“Yesterday a man asked me, “Swamiji why is it that the arrangements are…”

Yesterday a man asked me, “Swamiji why is it that the arrangements are this grand but the crowd is so little?” I told him that as quality increases, the numbers will decrease. How many lives are transformed is what is important. Winston Churchill delivered a speech to a huge crowd one day. A man commented to him about the large numbers present. Churchill told him, “Don’t go by the numbers. Tomorrow If I die, there will be four times as large a gathering!” How many have the courage and self-confidence to take in the words spoken is the question. Vivekananda says, “Give me a hundred youngsters and I will change the world and show you.” He added , “youngsters with fire, honesty and self-confidence.” Vivekananda probably kept a factor of safety before arriving at the figure of hundred; lesser than hundred youngsters will do the job.

A Zen Master was visited by that country’s king. Only a king goes in search of knowledge to Masters. This is because, he has enjoyed all the desires in life and still feels a void inside him and goes in search of knowledge to fill this void with a Master. The King asked if he could stay with the Master, the Master agreed. The king keenly observed all the activities of the Master and after 2 days, he asked him, “Master, how come you are so blissful all 24 hours of the day? What is the technique?” The Master replied laughingly, “Simple! I eat when I eat and sleep when I sleep, that’s all.” The King was baffled. He continued, “But, we too do the same thing, but we are not blissful all the time.” The Master said, “That is because, you only think you are doing that; you don’t really do it.” When we eat our food, our past regrets and future worries circulate in our minds. In addition, this is the time that we watch the television and therefore have no idea about the quantity of food that goes inside us. In effect, we think of everything but the food that we are eating. We think of our office accounts, some person’s reaction on something that happened etc. We eat without the awareness that we are eating. Obesity and expression have a close association. When a person is depressed due to exhaustion with thoughts, a person eats more and hence become obese. Look deeply into yourself and analyse. When you are sleeping, you continuously dream. One who sleeps completely is also completely awake when awake. But we are neither. We neither sleep completely nor are we awake completely. There is some imagination or dreaming even when we are awake. While eating our breakfast at home, we are mentally in our office; while at office, we are mentally at the satsang where we would be after office; while at the satsang, we get restless about Swamiji’s endless talks and are mentally thinking about going back home! This cycle repeats in us taking on various forms. One thing is sure and that is, where your body is, your mind is not. If you look deep inside, you will realize that your mind keeps saying, “What next?” all the time. We are never in the present. We are always racing through our past regrets or future worries. We are never here and now in the present moment.

A Zen Master woke up crying one day. His disciple was shocked and asked him what the matter was. He said that he dreamt that he had become a butterfly at night and therefore was crying. The disciple told him that it was only a dream and that he had anyway not turned into a butterfly. The Master replied, “Now, I don’t understand if I turned into a butterfly or the butterfly turned into me.” If you look deeply into this, there is no real difference between the two. You are here now listening to me and you think that this is the truth. You may tell me that you can pinch yourself and conclude that this is the truth. Thoughts during the day are day-dreaming and thoughts during the night are night-dreaming. The height of day-dreaming and the depth of night-dreaming are closely related. When the former increases, the latter also increases.

Actually, man sleeps deeply continuously only for 14 minutes. Every 14 minutes, he comes out of sleep and goes back into the next 14 minutes of deep sleep. A truly spiritual person will realize that it is how here and nowhere. Future comes from present only. But you escape from the present and don’t experience any moment! We take pains to increase the height of our bed but don’t take pains in increasing the depth of our sleep.

We gather materialistic things without enjoying them. While gathering material things, we are all the time oscillating between the past and the future and hence we lose the inherent nature of enjoying the things we gather at the end of it ! Any happiness can be only through the present. If we miss the moment and oscillate between the past and future, even peace will be depressing. If you live in the present, even depression will seem like peace. Because we don’t live life fully, we suffer. Eve our fear of death is due to this. If we live at least for one moment in the present and realize that ‘Here and now is the moment’, we can overcome our fear of death.

A King lived prosperously for hundred years. The Lord of death, Lord Yama came and reminded him that it is time to leave the body. The King cried out aloud and requested Yama to spare him for another hundred years. Yama laid down a condition that he could live for another hundred years if he gave one of his sons as sacrifice instead of his own life. The King gladly gave his son as sacrifice and lived on. At the end of the hundred years, Yama appeared and once again the King pleaded for another hundred years and even sacrificed another son of his to avail of the extension. At the end of the hundred years, Yama appeared yet again and the King was not willing to go with him. Yama declared that the King was taking things too far. He told the King that it is not correct to feed ghee that is desires to put out the fire. He also told him that in what matters is the way in which one experiences the world matters and not what things they experience.

When we own an Esteem car, we dream about a Benz Car; when you finally own a Benz car, you would have lost your capacity to enjoy it. The mind will only say, “What next?” While our body does one thing, our mind continuously does other jobs. Tantra Sastra says that if we unite our mind and body in doing a job, Existence or Parashakthi co-operates fully for it. A man asked me to give him a Chandi mantra to impress Ashtadasabhuja Durga (Devi with 18 hands) during Navarathiri time. I told him to first try to live peacefully with his two-handed wife and then come to me for taking the mantra to impress the 18-handed Goddess.

During Pradosha time, at the temple, abhisheka is performed Lord Nandi who is the vehicle driver for Lord Shiva. We spend hours worhipping Lord Shiva’s driver but do not care about whether our own driver had his coffee. There is so much gap between spirituality and practical life for us. We think that both are different. Not at all. If you think that you can live with spiritual feelings for a few moments and then live the remaining time in whatever fashion you please, you will never be able to attain bliss. What you will be doing can be called ‘holiday religion’ or ‘part time religion’. Meditation is a quality or nature that has to fill your entire Being and life. This gap that we maintain between spirituality and practical life is what that causes problem.

If Jesus Christ and Lord Krishna were to greet each other today, they would meet other with total harmony and love. But Christ’s goats and Krishna’s cows would probably fight each other! Rituals have taken us far away from spirituality. One man asked me, “Swamiji, if you say that there is no need for religion and that spirituality is will do, then why do you keep kumkum on your forehead?” I told him that he had misunderstood me. I never tell people to drop religion. We should understand each religion, take the essence of all the religions and follow them, not drop them. Thomas Alva Edison founded the light bulb. He was a Christian. Was it concluded that light bulbs can be used only Christians? No! The whole world uses it. On the forehead is the Agnya chakra, the seat of intelligence. Inner intelligence and true knowledge arises from there. Rishis founded a technique to keep this chakra energized and that is keeping kumkum on the chakra. Similarly, wearing the rudraksh bead as a mala or chain is also a technique with scientific meaning. When our body and mind reach a low ebb, Science has proved that the bio energy is kindled by this rudraksh bead. Like how a dis-charged battery gets re-charged, this bead proves to be re-charging technique for our mind and body. All these are ancestral techniques scientifically proven. Only we don’t know the meaning behind them and misinterpret them. We must embrace all techniques. Vivekananda says, “Let religion be flooded with reasoning, the earlier it gets washed away, the better. What withstands the reasoning or intelligence is pure spirituality’.

In our life, only ‘present’ exists. But our mind is there everywhere except in the ‘present’. Vivekananda spoke in Chicago, “My American brothers and sisters…” The auditorium thundered with applause. A lady wrote, “It was not just the applause. He had won an entire nation!”. She asked Vivekananda how the crowd had accepted his words. He replied, “Because it came from within.” She asked Vivekananda how the crowd had accepted his words. He replied, “Because it came from within.” We always calculate before embracing people. One man went up to Mahatma Gandhi and said, “Gandhiji, you said that we are all your brothers and sisters. Can you give my share of your wealth.” Gandhi replied, “Here you are, take this 10 paise.” The man was puzzled. Gandhiji continued, “I have to share my wealth 100 crores of people!”

If I talk from the bottom of my heart, you will listen whole heartedly. When words emanate from the brain, it will touch the brain of the other person and this is called ‘communication’. When words emanate from the heart of one person, it touches the heart of the other person and this is called ‘communion.’ We only communicate, never commune. An unwelcome visitor came to man’s house. The man screamed to his wife who was inside the kitchen to bring coffee for the visitor. The wife screamed back that there was no coffee in the house and that there was no money to but it either. The husband got angry and started scolding his wife and finally gave her a slap for not being able to serve coffee. The wife started crying. The visitor saw what was happening and slowly got up and went way. The wife wiped her tears and triumphantly told the husband, :Did you see that? I pretended to cry and sent him away!”. The husband replied, “Well! I pretended to be angry with you and made you cry!” The visitor joined them, “Did you see that? I pretended to walk away and I have now come back!” Our thoughts are different from our words and hence we lose life. Two things happen continuously in us – talking outside or talking inside us. Both are completely different sets of words and therefore we lose our lives completely. By doing this, you are fooling yourself, not really others. Ramakrishna says, “uniting our thoughts and words is like doing a penance” We edit our thoughts and bring them our as words. There is so much of calculation that goes on inside before the words come out. We see profit and loss and go into the future to analyze before we start talking.