Swadharma

Q: Guruji, what is Swadharma, and how do I know what is my Swadharma?

Guruji: Swadharma is that action which is in accordance with your nature. It is acting in accordance with your skills and talents, your own nature (svabhava), and that which you are responsible for (karma) . Any action that does not make you feel afraid or restless is Swadharma. That action which you feel compelled to do, without which you feel restless is swadharma. Now do not misunderstand this and say, ‘I feel restless if I do not drink alcohol’. No! Not at all. Every time you feel restless, it not always because of Swadharma. But at the same time not following your swadharma always makes you feel restless.

That is why it is said in the Bhagavad Gita, ‘Swadharme nidhanam shreyah paradharmo bhayaavahah’ (3.35). When we do something without authenticity, just to show off to another person, that is when we feel fear because such action is not genuine, it does not come from the heart. But when we do something that is authentic and from the heart, then there is no fear. When someone speaks lies, they definitely feel scared somewhere inside. But someone who speaks the truth does not feel scared at all. In fact speaking the truth and abiding by it brings so much strength to you, isn’t it? This is what Swadharma is.

When we follow that which comes naturally to us in our life, then it brings abundance and prosperity to us. When we flow in accordance with our nature, we grow from within. Any action that uplifts us is our Swadharma. Dharma is that which holds the mind, intellect, memory and our inner soul together in harmony. Growth comes when we follow our swadharma

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Don’t be too hard on yourself and don’t question your devotion. I would say we should never doubt our devotion. Take it for granted that you are devoted.

No child ever asks the mother, ‘do you love me?’ The mother never asks the child, ‘do you love me?’

The baby has no choice but to love the mother and neither the mother has any choice but to love the baby. Similarly devotion is inbuilt in every one of us.

Sometimes it is covered with ignorance, hesitation, doubts and insecurity. One’s own insecurity covers one’s devotion. It is only a matter of time for that strip of ignorance and ego to give way and then the inner devotee will shine up.

Om Namah Shivay

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How to deal with humiliation?

Q: How to deal with humiliation?

Guruji: Know that humiliation does not weaken you – it strengthens you.

When you have a sense of belongingness, you don’t feel humiliated. The more egotistic you are, the more humiliation you feel. When you are childlike and have a greater sense of kinship then you don’t feel humiliated. When you are committed to truth and not to your ego then you also don’t feel humiliated. If you are afraid of humiliation, you can neither make progress in your material life nor in your spiritual life. When you stand above humiliation, you get closer to the Self – to God. When you are steeped in love, with the Existence, with the Divine, nothing whatsoever can humiliate you. So, the way out of humiliation is: Get humiliated! Be childlike! Be crazy! Get steeped in love with the Divine! Total commitment to Truth-Knowledge.

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Q: I don’t want to be part of any particular religion, but would rather have fun by taking a little bit from everywhere?

Guruji: You may have fun, but don’t make fun of any religion, okay! You will be in trouble, I tell you! We don’t need to do that, having fun is a different thing. Take good things from wherever it comes and be spiritual.

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The sign of intelligent people is that they celebrate the differences and diversity.

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Q: When we are miserable we think god is testing us, is this correct?

Guruji: When a worldly man is miserable, he blames the people around him, the system, and the world in general.

When a seeker is miserable he, of course, blames the world, but in addition he blames the path, the Knowledge, and himself. It is better not to be a seeker so that you blame less. But then a seeker (sadhak) also enjoys everything much more. There is more love in life and more pain. When there is more joy, the contrast is greater. A certain level of maturity is needed to see things as they are and not to blame the path, the self, and the world. Do you see what I am saying? It is like a quantum leap. If one jumps across this threshold then there is no fall.

The Divine does not test you. Testing is part of ignorance. Who will test? One who does not know will test, isn’t it? God knows your capacity, so why does he have to test you? Then, why the misery? It is thithiksha, or forbearance, in you. And forbearance could be increased by prayerful surrender or vigorous challenge for patience!

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People who feel they have no power, or they have lost power, they become aggressive.

Om Namah Shivay

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What is the importance of ‘Service’?

Q: What is the importance of ‘Service’?

Guruji: People who are willing to serve will have good times even in the bad times. When there are problems, such as famine or war, Red Cross people are fine as they are serving. The more relief they bring, the happier they feel. And people who are selfish and who just want to enjoy themselves will be miserable even in good times. Often the organizers of a party do not enjoy the party because some little thing is missing, they forgot to invite somebody, somebody did not come or some little thing went wrong.

A wise one is happy even in bad times. And the ignorant one is unhappy even in good times. You make the time good or bad. People usually blame the bad time and just wait for the good time. Even if an astrologer says that you are in a hopeless time, you can still make it good time! Like Weather, time has its impact on you. Your Satsangs and sadhana are your shields, your protection. So realize that you are more than time and that you can change the time by your connection to the Divine.

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Q: How realistic is it for a person to become enlightened in one lifetime?

Guruji: You don’t have to be very special. You can have it right now in this room.

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See when the sunlight has come, you don’t need to put off the candle. Even if the candle is there, it just loses its significance. The candle light has significance only as long as the sun has not come up. So when the inner joy wells up in you, you don’t need to exercise control. It is a spontaneous happening.

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Q: Music and dance is the way to balance energy. Is it wrong to listen to pop, jazz, and rock and roll music?

Guruji: No, there is nothing wrong, but if it’s too noisy then it’s too hard on the nervous system. Jazz, rock music, etc., activates the first chakra, so it takes you out of inertia, no doubt. But it can also be very jarring if you’re more subtle, and if your nervous system is very refined.

Just like how a super-computer needs an air-conditioned controlled proper atmosphere, same is with our nervous system. It cannot handle anything too rajasik or too jarring.

You can just try listening to some very loud music in a rock concert, just stand there for some time, you may enjoy it for five to ten minutes, but afterwards you want to run away from there. And when you come back home, your whole body may shake. I’ve never been to any rock concert; still we rock wherever we are.

Om Namah Shivay

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Lighted lantern in your hand

“A man wanted a smoke. He went to a neighbor’s house to light his charcoal. It was the dead of night and the household was asleep. After he had knocked a great deal, someone came down to open the door. At sight of the man he asked, ‘Hello! What’s the matter?’

The man replied: ‘Can’t you guess? You know how fond I am of smoking. I have come here to light my charcoal.’

The neighbor said: ‘Ha! Ha! You are a fine man indeed! You took the trouble to come and do all this knocking at the door!

Why, you have a lighted lantern in your hand!’ (All laugh.)

“What a man seeks is very near him. Still he wanders about from place to place.

Sri Ramakrishna
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Q: I have been a teacher for many years. I see in myself and other teachers that we don’t always practice the basic course points and it disturbs me to a point that I feel a bit of a fraud when I teach. What to do?

Guruji: It is good that you feel the pinch. That is the safety valve. If you are oblivious to your not following the teaching, then there is a problem. The moment you recognize that there are shortcomings in you then you are very safe.

Don’t think that you are a fraud. You are a traveller on the path and you are guiding the people who are coming behind you. This will only bring humility in you and you will know that knowledge is precious. No doubt you may not follow it 100% but you cannot deny that your life has changed and you are following it at least 80%. So even if you are not following the course points or the knowledge a 100%, you look into the 80% of the points that you are following. There are people who have not even understood or started their journey. For them you can be a real help.

One more thing, when you teach others, you also learn, so don’t say that I am a hypocrite. As you are teaching, you are also learning and you are refreshing the knowledge. Instead of sitting and blaming yourself and others, it is better you start teaching. Otherwise you will sit and blame yourself, ‘I am weak, I am unable to follow the knowledge, I am bad’, and then you go into guilt and self-blame. This is the worst thing that can happen to you on the spiritual path. That is why on this path, you always have a guru or a master. You leave your weakness to your master and go with the strength that you have and move as much as you can. So don’t be hard on yourself, and at the same time, recognize that you don’t follow all the knowledge but you have the intention to follow and that is good.

So just move on. Don’t get off the path and blame yourself. If you feel that way, just come and sit in an advance course, or a blessing course and it will wash it all off, because this life is a journey and you have to keep moving till you find perfection. And slowly and steadily you will definitely get it.

Just turn back and analyse. Suppose you had not followed any of the points in life, where would you have been? It will be utterly scary, that is why know this and walk ahead. Leave your shortcomings to me.

Om Namah Shivay

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What according to you is the definition of love?

Q: What according to you is the definition of love?

Guruji: Very simple. That which cannot be defined is love. If you have never experienced love, there is no chance that you will experience it in the future. So there is no definition. You are made up of love my dear. This whole universe is made up of this one thing called love. And all other things are either in its pure form or distorted form.

Anger is love distorted. If you love perfection too much, then you get angry at imperfection. So that is love for perfection. Love for objects is called greed. Love for somebody can become jealousy and possessiveness. All the negativities are off springs of love. Love minus knowledge is all these problems. Love with wisdom becomes bliss.

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How to Get Centred

Shifting the awareness from the experience to the experiencer; since all the experiences are on the circumference and they keep on changing. The experiencer is at the centre. Again and again come back to the experiencer.

If you are frustrated, instead of spending all the time on the experience of frustration, ask Who is frustrated?

Similarly, If you are unhappy, ask Who is unhappy?

If you think you know something, ask Who knows it?

If you think you are enlightened, ask Who is enlightened?

If you think you are ignorant, ask Who is ignorant?

If you think you are poor me, ask Who is poor me?

If you think you are highly devoted, ask Who is devoted?

Shed all your faces and face the I. Then you have truly come to Me!

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The dictionary is the only place that success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything if you’re willing to pay the price.

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Push yourself to reach your goal, and then celebrate!

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Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven’t planted.

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Set a healthy boundary between your work and personal life.

Om Namah Shivay

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Time Does Not Stop!- This Too Will Pass!

During the office coffee break a couple of days back I was looking the highway from the 34th Floor of my office and noticed hundreds of cars passing at a high speed every minute.

I pondered that each of these passengers is in different mood right now. Someone belonging to Country-A might be sad because of some tragic incident, someone from country-B is stressed due to his/her financial issues, someone might be happy because his/her mother/spouse is coming to him/her and so on. However, for most of these people the current state will not be the same by tomorrow. The person who is in crisis today may become happy by tomorrow. The one who is happy today might be more delightful and the one who is stuck in a situation today might get out of it by tomorrow.

That means, overall, millions of stories are taking birth on earth each day and millions of stories are dying.

From my 3-5 minutes thought process I learnt a very nice lesson that no matter how bad is the situation, the time will pass. So next time I am in stress, I would visualize the highway and think that I am not alone in this situation. I would think that if millions of people are passing through such stages and recovering why should I take stress on my heart. Just like all those drivers, I must keep driving in the right lane and I shall reach my destination. The definition of right lane might be different for different kind of scenarios but the basic concept is same that when you have issues, you must meet the issues with courage, greet them with wow approach, treat them with wisdom and defeat them with strategy.

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Q: Anyways in everyone’s life there is suffering and there is joy, whether you are good or bad. So why be good?

Guruji: Being bad brings tremendous misery for a long time. Being good allows you to cross over any misery that can come your way with very little effort. So better be good!

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Heart should be soft, intellect should be sharp & mind should be pleasant. Never lose these three.

Om Namah Shivay

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The Heart of a Leader

Insights on the Art of Influence

“Leadership is not something you do to people. It’s something you do with people.” 

“A river without banks is a large puddle.”

Start your people on a journey to the land of empowerment, but don’t forget that they need boundaries. If you cut them loose without any direction, they will get lost and revert back to their old unempowered habits. Like the banks of a river, boundaries have the ability to channel energy in the right direction. If you take away the boundaries, your people will lose their momentum and direction. Boundaries that create autonomy include:

Purpose—what does your company do?

Values—what are your company’s operational guidelines?

Goals—where is your company headed?

Roles—who does what?

Structure—how is your company organized?

Don’t send inexperienced people off alone and then punish them when they make mistakes. Establish clear boundaries that will free them to make decisions, take initiative, act like owners, and stay on track.

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In order to seek perfection, look at perfection, everywhere in creation. In creation, every step is perfect, every object is perfect, everything has its own place. When one does this, then grumbling and complaining mind stops, and rests peacefully.

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Spirituality gives you strength; that inner strength to manage difficult situations & to keep you ever-smiling.

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Q: While meditating I see a pink light in the middle of my eyebrows. Does it mean anything?

Guruji: In meditation you can have many experiences. Sometimes you smell a fragrance, sense a warm touch, any of the five senses can get activated, that is ok. Don’t need to pay too much attention to it. Any experience we take it as they come and move on.

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Q: Knowing that everything would be finished one day, makes me feel very disturbed. How do I come out of it?

Guruji: The temporary nature of things around you should enable you to calm down, and settle in deep.

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If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships – the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace.

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Celebrate the unique qualities of people in your family and community,while remembering that we’re all equally human.

Om Namah Shivay

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