Know that you are needed, you are useful

 

People commit suicide to escape misery but they do not realise it puts them in greater misery. It is like, someone is shivering in the cold and he goes out and removes his jacket. Will the cold become any less? No! People who commit suicide find themselves there because they are so attached to life. They are so attached to some pleasure, to some joy, that they want to kill themselves. And when they kill themselves they find themselves in a bigger soup. They feel, ‘Oh my God , this restlessness, these desires which had created such intense agony inside me has not gone. My body has gone but the agony has remained.'

It is only through the body that you can dispel the agony and get rid of misery. Instead you destroy the very instrument by which you can get rid of agony. When energy goes down you get depressed and when it goes further down suicidal tendencies arise. When the prana is high, this thought will not come. You will not be violent to yourself or others when your prana is high. Through proper breathing exercises, some meditation and through good and loving company energy can go up.

Anyone with suicidal tendencies should be led to someone who can teach them meditation, who can make them do some breathing exercises and raise their energy level. Every day, for ten minutes meditate and become hollow and empty. We need to create a society free from stress and violence, and the way for it is through meditation. Many times when we sit for meditation, the mind goes all over the place. That is where Sudarshan Kriya, which is a breathing technique, and yoga, both of these help the mind to calm down and become serene. Personal development is very important for everyone. See life from a broader perspective. 80 years of life we are living, is it worth being stressed, unhappy? In this short span of life, we should spend our time being happy and making others happy.

If you get thoughts of committing suicide:

1. Know that it is just your prana which is low, so do more pranayama

2. There are millions of people who are suffering more than you, look at them. When your suffering becomes smaller you will not think of committing suicide.

3. Know that you are needed, you are useful. You have to do something in the world.

4. Forget about what people think of you: People commit suicide because they think they have lost their prestige, their status. What status? What prestige? Who has time to think about your prestige?

Everybody is entangled with their own problems, with their own mind. They can’t step out of their own mind, where do they have the time to think about you? It is worthless to worry about what the society thinks of you. Life is much more than just a few material possessions. Life is much more than blame or appreciation from someone. Life is much more than a relationship or a job.

The reason for suicide is failure in relationship, failure in job and not being able to achieve what you want to achieve. Life is much more than the small desires that pop up in your consciousness, in your mind. See life from a bigger perspective and engage yourself in some sort of social activity; service activity. Service or seva can keep people sane and keep them out of this mental depression. Mental depression is worse than an economic recession. One has to take responsibility to sail over this and help others around them. Taking every crisis as a challenge, as an opportunity is what we need to promote in the world.

Here's why you must not judge or blame

We all have this tendency – we judge ourselves too much, or we judge others. Either you start blaming yourself, or you blame somebody else. Either you find you are not right, or you find that someone else is not okay. You should wake up and stop judging.

Whomsoever you blame, do you like to be with them? Do you like to be with someone you are unhappy with? No! So, if you blame yourself, you can’t be with yourself. So, the first law on the journey or path to self-development is to stop blaming yourself.

Now, don’t say, “Oh! That means I can blame others.” No! Every time you have blamed somebody, when you see what you blamed them for from a broader perspective, you will find that it was wrong and futile.

I say “don’t blame others” because if you blame others, it is going to rebound on you. You should not blame anybody.

I have never blamed anyone or never said any bad words. It has not come out of me at all. I didn’t do anything to make it happen – it was naturally like that from the very beginning. I could never abuse anybody – verbal abuse or any other abuse.

When you pay attention to this, when you stop using bad words, your words gain the power to bless. So, stop blaming yourself and stop blaming others. Things are the way they are, just move on and that is it.

You know, sometimes people say, “Oh! This person is a fraud. He is not genuine.”
But one should have some criteria to say that. Many times, you don’t even have criteria to judge somebody, yet you simply blame them, “Oh! He is a fraud,” and that’s it, finished.

This is an unconscious tendency that has developed in society – blaming others and oneself and then feeling guilty about it. The spiritual journey is to remove this and reverse it.

It is such a delicate thing. This does not mean that you justify all the mistakes you do. When you make some mistake, they you cannot say, “Oh, I am on the spiritual path, so I cannot accept my mistake and I cannot blame myself. So, whatever I do is right.” No! It is a delicate balance. It is not to justify your mistake, but to recognize your mistake and at the same time not blame yourself.

If you don’t accept and recognize your mistakes you will never improve. That’s the end of the story. At the same time, if you recognize your mistake and you feel so guilty and you keep blaming yourself, then too it is a hopeless case. So, you need that very delicate balance – neither this side, nor that side.

Remember not to be too hard on yourself. You are part of a phenomenon that is happening. There are trees, rivers, and birds on the planet – just like that, you are also here. So many birds are born and so many birds are dying. Isn’t it? So many trees are coming up and they all vanish. Like this, so many people—so many bodies—have come and they will all vanish. This planet has been there for billions of years. See your life from this bigger context—with a sense of purpose—and then you will stop blaming or judging.

Money is illusory security

Money gives us a sense of freedom and ownership. We feel that with money, we can own anything or put a price tag on anybody’s services. Ownership of something means total control of its existence from beginning to end. When we pay for a piece of land, we feel that we own it, although the land continues to exist even after the owner is long gone. How can you own something that outlives you?

Money also gives the idea that you are powerful and independent, blinding you to the fact that we live in a world of interdependence. We depend on farmers, cooks, drivers and the services of so many other people around us. Even an expert surgeon cannot operate on himself; he depends on others. Why are most rich people arrogant? Because of the feeling of independence that money brings. The awareness of dependence, on the other hand, makes one humble. The basic human tenet of humility is taken away by this false feeling of independence.

Today, we have gone to the extent of measuring people in terms of their net worth on the money scale ‘so-and-so is worth five hundred million’. Can money reflect the worth of a person? Calling someone a millionaire or a billionaire is not a compliment. You cannot assign a monetary value to human life. When people lack faith in divinity, in their own abilities and in the goodness of society, they suffer from a deep sense of insecurity. Then, all that appears to provide security is money. Some among the wealthy feel insecure in relationships they don’t know whether their friends are truly their friends or are interested in their fortune.

For a while, money can provide an illusory sense of security. Wealth is attained through one’s skills and abilities, inheritance or through corrupt means. Each means of attaining wealth brings with it its own consequences. The very motive for corruption is peace and happiness. Yet, peace and happiness remain elusive when the means are corrupt. Due to the illusory notions of independence, ownership and security that it brings, money is considered a part of maya: miyate anaya iti maya means “that which can be measured is maya”. Hence everything in the world that can be measured is considered maya, money being one such measure. Human values are eroded when you try to put a price tag on all that cannot be measured, like love, truth, wisdom and life itself.

On the other hand, there are those who criticise money and blame it for all the ills of society. There are some others who even consider it as evil. Not only does possessing money bring arrogance, rejecting it does, too. Some people who renounce money take pride in their poverty just to draw attention and sympathy.

However, the ancient sages never denigrated money or maya. In fact, they honoured it as a part of the divine and thereby transcended the grip of its illusion. They knew the secret that when you reject or hate something you can never transcend it. They honoured wealth as Goddess Lakshmi, the consort of Narayana. She is born out of yoga (yogaje yoga sambhute). It is yoga that transforms the bad karma and brings out latent skills and talents. It also brings up ashtasiddhis the eight perfections, and nava nidhis - the nine wealths. It is this wisdom of yoga that transforms one from arrogance to self-confidence, from meekness to humility, from the burden of dependence to the realisation of interdependence, from craving for freedom to the recognition of unbounded-ness, from a limited ownership to oneness with the whole.

God is Love

God is the very core of your being. The difference between Self and God is just like the wave and the ocean. Can there be a wave without the ocean? Just like your body is made up of proteins, amino acids and carbohydrates, your mind and soul are made up of love. You are made up of love and love is God. So you are made up of God! Do not think God is sitting somewhere in heaven. God is here and now.

What is the definition of God, if at all there is one? You describe it as that which is everywhere; all-powerful; responsible for this creation, its maintenance and its dissolution. God is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient. God is not an object of the senses, but the feeling of feelings, the presence of presence, the sound of silence, the light of life, the essence of the world and the taste of bliss. Just as love is felt in the heart, so is God’s presence. God is never an object of isolation. God is the sum totality. When you dissolve, God remains. When you are there, there is no God. Either you can be or God. When you meditate, you become one with God. God is to be felt in the depth of your heart.

God can neither be perceived through your senses nor through the mind. If you make God an  object of your sight, then it is no more God. You can live God, can be God, but you cannot consider God as an object that shows you the path. The whole existence has a mind of its own. It is just like you. You have a mind and it has such  intelligence, that’s why it keeps everything orderly. Similarly, this moment is seen by this big mind. This moment knows exactly what to do. There are so many activities happening in the whole creation. Right now enormous activity is happening in the mind, in the present. In the Now! This mind is what you can call atma or God and that is what you are. The mind is so used to looking to the concrete that it cannot appreciate something abstract. The mind does not believe what it does not know.

God is the very core of your being. When you peel the layers of an onion and reach the centre, there is nothingness. Similarly everything is made up of that space. The whole is God; everything is God and that consciousness is present everywhere. Life is incomplete without union with God. A matured mind and blossomed heart strives for this union. Religions, philosophies, practices, customs and austerities have all pointed to one thing — union with the Divine. The common man wakes up to the suffering in his life and wants to be free. He looks for the superpower of creation. The more he looks at the misery and shortcomings in his life, the farther away he feels from the Divinity, which is his very nature.

The secret to a permanent smile

One who is completely enlightened has no needs and no responsibilities. Also, one who is inert has no needs and no responsibilities. In between these two, everyone has some needs and some responsibilities.

If you sit and make a note of all your responsibilities and all your needs, and if you find that your needs are more than your responsibilities, then life will lead to misery. But if you take more responsibility and have fewer needs, then you will be happy. That is the secret.

When your needs are many and you focus only on your needs and don’t take responsibility, you remain unhappy; you keep grumbling and complaining.

When you take more responsibility and your needs are less, everything simply comes to you - enthusiasm, happiness, creativity, etc.

Now the question arises: what if one is hungry? If one is hungry, one has to eat. If one is thirsty, one has to drink. These are all physical needs. I tell you, your body belongs to this Earth and the Earth will take care of it. You belong to the Divine, and the Divine will take care of you.

In fact, the Divine is taking care of you. Make this distinction that you are separate from your body. As soon as you do this, you will see that you belong to the Divine, and then your smile becomes a permanent feature.

Power of Sankalpa

 

Strength lies in the power of your sankalpa (intention). The mind is full of sankalpa and vikalpa (imagination, fancy). Each work gets done through sankalpa. Even the act of moving one’s arm is preceded by the sankalpa in the mind. The sankalpa of a weak mind is ineffective. We can make our mind strong by sadhana (spiritual practices) and knowledge. Then the sankalpa will also be strong.

We don’t use the mind power that has been bestowed upon us by nature. It is the greatest gift we have been given. There are two schools of thought. One says you visualise your dream and work for it. The other tells you to surrender everything to God; whatever the lord gives you is the best, and He will take care of everything. They appear to be incompatible but I would say they are very much compatible. It is good to have an intention or a goal. You don’t keep on visualising your goal 24×7, but continuing to work for that, you leave it to God. Only the combination of two will work.

There is a difference between intention and desire. Desire is that which gives you anger and upsets you. Sankalpa is having an intention. It means taking your consciousness to the universe, to the infinite; then bringing the mind to the present moment, and making a wish for something that you long for in your mind. Desire means it has to happen now. In sankalpa you say, “let it happen whenever it has to.” When we have an intention and focus our attention on that, it will start manifesting. 

Suppose you want to go to Mumbai from Bangalore. You buy a ticket and travel for around three hours and go there. But you don’t keep chanting all this time that you want to go to Mumbai and you are going to Mumbai. You may even land up in a mental hospital! Desire is the feverishness that clogs an intention. An intention is a desire free from feverishness. And then working towards your intention, you have to keep the faith that whatever nature brings back is for your growth.

Obstacle to Intention

There is a limitation in the field of action (karma kshetra). But it is necessary to make a little bit of effort. This is the essence of the Bhagavad Gita: “Be involved in action and have unswerving faith in the power of intention (sankalpa).” Have the faith and know the best will happen. And even if momentarily it appears not to be the best thing for you, in the long run whatever is best will happen to you. This belief will carry you through. It can also strengthen your sankalpa. If you doubt, “Oh maybe I have this problem,” or “I don’t know if this will happen,” or “Maybe I will not succeed,” — it can act like a brake when driving the car. Your hand brake is on and you’re driving the car. So no more self-doubt. Know that the best will happen to you in your life.

What we should know that we already have what we want in life. You start with this intention, “I already have what I want”, then what you want will fructify easily. Thinking, “I have it”, is like sowing a seed. Once you sow it, you put water and manure and it will sprout and grow. So you know mentally that the seed is there. Same way, whatever you want to achieve in life, know that you are that and you have it. If you think, you don’t have it in you, then you will never grow. So, if you want to be a businessman, tell yourself, “I am a businessman”, and then work towards becoming one. It may appear absurd. Usually people think, “I don’t have it in me to achieve it”, but seldom are they able to chase goals.

Money should be in your wallet, not in your mind or head. One whose mind is feverish about money can think of nothing else. He cannot think of his relationships, his friends and family, not even his own health and well-being. Such a person ends up losing everything because he is focussed on materialistic pursuits. Your mind tells you that with more money one could have more freedom, could travel anywhere, do whatever one wanted. And when this idea takes hold of the mind, it binds you. When you feel bound, you feel stiff and there is no freedom. That is the reason why people who have money keep getting more money and those who do not, keep on regretting. So that negative consciousness should go and you should feel the abundance.

Positive intention

When sankalpa arises in your heart, then it helps expand your consciousness in the universe. In this huge universe, I want this little sankalpa to happen. Suppose you are asking a question to someone and you have a doubt whether this question will be answered or not, you will hesitate to ask it or you will make errors even in the process of asking. So the right way of asking is, first, having that confidence in the divine and knowing that “I have this request and it will be granted to me.” One should apply effort, work and also relax. Before going to bed, meditate for 10 minutes and surrender whatever you desire, and sleep happily. The main things to follow are sadhana (spiritual practices and self effort), awareness, and then abandoning of feverishness. If we change the way we look at things, we discover that everything starts from within. If they are better inside, they get better outside. You become the agent for change.

When your needs are many and you focus only on your needs, you remain unhappy. When you take responsibility and your needs are lesser, everything comes to you — enthusiasm, happiness, creativity, and so on. Meditation will generate your thought power, your intention. So if you meditate for a few minutes, your thoughts will become powerful and with little effort, the task will be accomplished.

Wisdom for a peaceful life

We are on this planet for a unique and big purpose. With that in mind, take a challenge: “Come what may, I am going to smile today and be happy.” For this, you need to follow the rules of Yamas and Niyamas — the first two steps of Yoga (inner union).

Yamas: Five rules to live peacefully:

Ahimsa (non-violence) — It unites you with the whole creation. Yoga, a practice of realising that everything is here and everything is part of you is ahimsa. When everything belongs to you, how can you harm something? 

Satyam (truthfulness): You can’t lie to yourself. If you are weaving beads, you don’t say, “I am not weaving beads.” 

Asteya: (not regretting): not missing what you don’t have at this moment, nor wishing things were different from what they are, not comparing yourself with others, and wishing for what they have.

Brahmacharya: Moving beyond small identifications like “I am a man, I am a good/bad person”. Brahma means big. Being not interested in shapes and forms of the body and seeing the infinite is brahmacharya.

Aparigraha: Not taking what people give you. What really bother us are the insults, the hurt, and all the negative words that we take from people. 

Niyamas: Five rules for inner development: 

Shaucha (Cleanliness) — keeping yourself clean and wearing clean clothes. What is more important is being clean from inside. 

Santosha (Contentment): Be happy. If you don’t take a step towards being happy, nothing in this world can make you happy.

Tapas (forbearance):The rule is that change whatever you can, but when you cannot change, accept it. 

Swadhyaya (Self-study): Observe your mind and see what is going on in your mind. If you are feeling bad, just observe and you will start feeling good again.

Ishwara Pranidhaana (Love of the Divine): Surrender to the Divine when you feel you are totally helpless. 

These rules make you strong, whole and complete. To be established in this, do some meditation, sadhana (spiritual practices), service and keep your smile!