When you have that deep urge to get rid of any bad habit, deep prayer will can change it. How many of you have experienced this? (Many in the audience raise hands)
The basic principle of morality is, do not do that which you would not want someone else to do to you. If you don’t want your husband to flirt with someone, you should not flirt with someone else, that is it!
There was a boy who was going around with a married women, and he didn’t feel it was wrong. He said, ‘We did it on mutual consent’.
I asked him, ‘If someone goes around with your brother’s wife, what will you do?’ He said, ‘I will break his leg’.
When you want her to be loyal to your brother, then how can you do it to someone else?
I said, ‘If there is a future in the relationship, it is a different thing. But, there is no future. Then why should you break someone else’s family?’
It struck a chord in him and he realized what he was doing was wrong. That is morality.
What you do not wish to be done to you, or to your near and dear ones, you should not do to someone else. If you don’t want someone else to misbehave with your daughter or son then how can you do that with someone else’s daughter or son. If you don’t want someone else to be drunk while driving, then how can you drive when you are drunk?
If you don’t want someone else to rob you of your wealth, or cheat you, then you should not cheat someone else.
Suppose someone forges your signature, you cannot think, ‘Oh we are spiritual, all this is mundane. So what if someone has forged my signature? It is all maya anyway’. If someone puts his hand in your pocket, would you say, ‘Oh, we are all one. Why should one have this ego?’ No. Then this is misuse of knowledge.
If knowledge is used to shield immoral activity then that is misuse of knowledge. Morality means not doing something which you don’t wish to be done to yourself.
If someone has done something wrong, don’t hold on to it. If a mistake has happened through you, like you forgive others their mistakes, you should also forgive yourself. Forgive yourself and forgive others; don’t chew on other’s mistakes or your own mistakes.
When you chew on the mistakes of others, you get angry. When you chew on your own mistake, you will feel guilty and you will drown in your own depression. Both are no good. Spirituality takes you away from all this.
As it is said, to err is human. You make mistakes, but don’t sit and chew on your own mistake or someone else’s mistake. If someone has made a mistake you should forgive and forget. If you have made a mistake, you should ask for forgiveness and move on. Don’t get stuck; feel free!
If you are upset with yourself, you can get angry with others very easily. And if you’re angry with others, you will get upset with yourself. Both these positions are not favorable.
What is a dream? It is an impression of a memory. Wake up and at this very moment you will see that the entire past appears as a dream. It is all just a memory. It is just an impression in the mind and nothing else! So, everything is an impression on the mind. What you see, what you hear, what you smell, what you taste, what you touch, all of this form impressions on the consciousness. As long as you are all in each other’s dreams, everything is okay! You can have your own dreams too.
In Srimad Bhagavatam it is said, the divine has descended in the swans, in the fire, in the trees, in all animals. The entire creation is nothing but the manifestation of divinity, and wherever you get this message (referring to knowledge) from, you call that as an avatar.
Sage Dattatreya has noted 24 different forms of life. He received knowledge from a swan and said that the swan was a form of Vishnu.
You should know that God is present in every particle of the universe. The cheapest commodity available is the divinity! It is present in the Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Ether. Everything is made up of one vibration and it can be called by any name, Brahman, divinity, God. So, when divinity shines through one who gives knowledge and can kindle love, then one considers that as an avatar.
It’s good to have dreams. Think big and have dreams, but at the same time don’t lose the touch of reality. Dance cannot happen when both feet are on to the ground, one has to be firmly on the ground and the other has to be up in the air.
In life also, you should be practical and not lose ground reality. At the same time you should dream something different, something bigger, something higher and sometimes the impossible. If you are dreaming something that is totally impossible, then you are not true to yourself.
When you think that something is totally impossible and at the same time it is totally possible, and somewhere in between you think, ‘I can do it,’ then that is the dream that you should hold on to.
No! Do you know what corruption is? Corruption is doing that which you don’t wish to be done to you or to your kith and kin. You cannot link pooja (here meaning worshipping Lord Shiva) and corruption.
Pooja is a feeling that comes to you out of fullness. Like when a guest comes to your house, you come to the door and receive them. If someone very dear to you is coming to see you, don’t you rush to the train station or the airport to receive them? Does it come out of a feeling of compulsion? You can tell them to call a taxi, but instead you take your vehicle to go and receive them. Why do you do that? What is that feeling? It cannot be called corruption. So pooja means that which comes out of fullness.
In Puranas, many things are written. I’m not an advocate of all the Puranas. Many of them are a means of expression. In fact, the word Purana means a new way of expressing.
The Hindi Purana and Sanskrit Purana have totally opposite meanings. In Hindi, Purana means old, and in Sanskrit Purana means very new or modern; it means a different way of expression. Don’t call that as a corruption. God is not so stupid that He waits for you to break a coconut to give you a boon!
All the poojas you do are to express your fullness, not to please God. I think this is a very wrong concept in the world. We think we do things to please God; this is wrong understanding. People fast for many days so that they can please God. You fast to purify your body; you don’t have to fast to please God. This is a wrong understanding.
If you see form the eyes of a Guru everybody is part of him; it is all just roles that one plays. First, everyone should know that we are all part of one divine light, one human race. We cannot afford to be stuck in a role.
Each role is like a coat, we should keep changing our coats and we have to play all the roles perfectly. So if someone comes to a teacher, they have to come only as a student. For a Guru, whether rich or poor, stupid or intelligent; everyone is the same.
