So don't try to escape from the master. Understand that he is here only to show you what you actually are. Your inherent nature is fearlessness. Over years, you have been instilled with fear. The master tries to break the layers of conditioning that you have taken upon yourself. If you just allow him to work upon you, with trust and love, you will see yourself transform in front of your own eyes.

Let me tell you a small story about a *Swami* with whom I was acquainted:

> This *Swami* used to have a number of clocks in his room, and each of the clocks would show a different time! I asked him about it one day.

He replied, 'Time is not my master. I am the master! Whatever time I want it to be, I simply choose the time from that particular clock.'

This *Swami* had already predicted that he would be leaving his body on a particular day and time.

On the night before his death, the Swami asked all his disciples to gather around him and sing hymns.

One of the singers was somewhat arrogant about his musical abilities. He never sang on this occasion.

As was the custom, the *Swami* wrote something on a piece of paper and passed it on to him.

The disciple was flattered, thinking that it was a request for a particular song.

But when he opened the note, he saw that the Swami had written, 'Please don't sing after my death!'

Even on his deathbed he was in a humorous mood!

Later that night, he instructed his disciples to take good care of the orphans who lived in the ashram. He said, 'Especially tomorrow, you will all be busy with preparations for my cremation. Don't forget to arrange for food for those children!'

Till the last minute, his concern was for the people he was leaving behind.

The next morning, exactly at the time he had mentioned, he joined his hands in a *namaskar* to all and his hands dropped, simply like a drama.

What a beautiful, calm and courageous way to face death! That is the way we should all go to death and that is the way we should look upon death even when our own family and relatives pass away. When you understand this, your whole idea of fear will slowly dissolve, because as I said, the underlying basis of fear is death itself.

# **Q:** *Swamiji***, is it that fear is normally associated more with women?**

Men are mainly caught in the lust and women are mainly caught in fear. The fact is, they both know this and exploit each other appropriately!

The man knows where exactly to touch the woman's weak chord. He will play with her insecurity and fear and exploit her. Similarly, the woman knows where the key lies with the man! She will play the game appropriately and exploit him. This is what goes on all the time in marriages.

Actually, at the time of Hindu marriages, a vow is taken wherein the man and woman vow to each other that they will both work towards exhausting each others' *karma* – unfulfilled actions and desires - in a smooth way, without accumulating any more *karma* in this life.

But these days, people are not even aware that they have taken such a vow because they are not the ones who are getting married. The priests are the ones who utter all the chants and get married!

It is such a beautiful vow that they take. We have accumulated enough and more *karma* in our lives. The only concern for us should be to exhaust it all at least in this birth, and attain liberation.

If you watch the drama of marriage from outside, you will understand how the couple create *karma* for each other.

Only when you watch from outside you will understand what a foolish game is being played. I always tell people that for actors and actresses it would be so easy to watch life as a game because they are all the time assuming roles and enacting them. They are the closest to seeing life as a great drama. The rest of us are so caught up with our roles that it becomes a solid reality for us.

# *Fear of small things*

First of all understand that all small fears are mere projections of the ultimate fear of death. Second, don't resist the fear in you. Just keep repeating to yourself that you are scared and go through it, that's all! You will soon find that the fear is no longer there because you saw it through. Start doing this every time you feel fear.

When you consciously work on this, you will understand that what you call fear is nothing but your response or reaction to an incident or thought. Depending on how you respond, you can claim that you did not have fear or had fear. And, with more and more awareness, you can respond towards fear without fear!

Remember one thing: No one can claim to be fearless. One can learn to handle fear without fear, that's all. If anyone professes to be fearless, be very clear that they have not analyzed deeply the subject of fear and human response to it. Don't start thinking that they are superhumans and you are a lesser human being.

*(A young girl speaks)* Swamiji*, I remember how you made me overcome my fear of spiders! While in our discussions one day, I jumped up when I saw a spider and THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM laughed at me for it. You told me to meditate on the spider every time I saw one. Every time I saw one, I looked at it with awareness and concentration. Slowly I started wondering why I was scared of it after all*!

Yes. It is only a question of bringing awareness into our fears. You will then wonder what it was that caused the fear in you!

You can even sit by yourself and imagine that your fears are happening to you. In your imagination, confront them with deep awareness and calmness. If you suffer in the process of visualization, it is alright. Don't suppress it or punish it. If your body shakes with fear, let it. Just co-operate with it. Anything when lived out completely will have no effect over you. All your fears are simply fear of your fears, that's all!

A small story:

A disciple was caught in a river one day. He was terrified of losing his life and he shouted out to his master to save him from drowning. The master said, 'Stand up!' The disciple screamed out, 'How can I? I am drowning.' The master said, 'Have I not taught you to help yourself? Now stand up!'

The disciple said, 'Master, you are preaching to me at this moment of my impending death. Why don't you just save me!'

The master persisted, 'I said, stand up.'

The disciple was enraged at the master's persistence.

He simply stood up. The water came up only to his knee!

All your fears are nothing but the fear of your fears. If you shake off your fears and allow your intelligence to surface, you will find that your fears are just shadows of objects that don't exist.

## *Live in the moment and leave!*

If you deeply analyze the fear of death, you will come to know that people are afraid to die because unconsciously, they feel that they should have been somewhere higher up than where they are now. They feel they have not reached their actual place in life and so they are not ready to leave.

Some people feel that others have cast eyes on them and so they have not been able to progress! The truth is that you have not cast your own eyes properly on yourself. That is why, even in your last days, you prolong your death.

If you properly analyze and understand your desires, fear and other emotions, you will not blame anyone for anything.

People who live their lives without any of these convoluted fears, will be able to live their death also. As I told you earlier, there are so many stories of living masters who told their disciples exactly what time of what day they would die and they died that way.

Many of the disciples have learned from their masters' death what they failed to learn from their teachings when they were alive. When we say that they lived their death, we mean they were able to announce that they were going to die and they died consciously. In their case, their death is literally 'leaving their body', that's all.

We all leave our bodies unconsciously, with a lot of suffering – the pull and push of unfulfilled desires torture us on one side and the body tortures on the other, saying that it has had enough. The mismatch between the mind and the body tortures us while we are alive and at the time of death also. When we are alive, if we live inside our boundary, inside our body, we will also leave our body peacefully. The problem is, when we live, we are always outside our body, never inside.

Let me explain this to you. Just look deeply into your way of life. Early in the morning, when you brush your teeth, what are you doing? You are already thinking of going to work. When you are at work, you are thinking of catching the bus to go home. When you are at home, you are thinking of work next day! When you are on vacation, you think of your office and when you are at office, you think of going on vacation.

Wherever your body is, you can be sure that your mind is not! You have never lived any moment of your life with fullness. You have always lived either in the past or in the future. This is what is called 'not living inside your boundary'. This is why at the time of death, you feel so pre-occupied and unfulfilled and unwilling to go. This is why you fear death.

You may ask why you need to know about dying consciously. Only when you know about death, can you live with the right understanding of life. Otherwise, you will not live life the right way.

# *Stop procrastinating*

In life, you keep postponing everything. You postpone your enjoyment, you postpone your work, you postpone everything for tomorrow. You have to understand that 'tomorrow' also comes in the form of 'today' only! When it comes as today, you say 'tomorrow' again! It is a game that you play with yourself.

Finally, when death comes, you are so unprepared! You feel there is so much to be done. You feel cheated by life itself. The truth is, you have been deceiving yourself all along. But you land up blaming life for everything. That is why a clear understanding of death is necessary for you to live. Then there will be no delusions and you will be ready to die any time.

Procrastination is the mentality by which we lose out on life itself. People ask me, '*Swamiji*, how are you able to do so many things in such a short period of time?' It is amazing for them to see my calendar for the year! They are amazed to see the various things happening throughout the year across the world. I tell them, 'It is very simple – I live totally in the present. I don't procrastinate like you.'

In our meditation programs, we take people through a guided meditation wherein they are told to visualize that they are going to die in just 24 hours time and that they should complete all the things that they would like to complete before they die. It is a beautiful meditation technique. They are even made to visualize their own death ceremony.

Once after this meditation, a young girl shared her thoughts.

She said, '*Swamiji*, I saw a poster in a shop which said, 'When you plan, plan concretely taking into account the future years to come. When you execute, execute like you are going to die the very next minute. After doing this meditation, I understand what it really means!'

You see, when you plan, you have to have a futuristic plan, so that too many things don't have to be re-structured for at least a few years. But when you execute, you have to execute in such a way that every sub-task that you take up in the master plan is completed successfully without any loose ends.

Even if you are going to die then, up to the point of what has been executed, everything will be perfect and the master plan will still be there as a reference for people to follow or amend as the situation demands. This can be achieved only if you work without procrastination in every sub-task that you take up.

#### **G**uaranteed **S**olutions

Often, procrastination is what takes you to poverty. Poverty is your own choice. When you defer decisions, you take steps towards being poor. But you are blissfully unaware of this. You feel you have not been treated rightly by God and that life has been too short for you to realize your dreams. If you had used all your energy in the proper channel and with clarity, you would not feel this way and you would be ever ready to die.

If you just look at the mirror everyday and tell yourself that today is the last day in your life, you will stop procrastinating. You need not tell yourself this all your life; just a month will do. Automatically, you will start living your life without procrastination. Not only that, your fears about losing your prestige, embarrassment, pride and expectations will all dissolve, because you will know that you have nothing to lose.

People who have had a near death experience in some way like a narrow escape from an accident or a cure from cancer or something like that, will be able to live more fearlessly because they will know that they have nothing to lose! They will also live their lives with greater clarity and more intelligence.

The first lesson that you need to learn from all your education is that you should do the right thing at the right time and move on. Somehow, this is the last lesson that we learn thoroughly! After having gone through all the other lessons, we learn this lesson!

Procrastination is something that you bring about yourself. But the rest of the fears, society instills in you. Society makes you afraid of your own self, of others and of God. It makes you afraid of yourself with simple things like morality, names and forms, prestige and what not.

In the name of morality, it makes you lose confidence in yourself and that is why you are so unsure of yourself when it comes to morality. When you start following morality out of fear, there will be no chance for your inner intelligence to guide you.

Morality always instills fear

In our lives, morality is nothing but a poor substitute for intelligence. When you act out of your own intelligence, you can be confident of yourself. But when you act out of rules and regulations, you can never be sure of yourself, because you are not yourself to start with! You are not centered in yourself; you are centered on the rules.

If you live out of intelligence, these types of fear will never grip you. People who preach morality are so deeply in fear. That is why they preach about it. They are afraid either because they are unsure of themselves or because they know to be moral only with fear. Moralists can become neurotic with their concept of morality and discipline.

A small story:

Once there was a moralist who normally walked on the streets with carefully measured steps. One day it suddenly began raining very heavily. The moralist just followed the crowd and ran along.

After running for a while, he realized that he was careless about his manner.

He said to himself, 'What am I doing! Running is undignified. A gentleman must correct his mistakes regretfully if he has made any.'


So he returned in the rain to the place where he had begun running, and walked again, with measured steps.

Morality makes you totally dull and dead!

When I tell you this, I am not telling you that this is a free world and you can do anything you like. I am telling you that you have to develop your own intelligence and live so that rules will only be a confirmation of what you already know and feel. This is real intelligence. Any proper rule will only be a confirmation of what the rightly flowered intelligence feels. So drop your fears and try to find your inner intelligence, your inner master.

A small story:

A young *sannyasi* lived across the road from a beautiful courtesan.

The *sannyasi* was all the time trying to meditate.

The courtesan on the other hand, carried on with her way of earning money.

Many men came and went from her house.

The *sannyasi* used to try his best to concentrate on his meditation, but his attention was more on the young woman and he kept cursing her for the kind of immoral life that she was leading.

The courtesan on the other hand, was not even aware of the *sannyasi* staying across the street.

Despite her lifestyle of offering pleasure to men, the courtesan was immersed in her love for Lord Krishna and spent as much time as she could in praying to Him and playing with His image.

The *sannyasi* and the courtesan died on the same day and reached the gates of Lord Yama – the Lord of Death.

After their records were analysed, the courtesan was sent to heaven while the *sannyasi* was sent to hell.

The *sannyasi* expressed deep feelings about the injustice of Yama.

Yama calmly explained to the *sannyasi*, 'All your life, under the guise of meditating, you were harboring lust for the courtesan. She, on the other hand, despite whatever she was doing, was totally focused on the reality of God.'

Moralists live a superficial, fearing and shallow life. They don't live totally. They are in constant fear of stepping out of morality. Their true intentions are kept well covered under the guise of morality.

## *It is alright to lose prestige*

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 fear of hurting your own ego. What prestige are you trying to cover? Just live with inner fulfillment and dignity; that is enough. The people who guard their prestige tend to be hypocrites.

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

A small story:

A man was fishing in the river one day. He was sitting for a long time without catching 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.

Prestige makes you feel that you are extra-ordinary. It 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 to their face because of their power and prestige.

This is the kind of prestige they are trying to guard so carefully. Understand: 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, not for your quantity. And with this kind of prestige, there is no fear of losing. You don't have to guard it all the time.

### *Fear of hurting your own ego*

Even fears like fear of public speaking 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. And so you get into stage fear. It 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? The moment you are afraid of what others will say, you are only guarding your ego.

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. You become a nobody! So you resist and remain somebody at least to yourself. This resistance is purely the fear of the ego.

## *Fear of the unknown*

## **Q:** *Swamiji***, you spoke about fear of the unknown. Can you explain further about that?**

Yes, I am coming to that.

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.

A small story:

One man was traveling on a train.

The ticket collector came to him and asked him for his ticket.

He frantically started searching for the ticket in his wallet, in his luggage and in his pants pocket.

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.'

We are so afraid to look! We are 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.

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 we are. We give them much more power than they naturally would have and let 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.

Fear of darkness is also fear of the unknown. Fear of darkness is nothing but the fear of death. The same garden in your house, which you walk in at daytime, will you walk in at nighttime? No! You are afraid! Why? You know the boundaries of your garden well, yet 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. 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 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 lost this connection with darkness. You started 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 be afraid of 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 of darkness.

Now we come to the fear of God. God is also unknown to us and so we fear God. Understand that God is nothing but the name that we give to Existence, to the Cosmos, to 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.

# *There is no need to fear God*

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 located above your head or hell beneath your feet. They are terms created just to instill fear and greed in you, that's all. Hell or heaven can be interpreted as having either a tumultuous death or 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.

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. Then you can live without fear of sins.

Let me narrate to you one incident:

I went to a Shiva temple in a remote village in Bharat. 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, Kailasanathan – the correct name for Shiva.

Vishnunathan was the name of the person who donated the tubelight!

We have been taught to collect good deeds in our lives. So we start creating bank balances of good deeds. 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 materialistic even when it comes to God!

Understand: God is not running a resort in heaven where you can enter by doing these good things on Earth. Thinking this way is like building a house in your dream, painting it, decorating it and waking up to find out that the whole thing was a 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 'good deeds' concept.

I have seen people who 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!

God knows you better than you know yourself. So there is no reason to fear Him or please Him. Even better than your mother or father, God knows you. He knows you not only in this birth but in all the births that you have taken until now. 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 the ultimate 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 your life.

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. Your inner intelligence will grow. Your fears will drop. You will learn to look properly into anything before feeling fear about it. You will not feel any compulsion to do anything. 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 the loving Existence. They simply miss the whole thing. They are like blind people fighting with one another.

And most importantly, 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. Teach them that God is pure love and nothing else. Help them to grow with a loving attitude towards God and Existence as a whole.

## Guaranteed Solutions - For Lust Fear Worry...

# **Q: We often wonder, whatever is happening to us, is it fate or is it our choice?**

A very commonly asked question!

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. Your future is going to be a result of all your present decisions. When we make our decisions unconsciously and don't expect some of the results that come our way, we call it fate.

When we make conscious decisions, we are aware of the sideeffects and after-effects. When we are not aware of the sideeffects and after-effects, we call it fate. Actually, life is pure choice. It is we who make the decisions; never somebody else for us. May be a few major things in your life is driven by fate. But even those can be changed. Attributing every small thing to fate is pure escapism.


Take another example: 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.

Borrowed desires happen so subtly in our mind, that is why although they are continuously happening, we continue to say that we are not bothered about the 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 track once more!

You keep running because you are centered not within yourself but on something outside. Your center is on other people. 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?

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 will never see 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 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 even 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.

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 all the time.

For example: Let us say that 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 go with them 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!

In some places in Bharat 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 will 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 but that are dictated by the stick.

We are constantly in the rat race. 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, 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. But when you don't understand that, you turn towards depression, because you don't know where you are missing it. You don't know where the thread is. You don't know what went wrong.

#### *What more do you want?*

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 discontentment that we have become insensitive to what we receive. We always want more.

A small story:

One man was doing rigorous penance in the jungle for God to appear.

God appeared before him. He told the man 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'.

Another small story:

One man 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?'

The man 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 crying then?'

The man 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 him to cry.

He asked, 'Please tell me why you are crying for all this?' The man said, 'There are no more relatives who will die and leave me wealth!'

Of course, this is an exaggerated story, but we are like this. 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 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!

Do you ever compare yourself with people who don't have eyesight and thank God that you have been given eyesight? No! Why not? Because whatever has been given to you is *always* taken for granted. That is the reason. You think, 'It is anyway there, let us go to the *next thing.*'

## *Doing, having, being*

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. *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 loses its importance! 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.

Ramana 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!'

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

In the whole world, someone is sure to be better than you at whatever you do. There is a 99.99% chance that you are 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 less 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.

It is like this: 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 opposite each other across the street, selling the same kind 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.*

### *You are unique*

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, would 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 that this is the truth even when you are on *this* planet.

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. 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?'

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*. Another small story:

A man was running in a 1000-metre 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 metres, 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 instead 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.

We are all the time talking about conserving petrol, water and electricity. What about conserving our own energy? What about using our own energy in a proper way? If we used all our energy for our own expansion, just imagine how much we could achieve.

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

When you have self-respect, you will 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!

A small story:

A king once went to a master to attain some magical powers, so that he could become more powerful than his neighboring kings.

He sat in front of the master and started telling him the purpose of his visit.

The master listened patiently to the king.

He then told him to go into his garden, where a rose bush and a cactus plant were growing side by side. He told him, 'They are your teachers. They can teach you what you need to learn.'

The king went into the garden, saw the two plants and could not understand what he was meant to learn from them.

He came back to the master and asked, 'What do you mean, master? I am not able to understand how they will teach me.'


The master took him to the plants and explained, 'This cactus plant has been next to the rose plant for many years. Never once has it even aspired to become a rose plant. Similarly, the rose plant has never ever aspired to become a cactus plant. They just attend to their own duties of growing and blossoming every day. If man had been the cactus, he would have compared himself with the rose and felt jealous at the attention that the rose plant was getting from people. Or if he were the rose, he would have looked at the cactus enviously thinking how peaceful the latter was without the torture of getting plucked by people all day!'

The master said, 'This is the most powerful magical power you can attain!'

The two plants prospered because they used all their energy for their own growth. Not even an iota of energy was wasted on analyzing the other's growth.

### It is time for self inquiry

In this world, people respect you only if you have achieved something tangible in the outer world. Educational degrees, beauty titles, company designations, published papers, bank balances, are all scales that society uses to grade you.

See, first of all, you don't need to be graded by anyone. Place trust in your own intelligence and grade yourself.

But understand that there is a lot to be achieved in the inner world too. The outer world achievements are all incidental. They will get you instant name and fame and money. The real achievement is in the inner world.

Center yourself well with acute awareness and simply take part in the outer world activities like a lotus untouched in a pond. Let the work in the periphery go on undisturbed, but center yourself in your being. You will then be able to perform much better in the outer world, because your inner intelligence will be growing and guiding.

Then automatically, you will stop swaying in accordance with the outer world achievements and feel stability and joy in the center of your own being. Finding your center is the only way out of this whole cycle of comparison and jealousy.

How many successful businessmen today are facing what is known as *depression of success*? They have achieved everything they wanted. They have realized their own dreams, borrowed dreams, everything. But they don't feel fulfilled. There is still a void in them.

They start wondering why they ran so much. This is because they ran without awareness, without stopping to give an appointment to themselves, without any self-inquiry. As a result, when they stop running or when suddenly they can't run anymore, they fall back into themselves and find that they are out of synch or dis-eased with their own being, and this is what becomes 'depression' or 'disease'.

When you fall into depression of success, you can resort to three ways. One is, resorting to drugs – addiction that will lead to further depression. The second way out is suicide – which is escapism. The third way out is meditation – looking inward for the solution. The intelligent ones take the third way out.

Self-inquiry is the way to bail you out of this depression. The problem is inside, while you search for a solution outside. You have neglected your being for such a long time and the depression that you feel is actually the call of your being. That is why again and again, masters have given ever so many techniques to center yourself in your inner core and merely function in your periphery.

When this same thing is told to you when you are at the peak of your career, you will not be willing to pay attention, because you have enough energy. Once your energy starts waning, you will feel that something is wrong somewhere. *That something* is what masters try to tell you again and again.

> Albert Einstein, the great physicist was on his deathbed. There were some close people sitting around him.

One of them asked him what he would like to be reborn as if ever he was reborn.

Everyone expected him to say that he would like to be reborn as an even greater scientist or something to that effect.

Einstein replied, 'If ever I would be reborn, I would like to be reborn as a plumber.'

He felt that he had achieved all that was to be achieved, but *what for* he achieved, he had not achieved. He gave the world great truths but felt that his whole life had become a lie.

You see, in this whole process of comparing and running, you actually become a machine. Much of your daily activities becomes unconscious. You are able to drive a car without even being aware that you are driving it. You become a machine just like the car.

Right from brushing your teeth early in the morning to going to bed, you work like a programmed robot, with absolutely no awareness of your Self. You become efficient in all that you do no doubt, but you have lost the humanness in you! You have gone so far away from the purpose of taking birth on planet Earth. You become disconnected from your being!

When you are in continuous awareness, you will not only be able to do things efficiently but you will also do things with totality, with a sense of fulfillment, because *you* – the microcosm - will be in tune with Existence - the macrocosm - and you will fly with roots on planet Earth. When you fly without roots, you are forever in the danger of hurting yourself any moment. So understand, working with awareness not only increases your efficiency but also ensures that you don't stray from the purpose of your being.

### Jealousy about another's body

Alright, now…let us talk some more on jealousy! Jealousy as you all know, arises out of comparison. When we are unable to bear the excellence of others in any aspect, we start feeling jealous. There are ever so many reasons why we get jealous.

For example, the moment you see that another person is more beautiful than you, you are unable to bear it. You start feeling terrible inside yourself.

First of all understand that God is an artist, not an engineer. If he was an engineer, he would have made every woman or every man with the same mould. He would have probably made every woman with the mould of a Miss World and every man in the mould of a Mr.Universe!

But God is not an engineer. He is an artist. He has made everyone in a unique way.

With what scale are you measuring beauty? There *is* no scale. It is all your own ideas and concepts. Even if a cinema star is beautiful, can you enjoy a single cup of tea through his or her form?

When you start longing for other people's bodies, you create a wedge inside yourself. You create a split personality inside yourself. Slowly, you start hating yourself.

Do you know, the eyes that don't linger on another's body have a certain beauty and innocence in them? Have faith in what God has done to you. It is only when you don't have that faith, you try to update yourself by indulging in all sorts of methods. When you accept yourself completely, a certain grace comes to you. This grace is far more superior to mere physical beauty.

Physical beauty is one thing while grace is another. Physical beauty can be achieved by any means. These days, you have ever so many methods of achieving physical beauty. There are beauty packs, plastic surgeries and various other methods. But grace is something that comes when there is tremendous confidence and calmness in you, when there is no craving in you, when you are completely at ease with your body.

When I went to America for the first time, the officers at the airport asked me how people would listen to me if I spoke wearing this saffron robe! I told them, 'Give me one week and I will make this a fashion in America!' A leader is one who has totally accepted himself. When you accept yourself, you become a unique flower, and tremendous freedom and confidence will happen in you.

It is very important that you learn to live with your own body. The moment you think that another's body or another's dimensions are more attractive, you create a gap between yourself and your body. I have seen people who have photographs of male or female models in the walls of their rooms and do physical exercises to attain the body structure of the model. When you think that another's body is more beautiful, you create a distance between you and you.

None of us deeply love our body. We carry it only like a load. We are never inside our body because we hate it. We are everywhere else except in our bodies. We therefore have a continuous uneasiness in us and are ready to burst at any time.

For example, if your driver does something minor, you explode effortlessly. At work, you are continuously in an irritable mood. Don't think the reasons for these lie with the people around you. People tell me, 'Swamiji, all my workers are so inefficient and that is why I get irritated.' Please understand that this is not the reason for your irritability. You are not at ease with your body and that is what causes the uneasiness and irritation in your system. It is a very subtle reason and that is why it is difficult to perceive it.

## Q: Your face appears to be changing every time to me. Is it my imagination or is it true?

An enlightened being is like liquid – slowing without any ego. That is the reason why they appear to be changing all the time! You will understand how an egoless state expresses, when we discuss about ego.

#### Drop possessiveness

#### **Q: How do we get over possessiveness and jealousy?**

Yes, how do we get over it? The fact that you have asked this question shows that you are ready for better understanding.

Human beings can never be possessed. When you try to possess a person, you actually reduce him or her to an object. You make the person a dead thing. Only dead things can be possessed. If you understand this, you will be free from possessiveness and the jealousy that arises out of it.

Can you try to possess a river? If you try to grasp the water in your hand, you will be doing a foolish thing, will you not? In the same way, don't try to possess people; just enjoy them for what they are and you will be free from the grips of jealousy.

When you try to possess a person, it becomes difficult for that person also. You will start projecting all your ideas on him. He will have to act so as to gel with your projected ideas. He will feel caged. He cannot be his natural self with you. Then it cannot be called a relationship anymore!

Also if you really love a person, liberate him! Don't try to possess him. Just love him with no strings attached.

I am reminded of a story:

In a remote village in South Bharat, where people did not know that civilization existed, there was an old couple. One day, for the first time ever, there was a fair in the village.

The man went to the fair and saw all the items on show.

He picked up a mirror and was awestruck by what he saw! He had never seen a mirror in all his life before.

He took it home with him.

Now and then he would take out the mirror, glance at it and put it back before his wife could see it.

The wife however noticed it and when he was out one day, she picked it up and looked into it.

She exclaimed, 'Another woman! Just as I had thought!'

There is no end to our imagination because of our possessiveness and jealousy!

Of course, you might say, 'Swamiji, how can I keep quiet if my husband or wife is eyeing someone else.' If your husband or wife is really eyeing another person, just look into the matter consciously, with awareness, and sort out the matter with your husband. This is different from possessiveness.

#### How to overcome jealousy?

By telling yourself not to feel jealous, you can never come out of jealousy. Only if you bring awareness into the whole thing and understand deeply, it will help.

To overcome jealousy, just see how the jealousy came into your system. Just analyze the sequence of thoughts and emotions that led to jealousy.

Soon you will understand that jealousy is there like a shadow without an object, tormenting you. Getting liberation from jealousy is a great liberation in one's life.

Second thing, don't condemn the object of your jealousy. Just by condemning the object of jealousy, you will not be liberated from jealousy itself.

By condemning the object of jealousy, you might be liberated from that particular object of jealousy, but you will get fixed onto another object of jealousy, that's all! It is like saying 'sour grapes' and moving on to another vineyard! So, trying to overcome the object of jealousy is not the solution. You need to work on the subject that is *you*.

If you feel that you are holding an emotion that you wish to get rid of, something that you feel is not conducive to your growth, don't resist that emotion. When you resist it, you will only be empowering it more. When you say, 'I should not get jealous,' you will be giving the same power to the word 'jealous' as you give to the words 'I should not'.

Instead, say to yourself, 'Let me be always compassionate towards everyone.' Don't use the word 'jealous' at all. Say something totally positive in the same context, that's all.

Also, instead of avoiding or running away from jealousy, live it through with total awareness. When you try to avoid it, it will confront you at some other time with more intensity than before. Just remember that jealousy is not your true nature. Society taught you to be jealous.

Jealousy is not the real you. When this clicks in you, you will laugh at it instead of being involved in it. When you are able to laugh at it, it means you have started witnessing it instead of being a part of it. The moment you become a witness, it becomes easy to go beyond anything.

Also, if you see that the whole of Existence is nothing but a divine play, you will be able to see the jealous feeling also as a divine play.

If you understand that you are unique and there is no one in this world like you, the comparing nature in you will become meaningless and you will automatically stop feeling jealous. Always remember: Existence loves everyone and everything equally.

#### Make the most of the masters' messages

### Q: Masters time and again try to inspire in us traits like love free from jealousy, better understanding and non-judgmental attitudes. Why is the understanding not happening in us?

You see, there are two things in this: When we catch the masters' messages and make a sincere effort in transforming ourselves, we have caught the right thread and we enter into bliss! But when we start giving importance to the master's personality instead, there starts the problem.

If you follow the master's teachings, you will become a spiritual fruit. If you cling on to his personality, you will remain a religious nut. Religious nuts are the ones who create confusion and conflict in society.