The best way to…

The best way according to Gururaj Ananda

The best way to loose weight

Now this girl had a problem, she was overweight, that was her problem.  And she kept on talking about her weight problem.  So she meets a friend who tells her that «Stop talking about your problem.  The best way to lose weight is to keep your mouth shut.»

The best way to get someone on the path

You talk to him of your experiences and…you know, that’s the best way to get someone on the path. And if he doesn’t want it after, he can chuck it.  As I said before, I think this evening, that I do not shine the light upon you, I shine the light upon the path so that you do not stumble, you do not fall.

The best way to find how to reach the goal of life and the purpose of life

The best way to find how to reach the goal of life and the purpose of life is to start, is to analyze one’s own temperament. And if a person is incapable of knowing what path to choose, then you go to a person that could tell you which path to choose.  If your tap is broken at home, you go to a plumber.  If your roof is leaking, you go to a roof repairer.  If you are sick in body, you go to a doctor.  If you are sick in mind, you go to a psychiatrist.  But when your yearning starts for the spiritual life and really wanting to know‑‑not only to know with the mind but to experience, to live the spiritual purpose‑‑and if any confusion occurs there, you go to the spiritual teacher.  Hmm? And he guides you.  He studies your spiritual temperament, and he tells you: «you start from this path»

The best way to do healing on a friend

Doing healing is fine and I don’t want all of us to become a bunch of healers.  Okay.  Now if you have the power within yourself, I mean to be able to project those healing energies then only do that.  Right, the other day I wanted to do that and I asked everyone to join me in it even if they are doing it right or wrong was no so important, but what I wanted was just the participation.  Good.  And when one gets well established in one’s practice, when one’s visualisation improves through the Tratak practice then you visualise that friend of yours that’s not well and then you direct your mental energies in one-pointedness – you see this helps in all these things – to that person and certain energies are activated and which are helpful.  Okay.  So that is the best way really.  The most important thing is to get well established and well grounded in our own practices.  That’s the most important thing.  And then once we have achieved that we could do so many, many wonderful things, things full of wonder. You do not affect a particular person’s karma or if you are concentrating on a particular person, then the positive thought waves that you are sending out is not going to alter the person’s karma but it will help that person to think more positively, so you would be aiding the person to change his or her own karma.  He or she still has to walk on her own feet.  Yes.  That always happens.

The best way to start meditating

The best way to start meditating is in a nice, cool, calm and collected manner.

The best way to be honourable

So there are many kinds of promises.  The promise of love should be spontaneous, a welling up that would form a bond between two people, which bond can be unbreakable, unbreakable.  Good.  Business, worldly, mundane relationships are necessary, are necessary or otherwise this world would not function.  Those promises in the business world or one’s workday life, is the preservation of honour, to be honourable.  And to be honourable, the easiest and the best way to be honourable is to keep our word.

The best way to fry chops?

And next time by the way when you paint your window, take masking tape (General laughter) or sellotape put it on the glass and then you paint, so you don’t get the paint on the glass.  Do that.  Yeah.  Someone came to me and I’ve been a born Vegetarian, someone came to me and says – he’s a meat eater he says, «What’s the best way to fry chops?» (General laughter)  Asking a guru how to fry chops.  So then I played the fool with him so I say «Now tell me what kind of chops?» (General laughter)  «Leg chops, loin chops, lion chops.»  So I tell this person – so he was talking about – the one with the little bone, what do you call that, is that leg.  I said «What you do is this.  You take a stamper and tenderise it.  Fine. Then you take a mortar – what do you call that thing you stamp in – pestle and mortar, right – you take ginger, right and stamp up the ginger.  Now that juice and that, the, the, the pulp of the ginger, you rub it on both sides of the chop.  Allow it to soak a bit and then you use crumbs – you get them ready made in packets nowadays, you don’t need bread crumbs.  So you dip that chop in egg.  So then you dip it in the breadcrumbs, right and then you put it in hot oil and you fry it.  That’s how you cook your chops and it will have a different taste, I’m sure.  But one advice I do give you, don’t eat too much of it.  A little bit okay, until the day comes when you don’t need it anymore.»

 The best way to release ourselves from conflicts

Now, the human mechanism is so beautifully constructed that there are so many ways of releasing ourselves from these conflicts, and one of the ways is through dreams.  People talk to me about dreams.  They are so important for your mental sanity, for all that happens in a dream, if they had to happen in your physical existence or the waking state of life, you could never be able to live.  So a lot of the conflicts are thrown off through dreams, which is an easy way.  Many times people tell me of terrible nightmares, and I tell them, «Have more.  Have more nightmares.» It’s a release valve.  Experiments have been made in labs and hospitals where the dream state is examined, the REM ‑‑ rapid eye movement ‑‑ et cetera, is examined, and at that time they are disturbed from it.  And if this goes on over a period of time ‑‑ ten days, a few weeks, sometimes even less ‑‑ the man can be driven crackers.  Nuts.  Yeah.  So that is one of the releases in resolving these conflicts.  Fine.  And of course, the best way is the way that we teach and follow.

The best way to understand the journey of the soul

So, that is the journey of the soul.  Once it becomes individualised by the forces of nature, by the forces of the in-equilibrium created in the Gunas, all this has come about and it will go on and on and on.  One cycle ends another cycle begins.  That cycle ends and then another cycle begins, and that is what eternity is all about.  That is why I always say, it is not only the spirit which is immortal, but all matter too being indestructible is also eternal, changing shape and form, all the time.  And we that go through sufferings and turmoils, we are just watching or experiencing perhaps the change in the shapes and forms.  Now that is what we want to get away from, through our spiritual practices, to be established within the self, of the spirit and still watching the names and the forms changing all the time, and not be affected, because we have risen above it.  Then we have become the proper observer.  Then we can say, the small self can say, ‘I am not the doer, the doer is the spirit.  It is that energy, it is that force, it is that Divinity, that manipulates all this, all this, all this, and I’m just an instrument, this little piece of dust, this little atom that has expanded and developed and evolved.   And in reality of that dimension of the absolute, nothing re-incarnates, nothing develops.  In its primal level of pure spirit, nothing happens, it just is.  It goes nowhere, comes from nowhere, it is just there.  But in the relative level, there is this coming and going, and we have to somewhat understand these comings and goings.  We have to understand somewhat the turmoils and the turbulences that are created.  And the best way to understand is not applying the mind to it, applying a bit of understanding, yes, why not?  Yes, but that is not the solution.  The solution is to by-pass it and stand apart.

The best way to treat the mind

By finding causes you can even do a person a lot of harm.  A person is terribly mentally disturbed, because he had done something wrong.  Now, bringing to the fore of what he has done wrong, he might mull over it all the time.  He might mull over it and increase the disturbance instead of decreasing it.  You might make him feel guilty, while the whole idea is to get rid of the guilt.  So it could have, you know, under the hands of a person who is not totally qualified… and then, of course, psychology is a totally new field, they have not even dipped their toes in this vast ocean of the mind.  They have not.  They have only reached certain areas of the mind, and at the neglect of the other areas. So the mind, too, has to be treated holistically.  And the best way to treat it is by drawing from within those spiritual cleansing forces.  If this shirt is dirty and there are some marks on it, it is not going to help me to analyze how these marks or this dirt came about, [LAUGHTER] how these stains came about on my shirt.  It’s not going to help me.  You know, I’ll give it to one of the ladies and then say, «Look, you know, wash this shirt for me.» And that lady is not even going to analyze the reasons for those marks either.  She’ll throw it in the washing machine, and the dirt is gone.  That is our method.

The best way to teach a child

The child does not need any intellectual analysis.  I wish I could become a child again.  I am one really.  Yes.  Yes.  Of course I am.  Yeah.  Because we just feel, me and the little children around me, of which I am one, we just feel the goodness, we just feel the love in that innocence.  That is what the child has, innocence.  It does not require any intellectual explanation of the workings of the mind and the ego and how it transcends itself and refines, (General laughter) how it transcends itself and refines itself.  No.  No.  No.  No.  No.  No.  What is the best way to teach a child is by example.  If I love my child, the child will know immediately, in the purity of its innocence.  It feels it.  It experiences it.  And what greater knowledge could there be except by experience?  There has to be experience and experience is true knowledge.  The rest is mental gymnastics.

The best way to work with the subconscious mind

The best way to work with the subconscious mind while you are asleep is to go to bed with a good thought, a good loving thought, a good Godly thought and while you are sleeping, let that thought permeate the subconscious in your sleep because the subconscious does not sleep.

The best way to do your job

I do my job the best way I can, and you do your job the best way you can.  So where is the difference?  The key lies in the best way you can, not what you do, and always trying to benefit.

The best way to serve Divinity

I have found that the best way I could serve Divinity is to find Divinity in man and serve man.

The best way to deal  with samskaras

Now, whenever there is a conflict you could never control it, because by controlling that conflict, you are taking two opposing forces and by using these two opposing forces against each other, you are creating greater conflict.  So, it would snowball.  Now what can we do with the ego, seeing that we cannot control the ego and the ego is forever producing conflicts and those conflicts have a habit of multiplying because the conflicts are not resolved?  The best way and the only way to deal with the samskaras or impressions of which the ego is made, is to refine the ego, to bring the ego from its opaqueness through to a transparency, so that when it is transparent, the very spiritual force that is within you could shine through, bringing you joy.  Now, conflicts, the nature of conflicts, is Tamas, which is inertia or darkness.  There’s a heaviness about it.  So when one clarifies the ego and thereby allowing that spiritual light within you to shine through, you automatically and spontaneously banish the conflicts.  And that it is how you can cleanse the ego.

The best way to make that depression disappears

So we are in a state of depression.  Fine.  Now, if an understanding is applied to that depression, that depression lifts away amazingly.  Amazingly.  And the best way to make that depression disappears is by invoking a higher force or he that represents this higher force, on this planet earth today.  So simple; just a direction of one’s attention.  And you infuse this power within you where this depression just lifts off.  You’ve heard how rain can be made where things are shot up into the sky and clouds gather, and they come down as rain, cool showers of blessings.  That can be done.  It is so easy.

The best way to recognize your horse

Now we have some of our Irish people here, I’ve got one for them as well.  Bavna, where are you?  Oh there you are.  O’Brien and Flynn, they decided to take up racing so they went to buy two racehorses.  So now took the horses to the stables and the two said, ‘Look how are we going to know which horse is yours and which horse is mine’.  So the one says, O’Brien says, ‘Look I will cut off the mane of the horse then I will know that horse is mine”.  So that night, some wag overheard the story.  So at night this wag went and cut off the mane off the other horse.  So now when they got back the next morning here O’Brien and Flynn, you know which horse is yours and which horse is mine.  So this time Flynn says look I’ll cut off the tail of my horse so then we’ll know that the one with the tail is.  So this wag also overhears this and goes at night and cuts off the tail of the other horse.  So the next morning after that, there was total confusion.  So the one says to the other, ‘There must be some way to settle this and I think the best way is this that the brown one is yours and the white one is mine’.

The best way to approach meditation

So the best way to approach meditation would be in a calm state.  Therefore we have the Purification Practice.  This Practice – now you’d ask why we use water.  Water is the basic element, one of the most important basic elements of the world, of the earth rather.  And as a matter of fact your body is composed of seventy percent water.  And if you look at the world, the world is three quarter water and just one quarter land.  Water has a very calming and cooling effect.  For example if you’re very harassed and tired and feeling all out of sorts, take a bath and you’ll feel so much better.  Fine.  And not only that, the Purification Practice is aimed to purify ourselves.  It’s like the old story of the three monkeys, see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.  You must have seen those little statues.  It teaches a very, very great lesson.
You do not need to know the names of the trees, as long as you know that it is a tree.  And that is sufficient, because all trees would have branches and leaves.  All trees do provide shade, depending in what position the sun is.  And when you are feeling very hot, traveling in the forest of life, you need the shade. And finding that very shade where you can relax is the best way to get out of the forest.  We are talking of the forest of life.  So find the shade; repose, and lay calmly.  But not with any wishful thinking.  Enjoy the shade and its coolness.  Let that cool breeze that blows permeate you to such an extent that even the tree is forgotten, the shade is forgotten, and you are only aware of the breeze that is within you.  And that breeze within you is the vital force within you: the prana, the vital force that is keeping you alive in the midst of this forest that you live in.  Now, when you become aware of the vital force within you and all else is lost, then as I said, the tree is gone, the shade is gone, the whole forest is gone, and it’s only the vital force that is there. And the mergence into the vital force of life, that life does not contain a forest.  [SINGING IN THE DISTANCE]  (You’d better get ready for His word comes to your town.)
fifteen minutes grace, and you start even if it’s with five people.  That would be the best way.

The best way is to observe yourself

Now what are you to wake up to?  Tell me.  You do not need to wake up to the truth.  You do not need to wake up to God.  Wake up to yourself!  And the best way is to observe yourself.  There’s a great difference in being an individual and being a human. There is a great difference between being an individual and being a human.  Individual is living ‑‑ the individual is living in a small corner of the vastness of humanity.  But by being human, you embrace the entirety of humanity.  Now, by becoming human, you will be close to the truth.  And, by becoming human ‑‑ and we call ourselves humans ‑‑ by really becoming that, you will start knowing yourself.  And that is the truth.  Not what teachers come and tell you, that this is the truth and that is the truth, and God sits up there on a cloud on a throne with a whole lot of bookkeepers writing down what each and everyone is doing.  They teach that in theology.  They do, yeah.  And then St. Peter at the gate there waiting and examining your records of which side you should go.  No.

The best way not to resist evil

So, in acceptance, you surrender first to yourself by accepting the blockages and the weaknesses.  When one does that and when one is honest with oneself, immediately the other force takes over and faces us.  It knocks us right on the head.  You see its there, seen, tangible and then we surrender to that force.  That is what is meant by ‘Thy will be done’.  Resist not evil they say, ah, it is said.  What evil do you want to resist?  If a man comes and takes your home away, he doesn’t say ‘Sit back and take away’.  No, no.  If a man comes and destroys that which is most close to you, you don’t say ‘Oh well that’s evil, I must not resist it’ and let things go on as they are.  No.  The evil to be resisted, that is not to be resisted is the negative forces that we have created within ourselves.  And the best way not to resist that evil is to accept it within ourselves, is to recognise it within ourselves and say, ‘This is it’.  And once, once you accept that, it’s like a ball game.  When they play baseball like these Americans do yes and the ball is thrown hard by the pitcher, the catcher on the other end does not try to catch the ball rigidly, it will hurt his hands.  Or when we play, we English people play cricket, (General laughter) yeah, we give the hand a bit of a leeway.  Anybody play cricket?  I’m sure a lot of you.  You give a little leeway to the hand, pull the hand a bit back so the impact, the speed of the ball, the force of the ball is not felt so much.  The ball comes to you, you just do that.  It becomes easy.  See.  You are not resisting the force.  You are accepting the force, not resisting it.  See how beautiful?

So even if our hearts feel pinched, even if it feels closed, we are forever hopeful, for hope is eternal in the human breast and chest.  (General laughter)  Yes.  Yes.  Yes, it is always there.  It is always there.  Only thing we make a hundred and eighty degree turn, instead of facing the darkness, we face the light, that’s all.   And the way of facing the light is not to resist evil – by accepting our faults and frailties and doing something about it.  And the best way to do it is to surrender to ourselves and that leads us automatically to surrender to a higher power.  And that is how grace is invoked and that is how one learns to love.  That is also another misnomer.  You don’t learn to love.  Love just is, you just reach it.  You don’t need to learn it.  It is there, always there.  What we have to learn is how to repattern our minds.  That’s all.  The biggest stumbling block in our path to joy, I have always called the mind a very cunning animal.  It is true.  It is true.  Okay.  Fine.

The best way to find the answers you need

In a previous life, in a previous life a person might have been say, a student of philosophy, or a student of astrology, or a student of whatever science, good.  Now the human mind is capable, as psychiatrists would tell you, to split itself in some way where one’s own former existence comes through the level of our subconscious and from there to the conscious mind.  And in that state, which is a trance-like state, a person can dictate, a person can dictate.  But please remember that that dictation is not from a foreign body, a foreign entity.  That dictation comes through from the level of knowledge that that person has gained in a previous existence.  So it is that person himself.  Good.  But through his, through a certain happening in his mind, he is able to portray the experiences or the teachings of his own previous life.  In other words what I am trying to make very clear that no foreign entity, we discussed this a bit last night when it came to exorcism, good, that no foreign entity can ever invade us, can ever invade us.  And this is expressed through mediumship in the forms of putting you in touch with some relative or in the form of dictation, whatever the case might be.  So we could never, never really be possessed in that way.  And I do always discourage people from going to mediums.  For example, if we want to have communication from another entity that is somewhere else, now if that entity has to be somewhere else and not merged away in absolute purity, then whatever communication comes from there, is not necessarily pure.  Why contact a medium or a person beyond when one can contact the true pure Divinity?  So it is always best to contact pure Divinity which we do through our practices.  That would be the best way and always the best way.  And you will find, you will find that you might have perplexing problems in the mind and if you have developed the art and become more and more stabilised in your meditation, you’d find the answers welling up within you to all your problems.  And they well up so, so beautifully and they come from a pure level.  So we do not need mediumship to interpret things for us from some entity unknown who might not be an evolved soul.  So we rather ask divinity that’s within, than to ask.

What Judas thought was the best way

You see Judas was a great bargainer.  They might have offered him twenty and then he insisted on thirty.  (Gururaj laughs)  Judas was a very, very brilliant man.  He was the most educated of Jesus’ close disciples.  It is said that he betrayed Jesus, but there is something far more deeper than that why this took place.  He did not want to betray Jesus.  He loved Jesus very much really speaking.  But there was so much political tension with the Roman bosses and then the Sanhedrins and with this other group of Zealots rising up, that Judas felt that with Jesus’ teachings there’s going to be great strife and great fighting amongst the people, there would be rivers of blood.  Because Jesus was against, – the Jews did not like him – he was against all their temple sacrifices of animals and things.  Rome did not like him, the rulers did not like him because they felt that he was a threat to the Roman Empire as far as Israel was concerned.  And of course the church elders, they were so against of what he taught because he defied them openly.  So, Judas felt that the best way to put an end to this and not to have rivers of blood flowing with thousands of people being killed, rather let one man be killed.  It was an act of love on the part of Judas.  But what a man was killed?  Thanks to Judas I say that we still remember Christ today.  For the crucifixion and the agony he went through, has so deeply planted his teachings into our minds even after two thousand years.

The best way to move away of your impressions

So you in reality are not surrendering yourself to anyone at all.  You are surrendering yourself to yourself, and express that self‑surrender outwardly in the seeming being of other existences for the time being until you come to the realization that there exists nothing apart from me.  That is the essence of love.  That is God.  That is Divinity which you all are!  Get away from that delusion that you are apart from everything else around you.  That is the real delusion.  The illusion created by you as that of a movie screen creating figures and fantasies. And what do you see?  You see the superimposition, and you are not aware of that white screen that is there.  But you only become aware of the superimpositions. But you have to move away. You have to move away.  And the best way to move away is to shut off the projector and see the real white screen.  And that is surrender, to be able to see a thing as it is, not what you assume it to be.  That is surrender.  That is true surrender.  So, instead of mirroring the film in the projector onto that screen, rather let me mirror myself onto that screen.  And see me and not Cary Grant or Sophia Loren.  They are bullshitters taking you away from yourself.

The best way to be loved

If you are sincerely kind to someone, if you sincerely love someone then the reaction to you would be likewise.  Everyone wants to be loved.  But the best way to achieve that is to become loving, and when we become loving we automatically become loveable.  That is the secret, so a person does not create two channels within himself or two different sets of consciousness, one for the animal and one for the man. There is only one channel and one consciousness and the very thought directed as a healing force will heal simultaneously, will help simultaneously the animal and the man, always.

The best way that man can relate to consciousness

Now for man to proceed on the spiritual path, and this is worth repeating again that he needs a tangible form to which he can relate.  Good.  Now, the best way that man can relate is to a superman and that is the origin of all these films, James Bond.  Because man within himself feels that he has greater capacity.  Man within himself feels that he has greater capability and he is forever trying to identify himself to that greater capability and capacity.  So therefore we have these James Bonds, good, that while the person is watching James Bond in action, he’s identifying himself with that James Bond on the screen.  And the reason being not only escapism and not only day-dreaming, because even escapism and day-dreaming must have a basis and the basis is this that man inherently has far greater capacity within himself than what he displays without himself.  So we know and all psychiatrists and psychologists will tell us that we use less than ten percent of our potential.  Ninety percent is lying dormant.  Good.

The best way to clear away the veils

Now as I said a moment ago, that a thought is like a story, beginning, middle and end.  So if it comes, you, the higher self of you, the subtler level of your mind watches the conscious level of the mind, the thought that is in the conscious level, you watch it objectively, like as if you’re watching a cinema screen.  When you go to a cinema and watch a film, you cannot change anything in the film.  You just watch and you just observe the story that is happening.  And that is what we learn to do with our thoughts.  We become the observers of thought and not participants of the thought.  So, when you are not a participant of the thought but an observer of the thought then that very thought does not leave an impression upon the subconscious areas of your mind.  So what we are really doing in meditation and to find that Kingdom of Heaven within, is to get rid of all those impressions and samskaras, as I said before, clearing away those veils.  And the best way to clear away the veils when the thoughts come up, like on the screen again, you observe it without becoming a participant.  For example, say an angry thought comes up in your mind, then you watch the anger and let it play out its game there as anger, but you do not become emotionally involved in the anger.  And if you have to be angry, as I have said many times before, be angry with anger.  You see?  That is how it works.

The best way to know the answer to: Have I transcended?

Now, in meditation, here’s another point worth remembering, that sometimes a person is in doubt that did I fall asleep or did I transcend.  They have that doubt.  The best way…the best way to know the answer to that is this, that if you had fallen asleep and you wake out of the sleep, even if the sleep was just for a few minutes, you’d feel a kind of…have a lethargic feeling. Right.  But if you had transcended then you have a more energized feeling.  One is enervating, while the other is energizing.

The best way to repay your parents

The best way to repay those parents that brought us into this world, because thank you is a very empty word – the parents are responsible for themselves too – but the best way to repay is this, that when have your children, bring them up so well, that by bringing them up well you are automatically repaying your parents.  And like that it goes on and on.  Good.

The best way to tackle our problems

So, it is always a process of self examination, self-examination and through meditation, our problems are brought face to face to us. And we tackle them the best way we can within our limits.  The whole idea is that the direction must be changed, the direction towards betterment, then at least something has been accomplished.  And once the direction is changed and as we proceed in the direction of change we do become stronger and stronger and those things which seemed not too good to us before, or the environment which was not too good to us before, might seem completely different with greater strength gained in us. Okay?

The best way to follow your religion

You follow your religion the best way you can, and meditation will help you to understand your religion better.

The best way to succeed in commerce

I think you are talking of commercial beings.  Commercial beings are those that bring out a technique and sell it wholesale.  They sell it wholesale because they are not realised beings, they are commercial beings.  And, the best way to succeed in commerce is to do wholesaling and say ‘ this is the only technique and the technique that will lead you to your maker.  Meanwhile you could never reach the maker, only he makes his bank, hm? That’s commercial beings.»

The best way to teach spiritual matters

An adept is a man who has reached a very high level of consciousness, that is accepted. Fine. Meanwhile, if he should exist in that level of consciousness all the time, then he would have to live in some Himalayan cave. Fine. So he has to adapt himself to the present level of consciousness, the present level of consciousness that would comply with the surroundings he lives in. A good teacher is always a person that teaches just two steps ahead, always. Or else, he would be throwing people into confusion. He would be throwing people into confusion. So although the adept, the teacher, although he has encompassed the entire universe, within his arms, he has to necessarily limit the teaching to as much as what could be understood or else he won’t be able to communicate. So he has to, at times lower his vibrations to the vibratory level of the world around him and yet just a bit more so that he could lead on, a little at a time. One step enough for me, that would be his ideal. And that is the best way and those are the kinds of teachers we do need today that could show us one step at a time little more, little more, little morel all the time. Okay.

The best way of achieving

So when this understanding dawns, then there is no duty. It’s an automatic action, it becomes a motor action where you do not exert yourself.  That is how you can accomplish the most by doing the least.  In a big business, who makes the most money?  Not the chaps that battle hard there in the factories and do this that and the other.  No, no they are slaves.  They don’t make the money. But the boss that sits on the top floor.  You hardly see him.  He sits with his legs on the desk, long six inch cigar.  I know someone who smokes six inch cigars.  [Laughter]  Legs on the desk, cigar, you know.  Then if you watch him very carefully, you’ll find he develops a very dreamy look in his eyes.  But he’s not dreaming.  In that very dreamy look his mind is functioning, he is planning.  He is planning this contract and that contract, and that contract, and what’s the best way of achieving that contract and fulfilling it.  And then he presses a button.  That’s all he does.  Presses a button and on the other side, «Yes, sir?»  «Miss Pippleto, I want you to send Stevens out to blah, blah, blah, yenpoopistoof, and see that this is done and that’s done and that’s done.  And have the report ready for me on the desk tomorrow morning.  Thank you.»  Bang!  You see?

The best way to improve society

The best way to improve society is by improving the individual.

The best way for someone to love us

So through meditation, we reach the subtlest level and experience that love.  And by we experiencing that love within ourselves, we do not need to love.  We become love and the best way for someone to love us, is to become loveable.  So simple.  And that integration which meditation brings about opens up the heart that makes one love, that makes one become love.  So this is just partly the range of meditation.  We have seen that it does not contradict any religion, but with the awakened awareness which is latent in you, with that awakening, truth is perceived more and more and more.  And when the vision widens and the entire truth is perceived you will find, you will ask who is the perceiver and what is perceived.  Who is the perceiver?  What is the action of perception and what is the object of perception?  And at that level, it all ceases.  There is no perceiver.  There is no act of perception, but there is just perception existing on its own self luminous, needing nothing else to support.  And that is Divinity.

The best way to stop someone who is attempting suicide

The best way for someone who is attempting suicide is to give the person the understanding of life, how precious life is, what a great gift is given to us to have this life.  And then of course this would be the job of a qualified guru or psychiatrist or therapist or whatever you want to call it; and then by giving the understanding of what life is about, explaining the joy that life is.  A great gift.  Would you like to see the flower, beautiful flower, and crush it under your feet?  No one would want to.  No one wants to do that.  You’d rather pluck the flower and put it in a vase.  I call it vaz, you call it vase.  And cover it with its beautiful leaves and enhance the flower’s beauty.  So the person that you would know that would attempt suicide, these are the things to be explained and make them understand with love that you are a beautiful flower and may my love, with all these trimmings, enhance the beauty of which you are as a beautiful flower.  Now if you go on in this process you will change the persons mind.  That is the way.

The best way to release samskaras

Now there’s one quality of samskaras.  Samskaras always try to resolve themselves.  Those impressions that are really the burden in man’s life are always trying to find release, and the best way it could find release is to convert those samskaras, those impressions, into thought forms.  And that is why, because of the past experiences and doings in man’s life, they convert themselves into thoughts.  And if they were bad experiences, then negative thoughts result.  So to recap:  samskaras translate themselves into thoughts as a form of release.  Now thoughts cannot contain themselves.  Thoughts cannot retrogress on the path of evolution.  Thoughts also want to find release so that the true nature of man can shine out, can shine through.  So here from the spiritual level to the superconscious mind then to the subconscious mind and then to the conscious mind is  how the samskara travels.  And when it comes to the conscious  level of the mind, then it is known as thought.

The best way to encourage a child to keep on with meditation

So, the best way to encourage a child to keep on with meditation would of course be the parents.  Now if the parents are regular in their meditations, then children would also tend to be regular.  And not only that, we do find in the homes of meditators that the whole lifestyle, the whole conversation in the house tends to be of a different category than the ordinary run of the mill.  But of course household problems are discussed but even in that discussion, there is always an awareness of something that is ever present in the household.

The best way to do it really

Such a simple subject ‑‑ it took a whole hour.  Yeah.  The idea ‑‑ the best way to do it really ‑‑ I tell you this, every word I say to you in every satsang ‑‑ joking apart ‑‑ I like to laugh and make others laugh; it’s an expression of the joy within me ‑‑ but believe you me, every word I tell you is from personal experience.  I’ve traveled all these layers, through all these layers of existences.  I have known what it is to be one with the Father.  I know.  So whatever I tell you is not theory. I never speak from the mind.  If you ask me half an hour later, «What did you speak about?»  I won’t even know.  Unless Bill over there plays the tape for me.  Then I get amazed myself, saying, «Did I say that?»  And this is a regular occurrence, you can ask all the people that are so close to me, they’ll tell you.  So I speak from experience and I could tell you that through all these various experiences the simplest way to come to these realizations, to come to this joy of existence, this bliss, this absolute existence, absolute bliss, absolute ananda, the easiest way is meditation.  Meditation and spiritual practices.  There are so many other practices, like very severe forms of asceticism, as ‑ ceti ‑ sszzzzmm.  Various other forms of self‑denials and tortures and I don’t know what‑all people go through in the name of God.  This is the middle way.  And meditation and spiritual practices ‑‑ trying to better ourselves daily… look, we can’t become perfect overnight… trying to better ourselves as much as possible; conscious effort, which will in turn would make our thinking processes right, gaining the strength from inside will minimize the workings and the turbulence of the three gunas until you, too, can stand apart and watch them play.  That’s the easiest way.  And its outcome, it reflects itself in love.  Dante has said, «The greater the man, the deeper can he love.»  If you want to judge how evolved a person is, there’s only one criteria:  just see how much he can truthfully love, just see how much he can unselfishly love.  There you will find that what state of evolution he is.  Just try and see how selfless he is, how all‑giving he is, even if he’s surrounded by the world that are all just takers.  He would still keep on giving.  He’d never think, «Aaaahhh, so?»  After all, it’s only a play.  Judge him that way and you’ll find.  Good.

The best way to listen to the inner voice

The best way to listen to the inner voice is not to listen to it.  Let it speak by itself because once you start listening and divert your attention or put your attention on listening, you are activating the mind and the mind, the mental processes would go through its own various ways.  And that very mental process will stop you from hearing the inner voice.  The inner voice comes from an area which is beyond the conscious mind.  The conscious mind works on the surface level.  As a matter of fact on the Course we did now, last week, recently, at the High Leigh, High Leigh, yeah, I drew some diagrams on a chart where I discussed the sensory inputs that goes to the surface level of the mind.  And those of you that were there, would remember it well, hearing, seeing, touching, smelling – what’s the fifth one?  Tasting.  Right.  So the surface mind is controlled by sensory input.  And when we try to listen to the voice then the sensory inputs of the five senses would interfere in making you hear the inner voice.

The best way to operate IFSU

And the best way we’ve found to operate the International Foundation for Spiritual Unfoldment is this, that every country opens up its own chapter.

The best way to get rid of the clouds

Now, when that reflection that the mirror receives is reflected back on us in this negative form because of our negativity, that we can call anger.  You see?  That is the anger. Now, the nature of the reflector is clean and pure.  Its nature is love, for the primal vibration of the Manifestor in its immanent form can be none else but love.  But we are the ones that send up these clouds of negativity, and we are blocking God’s path in His expression of love for us.  We create the cloud, yet the love is still flowing, flowing, flowing.  It’s like the clouds covering the sun.  And we find darkness here, and yet the sun is unaffected.  You’d go in a jet plane and above the clouds, and you see the sun as clear as it should be.  But standing down here, standing in our own negativities, we mirror and reflect to ourselves that which we deserve.  And that is why we say man is his brother’s keeper.  For if I have found something Divine within me, it is my duty to share it with you.  So I am your brother.  I am your keeper, just as much as you, my brother, is my keeper. You see the mechanics of it?
Now, the best way, needless to say, to get rid of these clouds is meditation and spiritual practices.  To be able to transcend the little self that we ourselves have created through the process of evolution, gathering to us all the experiences that we have gained through many, many lifetimes.  Good experiences will have good results.  Bad experiences, and the impressions of those experiences, will have its just desserts: whatever you reap, you sow.  It is a very simple principle.

The best way to get a glimpse of this stillness

«Be still and know that I am God» ‑‑ in order to search for that, one should have an idea of what stillness is. And the best way to get a glimpse of this stillness is to be able to dive within oneself through our meditational practices, and, if properly done, one does have a glimpse, a very temporary glimpse. It might last a second, but that second is enough.  If you touch two live electric wires, you don’t need to hold it for two hours to get a shock.  Hm?  Just a little touch, and you get the shock. That gives you the idea of what the stillness is all about.  And, with the innate, inborn force that is forever drawing you to that peace, that constitutes search.
Please be comfortable.  Sit back, relax, loosen you ties, chuck off your shoes, carry on.  That’s the way.  That’s the way.  Tension can never absorb.  We know that, don’t we?  When we feel tense we don’t absorb but when we are relaxed and we are without tension and we just leave the mind open then it sucks up like a sponge.  The best way to hear and to learn is never to be entirely attentive, never to be too concentrated.  Fine.  Then there is so much tension produced by that concentration that we lose a lot.  And I believe there are some systems of education where they have found that certain things can be retained better in the mind if there is some other thing happening in the background.  There is some system, I believe, that uses this PILL Method.  Something to that effect.

The best way to tackle any problem of life

So the best way to tackle any problem of life is to be what one is. You start from there.  Now there are many ways, many angles one could use.  You could use the analytical angle, or you could use the totally devotional angle.  Or the angle of action, where action is performed for the sake of action.  Not because it is good or bad, but action performed for the sake of action as an offering that in reality I am not the actor.  He is the doer, not I.  You see.  Then of course, spiritual practices is another path. That helps all these other facets of life.  So that is where one starts, and that is the way out of the mud and the mire.  And maya.  You see.

The best way to get rid of the turbulence

But with spiritual practices…  Those that are not meditators look at the faces of those meditators who are here. There is a gentleness, a softness, a kindness filled with compassion.  These are the outer manifestations or expressions of those that can truly love.  Love is an opening, an opening of that which is within.  And very systematically and scientifically‑‑to repeat again‑‑we use the mind by special practices given to people.  And by using them you make contact with your real self and not your assumed self.  You are always assuming things or presuming things.  There is not a single man or woman in this world that thinks that he isn’t better looking than what he is or she is.  Oh, yes.  People live in a kind of daydream.  They are always projecting their minds far above their level.  Always.  So where do they live?  They do not live within themselves, but they live within the projection which their mind has conjured up for them.  They live in that projection which is unreal.  That is the greatest illusion in life, that unreality.  You are real as long as you can face yourself squarely in the mirror.  Then you are real.  If you can face all the turbulence and turmoil going around in your mind, then you are real.  That is the best way to get rid of the turbulence, all the problems, all the troubles.

The best way to educate a child

Now what I’m trying to point out and illustrate to you that a child even when it has started thinking is subjected to all these things in our sick society.  It is said that in America, you know they worked out the viewing time of a child and they worked it out round about three hours, three and three quarter hours a day and during that time, over a period of a year, the average American child is subjected to thirteen thousand killings or murders.  Right.  Isn’t that one of the reasons and of course our newspapers, isn’t that one of the reasons why there’s so much violence in the world.  The best way – now we can’t change the T.V stations or the newspapers, can we – so the best way is in those three years when the child is born, is to plant ideas of non-violence like treating the child gently, non-violently.  Right.  All these things are there.  We said a while ago that sex is the greatest instinct in human being, the most powerful one.  Right.  Now today you open up newspapers, open up page three of the Sun and you’ll find, is it page three or four.

So the education of the child begins from there.  Now when Spock said that the child must be given total freedom to develop by itself, I would agree with that partly.  He has not explained it well.  The total freedom must be given to the child to the extent of the capacity of the child.  A certain tree can only grow ten feet high.  So freedom must be given to the extent of ten feet, another 15 feet, another 20 feet.  So freedom must be given to that extent, but while it is still a sapling, you put in this stake, that is the discipline so that grows up straight.  Now you are not curtailing the freedom of the growth of the plant.  So that stake or whatever you call it is guidance, you’re guiding the plant to grow straight.  So that is guidance with discipline and with love as we nurture the plant.  If we give the plant the fertilizer and the water and the sunlight and the air, we allow it to have it, and yet there is freedom for the child.  Where the child feels free and yet the child…. The best way to give discipline, and this is my method, is to make the person feel that he is not disciplined.  That has always been my method since I’m doing the work I’m doing now, and in those business days as well. So the best way to discipline a child is to make the child feel it is not disciplined.

So here we have the qualities of freedom and discipline so beautifully interwoven that the child begins to sense the joy within himself.  Now we project upon the child our own sense pleasures.  And the child will emulate that.  But if we through our own spiritual practices and our own personal self integration can just exude that in the environment of our home and the child being very sensitive to these things, yet not understanding with the mind, the child’s pleasures will also assume a higher form which goes beyond the senses yet through the senses.  You see.

Bringing up children is an art.  One day, through the grace of Divinity, I would like to start schools all around the world. That is the problem you know, that stuff you call dough.  That is the problem.  I would not start like some teachers start things at university level ‑‑ no.  I’d love to start them toddler schools, kindergarten schools.  Because psychologists today will tell you too that whatever impressions the child is put into ‑‑ certain molds ‑‑ the first three years of his growth are the most important.  There you can give it limitlessness or total limitation.  Right.

The best way to come to the realization that suffering is an illusion

Questioner.  Can I ask how to treat life in a cheerful way well when the Buddhists would say that existence is suffering?

Gururaj.  Now that’s a total fallacy.  Existence is not suffering.  Existence is an offering.  And when you start to learn to offer of yourself in every way, then suffering ceases, and it becomes an offering.  And what is more beautiful in the world than an offering?  It’s like taking flowers to the altar of God, or lighting a candle at his altar.  It is beautiful.  So this is a misconception, that life is a suffering.  And this was propagated by the church, and not by Jesus, that I promise you.  There are a lot of things in all the Scriptures of the world, the Koran, the Bhagvad Gita, the, you know, Bhagvad Puranas, there’s the Upanishads and the Bible, of things that were never said by Jesus.  The entire thing was manipulated.  I explained you yesterday I think why we say ‘A person is born in sin’.  Yeah.  Sin does not mean suffering.  Sin means that burden I talked about.  You come with a burden and it could be a pleasant burden, it could be an unpleasant one, depending of the things you have done in other lives.  So once we change that attitude Mr Parr, Graham, is it right, once we change that attitude and get off that thought that we are born in suffering, how can we find joy?  Forget it.  There’s no suffering, and the best way to come to that realisation is through meditation.  When you come to that realisation, that life after all is not suffering.  Look at everything around you, it’s celebrating.  Life is not suffering, life is a celebration.  Every breath you take is a celebration.  You are celebrating Divinity through each and every breath, and you’re celebrating Divinity twenty four hours of the day, because even while in sleep you are still breathing.  Funny, isn’t it? (General laughter).  Yeah.

The best way to approach sex

You learn to love.  You grow in love and love grows.  And then you don’t look into each other’s eyes, but the four eyes look in the same direction.  Then you’re in love.  Where you learn to look into the same direction.  Then you experience love.  And when you experience real love, then you experience God, experience Divinity.  So the very act of lovemaking could become divine. Meditation is not against Divinity.  It brings Divinity to you, and the very act itself, it is something so beautiful.  I ‑‑ I don’t know why people…perhaps in the Victorian age used to make such a fuss about it.  In many homes they could not talk of these things.  But today the opposite is happening.  They talk too much about it.  I have heard in a home … this was during business days… I visited a Scandinavian country.  A daughter of fourteen was going out with a boyfriend and they said goodbye to the mother, «Bye, bye, mommy, we are going out for the evening.»  Do you know what the mother said?  «Darling, have you remembered to take your pill?»  Look at the other extreme.  Where it has become degenerate.  That is what I am trying to point out. In the Victorian age it had become taboo, which is the one extreme, while in the modern age, it has degenerated where it has just become a physical function, where it should be a Divine function.  So extremes of anything is no good.  The middle way is the best way.  And all this of course in lovemaking leads to a middle way….  Nobody caught that?…  [Laughter]

The best way to serve your guru

So the best way for a chela to serve his guru is to be worthy of the teachings of the guru.  That’s the best way.  Nothing else, nothing else, nothing else, nothing else.  And to be worthy of the teachings of the guru is not to keep on the prising, although that helps to understand things, but the practical aspect of life.  When the guru asks his chela, ‘Teach’, this is the way for this age.  Teach people how to find themselves, their true selves, for each and everyone is a sparkling diamond, covered with dust.  Help to blow off this dust, in a very humble, simple, selfless devoted way, with love, blow off this dust.  It is not necessary for it to be there, and let the diamond shine in its true splendour.  For each one is a diamond, each one is Divine.  That is the service of the guru.  That is the service of the guru.

The best way to change society

The best way to change society is to change ourselves to make ourselves more richer, more richer by living a total life which is not only body, and living only a bodily life could be an animal life.  By not only using the mind, but by also using that quality which is within us, and by using all three aspects of the human personality we live a total life.  And by living a total life, our lives become so, so much better.  So by improving the unit, we automatically improve the society.  Good.

The best way to deal with our educational patternings

Now we have quite a few psychiatrists here, psychologists and doctors and they will bear me out that this happens.  Because repetition of a thing or reliving a thing which is part and parcel of regression, you’re only implanting those seeds, driving those seeds deeper and deeper into the subconscious layers of your mind where it will sprout again in one form or the other.  The best way, if it is dark and I have said this many times, if it is dark, why analyse darkness?  Switch on the lights, darkness disappears.  So why go through that analysis rather spiritual practices that brings light unto yourself, that gives you the strength to face life squarely, that gives you the strength to work out the problems and overcome the problems instead of involving yourself in the old problems all the time.  Because when you involve yourself, through regression into old problems, your mind will be filled with the negativities that you have experienced in the past.  And by repeating those negativities, churning and churning and churning them can only make those negativities stronger.

The best way how to know yourself

The best way in how to know yourself is not knowing yourself.  Because by trying to know yourself you are becoming more and more conscious of yourself.  And the more and more conscious you become of yourself you get into greater and greater ignorance.  So instead of getting involved in ignorance, rather ignore yourself!  Ah, do you get that?  And by ignoring yourself that I am Margarette, I am John, Jack, whatever, by ignoring yourself, you will lose the ego sense of yourself.  And by losing that ego sense of yourself, you will start really knowing yourself.  Right!

The best way to find yourself to be loved

PRIYA:  Preatamji, how can we transform our need and desire to love and be loved by someone in this world into a desire and yearning for Divinity, Divine love?

GURURAJ:  Hmm, good, very good, very good.  The best way to find yourself to be loved is to destroy the yearning for loving, or wanting to be loved.  In that way, when that yearning for wanting to be loved or be loving or whatever, the very destruction of that mental conception or thought will attract all the love to thee.  You see, people in this world take the wrong path.  They go in the opposite direction instead of the proper direction, and then they want to find answers going in the wrong direction.  You walk down the road here somewhere, I don’t know where, I don’t know this place, and you will find what?  What are you going to find?  You’ll knock up your head against the trees and the mountains.  But the other direction you will find the beautiful cool sea in which you could bathe and feel so free in your own personal relaxation.
So we yearn to love and we yearn to be loved.  Now take away that yearning and then you will be earning that which you deserve. That’s the secret of life.  If I want to love I will not care about loving at all.  I will just be giving myself, and love will take care of itself.  So simple, you know?  So, so simple. I’m not going to strive to love someone.  No. I will just give myself and love will automatically come to me.  That’s all! I’ve been demonstrating this principle for all these years teaching round the world.  Can any of you tell me, in your own sincerity, that you hate me?  Can anyone say that here?  You cannot say it because I am love, forever giving my love, so you just cannot help but returning your love to me.  So simple!

The best way to devote yourself

Questioner.  What is difference between worship as preached say by Christianity, and devotion?

Gururaj.  Good.  Now the duty of a teacher is to impart whatever he has and it depends entirely upon the recipient of the wisdom to take whatever he can.  That is the answer in a nutshell.  These flowers here have such a beautiful fragrance and those who are not suffering with a cold, would get the full impact of the fragrance.  But if you have a cold perhaps you might not benefit or appreciate the fragrance.  A teacher comes and goes giving his teachings and the more illumined or enlightened the teacher is, the more profound would be the wisdom.  The wind blows, there’s fresh air, it’s up to you to open the windows.  I do my duty.  And my mission in life is to give off what I have gained.  If I have gained joy, I impart that joy.  If I have gained wisdom through the power of Divinity, it is my dharma to impart that wisdom.  If I am filled with love, it is my duty to give of that love.  So life itself, the life of a guru is nothing more than a sharing.  And the best way to share whatever is to really know you, be close to you.  Therefore I am very different from other gurus that keep themselves apart.  I am concerned with every hair on any meditator’s head.  It is my responsibility to see that they unfold; they develop and appreciate the joy which is inherently theirs, to appreciate the happiness the Divinity which is within them.  Now in our system, we are seekers of truth, seekers of the essence of truth.  So we do use some of our faculties, our intellectual faculties.  We try and evaluate the value of the truth as much as we can understand it.  If one proposition is set forth, there would be many minds that would not understand the proposition because they might have not reached the stage to understand it.  Nothing wrong with that.  Nothing wrong with that.  But I have a habit of trying to bring down the highest philosophical truths into its most simplest form.  I don’t know how far I succeed in that but I try to do that.  And the best way, the qualification needed to bring down the highest philosophical truths into its simplest form, is when the teacher knows what he’s talking about.  Because all these things that we have spoken about in this past week, since Friday, that I’ve spoken about, I could put it to you very, very technically.  But I know we are not Philosophy Professors all sitting here.  And it is easy if you know your subject, if you know what you are talking about.  And not only know with the mind what you are talking about, but every word I speak to you comes from deep experience.  I will not speak about anything that I have not experienced myself.  If I should speak of anything that I have not experienced myself then that would defeat the purpose of putting forth the essence of truth.

The best way to serve God

So, so the idea, to repeat again and again and again, is that hundred and eighty degree turn, using the same energy, the same force, the same desire because everything, the sublimest thing, is also a desire.  To attain self-realisation is a desire.  To have the vision of God is a desire.  To have God realisation is also a desire.  But it is called a desireless desire.  Why it is called a desireless desire is because it is not ego-building.  It is becoming non-binding and it is freeing you from the shackles that you yourself have built.   Now, in this way, that greed which in other words is desire, becomes diminished.   And then, it is not I, but Thou.  That is created.  And the best way to serve God is to serve humanity.  The Biblical Scriptures say that man is made in the image of God.  Okay, so God being abstract, let us start worshipping the image by serving.  Bless you.  If Divinity is abstract, let us start serving the image of that Divinity, by serving.

The best way to pray

Like prayer too, people don’t really pray, they bargain with God.  I said this before I think, you say ‘If my son passes his exam, I will donate one hundred pounds to BMS.’  Donate the hundred pounds first and then leave it to Him.  Don’t do business.  So prayer is a complete offering of oneself.  Prayer is purification of oneself, that is prayer, not business.  So when do people pray?  They pray when they are in trouble.  Otherwise they don’t pray.  Only when they are in trouble, they want to pray.  Now when they’re in trouble and they pray, the prayer is non-effective.  It doesn’t help you.  When you pray when you are in trouble, it does not help you because the trouble so overwhelms your mind, that the power of prayer cannot reach its goal.  Prayer only comes or has value when the mind is quietened down in tranquillity, then the very thought that would arise has some power, not when the mind is in turmoil.  So all your prayers are mostly requests.  ‘God, please give me this or please give me that’, are requests.  Why must you request of God?  Why must you ask of Divinity what you want?  Doesn’t He know your needs?  He’ll give you exactly what you need and not what you want.  And your want is determined by how sincere you are.  For if a man needs say two thousand pounds to live a month, good living perhaps, but he asks for a million, the idiot.  Do you see?

So the best way to prayer is first request, have the request, it doesn’t matter, after all we are human, not knowing that we are Gods on earth, we’re human.  Right.  So have the request by all means, but do it with a tranquil mind, meditation first in our system and then have the requests that ‘If you think my Lord that this is suitable for me, then may I have it, if I deserve it.  May I have it if I deserve it, I leave it in your hands.  I leave it in your hands’.  So this means ‘Thy Will be done’.  Do you see?  How beautiful it can be done?  Now if one has that purity and that mental concentration and strength done by Meditations, Tratak and Mantra and Pranayama and Gurushakti and all those things and the system is purified then you don’t even need to pray.  How do you like that?  You just think of something and it happens.  You just think of something and it happens, because with a purified mind, you will not think of something that is wrong.  You see.  Your thoughts will always be right.  And when thoughts are right, actions are right and everything that you need will be fulfilled.

The best way to deal with memories

Now, if we talk of the mind and the various levels of the mind, we have the subtlest level, which I always refer to as the superconscious level, and that being so subtle could never be effected by the grosser happenings of this mundane world.  It could never be effected because of its very subtlety, because of its very fineness.  It is only at the lower levels that your mind seems to be affected with fears and with anxieties and all kinds of problems.  You have no problems at all, you think it is a problem.
And what value is your thought?  Of what value is your thought?  No value at all, because every thought you think is of the past.  You are not thinking now.  Because as soon as you remember a thought, it has become the past already.  How do know you are thinking?  Because you are remembering your thought a few seconds later.  It is like a radio transmission.  You transmit from America to South Africa and it takes time for the transmission to be received there.  It’s not instantaneous.  There is a gap.  So, same way, you are not thinking at the moment.  You are not thinking in this moment.  What you are doing is remembering something that’s happened in the past, a couple of seconds ago.  So, what your mind registers is a memory and not a thought.  You see.  The only way you know of a thought, to repeat this over and over again, because it’s a very important point, the only way you know of a thought, when you say, «I think,» «I am thinking now,» that is wrong.  You can say, «I have thought a few seconds ago and I’m remembering it now.»
Now, what is the best way to deal with this memory?  What is the best way to allow the superconscious level of yourself to become the real observer?  What we do is this, that we allow the subconscious mind to observe the conscious mind and vice versa.  Although the observance of the conscious mind of the subconscious is at a subtle level.  The mechanics are known. There could be no division, because it is a continuum.  It is just a flow.  You see.  But when the finest level of the mind, the superconscious mind, becomes the observer of the workings of the subconscious and the conscious levels, then you will say immediately that there is no memory, in reality. There is no memory in reality, because I am real and the workings of my mind at these lower levels are not real because they are not functioning now, because I, the real self, the superconscious self, is functioning now, is existing now.  And that is the true existence that we have to find.  Then there is peace and tranquility, the true existence which is the real me.  He could be the proper observer.  And then when he observes and sees the projection of a memory which is not there any more, the occurrence, the incident, is not there any more, only the memory remains. You can’t relive that ever again, in reality.  What has occurred, what has transpired‑‑the illness you had last year, the accident you had, or the pleasure you had last year‑‑is not there anymore.  The only thing is the memory is there.  And you fear the memory, because the memory has a habit of projecting itself into the future.  And what will happen there is known to you as fear, because of the factor of uncertainty.  And the entire combination of thoughts, which we called these two primary layers of the mind, being in conflict has to produce anxiety.  And anxiety is the blood brother of fear, an insecurity, an inadequacy.

So, do not let the conscious mind observe, because the conscious mind, being so conditioned that it will only observe according to its own limitations.  You might see a saint performing a certain act and you say, «Oh, what a bad man he is. How can he be a saint?»  Who is judging?  Do you know the saint? You will only know the saint when you become the saint, otherwise not.  It is your mind that is judging.  Because you are unsaintly, you see the unsaintliness in the other person.  «Judge ye not that ye be judged.»  It’s a true saying.  So, everyone’s foot measure has a different amount of inches.  Your foot measure is of six inches, another of twelve inches, another of ten inches.  So, we go through this world measuring with our conscious mind, which is conditioned by its finer continuation or continuum, the subconscious.  And with that we measure because of our own personal conditionings.  Our own personal conditionings.
Ramakrishna, a saint that lived at the turn of the century, one day he was passing by and he saw a dog eating his food, and he sat down with the dog and ate from the dog’s bowl with the dog. Now, if one of our psychiatrists would pass there, they would say, «Oh, this man is mad.  He’s off his rocker.»  He’d say that.  How can a person do such a thing?  But how do we know…what do we know of that saint’s saintliness, how he has identified himself totally with everything in existence?  There is no dog.  There is no food.  That dog is divine.  The food is divine.  And I am divine.  Do you see.

The best way is to accept the day you will live today

The best way is to accept the day and Lord bless us that this day may be pleasant and peaceful, for it is in Thy mercy and Thy grace that I live this day.  Thank you Lord for it all.  Simple.

The best way for today’s human being

The best way for today’s human being is not just the belief in Divinity but the knowingness of that Divinity that is forever there, and that knowingness can be experienced, can be gained through meditation.  As we go deeper and experience the subtler and subtler levels of the mind we experience a greater and greater force and power welling up within us.  Sometimes there is a bit of dirt that requires dissolving, and when that is done all that force and power that flows, so that man can perform whichever thing he wants to do.  It is within his capacity because man functions in the relative plane, and he has the right, the inherent right to manipulate the entirety of all relatively.  He has the inherent ability, the inherent right.

The best way to get rid of the superimpositions

Now how do we get rid of the superimpositions?  What to do?  How do you do it?  Now superimposition – imposition necessarily implies imposing and who imposes, an impostor.  So get rid of that impostor that has pervaded your mind.  How do you get rid of it, rid of him, not by pushing him out of the door, he will come again, but by creating the conditions in the mind where the impostor will automatically leave.  When the seeds of karma are discarded from your mind, then the impostor will leave and this impostor has really been ‘super’ up to now – superimposition.  Now the best way and the easiest way, I do not need to repeat this more often, although that the only word I could really say is, do your meditational practices and by creating the light within yourself, you will automatically banish the darkness.  For here is the direct line to your personal reality.  It will bypass all the various stratas of the subconscious mind where these gnomes are residing.  And these so-called demons that have been created by yourself, have to be got rid of, by yourselves.  No one can do it for you.  A guru can help.  He shows the path.  He is the guide.  But that is all.  You have to make that effort.  If you want to do body building, you cannot do it by proxy.  You cannot ask someone else to do the weightlifting or the dumbbells and you develop the muscles.

The best way to analyze dreams

I’ve always said this before that there’s only one kind of person who never dreams.  And that is the enlightened man because he has no samskaras left.  He lives in freedom of all samskaras. And any act that he performs in the world does not plant seeds into his subconscious.  He is beyond them.  So the ancient sanskrit saying means that you fry the seeds.  When you fry seeds, they never grow if you plant them.
Good.  So babies have a nice time dreaming.  It would dream of the pleasurable experiences it has with its mother, the closeness to the mother if feeding, etc.  It is good.  Everyone dreams.
At the Cape Town University about a year, a year and a half ago, I held a dream workshop.  People asked me a lot about the analysis of dreams.  And the best way to do it is to sit down quietly‑‑after meditation would be better‑‑when the mind is in a quieter frame, and then think of the dream.  What happened in the dream.  And in your waking state you let the mind build on the dream.  You don’t force it.  You don’t add thoughts to it.  Just allow it to continue on its own and see where it lands up.  By allowing the dream to continue on its own in your waking state you are taking your mind further back to where the dream terminated. You find those thoughts floating and [they] create a more complete pattern.  Then you yourself will understand what that dream has signified to you.  So dreams are keys to your psychic self, to your evolutionary state.  You just float with the dream in your waking state, and you will be surprised at the answers you can come up with.
I was saying the other day you get books that tell you if you dream of a ship, you’ll go on a holiday.  If you dream of fire, it means that you’re doing this.  If you dream of that…  That is not true.  That is not true at all!  But people being so curious about dreams and the publishers being businessmen, they reap in the harvest.  Hmm?

The best way to be yourself

And that is, that comes from the simplicity of what Saint Francis taught.  Because you can only attract to you which is deserving of you.  People like to demand, uh huh?  No. No. No. Deserve, then you demand.  And if you are deserving enough you do not even need to demand.  Now that might sound something new to you.  If you are deserving, you do not need to demand; because if you are deserving your demands are met spontaneously, automatically, and without effort.  Hum?  So you don’t create that fort around you.  Ef‑fort: My God!
Be yourself.  And the best way to be yourself is to delve… I’ve coined a word, I believe it’s to be included in the Oxford dictionary:  dwelve.  You delve and at the same time dwelve within yourself.  And you do that through spiritual practices.  And it becomes so powerful, you yourself become so radiant, you shine, you glow with joy and bliss and happiness.  And when you find that, what happens is this, that you automatically emanate from yourself a force.  Everything is emanating, this chair is emanating energy, this water, this lamp, this light, Gloria too. [Chela:  Thank you.] [laughs] Emanating all the time and you can only emanate what you are.  If you emanate Saint Francis in his simplicity and love for all creatures, you will emanate that force.  If you think all the time of the complexities and the muddledness of life, then that is what you are going to emanate. A lily will smell like a lily, a rose will smell like a rose, a crys‑anthebum‑ah‑, a chrysanthemum will smell like that.

It is the sense of individuality that creates troubles because Jean always want to be better than Joan or Jack wants to be better than Jack, – Jack, give me some other name – John, okay.  That is the not the attitude of life.  It is wrong attitudes.  Just be yourself.  If I’m John I’m John, that’s all and to hell with the world.  Have that attitude and you will find life more happier.  As the old saying goes, you want to be better than the Jones’s.  Rubbish.  What for?  What are you going to gain from it?  You gain nothing.  I tell you what you will gain, misery because you cannot keep up with the Jones’s next door.  Let the Jones’s live their own bloomin’ lives.  And let me live my own life in the best way I can.  That’s important.  Now so Mrs Jones next door has put up golden curtains on her windows.  Ahhh.  Yes.  So I must better her by putting up more brighter golden curtains or whatever.  What for?  To hell with the bloody Jones’s!  I live my life and that is how I should live it.  So, you create a competition within yourself and that kind of competition is damaging to your mind, your emotional well being, your feelings, your life.  Yes.  It is so simple, so simple to be happy, but so difficult to be simple, as I have said before.  How many have you counted, darling?

The best way to get to the truth

Now when cults are formed, one cult always maintains that my cult is better than your cult and the third one would say that ‘You two are all talking nonsense, mine is the best’.  Now that happens, that happens because of the formation of cult and cults are formed around a personality.  And therefore you find some of the gurus, they should not be gurus but they should be showmen.  Yes.  Yeah.  I know of gurus that even hire Press Agents for publicity purposes, yes, yes, so that their cult can be pushed forward.  And in pushing forward the personality, pushing forward the personality at certain times it might be necessary, but in pushing forward the personality, what happens is this that the truth gets buried.  And on those pedestals the guru sits on the truth and its hidden away.  What a lousy place to put the truth! (General laughter)  Yes.  Now that happens.  So the best way to get to the truth is to push the guru off the pedestal.  And sometimes you know we are non-violent people; we don’t like to use force.  But nevertheless if that could happen then the truth would come out.  Love and devotion go together.  Good.  It has nothing to do with worship.  If you really want to worship, worship God and not false idols that create themselves into false idols, cultism, where a human being just like yourself, right, perhaps a little better dresses himself up in various kinds of robes and puts on beads and don’t know what all, yeah for show.  Yes.  Yeah. They put it on for show and so we start worshipping.  He demonstrates to you, or purports to demonstrate like a magician little tricks to convince the minds of people that here is a man with some power and by worshipping him we get that power from him.

The best way to serve

Gurus must come out into the open.  Be with the people, of the people, and all the time the communication is there.  What is there to be afraid of?  The weak are afraid not the strong, not the strong.  Therefore many people find me to be a very unusual guru, find me to be unusual.  I’ll pat you on the back if I pass you, hug you, shake your hand, be close to you, joke with you this that.  That is what we need.  We need this communication.  I could never get a message across to you if I cannot pour my heart out to you and make you do likewise to me.  So there is no worship required.  Only those that sit away behind curtains or on high stools and platforms, they need worship, they need worship.  Not true gurus.  Not real servants of humanity.  Servants of humanity say ‘Please Lord, give me greater and greater strength so I could serve more and more and more’.  And the best way to serve is by starting to be able to communicate.  I would gladly wash your feet.  I’ve no pride.  That’s the first thing, that’s the first quality that has to be noticed in a real teacher.  How much pride has he?  Is he one of us or not?  How close is he to us?  And only when that closeness develops, a devotion develops, a love develops and it is always unending.  It is forever there.  Because we are now dealing not with the facade, not with the show, not with the screen where the film is projected on.  We’re dealing with real live people.

The best way to teach

So when I gave up the business career I say, «Now is the time for me to start the work which I’m doing now for the past eight years.»  So every word I speak to you about is not from books.  It is from personal experience.  I know how capable you are of finding that integration within yourself because I’ve found it.  I know how capable you are of experiencing that deep joy and love because I’m experiencing it.  So the best teacher ‑‑ or the best way to teach ‑‑ is from personal experience and not from books.

The best way to pray

The best way to prayer…the best way to pray is by certain kind of affirmations.  Now, these affirmations are not necessarily repetitions of certain formulas.  Good.  When you sit down in your meditation, and just as your meditation is about to end, you picture in your mind’s eye the position you want to be in.  If you want a new motor car, then after your meditation when the mind is quiet, picture yourself driving that new motor car.  Picture yourself possessing that motor car.  Fine.  Now, that does not mean that as soon as you come out of that meditation that Buick is going to stand outside.  [LAUGHTER]  Right.  But by repeatedly putting yourself in that position…we have said the other day, man is master of his destiny.  By repeatedly putting yourself in
that position of seeing yourself possessing that motor car, driving it, going on the seventeen mile drive and all.  We’re doing that this afternoon.  Good.  Now, with having this repeated affirmation you are imprinting your desire in your mind.  You are imprinting your desire very strongly in your mind by the repetition of the picture you are creating.  Good.  Then what happens is this, that your mind is so attuned to what you want that the force of your mind‑‑now the mind is very powerful, as we said‑‑the force of your mind will attract to you, and around you, certain circumstances.  It will attract to you certain kind of work.  We don’t believe in lotteries.  It will attract to you certain kind of work, and certain kind of circumstances where you will be the proud possessor of that Buick.  Yes.  Now, that is prayer.  So who answers your prayer?  You, yourself.  You yourself are answering the prayer by conditioning your mind to a certain set of circumstances. The best way is to formulate your own prayer for yourself which you are sincere about and which you can feel.  So this is just an example.  You can use this one, or formulate something else which you would like to.

The best way is to be non‑attached

The best way is to be non‑attached.  Love for the sake of love. If I’m attached to her, right, any little thing that goes wrong in our home will hurt me.  But if I have non‑attachment, it will not hurt.  You’d close a blind eye.  Yes.  So the basis of love is something which is very close to Divinity.  And God is love and love is God, as we know, the old saying.  So when you can truly love, the attachment would not be there at all.  And when there’s no attachment, there is no hurt.  There’s no hatred.  Now this of course comes at a much higher level in one’s evolutionary progress, because evolution is always progressive, it is never retrogressive.  But to reach the stage, what does one do?  That is the crux of the question.  It’s very simple: do nothing, that’s all.  Just be yourself.  And by being yourself, you will realize that I am not me at all.  I’m not Jean, Jack or John, no.  The real me is my inner self that operates, or that makes me operate. So there again we go to the essence of life, hm, not the surface value, not this body, not the attachments, not the possessions, none of these things, no, no.  To be oneself is to be in touch with one’s inner self, and not the surface self.  Because the surface self is so temporary.  Three score years and ten, huh.  Do you think that’s a long time?  It’s only a fraction. (I try and save on cigarettes).  It’s only a minute very, very, minute fraction in the scheme of eternity, and your real being is eternal.  So are you going to attach importance to these three score years and ten?  And many people don’t even live so long. I’ve known of young people at the age of 30‑35, that died of heart attacks.  So it’s cut down by half already.

The best way to get rid of the obsession to find God

So coming back to obsession.  Now, if we have an obsession to find Divinity, what do we do to get rid of this obsession?  That is the crucial question.  The best way to get rid of that obsession‑‑and very few have that obsession, it is a rare case where a person is obsessed with God, it is very rare, thank God‑‑ but what can one do if there is such a case?  Good.  The obsession can only be gotten rid of by understanding, by understanding that the obsession itself is unreal, and the ideal or the idea that the obsession pursues is also unreal.  For reality can never be known by the mind.  Reality can never be known by the mind.  So you are tackling an unreal idea with an unreal obsession about an unreal entity.  You see.

The best path

If your temperament has leanings to various paths then the best way for you to start is on the path to which you have a natural tendency.  It could be the path of the intellect.  It could be the path of devotion.  It could be the path of just living a good life and not caring if there is anything else beyond this world but doing good and being good.  That is also a path.  And all these things, all these paths fall under the general title of meditation.  Meditation is to find that oneness and harmony within itself and that is the purpose of meditation.

The best way to breathe

The best way to breathe is to get the air in down to the stomach and the stomach is pushed up to the chest.  And after a bit of practice you’d find it would come very naturally.  And you won’t do it consciously anymore and it would become habitual. It’s like starting to learn to play the piano where you would start pressing a key at a time.. finger, finger, finger.  And then once you become established and you know your keyboard, you can play Mozart or Bach or Beethoven and yet at the same time hold a deep philosophical conversation.

The best way to treat people in prison

So now, for example, the parents did not have the knowledge of how to teach the child, to direct his tendencies in a goodly, Godly way, has missed that opportunity.  Now the person grows up and those tendencies are running rampant in him.  What must he do? That is the question.  If we meet a person who has criminal tendencies, what can he do, or what can we do for him?  Now, I know of one power that works that is infallible.  I have spoken to people in prison and I have found that if we create through our meditational practices, if we uplift our own vibrations, and when we speak to such a person inevitably it has an effect on that person.  And that is why it is said in the Bible «If they smite you on one cheek, give the other».  «Love thy neighbour as thyself». So must I look upon the criminal as a criminal, or should I look upon the criminal as a human being that carries within himself a Divine potential?   Who is here on earth that is NOT a criminal? Who is here that is sinless?   But we condemn, we condemn, because we are trying to cover up our own faults and the best way to cover our own faults is to find the fault in others.  And by finding fault in others we forget our faults and that leads to condemnation, where we look down upon a criminal, we look down upon a criminal.

The best way to get rid of inhibitions

So now when a person, you asked me how to get rid of inhibitions, the best way to get rid of inhibitions is one that you try and live for the moment.  Now how can you do that?  It is to start off with just half a dozen times a day, what did I think two minutes ago and you reflect on that.  Do it for a little while and it will become an ingrained habit with you of self-analysis.  And the inhibitions that you suffer of, will be lost and you will be living in the moment because inhibitions are of the past, impressions are of the past.  Right, and number two, as you all know, Meditation, Gurushakti, Pranayama.  Things like that, it helps.  Because it takes your mind away.  One man came to me, I don’t know if I should discuss these things but you’re talking of inhibitions and this is one of the greatest inhibitions.  Yes.  Because we have discovered that through scientific research that forty percent of the world’s women are frigid.  Right.  Thirty eight point four five, I think it was, if I remember correctly, let’s say just thirty eight point of men at a certain time become impotent.  Fine.  This is the greatest thing in people’s lives, because it being the strongest urge and they worry about it.  And the worry makes them more.  Now I could tell you straight that there is no man in the world that could ever be impotent, even if you’re seventy years old.  Fine.  But it is your thinking and mulling over it that makes you feel impotent.  Do you see?  So why mull over it?

The best way not to allow anything to impress itself

Now, the best way not to allow anything to impress itself, to cut grooves in the subconscious mind, is through spiritual practices.  A person that is regular in his or her spiritual practices will never find anything leaving impressions in the subconscious level of the mind.  In other words, you form a covering, and by forming that covering, you become non‑attached to that experience that you’re undergoing through.  And yet, at the same time, you’re enjoying the experience.  You’re making love, you’re enjoying the act of lovemaking ‑‑ nothing wrong with it. Good.  But at the same time, you are enjoying enjoyment for itself at that moment not to be taken over in your subconscious mind which will turn up later in memory form, oh, Jean, Joan, whoever. It was fun with her.  I must make another date with her.  You don’t have that.  You’re there in the moment and you enjoyed yourself‑‑you’re past where you’ve left the body and merged yourself in that vast orgasm, hm?  That’s the nearest you could get to bliss consciousness in the physical, of course, and you merged away.  But after the mergence and when you come back down to earth, you know that you’re on earth and I’m not going to carry Jean or Joan around in my pocket.  So that would protect you from creating more and more impressions.

The best way to get rid of boredom

So as soon as you get bored you are in hell.  Because Heaven is always exciting, always creative, always creating.  The thought flows upon a thought ‑‑ creation, creation, creation.  You capture the thoughts of the entire universe.  You capture the doings and the joy of the entire universe and every moment becomes exciting and joyful and lovable, hm?  But when you get bored, you’re in hell.  And many of the problems‑‑emotional problems‑‑stem from an inner boredom.  You can be very busy in your work or whatever you are doing and yet you can feel very bored.  So get rid of that boredom and it will help you to get rid of the emotions that are troublesome.  And the best way to get rid of boredom is to meditate where there’s no place for boredom.  There is only place for kingdom, not boredom.

The best way to remove the effects of our karma

Now, let’s go a step further.  How important is the cause to the effect?  [truck noise]  How important is the effect to you? The greatest and best way, the only way to remove the effect is by observing the effect.  We have arrived at the figure 12; we do not want to know how that was arrived at, what combinations took place to arrive at figure 12.  We observe the figure 12, we observe the effect, good or bad, and by the very observation of it, you cease to identify yourself with it.  Like a child having a toothache ‑‑ you get him engrossed in a toy or a game and he forgets his toothache until he is tired of the game and the mind reverts back to the toothache.  So like that, like that what has happened to the child is that he has lost identification with the pain, and therefore he does not feel the pain.

The best way to make people love you

Now, when mind and body reaches a state of relaxation, then it allows the inner self, the spiritual self, to shine through. And not only to shine through, but it allows the spiritual self to permeate the mind and the body.  Hm.  Good.  So there is, because of the physical relaxation, there is a physiological and a biological benefit.  Hm?  Then when the mind reaches a tranquil state, there is a psychological benefit because the man who can think, whose mind is tranquil and at peace, his thinking becomes clearer, his awareness expands, his mind becomes less and less and less cluttered.  So there is a psychological benefit.  Now, the subtle body of man that contains all these chakras, they also start pulsating and vibrating at a higher level.  And when the subtle body starts pulsating and vibrating at a higher level it can capture the spiritual self of man within itself.  And capturing it within itself it conveys it to the physical self. Now, through meditation when more and more integration takes place, a person creates greater harmony within himself.  Now, when greater harmony is created within oneself, one automatically becomes harmonious with the environment.  So it benefits you sociologically.  Your environment, of course, is composed of your husband, your wife, your children, your friends, your society. And the best way to make people love you is to become lovable, and a harmonious person is always very lovable.  We all have the experience of going into a home and the vibrations are such that we feel, «Oh, let me leave here quickly.»  Sometimes you might be sitting in a very gloomy company, and just one person walks in and the whole atmosphere is lightened up, because that person, perhaps, at that moment is ticking off at a much heightened vibration.  And the subtler the vibration, the more heightened the vibration, the more power it radiates.  And the power it radiates is a soothing, healing power.  Fine.
So we have seen that through meditation we can benefit physiologically, biologically, psychologically, psychically, and find a spiritual integration.  We benefit sociologically.  And these are the various areas of life that requires fulfillment. And when this fulfillment comes about, then man becomes happy. Now, through meditation as we dive deep within ourselves, we don’t come back empty‑handed.  I said the other day, «If you spend half an hour in a perfume factory, you will come out smelling like perfume.»  Hm. Good.

The best way to serve the world

The best way to serve the world is to become a better person, because society is composed of units and if each unit improves itself, then, very naturally, society is improved.  There were many reformers in the world that tried to reform society collectively, but that had never been successful.  The way is for every individual person to try and improve himself.  And there…he wants to improve himself, because within himself he finds so much sorrow, so much misery. So by improving oneself, by gaining greater and greater self‑ integration, the sorrow becomes less, less, less, less, less, misery becomes less, less, less, less, less, until you reach the time when sorrow and miseries are words that you will not be able to remember anymore.  Good.  Fine.

The best way to stop plodding

Likewise, all our troubles might seem insuperable.  They might seem very steep, but once we tackle them, we’d find that they are not so difficult as they seem, because within every problem, the solution is inherent.  A problem can never be created without it having the solution as a built-in factor.  Now, through our meditations and spiritual practices, we develop a greater awareness.  And by the expanded awareness we can see the answer, we could see the solution to the problem.  Now, we do not always look for simple answers, or smooth answers.  Some answers are difficult, by all means.  But by having the strength, that difficulty becomes minimised, and there, that is how our plodding becomes easier.  So, in fact what we do is, we are these creators of the plodding, and we are the engineers of the turning point.  We have to turn, no one that turns for us.  We have to do, or die.  So it is us, us, us.  All problems, and all psychiatrists and psychologists will tell you that the patients they get in their rooms, come because of one purpose only.  Escaping.  People try to escape from what is in front of them, and that in turn, that escapism, causes all forms of psychosis and neurosis, and that in turn breaks out into different kinds of troubles.  So the best way to stop plodding is to plod. Yes. How to plod?  There is the secret, where we accept the fact.

The best way to enjoy

Somnambulism, how beautiful.  To enter the dimension of somnambulism, you are performing all actions and you are not aware of them.  What a beautiful state.  For to be aware, it can do two things for you.  It can either give you pain or pleasure.  But to be non‑aware, not unaware, but non‑aware is the state where there’s no pleasure and no pain but total ecstasy existing within itself and without any point of reference.  Do you see?
And that is the best way to enjoy.  For you are not now enjoying an object or a subject.  You are enjoying enjoyment.  And that enjoyment is enjoyed by not your ego self or your patternings or your conditionings.  But it is self‑existent within itself without requiring any support whatsoever.
So, non‑existence has to have its counterpart of existence. But what we have to find, through spiritual practices, is that invisible line between the two and live on that line, which is eternity.   Am I going a bit too deep?  Yah.  Pardon?  Right.

The best way to refine yourself

Now, when you go through difficulties that stops you from teaching, remember one thing.  Now let us take a pound in weight of steel, a pound in weight of steel.  Now with that pound of steel if we make kitchen cutlery, it will be worth two hundred pounds in money.  If we make surgical instruments with that pound of steel, it will be worth two thousand pounds.  But with the same pound of steel, if we make those delicate watch springs, it will be worth twenty thousand pounds.  Yet it is still the same pound of steel.  But that pound of steel has been worked to a finer and finer and finer level.  So that is how your worth grows by being tempered by refinement.  And what’s the best way to refine yourself?   By doing your practices and by teaching.  You see.

The best way to go beyond all delusions

Now this would naturally bring about a closed mind.  For example, we can look in theologies where it would be said that ‘He is the only begotten Son, the only manifestation of that supreme consciousness.’  Now, if we study this correctly it is true, but because of the conception we have, or rather misconception in this case, we start believing that this is entirely so and a delusion is always superficial.  So what we have to do is go beyond the realms of delusion.  How do we do this, to go beyond delusion?  The best way to go beyond all delusions, is further study.  One always has to study the pros and cons of things.  One always has to study and analyse both sides of the story and that is one of the surest ways of getting rid of delusion.  And yet even in that, if the pros and cons and the arguments on one side or the other are not well guided, you could go into further delusion because, because the pros and cons is also an analytical process and the sides, the two sides we look at, might be totally an illusion or a sophistry which has no foundation whatsoever.

The best way for us and for the environment that we are in

So, now the ego exists or has started from that fine current at the superconscious level.  And as it became more and more grosser it became more and more individualised.  And that is what we call the human personality.  That is what we call the human ego.  Man does not possess an ego.  He is the ego.  And because of the gravitational pull, because of the very nature of itself having come from that fineness it wants to reach back to that fineness and that is what the whole world, the whole universe all humanity all beings everywhere that is what it is all about everyone being drawn back to it’s source.  And that is why we consciously or unconsciously want to refine our grosser selves and become finer and finer and finer.  Now when we apply conscious effort to it, then the progress is faster.  With proper understandings given, the progress one makes becomes smoother.  So there’s speed and there’s smoothness.  Like we tell the new typist we hire, speed and accuracy.  That’s what we want.  Not speed and mistakes or the other way round.  We want speed and accuracy.  We want to reach home to the source by accuracy we mean smoothness because anything, which is done inaccurately, cannot be smooth.  And of course we want to reach there in the minimum of time.  Because we can drift there by all means.  Yes.  But just imagine all the problems that we would have to go through just to drift along.  We want to reach Piccadilly Circus and if we don’t know the way, we’ll go through stumbling around, bumbling around all the little streets of London and it’s such a large place we can go on and on and on and not find your way.  Because I have seen people living in London themselves getting lost in London and ninety nine percent of the drivers carry a map in their car.  Is that true?  You see.  And you live in London.  You’ve been born here, brought up here and yet you’ve got to carry a map.  How much not more so when you come to uncharted areas.  So once we have the map, once we have planned the path, once we have been shown the path to reach Piccadilly Circus it becomes easier, smoother, quicker, you have on petrol.  You help the country’s economy. (Gururaj laughs)  All these examples are used, meaning that it is the best way for us and for the environment that we are in.

The best way to serve man

So that is how man can serve another.  For the service of man is the service of God.  That is the best way to serve Divinity by serving man.  And that does not mean just a physical act of service, helping an old lady across the street or carrying someone’s parcels.  That is very easy.  But these very thought forces that we can generate in our minds, be it as cunning as it is, but we can turn that very energy into a positive compelling force where, whatever your heart desires, whatever you mind wants, can be got, can be achieved.  As a young man, if you make up your mind today that in five years time I will have a million pounds, you will have it, if you’re determined enough, if you can plan well, if you know what you’re up to, you can have it.  But then again what use is it going to be?  If you want it, okay.  Fine.  Rather the thought that «Let me be one with Thee, my Lord.»  That is the greatest achievement, for that is what we’re all about and that is what, that goes with us and not the million pounds.  Do you see?

The best way to get the maximum benefit of breath

The best way to get the maximum benefit of breath is to make the breath so refined that you absorb the vital force.  Now, when you sit down to meditate 20 minutes, half an hour, you’ll find your breathing slowing down, the metabolic rate drops.  But apart from the metabolic rate, the great purpose in your breathing slowing down is that you are taking in finer breath.  That is why it slows down.  In other words, you’re absorbing more of the essence of that vital force.  Do you know a man’s life is not to be measured by how many years he lives?  A man’s life is to be measured by how many breaths he takes.  So the deeper the breathing, and in meditation when it becomes so slow, that it must effect your entire system.  It makes your life longer.  Because you’re breathing less and yet you’re taking in the vital forces of the air.

The best way to wake me up

The best way to wake me up in the mornings after going to bed at half past five in the morning, is just to blow into my ear and say «I love you,» and I’m
awake.  [SNAPS FINGERS]  [LAUGHTER]

The best way to get rid of the confusion of fear

Now, any kind of energy can be used positively, if an understanding is gained of that energy.  Without gaining the understanding of the energy, we are in confusion.  And whenever anyone is in confusion you can be certain that that is within us.  Good.  So we start by getting rid of the confusion, and the best way to get rid of the confusion is to understand the situation, why do I fear?  Once one has an understanding of the reason why one fears or why one hates, then half the problem is solved – because the very process of analysing the reason.  If you go to a psychiatrist or a psychoanalyst, what does he actually do?  He makes you talk, he makes you talk, he makes you talk, and while making you talk, he will guide you slowly, he will guide you very subtly sometimes, to make you see the faulty reasoning that you have.  He will make you see the fallacy, the misunderstanding you have, that a good psychoanalyst will do.  Good, fine.  In the spiritual path, we do the same, Jnana Yoga, the yoga of discrimination, we, we can actively discriminate.  The reason, find the reason with discriminative power, why we are hating, and why we are angry, and why we have fear.

The best way to be rid of pain

The best way to be rid of pain is to stop running after pleasure.  Do you see?  And when we run after pleasure what is the first thing we have in our minds?  Expectancy.  And expectancy is the mother of disappointment.  It is only when you expect and your expectations do not work out and then you feel the pain.  So you do not weed the garden on the surface level.  You take out the weeds with the root and all.  And the roots are expectancy.  You expect your son to pass his exam, if he doesn’t pass, you feel so disappointed and pain results.  You expect your business to succeed and expectations are always exaggerated.  You do not have a genuine expectation, you always exaggerate it.  So on these goods I am selling, I will make two hundred pounds profit but you expect to make four hundred pounds.  So you expect in every area of life.  But how about just working for the sake of work, without any expectation.  For if work is done in its true way, in its true form then the results will be there.  They have to be there.  I was saying to some people the other day, ‘You work for a boss and you get paid a monthly cheque.  Now every hour of the day you are not thinking ‘Ah, thirtieth, thirtieth, coming, coming, cheque, cheque, cheque, cheque’.  You are not thinking of your salary cheque every moment of the day.  You only start thinking about it the third week of the month when you start running short.  Yes.  Yes.  So, as we do our daily work, we are working, we are doing the job that we are doing and we are not thinking of the pay cheque.  And yet end of the month the pay cheque is there.  Likewise, if, and a very big if it is, isn’t it, if we could live our lives in that way all the time in every department of our lives to do what we have to do without expecting.

The best way to become non‑attached

The best way to become non‑attached is to learn how to pull your leg behind you and kick your ass.  You will have to work on that.  This darling, of course I’m joking and having some fun, but it is a very, very, vast subject.  It’s a very vast subject. Nevertheless, we’re joking and having some fun together.  Do you see the whole principle?  Just by looking at a person’s face you could read their whole mind, their souls, their spirits, their bodies, their hm…  Tell me one thing now, why are you sitting with your hands together?  No, no, no, no sit as you are.  Why? No, that’s not true.  Comfortable that’s one of the aspects of it,
but it is a greater sign of self‑protection.  I’m talking of body language.  I sit this way.  I’m open to everyone.  I won’t unzip my pants, of course.  You know that.

The best way to overcome fear

So when fear is brought to a level of crisis, a fantastic, infinite amount of energy can be generated where fear turns into fearlessness.  But now we can’t go about in the world that every moment becomes a crisis.  Life would be wonderful then won’t it (General laughter) that every moment is a crisis?  Fine.  So what we do is this, what we do is this, that we keep on supplanting in our mind the things which are anti fear, that are opposed to fear and we have the ability in us.  Now the very tools of the mind, the impression carrier, the intellect, good, the memory box all those that are an obstacle, can be used to overcome obstacles.  We use the same instrument but in a opposite direction.  The other day I told someone that if my milk turns sour, most people will throw it away – milk is gone sour.  Not I, I will turn it into beautiful, delicious yoghurt.  Same milk.  How we use it?  Fine.  So the instruments of the mind that had been such a block to our progress can be used to further our progress.  And the best way to do that is by our spiritual practices, spiritual practices and during the waking state of life right living, right action.

The best way to listen

Mind you the best way to listen, is to sit relaxedly and without concentration, just allow what is said to penetrate the mind.  Good.

The best way in this age

Now if you look at the reflection of ME in water it looks like WE. So that me becomes we. For that which is in you is also in me. That oneness in that weeness in that closeness. And, the best way in this age – and the Bagavad Gita was written for this age at the beginning or just a bit after, when Kali Yuga started, is the path of Devotion and Grace. Bhakti Yoga.

The best way is to keep on with one’s spiritual practices

GURURAJ:  Right, now, for example, say for example, a person says an awkward or bad word to you, right.  Then your reaction should be not of anger, but your reaction should be more of compassion to that person, kindness to that person, that that person’s mind is not on the level and therefore he said a word, you know, which is not good.  We should never allow these things to affect us at all.

‑‑  Well, my question is:  I know you get angry, too, but you don’t hold on to it.  What’s the secret of not holding on to it?

GURURAJ:  Become a guru.  No, that’s a very good question. Actually, it’s very profound.  When we can view things objectively, then anger disappears, because, as our heart expands and greater and greater love comes, you know, in the heart, then naturally there would not be place for anger.  Because the mind momentarily would feel angry, but that anger is just shed off like water off a duck’s tail.  So the best way is to keep on with one’s spiritual practices which will expand the heart and the awareness, and, by expanding the awareness, there’s greater understanding, and then we truly try and understand the person and understand his actions so that we don’t get angry.  And, instead of anger, we rather develop kindness and compassion, saying, «Oh, well, look, he has been foolish, you know.  So I’m not going to become angry, because if I become angry, I’m going to be more foolish.»  Yes.

The best way to throw away hurt

So life is but a play.  Everything around you is a play.  Watch it as a play.  Everything that happens within you objectified, watch it, watch it happening, and you would be surprised how much you can enjoy it by watching it happening.  Then all the sting, all the hurt that produces hatred, will be diminished, and if not only diminished, it will disappear.  For you are not seething with the hurt inside.  You are throwing it out.  And the best way to throw it out, two ways, and, they both can be combined, is to objectify it, and watch it and then give it to God.  ‘Look, old chap you made all this, take it back’.  It can be done.  You made it, you made the good, and you made the bad according to my own little mind’s interpretation, and my mind also says I am giving it back to you.  Do with it what you like’.  Now this requires some little strength, and that strength can only be gained by the harmony we spoke about this morning, that self integration, the integrated way of life where mind, body and spirit function together in totality.  Then we start living a full life, and not a fragmented life.  We find things to be ugly, many things to be ugly.  It’s like looking a painting.  It could be a very beautiful painting but our attention is focussed just to one little section of the painting which might seem so blotched and dark, but move back and see the whole picture and how beautiful it is.  And then you will realise that that dark blotch on that painting was necessary to make up that whole scene, was necessary to make up the picture.  And then in viewing the beauty of the entire picture, that dark spot disappears for you.  Your attention is not there but the realisation by analysis could come, it was this very dark spot that enhanced the totality of the picture.

The best way to influence the grosser nerve complexes

Now, the part that the chakras play in that is that in our physical organism we have certain nervous complexes where there is a bundle of nerves, a nerve complex from which various other nerves lead off.  Good.  Now, the grosser nervous complex also has its subtle counterpart in the subtle body.  Now, people that have the third eye opened, that has psychic sight, if you would like to use that word, can see these vortexes of subtle energy, can see the subtle complexes.  Now, the best way to influence the grosser nerve complexes is by working on the subtler nervous complexes. And as we said yesterday, I think it was, that whatever is subtle could be more powerful.  So in the practices given yesterday in the mandala practices, we are using certain chakras for the purposes of allowing the energies to flow smoothly and harmoniously and to get rid of the blockages.  Good.

The best way of answering a question

Now when a questioner asks a questioner, he is basically asking, ‘Who am I?’  And the question though it might be superfluous like as I said what makes the clock tick, is actually asking what makes me tick.  And why are there veils in my mind covering the answer?  You know the best way of answering a question is by saying nothing.  Yes.  Yes.  If the question comes from the deepest layer of the mind, the layer of the superconscious mind, this is how for example, Buddha taught.  He would sit there with his chelas around him.  He would just sit still and his chelas would sit around and they would have questions in their minds and when they leave his presence, they find that they have found the answer to what they were enquiring about.  Good.  But that is at a different level.  Today what we have to do is to clarify the mind to an extent where no question remains.  That of course is the goal, where the question and answer is but the same.  For actually the question is itself the answer.  This is a bit difficult I know to understand.  When I say the question is itself the answer, means that the answer is contained within the question.  For if the answer was not contained within the question, then there would be no question.  Like, it is like saying that the solution to a problem is contained within the problem or else there would be no problem.  Good.

The best way to review our talking

The best way to review our talking is by not talking.  Now what does that mean?  It means that talk is nothing else but the verbalization of thought.  And when thoughts become steady, silent, and find an equilibrium, then the real talk begins, the real review begins between you and Him.  So words has its value naturally, more so for a spiritual master because he has to give people some understanding of themselves.  So it has its purpose.  But the real answer comes always when you become still. I have given you all the tools to become still.  I have given you all those spiritual energies  to become still.  Keep alive those spiritual energies by being regular in your gurushakti practices. So therefore, this is what is meant in the scriptures by «be still and know that I am God.»  Who are you really knowing?  You are knowing, by being still, you are only knowing stillness, and that stillness is Divinity itself.