“Here the teachings are given only to liberate you, give you…”

Here the teachings are given only to liberate you, give you Enlightenment. That is the goal. Achieving ultimate level of Consciousness, experiencing the greatest truth but if you see the beauty of these teachings, you see, this whole philosophy of Mahavira looks life negative but all the followers of Mahavira live with such richness. We should enter into that paradox. We should analyse how this happens. Here Mahavira is not giving any management techniques. He is not management Guru. In the modern day, all our philosophies or the teachings are used in the, for management or there are so many management books which came based on the vedic tradition. Even the so-called masters in the modern day, they all became management gurus only, but Mahavira is not a management guru. He is not giving you any solutions related to the outer world, but the very teachings when you follow, the expansion of the inner space which happens as a side effect of that expansion, by-product of that expansion, wealth accumulates around you.

Understand, if I say Mahavir is the ultimate management guru not only for the inner world, even for the outer world. He never speaks about how to create or manage the wealth. All he does, he creates the beautiful inner space in which you can accommodate many things. He is not talking about karma yoga. If He talks about karma yoga, you can use those words and make Him as a management guru. The other day, I was reading an article in Wall Street Journal the Gita is taking a big shape. Gita is getting an important place in many corporate companies of US. They are using for management. Mahavir is not talking anything about karma yoga. You can easily use teachings related to karma yoga for management. He is not talking anything. He simply does something in your Consciousness. You become a leader. He is not telling that you should become a leader; he just makes you leader. He creates a beautiful inner space. One important thing you should understand. When your inner space is expanded, when you are living with inner richness, outer richness follows you. Not only follows you, it becomes your servant.

Let us enter into the words of Mahavira. We will understand how He does this great thing through His unique teachings and techniques... So before entering into the Sutras, let us all remember the great Master Mahavira and all other Tirthankaras, all other great Masters by repeating this mantra. If you all know this mantra, you can repeat. Otherwise at least remember all the great Masters, all the Tirthankaras, all the Sadhus, all the Siddhas, all the Acharyas who preserved this science of Enlightenment, who protected this science of Enlightenment and let us offer our humble respects to them before entering into their teachings. Let us pray to them. Let them give us intelligence, let them bless us to realise the truths of their teachings, to experience the truths of what they are teaching to us, to experience what they really want us to learn, what they really want us to do, how they want us to be. Let us pray to them:

Namo Arihantanam

Namo Siddhanam

Namo Ayaryanam

Namo Vajrayanam

Namo Loye Savva Sahunam

Eso Punchnama karo savva papavanasano

Mangalanancha savvy sim

Padamam havaihi mangalam

Let us first understand this mantra. It is such a wonderful mantra. I will tell the translation. I will read the translation. Then we will try to understand this mantra: I bow in reverence to Arihantas means the people who have conquered the enemies. Enemy does not mean the outer world enemy, the inner world enemies. I bow in reverence to Siddhas means all liberated souls. I bow in reverence to Acharyas. I bow in reverence to Upadhyayas. I bow in reverence to all Sadhus. These five-fold salutation destroys all sins and amongst all auspicious things, this is the most auspicious one. Mangalanancha savve sim. Padamam havai mangalam. This mantra is an amazing mantra. We should understand few things before understanding this mantra.

See, this great tradition of Mahavir starts with this mantra and ends in this mantra. Whatever He has to say, the whole gist of this tradition is this mantra. Please understand, they are not worshipping the Gods who will give wealth. No! They are not worshipping the Gods who will give knowledge. No! They are not worshipping the Gods who will give power. No! We should understand the psychology of religion. Bible says God created man in his own mould but actual truth is man created God in his own mould. If you are caught in ignorance you worship the god of, Goddess of knowledge, Saraswati. Whatever you don’t have, you worship that because you want that. If you are matured, your worship or Ishta Devata also will be matured.

Understand, a person who has renounced the world, who wants Enlightenment, you will never expect him that he will be sitting in front of Lakshmi and worshipping Lakshmi. No! What is he going to do? Even if Lakshmi showers on him, he has no utility. He has no use. So naturally you will not see a monk sitting in front of a Lakshmi. Maybe he may worship Mokshalakshmi, not Dhanalakshmi. Surely not Santanalakshmi. So your Ishta Devata will very clearly tell in which state of Consciousness you are living. Here this whole tradition starts with worshipping Enlightened Masters means the highest conscious beings.

Understand, there are different levels in religion. If you are caught in ignorance, the lowest level, you will worship or you will be interested more towards a fanatic beliefs. You will expect somebody to give you the readymade beliefs. You will not analyse. Second, if you are fear oriented, if you are fear based, if you are afraid and you want God who will remove fear from you, you will worship gods with big, big swords, with too many weapons, eighteen hand, twenty hands, all kinds of weapons but here, you are worshipping Arihantas and Siddhas who are sitting in meditation. You are not worshipping Gods who are with too many hands

If you are fear based, if you are caught in fear, you will create a God who has got too many hands and too many weapons so that you will be protected. At least some one weapon will protect you, and if you are greed based, naturally you will worship the Gods and Goddesses who are giving wealth, who are promising you wealth. Lakshmi or any gods and goddesses who are showering gold coins and if you see the Lakshmi’s statues and photographs, you will see that she is showering gold coins and is just projection of your fantasy. Nothing more than that.

If you are greed based, it is very easy to exploit you. If somebody comes and gives you the promise, just verbal, enough or creates such a words that your fantasies will be fulfilled through him, you are gone and really an incident which happened. One astrologer used to come to our ashram. Earlier he was coming in two wheeler. One day suddenly I saw him in a new car. I asked him, “How come suddenly a new car? Did you win any lottery?” He said, “No, no, Swamiji. These are all happening around me because of Lakshmi Yantra.” I said, “Lakshmi Yantra? I never heard of this. Who gave you this?” “No, no, no. Nobody gave me Swamiji. I started giving to others.” Understand, if you start having Lakshmi Yantras may be a person who sells will become rich. I don’t know about you.

If you are greed based, you will worship the Gods and Goddesses, you will bow down to Gods and Goddesses who are promising wealth. If you are logic based, the next level, you will worship philosophers. You will worship the people who give you words. Communism. They don’t worship other Gods but they worship their leaders. Any ‘ism’, any philosophy, person who gives you words, he is worshipped, respected and all these four level, you can’t call as a religion. They are not religions. They are not going to give you solutions. They give you support. Understand, these four level will give you only support, not solution.

There you will see the true spirituality. Love based means you will worship a person who is radiating love. You will be attracted towards the person who radiates love. Next, meditation based. You will be attracted to a person who is sitting in meditation, who is radiating peace, who is radiating energy, who is radiating life, who is radiating Consciousness. Last, ultimate celebration based who is not only radiating, who can make you also to radiate the same energy. Celebration means who can share, who can create that ambience, who can create that energy in you also. Celebration based. Arihanta means not only the person who has achieved himself, who can reproduce it, who can create it in you also. This is religions, traditions based on Enlightenment.

Understand the seven levels. Ignorance based and fear based, greed based, logic based- these four are preliminary levels. They are, you can’t call them as religions. They are just solutions. Support, not even solution. It’s like a adding little oil to you and making you run in the same way like, when too much friction happens, you need to add little oil to reduce the friction. Same way, these four level, it’s like a little oil to run your machine. It won’t give you solution. The other three levels, higher levels: love based, meditation based and celebration based, joy, bliss, ananda based. Here we are worshipping, bowing down to the great energies, Masters who are love based, meditation based and celebration, Enlightenment based, Ananda - ecstasy based.