Q: Then how do we start following what you are saying if we don't start worrying about it?
Just absorb the energy and inspiration behind my words and start living in the present, that's all. When you allow logic to come in, the trouble starts.
Just feel the energy behind my words, what I call the silence, the silence with which I am trying to enter you all the time. This silence will ultimately take you where it has to take you. Never try to get into the real meaning of my words. I have my own dictionary, while you have yours! It will not match. Just absorb the energy. Energy is intelligence. It will guide you.
Never collect words. Only intellectual nuts collect words and more words. They collect words and get more and more confused. They collect words thinking that they will get clarity at some point in time, but it never happens.
Whatever I say, even if it seems contradictory, it is the complete truth for the moment that it is spoken. Whatever I say is the complete truth for that moment that I am speaking it. But you cannot infer from my words alone. So for that moment, simply take them in with a mood to experiment. That will give you the energy and intelligence to follow through.
So don't listen with your intellect. Listen with deep meditation. Whatever may be your emotion or path at that point in time, just go deeply into it and listen to me. That is enough. You will automatically be filled with energy and clarity. These are all the basic secrets that I am giving you.
When you cling to my words, you will be worried that you might forget them. You will start jotting them down. I tell you, the moment you start jotting things down, you miss the whole thing. You will neither have absorbed the energy behind the words nor would you have completely taken down the words. You will go home with scribbled notes and a few days later, even that will be lying in some corner of the house. Sometime later, even if you find them, you will not be able to make anything out of them.
It is something like this: Let us say you read a book and retained only the last two pages of it in your hand. With just those two pages, would you be able to re-compile the whole book? No! In the same way, don't try to jot down a few of my words and try to recollect the whole thing. Just be present completely when I am talking. That is enough.
These words will penetrate you and do the work if you give your whole presence here. So listen with your being, not with your mind. Don't bother about forgetting these words. When you understand something and transform, you will never forget it. If you have forgotten, it means that you have not understood!
Not just my words; don't cling on to anything. Every moment is going past; then what is there to cling to? Clinging will bring misery upon misery. There is no point in thinking about the future also. It is yet to come. What are you thinking about? The future will also come in the form of the present only. So focus on the present.
When you are in the present, you don't choose at all. Worry basically arises because you are in the past or future and choosing all the time. When you decide not to choose at all and just totally accept and drink in the whole experience, there will be no worry.
When you decide not to choose at all and just totally accept and drink in the whole experience, there will be no worry.
People ask me, 'Swamiji, I am afraid when I think that the world might suddenly come to an end.'
So what if the world comes to an end? If the world comes to an end, everyone is going to be ending along with it. There will be no one and nothing remaining for anyone to be worried about! You were earlier worried only because there was something in the world to worry about. If the world itself is coming to an end, then there should be nothing to be worried about. But you worry about that also!
See how self-contradictory the mind is? It worries if there is something to worry about and it worries if there is nothing to worry about also. But it wants to be free of worry all the time!
Actually, all of your emotions are nothing but the play of the unconscious in you. When you live with total awareness, you can never be under the sway of emotions. That is why again and again I tell you to flood yourself with awareness.
You see, your worries, your words, really make or break your life. They have got that much power to influence you and others. For example, when I utter the word 'cow', immediately what happens? A figure with 4 legs, 2 horns and 1 tail appears in your mind. A simple 3-letter word can bring to your mind a whole image! Words are that powerful. When we don't respect words and use them wrongly, we are asking for trouble.
A small story:
Birbal, an enlightened master, and Akbar, his king, were walking together on the streets. They saw a sandalwood dealer and Akbar said to Birbal, 'I don't know why but I feel like hanging this man.'
A month later, they walked past the same sandalwood dealer and Akbar this time said, 'It's strange but I feel like giving this man some endowment now!'
Birbal replied after a long pause, 'A month back, the sandalwood dealer's business was suffering and when he saw you walking past, he thought to himself that if you die, the courtiers would come to buy a lot of sandalwood from him for your funeral pyre. He sent out these negative vibrations, which prompted you to feel hatred towards him. I immediately purchased a lot of sandalwood from him to make tables and chairs for our kingdom. Today, he feels very grateful towards you and you have been struck by these positive vibrations from him and therefore you feel like giving him some endowment!'
Understand that your thoughts have a lot of power in themselves. It is therefore very important that you have positive thoughts and a worry-free mental set-up.
Q: There are books that say 'don't sweat for small stuff'. But small things do matter, do they not?
When you function with intelligence, you will not fall into the category of sweating for small stuff.
A small story:
A young man went to visit his friend. He found him scraping the wallpaper off the wall.
He asked him, 'Are you repainting?' The friend replied, 'I am moving house*.*'
You see, you cannot ignore the small things. But
It is therefore very important that you have positive thoughts and a worry-free mental set-up. you should be intelligent enough to pay only the amount of attention it warrants, or else you will start to sweat. Never listen
to people when they say not to pay attention to small things. Remember that small holes can sink a great ship. Just operate with your intelligence and awareness and you will know which the real small stuff is.
If you are convinced without self-contradiction that you need to do those small things, automatically you will find the energy to do them. When you are not fully convinced, you will not have enough conviction and energy to go behind them. Your intelligence will not be fully backing you, because intelligence is energy and energy is intelligence.
If you are sweating about the small stuff, then there is something wrong somewhere. Be very clear that all miseries arise because of self-contradictions. You yourself are not fully clear about what you want to do and so you are unable to do it. For that clarity to happen, you need to nurture your own intelligence.
When intelligence happens, self-contradictions disappear and you start becoming integrated. When you start becoming
When you start becoming integrated, your intelligence grows more. integrated, your intelligence grows more. This is the cycle you need to get into. This is the cycle that can clear your worries also.
If you are really interested in dropping your inner chatter and worries, you could try a small exercise. Think of all the things that give you joy. Make up your mind that you will allow your mind to linger on only these things and nothing else. Anything else, you will give just enough energy to get it done and then forget about it. Try this exercise and you will see that you conserve a lot of energy.
Understand that you have given a lot of power to your worries by simply talking about them more and more. For example, when a housewife picks up the telephone, she will start by telling her friend that the house maid did not turn up for the day. That is her depression for the day. If you are really depressed about the maid not coming and you are really interested in coming out of it, then you should simply finish doing the work yourself! Doesn't this sound more logical?
But what do you do? You keep on talking about it and expecting your friend to feed your depression as well. If she doesn't sympathize with you or if she tells you that is how life is and you have to move on, you will make a call to another friend and tell that friend about how inconsiderate this friend was! Just think, if you really wanted to move on with your life, you would appreciate the words of the friend, would you not?
But why are you reacting differently? The reason is, you are so comfortable just talking about your worries and not finding a way out of them.
If you start doing this small exercise, you will see that all your worries simply disappear and you acquire a new mental set-up altogether. You will find a surge of energy within you because all the energy that you previously spent on harboring your worries is suddenly available to you!
Do an honest check for yourself and find out if you are secretly nurturing your worries or whether you are ready to take on the transformation.
When you stop going behind your worries, you will be able to see how others are helplessly caught up in that cycle. You will be able to see how they magnify their worries by endlessly talking about them to people. This talking about worry is what I call 'worrying about the worry'! Only when you are able to watch this, will it stop. Until such time as you become the watcher, you are caught up in the emotions, giving so much of power and control to them.
I am not asking you to run away from your worries. I am saying, don't magnify them by talking about them. Don't expend your energy on them. Instead, address them for what needs to be done so that they stop worrying you. Address them without loss of time, that's all.
Check yourself to find out if you are starting to feel comfortable with your worries. This is the scale to see if worries are controlling you or you are controlling your worries. If you are feeling comfortable talking about them repeatedly without taking any action, then worries are controlling you. If you don't linger on them and address them correctly, then you are controlling them!