Words from the Master

Yes…?

Swamiji, why is it that we know, but we still take on these things upon ourselves?

Yes…this is a nice question! When we have the choice to live happily, why do we choose suffering…?!

You see, you don’t know your Self, your Being which is actually your real identity. Over time, you start relating with the outer world and create a pseudo identity for yourself. With this pseudo identity, you can relate with the outer world. This pseudo identity is your ego. It is purely made up of the labels that others paste on you. You don’t know who you really are.

Suppose I ask you who you are, what will you say? You will say, “I am the father of so and so” or “I am the sister of so and so” or “I am a doctor” etc. But what are all these? These are all only your relationships and professions. You are daughter to your father, wife to your husband, mother to your children and so on. You are all these to the people around you. Then what are you to yourself?

You currently exist only in relationships and profession. Your ego is built up on this. Your identity is only through this. That is why there is always a danger of losing your identity. It is a man-made fragile thing and so it may break at any time. That is why you need to work so hard in maintaining it.

Your inherent nature is actually ‘being alone’. When you were in your mother’s womb, you were alone. You are actually enough unto yourself. This is your individuality. Over time, this individuality is taken over by what you call personality. Individuality is natural; Personality is societal.

It is like this: A parcel moves from one place to another and at every place, it starts getting stamped with various details. The parcel is actually not these stamps but the stuff inside it, is it not? In the same way, you are not the stamps that people put on you; you are the stuff inside yourself.

Anyhow, with time, your ego is built on these stamps and you need more and more people to feed it. That is why you will observe that you are totally unable to be alone, to be with yourself. When you are with yourself, you don’t hear the voices of the others feeding your ego. Your ego feels unfed. What do you do? You at least turn on the television and watch!

A small story:

A man belonging to a long-standing political party was dying.
His friends came to know that he had switched his loyalties to the opposition party at the time of his impending death.
They were astonished and asked him why he did that.
The man replied, “Oh! I’d rather one of them die!”

(Laughter!)

So strong is our pseudo-identification! It has become such a solid reality to us and it blinds us from seeing anything else. Even at the time of death, we find it difficult to drop our prestige! We live and die unconsciously.

The fear of losing your personality, which is your only anchor point, causes you to behave in the ways that you behave. That is why we say your ego is playing up. The whole of spirituality is all about losing this personality, this pseudo identification.

This can happen when you start watching instead of being involved and believing. When you start watching, you will understand that you are the stuff inside the parcel and not the names and labels given to the parcel. When this awareness comes into you, you need no lecture, no sermon, no teaching or preaching.

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

Words from the Master

You search for paraphernalia because you feel life is too empty and mundane otherwise. And you feel life is mundane because you are searching for miracles all the time. The greatest miracles of Existence are happening every moment in front of your eyes. But you are so pre-occupied with your ego that you are missing it!

Your own body is a miracle. It is greater than any supercomputer that can ever be invented. The millions of cells and the thousands of synchronized activities that happen in your body is the greatest miracle on planet Earth. If you know how to drop your mind and live in tune with Existence, you will understand that what you search for in the name of miracles is nothing but the natural synchronous events that happen in Existence. Your ego simply makes these things look ordinary, that’s all. Your knowledge always dissects and analyses and reduces things to mundane logic.

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

Words from the Master

Just encounter every moment with openness. Don’t have any preconceived notions. If you live like this, nothing will be mundane to you. You will then see that even your own wife whom you have been living with everyday is so fresh and enjoyable.

When this becomes your attitude, there is every possibility that the other person feels the openness in you and opens out to you in more enjoyable ways. It then becomes a positive cycle where you move from freshness to freshness every moment. Then there is only freshness everywhere; nothing is stale!

When you live with ego, you need some paraphernalia, some support, some people around you all the time. This support is what gives you your identity. Without that, you are nobody. A king is a king only when he has his kingdom. On the other hand, a Paramahamsa is a man, who needs nothing and sleeps when he stretches his leg and eats when he stretches his hand! He simply follows the flow of Existence. He is a realized soul and is a king unto himself. He needs no kingdom!

But when you become a Paramahamsa, a great kingdom will automatically form around you, but you will be neither touched nor tainted by it. Only the weak ones create a kingdom for themselves and derive their support and strength from it. Only the weak need the status to support them, their ego to support them. For a Paramahamsa, his ‘state’ will do everything for him; he will be untouched by the status that surrounds him.

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

Don't let knowledge dull your, be spontaneous, live innocently: Words from the Master

As I told you earlier, people often ask me, "Swamiji, how is it that with all your knowledge you seem like a child. Every time you crack a joke, you laugh so spontaneously and we look at you with awe! When you start telling a joke, sometimes we've heard you say it before and so we don't laugh, but you enjoy it so much as if someone else were telling you the joke for the first time!"


You see, this is exactly what I mean when I say you've lost your spontaneity and capacity to enjoy. You acquire a know-all attitude with all your knowledge.


Now that I have told you this, let me tell you a story that I repeat very often in my talks and which makes me laugh even now!


In the villages in Tamil Nadu, during the yearly temple festivals, there will be a temporary stage constructed in the open, where famous drama troupes will enact plays, mostly scenes from the great Hindu epics like the Mahabharatha and the Ramayana.


I used to go and watch those dramas.


On one such occasion, they were enacting the scene from Mahabharatha were Draupadi is raped by Duryodhana and she is ultimately saved by Lord Krishna.


The Draupadi character was played by a man dressed in a saree.


As per their plan, he would wear seven sarees, one on top of the other and Duryodhana would pull them out one after the other keeping a count.


When the seventh saree is reached, Draupadi would scream to Lord Krishna for help and Krishna would appear.


Somehow…the Draupadi character missed out one saree while getting dressed, and wore only 6 sarees.


On stage, Duryodhana started pulling and suddenly when the 6th saree was being pulled, Draupadi realized the mistake!


He started screaming, "Hey leave it! Hey leave it!" to Duryodhana.


Duryodhana thought that Draupadi was playing her role so beautifully and continued to pull!


Finally, Draupadi was standing on the stage with just half trousers and a blouse, with make-up of a woman!


But he had good presence of mind, and he screamed, "Oh Krishna! How gracious you are; you changed my gender to save me from shame!"


(Swamiji shakes with laughter as he narrates the story!)


Even now if I think of that scene, I can't stop laughing!


So understand: Knowledge is alright, but don't use it to solidify yourself. Your inherent nature is river like - flowing. Spontaneity is your nature. You have moved away from it with the help of so-called knowledge. If you live innocently, a whole new world will open up for you.


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

Words from the Master

We all are ready to categorize and label all that we see in our lives. In the event, we simply rob life of its spontaneity. We categorize people, places, situations, everything that comes our way.

A small story:

A man once went to a movie theatre to watch a film.
The film started with the caption of a famous International Studio, which had produced that film.
The man said to himself, “Oh! I’ve seen this movie before!” and got up and walked away.

(Loud laughter!)

Every movie of that production comes with the stamp of that particular studio and the man concluded upon seeing it that he had seen the movie before! He simply missed, that’s all.

This is how we all are; adults especially. Children are not like that. They see everything with freshness. They are so full of life; they are not dead like us.

When you go to the beach, just watch the children, how excited they are. Whereas when you go to the beach, you feel you know the beach already. Even the incomparable freshness and beauty of nature comes through your tinted eyeglass. You are not able to drop the glass you are holding. The beach simply becomes yet another place for you to reinforce your so-called knowledge. Let me tell you: If at all you feel you are not enjoying life, it is because of your mind, because of your solid ego; not because life is not beautiful.

One man went to Switzerland for a holiday and returned after a month.
He met his friend one evening and decided to go out for a meal.
The friend asked him, “So did you enjoy the beautiful scenery in Switzerland?”
The man replied, “Yes, kind of. But the mountains kept coming in the way.”

(Loud laughter!)

We are so insensitive; we are so far away from nature. There is so much of beauty around us, but we are incapable of enjoying it, and we complain that there is nothing to enjoy.

The capacity to enjoy is within you. Don’t blame anything outside for it. As a child, you enjoyed everything around you. What happened after that? You became serious and forgot how to enjoy. You got dulled by your so-called knowledge.

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

Words from the Master

Alright... now… let us move to another important form of ego – the ego that comes with Knowledge.

As you grow, you collect judgments about people through your interaction, and data from scriptures and books. These two together make up your knowledge, your whole mental setup. Anything that you see, you see through this mental setup.

Anything that you see becomes merely a supportive argument to your already formed conclusions. You are almost like a corpse! There is no scope for any growth in you. You are all the time looking through a glass of a particular colour – a colour that you have painted! You can’t imagine how much you are missing out in this wonder filled world because of this.

A small story:

One man was telling his friend, “Do you know, I really made a fool of myself.”
The friend asked, “Why, what happened?”
The man said, “I replaced ten cracked windows in my house and then discovered that I had a crack in my glasses!”

If we just look inward for one moment, we will understand that we are the common factor in all that we see. But somehow, we never want to look in. We feel that we know everything and there starts the problem. Mundane knowledge simply doesn’t give us a chance to evolve.

The most dangerous thing in this is, you feel you are solidified with your knowledge. You feel you have become a solid character by virtue of your knowledge. Little do you know that you have become a burden on your Being and nothing else.

Your Being is a river and you have made it stagnate with the so-called Knowledge. Real knowledge is in knowing how to drop the knowledge that comes your way and live like a child, flowing with spontaneity. You need to move from ego to spontaneity.

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

Words from the Master

Because of our social ego, we are all the time so self-conscious also. We are self-conscious because we think that people are looking and talking about us all the time. Be very clear: When you are self-conscious, you are very egoistic. You think that you are a big entity and that everyone’s eyes are on you all the time. This is why you get self-conscious.

If you thought that you were a ‘nobody’, would you be self-conscious? Only because you think you are a ‘somebody’ you are self-conscious. And on top of it, you think that you are exhibiting humility by being self-conscious. This is actually something that you don’t even know you are suffering from. You simply continue to think that you are only being modest and humble and you continue being like that.

When you become self-conscious, you are living and yet not living. It is like a barrier to your beauty and grace. Your beauty does not come forth freely because of this. Look at animals and nature. They flow so beautifully and freely. Why is it so? Because they are not self-conscious. They are simply happy just being one with Existence. The moment you start thinking that people are watching you, ego has stepped in and you lose your natural self.

Children are not as self conscious as adults are. If you watch them play, you will see - there will be so much of beauty and innocence in the whole thing. Even when you take pictures of yourself and others, you will notice that pictures taken without you being aware that you are being photographed look much better than the ones taken asking you to pose for the camera.

The moment you are asked to pose, you become self-conscious. Your ego is afraid as to what people might say and dent it. The self-conscious ego is all the time calculating the pros and cons in everything. It is all the time weighing others’ eyes and opinions and losing out on its own freedom.

Even in our meditation classes, if you see, I tell you to tie your eyes with the eye bands given to you before starting the meditation techniques. But what do you do first? You first see if the other people are tying their eyes properly! You are so self-conscious even inside the meditation hall. Some of you don’t do the meditation properly because you are self-conscious of the volunteers and myself who have our eyes open! You simply do the meditation in a restrained fashion and end up losing the very purpose of coming to the meditation camp.

When you stop calculating and start being innocent and open, you will be filled with wonder and freshness all the time. Life will never become dull and restrained for you.

And one more thing: The innocent person never does any harm to anyone because to do harm, you need to calculate. Even if they do harm unknowingly, people will not get hurt because they know that they didn’t really mean it. Their very body language will speak out their innocence and stand by them.

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

Words from the Master

There is another, one more play of ego which we all nurture so well – what is called social ego.

What is this social ego?

You feel that your life is highly private to yourself and that no one should be let into it.

For example, people come to me to discuss their child’s erratic ways. But they are not comfortable when there are others around. You don’t want others to know about these things because you have this built up ‘image’ in the eyes of society for yourself and your family members. If you let people in on your family matters, you feel like you are exposing your whole self to them. You are afraid that your whole image might come crashing down and there will be nothing else to prop you up in society. This is social ego.

The image that you have so painstakingly built, the image which has become the identity with which you identify yourself in society, is at stake. It is more of an identity for yourself than for others! If you can show yourself and your family just as you are, you will be more relaxed because then there will be no pressure to cover up anything.

Of course, you might say, “Swamiji, the only reason we want to keep these things a secret is, we don’t want people to start gossiping about it.” Let me tell you: No one is qualified to talk about another. If they talk, they are fools. Remember this and automatically the power you give to them and their talk will simply disappear. It is you who have given them the power to affect you, is it not? Now, that power will disappear.

Just decide and live like an open book, that’s all. By seeing your courage and body language, people will automatically understand that it is not going to help gossiping about you! I tell you: To drop your social ego and live without any privacy, is a great liberation.

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

Words from the Master

People with active ego are like a dried and hard twig. They can be broken easily. People with passive ego are like a fresh and green twig. Each time their ego is hit, they bend but don’t break. Their ego is so well safeguarded that it becomes difficult to deal with it. Actually, they work very hard to safeguard it, but in a sweet and passive way. Passive ego is more dangerous than active ego.

For example, you are now with me in this class. So many questions must be arising in you. But do you spontaneously voice all of them? No. You manipulate them inside yourself and finally repress them. You manipulate because you fear that you will appear foolish asking questions. You don’t want to appear foolish and so you don’t ask. You are shielding your ego. If your questions dissolve in my presence, it is a different matter. But it is not the case here.

You care so much for other’s reactions and opinions towards you. You cannot bear to suffer a dent on your ego that you have nurtured so carefully all these years. This ego is your very anchor point. If that is jolted, you will feel anchorless. So under the pretext of being submissive, you keep quiet. You miss one more opportunity of exposing your ego in the Master’s Presence. You miss one more opportunity in taking a step towards flowering.

Let me tell you one thing: All questions are foolish at the end of the day. Don’t for a moment think that some questions and therefore some questioners are wiser than the rest. When deep understanding happens, the questions will dissolve on their own. This is real wisdom. Anyhow, we all play so cautiously to safeguard our ego.

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

Words from the Master

But Swamiji, I was thinking till now that claiming self-importance is the only manifestation of ego!

No! Ego comes in various forms - active and passive, which we have been discussing till now. That is why it is such a tricky element to discern.
The active ego is easy to recognize. People with active ego will behave in a highhanded fashion; they will claim self-importance openly; they will not bend down to people; they will be haughty. This ego is actually easy to deal with, for a Master. He just needs to bang on it a few times and it will break!

A small story:

One man lost all his wealth in gambling and got reduced to almost a pauper.
One day, he went to a roadside hotel and sat at the table for breakfast.
The waiter came to take orders.
The man was surprised. The waiter was his old friend who had been as rich as he had been earlier.
He looked at him and said, “You serve as a waiter in this sort of a hotel!”
The man replied, “I’m only a waiter, I don’t eat here.”

(Laughter!)

Active ego is very easy to recognize. A person with an active ego will not be willing to let go of it even if all his other defenses like money, wealth etc are taken away from him. Active ego can be easily pruned.

But passive ego, is very subtle and cunning. People who have passive ego will pose to be very humble, lacking courage to face people, shying away from taking credit etc. The worst part of this is, they think they are like this because they are not egoistic. The truth is, they are more egoistic than the other lot! They are so carefully guarding their ego from getting hurt by doing all these humble things.

When you are in deep awareness and understanding, you will be a mere watcher of your ego and in this state, you will automatically be neither humble nor egoistic; you will neither take credit nor shy away from it. And you will not even think or claim that you are neither of these; you simply will be, that’s all. When anyone appreciates you or gives you credit, you will simply resonate with Existence and leave it at that, that’s all. And there will be no need for any comparison or claim.

So be very clear: Most often, people think that active ego is the only kind of ego ever present. No. There is something called passive ego, which is what we just discussed, and this is more difficult to deal with.

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

Words from the Master

You can enjoy only when you know that you are something beyond the mask. Else, you will get carried away by the mask and lose the whole charm of Life. When you know that you are only using masks, your desires drop.

It is like this: When you grow up, you automatically drop your toys, is it not? The toys don’t interest you any more. In the same way, when you look at these masks intelligently, you don’t have any desire for them; you simply use them and keep moving.

The ego manifests itself in many cunning ways - that is why all these explanations are needed on it. All these will help you see where you are standing as a blockage in your own journey inwards.

The lesser blockages you have inside you, the more fluid and flowing you become. When you have lesser blocks, you are more porous and vulnerable. When you have many blocks, you are solid and difficult to penetrate. Your ego poses such a solid barrier to everything.

For example, whenever someone says something to you, what is your first reaction to it? Your first reaction is a certain resistance, a ‘No’. When you say ‘No’, it is so ego fulfilling. You feel solid and firm inside yourself. When you say ‘Yes’, you feel liquid and vulnerable. Your ego feels submissive. So you say ‘No’.

This is also why you feel good when you break rules at home or school or workplace or anywhere. Actually, the moment you defy a rule, you will have a great feeling about yourself. School and college students feel good when they cut classes. Why? Because they feel boosted in their ego when they say no to rules. With small children, the moment you say they are not meant to have certain things, they will ask only for that. Grown ups also enjoy defying each other in so many ways.

Husband and wife rarely concur in the first instance of any suggestion! Take for example our own devotees. If the husband gets attached to me first, the wife’s first reaction will be only resistance to me. She might even read my books secretly and like them, but in front of the husband, she will not be willing to embrace me. The same holds good for the wives who get attached to me first. Their husbands will do all that they can to make it difficult for them, before finally falling in tune with me.

Such is the play of ego. Saying ‘Yes’ keeps you flowing naturally in a liquid state with no blocks. This does not mean that you should blindly say ‘Yes’ to everything. No! It means, take a decision trusting your spontaneity without the influence of your ego, that’s all. Automatically, you will fall in tune with the right things.

Understand that saying ‘No’ is not a cautious move or any protective force that is going to be your guardian angel. Just be open without resistance and preconceptions, that is enough. Yes…?

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

Words from the Master

Just look at young children. They are so enthusiastic towards life. They are so loving. Have you ever wondered why you are not so enthusiastic as them? You were like them once upon a time, is it not? Then, where have we lost this enthusiasm and innocence? Come on tell me. Where do you think we have lost this?

(one participant ventures) We have grown up and become more mature Swamiji. We are more experienced than them...

baaah, baah! Experienced at what? Boredom?! See, be very clear: We all think that we are more mature than children and that we have the right attitude towards life while children need to go through life and acquire this maturity.

The Truth is, we have become so intellectual, that we have lost our connection with our heart. We operate purely from our minds. Even our emotions are dictated by our minds. We have stopped emoting from our Being. We have lost touch with our core.

When we arrived in this world, we were in a state of celebration and spontaneity. Over years, society conditioned us and created the mind for us. The mind then solidified itself and started dictating terms to us. The spontaneity in us got lost.

Let me tell you, in this whole process of shedding our ego, we are trying to rediscover the child in us. When we were young, we were closer to realizing God. As we grew and became so-called mature, our social conditionings simply marred the child in us.

So many people ask me, “Swamiji, how is it that although you speak on the Ultimate Truth, you appear to be so childlike?” Now you tell me, am I childlike because I have not grown up and become mature?! You simply interpret things in your own convenient ways, in your own philosophical ways; that is the problem.

But for societal conditioning, we have the ability to swim and fly without any training. It may sound absurd to you, but it is true. We have these abilities in us. We can swim and fly, until people start telling us that we are not capable of swimming and flying. If you place a new-born baby in a swimming pool, it will stay afloat without drowning.

The ego manifests itself in so many ways and we live according to it every minute of our lives. We all actually use masks in our day-to-day lives. We use one mask when we deal with our mother; we use a different mask when we deal with our father; we use a different one for our boss and so on. As long as we use the right masks with the right persons, it is alright. The moment we use the wrong mask with a person, it means that your ego has stepped in. All you have to do is switch masks efficiently and enjoy the show. Then you are a watcher and not involved in the game as a solid entity.

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

Words from the Master

But Swamiji, how do we start falling in love totally? It seems like it is easier said than done!

The first thing: Flood awareness into every action of yours. Become the watcher. You will start feeling that the whole thing is a drama and you are only watching it while playing a role yourself incidentally. Second thing - stop being judgmental about everything that you see. When you stop being judgmental, you will simply love everyone and everything with total innocence.

When you are judgmental, you don’t see what IS, you see what you want to see. Most of us have already formed our judgments in advance. They are the foundation stones for us. Then, we simply act keeping them as a solid base. Anything we see, the first thing we do is, view it with our preconceived judgments.

If we act in this fashion, how do we see things as they are? How will we ever fall in love? You can fall in love only if you welcome everything with a freshness, with a certain innocence. But what do you do? You start analyzing the pros and cons for even loving. When you start analyzing, you miss it. When you finally decide to do it, it may be too late.

See, the Master-disciple relationship is there only for you to lose your ego. When you are alone, you cannot lose your ego. The Master becomes the device, the support, for you to lose your ego. The more you dissolve into him, the more you will be ready to open up and lose your ego. When do you know that your ego is dissolving? When you start experiencing a certain joy that you have not experienced before.

You will start feeling joy for no reason at all. Just existing will make you happy. Of course, with the Master, you are always undergoing a surgery of your ego and there will be moments of deep misery as your ego is getting slashed. But when you emerge out of those moments, you would have taken many steps forward in your growth and you will feel boundless joy for no reason at all.

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

Words from the Master

Understand very clearly: There is nothing wrong in doubting. Doubt is your torch to enlightenment. It is very difficult for your mind to proceed without doubts. But your doubts should be ultimately transformed to trust. Only then you are progressing. As you move inwards, this will happen. Yes…?

What do we need to do Swamiji?

Just fall totally in love, that’s all! Falling totally in love is falling totally into the egoless state. That is why, a Master - who is in the egoless state, is capable of only love and compassion. All other emotions like anger, irritation etc. are pseudo manifestations of his infinite love. He pretends to be angry and irritated. He comes down to your level, emotes at your level, and takes you through one more phase of understanding, that’s all. He talks in your language until you understand his language - the language of Existence! Yes?

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

Words from the Master

Yes…

Swamiji, although I know that You are my Master, I feel hesitant and scared in your presence.

(Swamiji laughs!) The very fact that you have come out with this statement means that you want to overcome this state of yours. You have decided to take the leap.

Let me explain: Your Being has clearly identified me; but your mind is fighting. If your Being has not identified me, you will not keep coming to me again and again. You face a lot of trouble at home for coming here, is it not? The easiest thing for you to do is, stay at home and do your work. That would have made your family happy, is it not?

Why is it that you again and again want to come to the ashram and see me? Why do you want to again and again face the arguments at home for having come to me? Is it not easier to just stay at home and make the others happy? The reason is, the pull that you feel, is at the Being level. It will not allow you to go back, once it has recognized me. Try as you might, you can’t escape!

Your Being now knows me. But your mind seems to be the hindrance. Remember: Always follow your heart. That’s exactly what you need to do here. When you follow your heart, you will reach me. When you follow your mind, you will keep missing me.

You are so afraid of losing yourself to me. That is the problem. Your ego comes under threat. You feel insecure about your very identity. You feel your identity is dissolving. You start wondering where you are heading without an identity for yourself. Your ego faces a grave crisis.

When this happens, like in all other situations in Life, the ego immediately demands its food and in this case, you are unable to fulfill it. So, you start doubting me! You start reasoning out your feelings in so many ways. You start working out that which is whole and cannot be worked out. Your mind sways like the elephant’s trunk - from one side of intense love for me to the other side of intense doubt of that love.

Remember, love is from your heart while fear is from your mind. Always, always, follow your heart. Love is natural; fear is societal. Fear and doubt are deeply related and are mere conditionings that have gone into you.

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

Words from the Master

In the Chandi recitation, which is a recitation of 700 Sanskrit verses on Devi, the female Energy, it talks about how Chandi Devi kills the various evil demons. It is not that she killed real humans. If she had killed real humans, she would have been behind bars and we would not be worshipping her through the recital! She would have come under criminal offence!

The demons symbolically represent the various kinds of evils or ego inside man and it is this ego that is slain by Devi to liberate man from them. We have to understand that. One of the demons is a buffalo-headed demon! This is to make us understand that some of us are so thick skinned that how many ever times the Master awakens us to his path, we firmly stick to our path! We are not porous and sensitive to the Master’s call.

You see, arguing with the Master is the greatest punishment that you give to yourself. I tell you honestly, when you are caught in arguing with the Master, no one can do anything more to harm you. You harm yourself enough when you argue with the Master. The Master knows how to make each one flower in his or her own way and the least that one can do is open out to him with faith and courage.

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

Words from the Master

Yes…

Swamiji, although we know at the intellectual level, that we need to surrender our ego, we are unable to, why?

You see, man never wants to let go in totality. He wants to cling on to something all the time and that something is his ego. Your ego is your very strength. You have guarded it so well over the years. It is the basis of your very existence.

You don’t know that there is a world beyond your ego which is much more blissful than what you are feeling now. Your ego is a life-sustaining element for you. But the simple Truth is – you have to let go of it!

It is like this: Imagine that there is a seed that is sown. The seed has to rupture for the tree to grow, is it not? If the seed thinks that it will wait for the tree to grow and then rupture, is it possible? No! Like this, man’s ego has to rupture for him to blossom. The longer he guards his ego, the more he is postponing his own flowering, that’s all.

Until man meets his Master, he might not even know where his blockages are, where his ego is standing in the way. But once he meets his Master, he has found the key! It is up to him to use it. The Master’s sole purpose is to rip the ego of each of his disciples.

The words and actions of a Master, will seem abrupt and inappropriate when you see it from outside. But it is pregnant with the Truth; it is pregnant with the single intention of destroying your ego. A Master himself descends out of sheer compassion for mankind. He has no vested interest in anything or anybody. He is beyond the treacherous ocean of desire. He is here simply to lift you to the state he is in - the state of eternal bliss - the state where only Consciousness exists without the ‘I’.

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

Words from the Master

The problem is, we have distanced ourselves so much from Existence, from our source, which lies deep within us. So we need constant reminders about it. You can start shedding your ego by first admiring and appreciating the beauty surrounding you. That itself will start sowing the seed of transformation in you. It will cause you to understand that there is a Life Force mightier than your ego, which is conducting this Universe.

The more you lose yourself to Existence, the more egoless you become. The more egoless you become, the more you lose yourself to Existence.

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

Words from the Master

You are a part of Existence, and whatever causes you to think otherwise, is ego. That’s all. It is like this: A fish, whether it likes it or not, whether it accepts it or not, whether it believes it or not, is a part of the ocean. It has two choices. It either lives happily in the ocean, or fights with the ocean and still continues to live in it, making its own life miserable.

If you flow with Existence, you will enjoy every moment of your life. You will become porous, sensitive, creative and fluid.

A small story:

A teacher took her students out for a picnic.
They played games, ate their snack and enjoyed themselves.
Suddenly, the teacher drew their attention to a beautiful rainbow that had formed in the sky.
The children looked up at it with awe.
The teacher watched them and announced, “Alright now, let us give a clap to the artist behind it!”
The students were for a moment confused, but quickly understood and broke into applause!

Children need to be taught to appreciate the Existential beauty surrounding them. Else, they will lose the connection with Existence very quickly and become egoistic. They should not be allowed to become mechanical and egoistic. They should be brought up to become porous and sensitive.

When you can appreciate Existence, you have come closer to it. The whole of Existence is creativity. A creative person is closer to his heart than his mind. When you create, you are close to God. God is the creator, the created and the creation. When you create, you express your Being, the quality of Existence. When you create, you are showing your love and appreciation towards Existence; you are adding a little more beauty to Existence.

When you are full of wonder for Existence, you can create. On the other hand, when you are full of ego, you cannot create; and even if you create, your creation will be a dead creation. It will be like a plastic rose, which looks perfect but lacks the fragrance and life. When an artist creates out of love, he can give a certain special quality to the creation. If he creates out of ego, the creation is lifeless.

When you are not in tune with Existence, you will miss the fragrance of Existence. It is as if, when a beautiful fragrance surrounds you, you are closing your nose with stinking fingers. This is ego. When you experience the fragrance of Existence, you will start experiencing the synchronicity of it also.

You will be able to resonate with the whole of Existence. You will be able to see that every single leaf and twig is a manifestation of Existence or God. When you are in this state, whatever you seek, you will find, because you are moving in tune with Existence. Life then becomes a miracle! This is what we call the synchronicity of Existence.

And understand one thing: When you are resonating with Existence, you will not seek greedily. Simply, Existence will keep giving you what you need for that moment – even before you seek it. This is what I mean when I say ‘whatever you seek, you will find’.

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

Words from the Master

Yes…

Swamiji, when do we know that our ego is no more?

Simply put, when you no longer feel yourself as a separate entity, ego has dissolved. When you become enlightened, your ego has ripened and ruptured. When your ego drops, the barriers you posed earlier will disappear and Existence will simply flow through you freely.

Whether you know it or not, accept it or not, like it or not, Existence is trying to flow through you every minute, but you are so full of ego that you are unable to receive it. You miss the miracles of Existence because of your ego. You are unable to connect to Existence and so you continue to live in ego, ignorance and misery.

You are so full of ego that you are living far away from your own Being. There is so much of accumulated stuff inside you that you need to get rid of, the stuff that you have accumulated over many lives; not just this one life. There is no space for even yourself inside yourself! And because of this, you are operating from your periphery all the time instead of from your inner Being.

When your ego dissolves, you cease to exist and you simply merge with Existence! This is the state of Enlightened Masters. I often tell people, “Destroy what you are not.” People look at me with shock. When I say this, what I mean is, you are your inner Being. That Being is now contaminated with all that it is not - the various active and passive forms of ego. These are what you need to destroy and that is what I mean when I say, “Destroy what you are not and you have arrived!”

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

Words from the Master

In our meditation programs, we always include laughter and dance. They are the easiest ways to becoming a Buddha! Dance can make you simple and light. Dance like laughter is another easy and enjoyable meditation. When you can dance without a care, you become the dance itself. Energy will then gush from you.

You can dance without a care only if you are free from all your pseudo identities. As long as you think you are someone, you can’t dance in joy. Dance is an outward expression of inner joy. And I am not talking about programmed dance where you know which step is going to come next. I am talking about letting go of your so-called identities and feeling the oneness with Existence and dancing with that joy.

The self-conscious ones are the egoistic ones. They are so bothered about what others will say about their dance and so they sit quietly. Again, they are guarding their ego and they are missing the joy of life like anything.

Once in a while at least, in your home, play some music and dance. Simply decide to let go. It can become an intense meditation that can take you beyond your mind and transform you in a way that words can’t. Be natural. Be original. The people who comment on your dance are simply missing out on the joy of dance. Don’t bother about them. Just dissolve and become the dance itself. Laughter and dance are the easiest techniques to shed your ego and merge with Existence.

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

Words from the Master

A small story:

Once there was a conference of Buddhist monks on the meaning of true spirituality.
Each monk went onto the stage and gave long speeches.
Finally, it was the turn of a Zen monk to speak.
He went on the stage and simply started laughing! He laughed and laughed…from his Being.
The laughter just rose from his belly. He started shaking uncontrollably with laughter.
And his laughter was so infectious that soon all the others in the room started laughing, without even knowing why!
Without their even being aware of it, the laughter of all the monks produced a huge wave of positive energy in the room.
The monks reached a state of tremendous elevation.
Their thinking was shattered and their Being was filled with bliss.
The Zen monk finally spoke, “This is true spirituality.”

Laughter is the highest spiritual quality. It can lead you to enlightenment! Laughing is a great healing energy. If you laugh at your sickness, you will become healthy. Laughter is a beautiful way of connecting with the Energy of Existence, which is pure healing Energy.

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

Words from the Master

Yes…

Swamiji, but we need a reason to laugh. How can we simply decide to be humorous when we don’t find anything humorous?

We always think that we need a comedian or a joke to make us laugh. I tell you: When you start living in the present moment, your very existence will be beautiful and light. Your inhalation and exhalation of breath, the process of bread getting converted to blood in your body, the synchronous happenings of events in Existence, everything will be so beautiful. You will feel so much bliss and you will be ever smiling and laughing. Your whole Being will exude laughter and bliss.

Laughing at a joke is alright, but when you fall in tune with Existence, you simply enjoy the big Cosmic drama that is happening and you laugh at everything. Then there is no place for seriousness, no place for ego. You are no more solid. You are porous and you simply laugh. You develop a deep understanding of the Existential game and you laugh.

You are able to see that everyone is only a player but has become so serious with their role, and you laugh at that. You laugh at how each one is deceiving the other when playing the game. You laugh at the thought that you are playing a game! When you are able to laugh, you have become the watcher, and when you have become the watcher, you are separate from the ‘I’ and ‘mine’, the ego.

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

Words from the Master

I tell you: Life is so precious that it is not worth spending it on dull and lethargic moments. Laugh and infuse your life with Energy and bliss. Just decide to enjoy continuously, whatever may be the job you are doing. Be sincere, not serious.

When you laugh, you radiate Energy around you; it is infectious; you radiate a therapeutic bliss around you. This is also why, when a person in a bad mood walks in, he radiates the same mood around him and there is every chance that the people around him are affected by it. I always tell doctors to do some kind of cleansing meditation because they are continuously in touch with patients who come to them with a lot of negative thoughts and diseases.

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

Words from the Master

If you analyze why you laugh when a joke is cracked, you will understand: A set of logically connected statements is first told to you. When you are clinging on to the logic that has been created, the punch line is delivered and your logic is shattered! At that moment when your logic is shattered, your thinking, your mind is also shattered and you are in a state of no-mind or satori. You are Buddha!

When you are in no-mind, you are in the present. When you laugh, you are in the present because when you laugh there can be no thoughts. When you are thoughtless, you are in the present. When you are with thoughts, you are either in the past or in the future.

Laughter is total and it can simply heal and transform you. It is the best and easily available medicine for humanity.

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

Words from the Master

If you sit in on my sessions, most of the time there will only be laughter. Some joke will be cracked or some story told and everyone will be laughing. I never allow seriousness to set in. Even with people who do my work in the ashram, I never allow seriousness to set in them.

A small story:

One very humorous speaker was invited to a town to deliver a speech.
He came to the program with a big group of people.
The organizers were surprised when they saw the number of people with the speaker.
The speaker saw their surprised look and explained, “It is becoming difficult to get people to laugh these days, so I carry my own audience.”

(Laughter!)

In the so-called elite circles, people will be laughing, but in a very cultured and well-mannered way! This is not real laughter; this is dead laughter. Laughter can never be conditioned. If it is conditioned, it is not laughter; it is not the meditative laughter that we are talking about. It is simply an expression of the ego inside, that’s all.

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

Words from the Master

How many of us can laugh with all our heart? Even in laughter we manage restrain! The so-called social etiquette has taught you to laugh in a polite way. When kids laugh, we condition them. We are a spray of cold water on their natural ways. We immediately tell them that they have had enough! We try to condition even their laughter.

I have heard mothers telling their daughters, “Don’t laugh like a man; laugh like a lady.” How can you culture laughter? Laughter is something that comes from your Being. I tell you, all your conditioning of your children is just to make replicas of your own dull and dead self. Till you replicate yourself completely, you will not rest.

I spent some time with a few children in my visit to Amreica this year. I spent about an hour interacting with them. I was so shocked when I saw that they simply did not laugh however much I tried joking with them. Children these days take on pseudo maturity and manage to exclude laughter from their system. If they cannot laugh as kids, what will they do when they grow up? It was too much for me.

People tell me that my laugh is infectious. With those kids, for the first time, my laughter seemed non-infectious! They were just looking at me with the same mature look on their faces. I left them afraid that they may make me serious!

(Loud laughter!)

You see, maturity does not have anything to do with excluding laughter. But somehow, we feel that when we are mature, we should automatically laugh less. Laughter is such strength because it brings in energy from your core to your periphery.

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

Words from the Master

Move away from seriousness. Somehow, we always associate Spirituality with seriousness. It is a big conception. Seriousness can never be religion or spirituality.

Why do you think I keep telling you so many jokes and small stories? If I don’t tell you all these things, you will start becoming very serious and when you become serious, you become dead and heavy. You will not be alive and light. I am not here to make you heavy.

I am here to unload you and make you light. I am here to show you that your seriousness is nothing but a form of your ego. I am here to show you what you are not. I am not here to reinforce what you already think you are.

People who are loaded with the past and the future are always serious. They don’t know how to laugh spontaneously. They feel that it is their duty to shoulder the past and future and be immersed in it in all seriousness. This is a very highly egoistic attitude. They feel that if they don’t do it, there is no one to do it for them.

First of all, there is no need to shoulder the past and future. Just be in the present, that is enough. These people are completely missing the present. They are completely missing the laughter in their lives.

Laughter is that which brings in a ray of Energy from your Being to your body. It totally rejuvenates your whole Self. It can heal like nothing else can. It gives you such wonderful glimpses of the present, which you try to achieve through other difficult meditation techniques. Laughter is the most powerful meditation technique.

Laughter is the greatest spiritual quality. Sincerity and laughter always go together. As I said earlier, seriousness can never co-exist with laughter. Either you are serious or you are laughing. When you are sincere, you can laugh and do your duty sincerely.

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

Words from the Master

I am not saying to deliberately make mistakes. That is foolishness again. I am only saying, do things to the best of your intelligence and enthusiasm but without worrying about whether it might be a mistake. The moment you are worried that it might be a mistake, you are worried about your ego getting hurt.

When you are not so concerned about your ego getting hurt, you will have the courage to take any jump. All your so-called worry is actually about your ego getting hurt. When you are free from it, you will act with more freedom and courage. You will be more willing to explore.

A small story:

In a clubhouse, one man had finished his round of playing cards and was leaving.
He went to the coat stand and was putting on his coat, when suddenly a meek voice spoke behind him, “Sir, but are you Mr. Philippe?”
The man turned around and replied, “No, I am not.”
The voice said, “Thank God. I am Philippe and that coat is mine.”

(Laughter!)

We are so afraid that we might make a mistake and hurt ourselves, our ego. So we work with such cordiality and seriousness thinking that we are humble and what not. These are nothing but passive forms of ego. You are so terrified of your ego getting hurt and so you behave in these ways. Drop all your guard of your ego and move about freely.

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

Words from the Master

And one more thing: Have the courage to make mistakes. Serious people are always afraid to make mistakes. They take themselves too seriously. They think too much about themselves. It is too much to make mistakes and have someone point it out to them. Actually I tell you, these people who are afraid of making small mistakes, end up making big blunders!

What is wrong in making mistakes? You will say, “Swamiji, I can’t afford to make mistakes in my work, that’s why I am so serious.” What you say might be true; your work may not permit you to make mistakes, but that is not the point I am trying to make here. When you make a mistake, people will point it out and you will not be able to bear it. Your ego is bound to get hurt and you are very sensitive to this; you know this. So to avoid getting your ego hurt, you try your best not to make mistakes.

You plan so unconsciously and continuously to keep guarding your ego. But the reasons you give are all different. It is not that you are lying. No! It is just that you are not aware of the subtle way in which your system works, your ego works. But if you deeply analyze and see, you will understand what I am saying.

There is nothing wrong in making mistakes. In fact, by making a few mistakes, you come to know clearly how to avoid making mistakes, because you have experientially understood it. The more you learn from mistakes, the more you know about how not to make mistakes.

Knowing how not to make mistakes is a very important thing. Only then you have seen both sides of it; only then you have explored the two sides experientially. Else, there is always the danger of falling into the unknown side at a critical time when you really can’t afford to.

Only one thing: Don’t make the same mistake again! Your mind always repeats patterns. Don’t do it with mistakes also. Make new mistakes! And move on to better and better understanding!

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

Words from the Master

Don’t harp too much on perfectionism. I tell you: Perfectionism can make you neurotic. Whatever you do, do it wholly, totally. Then automatically, whatever you do will be total and you don’t have to worry about perfectionism at all.

Perfectionism is always something from your mind. It becomes a goal for you. You work towards it as a goal. And when you work towards it as a goal, it becomes dead and mundane. But when you are total, you are established in your heart, and it becomes a deep experience. The outcome then has to be beautiful and it will give you joy also. Then, whatever you do, you will be in tune with Existence.

Perfectionism never gives you joy, it only fulfills your ego. Even if you feel fulfilled at the end of it, it is only a fulfillment of your ego, never a fulfillment of your Being. Be very clear: Perfectionists are the biggest egoists. They miss the dimension of being total. And know one thing: Totality is possible when you enter into it deeply. Perfectionism is never possible because it is in your mind and your mind keeps changing its definition of perfection.

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