Topics:
Life is a School
Spiritual Teachers
Be Happy in Every Moment
The Secret to Life
Life is a School
You will understand by now that life is a learning ground; that life is a school; that life is a university and that we have come here to learn and grow and all the challenges, personalities and trials that we meet are for a specific purpose. It is not that someone hates us or wants to come after us. All these experiences that seem to be staged by some great teacher are meant for a purpose, for us to learn and grow. If we can have the vision that life is about learning and growing, then we can enjoy this whole experience, no matter how difficult it is through the understanding that life is a school. And God or the Universe is an uncompromising teacher that He or It or She does not stop until we learn. The faster we learn the better.
If you don’t take care of your bodies, you are going to have disease and pain. Not taking care of your bodies does not only mean not eating the right food or not exercising. It also means keeping good and loving thoughts because the thoughts you keep in your mind and hearts, influence every cell of your body and it creates stress within you. If you don’t take care of your health, if you don’t have the right attitude towards your body, if you don’t eat right, if you don’t exercise, then you will have to learn some painful lessons. If you don’t extend love to people, if you are not kind to your world, you will have some painful lessons.
If you have patience and you want everything this very minute, you are going to have some painful lessons. If there are some people you like to deal with and some people you don’t like to deal with, you are going to have some painful lessons. If you hate others, you are going to have some painful lessons.
Life is a school and any good teacher gives us just the kind of problems we need to learn the lessons. Whatever you face, they are meant for your growth.
If I can remind you of this then perhaps you can understand your life in a better way. Please, open your eyes to see that life is a school and everything that has happened to you before is meant for a purpose. And everything that is going to happen to you is for a purpose. Everything!
I learned that very early in life and I have never forgotten that lesson. I live in that awareness every day that we live and we learn. Education is a life-long process and the greater education comes not from the classroom but from life inside. I wish you can understand this. Then you would not complain, then you would choose to be different and not choose to be limited in your thinking or feeling; you would choose to be free.
Spiritual Teachers
I feel tremendous gratitude for the spiritual teachers of our world because if we did not have them, we would not have examples of how to live. They exemplify how we need to be. We have to take notes from their books, we have to learn from their examples, from their unconditional love, from their friendship, from their knowledge, from their patience, from their wisdom, from their kindness; we need to learn from them. Thank God that they are there in the world so we can see that these things are possible, otherwise we will live like barbarians.”
Be Happy in Every Moment
Every day you have choices - choices to stay in darkness or choices to stay in the light. I wish you will make the right choices and be happy every day. One of the desires I had when I was young was to be happy in every moment. I saw how human experiences were; happy one day, sad one day; happy the next, sad the other. I never liked that, I wish that I could be happy every day. ‘Could I be happy in every moment of every day?’ Now I am in a place where happiness is.
You may never have happiness with all the things you need in the external world that can possibly make you happy. The world will be as it is; you will meet all kinds of people; you will meet all kinds of experiences and the world will be as it is. But in your internal world inside of you, you can be happy every day. You can be happy every day; you can live in the light inside of you every day. You can wake up to happiness every day; you can stay in happiness every day. That is a choice you make. Please, don’t choose the darkness. Don’t keep thoughts that are limiting – ‘I am a failure’, ‘I am stupid’, ‘I am poor’, ‘I am lonely’, ‘I am sick’, ‘I am hopeless’, ‘I am tired’, ‘I am no good’, ‘I can’t have’, ‘I will not have’. All these hopeless words only take you further into darkness. Say the words that will make you strong – ‘I exist in God’, ‘God is with me’, ‘The light is in me’, ‘I am in the light’, ‘God is always with me’, ‘Truth is always with me’, ‘Love is always with me’. Say the things that will make you stronger. The more you say them, the more they will become a reality.
The Secret to Life - learning to become more detached
The secret to life is learning to become more detached. Learning to become more detached does not mean to give up everything; it means to live in a space inside of you where you are not affected by everything. It is not to give up things outside of you but to learn to live in a space where you don’t need them if they are not there.
It is so easy to become attached to people, places and things. Attachment creates pain. We need to remember that attachments create pain. If you are attached to a certain food and you can’t have it, there is pain. When you become attached to a certain space, there is pain - attachment to people, attachment to the place where you stay, attachment to a certain kind of job, attachment to relationships. If you don’t look after yourself and look at the attachment, you are going to have a lot of problems. Learning to live in a detached space is a very nice thing and that is an inner space.
How nice it would be if you can live in this world and not get attached to it, then you will enjoy everything. A very simple example is if you go on a holiday, nothing belongs to you so you enjoy everything because you have no responsibility for it. But, the moment you come home, all the worries start because you are attached to everything around you. But, you go on a holiday and you are so free, you go into someone’s kitchen, you are in someone’s car, you are in someone’s house and you are so happy. Can we live in that kind of detachment even if we are in the world?
The secret is nothing belongs to us; everything belongs to the Universe, God. Even your house is not yours, and even your physical body is not yours, it belongs to the earth. You borrowed this body and it has to go back. Living in that space where you know nothing belongs to you and where you know everything belongs to the Universe and treating it as such, ‘let me not get caught up in this, let me enjoy it for what it is,’ is such a happy place to be. That is how I live every day.
I live in this world fulfilling my duties every day but I know I have to leave it. This is not my world. I am in this physical body and it allows me to experience this world but it is not my world. My world is in the consciousness inside. So, I can enjoy this world but I know I will have to leave it and everything that is in it. Nothing is mine. It is wonderful when you can realise this and it is not just an idea.
Let us learn to find that inner space where we can feel this and that is where the Gurus show us the way. They show us the way to the space. As we chant, let us see if we can go to that space, where we feel that comfort of not being worried about anything and not being caught up in anything.
When I was in New York, a little girl came up to me after the satsang whom I am always happy to see. I said, ‘Where is your brother?’ she said he is watching TV; he was caught up in the TV. I said to her, ‘How come you are not caught up in the TV?’ She said, ‘I know what is important.’ She must have been about seven (7) years old but she said ‘I know what is important.’ Isn’t that sweet?
If we can all know what is important. Fellowship/Satsang is important. Learning to live in that space is important. Seva, service to the Universe is important. If only we can know it. Look at the choice you made, Saturday night, this is the place to be. This is important. I wish that we can all remember that.
