Relevance of Spirituality

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.

I am very proud to be a Hindu, as Swami Vivekananda said, Hindus are very much blessed. So many incarnations of God, only Hinduism accepts. You know, when Christianity first came to India, they were terribly afraid of Hinduism.

You know why? Because they found out Hinduism is like an octopus. Including its Jesus Christ, it swallows and makes him one of the other avatars. Their whole uniqueness is gone, he will be lost in the plethora of incarnations.

You know, Christianity doesn't like more than one incarnation. So, when I was there in Italy, one of the persons put me a question, Swami, why is it God incarnates again and again only in India, not in the West? I said, that is not true. God too had a desire to come to the West, and he did come once, but you gave him such a treatment.

He decided never again to the West. We are very fortunate. So, why is it that God incarnates again and again? There is only one purpose.

What is that purpose? Dharma sthapana. What is dharma sthapana? How to make us spiritual. So, that is the topic, how spirituality can help us.

Or, what is the relevance of spirituality in our age? It is, in a way of speaking, a very curious type of question. What is the relevance of health and happiness in our modern day life? Only health and happiness was very relevant in the past and not very relevant now at present. If we understand the meaning of spirituality correctly, we do have to accept that without spirituality we lead very incomplete life.

So, first of all, let us be very clear, because there is so much of fog in our brains about, mix up about, the difference between religiosity and spirituality. In India, every Hindu is very proud, especially when he comes to the West, that the West is horribly dry, irreligious, unspiritual, and every Hindu is a saint going about, excepting occasionally cheating. Hindus are highly religious, but not spiritual.

What is the difference? Religiosity means observing certain external rituals, like going to the temples, worshipping God, breaking coconuts, sometimes in front of God, sometimes on other people's heads, study of the scriptures, going on pilgrimages. These are called religious observances. What is spirituality? The difference is, as Sriram Krishna had put it so nicely, that you prepare siddhi.

Siddhi means a kind of intoxicant. It's a brown sugar. When I went to Banaras, one panda asked, Swamiji Maharaj, are you interested in brown sugar? In the UK I know what is brown sugar, but in India I never knew what was Banaras brown sugar.

He said, what is brown sugar? Here is it very popular? He said, very popular, I can get you as much as you want. Then only I came to know, all the foreigners are coming there to have this brown sugar. So siddhi is a kind of intoxicant.

Sriram Krishna used to say, it is one thing to say siddhi, siddhi, it is the same thing to bring the siddhi, prepare the siddhi and keep it in front of you, but it is quite another thing to eat that siddhi or drink that siddhi and wait a little time for the intoxication to take over. What am I talking about? It is the inner transformation of life. So in short, if we have to be very clear about what spirituality is, a spirituality or a spiritual person is one who attains the optimal health possible, especially mental and moral health.

Without mental health, without moral health, nobody can expect to be spiritual. But spirituality doesn't end with these things, because mental health as well as moral health, they are relevant only in a society. But once we are on our own, then these two have no relevance to us.

So can we not live without spirituality? Yes, we can. A blind man can live, a lame man can live, even a mental patient can live. You know, there was a man working in a factory.

He became crazy. So they admitted him in a mental hospital. And very nice, you know, in the West, mental hospitals are extremely good.

So after a few days, when he seemed to be recovering, his friends, colleagues came to visit him. They said, John, are you all right now? He said, Oh, perfectly all right. Are you quite happy? Very happy.

So when are you going to return back to factory? What? These beautiful nurses, this wonderful hospital, this first class food, do you think I am crazy to return back to factory? One can live without attaining optimal health. This is called surviving. We can survive with the least, with the minimum.

That is not called living. Living is a totally different experience. Most of us are alive, but there is no living.

Very few of us are living. And that which gives that life to us, that is called spirituality. This subtle difference between to live and to be alive is not one and the same thing.

A man who is alive, for example, Sri Ramakrishna, for example, Swami Vivekananda. There was one brother disciple of Swami Vivekananda, Swami Turiyananda. He used to say, when Swami Vivekananda used to speak, even ordinary conversation, even dead corpses, of course corpses are always dead, there is no... You think so? The living corpses are there, jiva chava they are called.

Even corpses, they come out to life and say, we would like to hear Swami Vivekananda. When you fellows are speaking, I wish I were dead. Because there is no life.

So what is that aliveness? What is that spirituality? You know how much power human being has. What is it that all of us are seeking? We are alive and we are gaining knowledge. What is the end product? What is the goal? What is the goal? Happiness.

Is it right? We want to be happy. You all have come here today so that you thought, you know, Swami has a magic word which will make us happier than what we are. Expecting.

You may not get it. I am not guaranteeing it. But expecting you have come here.

So there is a lot to learn. So why do we need spirituality? Are we not happy as we are? You can look around you. Yes, it is possible to be happy.

We are happy to some extent. But there is a lot more happiness we can experience. I will give you an illustration with the help of music.

Don't expect me to sing. It's an illustration, that's all. You know, film songs, that is also music.

But there is classical music. What a difference between these two. Any ordinary person, in two seconds he can be captivated by a film song.

But there is some kind of happiness available in listening to these film songs. There is no doubt about it. But is it comparable to the happiness one can experience when one listens to an expert classical musician rendering in a most beautiful voice? Can you imagine? Ordinary people cannot imagine.

Similarly, another example would be anybody can cook. You know, rice, dal, roti, anybody can. But when an expert cook prepares the same dish, it becomes a classical dish.

And that happiness which comes out of it is totally different. Right? So, our scriptures are telling us that we have a lot of scope for enjoying unlimited and very quality type of happiness. This is one point about spirituality.

Spirituality will give you tremendous amount of satisfaction, meaning in life, and happiness. Fulfilment, a sense of fulfilment. But not only that, without spirituality, can we not continue our life as it is? No.

Almost impossible. What is the reason? The reason is, man lives in two worlds. What are those? An external world and an internal world.

We have no control over the external world. To give you an example, after the first world war, some of the powerful nations came together and they formed united nations. What is the purpose? So that this disaster, where millions have died horribly, can be prevented.

Were they able to prevent? They made rules, they made regulations, and they made all sorts of things, but nothing could be prevented. Even today, war is going on. Sometimes, we have a saying in Telugu, if the fence itself decides to eat the crop, if the watchman himself decides to rob the house, which he was supposed to watch, if the nation which is supposed to enforce aggression and war, if that itself decides to go to war over any other country, what can be done? What can anybody do? Is it your wish that your children go to war and get dead for some unexplained reason? It is not even a war with our countries.

First, you are completely helpless. If your neighbour is not a good person, wants to pick up a quarrel with you, what can you do about it? Then there are other things like natural disasters. So what control do you have over those things? None.

And they do happen. And when they happen, they could be shaking us to the very foundations. We are very fortunate, many times we escape such disasters.

But just imagine, this is not an imagination, this is only mentioning a reality, this tsunami had taken place, and literally 200,000 people have lost their lives. Overnight, within a few seconds, maybe one member of the family survived, all the other members have been washed away in such a horrible way. How does one deal with such a situation? So you know, whenever we utter a Shanti patha, we say, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti, three times.

Have you noticed that? Do you know what is the significance of it? The three bodies. No. You see, our scriptures are very perceptive.

Human beings suffer from three types of miseries, physical, mental and spiritual. Physical miseries can be from our body or something outside us. It could be floods, it could be famines, it could be heat, it could be cold, it could be enemies, it could be mosquitoes, it could be even good neighbours, it could be anything.

We have no control over it. But if we want to live happily, we cannot close our eyes, we have to deal with it. This is one aspect.

Then there are some people, for some reason, there is a reason, we do not know, we undergo traumatic events at home, from parents, from neighbours, from relatives, from all these things. It happens and it affects us deeply. How do you deal with that situation? We have to deal.

If we do not deal, then we cannot be alive, we cannot be living really. Somehow we have to solve the problem. Then there is mind, internal world.

We are living in an internal world, vast world, far bigger than the external world and far more influential than the external world. How many forces are trying to control us unconsciously? We are just not even aware, like the tip of the iceberg. We only know very little about it.

Psychologists are now discovering. Now, do not think that unconscious forces are always only evil. It indicates both good powers.

A person may become a great saint, or a great philanthropist, a great musician, or a great poet, or a great dictator, a great statesman, or a most wicked person, causing the deaths of millions and millions of people. Just to give you an example, and this has not happened centuries back, it just happened last century. How many people died in the Second World War? About 30 million people approximately.

It may not be correct to the last digit, just how many people were killed by Stalin? Do you have any idea? 30 million people. How many people were killed by the Chinese Gang of Four? Have you any idea? 64 million people. Do you know that? You know only that Hitler Nazi Party had killed about 8 million or 9 million Jews.

But you are hardly aware Stalin had killed, not anybody else, his own country people. How many? 30 million people. And in Chinese, in the most horrible way, 1964, Cultural Revolution, children killing their parents, students literally ripping the hearts of their teachers alive, and eating their hearts, some of them, all because they were brainwashed, that these are what is called bourgeois, bourgeois.

History, history is a great eye-opener. That is why a great American historian, Will Durant said, if you are looking for God in history, you will not find him. History is a gory story.

So, how do you deal? I may be good, when somebody else decides to be bad, how do I deal with it? I may be driving all right, but when a drunken driver crashes into you, how are you going to deal with it? Then there are, these are external events, then internal events, you know, obsessions, phobias, you name it, the phobia is there. What is this? Carpet. Carpet.

Do you know that there are people who have carpet phobia? You know, Chitra? Dry leaves phobia. This is a dry leaf season. They can't step out of their home because the dry leaf is there.

Go into the internet, you will see that. And I know many people who suffer from Swami phobia. Anything they will come, but Swami, they won't come.

So, there are three types of miseries. They are called in Sanskrit, Adhyatmika, Bhavutika, Adhidaivika. Even gods and goddesses will also, if they get angry, they can take it out on you.

Yeah, be careful about gods and goddesses. Really, I am not joking. Some gods and goddesses get very angry, even without your knowing what, why they are angry with you.

They won't give the explanation, but they will give you a blow and if you are fortunate to survive, then they might give an explanation why they have done that. You want example? You don't believe me? Believe me. See, my devotees don't believe me.

Only testing. Swami Yogananda was travelling to Vrindavan with Holy Mother and you know, a ferocious goddess appeared to him and said, Paramahamsa Deva prevented me, otherwise I would have finished you. Read biographies.

Then you see, they reached, offered worship for me, she said like that and disappeared. Then they went to Vrindavan and they were walking, going to some temple. Suddenly Yogananda Maharaj, Yogananda Maharaj saw one small temple by the roadside.

Ma, Ma, this is that goddess who appeared to me. Then Mother purchased some sweets and then offered it. Do you remember that incident? Nobody knows.

Why she got angry with such a gentle soul, Swami Yogananda. Anyway, so, Adhyatmika, Abhibhavitika and Adhidaivika. We are all subject to those miseries.

But this is only, I am only emphasising the negative point. How to cope with difficult situations in life, we need that special type of mental training and spirituality is the best mental training to cope. Then there is also untapped, unconscious potentialities.

We can be much more happier than we are. You know, there was a couple and the husband died. Ladies do not get, should not get angry, it's only joke.

Warning you. The husband died and after some time the wife decided to know how her husband is doing without her in the other world. So she went to a medium and got her husband and, John, are you happy? He said, very happy.

More happy than when you were with you. Pagali, what are you talking about? A billion times happier. John, John, how is heaven? Did I tell you that I was in heaven? Sorry.

So, untapped potentialities are there. So let us remember the points we are making. First, we have to cope with life.

We live in two worlds, external world and internal world. We have to cope with three types of miseries. Physical miseries, including physical body and external world, and internal world, that is mental miseries, obsessions, phobias, worries, anxieties, stress.

What is stress? Now, just to give you an example, suppose Sri Ramakrishna is working in an office which is full of stress, according to us. Now my question to you is, would he be stressed out or not? Yes, serious question. He won't be stressed out because he has such a wonderful attitude towards life that there is no chance of his getting stressed out.

You know, I was in India for a long time. I only came back to the UK 15 years back, which is not a very long time. I heard a lot Western people suffer from stress and I never knew because in India we never know.

And after coming to UK also, I started hearing even Indians telling I am suffering from stress. After several years, I also started to suffer from stress. Thinking, how come everybody else is enjoying their stress, I am the only person who is not enjoying the stress.

What is wrong with me? So, stressful situations, dreadful situations, separations, all these are very common things. I am putting it in a joker way, these are very, very real things happening in life. If it is not happening, then you are a very lucky person.

Then you know other malevolent persons, for no reason they dislike you. They may not offer you a job or they may put all sorts of, you know, obstacles in your life, etc., etc. How do we cope with all those things? So one side is negative side, how to cope with the negative side of life.

Another is how to bring out the hidden potentialities that are already there within us. What is it that can give us spirituality? Again, coming back, in this country it is said, according to official statistics, one in three is crazy. So if you have got two friends, check up on them.

If they are alright, they are crazy. Don't worry. This is nothing.

Ramakrishna declared long back, the whole world is mad. He did not even exclude himself. He said, I am also mad.

Only difference is other people are mad for name, fame, enjoyment, etc. I am mad for God. This is the only difference.

So we have to deal with the situations, how to cope with life. At the same time, we have to bring out the inner potentialities. What comes first? Which comes first? First we have to deal with situations in life.

This is called stability. Before we can take, if you are going on a journey, what is it that first you do? You service your vehicle. Is it not? So what is our vehicle? We have got two vehicles.

This is not my invention. This is what Upanishad is telling. Kathopanishad is telling.

What is it telling? This body is the chariot. The Atma is the real rider, traveller. The mind is the Pragraha, the wheel.

The Buddhi is the chariot. Shariram is Ratha. A Ratha is a vehicle.

If Krishna or Veshi was talking, composed the Upanishad, in these days, he would have used a Cadillac. Example. Yes, that's all.

He would have used a driver. Instead of saying Sarathi, he would have said, you know, driver. So, the life is a journey.

But we must always remember, a journey has a point, a goal. So our scriptures are telling us, what is the goal of life? God-realisation. This is a very often used word, God-realisation, self-knowledge, self-realisation.

You can substitute it. What is it? Realise your potentiality to the fullest extent. Some of the psychologists have said, you know, human possibilities.

Explore human possibilities, human potentiality, and make them a fact. A potential must become a fact. So only then, man's quest will reach its ultimate.

How long should we go on journeying until we reach the goal? How long should we go on unfolding our potentiality until we attain perfection? And there is nothing left over very much. You know, many people suffer from, all of us practically, sometimes we suffer temporarily, sometimes permanently for this life, mental problems. Because sometimes it is too much for us to cope with these day-to-day problems.

And that is, why are people suffering from these problems? Because they have no goal, they have no self-discipline, they have no willpower, and this is the result of what we do. Hinduism's explanation of the law of karma includes all these things, not only physical karma, even a mental karma also. So we have got, according to Hinduism, three types of personalities, factors.

What are those? Physical, mental and spiritual. Before I come to this, I have to mention one very interesting incident. When I was in India, Bangalore, there were a series of murders in Pune.

And the police were wondering at random murders. So they found out, all the murderers were highly educated youth, coming from wealthiest families, the cream of the society. And everybody was surprised, they were not criminals, they were not poor people, they had nothing to gain from killing.

Then the police questioned them, why did you do it? They said, we are bored of life, we have nothing to excite us, and that's why we just did it for fun. I am not imagining, this is a fact. Maybe that is the situation, in different forms it is taking.

Why America or England is going to war with Iraq? Maybe they are bored. Who knows? Maybe there is some selfish motive there. We love Iraqi Muslims, we love Iraqi people.

A fox caught hold of a duck, said, I love you the most in this world. You know, how we hide our motivations, psychological problems. That is why, you know, when two psychologists meet each other in the street, do you know how they greet each other? They greet each other, you are fine, how am I? It's a sick society, we are living in a sick society.

There was a very wonderful writer, psychologist, social psychologist called Eric Fromm. Have you heard his name? Better read some of his books. He is not mentioning much of spirituality, but what he writes is nothing but spirituality.

So one of the books he has written is, a sane society. And then he starts like this, suppose there is a town or village, and everybody is leading a normal life, but one particular person is behaving oddly. So immediately everybody knows this person is abnormal.

What is abnormality? If ten persons are going this way, and one person deliberately goes the other way, that is called abnormality. And then he says, this we can find out, suppose the whole society is abnormal, where is the measurement? Who is normal? One member in a society is abnormal, we know. But if the whole society is abnormal, we have a saying in Telugu, if there is a country which all are having one eye, and if one fellow is born with two eyes, it is terrible abnormality.

They will make him normal very soon, don't worry. So how do we know? The whole society is not abnormal, that is what is happening. If Sri Ramakrishna's definition is taken, that what is the definition of a madcap? Those who are running after karma and kanchana, lust and gold, greedy, then he is called a madcap, worldly man, madcap.

Who is not mad? Compared by that standard, the whole society is mad. Is this not what they are running after? Sex and money. Is there anything people talk about, think about? This is what is happening.

So we are abnormal in a way, but how do we know what is normality? The question now is how do we know whether we are alive, we are really living? How do we know we are normal? First of all, there are certain characteristics. According to theology, and I don't want to use too much of theological language, Bhagavad Gita language, what is that? A man who has experienced samadhi, O Lord, how does he sit? How does he walk? How does he talk? If you compare that kind of definition, hardly any one of us qualify for that. No.

We have to use language which is understandable by us. So there are certain characteristics. What are the characteristics? The first characteristic, or if I have to tell, one use one characteristic which includes in it every other characteristic.

Using psychological term, it is called a nature personality. Nature personality. Sri Ramakrishna uses it in a different way.

What is this? Paka amin, arrive, go. What are the characteristics of a nature personality? In brief, he is a man who is perfectly healthy, physically, mentally. Physically sometimes beyond our control, if a person becomes unhealthy, we cannot help.

But as far as we can control, person does his best to keep himself healthy. More important, mentally healthy. What are the characteristics of mentally healthy? A nature personality is a happy, contented person who found out meaning in life, enjoys every minute of his life.

How does he do that? He has a definite goal in life. He has divided his time and energy and he uses his time and his energy in the most appropriate manner. He accepts situations in life in a wise way.

This is what religion is talking about. For example, there was a cartoon on Zen Buddhism. So a Zen master was sitting and he was perfectly happy.

Snow was falling all around him. So the disciples were asking, Master, how come you are so happy even when it is so cold? Then the master simply tells, When it is winter, I say it is winter. When it is summer, I say it is summer.

That is the secret of my happiness. Do you understand it? Accept. Winter season, it is damp, winter season, so cold.

What? You expect Madras weather in winter season or what? And if it is hot, it is damp, so hot it is. What do you expect in summer? You know we are complaining all the time. Not that we don't suffer.

That is not the point. Things don't change. What changes is we have to accept.

Similarly, suppose we are having such high opinion of ourselves that everybody is only praising us. Nobody is criticising us. Do you know what happens to this person? It is sheer foolishness.

If 5 people are praising you, take it from me, 50 people will be criticising you. And even if they don't feel like criticising you, when they hear others praising you, they will definitely criticise you. Accept it.

Even God could not escape being criticised. He is the most criticised person in the world. If he does something, he is criticised.

If he doesn't something, he is criticised. The nature of, what is the nature of the world? A nature person knows, I am a young man, I am a young woman. I am a middle-aged person, I am a middle-aged man, middle-aged woman.

I am an old man, I am an old woman. Graciously accepts. What does an immature person do? Even a 70 years old man is trying to behave like a young man, or a 70 years old woman also is trying to behave like that.

Einstein said, women never understand mathematics. After 18, the number starts from 80. How old are you? 18.

And next year, they won't say. For a long time, they won't say. And when you ask after a very long, long, long time, they say 80 years old.

In between, they don't say anything. Sorry. You see, this tendency, why? We are old, old, the painting doesn't make us any younger.

It only makes us ridiculous. Accept every age, you know, very nicely, graciously. Religion alone can give us that ability to behave like that.

Accept things as they are. Again, a mature personality, he is also humorous. Humorous without being a buffoon.

Humour is one of the most therapeutic things in this world. So it is said, that if a man can learn to laugh at himself, he never again lacks entertainment in his life. The amount of antics that we do in life.

A mature personality has a place for everything in his life. Mahatma Gandhi, he was such a busy man, yet he, you know his Mahatma Gandhi's complete works, have you ever seen? At least 80 volumes, huge like Encyclopaedia of Britain, each volume. 80 volumes.

Such a busy man, yet he had time for his prayer, he had time for his charkha, you know, spinning, he had time to meet people, whereas people like us, we don't have time for anything. Why? Because we do not organise our life. A mature personality accepts miseries, defeats in life as part of life's cycle.

He never rejects them. In fact, he uses them as stepping stones to success. I'll give you an illustration.

You know this Edison, he was making, researching this filament, you know how to find this light bulb filament. 10,000 experiments had failed. Then his assistants got discouraged, said, we did 10,000 experiments and we didn't discover the problem.

Let us give it up. He smiled and said, we have done, gained a lot. Now we know 10,000 ways do not work.

Find out a way it will work. And he did find out. Every great man has not risen because of phenomenal successes.

He had risen because of failures. He never gets discouraged. So I like one beautiful saying, a great man is a great man, not because he doesn't fall down, but a man is great whenever he falls down, he picks himself up and tries another time.

Whereas other people, you know, we give up. So a major personality never gets discouraged. He's always hopeful.

But he is not a mental case. A major personality is neither a pessimist nor an undue optimist, but a realist. He knows what is reality.

This is what psychologists, especially Carl Rogers, how to be a person, a huge volume was written on that. What is he talking about? To be a major personality. This is what in a slightly modified terminology called sthita prajna, a good spiritual personality.

This is our goal in life. Most of us never reach even this goal. But without reaching this goal, it is impossible to be a saint.

Spirituality far transcends this major personality because the body is an instrument. The mind also is only an instrument. These two instruments are used as a vehicle to reach something else.

What is that? To know truly who we are. What is spirituality? To know our real nature. What is our real nature now? We think that we are only bodies having a mind.

So a little advanced soul, that person tells, I am a mind having a body and having a soul. A truly spiritual person, what does he say? I am a soul having a body and mind. These are the three stages.

Those who are at the body level, they are called dvaitins. Those who are at the mind level, they are called visistadvaitins. And those who are at the spiritual level, they are called spiritual people.

This is illustrated by Sri Ramakrishna so beautifully. Depending upon at what stage of our spiritual evolution, our relationship with God also gets altered. So Sri Ramakrishna uses Hanuman and in South India, Hanuman is highly revered.

He is called mukhya prana. He is a guru. So Hanuman is jnaninam agraganyam.

He was the greatest devotee, greatest bhakta, greatest jnani, greatest karmi. Because his whole life is spent in only serving Sri Rama. So Hanuman, it seems, was once asked, what is your attitude towards God? He outlines in three simple steps.

What should be the attitude of each one of us? How we should establish relationship with God? Deha budhyatu dasoham. When I think I am the body, I should consider myself as a servant and God as the master. Jiva budhya tvadam shakaha.

When I consider myself I am the individual soul, I am part of God. This is Tadvaita. Atma budhya tvamevaham.

When I think I am the soul, I am completely one with you. This is my nishchitamati. This is my considered opinion.

Through this, Renan Krishna is telling how we should establish relationship with God. So a mature personality means attaining complete mental health. Physical health, the world has seen much of physical health to a great extent.

No person will be perfectly healthy. It is impossible in this world. But to a great extent, medicine has eliminated a lot of things.

Now psychology is studying not only how to cure mental problems, but how to attain the optimum mental health. So I mentioned some of the characteristics of a mature personality. What are they? He is a perfectly happy, contented person.

He goes on striving, never stopping. As long as I live, so long do I learn. The moment we stop learning, we become old people.

Anything, it could be anything, not only spirituality. Even I can learn a recipe. Or if somebody has stated, put something in beautiful language, I can borrow it from him.

For the single reason, he has borrowed it from somebody else. Ultimately we all borrow from God only, is it not? He is the Purvacharya, Prathamacharya. God is the... So nobody has copyright value.

Yeah. Don't take my stories, you know. I have not copyrighted it.

Copyrighted. So many people are noting down my stories and other things. I am only joking, you know.

So seriously, you know, you can take whatever you like. You know why? Because a joke is not in only reading it out. It is how to tell a joke.

For that you have to pay me specially separately. So a major personality, he accepts life. What is the scripture telling to us? Is it not what it is telling? It is... Scripture talks about two things.

It tries to convey to us two types of knowledges. What is it? First it tells us about God ourself. Second, it tells us also about the nature of this world.

The question now is, why should the scripture talk to us about the nature of this world? I don't know God. I don't see God. It is perfectly logical it should tell about God.

Why should it tell us about this world? Because even though we are in this world, we do not know the nature of this world. Yes, intellectually we know that there will be good, there will be evil, there will be happiness, there will be misery, there will be loss, there will be profit. Everything we know.

But when it comes to practise, we forget it. All Indians are the greatest philosophers. Every time they go to somebody's house where somebody is dead, ha, don't worry, ye duniya trikaal mein hai nai.

Do din ka hai duniya. Understand? Don't we say that? But when it comes to our own, then what do we do? North India I know, sadhus and even many householders. Duniya trikaal mein hai nai.

Means this world doesn't exist in the past, present and future. But I said that's not enough. I added.

Duniya trikaal mein hai. Duniya trikaal mein hai nai. Duniya trikaal mein hai.

Breakfast time, lunch time, supper time, duniya hai. Other times it doesn't exist. Otherwise what will be my fate? So coming back to our subject, what is spiritual life? Getting this body as fit as possible as an instrument, not identifying with it, but using it in a proper way.

Secondly, attaining to mental health, that is not the goal as I said, but even that is a big goal for those who do not want spirituality. It is a big goal. So to make the mind so that it is not optimistic, it is not pessimistic, but it is realistic.

It is realistic to have a goal in life. Those who are successful, they have a goal in life. Do you know that? Because how do you measure success if you don't have a goal? You know, people are so leery.

Suppose you go to a train station, say give me a ticket. Will the station master give you a ticket? The only place where I know you get a ticket without asking for it, when you park illegally. He will ask you, where do you want to go? Without a goal, life's energies are wasted, because life cannot be focused without a definite goal.

This is the problem with our spiritual life. What is it? We have a goal. At least we claim we have a goal.

What is it? I want to reach God. But then we also have to be practical enough to say that goal is there, but I am here. So there must be what is called a short term goal.

What is my next step? It means, you know there is a small something from the ceiling they put it to keep things from ants and other things. You know, a person cannot reach it, but he says I want to reach heaven. Yeah.

I am a dwarf. I want to reach the moon. The short term goal is, what is it that I immediately should attain? Devotees forget this.

They are, I want Moksha. I want, you know, to live with God. But here is somebody.

How foolish these Hindus are. You know, I will tell you a real story. There was a great soul called Narayana Guru in South India.

Have you heard about him? Later on he acquired lakhs. You understand, like here people don't understand what is a lakh. A lakh only L-A-C-K, not L-A-K-H.

Lakhs of devotees. And you know, they were all Hindu devotees, all enthusiastic about their Guru, Brahma, Guru Vishnu. They asked him, we will celebrate your birthday.

He said, I don't like it, but their devotees are so devoted, they want to obey the Guru. So devoted. He said, no, no, we will celebrate.

We are not asking your permission. We are informing you. So they, Shamyana, and every year they celebrate.

Year after year, it will be growing and growing and growing. Swami became 80 years old. He said, he was not in good health.

He said, I cannot come and sit there. You celebrate if you want. So the huge panda, 80th birthday, huge photograph of the Swami, early morning Vedic chanting, offering, going on.

Heaps, mountain heaps of food was going on. And they were all in ecstasy, 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock, 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock. At 2 o'clock in the afternoon, the Swami, nobody was there, slowly got up with his stick, came to the puja mandap and said, I am very hungry.

Can I get little food? Heaps of food they are offering to his photograph. See, this is the Hindu's nature. Wherever they go, big temples, they construct.

In India, you know, temples. God must have, you know, one Karnakundala, one Mohskundala, one Kundala, because Ghazni Muhammad had invited India 17 times, never went anywhere. Straight he went to Somnath, and with all those sandalwood trees, jewels, everything went quite happily.

Next year, everything Hindus got ready for him. I can live without those things, but God cannot live without those things. This is nature.

But they are good natured people, I am proud of that. Otherwise, I would not have been able to come here, if not for this temple. It's nice.

So, that maturity, realism, should be there. Goal should be there. Long term goal, ultimate goal, and proximate goal also should be there.

We should not forget. Otherwise we become impractical. So these are the instruments.

But what is the real spiritual life? I have only made the background. We live in internal and external world. We have very little control over the external world.

But we have some amount of control over our inner world. But there are tremendous potentialities, as well as setbacks also in the internal world. Our aim is to attain to the maximum health, means developing all the potentialities.

This is only preparing for the journey. Now the real journey starts. So I told you, what is spirituality? Self-knowledge, or God-realisation.

Why God-realisation? Because that is our real nature. What happens when a person realises God? He becomes so happy. By attaining which happiness? He doesn't consider any other happiness as equivalent to that.

Bhagavad Gita says. We understand happiness. That's why I am using the word happiness.

What is happiness? It is a state of mind. We always forget it. Because possessions, money, buildings, cars, good family, they are all only environment.

But if our mind is not in that state, then we cannot be happy. It is a state of mind. What state of mind is it? The mind perfectly thinks, I am a happy person.

I am a happy person. Who can be a happy person? I have no more desires. I got what I want.

I am a contented person. That is the state of happiness. As long as we can keep this state of mind, we are happy people.

So now we will talk about the laws of happiness. Not L-O-S-S. L-A-W-S.

There are certain definite laws of happiness. In simple way of explaining, we call it chakras. You know about these six chakras, shat chakras.

People think they understand about chakras. What are these chakras? Each chakra is a state of consciousness, which means how we identify ourselves as. So the three lower chakras, Muladhara, Manipura, Swadhisthana, this is what Sri Ramakrishna says, Eating, sleeping, mating.

These are what we call worldly life, normal worldly life. Why do we do that? Because we identify ourselves exclusively with this human body. Deha tadatmya.

Sthula sharira tadatmya. These are the things which go on. So animals are also doing that.

As long as we are in these three chakras, so our happiness is bound only with these three. Eating, sleeping, mating. Only these three things.

People do not, as I said, understand what are called chakras. Because we have a centre in Amsterdam, Netherlands. And you know these westerners, they go on reading books about the chakras and practising like that.

And one such person, he wrote to one of our Swamis, Swami, I can easily ascend to the Sahasrara chakra and control it, but I have a lot of problem with my Muladhara chakra. What is the understanding of chakras? You know, he says, you know, I can calculate ten figures into ten numerals into ten numerals, but I have a great problem in adding one plus one. Strange things happen, you know.

In one of our centres in USA, one of our Swamis initiated one western devotee. And the devotee, you know, western people are very enthusiastic, they take to these things so much to heart. As soon as he got initiated, he went, sat down, started repeating the mantra.

After one hour he ran to the Swami, Swami, I have a big problem. What is that? My Kundalini has reached the Sahasrara and refuses to calm down. Swami said, foolish fellow, repeat the mantra in reverse.

People have crazy ideas about chakras, but those who have read the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, the most marvellous description, what happens when the Kundalini ascends to each chakra, it is gradually going to higher and higher states of consciousness. That is what is meant. It is only figuratively it is given that this is the lowest chakra, actually consciousness has no such spatial concept.

It is only for us to make us understand. We say, you know, there is God who is up there. It is not a spatial concept.

So we are talking about happiness. Every state of consciousness is associated with a certain amount of happiness, both qualitatively and qualitatively. This is the first law of happiness.

The second law of happiness is, every creature longs for higher and higher states of happiness. If we have attained to certain degree of happiness, the mind will be happy for a short time, then it wants higher, seeks instinctively higher state of happiness. So what is the second law says? That every creature, especially human beings, seek higher and higher states of happiness.

The third law states that if we want a higher state of happiness, the only way is to ascend to a higher state of consciousness. There is no way I will be here and I will pull down the higher state of happiness. This is one of the mistakes we are making all the time, that we are identified with the body, but we want to enter into Samadhi.

So Samadhi, you know, some people, foolish people, Swami, I don't have much time, can you quickly teach me what is Samadhi? He said, yes, there are, you know, one way only I know to teach you a quick way of happiness, but sign here, whatever happens to me, Swami is not responsible for it. I will take a big stick and give you instantaneous Samadhi. I will have it.

I don't know any other short way of giving Samadhi to that person. So without transcending to a higher state of consciousness, it is impossible to enjoy that state of happiness. This is the third law.

The fourth law says that there is no need for us to acquire happiness. When we reach the particular state of consciousness, there is no need for us to produce happiness. All that we need to do is remove the obstructions.

This is the Vedantic theory. Happiness is not something that is coming from outside, given by somebody to us. It is already there.

It is covered. You discover it. That is why Hindu sadhana is not a positive sadhana.

It is a negative sadhana, in the sense that all that you have to do is remove the obstacles. Naturally, the Self is already there, but the Self is identified with certain obstructions. These obstructions are called Koshas.

Pancha Kosha, you know? You simply remove, I am not the body. Then all the happiness in the gross world will be yours. Simply say, I am not the prana.

All the happiness of the prana will be ours, like that. It is a negative sadhana. It means you only remove the obstacles.

You don't need to do anything. You know, there was a school. Christmas was coming.

School teacher wanted to present a beautiful drama for entertaining both students and parents. So the drama teacher was wanting to teach the children. He selected some children for participating in the drama.

So he said, boys, there are two scenes, the heavenly scene and the hellish scene. So when the hellish, heavenly scene comes, put up bright smiles, let everybody see how happy you are. He did not say anything about what they should do when the hellish scene comes.

So he asked some of them, what shall we do when the hellish scene comes? He said, you don't need to do anything. People understand when they see you. So, this Hindu sadhana is negative sadhana.

Only remove the obstacles. And the last law tells us that karma is used only to remove the obstacles and not to give anything. This karma is called sadhana.

Karma doesn't produce happiness. Karma only removes the obstacles. These are the five laws of happiness.

So, spirituality is to know who we really are and that is there instinctively in us, inherent in us. It is this which is the cause of biological evolution, of psychological evolution, of moral evolution and also of course spiritual evolution. Why are we wanting love to other people? To love is a most natural thing.

Not to love is a very negative thing. It is not our nature. Just as ill health is not our nature.

How do we know? Because when you are healthy, you don't struggle to get rid of health. When you are sick, you get rid of sickness. Happiness is your very real nature.

How do we know? When you are happy, you don't try, struggle to get rid of it. But when you are unhappy, you do everything in your capacity to get rid of it. Similarly, to know who we are is a most natural thing for us.

The only thing is when we know who we are not, then we struggle to get rid of it. All our struggle is for that. There was an officer, you know when you go big officer, there will be a plaque, the name, the designation, right? So people were surprised.

When they used to go to his office, the plaque was turned towards himself. So some people, perceptive people noticed it. All people are not perceptive, you know how blind people could be.

Vedanta Centre, we have a main door, and constantly people come. There is a bell. So to avoid the nuisance, we have put a big plaque, and the door is open, push it in and come.

They come there, go on pressing the bell, until we come running. And then we say, oh we are very sorry, we did not know. Try it in front of their eyes.

So this officer, some people noticed, sir, why is this odd way of, you know? He said, everybody knows who I am, I tend to forget who I am. I want to remind myself who I am. It's a beautiful way.

This is called spiritual practise. We are always looking outside to find our identity. I am a Hindu, I speak, you know, this language, I am so and so, my husband, my wife, my parents, etc.

These are all outside things. What is my real identity? I am the Self. Some wise man turned his sight inward to find out who he really is.

So I will summarise, what is spiritual life? To know who we are. That is the goal which is pushing us, only if we consciously try to understand and aid nature, then we will progress spiritually. If we do not, we do not progress.

Even from utilitarian point of view, the person who knows who he is, he attains to the highest type of happiness possible, not those who are ignorant. Even from the lowest point of view, training the mind to be nature, psychologically, also solves a lot of problems and gives us the most possible happiness, even here and now. Spirituality is that something which will give us health, which will give us physical happiness, which will give us spiritual happiness too.

What is your authority for making such a statement? If you ask, what are the Purusharthas, four Purusharthas? Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha. So Hindus have divided life into four stages, so that we can attain these four Purusharthas. So what is the first Purushartha? Dharma.

So a person who is Dharmic is on the way to spiritual perfection. Even if you want worldly happiness, it is not possible by hook or crook, only by being a Dharmic person. So Dharma fulfils two functions.

In the initial stage, it gives us this worldly happiness, but ultimately it purifies our mind and directs us towards God. That is why Dharma is such a most wonderful thing. Spirituality, as I said, in simple terms is how to know who we are, how to find the goal in our life, how to live in such a way that we have the optimum health, optimum happiness.

And this will be expressed in the form of love, unselfishness and truthfulness. Or to put it even in simpler terms, if you are looking for an ideal companion, whom do you seek in one world? Do you know that? You know that. It is called trustworthy person, whom you can trust.

Whom does a baby instinctively trust? Why? Because she is loving, she is unselfish, and she for her baby is the only truth. I can go on like this, you know, explaining, but in short, we cannot live without a spiritual life. If you ask me, what is spiritual life? A very happy, fulfilled life.

What is unspiritual life? A very unhappy, unfulfilled life. This is what Sri Ramakrishna means by worldly life and spiritual life. Many people do not understand this statement.

They think we are all living in this world. Are we worldly people? Where are the Swamis living? Svargaloka. Where did Sri Ramakrishna live? Not in this world? So he has a wonderful way of saying it.

What is that? A boat can live on the water, but the water should not be in the boat. That is called spiritual life. It involves some amount of detachment too, because when tragedies occur, if we do not have detachment, we will be overwhelmed by the grief.

So spirituality, the term spirituality covers all these aspects. Even if you have to take one simple word, I want to be happy. Be spiritual, you will be happy.