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.