Combine both Work and Worship

You should realise that for every action there is a consequence. The results of each action depend on the nature of the action, just as the nature of the tree depends on the seed which is sowed. The consequences of one's actions are inescapable and it is for this reason that the Emperor Manu laid down that all should observe Dharma. The consequences of actions may appear sooner or later but they are bound to occur. When you constantly think of God and perform all actions with Divine feelings, you will experience the full blossoming of the human qualities. Consider every action as dedicated to God. You cannot avoid actions. You must transform work into worship. You have to perform work in this spirit. You cannot substitute prayer for work. You have to combine both work and worship.

Isn’t it great how we can get aware of the divine Lila as it was the case yesterday and just in thinking it over, but he is telling us here what happens when we are thinking it over, divinity is our best friend and he is telling us like that . Sometimes it is just yesterday we get in a kind of miraculous way aware of it, we do it, but we don’t even know what it is actually until he is telling us we just follow the inner master and we do it, because we have to do it when he said in the inner view that it is a job, right, a job we do even if we don’t know exactly what kind of job it is and that is how we get that uplifting answer and afterwards looking back it seems like a miracle actually that in such a way we get established in an inner relationship with the divine best friend and can share our thoughts and feelings with him.

In this transient world, wading through joy and grief, people have a sore need of someone of their kind with whom they can communicate their feelings, share their discoveries and depressions, their moments of bliss and sorrow; someone to be by their side while trekking the hard road to truth and peace.

His words are that lovely I have to remember it once more, it means for me it was a highlight to think it over. We have to understand that we are not just reading it, because if we read a text, we read it and not one moment we would actually think that we can share our feelings with the divine, but if we listen, think it over and absorb it is different, because he is there in the inner view, he is there in the dream and insights and if we think over his insights only we get aware of it.  And we just go on because it works, we go on because he is present, we go on because we feel that precious nearness we are always looking for and now after he has left the body, we can feel it when we listen to his words, but even more when we think it over and only when it is absorbed we know exactly what it is. We go on an practice and listen to his words and one day we have a thought for the day like this and it tells us exactly what it is and what we are doing and in the mean time by listening and thinking it over we began to share thoughts and feelings and we notice that he is our dearest and nearest and best friend. That is not only a surprise, that is kind of a miracle because we never think that something like that is possible on the mind level. Yesterday was such a day, I was just amazed when I realized that he told us in such a way that divinity is the best friend and we are doing what all others think is impossible. That is why I had to put it all on top in my blog that in a fact in thinking over his words, we have to see it in our own life to understand it and by that we begin to share our thoughts and sorrows and whatever we discover and what we think is just great and as we go on sharing it and in writing it down it has still a different effect on our life and one day he is telling us that divinity is our best friend and we realize that in the mean time we could call our blog also letters with my best friend. It feels good, it feels great, it feels like dancing and singing and laughing and sharing and it feels like joy. We have to make the experience of it, nothing what Baba is teaching is only theoretical wisdom, it has to be practical and the main thing is, we follow the inner master, we have to fight to the end and we should finish the game and we will get aware of it that he is out best friend that we will we recognize some time somewhere, maybe only when the game is already finished and we actually know what we are doing in the mean time? We just do it that is the main thing, we have to practice and we go on practicing until we understand what we are doing.

However, friendship and friends today are far from the ideal. Friends who can confer real counsel, comfort and consolation are rarely found. If friendship must last then heart must understand heart, heart must be drawn to heart. Friendship must bind two hearts and affect both of them beneficially, whatever be the circumstance - loss or gain, pain or pleasure, good fortune or bad. The bond must survive all the blows of fate and be unaffected by time, place and situation. The trust and honour of each is in the safekeeping of the other.

It is a great moment when we get aware that he is present in his words, that he is present in it when we are thinking it over and he is the result when it is absorbed. We have to think it over and if we don’t do it, we don’t know what we are missing, we are still looking for him at the wrong place. We have to follow the inner master and not project him outside in the relative world, we realize that he is our best friend and that we can share thoughts and feeling with him if we are focused on the inner master. What we feel is his divine presence, we remember his divine Darshan and we enjoy his presence. If we share our thoughts with him he must be present, mustn’t he?

It is great to experience his friendship and that we actually can tell him about our sorrows and thoughts and feelings and insights and discoveries. It is wonderful to have such a best friend we always can talk wherever we are and at any time. That is how we realize or get aware of it that we are in need of someone of our kind with whom we can communicate our feelings?

It means of our kind and who is of our kind? It is our own higher self and sharing with it as our best friend is more than we ever would expect.

Getting aware of our own higher self is one thing, but when I had a self experience, it seemed that far away and I didn’t know how to get there, it had no body and it was a transcendental reality and that he is that, that was one insight, but that by knowing him it becomes our best friend, that is totally different reality. Someone who has not experience about it, will not get the idea of it, we think it is not possible or it doesn’t make any sense to someone who doesn’t know the divine power of Swami and sometimes it even doesn’t make sense to devotees if they think they know it all and they think they know how it should be and all the does and donts, but if they don’t listen to him, they have not yet even realized that he is the knower and not we.

We have to accept that he is the knower and that we learn from him and if we don’t listen, we just don’t know where to look for him. He is inside, he is in the heart and we have to go inside and if we look for him at the outside, we don’t look for him at the right place. If we don’t listen to the divine words, how can we feel his presence in his words? That are not only Baba’s words, that is him. He explained that Veda tells us there are four stages, the waking stage, the dream stage, the sleep stage and Turjay that transcendental stage. And he also explained that divinity is merging all those stages in one in omniscience. If we listen to Swami’s words they are not only on the waking stage level, but as well the dream and seep stage. For us the sleep is temporary and changing, for him it is Turiya, non changing omnipresent awareness, divine and eternal. If we read his words, it means we have to listen first. Listening takes only care of the waking stage and it involves also thinking it over what is on the level of dream stage and it will be absorbed and that is the sleep stage. Baba is on all those levels, there is oneness, it means there is no difference, it is all the same for him, but for us not, we have a difference between the four stages and therefore, we have to do it on three level also to get there, we have to listen, think it over and absorb. That explains why merely reading is not taking care of it and we miss most of it, because we do not do any effort if we are not thinking it over.

If we think we know, we are in the mind, we look for him at the outside, we think we know and look for him at the wrong place. If we listen to him we know that he is the knower and we are the listener and he will tells us about it, we have to think it over and see it in our own life and that is how we get aware of it.

As he is the knower we have to accept that we are the listener and by that we are able to think it over and to absorb. If we think it over our insights and dream will look all different. The result of it is really that we can share thoughts and feelings with our divine best friend and we don’t get even aware of what we are doing first, we have to follow the master, fight to the end and finish the game. If we think we will find in him the best friend and we want to share, we are the doer and it will not work. He has to be the doer and he will show us that he is our best friend.

In the interview he said, ‘follow the master, fight to the end, finish the game’ and by following the inner master we will get aware of it.

It was a great moment getting aware that we are sharing our thoughts and feelings with him. We share discoveries and depressions, the moments of bliss and sorrow, there is someone by our side while trekking the hard road to truth and peace.

It is the friendship we find in the Bhagavad Gita with Arjuna and it is Krishna the charioteer his best friend and he is telling him why he has to fight, he knows, Arjuna is listening, think it over and he has to absorb the wisdom.

In this transient world, wading through joy and grief, people have a sore need of someone of their kind with whom they can communicate their feelings, share their discoveries and depressions, their moments of bliss and sorrow; someone to be by their side while trekking the hard road to truth and peace.

As he is telling us today that every action has consequence, as we know from the Bhagavad Gita it also has consequences if we do not act. We are not only responsible for our actions, but also if we don’t do it and keep only silent and we refuse to see it as our duty and that is also action, only it is not the right action, it is the absence of the right action and in other words we avoid our responsibility.  

We are all like Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. We can easily feel with Arjuna by developing virtues that he didn’t want to fight and Swami explained it to us and he said that Arjuna answered to Krishna that he would prefers to give up the kingdom, he would prefer to give it to the Kauravas than to kill all those people he knew and there were relatives and friends.

And that is when the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita comes in and Krishna explains to Arjuna all that wonderful wisdom and his duty and why he has to fight and commit to his duty and he also explains to Arjuna that if he is not doing his duty, that the result will be that people will see him as a coward, they will think that he was afraid and they will not see it as sacrifice and renouncing his kingdom, he duty was to fight and he had to act, he could not just lean back and leave it to all others and retire in the forest. If he doesn’t do it, what will come back on him as consequence of his action is not honor, but shame, not a good name, but they will tell that he was scared to fight and that he was fainthearted and not doing his duty.

We all are at one time or another in that situation and we have to realize that there is no choice and we have to act. We are like Arjuna and Krishna is our charioteer and we have to fight for Dharma, our real duty, the divine duty and listen to Krishna the charioteer telling us why and what we have to do, if we don’t do it, it will be wrong understood.

If we listen, think it over and absorb, we are like Arjuna in the chariot and the divine is our charioteer and we listen to him and we think it over and by that we get the right answer. If we listen to his words, we are like Arjuna listening to him and absorbing the wisdom to be able to do the right thing.

If Arjuna would not have hold on to his duty and he would not have fought that fight, there would be no Bhagavad Gita and not song of the eternal and highest wisdom. What Krishna explained to him that it is not his fight and not his doing, but it is the war of Dharma and he is just part of it.

If he doesn’t find he thinks he can change it and he is in power to do so, when in reality we are not, he is the doer, but without thinking it over we will not get aware of it and understand it right.

If we don’t follow Baba’s call and the message of the Bhagavad Gita, it will be the same as it was for Arjuna, divinity will tell us, either we fight and do our divine duty or we will be seen as cowards or even worse.

It is the same for all of us.

We have to do our duty and listening to him and doing our work and the job he gave us and we have to practice and if we don’t we would be like Arjuna not doing his duty and it would come back by Karma not as honorable, not as good, but it is ignorant and it will turn in the opposite.

We are his instruments and we have to understand it and by that we are responsible and if there is ignorance going on we are responsible, because we are not on the side of the light, we have to stand up for that what we believe in and if we don’t we are automatically part of darkness.

We have to be good instruments and do our best and we are on the side of the good cause and Dharma and light, and if we don’t, we are not only not decided, we are on the other side. Everybody in ignorance is on the other side. That is why we have to accept truth and go for it and accept right action and there is no other way that there will ever by peace in this world and that is why we need a good friend with whom we can share our feelings and insights.

We have to decide and that decision makes it real. To make it real we need four things, a decision and work and time and a result, that makes it real and it leads to self-realization.

If we are in ignorance, we don’t take yet a decision and therefore, we don’t do any work in the right direction and there is time involved and a result and because all that is missing and we are just living in the mind, we are not on the side of the light. We have to take the consequences for it.

We are not only responsible for the action, we also responsible if we are not acting and we should act.

You should realise that for every action there is a consequence. The results of each action depend on the nature of the action, just as the nature of the tree depends on the seed which is sowed. The consequences of one's actions are inescapable and it is for this reason that the Emperor Manu laid down that all should observe Dharma. The consequences of actions may appear sooner or later but they are bound to occur.

If we go with every step closer to divinity and we listen to him as Arjuna did on the battlefield, the shadow of Maya illusion will fall back behind us and cannot anymore delude us. But everybody has to find it in himself in listening to inner master and following the heart and our inner consciousness.

When constantly think of God and perform all actions with Divine feelings, you will experience the full blossoming of the human qualities. Consider every action as dedicated to God. You cannot avoid actions. You must transform work into worship. You have to perform work in this spirit. You cannot substitute prayer for work. You have to combine both work and worship.

At the beginning when I read first the Bhagavad Gita I didn’t understand it at all and I wondered why it was all about war and why that was holy and one of the holiest books we know. At that time I went to the Hare Krishna temple and I tried to know more about it, but it was still not understood, only when Baba explained it to us it began to make sense and that it is the battle of life we all have to fight knowing the difference between right and wrong and how we go from darkness to light and what happens in that holy book is that Krishna is the charioteer and Arjuna is listening to him and the result is the song of the eternal, the Bhagavad (eternal divine) Gita (song). If we listen to his words and we think it over and absorb, we are in a way in that chariot and we are listening to Krishna and the divine wisdom, surrendering is in that sense accepting that not we are the knower, but that he is the doer, he is the knower and therefore, we have to listen to him, that is the way Arjuna is surrendering to the divine guidance of Krishna and every word said is by Arjuna asking questions and Krishna answering them.  

We are like Arjuna on the battlefield and we have to get aware of it.

When Swami left the body there was a deep well and we went in the dream together in that well and it was very deep and on the bottom was only little water left and in me was the question what it means and we went up again and there was something like a cavity in the wall and he dropped the body and it just fell into dust and up we went still and on top was Krishna and his divine brother, but it had a bow, so I was not sure if it was Arjuna or Balarama, but they seemed all happy and walking over beautiful green fields.

It was a great insight, but only when thinking it over and listening to his words and getting aware of the meaning in listening and that is how we absorb the wisdom, we also get aware that we are part of the Bhagavad Gita and it is Krishna telling us and in that moment we are Arjuna why we have to fight and he explains duty and that is how we get the answer, it was Arjuna in the insight with the box, because the teaching was given to Arjuna.

That is how we get the answers to the insights in thinking it over and at the end it does make sense.

It is also called Dharmakshetra, it is a divine war we have to accept right action, but only in practicing we can get there. It is a place of Dharma and not of the family, even if they are all parts of the Kuru dynasty and therefore, it is called Kurukshetra. If we are on the side of the light and Krishna we are on the side of the Pandavas and Dharma, if we are on the side of ignorance we are on the side of the Kauravas and the enemy and Adharma.

We get with Baba to the insight that we have to do our duty and we have to listen to the divine words and fight and follow the inner master and if we don’t do it, it will be misunderstood and we will be seen afterwards as cowardice and people will think that we didn’t have the guts to do it or even worse, that we didn’t know what we were doing, what is probably closest to it, but we always have to take the consequence of our actions if we do it or if we don’t do it.

That is the message of the Bhagavad Gita and it is the sound of the eternal and an example of someone who is listening and thinking it over and how he absorbs the wisdom. We are on the battlefield of Dharma and it is the fight between those who listen at side of Dharma and those who don’t listen and they are therefore on the side of Adharma and part of the enemy, it is the example of each and every life of us, we always have to decide on what side we are and will be.

You cannot avoid actions. You must transform work into worship. You have to perform work in this spirit. You cannot substitute prayer for work. You have to combine both work and worship.