Jain Sutras Decoded

Plan for Miracles - Relax from the Possessiveness of Life

One more thing, to really achieve non-possessiveness you need to understand one thing - life is not too valuable as you think. Don't be too serious about life. See, because we are constantly living in cities, we become too serious about our life. Everyday we think about too many things and too much, 'How to avoid this? How to avoid that? What will happen to this? What will happen to that?' and you clearly design life.

Look into your life everyday from morning till night. If you tell somebody to do a video recording of your whole day, you will see and realize few important things - you will come out of your bedroom through the same path, you will sit on the same sofa, you will go to the living room through the same steps, and you will come out and take your car in the same way - the whole thing will be the same.

I tell you, really if you see you will understand, almost your whole day's routine is under your control. Even if you face an accident there is insurance, so everything is clearly preplanned and visualized. So there is no place for God, because you did everything. Now where is the place for Him? You do not allow the Divine to intervene.

People ask me, 'Swamiji, we are seeing so many miracles in your life, why is it not happening in our lives?' Especially the people who live around me become jealous of the miracles that happen around my life - because whatever I tell comes true. Every other day it is happening.

If it happens once you can say it is a coincidence, but everyday when this happens, these people become a little jealous, 'What is this? How are so many miracles happening around you but not around us?'

It is because I am allowing God to intervene, I am not planning out and out, I leave little gaps, so that He can do something. Miracles do not happen in your life because you plan for your life completely thoroughly.

Living non-seriously is the plan for miracles. Living in a playful way is the plan for miracles. Understand, if you live a little playfully, it is ok. If you live a little non-seriously you will attract so many beautiful miracles in your life.

Patanjali says, aparigraha is the way to achieve the memory of the past life and to know about your decisions like why you took birth and what for you came down. I tell you, aparigraha is the amazing way, the best way to create miracles in your life, to attract miracles in your life.

A person who lives in a non-serious way, playful way, attracts again and again miracles in his life, because he has some inner space and outer space where god can intervene.

Live little playfully, do little less planning, you will see the miracles happening in your life. With a person who is non-possessive, not only miracles happen in His life, but anything happens inHis life he feels it as a miracle. Because he doesn't possess anything, he doesn't take anything for granted, he doesn't claim anything is his birthright.

Understand, even taking birth is not your right, what about birthright! The word 'birthright' is a wrong word. Nothing can be birthright, because even taking birth itself is not your right, it is not under your control, then how can you say something as your birthright? There is nothing for which we have a right or claim.

A person who is established in non-possessiveness, aparigraha, not only regains the past memory, but he realizes again and again and again he is doing the same nonsense - of catching some people and catching some property and saying, 'This is my house, this is my boundary, this is my husband, this is my wife, this is my son and this is my daughter,' and suddenly he dies, goes to another place and again catches everything.

One more psychodrama, and again you die and catch one more setup. By the time you are almost ready with your husband, wife, daughter, son, grandson, enough property, and everything, life says, 'Now go, enough. Relax,' and it is over.

You realize again and again you are doing the same thing. The moment you understand again and again you are doing the same thing, you decide strongly to jump out of this cycle. Anybody who decides to strongly jump out of this cycle is liberated.

Understand, for liberation all you need is only one thing - the strong decision to jump out, clear 'no' to society, clear 'no' to the same cycle of birth and death. Aparigraha directly leads you to enlightenment, aparigraha can happen only with matured souls.

You don't possess now all the toys you played with. You don't possess the toy car with which you played, but at the age of 6 or 7 that was your life. If your mother snatched it away from you and said, 'Hey, go and eat. It is time to eat. You played enough!' You say, 'I don't want food, I don't want you also, get lost! Give me my toy, give my car.' That time it was more near and dear to you than your mother and food. Now you have grown out of it, simply the aparigraha has happened.

It is not that you don't have the toys, even now you may have them in your house, but you don't remember about them, you are not possessive about them. You are possessive of a little bigger car, you have grown out of the six inch car and now you are caught with the six feet car. If you expand your inner space, you will grow out of this also.

Bliss for You and Others

Just when you are alone, sit for half an hour and visualize your life without the objects and the persons about which you are possessive. If you are possessive of some person or some object, just remove that from your life and sit. For half an hour visualize your life without that person or object, and allow any suffering or pain which comes to you. Go through it consciously, face it.

Suddenly you will see, that pain, that suffering becomes tapas for you. Tapas means burning, purifying. That becomes tapas for you and you will come out as a new being, you will experience a different maturity; that maturity will naturally lead you to enlightenment.

Understand, if you practice ahimsa, people around you will be blissful and if you practice aparigraha you will be blissful. Tomorrow we will see the important sutras about satya (Truth) and brahmacharya vrata (vow of celibacy), so we will talk about all the major vows which any follower of Mahāvīra is supposed to take and practice.

Today, with this we will conclude: understand this one thing, ahimsa makes all the people around you blissful, aparigraha makes you blissful. Let you understand this, and experience and radiate, achieve and radiate eternal bliss. Thank you.