Look back and reflect on the many times you have failed. Don't you now feel that those failures were good for you. How many of you feel this way? (Many in the audience raise their hands)
When you look back at your failures, you will see that you have learnt something from them, and they have been stepping stones for you to move ahead.
I tell you, when you are on the path, when your heart is clean and when you are meditating, there is no way that you will fail, or go down. It will appear as though you are failing but that little failure is only to get you towards higher success. This is for sure.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna promised the world that 'My devotee will never perish'. It is impossible for a devotee to perish!
A devotee is the one who has a pure heart. If you are cunning which is why you got failure, then you have to bear the cost. But if you are doing good things and failing, never bother about it. You are only going to go up.
Jesus lived in Mylapore, that is where he learnt the Vedanta. When he went back Saint Thomas would always doubt him. Jesus told him, “If you don’t believe me, you go see for yourself”. And that’s when Thomas came to India. He landed in Kerala and came to Mylapore and spent his last days there. And that’s why to this day you can see St. Thomas Mount, where Thomas sat and meditated and learnt all about the Vedanta, yoga and meditation.
His grave is still there. Of course, Vatican may not recognize it publicly but they do realize that St. Thomas was here, and the lineage of St. Thomas still wear red dresses and the rudraksha like Sanyasis. There are many evidences but if you go deep in meditation you can yourself see things from the past. For that you have to meditate for a long time.
Ignorance is also the part of Brahman. Brahman is the totality; the sum of all that is.
Just follow your heart! Maya means that which can be measured. The word ‘measure’ comes from the word Maya. All that can be measured on this planet is Maya.
What you see can be measured. If you go to a doctor for an eye check-up, he will say that your eyesight is 0.5 or something like that. So vision can be measured. Similarly, sound can be measured, taste can be measured, touch can be measured, as the world is made up of the five elements – which are measurable.
What cannot be measured is your compassion. You cannot say that I have 10 liters of compassion, or 2 degrees of compassion, or 5 degrees of love! Love cannot be measured, truth cannot be measured, compassion cannot be measured, and bliss cannot be measured. So these are a part of the Brahman. They are part of consciousness; the nature of consciousness and they are beyond measurement, and so they are beyond Maya.
It is natural for consciousness to move towards higher state of consciousness. It is like the small mind moving towards the bigger mind. Just like a baby runs towards the mother, like that the small consciousness or the small mind runs towards the big consciousness or the big mind.
Just play with the kids, and be ready to lose the game with the kids. That is a very good exercise. Do you want to win all the time when you play with kids? You are playing a game with children, being older, do you always want to win? Your joy lies in making them win. So, you fail but you are still enjoying the game.
In the same way, some failures come in life, so what? Never mind because there is something deep within you that can never fail.
Life is art. Art is appreciating what ‘is’. If there is a heap of flower, you would just see it as a heap of flower. But if you appreciate it and put it in a certain pattern, then you call it an art.
Art is conveying something to you. Art is something that uplifts your heart, uplifts your feelings and intrigues your mind
When you have asked a question, know that you are already connected to it. It means you have become an enquirer and you can enquire only because of the Guru Tattva. Got it?
If someone is answering a question and claims that he is not a guru, and someone who asks a question and says, "I’m not a student", both are not being honest. It’s like someone saying, "I’m not a doctor but I’m prescribing medication". And the patient saying, "I’m not a patient, but I need medicine!" Both have lost their minds!
Everyone has played the role of a Guru sometime in their life. What is the role of Guru? Doing all that you can for someone’s growth and development without expecting anything in return. So have you played this role in your life at least to one person with a pure heart and clear mind? When you are guiding someone, not wanting anything in return from them, not even a thanks, then Guru Tattva is working through you. Everyone would have to play that role of unconditional love in their life, and give someone some guidance or encouragement.
There are various levels to this. You could give guidance in the field of art, or it could be in field of science, research or technology. But beyond that is the spiritual dimension. In spirituality a Guru is opening a new dimension in your life. Just look back, before you started meditating, what was the state of your mind and what is the state of your mind now? You will find a big difference. How many of you find a big difference? (Many in the audience raise their hands).
You can’t even relate to the person you were before. Earlier you were just a bundle of thoughts and you didn’t know who you were. Now you know that you are not just the thoughts, you are not just the emotions, you are something more. It’s not yet clear, but a new dimension has been added to your life. This is important.
Prayer is something that no one needs to explain to you. Real fulfillment of prayer happens in two conditions:
1. When you are desperate and totally helpless. When all doors are shut, and when all your efforts seem to be leading you nowhere, then you pray. Whatever you pray for, the prayer is sincere and it would be heard. So when you feel like this, pray and have patience.
2 Prayer also happens when you get what you wanted. You feel so grateful and so you thank God. You say, “Dear God, you have given me everything”. When you remember all the good things you have gotten in your life, prayer happens. You thank God, and you thank the divinity.
When you pray, you should say, "I want this or anything better than this". But you need to ask. You need to say what is your wish, and then acknowledge that the Divine is much more intelligent, and that it will give you what is best for you. The space around us is much more intelligent than us.
In prayer language does not matter, you can pray in any language because prayer is not through language, it is beyond language. It is through feeling. Feeling is more important. If you are used to praying in Sanskrit, that is fine. It is the most ancient language of mankind and it has a connection to almost all languages in the world.
Language is secondary. Today we are divided in religion because of language. The content is what we need to worry about, not the language. We think that if we pray in that language then only God will hear us but the Divinity is beyond language.