"Tradition is for those who have no Guru.
For one who has a Guru, the Guru is his tradition."

Religion which was generally considered to be a link between man and God, has now become a barrier instead. If we keep ourselves bound fast to a particular form or practice without a clear idea of its real significance and final approach, we are probably committing the greatest blunder. God is not to be found within the fold of a particular religion or sect. He is not confined within certain forms or rituals, nor is He to be traced out from within the scriptures. Him we have to seek for in the innermost core of our heart.

The great seers of India, the rishis, have bifurcated the holy life into two distinct approaches to Reality: the ritualistic life, and the contemplative life. The texts of Hinduism are correspondingly categorised, and the Vedas themselves come under this categorisation. The earlier parts, dealing almost exclusively with rituals, are classified under the term karma kanda. The later portions of the Vedic text, the Gnana Kanda, deal mostly with the mental and higher aspects of man's approach to his Maker, and are commonly called Vedanta, translated to mean "the end of all knowledge." Vedanta does not merely mean that this part of the Vedic teaching comes at the serial end of the Veda. It means that here is contained such knowledge as can be considered to be the end of all knowledge, the very acme and essence of knowledge.

The rishis have also taught, very clearly and emphatically, that the ritualistic religious life is a lower aspect of man's existence, whereas the contemplative life (the life of the mystic) is extolled as being the higher and purer one.

It is believed that a human being must necessarily start with external worship but this is not the end of one's way of communing with God. We are expected to indulge in ritual or formal worship only for so long as we find benefit in it. After that we must necessarily seek a better approach to God, and at this stage comes the idea of meditation, when we do away with the need for an objectified form of worship by creating in ourselves the necessary instrument of worship.

RELIGIOUS BONDAGES:
There are five very important reasons why we should get away from the religious bondage, the thraldom of religion, which is holding us in greater slavery than the Romans ever held their slaves in, or the Greeks, or the Egyptians. First, this philosophy, this theology, is anti-evolutionary. Second, it is demeaning. Third, it makes us useless to ourselves. Fourth, it makes us so impotent that we can do nothing for ourselves. And fifth, it binds us as slaves to a church which should liberate us. So this is the problem of religion. Religion keeps us bound to the past, chained to the past.

Now we are not preaching against religion, we are only pointing out the facts of religion. If rituals could liberate, there should be no more human beings here. I mean, after millions of years, and thousands of years of praying and preaching, and attending these religious institutions - whether a church or a temple, it doesn't matter - what are we still doing here? So you see, we have to judge these things not emotionally, but practically. Is it good for me? Is it doing any good for me? Have I developed an iota on the way? If the answer is 'no', we have to change. So I would like to quote Swami Vivekananda, "It is good to be born in a religion, but it is bad to die in a religion." It is a profound statement that few have understood. It means that I start off with something - a capital, a heritage, a system of philosophy, but I have to grow out of it like out of anything else.

So it is essential to remember that the system must conform to the time in which we are alive. So that the situation in which we are placed in our temporal existence must enable us to do these things satisfactorily, continuously, regularly, effectively. Otherwise, there is no use.

ASTROLOGY:
It is an indisputable fact that astrology works. Nobody can dispute the fact that if your horoscope is correct, you can predict the future, and you can predict it very accurately - almost from second to second; but it depends on several factors. First, the horoscope must be perfectly accurate. Two, the person who is reading it must be a master of the science. Three, the astrologer must also be intuitive, going beyond the science, because they are dealing with balances of forces which have to be intuitively balanced. You cannot weigh them in a balance and say this is sixty grams, this is forty grams, therefore twenty grams difference goes to Pluto or Neptune. They are dealing with intangibles. Therefore they must be very very capable at balancing the forces and coming to a conclusion.

I found astrology worked even for my Master. So I asked Him, "Are you subject to the forces of Nature yourself?" He told me, "Even I permit Nature to act." So, He permits Nature to work on him, act on him, and this is the most beautiful aspect of Sahaj Marg, because it is called the "natural way" and everything happens naturally, including the effect of the predestination on the Master himself, but only on his physical existence. So the effects of astrology, or what we call astrology, what we bring into this world as our capital - the effect of astrology is really the effect of the capital that we bring into this world] - are fixed only when we do nothing to bring an external force to change them. That is number one; the second point is, we cannot change anything ourselves; the third thing is, if an external force, like a Master, comes into our life, he can change anything that he wishes to change. The fourth thing is, that if he permits certain things to happen, it is for our good. He changes only that which is necessary to be changed for our spiritual growth. And his generosity, his kindness extends only to our spiritual life.

But the most important fact astrologers forget, their clients also forget: if something is being done to change that person's life, astrology will fail, must fail. Now, why does it work in the case of almost every individual? The reason is that however much a person may try to change his life himself, he cannot change himself. It is like trying to push a car from inside. Sitting inside the car, you cannot push the car. Therefore a person may know all about his or her life but cannot change the details.

Even if you are trying to change yourself by education, by culture, by going to therapy, nothing will work. Because of this very important fact that you cannot change your life yourself. Now what happens, we come to a Master. We are not trying to change ourselves anymore. He is changing us. He is a Master. How can astrology work anymore for us? So, when in trouble, pray to your Master, don't go to astrologers.

IDOL WORSHIP:
Sahaj Marg has nowhere said that temple worship is wrong, nor does Master expressly forbid idol worship. Master has clarified that there is a correct way of worshipping an idol and this is to worship the idol as a representation of the divine, i.e. we are expected to worship the divine through this representation and not stop with worshipping the representation itself. If a person is capable of this, then there is nothing wrong in idol worship. Master continues to say that when we are able to transfer our worship to the Ultimate, then where is the need to depend on a representation?

I have often felt that we prefer to worship Him outside us because it is possible then to isolate Him from ourselves. A God in the temple, in the pooja room, can be safely locked up until I need Him again. A God within is perhaps a perpetual nuisance for one whose intentions are not so genuine, whose aspirations are not so good, whose practices are not so ethical. He does not want a permanent witness to himself. It is my submission that temple worship has perhaps evolved out of this need to isolate God from our existence, to be gone to when we need Him, put a prayer, put some money in the hundi (box for collecting money in temples), come back thinking, "I have sacrificed, and surely I will get," forgetting that what we have is also His. He is the Master of the Universe.

The temple worship of the day: All this temple worship, this ritualisation of what should have been a very glorious, sacred, loving affair - it is purely commercial today. A lot of noise, a lot of valuable camphor burnt away into smoke, the peace of the neighbourhood upset by so-called bhaktas and this hypocrisy of taking a coconut and bringing two halves of it back home for your chutney. So let us not indulge in these things. People should be serious about where they are going, and why they are going there, and how they are going there. God cannot be desecrated. God cannot be lied to. Every time we attempt it, we lie to ourselves. Everything that you do to God, you do to yourself. If you ennoble Him, you ennoble yourself. If you Divinise Him, you Divinise yourself. If you love Him, that love comes back to yourself.

People ask me, "What is the logic of meditation? What is wrong with pooja: murthi pooja (idol worship), temple pooja?" There is nothing wrong, but it is a limitation. And if God is everywhere, it is a denial of that truth to have to go to a temple to find Him there. If He is in everything, surely He is in me as much as in that temple. Why not seek Him within me, within myself?

It is well known in traditional religion that objects of worship in temples have to be sanctified by what is known as the Prana Prathishta, and unless this has been done there is no sense in worshipping any material object. Without a great Master capable of transmitting the Divine essence, the Prana Prathishta cannot happen irrespective of the ceremonial or ritualistic forms associated with this act.

Relevance to our System: It is therefore necessary to understand what precisely our Master is doing, and how it is nothing but this very same Prana Prathishta, now being done to human individuals, thereby converting such individuals into temples of God. In essence, therefore, what is done during transmission is to put Divinity back into the heart of the individual where it really belongs, and thus remove man's dependence from external objects and put it back within himself.

In meditation the adoration is therefore directed to one's own heart, to the Divinity present therein, and by this act of transcendental worship, the Divinisation of human being, in whom such a seed sown, is made possible, progressively and rapidly, to culminate in the ultimate achievement of total Divinisation of the person.

What is wrong if we go to temple and think of Master there too? I have told this story many times. I had a distant relative who was in the second world war, he was in the postal department of the army and he was posted in Egypt and his wife was somewhere in Tanjore, a Brahmin girl and you know people coming and bringing letters and funny stories about him. So she wrote to him finally you see, 'I hear so many stories about you - what is going on? He wrote back to her 'whatever I do and with whomever I do it, I only think of you'(laughter). Now tell me is it right? So it is same as saying I think of the Master when I go to the temple.

Why meditation and traditional worship cannot go on side by side? When a higher and more enlightened form of association with the Ultimate is available, it would not only be superfluous but unwise to stick to lower forms which can drag one down from the higher level.

Other types of idol worships: The idol of stone or metal representing deity has been replaced by flesh-and-blood idols used to represent Master. Such idols are many. To some abhyasis the father has become such an idol. Master is no doubt maintained in the background, but it is the father-idol that is in the forefront, and which receives the abhyasi's love, veneration and prayers. The father has been idolised.

To other abhyasis the preceptor has become such an idol. I believe that any abhyasi who says, "my preceptor" when talking about the preceptor who is serving him has fallen into this from of idol worship. Here it is the preceptor who has been transformed into an idol, or idolised. Here again the Master may be in the background, but is that Master's rightful place? When Master says that very gods are functionaries of Nature, and are there to serve and not to be served, can we deify preceptors and relatives in this way?

I must say that preceptors generally do not fall into this error. But abhyasis idolise them to the extent of ascribing to them the credit which should go to the Master. Where our credit is given, there goes our gratitude and this is followed by our love. So, wrongly ascribed credit can be disastrous in leading to the creation of an idol for us. So, Master's message is quite clear. All credit goes only to our Master. When we give credit where it is not due, that too is a form of idol worship. We should beware of falling into such errors.

When Master is with us, we need not go to any preceptor unless Master instructs us to do so, or Master has approved a general programme of individual sitting in which we may then safely participate.

TIRTHA YATRAS (PILGRIMAGES):
People do tirtha yatra. They go from place to place and spend many years and a lot of money in bathing in holy rivers and praying at famous temples. Some do this all their lives. But what is the result? Have they derived any spiritual benefit? They only get the satisfaction that they have bathed in so many places and worshiped in so many temples. That is all. But the real yatra is the inner yatra of the soul. That is the true yatra. This is what we do in our practice.

It is not necessary to go to the Ganges. It is my mind, it is my faith, which makes even a bucket of water the pavitra Ganga. What is there in the Ganga? Yes, of course, the Puranas tell us that it is flowing from the right big toenail of Lord Vishnu. Yes, if I can do it I will go there, but does it mean that those who cannot go to the Ganga are denied, or will be denied mukti (liberation)? Is every Muslim who doesn't go to Mecca denied his liberation? It cannot be. Kabir has written that if the water of the Ganga is holy, then every crocodile in it should get moksha! A gross act cannot lead to a subtle result. We must try to understand this.

Therefore Sanathana Dharma says, spiritual science says, sitting where you are, if you are able to invoke that divinity within yourself, link yourself to that with which you are eternally connected but which link you have forgotten, you can never break it. Have faith in yourself. So this is the great lesson of spirituality: don't wander hither and thither. Don't look to religions and gods. They are creations of human beings.

He who is the creator of the Universe is in the heart of everything that He has created. Don't go wandering around. Look inside. See Him in your heart as the antaryamin, who is your controller, who is your creator, who is your supporter from within. Seek Him within. You don't have to go wandering on tirtha yatra, spending money, acquiring diseases.

So, when we have lost touch with the within, we seek outside. Therefore all this misguided tirtha yatras. Tirtha yatras originally meant the inner journey of the soul through various points, the chakras (spiritual knots). Our poverty of spirit, our lack of faith, makes us happy that, "Yes, we have done it." The Muslim is happy that he has been to Mecca, the Hindu is happy that he has been to Badrinath, and the Christian that he has been to Jerusalem, perhaps. And there again we are happy that we can leave Him behind and come back home to be safe away from Him.

In the spiritual journey it is not the travel of the body that takes us to the goal. It is the Soul which has become imprisoned in the heart that has to be made to move; and then to go up point by point until the destination is reached. This is the real yatra.

PITRU WORSHIP?
We have somehow developed this old tradition of worshipping dead people, dead things. The living father of the family rarely has as much respect as after his death - the way in which his tarpana and his annual shraddhas are performed. When he is alive, the son cares very little. When he is dead, because it is a matter of show, a matter of selfishness that if I don't do this, something may happen; if I do it, I may get good. Therefore they do it with a certain degree of fervour. They don't care about spending some money, but when the father is alive and he asks for two rupees worth of something to eat, generally the son gets angry. "You are always asking for this and that! You are old. Eat what is given to you. What has Babuji said? "Eat what is put before you with love" - one of the maxims comes in very handy! So we must recognise - I mean, all of you laugh because it is the only way of relieving inner tension. We all know we have passed through this phase. Some have passed through it fortunately. Many are still in the quagmire of stupidity and selfishness out of it, because if you stay in that, what you call quicksand of ignorance and superstition, you can only sink down. There is no redemption.

It is a common experience of all of us, miserable human beings, that we love our parents more after they are dead. While they are alive, they are nuisances to us. They trouble us with their demands for discipline, for performance. And when they die, we work off our self-felt, self-created guilty feelings by expensive shraddhas, expensive ceremonies, putting up big pictures on the walls. Why is it that we have to love the dead and not the living? I mean, this is a very sordid bit of human existence, that somebody has to die before they earn our love. What is the use of weeping for the dead? Shall we not weep for the living?

So you see, instead of spending thousands of rupees on a dead person's cremation, and his shraddhas year after year and the tarpana every amavasya (new moon day) day, if you have loved them well, cherished them well during their existence, all this ritualistic expiation of our inability to love becomes unnecessary. Love the living; it's no use loving the dead.

Fathers die, mothers die, and we put their pictures at home and with great devotion we put a garland and light a lamp. According to my Master, this is the most destructive thing that we can do which holds back these souls from their own progress in the afterlife. What should we do with the dead? First of course we bury them or cremate them; that is physical disposal. As far as the mind is concerned, love them and forget them. When you remember, pray to the Master, 'May that soul receive peace.' That is enough.

If you want to remember them on the day of their departure, try to forget it, you will remember them better. If memory comes, sit in meditation for ten minutes or fifteen minutes. Pray to the Master, "Almighty Master! My departed father, mother, brother, sister - may your Grace flow towards him or her. May he or she receive peace."

Babuji said, "Lalaji never did ritual worship. But I tell you one thing. One Amavasya day (new moon day) I saw him performing the tarpana. He was pouring water in the ritual fashion, offering it to his forefathers in the higher world. I immediately adjusted myself to see what he was offering to the higher world. I found that he was transmitting the essence of the water he was offering to the higher world. This is what should be done when offering bhog. Suppose a person can transmit the essence of a thing, then it is useful to do tarpana and all these things. Otherwise what is the use? It is a mere ritual without any meaning or use. It is better to sit in meditation and think of the departed souls. Surely they will benefit more by it. And if he is a preceptor he should transmit with the idea that the transmission will reach the soul wherever it may be."

CULTURE:
We should forget all these funny notions of class and caste, and community. Culture is stupid, ultimately, because it makes us slaves. Anything which imprisons us is a jail. Don't think jails are made only of concrete and steel. Culture is a big prison. You see, music is a prison for those who are entranced by music and say, "Oh! Nothing else exists." So whenever we find something is closing in upon us, run away from it.

Our attitude must be like that; this culture is imprisoning me; God help me throw away the culture. This religion is imprisoning me; God help me throw away the religion. This Earth is holding me down with its gravity; God help me fly away. Otherwise, we are slaves, more and more slaves, and we breed more slaves. To our children, we give the same cultural, shall I say, indoctrination. We spoil their future; we put them in the same prison in which we are. How can they even have liberation?

So, all our education, our culture, is only a superficial veneer on the skin, like the powder and the rouge on a woman's face. Beautiful? Yes. But wash it off, and what remains? Skin. So remove culture, remove the linguistic influences, what remains? It is a twitching, fearful, humble human being, who is afraid to show his or her fears and therefore he puts on a brave show of bravado. Therefore simplicity is a sign of total self-contentedness.

It is one of the fundamental concepts of the Sahaj Marg system of Raja Yoga that, "spirituality begins where religion ends". In the Hindu society too there seems to be a sort of intermingling between religion and spirituality, and few people are able to distinguish between the two, their place in life, their relative importance or capacity to liberate us from not merely our material circumstances but also from life itself. So it is, perhaps, necessary to distinguish between religion and spirituality. My Master has said, "Where religion ends, spirituality begins; where spirituality ends, Reality begins; where Reality ends, Bliss begins." It seems to go on and on.

So the message of spirituality is: Look within. This is the message of the Gita, this is the message of the Upanishads: I am in the heart of every creative being. Look for me there. I am you. You foolishly think you are you, but it is I who am you.

"If what the Guru says goes against the tradition,
throw the books out of the window and obey the Master."