conscious states are like your bank balance. At the time of your death, it is these states that will surface and liberate you.

People think that if they offer pots of milk to the deity at the temple, their punya will increase and they will reach heaven! Let me tell you: By offering milk to the Lord, nothing is going to happen. When you feel a swelling gratitude towards Existence, you can express it by offering milk to the deity that you worship as Existence. That is perfectly alright. But please do not link it with punya etc.

Even a drop of milk offered with pure joy and gratitude is a moment of sincere meditation that will stand by you at the time of death. On the other hand, pots and pots of milk offered out of sheer fear of missing out on gathering punya, will not get returns. So, please increase your awareness and live consciously. Make every moment, whatever may be the thing you are doing, a meditation. That is enough. You can live without fear of sins.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

Fear of darkness is also fear of the unknown. Fear of darkness is nothing but the fear of death. Just think: The same garden in your house, which you walk in at daytime, will you walk in at nighttime? No! You are afraid! Why? After all you know the boundaries of your garden well, is it not? Then why are you afraid? You are afraid not because of your garden but because of the darkness.

You are afraid that something might happen to you in the dark. You are afraid of your very life. This is what I mean when I say that every fear of yours is in some way related to the ultimate fear of death. In the case of darkness, it is very obvious, but in the case of your other fears, it is very subtle, that’s all.

Actually, darkness is so beautiful! It is like your own mother’s womb. When you were in your mother’s womb, you were in complete darkness. But after you came to the world, you have lost this connection with darkness; you start fearing it as something unknown. Tantric followers meditate upon darkness to feel the intensity of Existence.
There is no need to be afraid of darkness. Just once, if you can look into darkness with deep love, with the soothing feeling that it is your mother’s womb, you will not feel fear for it anymore.

When a child gets scared of darkness, don’t tell him, Be Brave! If you tell him this, he will only become tense because he is not supposed to get afraid. He will not drop his fear for darkness. Just allow him to go through the fear of darkness. Let him tremble a little. At least, he gets a chance to explore his fear. When he does this a few times, he will slowly lose his fear for darkness.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

Yes…?

Swamiji, you spoke about fear of the unknown. Can you explain further on that…?

Yes, I am coming to that.

You see: Fear of the unknown is nothing but the fear that we have of darkness, of ghosts and spirits, of God and finally of our own death.

Actually, we are so afraid of our fears! That is the truth. We are afraid to face our fears and so we allow our fears to assume great proportions and we start getting more and more afraid.

A small story:

One man was traveling in a train.
The ticket collector came to him and asked him for his ticket.
He frantically started searching for the ticket in his purse, in his luggage, in his pant pocket and what not.
The ticket collector was watching him and said, “Sir, why don’t you search in your coat pocket.”
The man replied, “Please don’t ask me to look in it now. My only hope is that it will be there.”

(Laughter!)

We are so afraid to look! We are so afraid to look at our fears; that is the whole problem. So we delude ourselves in comfort zones and keep carrying on.

Never fear to look. The moment you fear to look, you are only creating more fear because it becomes more unknown to you. Just look into the fear and accept that you are in fear. Automatically, the fear will dissolve. If you start facing your fears one after another with awareness, somewhere down the line, intelligence will replace fear and you will have lesser and lesser of the fear emotion in you.

Anyhow, when we talk about fear of the unknown, fear of spirits and ghosts is very common. There is no need to fear them at all. Just understand that spirits and ghosts are much less powerful than us. We give them much more power than what they have and make them control our fears. There starts the problem.

Don’t go too much into the subject of spirits and ghosts. It is of no use. If you are well centered and clear about yourself, it is enough. Automatically, nothing can touch you and you will also not have fear of such things.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

Fear of the ego suffering is also the reason why people get afraid when they go into meditation. When you go into meditation, there is always the fear of losing yourself – to Existence, to the Existential Energy that is surrounding you. So you hold on. You resist meditation. Instead, if I tell you to chant something, you will happily chant. There will be no fear.

Your ego is so afraid that it will dissolve. If it dissolves, all the labels with which you identify yourself will also dissolve. This is too much for your ego. You become nobody! So you resist and remain somebody at least to yourself. This resistance is purely the fear of your ego. You are so scared of becoming vulnerable, of becoming porous.

Fear is also the reason why people talk so much in social circles. If you just observe people, they will feel so compelled to say something from their side. They will feel that they have to say something or else the others will take them to be inadequate. So they say something – even if it doesn’t make any sense. All these are subtle manifestations of fear that are difficult for you to perceive.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

Like morality, prestige also gives rise to fear; prestige, name and fame, social status – all these give rise to fear. These fears are nothing but fears of your ego. What prestige are you trying to cover? Just live with inner fulfillment and dignity, that is enough. The people who guard their prestige are the greatest hypocrites on planet Earth.

They are also the people who live in constant fear. Their so-called prestige is so much in control of them.

A small story:

One man was fishing in the river one day.
He was sitting for a long time without being able to catch any fish.
He dozed off with the fishing rod in his hand.
Suddenly, a heavy fish caught the bait and tugged at it.
The man just tumbled into the water before he could wake up.
A boy was watching this from a distance. He asked his father, “Dad, was he catching the fish or was the fish catching him?”

With prestige, you have to be very careful. When prestige becomes larger than life for you, it will start consuming you. It will simply consume you, that’s all. You no more need to go in search of it.

And why are you afraid of losing your prestige? Because your prestige makes you feel that you are extra-ordinary. Your prestige gives you a solid identity in society. People with money and prestige do all sorts of nonsensical and immoral things and get away with it. People talk about them behind their backs and greet them on their faces because of their power and prestige.

This is the kind of prestige they are trying to guard so carefully. Let me tell you one thing: Existence will never choose you if you are like this. In the material world, you may get what you want, you may appear successful, but in the eyes of Existence, you will remain poor. Existence has its own ways of choosing.

Understand that prestige, name, fame and power are all your own imagination. You give life to them; you create them and develop a fear about losing them.

Just live with infinite love for everyone and everything around you. Feel deep love for anyone and anything that comes your way. If you live this way, automatically prestige will come to you. People will respect you for your quality and not for your quantity. And with this kind of prestige, there is no fear of losing it; you don’t have to guard it all the time; you are simply liberated from such fears.

Even things like fear of public speaking etc. are fear of losing one’s prestige in a way. When you are afraid of talking in front of a gathering, you are actually afraid of what they might say about you. You are afraid that your ego might suffer because of something that they might say about you. This is a passive form of guarding your ego. Fear is very much a manifestation of ego. Understand that.

So what if people don’t approve of your talk? You talk with a sense of totality, that is enough. Just enjoy yourself and do it; don’t bother about what others will say about it. The moment you are afraid of what others will say, you are guarding your ego.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.