Short notes on a long journey, continued, from the Konkan Coast back to Kanha.

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20 and 21 November

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Hassan and Tiptur

Daaji conducted satsangh around 7:30 a.m. at Hassan and then left for Tiptur. He reached Tiptur Centre by 1:15 p.m. to be met by the thousands who had gathered quietly from many centers around.

In the evening, Daaji conducted satsangh and gave a short talk. Here are some excerpts from the talk:

A mutation in our understanding

“During the satsangh I was reminded of a beautiful message by Babuji Maharaj where he says, ‘Deh dhaari ko taqleef hi taqleef hai, phir bhi’ and then he continues that embodied ones are struggling with day-to-day troubles, ‘yet their attention doesn’t go beyond all this’. Is there anyone here who is without problems? We are all struggling.

“Imagine that you are a grandparent. What questions would you ask your grandchildren? How are you doing? Are you well settled? How is your health? And all of them will reply, even the 7 or 8-year-olds will say, ‘Grandpa, I don’t have this, or my toy is missing, my papa doesn’t buy me this.’ If you ask your daughter-in-law or grand-daughter-in-law, she will start complaining about her mother-in-law, and the mother-in-law will start complaining about her daughter-in-law. And when you are a businessman, when you observe how your employees are working in your office, you feel sad. There is a competitive world amongst the employees.

“The same thing happens in spiritual organizations. The zonal coordinator competes with the center coordinator; you know this is always the case. God knows what drives them to such competition! Why unnecessarily struggle when life is meant to be a smooth sail towards the goal?

“We end up creating our own complexities. As Babuji says, we create our own warp and woof, based on our intentions. If your intentions are pure, you will not form such webs of complexities. So the struggle always arises out of such feelings of insecurity, feelings of competition, feelings of jealousy, and feelings of insufficiency in oneself. All these are displayed in our day-to-day behaviors. Even in ‘so-called’ happy families, when they are watching a movie they fight for the best seats: “I want to sit on this side of the sofa.” If you are an elderly person, you might prevail out of respect, and grandchildren might move away, but you are still prevailing in some fashion.

This struggle is unnecessary. Is it worth it? When we reflect back now on our lives, when we were 6 years old, 10 years old, 15 years old, what were our struggles then? After that we went to college, and what was our struggle? After graduation, what was our struggle? And how did we manage to move past all these, transcend these and somehow solve these struggles? Did we do anything to solve the struggles? Reflect on this please.

“Even in arguments, what will you win? How will you win? And what are you going to win anyway in a relationship by proving someone is wrong? What will you gain out of this? You may have proven a point but you have created an enemy in your own house, in your own home.

“So Lalaji Maharaj says that nothing works like love. Love means sacrifice. Even when others are wrong at times, take a step back and wait until the other person realizes on his or her own. Wait patiently and see what happens. What happens during meditation when we are struggling with thoughts? There too there is an inner struggle; how are we able to move away from this constant rush of thoughts? By simply ignoring them, no? Babuji says ignore them and simply remind yourself that you are meditating. In day-to-day life, also remind yourself, ‘We are a family, we love each other.’ Why struggle? Why fight? Why argue? Most of our energies are wasted.

“Whatever is going to create any discord in a family, drop it. Whatever creates discord in the business world, drop it. Change. Even bacteria and viruses, the moment they find there is resistance, they mutate. You have probably heard that some antibiotics are not working these days. Why? Because the bacteria have learnt to work around these antibiotics. They are resistant. Let us change also. When bacteria can learn, then why can’t we learn from our struggles, the resistance that we face in day-to-day life? That is transformation. What is mutation for bacteria is transformation for us. It is also a kind of mutation from within, a mutation in our understanding.”

Late in the evening, the ashram was full of light – diyas were lit everywhere. Daaji came out and spent time with the abhyasis and there was light conversation and laughter. The beauty of our ashram was quite palpable. In the presence of the Guru, all were transported into another world.

The next morning, it was the beginning of the Kanha-bound journey for Daaji. He conducted satsangh at Tiptur ashram and immediately left to visit a family. He had breakfast in a nearby farm and by 11:30 a.m. was already at Tumkur. He conducted satsangh and started the journey towards Kanha. Perhaps Kanha had started calling him to return!

It was around 12:30 p.m. when Daaji stopped for lunch at a small center called Koretegere. This beautiful village, surrounded by hills, brought joy to all. Daaji sat out and ate lunch with a small group of abhyasis from the village. There was only happiness in the air. By evening, around 6:35 p.m., Daaji reached Anantapur center and almost immediately went to conduct satsangh. He went to rest early.

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Thursday, 22 November

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Anantapur, Kurnool and Kanha?

Daaji was up very early, around 3:30 a.m., ready and working on his computer, and by 4:45 a.m. he was on the way to Kurnool. Early in the morning, Daaji started talking about Ashtanga Yoga, its merits and limitations. Daaji compared Ashtanga Yoga to a vaccination – if administered in the early stages it can act as preventive care. If the disease is already present then how far can these steps help to cure? Daaji felt that yogic practices no doubt help improve health and many aspects of life at the peripheral level, but what about deeply embedded aspects? Somebody commented that cleaning and the living Guru are so effective in removing the deeply embedded samksaras. Daaji responded that it is difficult to know what has been cleaned off in a precise manner.

Centeredness

Daaji: Is it possible to find out what has been cleaned through any manifested change in a person? How many people have changed their manifested behavior? Tendencies remain very strong in people. Our individual likes and dislikes are so heavily ingrained, despite cleaning and despite coming to some sort of balanced state of meditation. Again after a few minutes, people are back to square one. Backward metamorphosis!

Q: So is this strong orientation of liking and disliking in all of us beyond samskara? After so many years of practice, if it still remains …

Daaji: We remain in our comfort zone. Transformation somehow disturbs us from our comfort zone. Even a little bit of change is not welcome by the physical body, as well as our mental and emotional makeup also. Certain behaviors will linger. For example, treating some family members in a certain way, even when the heart says, “Now you can behave better,” again we come back to square one.

In theory, Yoga may cure a few things here and there, with Asanas and Pranayama. When we look at the whole framework, Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama and Pratyahara offer a great prevention. When we live a certain lifestyle, when certain discipline has been enforced, we will not do wrong things. Not succumbing to wrong things is Yama. Incorporating good qualities in day-to-day life is Niyama. These two limbs, on their own merits, are giant steps in consciousness evolution.

Trying to superficially enforce goodness without interest is mere whitewashing, but if we remain centered and focused, then it happens automatically. Then we don’t need to make efforts towards brahmacharya or astheya, or make efforts not to be violent and angry. We won’t even think about those things, and there is no effort in not doing or doing. That is the culmination of Yoga, when we are centered within.

Around 6:45 a.m., Daaji reached Kurnool ashram and within 15 minutes, satsangh had begun. A large group had gathered to welcome him. He left Kurnool ashram by 11 a.m. and reached Kanha by 1:45 p.m. Daaji entered his flat and first went to meet his mother. The 10 day’s journey of 1,800 kilometers covered many small and some new centers. By evening, Daaji was back into his routines at Kanha, and later in the evening, he was sitting on his usual swing, talking about centeredness.