THE PATH OF PEACE – FROM DESIRE TO CONTENTMENT

SEP 19. 2021

Pranams.Dear Sisters and Brothers, 21st September – International Day of Peace. Peace lovers, they come together in a field we don’t realize, the moment we close our eyes, whether you are a believer of God or not, but the moment our heart yearns for some quiet, some peace, we are contributing towards this peace. Even few minutes of closing our eyes and being at peace contributes towards this egregore of peace. Fundamentally, if we look and observe, peace is our nature. We don’t have to look for it. That is our fundamental nature. The moment we interfere with that, we lose peace. It is like calm surface of a pond, it is so peaceful. Even a small, little insect drops or one leaf drops in the pond, it creates ripples. And greater the disturbance, muddier the water. What is it that creates a lot of disturbance, disturbing our inner peace? Nothing is falling from outside; no stones are falling in our chit (consciousness) lake that can disturb it. Sage Ashtavakra, many centuries ago, many millennia back declared, “All these kama, desires, vaasanas they work like visham – poisons”. It is this inner pull demanding the fulfilment of our kamas , desires, that disturbs our inner lake, inner chit lake. Similarly in Gita, Bhagavat Gita, Lord Krishna, you know, He talks in chapter 2 towards the end from especially 58, 59, 60, 61 up to 65, He keeps on reminding Arjuna the fundamental problem with our consciousness – it begins with kama . It is as if Ashtavakra comes alive during those moments. He shares the fundamental requirement of arriving at contentment. Contentment and stithpragya state – they are like twins. One cannot exist without the other, they have to go together and they can exist only in the absence of all these kamas . Babuji Maharaj, in the Prayer has already declared, ‘What is my goal? The highest – the Divinity. What is coming in the way? My desires. What is the solution? Thou art the only God and power to bring us up to that stage’ – That we are mutually interested in each other’s growth. He doesn’t say, ‘I need to come up to that level’, no! It is all about ‘we’. There is no personal fulfilment, the moment this personal fulfilment of individual liberation kicks in, we lose out in the process; though we individually have to nourish ourselves physically, mentally and spiritually. Somebody else getting nourishment at any of this level doesn’t make me happy, I have to contribute towards my own evolution first. And that is why Babuji Maharaj when he wrote a letter to the United Nations, he said all these exercises of world peace cannot happen unless and until one achieves individual peace. It is already there, our philosophy makes us understand that: peace is our fundamental nature, don’t interfere. Our practice – meditation helps us arrive at a meditative state and constantly keeps fuelling peace within as well as with whosoever we interact with, wherever we go, be it a shopkeeper or interaction with a politician, we are in some way contributing peace because of who we are. The intensity of our inner peace will be exposed the moment we drop all these ideas of pride, ego, desires etc. During monsoon days we hardly see the Sun, we will look forward to the sky and wonder “kab yeh baadal hatenge aur suraj aayega!” (When will these clouds clear and the sun will be out!) Like that, samskaras (impressions) are the clouds around our soul. The glory of the soul we cannot intensify, there is no need to; just remove these clouds of samskaras . Fundamental thing it is samskaras. And Babuji says, “Samskaras were created in the past. The moment you surrender and give these samskaras as a homage to the Master, he will handle them.” You forget the past and see what changes can happen. You will be unburdened so much that you will be surprised with your own nature which is full of peace. Yesterday was our dear and very loved soul that walked amongst us, Hélène Peyret, my dear Mother’s birth anniversary. Though she was at the pitch of the highest human evolution, she was asked two things, ‘meditate more and more, make it automatic, establish automatism in your practice as well as establish a biological clock around your spiritual practices and more important than all these, having done your meditation, interiorize yourself’. Just as stithpragya and contentment, they go together, automatism as well as interiorization they go together. Thank You.