Meditation 2: Prayatna Shaithilya/ Vichara Shaithilya – Easter puja. Temple of all Faiths, London (UK), 22 April 1984.
The first and foremost thing is that realisation comes to you effortlessly. So the effort which is built into your body all the time, the energy of effort, “I must do this, I must do that, I have to do this, I have to do that!” That creates tension, that I have told you already. So what do we do? We do not try to compete with others. We do not try to fix certain timings, dates, watches. We do not also put our attention into any endeavour which puts us into effort, but we relax that attitude of effort. It’s called as, in Sanskrit, prayatna shaithilya . For a western mind it is very difficult to grasp the subject so try to understand. That doesn’t mean lethargy, doesn’t mean lethargy. One should never confuse with the dead, the energy of the living.
Now we are trying to transform our energies towards the energy of the Spirit. So you have to allow the Spirit to take over. Your effort of your mind should be reduced and the energy of the Spirit should work through you. Now how do you do it?

First is detachment, detachment. Detachment start with the thought, let us see the thought. It is called as vichara shaithilya – relaxation of the thought. Now a thought is coming into your mind, some thought [like], “Today is Mother’s puja let’s go. We have to hurry up.” You see, “Must get this, you didn’t get the flowers, now you go to the Third World and get the flowers. You must get this and you must get that!” The second [thought] is: “No! Detach yourself! Witness. Leave it to the Spirit. Watch!” You will get it. Many of you have noticed this. But still this mind, which is quite silly, tries to impress upon you that you have to use the old junky instrument of this mind! And it asserts that “Better use!” And when you start using that, ego comes in, you get attached to it, and what you lose is your progress and thus the joy is minimised.

How do you detach yourself? For a person who is absolutely detached is very difficult to explain how to detach isn’t it? I’ll try! (laughter) I cannot get attached that’s the problem is! And I find it difficult to explain to you in words, that are human words, but still, I’ll try to say now.
Say, I tried something as human beings do, in the beginning, just to see how it works out; because I had to experiment. For example, when I had to, say, attend any puja or anything, I used to ask them, “What is the auspicious time?” So they would tell me, “This is the auspicious time.” And then another would telephone to say “This is the auspicious time.” So I said, “How can there be two auspicious times?” You see, [it’s a] big problem with human beings. So they said, “There are 5 Panchangas in India.” Means 5 books to consult the auspicious time. That’s what human beings have done. I said, “Then why consult? It’s better not to have 5 auspicious times, isn’t it?” Then the auspicious time has to be beyond time. But it is bound in the time the way human beings have made it, so it is bound in the time. Like in India, it is so much, so much, so much, but now, here (in London) it’s different. Then you calculate, you have a watch. You see, to overcome all these hurdles human beings also make certain devices. So you consult. “Now what is the auspicious time here?” – leave at that time. Then it’s a big headache because there are 5 books to be consulted, watch could be wrong, this could be wrong, that could be so.

But if you are the Spirit, then the Spirit works out auspiciousness. It’s the Spirit that works out the auspiciousness. And imagine when you think like that, how much tension goes out. First of all you have to be a slave of your watch; another, you have to be a slave of the books, then you have to be a slave of the market, of the room, of the place which you have to hire. But supposing if you allow the Spirit to work it out, then everything will work out. And you will reach at the point when it is the most auspicious. So how do you accept it? Just by accepting.

So just now, if you give up your satta , your own domain, you get into the domain of your Spirit. You give up your domain, that is your ego’s domain, or may be your super-ego’s domain. You give up that and try to see things how it works out.
Now, what is the testing point of it? How do you test it? It works out. That’s the point of testing! It works out. Allow it to work out. Don’t put your attention. Attention [word] has the second part of, is the ‘tension’. And don’t try to say, “Why not today, it should have happened today, we expected it to happen. Why not at this moment?”That’s your ego. “Thy will be done”.

So the thought that starts moving in our mind all the time, which creates tensions is not the thought of the Spirit. So, what you should say [is], “Not this thought. Not this thought.” “Ya neti, neti wachane nigamor awachus.” “Not this thought, not this thought, not this thought”, and see how you relax. Now you are relaxed. “Not this thought, not this thought” Just go on refusing accepting any thought. So you go into Nirvichara. In that state you feel the Spirit.
Christ has done the greatest work on this, I should say, but we do not understand because His life was like a micro-thing you see, 3 years. So we have to open it out a little bit and see what He did. He has given us the greatest weapon of forgiveness. When you forgive a person, what do you do? You accept the situation, to begin with, and secondly you forgive what you think has been done wrong to you. But because nothing can be done wrong to your Spirit, you just forgive, because you are the Spirit. And when you forgive, you have found that your tension goes away. So even to your thoughts if you say, “Alright, forgive this thought, forgive this thought,” because thought is not to be punished. “Forgive this thought, forgive this thought, forgive everything.” Not forget, forgive: because then you will even forget that you are the Spirit! (laughter) But “forgive all the thoughts that are coming to me.” just go on saying. This is a mantra. What is a mantra? Is that power of the word, that expresses Spirit.

So this is a very important thing Christ has given us: the weapon of forgiveness. Everybody has that weapon, everyone can use that weapon. You don’t have to put in any effort for it. You don’t have to pay for it, it’s just you have to say, “I forgive.” You’ll be amazed your nerves will soothe down, this tension, this pressure of these modern things will be reduced if you go on saying, “I forgive, I forgive them”. For example, you go and see some sort of a…I mean if you happen suddenly to see something very filthy according to the Spirit. Maybe it is very exciting according to normal human beings, but we are abnormal people and for us if we find it rather ugly then the best thing is, to get over, is to say “I forgive, because they are ignorant, they are blind, they are not yet there where I am. I am the one who is at the Source of enjoyment, at the Source of peace and while these are not, so I forgive.” And you’ll be amazed that this forgiveness that Christ gives you works out vichara shaithilya, is the relaxation of the thought.
Now this opposite movement, that you have to move [in], first of all should start at this point, today, from forgiving others.

Now what happens when you forgive someone? That means you do not react. The power to react to somebody’s injuries, insults is finished. And when that power is finished, you become a powerful person because nobody can now overpower you, because nobody can kill you, nobody can hurt you, nobody can do anything to you. But it is not, again I say, shamelessness. You see people can think that it is shamelessness. So if somebody says to you something harsh and something that is wrong, you do not accept it. But supposing I shout at someone, the bhoots run away. You have seen that many a times, I have to shout at people, so bhootsrun away because they react, and they just run away, but the Spirit shines through.

So in Sahaja Yoga one has to understand that it is just this central path, is just the balancing thing which is important. It’s not an extreme of anything. Like when we go to say that you forgive everyone it’s not going to that extreme where you have done some wrong, and somebody says to you [and] you don’t take that part of it, it doesn’t mean that. Again discretion is the engine of your movement. So you have to see, if they have said it, something like that, “Is it? Have I gone against the Spirit?” Otherwise, if I say to you something, you will say, “Alright, forgive Mother!” You see the point is? “Forgive Her for saying so.” No! You cannot say that to Me! So then, that is the point [from which] you start thinking, “Why Mother said so? What have I done?” Now think on those lines – so you start moving again.
It’s a very thin road on which you have to walk. One side is the huge, big Gibraltar, rock of Gibraltar, of your ego, and another side is a super-ego. In between is a small discretion path going, on which you have to see both the sides, whether you are hitting yourself with the rock of Gibraltar, or you are falling into the valley of super-ego.