“See, it’s like a any slide which is kept in front of a projector light…”

See, it’s like a any slide which is kept in front of a projector light becomes reality in the screen. It appears as reality in the screen. So if you want to change the scenes in the screen, going and scratching the screen will not work or trying to fight with the lights will not work. Just do a small correction on the slide. It is done! Your life is just like that. Projector light is your Consciousness and the slide is your samskaras and the screen is the life which you are living. Now you are fighting with the screen or the light beams. You are trying to push the light beam, “No, no, move, move, move“ but you don’t understand you can’t even grasp it. Fighting with the screen is not going to work.

A small story: One guy fully drunk, came back to house late night and fell on the way but he doesn’t want to create any sound. So he came very politely, silently entered the house, covered himself with the blanket but suddenly he realised blood is there all over his face, ran to the bathroom tried to put bandage, tried to dress himself, put some medicine and bandage and everything. So came back. Somehow managed to sleep. Next day morning, wife started shouting at him, “Fool. Did you drink and come last night?” He said, “Drinking? Why?” He started acting he doesn’t know anything, he is innocent, “No, no, no, no, no. How do you know I drank and came? No, I came little late because there was too much work in the office.” She said, “No. I can be sure you are drunk. You were drunk.” He asked, “How, how do you know? How can you be sure?” “Because you put the bandage on the mirror, not on your face.” Seeing the mirror, he put all the bandage on the mirror.

Understand, you working with the outer world is nothing but putting bandage on the mirror. That is not going to heal you. That is no way going to help you. No! You may have an idea that you have put some bandage. You have put some medicine. You may try to sleep with the idea that you will be okay by tomorrow morning. No! Working with beam, light beams is not going to help. Fighting with the screen is not going to help. Just do little, small correction on the slide and I tell you, doing small correction on the slide needs intelligence. That is where the problem starts. You do not have that much of sensitivity look into your life that you are creating it, you are projecting it, you are expressing it because you never connected and verified all the outer world incidents and your inner world thoughts. You neither gave that much time to yourself. Connecting and seeing how your thoughts are creating your world is what I call meditation.

People come and tell Me, “Swamiji, in meditation, I am getting too many thoughts. What to do?” Please understand, meditation is not trying to create thoughtless state. It may happen in the end but when you sit in the beginning, you will not have thoughtless state and you are not asked to meditate immediately to get the thoughtless state, no. Whenever I ask people to meditate, first thing I expect them to have is, thoughts which creates intelligence, thoughts which creates clarity and the thoughts which gives life solutions. First in the beginning when you sit with yourself, you will have only these things inside you. You will not experience thoughtless state immediately. You will have Pratyahara and Dharana. Only then Dhyaan will happen.

In the beginning when you sit, you will, all your problems will come up and you will start having life solutions. All the thoughts about solving your problems, you will have the clarity. So I tell people, “Even if thoughts are not disappearing, don’t stop sitting because first time, when you sit with yourself, it’s like appointment with yourself. All the things which needs to settle, all the things which needs clarification, all those things will be happening inside you. You will be falling in tune with Sathya. You will be falling in tune with the truth itself.”

Here Mahavir is giving beautiful Sutras, beautiful teachings to measure some idea or some truth is Sathya or not. Understand, he is not teaching you to speak truth because if you position yourself in Sathya, if you are established in Sathya, speaking truth will be a automatic thing. It will become a natural thing for you. If you are practising just verbal Sathya, please understand, that is not the ultimate Sathya. If you are practising only verbal Sathya, any time you may escape from it. You may move away from it. Even the so-called Dharmaraja, who is considered to be a great Sathyavan means the Sathya established great speaker of truth, has lied!

A small story in Mahabharata. Such a wonderful story! Mahabharata and Ramayana, the great epics of Bharat, still world’s longest poems. Mahabharata and Ramayana remains as world’s longest poems still. Beautiful story in Mahabharata: To kill Dronacharya, you have to depress him mentally. Unless you depress him mentally, you can’t reduce his power. If you put somebody in depression, they will have shoulder pain and they will not be able to handle their hands powerfully and they can be defeated. As long as Drona’s hands are powerful, he can’t be defeated because his power in handling the bow and arrow is so powerful, you need to put him in depression. Only then he can be conquered.

Dronacharya is the teacher of Kauravas and Pandavas. Now Krishna wants Drona to be put in depression. Otherwise, he can’t be killed. He can’t be conquered. He can’t be conquered directly. Physically his power is extraordinary because he is a teacher. Naturally no student can cross a teacher. The only way to put Drona into depression is telling that his son has died because he is too attached with his son. That is the only samskara in him which can put him in depression. He is unclutched, detached from everything else. Putrashoka can put him in depression means the suffering related to son can put him in depression. That is the only thing, only possibility.

Now somebody has to tell Drona that his son Aswathama has died and if normal people tell him this information, he may not believe. He may go to verify. He may not immediately believe. The only person everybody believes is Dharmaraja. This Dharma, Yudhisthira is supposed to be a person who speaks only truth. Nothing else. He is established in the verbal truth. He speaks only truth verbally. Everybody believes that. So Krishna wanted the Dharmaraja to tell Dronacharya that Ashwathama has died. Now when Krishna requests Yudhisthira, Yudhisthira said, “No, I can’t tell a lie. It is absolutely against my life and my policy.” Krishna says, “Alright, we will kill a elephant which is called Aswathama. You tell, “The elephant called Aswathama died. Elephant which name is Aswathama, which has got the name Aswathama has died and I will take care of everything else.”

Drona...the Yudhisthira asked, “How can that happen? If I tell the elephant which has got name Aswathama has died, how can Drona be put into depression?” Krishna said, “That you don’t bother. When you say the word the elephant which has got name... I will blow my conch. I will create some noise and Dronacharya will not be able to hear that word. He will hear only the word Aswathama died. The moment he hears that word from you, he will not go for verification. He will take it for granted and hundred percent he will believe and he will fall in depression. We will kill him.”

Yudhisthira agreed. He said, “Okay, because I am not telling lie.” But he may not tell a lie verbally. Verbal truth he has not crossed but he can’t be called anymore as Sathyavaan. The moment he told this word ‘Aswathama Hatha Kunjanaha,’ the elephant which has got the name Aswathama has died. The word the elephant which is called as... which is called...that time, as planned, Krishna blew his conch, Shankha and Drona was not able to hear those words Aswathama, the elephant called...those words Drona was not able to hear and Drona heard only these two words “Aswathama died” and as they planned, Drona literally believed and fell into depression and immediately lost the power of the shoulder, the shoulder power.

You can see even in your life, if you are too much stressed, disturbed, if you meditate on your boss, you will have shoulder pain. You are too much stressed, you will have shoulder pain. He lost that power, shoulder power and they killed him. They killed Dronacharya. The story says the Dharmaraja used to always float his chariot, even if he gets into the chariot, the chariot will float. The moment he said Aswathama, the elephant called Aswathama died and the Drona fell into depression and Drona was killed, the story says, the Dharmaraja’s chariot fell on the ground! He lost the title he is Dharmaraja. Dharmadevi who was holding him has dropped him. Then Dharma says, “How can you drop me? How can you leave me and go away? I did not tell a lie.”

Dharmadevi says, “No. You might be established in verbal Sathya but you are not established in the truth itself. You did something which is against the truth.” You know...you see, you may tell Sathya but you should ensure that person also understands as Sathya. You can’t tell some word which will not give the same meaning or like this, cunning techniques. Even if you do that, you are not Dharmaraja anymore. And the story says from that day, Dharmaraja’s chariot was on the ground. He walked on the ground.

See, it is actually, when you are really established in dharma, you live so gracefully, you float. When the story says he did not walk on the ground, I don’t think he was flying. It is a metaphysical explanation that he was never touched by these worldly things. He lived in a different space where he did not have all the problems. See, now, you do not have the problems which the Bharatn people are facing in Bharat. There are so many things Bharatns are facing. Your problems are totally different. It’s not that you don’t have a problem. Your problems are different. Their problems are different. Same way, Dharmaraja was never touched by problems of this planet earth. He had problems only different level. That is what they mean by the word “He was always floating.” He lived gracefully till he did this act.

Understand, truth does not mean just speaking truth by words, establishing yourself on truth: Sathya pratishta. Patanjali says if you are established in truth, you achieve the results of the action without doing the action for yourself and for others. It looks like a too big promise, too big promise. Too good to be true. Let us analyse how it is possible with the words of Mahavira. Then we will understand what Patanjali promises is true, not just too good to be true.

Mahavir says,

Niccha kala panam metham

Musa vaya vivajjanam

Basiyavvam Hiyam sachcham

Nichcha Uthena dukharam

Nichcha kala panam mattenam

Musavaaya vivajjanam

Pasis yavvam hiyam sachcham

Nichcha aa uthena dukharam

Let Me give you the translation:

Being continuously alert, one should renounce Asathya and speak only truthful, honest words. Speaking such truth is very difficult indeed. A true sage does not speak words which can hurt others. Similarly any true person should not speak sinful words even in anger, grief, fear or ordinary talk with friends and relatives. And he further explains on Sathya with the next, next Sutras. In the next, next Sutras, he gives a scale of how to judge whether something is truth or not.