What is Satsanga?
ॐ असतो मा सद्गमय
तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय
मृत्योर्मा अमृतं गमय
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः
oṃ asato mā sadgamaya
tamaso mā jyotirgamaya
mṛtyormā amṛtaṃ gamaya
oṃ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ
Lead us from the unreal to the real, lead us from ignorance to illumination, lead us from death to immortality, Aum, Peace, Peace, Peace be unto all. My friends, I am very happy to be here. It's always a pleasure to speak on spiritual topics, especially to very receptive audience.
So, my friends, I am very happy to see all of you here. This type of gatherings are called Satsangas.
What is Satsanga? Satsanga, holy company. Sat means good, Sat means truth, Sat means God. You know all of it, isn't it? Satsanga means good company.
What is good company? There are good people in this world, that is very good, but they may not be spiritual people. There are many worldly people in this world who are very good. They have certain principles, but even their company is not understood as Satsanga.
You know why? However good a person is, if a person is not spiritual or holy, then the company of such a person will drag us to that particular inclination which that person has. That is why in our scriptures it is said that Satsanga means only holy company, spiritual company, not even religious company, but spiritual company. Sat means good.
What happens, we have a tendency, whichever company we keep, we tend to be like that. We are all being brainwashed constantly by media because the largest company that we keep is media. We read newspapers, magazines, we watch televisions, we hear worldly songs.
Most of the people you know, the MP3 players nowadays, what are the songs they hear? I love you, I love you, without you I cannot live for two minutes. Next words, what sin I have committed that I am supposed to live with you. You know, these are worldly things.
So, Satsanga means we become good. How do we know whether we are having Satsanga or not? A simple test is, if we are having Satsanga, we also become Sat, we also become spiritual. Our faith in God increases.
Our character becomes better character. We become more unselfish. Satsanga always leads to Satya Sanga.
The word Satya has come out of Sat. Satya means what? Observing truthfulness. What is observing truthfulness? In general, what we understand is, whatever we have witnessed, seen, heard, to report it faithfully to somebody else is generally understood to be Satya Paripalana.
If we give a word to people, then we have to observe it, right? It is a good meaning, but that is not enough meaning. Because Satya Paripalana must lead to Satya Anusandhana. Truth speaking must lead to truth seeking.
If we do not seek the truth, then we are not observing truthfulness. Truthfulness always means unselfishness. There is a beautiful story.
In a forest, a holy man was living. One day, some hunters happened to enter into the forest to hunt some deer. They saw a deer and they were running after it.
This deer happened to pass in front of this holy man and disappeared into the forest. Soon after, the hunters came there and saw this holy man and they bowed down to him respectfully and asked him, holy sir, did you happen to see a deer? He said yes, because he had seen. And can you tell us which direction it went? So he pointed out the direction opposite to that which the deer entered.
And they bowed down to him and went after the deer. Of course, they probably didn't get. The whole point is, did this holy man observe truthfulness or not? What do you say? Did he tell a lie? But that lie is worth thousand times more than telling the truth.
Why? First of all, he would have participated in the sin of killing the deer. He saved the deer. Then he saved the huntsman from the sin of killing it.
Then he saved himself, because if he had been telling the truth, then it would have been horrible. So what is Satya Paripalana? That which leads us to Satya Anusandhana. So according to our scriptures, what is the truth? God himself is the truth.
So what is truth? That which abides, that which doesn't change, that is called truth. Is it not? Always truth never changes. That is why God is called truth.
Truth is God. Mahatma Gandhi used to say, I do not say God is truth, I say truth is God. Truth never changes.
That is why anyone who experiences the truth, he has to talk about the same thing. But in various languages, various idioms, that is why all the saints speak exactly in the same way. They have no choice.
Now there was a school. And a brother and sister were attending the school, and they were both in the same classroom. One day the teacher asked them, the class, to write an essay on a cow.
So the brother and sister, they also wrote, submitted their paper to the teacher. First the teacher had gone through the sister's paper, then he had gone through the brother's paper, found an exact copy of what sister had written. So he called the boy and asked him, my boy, how is it I find that this is exactly what your sister had written? Very clever fellow.
He said, that is because, sir, it is the same cow. So, satsanga means seeking holy company, means we must become better. So what is the test? That it is, we are keeping holy company, what is the test? The test is, we gradually become sat.
Second, truthfulness. We start observing truthfulness, keeping up our words, etc. But real truthfulness is that which leads us to seeking of the truth, which is God.
That leads us to satsanga. Sat here means the company of God. Sat is a name of God.
In Hinduism, the name for God is Sat-Chit-Ananda. Sat-Chit-Ananda. Now, this brings us, we are all, of course, you know, believers in God, otherwise you would not have come here.
Obviously, you have taken the time to come here because you all believe, you believe that a Swami has come and he will be speaking only about spiritual topics, so you have come. So, the point is, there are many people in this world who say that we do not believe in God. Do you come across people like that? This is because the language in which we ask the question is a wrong language.
Don't ask people, do you believe in God or do you not believe in God? Ask in a different way. If you ask people, do you believe in God, there would be how many answers? Yes or no? There is another also. No.
I do not know. These are called agnostics. Believers, non-believers, agnostics.
I do not know. But if you rephrase the question in a different way, they would never, never have any choice but to say yes. What is that? Do you want to live or die? Do you want to be an ignorant fool or a learned person? Or even more important, do you want to be happy or not? How many answers will be there? This is what exactly God means.
Sat. Do you want to live or die? Who wants to die? You may say logically, there are people who want to die. No, they do not want to die.
They want to die because they are not happy. They have problems which they cannot solve. Is it right? If they are happy, would they die? Yes.
So who is there? Who wants to be ignorant? Everyone of us wants to know everything. In fact, we want to know more about other people than ourselves. It is very fortunate God has kept us ignorant of what all of us are thinking in our minds about all the others.
Otherwise, I believe there would not be two friends in this room. We want to know. That is why knowledge is increasing so much.
And the most important is, why do you want to live? You know, a man went to a doctor. Doctor, can you give me some medicine? The doctor asked, what for? You know, I want to live a long, long time. The patient, the doctor got puzzled.
He said, do you smoke? He said, no. Do you drink? He said, no. Do you visit night clubs? He said, no.
Doctor looked at the man and said, man, what for do you want to live? What for do you want to live a long, long time? We all live for happiness. People get married, is it not? What for? To be happy. What for? To be happy.
Yes, right. They get divorced, doctors. What for? To be happier.
It is true. Though it is a bit funny, I have put it funny way. Whatever actions we do, whether we go to temples, whether we don't go to temples, whether we are good people, even a murderer, if you ask that person, why do you murder? He has a problem in his mind.
He is not happy. So he wants to get rid of the problem. It is a wrong method.
But the goal is exactly the same. Here comes a question. Why do we want to live? If you ask, how long do you want to live? There is no limit.
How much do you want to know? There is no limit. If you want to know how happy you want to be, there is no limit. But we know as human beings that we cannot be mortal, we have to die.
We know that our mind is limited, so the instrument is limited, so the amount of knowledge we can have is also limited. And we also know that life cannot be complete, what is called bliss only. There will be periods of happiness, unhappiness, etc.
Still, we do not give up our quest for these three. Why? Can anybody think of any answer why? We know that it is impossible, and yet we try our level best to prolong our life and to increase our knowledge and to try to be as happy as possible. Even if someone is suffering, we hope to be happy in the future.
That is why we live. Is it not? The moment we lose hope, we will die. So why? That is our true nature.
That is the right answer. That is what our scriptures tell us, that that is our true nature. We are, as yesterday we discussed, potentially divine.
We have forgotten who we are, but a vague memory is there at one time, I am divine. Not that in philosophical speaking we never lost our divinity, but as if we have lost that one. So we are in search of it.
In Indian scriptures, it is put it in a beautiful way, a musk deer, a beautiful, fragrant musk is coming out of its navel, but it doesn't know that it is coming from its own navel. It goes around the whole world, running, running, running, and ultimately ends up dying. We are all searching for Sat, Chit, Ananda.
Where are we searching? Outside. This is what Kathopanishad says, you know. Vidhata has created the sense organs turned outward.
Some wise person, he understands, is futile. Why? Let us turn our search within. Even psychologists nowadays, they have, psychiatrists have become the biggest gurus now.
Their books are the most selling books. If a Swami says, they may not believe it, but if a psychiatrist says, Shankar, Indra, Pandit, then water comes through a conch, that is Deertha. Otherwise it is just tap water.
Psychiatrists, you know, what is psychiatry? People become neurotics, ticks. They become psycho, tick. Psychiatric treatment.
You know what is the definition? A neurotic is one who builds castles in the air. A psychotic is one who lives in them. And a psychiatrist is one who collects rent from both of them.
And it is officially declared that one in three in USA, no reflection upon you, sorry, is crazy in America. So if you have got three in the family, check up on them. If the other two are alright.
It is true that there is a lot of mental sickness is going on in this world. So coming back to our subject, we are all in search of divinity, but we need not use. We are all in search of immortality, omniscience and happiness, bliss.
We call it bliss. But we are searching in the wrong places. Is it that the world doesn't offer these things? Yes, it does offer.
Again it is a mistaken notion to think there is no happiness in this world. There is happiness, but there are also other things. Unhappiness is also there, but perhaps more unhappiness than happiness.
So where is the solution? The solution is to turn inward, to be spiritual and we are sure to get. One thing, even if you do not believe in what I am saying, one thing you have to admit. Much of our health, both physical and mental, much of our knowledge, much of our happiness depends upon what? Upon our mind.
Do you agree with that? It is not what happens, but it is what we or how we interpret it. This interpretation depends upon the condition of our mind. Have you noticed, when the mind is in a happy frame of mind, you tend to interpret everything in a better manner.
Have you noticed that? So the whole Hindu psychology, and Hindu psychology is a depth psychology, and Patanjali is in a way the master editor of Hindu depth psychology, had gathered all that knowledge and codified it in a most marvellous book called Patanjali Yoga Sutra. All the Indian schools of philosophy tell us that we are all divine. This is a very rare contribution.
Buddhism also tells we are all potential Buddhas. Buddha nature is in everything, not only in human beings, not only in animals, in every living thing, including the non-living thing. So now coming back, we all want to be happy, and the higher we go up in life scale, the more happiness we get.
This is what every saint, every sage is telling. One of the specialities of Hinduism is that it is the one religion which believes in the repeated coming of incarnations, avataras, and we are very, very fortunate. You know, we all believe in Dasha avataras, 24 avataras, including Dattatreya and all that, and not only that, innumerable avataras.
It is our good fortune, we are born Hindus, that Hinduism is the most marvellous religion. It is our good fortune that every century produced so far many, many saints and sages. And in the recent times, even this great soul Ramana Maharshi was there, just about 50 years back, 56 years back to be precise.
Even now great souls are there who are spreading this divine message. So what is this divine message? Today I just want to deal with some few points, but very practical points. How we can make our life a better life.
Now the beauty of this message is you do not need to become monks or nuns, you do not need even to put on special cloths or to go to special places or choose special times or be peculiar. Hindus have an idea, you know, to be religious means to be peculiar. No, spirituality has nothing to do with peculiarity.
Peculiar people are abnormal people. In fact, true spiritual people would be most normal people. You know what most normal people means? It means they go unnoticed.
Abnormal people want to be noticed. That is why, you know, fashion, what is fashion? Fashion is I am very noticeable. What it means is I am really abnormal.
But then, you know, other people think probably I am a mistaken person. To be normal is not normal thing. To be abnormal is the normal thing.
Let me follow this fashion. And when everybody starts to be in line with that fashion, that fashion becomes so normal, nobody notices again. So somebody else starts something else.
Crazy world. So coming back to our subject, most recently we revere Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Holy Mother Sharada Devi, whose photographs you see here. Many millions of Hindus believe Sri Ramakrishna is an incarnation of God.
You do not need to believe it. It is not necessary. But if his teachings can help us in any way, then that is marvellous.
So the life and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna was propagated most wonderfully, efficiently, very effectively by Swami Vivekananda. And Vivekananda said, I preached nothing but Vedanta. By that he meant, he preached nothing but the truths of the Upanishads.
I intend to elaborate a little on Hinduism, but not today. I will just come to the practical points. So what is Vedanta? Vedanta is another word for spiritual life.
Yoga. You can translate it as yoga. Yoga means what? Don't go on quoting Bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga.
Simply say, what is the simplest translation of yoga? Spiritual life. So what is yoga? Anything that helps us to become better, that is yoga. Keep it in mind, because this is a most beautiful definition.
Anything that helps us to become better. Suppose you are sick. What is the yoga for you? Swasthya Yoga.
Or Aushudha Yoga. If you are having disease, what is the yoga for you? Drink medicine. Suppose you are weak.
What is the yoga for you? Vyayama Yoga. Don't go and sit for meditation. You will die.
Go to the gymnasium and become strong. Physically or mentally. Suppose you are hungry.
What is the yoga? Food. Suppose you are under the control of some foreign government, foreign people, what is the yoga for you? Freedom Yoga. This is what Swami Vivekananda had done.
In America, he preached the truths of the Upanishads because they had already improved their world, but they did not have the guidelines. Whereas in India, when Swami went, you know what he preached? You know what he said? He said, forget your gods and goddesses for the next 50 years. Take up the plough and harvest more food.
Eat well. Drive away all these foreign devils. Try to rule your own country.
Then give education to everybody and I will know that you are really spiritual people. Is that right? So whatever helps. Suppose you are unhappy.
What is the yoga for you? Whatever makes you happy. You know many people come to me. Swami, I am very unhappy.
I said, please do not tell me because I know. You do not need to tell me. Your very face tells me, you know.
One man was going in the streets. A perfect stranger saw him and said, greeted him. Hanuman Tappa, how are you? Hanuman Tappa, how are you? The man was flabbergasted.
Sir, sir, who did you know my name? The man said, I did not know, but seeing your face, I saw. I thought you must be Hanuman Tappa only. Our face shows whether we are happy or unhappy.
So I tell them, what is the advice? You want me to make you happy. What is it you like? Can you go and meditate? No, I can't meditate. So can you read a Tarzan novel? Yes, I can enjoy.
Go and read it. That is the yoga for you. Yes, I am not joking.
What is the point of a fellow who is not happy? Don't ever ask an unhappy fellow to go and meditate. You know what happens? You know what happens? Suppose, for example, suppose one day you are a bit unhappy. Then you go and meditate.
After half an hour you come back. You know what happens to you? Your irritation reaches the Parakastha. Because for half an hour you have been brooding and brooding and brooding.
Is it right? That's what most people do. They think meditation means brooding. This brings to another aspect of it, you know.
People ask me, Swami, can you teach meditation? I say, no. You are a perfected soul in meditation. What are you talking about, Swami? I don't know how to meditate.
I say, no. You are a perfected soul in meditation. You look very worried, don't you? He says, yes Swami, I am worried.
That's what I am talking about. What are you meditating all the time? You are brooding and brooding and brooding and made yourself perfectly unhappy, worried. So what is meditation? Deeply brooding or worry.
I say meditation is worry. But don't worry about worldly things. Worry about God.
If we can worry as effectively about God as we worry about worldly objects, we will be Siddhas long before. Is it not right? So what is needed is change the direction. That's all we want to do that.
Because we know how to think of undesirable things all the time. So what is the definition? Whatever helps us, that is yoga. That is Vedanta.
Whatever helps us to become better people. If we are ignorant, acquire knowledge. If we are weak, acquire strength.
If we are fearful, acquire fearlessness. If we are irrational, acquire rationality. If we do not have self-control, acquire self-control.
This is how we progress. Now, Sri Ramakrishna came into this world to help all of us. An avatar comes only to help all of us to become better people.
This is called dharma sthapana. Dharma sthapana, don't have big big ideas, you know. Go to the temple and do hundred prostrations.
They are all good. But what is the real dharma? To make our mind pure, holy, filled with divine thoughts so that we know our goal is this, our path is this, and our self-control is this. So Sri Ramakrishna had used it to talk about spiritual life, how to become spiritual, how we can help ourselves, like Bhagavad Gita, like any other scripture.
Sri Ramakrishna's big, all the teachings have been collected in one big book. One thousand pages book. You know what is it called? The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna.
Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. But we may not have that much time. So who is going to read thousand pages of Gospel of Ramakrishna? Tell me, tell us Swami, in brief, what he taught.
I say his teachings can be condensed into five commandments. Like the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita can be condensed into only one shloka. Do you know that? You know, Gita consists of about 700 verses.
And of all the verses, suppose somebody has no time or no inclination or no brain to understand, but tell in the essence, there is only one verse, it is called according to Ramanujacharya, Vishishtadvaita, Charama Shloka. Charama means the last shloka. Charama also means the very essence of Bhagavad Gita.
You know what that shloka is? Sarva Dharmaan Parityajya. Do not grieve, O Arjuna, that you can give up all the other things and hold on with all your mind, me. And I will give you liberation, I will make you a better person.
Like that, Sri Ramakrishna's teachings also can be condensed, because you know, what they teach is very simple. But they try to teach through various illustrations, parables, according to the circumstances, according to the receptive condition of the person. Same thing, repeat again and again and again.
So in our scriptures, it is asked, why do you, why do they go on repeating the same thing again and again? We don't ask this question of a doctor, how long should we need to take medicine? And, you know, how long shall I appear for the exams? How long? There was one boy, and he appeared for the exams, failed. Father asked, scolded him, you stupid fellow, why did you fail? The answer was there, he is stupid fellow. If he was not stupid, why should he fail? Anyway, the boy said, my stars are bad.
So, second year also he failed. Father again got very angry and scolded him, why did you fail? He said, I committed some mistake. Third year also he failed.
Then you see the father asked him, why did you fail this? The boy got very angry, you can't ask me that question. Now it has become a habit. So how long should the scripture repeat these teachings? As long as we are not free, as long as we are in darkness or ignorance, the scriptures need to repeat this.
Suppose in the very first step itself we can become free, why should we worry about it? That is why this repetition is not a fault, but repetition is very necessary. Now you see, this is what Sri Ramakrishna did, this is what all the other great souls said. You know, you heard about the great Shankaracharya, he had written volumes of Bhashyas and Karikas, Mandukya Karika you know, Mandukya Karika, Bhashya.
Bhashya and Mandukya Karika itself is a commentary and now Shankara has written commentary upon commentary. So he has written. One simple person went to Shankaracharya and asked him, Sir, I have no time to read these volumes of books you have written, can you tell me in short? And Shankara was a very commonsensical person, he said that if you don't have time, I will tell you even less than what you are expecting from me.
Shlokarthena pravakshyami, yadattam grandha kotivihi, what has been enumerated in millions of scriptures, I will tell you in one line. You know, every shloka has two lines. I will tell you shlokarthena, one line.
What is it? Brahma satyam jadan mithya jeevo brahmaiva naaparah Brahman alone is real. This world is a temporary reality, not a permanent reality. You are that Brahman.
If you have understood this, you have understood all that I have written. That is true. This is also the essence of not only what Shankara had written, this is the essence of what all the scriptures in the past had written, all the scriptures at present are being written, all the scriptures that would be written in a billion, billion, billion years, because why? I told you in the beginning, truth is only one.
That's all. Realise the truth. That is all.
So what are the important teachings of Sri Ramakrishna? There are, I said, five commandments. Easy to remember? Five commandments. What are they? The first thing he said, that always practise the presence of God.
Sri Ramakrishna used to say that any number of zeros put together, what is their value? What is their value? Zero plus zero plus zero? Zero. But add one before. After that, put any number.
What happens, you know? Every zero we add, its value becomes enhanced. What is Ramakrishna talking about? What is this God? God means, it is a simple thing. First, do not ever lose hope.
Whatever happens, keep up your hope that you can achieve what you want to achieve. Supposing you say, you know, this life, how many years are left out for me and what will happen to me? Hindus, no such problem. Hindus believe in reincarnation.
Did I tell you the story? One chap was working in an office and you know, there was football and he was a great fan of football in the afternoon. So he wanted to take off and then go and watch the football. But you know, boss will not give leave.
He said, sir, my grandfather died and then I have to go for her funeral. So then officer said, all right, go. So this fellow went, happily watched the football game.
Next day he came back. The officer called him. You are a Hindu, isn't it? He said, yes, sir.
You believe in reincarnation, isn't it? He said, yes, sir. That explains it all. The fellow got puzzled.
What explains it all, sir? No, yesterday shortly after you left, your grandmother visited this place. She wanted to see you. I couldn't understand.
If she had died just now, how would she come? Hindus believe in reincarnation, you see. So if it doesn't happen in this life, it will happen in the next life. Anyway, do not lose hope.
Always try to better your circumstances. Hinduism is not blind. There are lots of misunderstandings about Hinduism.
It is a religion for monks. It only teaches everybody to know. As we discussed yesterday, it doesn't teach this kind of spiritual life for sannyas or for everybody.
It is only the last stage. Spiritual life, yes. Right from the beginning, dharma.
Then what is it? Artha, enjoy this world. But to enjoy, you need money, you need these instruments to be fit. Then kama.
So dharma is wisdom. Many meanings are there, dharma. Balance, law, duty, etc.
One meaning is wisdom. Then acquire wisdom. Then you will become rich because you should not employ crooked methods.
Otherwise you will reap. If you sow wind, you will reap whirlwind. Law of karma.
Enjoy this world, but with wisdom means just enjoy so that it won't lead to indigestion or other things like that. And then when you are completely through with this and you know this is insubstantial, your soul longs for something higher and better, values, then only you seriously turn to spiritual life. But dharma means morality.
Dharma means self-control. Dharma means behaving according to one's limitations. There were two friends.
One was a foolish fellow, one was a wise fellow. So the wise fellow made a remark, I don't answer foolish fellows' questions. The other fellow asked, Why? Dharma is wisdom.
And Hinduism believes that is why religion is translated as dharma, Hindu dharma. The very basis of our happiness is dharma. So what is Sri Ramakrishna saying? God is our goal.
God is our final destination. But the word God has to be understood in all its extensive implications. Do not only think God is a being somewhere in the temple.
We have to understand it. Just now as I said, you know, if you are sick, what is your God? Medicine. If you are hungry, what is your God? Food.
If you are angry, what is your God? You know, there was this couple. They spent 60 years in a blissful marriage. And this man, he used to go every year for medical check-up, annual medical check-up.
So he went for the check-up. Doctor found him hale and hearty like a bull. So the doctor asked, John, what is the secret of your health? Such a perfect health even at 60 years of age.
He said, I guess it is due to outdoor living. Outdoor living? What do you mean by outdoor living? Do you live all the time outdoors? He said, yes, more or less, yes. How come? Are you not married? Yes, I am married.
How come? He said, you know, it is like this, doctor. When we got married, we made a pact with each other. When I get angry, my wife goes out of the house.
When she gets angry, I get out of the house. Outdoor living. So Sri Ramakrishna used to say that without God, man is nothing.
And human life is very, very, very precious. We take it for granted. That's why even the great Shankara says, Durlabham trayamevaitadhaivaanagrahahetukam Manushyatvam mumukshvatvam mahapurusha samshrayaha Human life, you know, Hindus believe, when do we get human life? After 96 crores of lives.
And it is perfectly scientific, let me tell you. 96 crores means it is not exactly 96 crores. It means, you know, from amoeba onwards, we go on evolving.
Hinduism is not against this, what is called biological evolution propounded by Charles Darwin. In this country, stupid fellows are fighting. They call it ID theory.
Intelligent Design Theory. Have you heard about it? As though it is against religion. Vedanta says no.
God created nature. And nature works in its own way. That is called nature's way.
Is it not? So after so many, going through so much evolutionary journey, finally the very peak of this biological evolution is human life. Why is it so? Because it is only in human life a perfect instrument has been forged by which Dharma, Artha, Karma, Moksha can be achieved. Absolutely true.
We do not know about animals, but we do not see any animal becoming a saint. We only see human beings becoming saints. And we do not need any other instrument because we know that human body, so many thousands of thousands of people have become saints through spiritual struggle.
Is it not? That is why we take them for granted as though we got it. We can do whatever we like now. You can't do whatever you like.
You can do, but you will pay for that. We can be even happier in a spiritual way because life is full of anomalies. You can't expect always happiness.
In fact, the percentage of misery is much. So, coming back to our subject, what is the first teaching of Sri Ramakrishna? Practise the presence of God as much as possible. There is no spiritual holiday.
There is no, I practised, you know, presence of God in the morning and in the evening. In between, I will be a worldly person. There is no such thing.
Spirituality is a continuous process. That is the first teaching. Second teaching, cultivate satsanga.
This teaching is of enormous importance. You know, you have all come here and you are listening to these words and most of what you are listening is nothing new. Is it not? You know already.
It is all something old only, but something is there. What is it? We need reinforcement like taking medicine every day. We eat food every day and most of the food that we eat every day is not an extraordinary delicacy.
It is just, you know, rice, chapati, dal, a subji. Is it not? But it sustains us for that day. So satsanga also sustains us.
At least one good thing is there, you know. I have done a great good to all of you. Do you know what it is? I might not have done any great good to you, but I have prevented you, not that you do not do anything worse than this.
Otherwise, you know, you would have been watching some film or gossiping or spending, you know, spending your time. I have prevented it. Even if you do not like it, but I am very happy that I have prevented you from doing mischief.
Okay. So cultivate satsanga. And I said, what is satsanga? That which makes us better people, sat, then that which makes us truth speaking, truth observing, and that which makes us truth seeking, then ultimately that which brings us to the feet of God, that is called satsanga.
So that is the second teaching. Third teaching is, Sri Ramakrishna used to say, now and then go into solitude. We all need solitude for many reasons.
But I will tell you two reasons. One reason is that we all individual beings, we need our own space. You need not even go out of your home.
Just sit in a corner. It could be half an hour, but that half an hour is nothing to do with your wife or husband or children or parents, friends. It is your own time.
Be alone with you. Because that gives us confidence to think things over and how I am going to live life. It is a kind of contemplation, reflection.
Second more important reason, this is an age when we have become puppets. We depend upon everything. If you want to test my words, put off your TV, put off your mobile phone, put off the electricity in your home.
See what will happen to you. How long can you live happily? Because you can put off with it. But can you live happily? Can you live without the company of other people? You need to be alone.
Not lonely. These are two words which have two different meanings. To be alone is not to be lonely.
And most of the people, according to a very famous social psychologist, Eric Froh, most of the people, we find means of escaping from our own presence. You are watching a TV. You are hearing music.
You are talking to some people. You are even going to work. Some of it is absolutely necessary for living.
But the rest is escape from oneself. Because we feel terribly lonely. We are all lonely people.
We may be in a crowd, yet we may be lonely. We may be alone, but we need not be lonely. How to develop that self-dependence? That is called solitariness.
In Sri Ramakrishna's words, he used to give beautiful examples. If you want to make curds, what do you need to do? Put a little bit of that curds into milk, warm milk, and keep it undisturbed. Every few minutes you don't go stir and say whether it is becoming yoghurt, right? So solitariness means be yourself.
Solitariness, he used a word. It is called nirjana bhash. Nirjana means what? Jana means what? Nirjana means what? What does it mean? It means when the time comes, nobody can help you.
Even simple things, nobody can help us. Suppose you are sleepless, and your husband is there, or wife is there. Can they sleep for you? Nobody can share these certain things.
They cannot eat for you. They cannot take medicine for you. They cannot sleep for you.
Suppose you are worried. You love me very much, isn't it? Yes, I love you very much. Can you take a little bit of my worry? You can't.
You can give advice. But you can't. The thing has to be done by ourselves.
So nirjana means nobody can help us excepting God. This is the truth. Only God can help us because he is our antaryan.
That is why nirjana vasa is very important. The purpose is to go deep into ourselves and to get rid of dependence, any type of slavishness. Work itself has become a venue of dependence.
They are called work colleagues. One day if you don't hover the house, the house's roof is not going to collapse. But some people are very finicky about it.
Do you know why? Because they are so slavish. Why don't you use that time to listen to some beautiful music, to read a good book, to meditate, or even to lie down? No, we have lost the ability to be alone. We have to depend for everything on the outside, especially in this age.
That is the third teaching. The fourth teaching of Sri Ramakrishna is always discriminate. What is the discrimination? Not racial discrimination, not gender discrimination, not skin colour discrimination, not national discrimination.
What is the discrimination? Everything in this world is temporary. Everything is changing. Temporary means what? Changing.
So suppose you are happy. What is the discrimination? After a few minutes, I will be... Happiness changes into what? Unhappiness. Suppose you are unhappy.
Use discrimination. What will happen after some time? Unhappiness changes into what? Happiness. This is the truth.
Is it not a truth? It's a truth. Though we are under delusion that we can be constantly... There is nothing called constantly if you are happy, then you will get bored. Do you know that? Such a boring thing.
Constant happiness is the most boring thing in the world. I will give you an example. Suppose you love rasagulla.
Morning breakfast rasagulla, lunch rasagulla, and evening rasagulla, day after day, do you think you will be happy? Eat a little bit of andhra pickle, avakaya. After that the rasagulla tastes 100 times better. Have you noticed it? So in this world everything is changing.
Because we don't expect it foolishly, we worry a lot. If a husband doesn't say religiously five times a day to the wife, I love you, I love you, the wife gets worried. In Africa, and I heard that, the husband beats the wife regularly, thrice a day.
And you know, after some years of that, suppose he beats her only twice a day, she becomes highly worried. Is my husband running after somebody else? Such a thing happens. Why should we be so slavish? Discrimination means there is nothing permanent in this world.
Everything is in a flux. That's why the great Lord Buddha said, you know what he said? No man steps into the same river twice. Remember, no man steps into the same river twice because by the time he stepped a second time, lot of water has passed.
It may look like that, but it is not the same. So discrimination, that this world, everybody passes away, everything changes, our time also will come. So to expect permanency in any way is a foolishness.
That means we have to be ready for any event to happen at any time, not that it can prevent the event, but it will give us better strength to cope with it. This is the fourth teaching. The last teaching is how to live in this world.
He said live like a maid servant in a rich man's house. When a maid servant is working in a rich man, she tells this is our house. These are our children.
This is my Hari. This is my Rama. But she knows in her heart of hearts that that house doesn't belong to her any moment she might be given notice.
Then she has to return to her own home. She has her own home. We are all like what you call transit passengers.
A little longer, you know, like a train journey. Once Swami compared life to a train journey. You know a train is stopping at every station.
Some fellows are getting in, some are getting out. And the next station, again some fellows get down. Suppose you make friends, you are going a long distance and you make friends with some people and if you forget that this is only 2-3 days affair and then you will be in grief because when his station or her station comes, when our station comes, the conductor will throw us out.
Time will throw us out. This is the fact. So live like a maid servant.
That means what? Be detached. Detachment is often misunderstood. Detachment is not indifference.
Detachment is full love knowing very well that this is only a temporary affair. Sri Ramakrishna used to say love your father, love your mother, love your family members, serve them as if they were your own but know in your heart of hearts nobody belongs to you. You do not belong to God.
You belong only to God. They also belong to God. You don't belong to them.
They don't belong to you. If we keep this teaching in our mind, then we can cope with situations in a much better way. These are the five important teachings of Sri Ramakrishna.
These are the very essence of all scriptures, Gita. What did Sri Krishna teach in the Gita? Detachment. It doesn't mean he did not drive the chariot.
It did not mean he did not participate in the battle. Life is a battle. But he did it all with a smile as it were because he knows that this is the life, this is the world.
I am here only for a short time. He set the biggest example, brightest example. So to recollect these five teachings of Sri Ramakrishna, what are they? Practise the presence of God.
Cultivate satsang, holy company. Now and then go into solitary place and depend totally upon God which means do not be so dependent upon anything in this world or always exercise discrimination and lastly live like a maid servant in this world. If you understand these five teachings, the whole gospel is only an explanation as it were, detailed explanation, songs and parables and some humorous stories etc.
of these five teachings. If we understand this, we understand the teachings of all scriptures including the Upanishads. There is one beautiful Upanishad.
It is called Isavasya Upanishad. One of the smallest, not very small, but one of the smallest and yet one of the most profound of the Upanishads. What is the opening verse of this Isavasya? Isavasya midagam sarva.
That is there is nothing in this world excepting God. So with this knowledge you live. Tena yaktena bhunjeetha.
Enjoy your life on this earth with this knowledge. If you do that, Maghrithah kasyasviddhanam. It is roughly, literally translated as do not covet others' wealth.
What it really means is do not depend upon anything in this world because nothing is going to save you excepting this knowledge which is God, the presence of God. Feel the presence of God. If you feel the presence of God, then who are you? If everything is God, who are you? You are also God.
Only what we call the world is also God. But then what is this world? This world is God looked at through cataracted eyes. If you have cataract, what is called? What is that? Jaundice.
Who does the world appear to you? You know, when we have ignorance. Ignorance means, you know what it is? When we look at God through these five sense organs, God appears to us as this world. World means shabda, sparsha, rupa, rasa, gandha.
Is it right? We have five sense organs, isn't it? Suppose you look at God through your eyes, how will he appear? Rupa, forms. Suppose you look at God through the ears, what is your experience of God? Sounds. If you look at God through the nose, how does he appear? Smells.
If you look, experience God, look means, you know, experience God through the tongue, how does he appear? Sweet, sour, salty, etc. And if you touch God, then how do you experience him? So what is world? Only consisting of these five things. Sights, sounds, tastes, smells, touches, cold, hot, etc.
Is it not? So when we are looking, we are looking only at God. But because we have put on these special five sense organs, armour, and we are looking at God through these media, so he appears as forms, etc. That is what we call the world.
It is another discussion. I won't go into it. We are very blessed because we have had good satsanga.
And tomorrow also we will have this beautiful satsanga. Some different topic will come. And one day, one of these days, tomorrow or day after tomorrow, I would like to talk about essentials of Hinduism.
It's very important because we are all Hindus, we read here and there books, but there is no coordination, there is no logical way of understanding what is Hinduism. It's very essential. It is your duty to understand this.
Why? Because what are you going to teach your children if you yourself do not know? You know, there was a Brahmin. He had a son. And the son came of age, you know, 10 years like that.
So he had to be invested with sacred thread. So the uncle came in the morning and he whispered the Gayatri mantra in his ears, went away. And in the evening, the boy very sincerely sat down to repeat, but he had a doubt whether what he heard of the mantra is correct or not.
So he went to his father, asked, Daddy, is this Gayatri mantra correct? Daddy heard it and said, It appears as though I heard it somewhere. Ever since he got Gayatri mantra, he never bothered to repeat it. If you yourself do not know clearly what is Hinduism, and you are not unintelligent persons.
You are all highly intelligent. You know what Bush is going to do or not do. You can predict next year what is it going to be.
But you say all sorts of excuses. What is your own marvellous religion? So I will speak. It is a big subject, but I will try to be very essential so that you all clearly understand what it is.
I will try to do that. So for today, I will stop here.