Patience And Perseverance

Om shanti shanti shanti. Wow, what excitement! Everyone is so excited! I thought you only become calm. But this is a very strange combination of peace and excitement. We are all excited to see that there is new hope in the world. When you see the youngsters here, with so much enthusiasm, I tell you, we are moving towards good times.

Life should be a celebration. Celebration of diversities, celebration of people, of the different backgrounds, age groups, race, and religions. Here every one of us is coming together to give a message to the world that life is celebration. And celebration cannot happen without inner peace. Otherwise it is very superficial. Celebration should always be accompanied with depth, and that depth is of inner peace.

So much love and so much enthusiasm here, that is so beautiful. Very nice to see. We can tell all those who are in the world, who are depressed, who are unhappy, to wake up and see, there is a way to be happy, there is a way to be in love with each other, there is a way to be successful, and find the inner peace.

I think people should come up with creative projects like this. See, how the kids and the youths have assembled all the waste bottles and made into a big wish tree!
You all have been waiting in the queue for a long time. I think still some more people are waiting in the queue to go through security, but they are so unmindful of all the wait. Still you are all so happy and enthusiastic! This shows that we know how to be happy, we know how to bring up the enthusiasm in our environment.

So keep in mind just a few things that we need to do on a day to day life.
1. See life from a bigger perspective. Keep asking this question to yourself, again and again, 'What is it that I want?' Just this very question will clear a lot of cobwebs from your mind. Confusion will get clear.
So a bigger purpose or context to life is important. I won’t say what should be your purpose, you figure that out. But I want you to see life from a bigger context. Life is so short, 70 to 80 years of our life just passes by like this. We have to wake up and see what is it that we want to do in our life? It sounds very philosophical but it is very practical. This introspection itself will make us come out of depression.

2. You should see how you can be useful to others. So set your personal goal, i.e., what do you want to achieve, and one goal for the world; where do you want the world to go? How do you want the society to progress? Unless we have this vision, we will not be able to give a better society to the coming generation.
You know, there is one type of joy that you get from getting. When we get something, we feel happy. But there is another type of joy that you get from giving.
So there is a joy in giving. As kids, we all have grown up with the joy of getting, having and possessing. But we should not die with this joy. There is a mature joy that we get when we share, when we give, like the joy of grandmothers and grandfathers at home. When they share, they feel happy. We need to move to that happiness.

So on this occasion of celebrating happiness day and happiness in our life, let’s remember, we need to contribute to the society. The world needs you, the society needs you. The nature of joy is to share. If you are happy you can’t say, 'I am happy, leave me alone'. Only when you are sad you say, 'Please don’t disturb me, leave me alone'.
When you are happy, enthusiastic, and energetic, you want to share.
The sense of sharing is the basic human quality. And when that disappears that is when violence, stress, mistrust all these negativity takes over our planet.

This morning thousands of you have done yoga. Yoga is uniting body, mind and spirit. In fact you know, everything is already united. Realizing the unity of consciousness is what real yoga is.

To develop your personality, you have to spend five days to have these five experiences to really blossom in your life. You can develop your personality with these five experiences. You have to sincerely play these five roles:

1. The first role which I would recommend to you is to be a school teacher. To teach lessons to children who are not learning, you need a lot of patience. Being a nursery or primary school teacher, even for one day, you will see how you have to increase your patience.

2. Be a Gardner or spend a day with a farmer. If you are sowing the seeds, if you are watering the plants, you will know how you must care for water, earth and environment. You will have a feeling for the environment. You will value food and you will not waste food.
You know, what we do? We bring so much food, and we put in the fridge, and after few days from the refrigerator we throw the food. How many of you do this? Raise your hands.
We are wasting millions and millions of tons of food every day. We should not waste food. This we will learn, if we spend one day being a farmer or a gardener.

3. You should spend a day in the mental hospital. Whatever people talk in the mental hospital, you don’t mind. If they scold you, if they blame you, if they curse you, will you mind? You don’t mind because this person is mentally sick.
You know, many people are outside the hospital, that does not mean they are mentally well. So, in life, you come across people who blame you for nothing, who are jealous or angry, who say things that make no sense. Then you know you will have patience to deal with them with a smile. You will not take the garbage inside and spoil your mind.
So one day if you spend in mental hospital, you will know how to save your mind. You will stop being a football of others’ opinions.

4. One day you must go to prison. Maybe it is shocking to you. You don’t have to do a wrong thing to go to a prison. Just go visit a prison, spend a little time with the prisoners. You will understand what compassion is. What helplessness is. Those people did a mistake without awareness. So you will know how you must have a say on your emotions.

5. There are terminally ill people in the hospital. One day with them and you will realize how precious life is. And you will start valuing health. You will eat better, you will exercise. You will do all that is needed to be more vibrant in your life.

With these five days what would be the outcome? I guess from these five days you will become more vibrant, more alive, more loving, compassionate and active.

Many of us have a tendency to think a lot. Thinking and thinking, that is it. We don’t act. Some people simply act without even thinking. Both need balancing. We need to have that balance of thinking and acting: a perfect coordination of our thoughts, our emotions and actions. Sensitivity and sensibility, both need to be matured.

Those who have not yet joined service projects, they should also join. Service makes us very happy. Somehow it gives us fulfillment from inside. Nothing can give you that inner satisfaction like service and meditation.
When you do service you gain merit, and that merit helps us to go deep in meditation. And deeper the meditation, the more you are able to share and feel oneness with everybody.
Till the last person in the gallery there, all the best to you. Blessings to everyone. Many of you had to wait in queue for long time to get into the stadium. Already you have exercised patience; that is a penance.