Spiritual Diary - January

January 1

Now

Calendars change.
Date-stamps change.
But what else changes on New Year's Day?
The old year lingers in our thoughts, in our habits, in our mode of life, in our granite hearts, in our vanities and prejudices.
Yet we can change everything if we want to - but do we sincerely want to change?
If we sincerely want to change anything, it is a change in other people, to suit our needs.
A new year for others to suit our old year.
Yet if we wished it sincerely, the new year could be truly new and glorious.
Yester-year is dead and the future is unborn.
Only this year is real.
The new year, today, this hour, this moment is filled with infinite potentialities.
Now is infinity.
Now is eternity.
Now is immortality.
But now slips away before we have uttered it - to capture it needs extreme alertness and vigilance.
My Master, Swami Sivananda, loved the now.
He used to celebrate New Year's Day at the Ashram.
To Him it was not so much a New Year's Day as it was a Now Year's Day.
The past is dead - we need not even bury it.
May you all enjoy this happy new year for ever and ever!

January 2

Change

We read good words spoken by all sorts of good people.
These books contain wonderful moral and spiritual truths; watch yourself as you read them.
We are told, "Do not cheat. Do not be unkind."
And, as you read them, if you are watchful, you will see that you are thinking, "Oh yes, this applies to that man, he is a chronic liar.
That applies to this lady, she is full of mischief."
The lesson is lost on us.
Till one learns to look within oneself, there is no possibility of change.
No one but me can change me.
Life does provide opportunities for us to awaken.
When you see people who were healthy, wealthy, wise and righteous die, and if at that time you are awake and alert, you will realize the truth concerning life, and you will remain awake and alert.
One can be shocked into wakefulness, but to keep awake is more difficult.
Very soon we are covered up once again by the cloud of ignorance.
Why can we not live in this world, without getting involved in it, like the sun, shining, shedding its light spontaneously?
If we can live in this manner, then it is possible to see how essential it is for each one of us to change.

January 3

Prayer

Question: I have never prayed during my life, not even during the war.
Surely I will never be able to do it in the usual way.
But when I am standing on a mountain, and I am overwhelmed by the silence and beauty, and it makes me infinitely happy, is this not also a prayer?
Answer: Perhaps. But it is good to watch and see what is the most important factor in this?
Is it that "it makes me happy"? Then you are making "me" supreme and 'it" a tool to make me happy. I do not think this is the substance of prayer.
Real prayer, I think, is when the human being recognizes the futility of his own individual personality, and in some way looks beyond his self, towards "a greater Being" (God).
Even here the motivation is not the "I cannot lift this table, my dear God, please carry it for me" spirit, but the recognition that this other Being knows what the individual does not.
Hence, prayer is an act of surrender.
One may or may not believe in God or what has come to be regarded as religion, but it is clear that, as long as the self rules life, there can be no peace, happiness, welfare, nor wholeness nor sincerity.

January 4

What If

This can be practiced as an "exercise".
While you are walking along the beach or in a forest, concentrate your attention on your breathing or on the sound of your footfall.
Suddenly stop "dead", and ask yourself "What if 'I' does not exist?"
If you ask this question seriously and in a particular way, you will realise that your body is part of the material world, your mind is part of the cosmic intelligence, and you are part of the cosmic being.
This awareness may last for a few minutes, but you would have experienced something wonderful.
You cannot strive for this experience.
The thing in you that craves for religious, psychic or spiritual experience, is the ego; it will even create such experience for its own pleasure and pride itself by believing " 'I' am an instrument in the hands of God", "God's healing grace flows through me," etc. with the "I" and the "me" being the most important words in the sentences.
Unselfish service, love of God and humanity, etc. come into being when the little "I" has been dispelled.
In the light of this enquiry, the self, or the soul, is seen to be a cell in the cosmic body of God.
That cell spontaneously engages itself in the unselfish and egoless service of all the other cells in the same body.

January 5

Integration

Discovery is to uncover the cover that covers the truth!
Yoga is not a therapeutic system.
It does not hold out physical immortality or total freedom from disease and old age as its goal.
It is a technique for discovering the wholeness that already exists in us.
Even the yoga asanas, when they are said to promote health, do just this: they remove the toxic substances that cover the vital organs of our body, and thus enable us to discover health.
"Health" is wholeness, not just the absence of symptoms of sickness.
In fact our divine Master's physical life proved that real health could be enjoyed in spite of symptoms of physical maladies.
Wholeness in yoga implies the integration of one's own personality, harmonious relationship with others and cosmic consciousness.
These are already there - yet one has to discover them, to be aware of them.

January 6

Mind

Even yoga asanas, if performed with devotion, and a spirit of humble enquiry and discovery, can intensity one's inner awareness, and help one to "learn" the secrets of one's body.
One learns to discover and thus to understand the language of the body.
Then, pain ceases to be painful.
It is a message from the intelligence that governs the body, it is a signal to be heeded, not a danger to be dreaded.
"Terminal" ailments cease to be fearsome.
They are signs that the life-force is beginning to withdraw, ready to depart.
When the student of yoga thus learns the facts of physical life, he is no longer oppressed or distracted by the state of the body; and the body's own intelligence looks after it well.
Then the student of yoga turns his attention to the mind.
For all our problems exist in the mind, they are created by the mind, and mind is its own victim (for the anxiety, worry, suffering and frustration afflict the mind).
In meditation, the yogi asks himself such questions as "What is mind, what is thought, what is feeling?"
In order to ask these questions in the right inner climate, in order to get the correct answers, the mind should be quiet and receptive.

January 7

Mantra

The student of yoga is often advised to use a Mantra.
What is a Mantra?
It is a short formula "that saves you" from your own mind.
Any Mantra or all Mantras will enable you to transcend the mind.
The mind repeats the Mantra, and the mind is able to listen to it inwardly.
If you, while repeating the Mantra, ask yourself "From where does the sound come?", then you will become aware of the mind, and that which is thus aware of the mind is beyond the mind.
Yoga cannot be practiced when one isolates oneself from the world, for it means harmonious relationship with society!
It is in my reaction to what others say or do that I discover myself.
That discovery enables me to go even deeper, and discover that the "I" itself is a thought, a first thought, a sort of computer into which all sorts of data (tradition, heredity, environmental influences, education, culture) have been fed.
When the lid is uncovered, cosmic consciousness is revealed.

January 8

Vigilance

There is a lot in early morning meditation.
While we were asleep we were not worried, unhappy, jealous or hateful.
But these things spring up immediately when we wake up.
The yogi wakes early as if to tell the mind, "I understand that you would like to sleep till six in the morning and then wake up to your worries.
I shall allow that!
But, I am going to wake up at five in the morning and meditate.
I hope you understand that that hour is not your time to start worrying.
You are supposed to be asleep then.
During this morning meditation, the yogi comes face to face with the peace and quiet that is natural to the mind, when it does not undergo any of the modifications brought on by the interaction of sense experiences and their changeable nature.
It is then not difficult to keep a vigilant watch at the gates of the mind to "see" how the mind undergoes the first modification.
And if one falls in love with peace of mind, this vigilance will guard the mind against restless modifications.

January 9

Sincerity

So many methods have been suggested for self-improvement, such as suppression of evil habits, substitution or sublimation, positive thinking, prayer, penance, living in tune with the infinite or God.
Surely all these have their usefulness in this world.
However, we often forget that there has to be intense sincerity if they are to be useful.
Such sincerity invariably brings us face to face with our own mind and its mischievous ways.
And that is yoga.
If these methods are applied mechanically, we might only be turning away from our mind and, under the veneer of holiness, there may flourish terrible ugliness, which will assert itself during unguarded moments.
One who is intensely sincere and ever watchful of his mind is truly virtuous, because he sees directly the self-destructiveness of the opposite of what the Yoga Sutras describe as virtues or yamas.
It may be said that he is constantly in tune with God (therefore a bhakta), and his unselfishness flows from him as loving service to all (therefore he is a karma yogi), and he knows himself through and through (and therefore he is a Jnani).

January 10

Prana

The yogis had intuitively realized that almost all activity involved the expenditure of prana; even eating meant spending prana.
Though food (the vitamin content) has a little bit of prana, our main source of prana is still only sleep!
The natural corollary to this realization is this: when the body and mind are at rest, they are recharged with prana, and when there is agitation or excitement, the prana is depleted.
This is the vital principle of yoga.
If this is ignored, all the yoga practices become gymnastics, good for building musculature, but essentially a drain on prana.
Any form of nervous excitement (lust, anger, jealousy, anxiety, fear and hate) is a terrible drain on prana, and it is a tragedy that the excited person is unable to sleep.
The entire nervous system is wound up.
Pranayama winds the nervous system down.
The yogi's genius invented a system of breathing exercises by which the nervous excitement is soothed. Harmony is restored.
And if at the same time the yogi connects up with the inner fountain source of prana, by means of Japa (repetition of a Mantra) and the meditative mood, then the effects of pranayama are truly miraculous.

January 11

Inspiration

Even the anxiety to get rid of anxiety should go.
This is possible if the mind realizes that the great wisdom and power, which created you and me and the whole universe is surely capable of maintaining it.
This is not blind faith, but faith, born of an inward vision.
Breathing is an indicator of the state of the nervous system.
The two are connected.
If during the alternate nostril breathing you watch the flow of breath, you know the state of your nerves!
When one is agitated, the other is agitated too.
Without the effort to "control" the agitation, if you go on with the conscious breathing, the agitation is reduced.
Inhale through the left nostril and exhale through the right; now inhale through the right nostril and exhale through the left.
When this becomes easy, smooth and prolonged, try holding the breath for a few seconds.
When this becomes easy too, then try holding the lungs empty for a few seconds after each exhalation; perhaps this will enable you to realize what prana is!
Watch carefully: the power that demands the next inhalation is prana.
If you want inspiration, breathe properly.
This is what "inspire" means.

January 12

Harmony

Yoga is neither a set of exercises nor is it a matter of being able to speak as if one knows all about life on earth and elsewhere.
It is not discussion on God nor is it disgust for the world.
None of these things poses any serious threat or problem to our life.
They exist even when we are fast asleep, but the problems do not exist then, because the creator of the problems does not exist.
That creator is the notion "I am ... "
By its various methods and techniques, yoga helps us to realize that.
We derive energy or life force (prana), not so much from food, drink, exercise or even rest, as from good sleep.
When "I" is absent, prana flows freely.
When "I" is suspended, even temporarily, we self-forgetfully love and serve - there is a great surge of energy, prana flows freely.
Health, happiness, healing, holiness, power, enlightenment and ecstasy are all one and that one is beyond the "me".
When this "me" ceases to be, there is harmony.
Such harmony is yoga.
Prana flows. Love flows. God is.

January 13

Peace

Do we realize that the world has never really enjoyed peace?
In fact that is the reason why we still wish for peace!
Of course there have been periods of peace, but they have been "lulls" between two wars, periods in which the powers rested and recuperated, like wrestlers do between two rounds.
A very simple way to abolish wars is to insist that he who signs the declaration of war shall be the first soldier on the battlefront.
I am sure nobody will dare sign the declaration of war, which would then become his own death warrant.
It may be unpalatable - truth is often unpalatable - to realize that one who supports a war in which others fight and get killed, is a cannibal.
A cannibal kills other humans in order that he may live.
It is of course obvious that war cannot (and will not) be abolished until the climate - personal and social - that breeds war changes.
Accumulation of wealth and concentration of power, unequal distribution of natural resources, overt or covert denial to some of opportunities of education and employment, oppression and exploitation of some by others - these breed conflict, war and violence

January 14

Optimism

I am by nature an optimist, but I am realistic enough to be pessimistic when it comes to mass acceptance of any doctrine, thought, or ideology.
"Brain washing" can be done by leaders of two or more camps, all aspiring for some sort of power.
They can all find convincing arguments to convince the converted - the latter usually being shareholders in the spoils.
Such a procedure may be unnecessary in a totalitarian society; but in such a society the doctrine or ideology is not really accepted by the people - fear silences the inner opposition, which waits for an opportunity to burst into a counter-revolution.
At each stage someone quotes some scripture or advances altruistic arguments.
All this becomes clear when we reflect on the state of the world we live in - a world trodden by the blessed Feet of Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Gandhi, not to mention thousands of saints and sages.
The majority of the people of the world will always be worldly.
As Krishna declared, "One in thousands strives for spiritual perfection." Yet, it is possible to visualize that around the great Ones mentioned above, there gathered a band of devoted followers and apostles.
The majority of them were of course spiritual giants.
This is possible; and this is the root of my optimism.

January 15

Friends

Question:
How do we deal with someone who considers himself to be an enemy?
Do we have to bend and show weakness, let him enjoy our downfall a little more?
If I am excellent in my work and someone is jealous, is it not like tempting others, like showing the jewel to the neighbor?
Answer:
You are approaching the question from a wrong, an impossible angle.
You do not know for certain what the other person thinks or does.
Turn the question upon yourself: are you considering yourself his enemy, are you excelling him in order to make him jealous?
If not, be yourself.
He will come right; in any case, it is his business.

Some people have friends who love them and enemies who hate them.
Some lucky people have friends who love them and enemies who sympathize with them.
Some others have enemies who despise them and friends who dislike and disapprove of them.

January 16

Mind

Who is your friend and who is your enemy?
It is your mind.
If your mind is controlled, disciplined and pure, that mind is your friend.
If your mind is impure, undisciplined, violent, full of hatred, attachment and vanity, it is your enemy.
There is no division here between impure mind and pure mind.
The impure part of the mind cannot be destroyed; it has to be purified and the impurity thrown away.
In order to have this awakening, all these old prejudices must go; all the faith in the false must be discarded. Do we have this perception?
Do we see that our own false beliefs, prejudices, faith in the unreal, are leading us towards the precipice?
If we do not see this danger, we had better drop all enquiries.
Until we awaken ourselves, we shall not see the truth and in order to wake up, we must come to grips with the tragedy of our life.
Wisdom consists in being able to see at first hand, intimately, without any mediator.
What must I see?
That birth is pain, that death is the axe, and that my perception of both is only second-hand.
We do not appreciate God's Blessings, so our lives are full of imaginary sorrow.
Sorrow is deep ignorance, spiritual ignorance, spiritual blindness, in whose vicious grip we are caught.

January 17

Religion

To promote peace and lead man to eternal bliss are the very meaning and purpose of religion.
Yet, it does not take long for anyone to realize that, on the contrary, religion has been accused of promoting disharmony and misery.
Has religion failed us or have we failed religion?
If you go round the world, you discover an interesting phenomenon.
They who belong to religious orders tell the lay people what they should do, and the lay people lay down rules for the religious orders.
When is anyone going to assimilate the spirit of religion so that it may act from within oneself?
When we come face to face with the spirit of religion, and when we intellectually understand the message of religion, we recoil from it.
We are unwilling to abandon our selfish and materialistic way of life, but we bring in clever arguments to defend it, and perhaps even to reconcile it with religion!
"Family responsibility", "social order", "self-defense", all these are seen to militate against the fundamental spirit of religion, which is total surrender to the Will of God, and unconditional love for fellowman.

January 18

Sacrifice

Is it terribly difficult to see that it is only selfishness that invents concepts of family responsibility, social order and self-defense, to deny admission into one's own heart to the spirit of religion?
Family, society, nationality, etc., are all extensions of the "me", and therefore we are concerned about "my" family, society or nationality, and not about human beings in general!
Religion is the giving up of this self-limiting notion, and Krishna assures us in the Bhagavad Gita that "peace immediately follows renunciation".
We have often heard that "one should be prepared to sacrifice oneself for the cause of religion or justice or peace or freedom", etc.
We have unfortunately twisted even this to mean that such sacrifice may even be death in defense of this or that "cause" or faith, etc.
Such defense has again given rise to "protective violence" or "preventive aggression", which is too absurd to need elaboration.

January 19

Self-Sacrifice

Perhaps, the concept of self-sacrifice has been grossly misunderstood.
Perhaps it implies "Abandon your own selfish, limited or personal idea or concept of what justice, etc. may mean.
In that supreme sacrifice you may be able to exemplify in yourself the true spirit of religion."
Without a single word being spoken, it is possible then to radiate this spirit of true love and understanding, the spirit that stands "under" every other person, looking up to the God in the "other person", bringing out the love rather than the spirit of aggression or domination in the other person.
Not indeed by being "involved in the affairs of the world" nor by "toiling for the betterment of humanity" are peace and harmony promoted, but by the discovery of the self which generates evil, by guarding oneself against selfishness and by letting love constantly flow from oneself to all beings, does one radiate peace and harmony and infect all that come into contact with him with peace that passeth understanding and love that is God.

January 20

Maturity

Why is it that we read the Bhagavad Gita over and over again?
We don't read the morning paper twice unless there is some scandal or gossip.
Isn't reading the Gita once enough ?
But then we discover that while the scripture obviously remains the same, the reader is not the same.
There is continuous change taking place.
Either I was immature a few years ago and have become mature now, or I was mature a few years ago and have become dull now.
But the change is continuous and because the change is continuous we do not notice it.
What percentage of anything that we hear or read do we remember? Very little.
The mind has an extraordinary faculty of registering only what it is prepared to accept or, on the other hand, that which shocks.
But as we mature, more and more compartments of the mind open up and become receptive.
Then the same words, which have been heard over and over again, have a different meaning.
This is why repeated reading of the same scripture seems to produce some effect or influence.

January 21

Attitude

It is said that the scripture called the Bhagavad Gita was given from the battlefield.
A teaching only becomes meaningful when one is in the situation that is described - then it is no longer a description, but a reality.
It is easy to dramatize and imagine all sorts of situations, but until one is actually in the situation, the meaning is not clear. Yet we study this scripture daily.
As the Mahabharata War commenced, Krishna, whom the Indians regard as God incarnate, volunteered to drive the chariot of the warrior Arjuna.
This tremendously brave warrior Arjuna, asked Krishna to drive his chariot into the middle of the two armies so that he could have a look at all those who were involved in the battle.
But when he saw those whom he had called his enemies, his attitude changed.
They no longer seemed to be enemies - they were his own people, his cousins and teachers.
He collapsed on the battlefield, saying to Krishna, "Must I fight and kill them?"

January 22

Truth

When you read these verses you are really touched.
"Isn't that marvelous, isn't that idealistic!"
But Krishna did not regard it as true altruism.
Compassion based on ignorance is cowardice.
Mere avoidance of violence is yet another form of violence.
We have agreed to consider only the aggression of another as violence.
If I hit another, I am violent, but if I am fuming with rage and I suppress it, I am supposed to be non-violent.
If I hit another, he is injured, but if I suppress the anger, I am injured.
We know only of these two.
We are committed to either - or.
Either I must give vent to my violence, or I must suppress it.
Is there not a third possibility?
That third possibility involves understanding myself and understanding others - coming to grips with life as it is, seeing the truth as it is, seeing the whole cosmos as it is.
When that truth is seen, that truth itself acts.

January 23

Justification

What then is the difference between a coward and a wise man?
A wise man and a coward may both withdraw from battle, but when the coward withdraws, he always finds it necessary to rationalize or justify his actions.
Whenever one is tempted to justify his actions, he is feeling inwardly guilty.
If I don't feel guilty about what I am doing, I don't justify it, I just do it.
When you go home later and fall asleep, you don't feel guilty.
But if you start snoring here, you feel guilty and say, "You know, I worked so hard today, and was so tired." Who is interested in all that?
Only you, because you want to cover your guilt with justification.
So that even Arjuna, discoursing on the highest moral principles, is speaking out of place.
The very fact that justification was called for by his mind, shows that there was still confusion in him.
If there is no confusion, there is no explanation or rationalization.
Justification comes in as a cover up, and Krishna's response merely endeavors to unmask this cover.
It is not as though the Bhagavad Gita sanctions violence as natural to human society, it merely seeks to unmask the thought processes and show that deep within is the truth.
If you peel off your feelings, your thought processes, your rationalizations, your philosophies and your opinions, there shines the truth.

January 24

Worry

Yoga is therefore a system of unmasking oneself, seeing oneself as one is.
This is what Arjuna, the pupil, did not do, and this is what Krishna, the teacher, inspires him to do, by revealing a simple contradiction in his behavior.
"You are talking as if you are a very wise man, but wise men do not worry. Worry and wisdom do not go together," says Krishna in the very first verse of His teachings.
Instead of looking for extraneous explanations, come face to face with worry, discover this worry and cowardice within.
As long as one looks for explanations or justifications outside oneself, there is no end to worry.
The wrong question is being asked.
If you bring a match close to cotton wool soaked in petrol, it catches alight, but if you bring the match close to green banana skins, nothing happens.
The difference is the inflammability of the material.
When we discover this worry, we must seek within what corresponds to the inflammable nature of the cotton wool.
Fire is not the cause of something bursting into flames - the inflammable nature of the material is the cause.
If this nature is altered, it will never catch fire.
If the inner nature is altered, there will never be worry, no matter what happens outside.

January 25

Nature

We all enjoy a certain inner nature.
Arjuna was a warrior, he was born a warrior, and he enjoyed the certain nature of a warrior.
A lion is carnivorous, and enjoys the nature of a carnivorous animal.
There is no difference between a carnivorous animal eating a buck, a cow eating grass, and you and I eating sandwiches.
We are all doing the same thing - we are acting according to our fundamental nature, our inner coloring.
There is no violence in a lion eating a zebra, and there is no violence or conflict in me if I conform to my own inner nature.
If I live in strict accordance with this nature, there is no inner conflict in me at all.
It is only when I bring something else in that conflict manifests in my life.
Each one acting in accordance with his fundamental nature, fulfils a tremendous function in this world.
Nothing has been created redundant.
Every species in this world has been brought into being by the Creator, and there is no wrong, except when conflict or confusion enters.
This confusion happens when one strays from his fundamental nature.
It is because Arjuna was trying to slip away from his nature, trying to adopt a stance that was not his own, that Krishna tells him to do his duty and fight.

January 26

Nature

What is one's nature?
There are a few baffling statements in the Gita which have often been misinterpreted.
In one passage Krishna ridicules all attempts at discipline.
"Nature functions, everything functions naturally. What is meant by restraint or discipline?"
This statement seems to run directly counter to all religious teaching.
At another point Krishna says, "The wise man, doing whatever he is apparently doing, is not touched by it at all."
The eyes are open, seeing takes place.
Thus when we talk of nature, it is not your nature or my nature, but nature itself.
What is natural is instantly beyond thought and feeling.
Speech and intellect return defeated.
We are told that in the Mahabharata War great warriors fought one another remorselessly, but without the wish to kill.
The sin is not in killing as such.
Sin is in the wish to kill.
A tiger that jumps me is not sinning - it has no wish to kill me.
Its action is without ego interference.
When there is no wish to kill and no wish to protect, when there is no wish to act and no wish to refrain from action, when the ego is completely silent and action takes place, that action is natural action.

January 27

Desire

When a lamp is turned into my eyes, the pupils naturally contract.
There is no interference of the ego.
Nature acts purely, and where this happens, there is freedom from violence.
There is no aggression at all.
But the pure martial aspect in nature might manifest to do its own job.
Nature may use us as part of some other plan, of which we have no idea whatsoever.
The warriors in the Mahabharata War professed no personal wish to kill, but they themselves were indifferent when their own turn came to be killed.
There is the test!
When I am the aggressor and you are the oppressed, I can call to my aid sublime philosophy, but when the tables are turned, I must still be able to smile at the marvel of nature.
If you are able to do this, probably you have seen some truth.
But I think that we must also see that aggression and desire are not different from each other.
If I have desire, I must also have hate.
If I like something, automatically I dislike something else.
These are a single psychological factor.
I cannot cease to hate, to be aggressive, as long as there is in my heart desire.
It is the desire that itself manifests as hate.
If I understand this phenomenon of desire, then I understand the phenomenon of aggression.
This much can be understood, and when it is understood, evil drops away and nature functions.

January 28

Love

I cannot love you. Impossible.
We are two completely different beings.
As long as I still cling to the consciousness that I am I, and you are you, I cannot love you.
I may temporarily pretend to love you, I may temporarily profess to love you, but it is only a passing fancy.
As long as you scratch my back and I scratch yours, we will call ourselves lovers.
But as soon as this ceases, it is all over, and we begin to hate each other.
This is not true love at all.
Love can only come into being when the I has seen itself out and ceased to interfere in the operation of the natural intelligence, this natural intelligence being cosmic and indivisible.
In the same way, you, I, this carpet, the tape recorder, all of us, form the one cosmic body of this cosmic intelligence.
There is no division and therefore no aggression, no violence, no contradiction.
Contradiction is the product of confusion, and as soon as the confusion is surrendered, abandoned, the contradiction also disappears.
And that is the message of Sri Krishna.

January 29

Karma Yoga

Karma Yoga usually begins with the admission of the existence of another.
Without the other there is no Karma Yoga.
It is the relationship with another person that I am trying to work out.
What happens in relationship with him?
I am happy, I am unhappy, I am jealous, I am compassionate.
Different feelings arise in me, and I am left to wonder.
The relationship is with someone else, but the effect arises in me, produces desirable and undesirable effects in me.
I must be conscious of what goes on in me.
By looking within and examining these effects, I discover what is unreal.
Like clouds that are apart from the sun, these disturbing feelings are apart from me, they are not me.
When I realize my own essential nature, suddenly I realize - he, the other and I, are one.
The object of Karma Yoga is to work in relationship all the time, without getting lost in the relationship, observing yourself all the time.
Observation and relationship are equally important.
When the two are fused together, and you observe yourself in relationship, you have dissolved all problems forever.

January 30

Wisdom

"That do we mean by "growing"?
Growing older implies maturation.
Do we understand what this means?
When you say "to grow older means to mature", what have you conveyed? More experience.
What is experience? Experience is knowledge.
What good is it? It helps me become wiser.
Again, what is wisdom? Learning through mistakes is experience!
This growth, this maturity must make us wise; do the right thing at the right time and place, to the right person. That is wisdom.
Maturity is the ability to decide what is the right action, without being in a position to predict the result.
An immature person is not able to discriminate, know which choice is safe, right.
For this, one needs knowledge, wisdom, and maturity.
Doing the right thing means making the right choice.
For this I must not gamble - this is dangerous.
We cannot afford to take a chance in our decisions.
What we call wisdom is this ability to make the choice correctly.
This may become clear only when you get into trouble for having chosen wrongly.
What is the most essential thing in me, what must I have, how must I be, to make this right, wise choice?
There is need to concentrate. The mind must be absolutely quiet.
Faith in God gives you this stillness.

January 31

Buddhi

Once you realize that for any action there is no choice, there is no sin.
When you are facing the truth, you realize that there is no choice at all.
It is only when you are looking at the shadow, the untruth, the falsehood, that there are different parts, different modes of behavior to choose from. That is it.
Physically, emotionally, spiritually, whatever it is, nature functions like that.
Truth functions inexorably.
Can you eat your cake and keep it? Impossible. I have to do one or the other.
It is because I am not seeing the whole situation, the truth that I am dilly-dallying before actually acting and taking the next step.
If I discard this foolishness, then worry will disappear too.
I am then able to look at every single thing as it is, the truth.
Then I realize that from moment to moment I do exactly what I have to do, without any choice whatsoever.
This is buddhi yoga.