I heard a story of a blind man walking with someone in a desert. He was going on his path somewhere and he met someone who was on the same path. So they walked in the desert together and during the walk they became good friends. One night after sleeping, the blind man woke up before the other man and he couldn’t find his walking stick. He was searching around and searching around until suddenly he found something which was more smooth and more shiny, a good one. And he felt happy and thought to himself, “Thank God that I lost my stick, now I found another beautiful stick.” He then woke up his friend saying, “Hey wake up, the sun is about to rise.” When the other man woke up and saw his stick he shouted, “Leave what you have in your hand, it’s a snake!” To which the blind man responded, “I have been with you for a few days and you think I am blind, but I am of some understanding that you are jealous of my nice stick and you are asking me to throw this so that you can take it. I am not going to throw it.” The other man said, “Don’t be stupid, just throw it!” To which the blind man replied, “No I will not.” And he got angry at him and they separated. After some time, when it became hotter, what he was considering to be a stick came to life and bit him. It was, in fact, a snake that had become hard and frozen overnight in the cold. Then the blind man realized that he made a mistake to not trust his fellow man who was walking with him by not leaving the snake. What many participants consider as a good value, either by gossiping or by going on the internet, using a smartphone or making calls to their friends and spending in some ways the energy being gathered, the energy which we have. I clearly see that, because I am not saying this by hearing from someone, I walked that path, I have been to the same misery for so long, and I totally get it when I see the energy getting destroyed in unnecessary things. Totally useless. One way we can make this energy go upward, another way downward. When it reaches up it is good, it is towards godliness, towards bliss. And when it goes down it is towards misery. We can use the energy in any which way we want, it’s all about energy. One story of Jesus really inspires me. This story may be totally made up and I feel it is made up, but there is a lot to learn from it. In the story it is explained that Jesus walks to one village and on the roof, what he sees is one person saying bad words. Jesus notices that and goes to the person saying, “Hey, life is beautiful. Why are you saying bad words, you can say good things.” The man recognizes Jesus and says, “Hey Jesus you have forgotten me. Remember sometime back I was just about to die and you put your hand on me and you gave me life. Do you remember that?” Jesus responds, “Yes I remember. But why alcohol and saying bad words to others? Life is beautiful, you can make use of it.” The man replies, “You gave life to me and then after that I didn’t know what to do. So I drank alcohol and after that what comes out is this.” Jesus was sad and then walked further. He sees another man running behind a prostitute. Jesus goes towards that man and tells him, “There is a better use you can make of these eyes.” He realizes it’s Jesus and says, “It’s you Jesus, do you remember that time you used your magic hands and gave me sight? I was blind before. Now I don’t know what to do with these eyes.” So he was doing what he could do to make use of his eyes and he was running behind the woman. Jesus goes further and then he sees one more person doing the same strange things and he says, “Jesus it was you who saved me. I was taken to the graveyard, I was dead and you gave me life.” And Jesus says, “Why misuse this life like this?” Now the story seems created to teach something. There is a tremendous learning we can have. What do we do with our life? All the power we have, where are we investing it? Where are we spending it? Is it towards our conscious goal or are we totally wasting it? We don’t know what to do and we are just doing something. Whatever career we have chosen, whatever work we are doing, is it towards the purpose of this life we have or are we just doing it without knowing why? If we will introspect, like spending some time everyday with yourself and asking, “Why did I come to this planet? What am I doing here? And is what I am doing serving this purpose?” Then this introspection will bring some answers. This introspection will at least bring what not to do if what to do becomes a confusion. And then one becomes alert of those things and doesn’t do them anymore. So we realize that gossiping doesn’t add anything and that it is unnecessary. If there is some answer in it you need to seek, if there is something productive in your goal, it is good. Or is it unnecessary? And pay attention if it is really helping, based on what we discussed about a conscious goal, or someone else is just giving me an opinion and now I am more confused. Because most people don’t even know for themselves what to do. So the best is to find answers from within, remaining more isolated, more in silence and getting the answer. Seeing in any which way we waste our energy. There is one story of Angulimal and his interaction with Lord Gautam Buddh. One time Buddh was walking a path and the village people stopped him and said, “Don’t go on this path because it will go towards the Angulimal.” The word Angulimal means fingers. He was wearing a chain of fingers. So whichever person he kills, he would use their fingers in his chain and keep it with him to show how many he has killed. He had killed 999 and we were waiting for more. So when Buddha was walking towards that the village people said ,”Please don’t go this way and use another path to go to where you need to go because Angulimal is there and all he does is kill people.” So Lord Buddh said, “If this is the case that Angulimal is on that side, I will go to this path only, I will not change my path.” They requested him not to, but he didn’t agree and went ahead. Angulimal was living on a tree and when Buddha was getting close, from a distance Angulimal noticed that a Saddhu was coming and he saw his silent walk and thought to himself, “This guy I should not kill.” So from a distance he shouted, “Stop! If you come further I will kill you. You are being warned by me only because you are a Saddhu and I don’t want to kill a Saddhu, so go back and change your path!” Buddh did not stop. Instead he said, “If this is the case then I must meet you” and continued to walk further. He warned again, “You can still go back, don’t come. I don’t have any kind of forgiveness, I will kill you. Go back.” And Buddh did not stop there. Angulimal thought, ‘Maybe this person is crazy, why is he coming?’ But he noticed the silence Buddh had in his walk, the peace around him and he came close and said, “You can kill me but before that, please cut four leaves from this tree and give them to me.” So he had a big knife, he hit the tree and broke the branch and said, “Instead of four I give you four thousand.” Buddh says, “Okay you have done this. Now, put it back. Any child can cut, any child can kill, any weak person can kill, can you put it back?” Because of Buddh’s silence and presence and asking such a question to him without any fear, it made him think, ‘Yes, it’s true that I am not brave because I kill people. If I can bring someone to life, then I am brave, or if I can break and then join again, then I am brave.’ So something happened inside him and he realized that “This is not possible, I cannot do this.” Buddh then said to him, “I am on the path of putting things back together and you are on the path of cutting.” Angulimal asked, “How can I join it?” Buddha tells him, “You come with me.” A transformation happened in that time and he bowed down to Buddh and requested him to take him to that path. So when Angulimal came to the village, everybody knew him and the news spread and there was talk, “Why would Buddh keep him around him, he might kill again.” Then one day Buddh sent him to go beg for food. When he went to beg, the village people were scared he might kill someone so they went to the rooftops and threw stones at him. He got hit by the stones and blood was coming, stones were thrown and went through him and he fell apart. Then after it finished the Buddh came to him and told him, “When they were throwing stones at you, you were fine. When you fell and even bled , you were still silent and no thought of killing them came to you.” And then this story and the news reached the king of that area Prashanjeet. So the king came to Buddha and said, “I have heard that Angulimal became a Saddhu. Is it possible to have a glance at him?” To which Buddh replied, “This person sitting next to me is him.” And the king got scared thinking, “I am sitting with such a deadly man.” The fear was so strong. So the energy can go in any which way. One, we can put into positivity and one, we can put into negativity. The energy levels are of three levels. One is routine energy, as we have right now. Second level, accidental energy. Accidental energy, for example, if there is a fire and suddenly we would have energy and we want to save ourselves and quickly go outside. It happened one time there was somebody here at the ashram and she was really tired with all the practices. Then some insects came inside her clothes and she tried to take them out, but they were not coming out. Suddenly she jumped, screamed, searched, took all her clothes off and did all these things to take the insects out. Suddenly she had so much energy. You do the practices. You would not wake up at 4:00am if it was told to you. And now you wake up very comfortably. From morning 4:00am to night 10:00pm, going on no problem with the same energy level. At the same time you would have been sleeping at home, but actually it is not a sleep, just changing sides. Now that got transformed and you made some good use of it. You are doing the breathing and cleansing the body further. At the same time you could be just shifting sides in the bed, instead you are making use in meditation and the time is not wasted. So in the accidental energy suddenly you will have energy. The third level is the cosmic energy. As we enter into that space we can go on and on and on and on as much as we want, like some of you did in the dance marathon. Eight hours non-stop we danced, which none of you ever did before. Same person, but we have done it. So once we enter into that space we can go on and on and on as much as we want. Like marathon runners, they also reach into that space. Running, running, running, running, and then they enter into that space and can go on and on and on and on. Like when you make the jumps in mantra chanting meditation. If you stop, you stop totally, or if you imagine to yourself, “There is a gun pointed at head, if I stop, I’ll be dead.” Whatever works for you. And then you keep going on and on and on, you enter into a space where time and space doesn’t matter and you go on. So you enter into a space and you go for it, like in Dynamic Meditation when you freeze into stillness also, likewise, if you have frozen totally you enter into that space where time and space doesn’t matter and you go on. But if you keep changing then you never reach that space. Like in meditation, there were times you didn’t realize that now it’s already two and a half hours later and for you that used to be a huge amount of time. Time space doesn’t matter now. Energy levels are routine, accidental and third cosmic energy. As our volunteer Satori Ji was saying, “I am here to explore more potential hiding inside of me.” We all can explore that more and more
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