Devotee Becomes God


When a river meets the ocean, the river no longer remains a river. It becomes the ocean. A drop of the ocean is part of the ocean. In the same way, the moment a devotee meets (surrenders to) the Divine, the devotee becomes GOD. When the river meets the ocean, it recognizes that it is the ocean from the beginning to the end. Similarly, the individual "I-You, I-You" dissolves in ONE Divinity.

Sometimes the ocean goes into the river to greet it. Sometimes it seems that the ocean is pushing back the river. Similarly, the Divine puts many questions and doubts in the mind or gives an amazing experience to bring one back home.

Action and Karma


Action is out of conscious decision. Reaction is out of impulsiveness. Impulsiveness creates a chain of Karma. Reaction, as well as non-action, both create karma, but a conscious action transcends karma. Conscious action does not create new karma whereas, non-action can create karma.
For example, a soldier shooting in war does not create a karma; a policeman using tear gas does not create a Karma, and if you are a doctor and you do not give medicine to a patient in need, you are incurring a karma. Through knowledge and devotion, transcend all karmas and be free!

Arguments and wrong action


A person who argues should not be given knowledge. An argumentative mind is not receptive to knowledge. When someone is in an argumentative mood, then giving knowledge or advice is in vain. In an argumentative mood you feel you know it all. Then you are not ready for knowledge. That is why wise people do not give advice when they are in an argumentative environment.
Argument has a purpose. It can bring out the truth if there is no emotion or sense of "I" attached to it. Argument can also have a disadvantage. It can make untruth appear to be truth. A wise man will not take arguments seriously; he will just have fun with them. Wisdom is beyond all arguments.

Compassion and Karma


There are two types of compassion. One is the compassion of the wise, one is that of the ignorant.
An ignorant person's compassion is on the fruit of an action whereas a wise person's compassion is towards the non-availability of knowledge. Compassion for suffering shows ignorance. Suffering comes because of karma, and if you believe in karma, where is compassion? One reaps the fruit of one's actions.
If a judge has compassion for all the offenders then the jails will be empty. At the same time, are the judges cruel to the offenders? No; the judges' compassion is for the non-availability of knowledge, not for the suffering of the criminals. It is their karma.
Often people think compassion is an act, an action. Know that compassion is your very nature. Then you will see that karma and compassion are not contradictory but complement each other.
Suppose two people come to a hospital. One is suffering from starvation, the other is ill from overeating. What type of compassion should the doctor have towards each of them? This is a riddle for you to solve!

Changeable and unchangeable karma


Some karma can be changed and some cannot.
When you prepare halwa, if sugar is less or ghee is less, water more or less, it can all be adjusted, repaired. But once soji is cooked, it cannot be reversed.
If the buttermilk is sour, milk can be added, salt can be added to make it drinkable. But it can never be reversed back to milk.
Prabdha karma cannot be changed. Sanchita karma can be changed by spiritual practices. Satsang burns the seed of all negative karma.
When you praise someone, you take on their good karma. When you blame someone you take on their bad karma.
Know this and surrender both good and bad karma to the Divine and be free.

Aggression = Weakness


Being right does not mean being harsh and being kind doesn’t mean just letting anything happen. Kindness is not complacence and righteousness is not just aggression. Unfortunately, today, when we are right we get aggressive. It need not be, it should not be. In fact, aggression only shows our weakness; our lack of faith in our own power. Isn’t this strange? You think that the powerful will be aggressive? No! People who feel they have no power, or they have lost power, they become aggressive. Just look a little deep into it. When do you get aggressive? When you can’t do things easily. When things can happen easily, will you get aggressive?
So when you don’t have confidence in your power or the power of your being then you get aggressive. I know it is difficult to get that!
When all these things were happening in Delhi, someone asked me, "How were you so cool Gurudev? We were all tensed!"
I know everything will happen well. And when I know that everything will happen, then what is the point of becoming aggressive, or upset, or sad, or unhappy. 
When you know the power within you, you don’t get aggressive. The powerful don’t get aggressive. Who gets aggressive? When you feel that the situation, person, people are beyond your control, or you feel that it is not possible. Or when you feel that you are smaller than the situation, then you become aggressive. I think you should ponder on this. Often you see a person with aggression, you feel that he is powerful. He is really not!

Befriend the Divine


What do we get upset with? We don’t get upset with the birds, or the clouds, or with Nature. We don’t get upset with the environment. So, what do we get upset with?
We get upset with the people around us. Our enemies upset us and our friends upset us as well. Our mind gets stuck either in our friends or in our enemies. We either think about our friends or we think about our enemies the entire day.

People become our enemies even when we have not done any wrong to them. Many people have had this experience. We didn’t do any wrong to them; neither did we misbehave and still they became our enemies. This is very surprising!
We think, ‘Oh! Why has he become my enemy? Until yesterday he was my friend.’ In the same way, we do not do any special favours for some people, yet they become our close friends.
That is why I tell you, this is some astonishing and mysterious Karma – how some people become our enemies and some our friends.

So what should we do?
We should place both our friends and enemies in one basket, and just become empty from within and be joyful.
All these happenings (people becoming friends and enemies) are run by some law and we don’t know how and where it comes from. We just can’t say when someone’s feelings towards us will change and whether it will be in our favour or not in our favour. We just can’t say. That is why we should place absolute faith on our Self, on God, and not on friendship and enmity.
We should not waste our time thinking about friends and enemies.
What do you all think?

This does not mean you distance yourself from your friends, or that you stop making new friends. That is not what I am saying. Friendliness should be in our nature; love should be in our very nature. We are love after all!
When someone comes and sits beside us, we do smile at them and exchange a few words. This does not mean you think, ‘Anyways, who is a friend or who is an enemy, there is nothing to share with anyone’, and you walk around with a gloomy face being angry with everyone – this is not a sign of wisdom. This is ignorance and foolishness.
We must interact with everyone around us but at the same time be centred from within. Do you understand?
When we are centred, then we will not feel sad, angry or possessive. Then we will not have disappointment of any kind. Otherwise many times what happens, we become sad – ‘Oh! Look, I made him such a good friend and today he does not even talk to me. I did so many favours for him and he has turned against me!’
By thinking all these thoughts we waste the time we have in the present. We should not do this, Okay!
It is futile to search for a true friend in the world. Befriend the Truth (Divine) and the World is yours.

Answer to terrorism: De-radicalization


We have to de-radicalize the world. To me, the only way out of this is to make available this spiritual knowledge in schools and colleges; in madrassas (Islamic religious schools). Today, there are seminaries (theological institutions) and madrassas; we need to de-radicalize our youth.
Why would someone do suicide bombing? It is because they have a temptation to get into heaven. These people think that the world is made by Allah, it belongs to Allah and the other people, the infidels have no right to exist on the planet. So they think, "I will obey the command of Allah. Allah says to finish these infidels. If I do this, I will go to heaven, I will be happy and I will be rewarded". This erroneous concept has gotten into the minds of these terrorists.
If you see the situation from their angle, they are justified in what they are doing. God created this planet and people who do not listen to His words have no right to exist on this planet. This is their loyalty. It’s like the loyal soldier or servant of a house saying, "If you don’t listen to the Master of the house, you don’t have any right to be in the house".
Like a security guard of a place, if a person violates the law then he or she should be thrown out. And that is what these people think, I suppose. Otherwise why would someone blow themselves up and kill others? They must be thinking that this is giving them some merits. And it is pleasing God. So unless you set this thinking right, you can’t help these people.
In Brussels airport, 17 people were killed by a suicide bomber. Let’s spread meditation and yoga. People who do yoga and meditation, whatever religion they follow, they will not become a terrorist, I tell you. It is impossible for a kind, happy and peaceful person to harm someone. Don’t you think so?
So what we need to do is keep teaching meditation, meditation, meditation. Okay, you can call your Allah or Ishwar, or whatever you want to call, but remember that you are peace. This is what we must teach everyone. Also, they should know a little bit about all the traditions and religions of the world, then they won’t think that only this book belongs to God.
There was a professor who was here last week. He said something very interesting to me. He said, "Prophet Mohammed said that I am not from Hind but Hind is in my heart. And he also said that I get this cool and sweet breeze from the East." I think what he meant by saying Hind is in my heart, is that the principles of Hind, -- non-violence, truth, spiritual values are dear to him because India was known for spirituality for centuries; for millennia.
Hassan and Ali also said something very beautiful, they said that the first book of wisdom was written in India, referring to the Vedas. We must reach out this spiritual knowledge to people.
In the past there were two barriers:
1. People thought, "Oh because I belong to this religion I don’t want to take anything else from any other religion". This is one barrier that was created by some of the fundamentalists -- don’t take anything from other religions.
2. There was no effort from the spiritual leaders in India to reach out to them.
Both these approaches were very puritan, on both sides. On one side people were not ready to welcome a new tradition. On the other side people were not ready to share from their side. They said, "You do your thing, I don’t want to share anything, I am happy with what I have".
So people kept what they knew to themselves. In fact they were too rigid.
In Kashmir, the story goes that one man was forcefully converted. He then came to Benares and begged all pundits, "Please let me come back to the knowledge, let me follow this tradition". They all refused, they said that there is no way you can come back. He went back with such rage, he converted everybody in the valley at the point of a sword.
History talks of all these things. So people were not ready to share on one side. That was a very big blunder that they did. And the society is so divided into a caste system. So from this past, we learnt a lesson and we need to move ahead and de-radicalize people. And the only way is giving them an experience of peace and an experience of the spiritual dimension.