"It is the duty of every abhyasi of the Mission to create an example, by his actions, by his thoughts, by his deeds, by the way he behaves in his house, in society."

If you look at today's human beings, one may perhaps be tempted to say that over these million years of evolution to what we call Homo Sapiens today, the animal man seems to manifest itself more and more. Of course, the primitive underdeveloped societies are always blamed. I see this tendency to blame one section of the population over the other, to say that they are crude, they are dirty, they are filthy, they are primitive, they are animals, etc. But I don't think the other half is any less animal, I only think they have whitewashed it, tailored it a nice suit, given shoes to it, and cosmetics. Smells nice, but it is still as violent and as animal as the other half. More and more animal tendencies are being manifested as our greed, our avariciousness grows in a materialistic environment.

We know for a fact, you see, that God has no heart. We know from the teachings of the Master that God has no mind. When I asked Babuji why He creates, he said, "He would suffer from power grossness if He did not." He has to create. Then what happens is, in this creation of ours we have all the raw materials necessary for evolution, and we as human beings, we have been blessed - sometimes I think we have been cursed - with an intelligence and the will power to guide our own destinies - one helping us to choose the right destiny, the other giving us the power, the motivating power to go on the path, the chosen path.

So there is no use looking to a god to correct us, or our societies, of our tendencies. The buck stops here, and the here is - each man pointing to his own heart, each woman pointing her finger to her own heart - towards yourself. The buck stops here. So now we have to wonder, you see, what is this role that the Master is going to play in this. Has he any role at all? Can he help us? Of course, it is almost a truism, it doesn't need an explanation, that help can be forthcoming if my direction is right. Babuji can help only in an established direction in which he can take us, and in no other.

SUCCESS IS FAILURE
What does it need to create in us a new human being, a new person, one who from his animal level of existence is going to the divine level of existence? That needs capacity, that needs courage, that needs conviction, that needs patience. It needs more and more than anything else - love from the mind. God - no mind, no heart - cannot love human being, and cannot love anything else. He is love, but he cannot love. We, on the other end of the spectrum - we can love, but we are not love. Therefore comes this, you know, blindingly illuminating concept that we have not to love, but to become love.

How to create this love? Love the Master. Love Him who loves all. He is the only person who can ever have the capacity to love all. We cannot even love our brothers. We cannot love our neighbours. How many of you are at peace with your neighbours, or with your own brothers in your home? Where is the family which has not partitioned its assets? Success is followed by partition. Failure brings unity in the family. One famous mystic of England has given a beautiful example. In winter when it is snowbound, when the country is freezing, everything dying, you put a few crumbs of bread on the window sill, and all the sparrows will come and eat it cooperatively, each giving place to the other. In the fullness of spring when nature is bountiful, you throw a whole loaf of bread outside the window, one sparrow will sit on it and keep everybody else away.

So prosperity is bad. We need enough. We don't have to be prosperous. In your foolishness you have lost all sense of what you need. Now you are in the universe of wants, and wants have no end. You have a right to expect your needs to be fulfilled, but not your wants. Wants are many. Needs are few. As a distinct and direct corollary to this Babuji said, "Simplify your existence. Be simple and in tune with nature."

MOULDING LIFE
When one lives a simple life, one has few needs. One who has few needs, needs not much money - that is easily acquired, morally acquired, acquired with a certain dignity which goes with rightful earning, a fearlessness which goes with rightful earning - one need not be afraid of the police, the income tax man, or even of one's own conscience. Then we find this miraculous feature that now there is enough or more time than we need to meditate, to do our cleaning, to practice constant remembrance, which we say now we have no time for, because Bachubhai goes to a shop at seven, comes back at eleven at night. Somabhai goes at six-thirty and comes back at eleven-thirty. Amritbhai is never at home. He is traveling all over the world to get business. How can we meditate? And then they start asking very funny questions. They come and ask me, "Am I not responsible for my family?" A man who doesn't see his wife once in a year, who does not know in which class his children are studying, often doesn't even know their names - he claims to be in a position of responsibility to his family, and therefore he has no time to meditate.

Our life must be open, our activities must be there for all to see, our behaviour must be above reproach, what we have we share with all, knowing that when we share, everyone shares with us. And therefore the benefits that we enjoy from life are multiplied a million-fold. Every time you give, you receive much more than you give. We are sensible, educated adults. Because an adult must be an adult by behaviour, not by the number of years that he or she has existed on this planet. Adultness must be judged by your behaviour, by your responses, by the maturity that you can exhibit.

It is a shameful thing that people mould their lives in such a way that their environment is completely polluted and spoilt. Really speaking our minimum duty is to leave the world at least as we found it when we came into it, not spoil it and destroy it. We should really try to leave the world a better place than we found it. Right living becomes very important. We must tune our lives in such a way that everything that comes in contact with us is improved. Everything we touch must get divinised.

ELDERS SHOULD CHANGE THEIR ATTITUDES FIRST
We start off with an innocence that is native to the human being, natural to the human being. We call it in all languages, I think, childlike innocence. Not childish, but childlike. Why childlike innocence? Because for the child, there are no opposites. It exists, it reacts. A child never feels guilty until we make it feel guilty. It drops an egg, and it splatters and the yolk is all over the carpet. And you say, "What have you done?" The child begins to feel guilty. If an elderly person dropped a glass of whiskey and it went on the carpet, you cannot blame him. "Oh it doesn't matter." This is hypocrisy, you see. You have one attitude for the child, one attitude for yourself, one attitude for your guest, one for somebody you hate, one for somebody you love. This is precisely disintegration of character. If people are schizophrenic, paranoid, it is because we cultivate this in ourselves by our own behaviour, adopting different attitudes towards different people, different situations. And end up not knowing which is the real me. And then I am in trouble. I have to go to the psychiatrists.

In yoga we try to bring back the whole thing. Reintegration of character. When there is only one person, he reacts in the same way to everything. It's like a telescope. Whoever looks through it, it shows the same thing. How can the telescope show you different things? One for the white man, one for the black man, one for the rich man, one for the poor man. It doesn't exist. Anybody who looks at the moon sees the same moon. So, you see, from a disintegrated, diversified, lost multiplicity of characters, we try to bring them back together by meditating on the inner self, which is essentially a unity.

If we live the life in the right way the children automatically lead the life in the right way. That is the importance of parenthood. That we provide the right environment, the right example. That is why I have always said that it is a big and onerous thing, you know, being a parent. Whether you are the father or mother is not relevant. We have to be alert. What is the use of a father, you know, smoking hash and telling his child, "You should not do it." And then when he starts doing it, the father cannot even muster the courage to tell him, "Do not do it," because he is guilty.

HOW BEHAVIOURAL PATTERN GETS IMPLANTED IN US
Tendency relates to behaviour. You know, like we say, he has a tendency to be upset. What creates the tendency is the grossness. You know, like some children are prone to measles. They do not catch cold and things, but expose themselves to measles and they are sick. Like a man gets angry; he gets an impression, a big impression. This impression colours his next activity, and it comes again without his knowing. The impression is made stronger. The third time he erupts. Like I told you the humorous example of my father, who used to be very irritable. Babuji told him, " I am telling you, Rajagopalachari, you must remove this irritation." "No! No! Where is my irritation?" says my father. "What is this?" Babuji asked him. Everybody laughed. That comes to the stage where you are what you are without your even knowing what you are.

A thought creates activity, activity creates the grossness, that grossness enforces the tendency, and the activity is repeated, because it is linked with that thing. It is not possible to clean the tendency entirely. Tendency becomes a behaviouristic thing, a pattern. Now, it is no longer dependent on your grossness. That is why it is easier to train children than grown-ups. And you can lose tendency if you cooperate even without losing the grossness. It is possible. But the grossness will still impede your progress. But that is the Master's business, you see. "At least we can cooperate to the extent that we do not re-create," that is what Babuji said, "I keep removing and you keep creating."

It is like the river bed that it creates, you see. And when water falls again, it flows through that channel. So it becomes the tendency. So Babuji said, "We must remove the river bed." People dry up the river, but they forget the bed is still there. And when again water comes it will only flow the same way. That is why we repeat our behaviour in the same way, because that bed through which it flows has not been leveled out. It is like a footpath. People walking on the same way, because it is the easiest way. Your foot finds itself naturally there, and you trace a footpath. The grass does not grow any more there. If you can cooperate, you see, suppose rain water does not fall, the river bed will not effect you. Now what is that rain which is falling? You are being exposed to the outer world. If you are in constant remembrance, there is no problem. The moment you are in constant remembrance, the tendency is gone.

MODERATION IS A PREREQUISITE TO BE SPIRITUAL
One of the essentials in the making of a man engaged in spiritual pursuit is moderation. It is a very wide term and covers every phase of human activity. It means balance in all senses and faculties, nothing more or less than what is naturally required at the time for any specific purpose without its slightest impression on the mind. Generally, today, we find moderation disturbed in almost all cases. The reason mainly is that we attach undue importance to whatever thing comes to our view and we strengthen it by the force of our thought with the result that it grows stronger over all others. We cultivate this habit and apply it to different things with varying intensity. The result that follows is nothing but disturbance and mental conflict and it is the root cause of all our troubles and miseries.

Realization is not possible unless moderation and balance are restored. It corresponds closely with the very real thing which existed at the time of creation, when everything was in a perfectly balanced state. Now after the lapse of time, degeneration crept in. Our senses and faculties lost the balance and everything went into disorder. What we have to do now is to control our senses and faculties in order to restore moderation in them. To cultivate moderation we have to pay special attention to external ways of life too, e.g., gentle and polite language, courteous dealing, sympathy and love with fellow beings, reverence to elders, unrevengeful nature and so on. These habits are greatly helpful in our making. Moderation is a characteristic of nature. If we gain complete moderation we are in a way in conformity with nature and it is the very essence of spirituality.

WE HAVE TO BECOME LIVING EXAMPLES
Our organisation is judged by our behaviour and by our actions. By our misbehaviour we are damaging the reputation of our organisation. It is very painful that even in the smallest of our behaviour pattern, inter personal relationship, we have not been able to change ourselves, regulate our behaviour, conduct ourselves as we should.
It would be a great pity if freedom is to be interpreted as some sort of licence. Because, as you know, in Sahaj Marg, we don't enforce discipline or rules of conduct, because the Master believes that these things should come from inside ourselves, by our love, growing love for Him, attraction towards His spiritual values and the inner need to live as we should.

Master expects us to develop a certain sense of responsibility to the organisation, to ourselves, to the Master. A child of three can take a ten rupee note and put it in the fire playfully, not knowing the difference between the ordinary paper and the currency note. But if a boy of 20 puts a ten rupee note into the chula, what will you do with him? So Master expected of us that we would grow out of that childish innocence and become responsible adults to whom the Mission could be entrusted, to whom their personal spiritual growth could be entrusted, to whom the transformation of the external self could be entrusted, because Babuji said, "The inner change I can bring about. The outer is your responsibility." He never undertook the responsibility for the outer change. He said, "Behaviour you have to correct; morals and ethics you have to develop. This is your work upon yourself; you know what to do. There is nothing difficult about it."

If you want your Master's name held up high in the world, Sahaj Marg be thought of well all over the world, and practiced by the rest of humanity everywhere, you have to be examples of that tradition, by your behaviour not only in satsangh, but everywhere, at night in your beds also, in your offices, in your business activities. There is no point in a businessman saying, "Sir, business cannot be done except with the corrupt practices." Then don't do business. If you have faith in the Master, He will continue to clothe you and feed you. After all we are saying from rooftops, that Babuji had Lalaji's permission or Lord Krishna's guarantee that a real abhyasi of Sahaj Marg will never go hungry or unclothed. You have that guarantee from the Yuga Purusha, you see.

There is no use in proclaiming ourselves to be Indians and living for ourselves. I am an Indian only if I live for India! I am a world citizen only if I live for the world! I am a human being only if I am human in my outlook, human in my approach, human in my behaviour and human in my generosity, in my love, in my capacity to die for others! If I am only acquiring wealth, name and fame for myself, amassing it in my bank vaults, well, forgive me when I say we are no humans, leave alone Indians or citizens of the world.

So there is no use trying to justify our corruption by society's corruption. The society is corrupt because we are corrupt. So this is the opportunity that is given to us of correcting ourselves, and each one showing himself, for what Sahaj Marg can produce. That is Master's greatness. And if we continue to live as we are living, corrupt lives, inhuman lives, lying lives, cheating lives - cheating ourselves and cheating everybody else, it is a shameful repayment of Master's generosity and love. And it will be an unfortunate betrayal of His teachings, of His practice, and of all that He lived for, suffered for and died for.

So it casts upon us a fantastic responsibility - I may even say a terrible responsibility - that every one of us has to become a torchbearer of the Master, and he who does not hold the torch aloft fails not only the Master, but also fails himself. I would request you to bear all this in mind when you speak, when you go out into the streets, that it is not the badge which makes us Sahaj Marg abhyasis, it is our condition, it is our character, it is our behaviour. This totality of human existence must be reflected in the Sahaj Marg abhyasi.

So I would request you all to remember that we, a few thousands of abhyasis of today should consider ourselves - each one of us - the flag bearers, the standard bearers of Sahaj Marg and remember we have an enormous responsibility and if we have to die for it, we must be prepared to die for it. Otherwise it is better we remove our badges and go back to our old existence. How many of you can rise to this challenge, I don't know. But I pray that all of you would be able to do it.

SOME PEARLS TO PICK:

• One should not consider others as inferior to oneself.
• Consider nobody as older or younger than you. However, worldly etiquette should be maintained.
• There should be no rise and fall and pitch in conversation.
• There should be attraction, humility and submissiveness in conversing with others.
• Our talk should drip with love. Faultfinding is a defect which also causes misery to oneself.
• Words which hurt others should not be uttered. Nor should such things be done which are not liked by others.
• Behaviour should be mutual brotherhood, sympathy, helping one another in difficulty.
• Behaviour towards the brethren of the satsangh should be pleasing and conducive to their progress. Direct opposition is very bad.

"We must tune our lives in such a way that everything that comes in contact with us is improved. Everything we touch must get divinised."