Gurudev Ojaswi Sharma Ji: Recent Episodes
Seeker_Who Am I
This Podcast is a tribute to our most respected Gurudev Shri Ojaswi Sharma ji and his teaching. All material on this podcast has been adapted by seekers from original recordings of Satsangs and letters of Gurudev Shri Ojaswi Sharma. Gurudev himself has never been interested in publishing any of his talks or in publicity of any kind. However, his seekers feel the need to preserve his wisdom for themselves and others. Many questions that arise concerning the spiritual path are common to all seekers. For this reason Gurudev's talks on these topics may be an inspiration to many people.
This chanting that we have been doing is a great science of sound for inner purification; for the purification of the mind. All these things that you are doing here are hundred percent scientific. This spirituality is a great science, which developed in India thousands of years ago. These traditions exist even now, although quite a large number of people have forgotten the reasons. What is the chaos in the mind? The chaos is of thoughts, contradictory emotions and desires. These words, which we chant, are mantras. They are more powerful than the thoughts already running through the brain and they will, some day, push out all that rubbish of worldly thoughts and bring up permanent peace and happiness. They are charged words, pregnant with spiritual energy and Divinity. This science of sound is a great science. In the same way, the sound ‘Om’ is the primordial universal sound. The modern scientists also say that there was ‘Big bang’ (sound) in the beginning. It was from the sound that creation developed and the first sound was Om. It came to my mind to explain why we chant the mantras because in the West this tradition is not there and people want to know the reasons why they should do it. So, just to tell you – this chanting has very great logic and scientific reasoning to it. These mantras are devices (for spiritual development), discovered and developed by great seers in the past.
Q: How can one know what the relationship of the individual soul is with Infinity? A: At this time my answer is that you should get rid of ego and then you will know it. Let ego come to an end and you will fully know how the individual soul is related to the Universal. When you know it you will not come to ask me! There will be no need to ask! Many aspects of spirituality are actually intended for the elimination of ego. I sometimes explain the purpose of certain rituals and observances in spirituality, because people do not always understand this. When you go to a guide, he is not desirous of that you should visit him. The guide or master does not keep a notebook detailing the times somebody visits him. You go for your own self. You wish to get rid of your ego. Visiting the guru is one of the very important and effective methods for diluting and eliminating of ego. There is a tradition here that some of you know, what is known as obeisance (full prostration) - ‘like a staff’ - lying on the ground with all the limbs spread out straight - trying to surrender. But the essential factor is the inner intention or motive - the feeling. That is the real thing because there are people who go and hope to be noticed by the master - “Has he seen me or not? Has he not seen me lying on the ground?” Sometimes rather awkward situations can be created by certain people. When I was teaching in the University of Jammu-Kashmir, there was a seeker whose habit was to lie flat on the ground as soon as he saw me, at any place, without caring about his clothes. I told him that he should be aware of the circumstances around him. In India it was not so unusual but it was awkward. In Europe it would cause a great problem on the street. I told him:“It is all right. I understand your emotions, but don’t lie on the ground. Things should be done according to the situation.” The reply he gave showed he was a very deep person and a seeker of a very high order. He said: “Sir, I do not care what conception other people have of me. They may consider me mad or foolish, but I do not care since I am doing the best I can for my own salvation and Enlightenment”. I said: “That’s correct, but you should have more consideration for the people around you. There are other people to be taken into account. If you do it in traffic, it will cause a trafficjamand the police may arrest me. What are you doing on the street, with people and cars passing by and you are lying flat on the ground?” He understood. After all we live in an organised society. Many other factors are involved. For example, some people try to touch the feet of the saints because energy flows from the tips of fingers and toes. No saint wishes his body to be touched but some people do it. These are all ways for getting rid of ego. But, finally, it is by His grace that one becomes free of ego. The more the ego, the less the love, and when there is egolessis to be deified. What is the basic essential ego? I have given some examples of various facets of ego - body, language, learning, wealth, nationality and suchlike, but what is the basic, real ego? Real ego is our illusion of identifying our consciousness with body. In reality we are the Spirit. We are the pure consciousness - part of the Divine - but we have started considering ourselves to be the body, the senses, the mind, the intellect, etc. The basic ego is our illusion of identifying the consciousness (the living – animate - element) with the inanimate. According to the eight-fold system of Maharishi Patanjali, when that event of Illumination or Enlightenment occurs, then that illusion comes to an end. May God be kind to us and help us to get rid of this disease.
Nobody can escape the inexorability of the Law of Karma. Man learns in no way but the hard way of suffering and repentance. Yet, He does not stop from being loving and compassionate towards erring human beings. Such is the pattern of evolution here.It is after gathering experiences of many life-cycles that human mind becomes mature enough to see its own follies. By God’s grace and self exertion those follies are eradicated.Self-justification and self-rationalisation are capable to deceive most intelligent human beings. Those who have the courage to face and admit truth become eligible for spiritual journey.
Faith
Some say that God exists and others that He does not exist. This is a type of
theological discussion that has developed primarily in the West. Much confusion
arises from the fact that people in the West have a concept of God as a person. There
is no confusion when you take God to mean all existence. Existence of what? Not of
what but existence itself - yes, existence itself is God. It follows that you should start
not with enquiry about God but with enquiry about your own Self.
God is the perfection and the aim - always and everywhere - yet not seen. What a
great miracle!
You should remember God and do your duty. Remembering God means
remembering the right path of life.
Should we go on remembering God all the time? If we do that, what time will be
left for us to work? This remembrance, when it deepens and settles down, becomes
a part of the nature of your character. Then you will not need to remember in the
manner in which you remembered in the beginning.
Through His kindness God gives us the opportunity to remember Him and to
realise and feel His grace that always comes to us. His grace can never be absent from
us.
He is so full of kindness, compassion and love that we cannot even imagine how
compassionate and full of love He is, always taking care of us.
As existence, God is there in everybody equally. But the degree of realisation is
according to your thirst.
You should remember that nothing in the whole world is attained simply by
remembering, except God. It is a very interesting fact. You remember food, but you
will not get food. You remember clothes, but you will not get clothes. You remember
money, but you will not get money. You will get none of these things simply by
remembering them. But, if you remember God, God is there, at once.
The work that we are doing here is of a different nature. This is a place for the transformation of the inner quality of your being. The aim is that, in this life, you should become completely free from anger, anxiety, lust, greed, jealousy and all such negative emotions. You should develop pure and infinite love, and come into complete harmony with God and with the world around. In other words, your aim should be to lead a completely successful human life. Truth is what always ‘Is’, and our essential existence is a part of that Truth. It is just that there is an illusion of separateness, but this illusion disappears after Self-realisation. Actually, nothing is gained in Self-realisation, except that this illusion goes away. You do not gain anything. It is only that you realise what you already are, and nothing except that. For example, suppose that you are at home in your own house, but you have the illusion that it is not your home. Your house is there, you are there but you are crying: “Where is my home?” Then somebody comes and tells you that this house is actually your home, and, through this knowledge, your misconception goes away: “Oh, I was always in my home!” It is something like this. Saints have tried to convey this type of illusion in many ways, even though it is difficult or almost impossible to describe. Anyway, these are some indications. Another example that saints have given is that of a mother sleeping with her child in her lap. The child was there with the mother for the whole night, but the mother had a dream that she had lost the child. However, even while she was dreaming about losing the child, the child was there in her lap. The mother became very anxious in her dream and cried out: “Oh, I have lost my child! Where is my child?” Just then somebody came and woke her up and said: “Look you were dreaming. The child is here in your lap.” She realised that the child was always with her – the child was there even while she was dreaming that she had lost it. Another example that saints gave was of a lady who thought she had lost her necklace while she was working at home. She used to wear the necklace everyday, it was very precious and she had spent a lot of money on it. Suddenly she cried out: “Where is my necklace?” She tried to find it in every corner of the house. She even went outside to the neighbourhood where she might have gone for shopping, to enquire about the necklace. She was thinking that she might have dropped it on the way. She returned exhausted and collapsed on the bed. Then her husband saw her and said: “Oh, what is this that you have around your neck?”She looked in the mirror and realised that she was wearing the necklace. She had not noticed it before. She was looking for it everywhere outside and yet it was on her neck all the time but she had forgotten about it. It is something like this with finding the Self or finding God. The Guru does nothing else but takes such forgetfulness away. The experience of the Self is the objective of all this practice – meditation, observation, study and self-improvement - all these spiritual practices and all these paths. When one realises the Self, then all the secrets of the universe get revealed and become known.
Most of you are acquainted with the teaching that all that exists in nature is divided into three qualities - tamas, rajas, and sattva. The rajasic quality is in the centre with tamasic one side and sattvic on the other side. Rajas means ‘desire’ and tamas means laziness or stupor, absence of activity and lethargy. Sattva means wisdom, knowledge, brightness and light. Human beings are predominantly rajasic - something in the middle - and animals are predominantly tamasic. It is left to human beings - if they want to become tamasic, they can be. No one will stop them. If they want to be sattvic, they can be. This freedom is given to them. It is from the plank of the sattvic path that a jump into spiritual experience happens. Those who want to realise the aim of human life - Enlightenment - have to evolve towards a sattvic principle of life. There is no other way out for them. Here is an important point about the rajas. By indulging oneself in the rajasic path, after some time one becomes tamasic. For example, the male/female relationship starts from the rajasic nature - the desire for physical love and for a sexual relationship. At the culmination of the male/female union, before the discharge of semen and if and when there is orgasm, both partners become blind and forgetful to everything! It is in that forgetfulness that they feel some sort of relief and comfort, and a feeling of well-being. But it is all temporary. This is not happiness but delusion. It is just like the ostrich in South Africa. When an ostrich senses danger, it puts its head in the sand and thinks that there is no danger! The ostrich forgets that danger is coming and that the lion can attack it even when its head is in the sand. In fact, one will be a prey more easily. Forgetfulness and temporary relief in sexual pleasure will not save one from frustration and misery. But if we try to control our desire, to channel it and purify it in various ways, through self-discipline, from that time onwards the sattvic side starts in our life. All this is not only mental philosophy but here spirituality is a fact of life. All these three principles exist in our body, and anybody can recognise it. On some days without reason we feel lethargic and indolent, with no desire to work, and would prefer to stay in bed. This is a symptom of being tamasic on that day. On another day a person may be completely alert and want to be very active. Here there is a prevalence of the rajasic element. On yet another day one may be light and full of wisdom, giving sermons and teaching people. This is an indication of being sattvic. It happens in everyone’s life. We go on changing. But after the transcendence of all three qualities, there is Truth and there is the Self. Beyond the three gunas is our true and pure Existence. Then there comes into life what is known as ‘equanimity’ - serenity. One is not plagued by feelings of gloom and pleasure or liking and disliking. One remains the same always - a realised man. The whole of this science is given in the Bhagavad Gita. Chapter V, verse 21 The translation goes like this:‘He whose mind remains unattached to sense objects derives through meditation the sattvic joy which dwells in the mind. Then that yogi having completely identified himself with Brahma enjoys eternal bliss.’ The Lord says: “He whose mind remains unattached to sense objects…” What does it mean? The mind is attracted by sense objects. The mind runs towards the opposite sex. Even when one is in one’s room and one’s friend is somewhere else, one’s mind runs: “Oh, how nice it would be for me to be with him or her! Oh, the embrace would be so fine!” The Lord says that you should forget about the embrace. You have to become detached from sense objects. Then the Lord says: “…derives through meditation the sattvic joy…”, as soon as you detach yourself from your desires, from rajas, sattvic joy starts
This whole spiritual journey is a matter of inner purification. It is not a question of changing your outward life. It is a question of the inner quality of your existence. For this inner change there are several methods, techniques, or paths. We have inside us animal instincts of lust, anger, pride, greed and jealousy. However, we also have a potential to get rid of the lower self (animal instincts) and become Divine. There is a spiritual path by which the inner purification happens and when these elements of the animal world - in other words the lower self - get purified, then the higher Self, hidden in us but overpowered by the lower self, comes to the surface – it is a simple thing. By 'purification' I mean that, in place of lust, love will emerge; in place of greed, the element of charity and humanity will develop; and in place of asking service from others, the desire to give service to others will develop. Then the real Divine will start His manifestation in you. What ultimately is purification? Purification ultimately means detachment. The real impurity is to own something, considering it as your own, and to have a relationship with it. This process of purification or detachment is happening in life all the time. How? Things are going away from us. For example – everybody wants to remain young, but youth is going away. In the same way, sometimes money comes sometimes it disappears. Sometimes you are healthy sometimes you are ill. One may try one’s best but even then there is no guarantee that one will remain healthy. We can have a close friendship with somebody and that friendship may come to an end any day. We all see our dearest ones departing – our parents or our old relatives. The process of death purifies. Death purifies - it is a great purifier. But there is one difference. All this happens under compulsion. Those who accept it voluntarily through wisdom get liberated.
They alone are wise who leave no stone unturned in their efforts for having Self-realisation before decay and death of the mortal body. And nobody knows when that moment of departure from this earth can come. The wise, therefore, are always vigilant and steadfast in their efforts.
To realise Divinity of human existence and experiencing God in life is the birth right of human beings.
This discordance between the inner life and outer circumstances, the great puzzle for all sensitive persons all over the world, never ends till one realises one’s true self. Self-Realisation / God -experience, therefore, does and must become not the first among several aims of life but the only aim of life.
In fact, Self-realisation remains unachievable for those who have a long list of priorities in life. The ‘lane of love’ is too narrow to accommodate more than one in it. Those who love the Ultimate can’t afford flirtation with many.
It is all temporary and phenomenal here except the ‘ATMA’ or ‘SELF’, realisation of the ‘SELF’ is the only achievement.
This human life has only one purpose - God-Realisation. They alone are fortunate who aspire for this. Human beings can only aspire for this because His experience or realisation by the human beings depends upon His mercy only.
When Self-realisation happens in human life, then the conflict of attachment and repulsion ends for that person. After that there remains nothing in life except celebration, bliss, love and service.
To serve humanity is to serve God. The creation is not different from the Creator. The two are only different faces of the same eternal Truth.
This chanting that we have been doing is a great science of sound for inner purification; for the purification of the mind. All these things that you are doing here are hundred percent scientific. This spirituality is a great science, which developed in India thousands of years ago. These traditions exist even now, although quite a large number of people have forgotten the reasons. What is the chaos in the mind? The chaos is of thoughts, contradictory emotions and desires. These words, which we chant, are mantras. They are more powerful than the thoughts already running through the brain and they will, some day, push out all that rubbish of worldly thoughts and bring up permanent peace and happiness. They are charged words, pregnant with spiritual energy and Divinity. This science of sound is a great science. In the same way, the sound ‘Om’ is the primordial universal sound. The modern scientists also say that there was ‘Big bang’ (sound) in the beginning. It was from the sound that creation developed and the first sound was Om. It came to my mind to explain why we chant the mantras because in the West this tradition is not there and people want to know the reasons why they should do it. So, just to tell you – this chanting has very great logic and scientific reasoning to it. These mantras are devices (for spiritual development), discovered and developed by great seers in the past.
Real spiritual evolution is not a joke. It needs the whole-hearted commitment and totality of efforts that it deserves. It doesn’t happen just by being interested in it.
Faith is the greatest factor in human life and everything is possible through faith.
There is always a hidden purpose in all these events of life. The purpose is known to God only. We human beings, conditioned by our worldly desires and limited vision, forget rather too soon that our Father knows what is best for us. It is only a question of our faith in unfaltering wisdom of our Lover, Father and Guide.
If our faith is shaky we have nothing but gloom, frustration and desperation in life. When the faith becomes unshakable we start having peace and happiness irrespective of our circumstances and outer events of life.
A seeker of Truth has to pass through several stages. The problem of finding adjustment of environment, and people around, is always there.
Service, meditation, prayer and love enable the seeker to realise the desired aim.
Fortunate are they who understand and follow the indications given by nature. Fools die in pursuing the pleasures of the senses.
Go on doing the practice of learning how to live in the present. In every matter there is God’s planning. Many aspects of God’s planning are understood at the late stage.
Everything in this cosmos happens by God’s will alone. Self-knowledge gets revealed automatically, one day, to those who continue the practice of performing their present duty whole heartedly.
There is Truth of our own existence that is always with us. The Truth of our own existence is God because Existence is one and God is Existence - God is Consciousness - God is Bliss.
We all have to begin the journey of self enquiry and Self-realisation from the level at which we are at the time. It is quite natural that any journey
has to begin from the place where you are currently standing - I mean the stage of development that you have reached at this moment. In the physical
world, the first step you take towards any destination is from the spot where you are standing. After that you continue walking one step after another
towards your goal. Similarly, when one's aim is self-enquiry and Selfrealisation, the journey has also to start from the stage one has reached in one's
life.
It is essential to be aware of our destination and to be clear about our aim and where we want to go.