Stop And See, Where
Is Life Going?

Lima, South America

So what should we discuss tonight?
I am playing the role of the speaker and you are all listeners. How nice it would be for me to know what is it that you want to know tonight.
You can think of topics.

You know, to discuss something which is very dear to our hearts, we need to be in an informal atmosphere.
A formal atmosphere is not congenial for wisdom; for authenticity.
I have a habit of doing everything in an informal way.

So let us begin by turning around and greeting the person in-front of you, next to you and behind you. Become familiar with everyone around you.

I want to ask you a question.
Did you really greet the person or did you do it as a formality?
You don't have to tell that to the person next to you. You don't have to tell them, 'Hey, I just greeted you as a formality.'
I want you to ask yourself, did you really greet the person?

You know when you get off the plane, the air hostesses greet you saying, 'Have a nice day', but they don't mean it.
It is just coming from the lips.
But if the same words comes to you from your mother, or sister, or a close friend, it carries some vibration with it.
So we convey more through our vibrations.

Someone can stand and give you a talk about love for two hours, but that does not convey what a baby or dog conveys to you through vibrations.
You go into a place where people are depressed, you will see that for no reason you are also depressed. Similarly, you go to a place where people are happy and you feel the joy coming up within you.

The whole world is just vibrations; waves and waves.
Our mind is vibrations, our body is all vibrations, thoughts are vibrations and our emotions are all vibrations. But we don't do anything to improve the vibrations, the positivity in us, isn't it?!
That something, doing which, your vibrations become very joyful, positive and peaceful, is Meditation.
This happens very fast through the breathing techniques and meditation.

Usually when one says Meditation, you think, one has to leave everything and go to Machu Picchu, or somewhere in the Himalayas; no, it is not like that. You can experience it in your own home.
And what are the benefits of meditation? Why should we do it? As I said, our vibrations become positive.

Sometimes, when you meet someone, you feel some repulsion and you don't want to talk to that person. Have you experience this?
And then, there are some people that you meet, and you feel like talking to them and engaging with them. Again, this is vibrations.

Similarly, you get some thoughts, and they are absolutely right. And at other times, you get thoughts that are completely wrong. Isn't that so?
So, we are like walking in the darkness without understanding our own consciousness. If you understand consciousness, a lot of things happen and your life becomes much happier. Our health becomes better, our relationships with people improves.
You must have heard from people, how the violent tendencies in life go down. And most important, our desires get fulfilled.

There are four kinds of people.
Some people have desires, and they desire and desire but nothing gets manifested.
There are others who desire and work so hard for it, and then after a long time, it gets manifested.
And the third one are those who desire, and immediately it gets done, without much hard work.
And the fourth one are those who don't even have to desire, even before the desire arises, things are already there.
So which category do you want to be in? Fourth one?

Yes, that is the luckiest. It is just like, you have not even felt thirst and already there is water.

There is a proverb in India which says, 'When you had teeth, you didn't get peanuts, and when you got peanuts, you didn't have teeth.'
Many people are in this situation. They work so hard all their life, make all the money, put it all in the bank and they die. And then the children fight over the money of the parents.
In the world, about 70% of the court cases are about inheritance.
Now, see nobody fights over the money they have earned. So what you have done is, you have made money, put it in the bank and then made your children fight with each other for the money. Is this an intelligent thing to do?

We spend half of our health in earning money, and then we spend half of our wealth to get the health back.
Not so smart! Not so economical.

We need to find where life is going?
There is a story of a wise fool!
A wise fool was sitting on a donkey, and the donkey was running. It went round and round the same streets many times. So someone asked this gentleman, 'I see you going up and down several times, where are you going?'
He says, 'I don't know, ask the donkey!'

Most of the time, our lives are that way. We keep working and we keep on doing things without knowing - What is the Purpose! Without even enjoying all that this nature has provided us.

See, when the mind is bitter you can't find happiness anywhere in the world. When the mind is sweet, then you find sweetness everywhere.
So meditation is all about finding sweetness deep inside us. And when you find it, do you know what you want to do? You want to give it to everybody.

People ask me, 'What is your motivation? What do you get? Why are you running around to all these places around the world all the time?'
I asked them one question, 'Suppose you see a very nice movie, what do you do? Do you just sit quiet in your room? Or do you pick up the phone, call your friends and tell them, 'Oh, it is a great movie, you must go and see this movie.' Now what do you get by doing that? Do the movie producers give you some commission? Or the actors give your some money? What do you get for making all those phone calls? You do it because the nature of joy is to share.'

The nature of joy is sharing.
There are two types of joy, one is the joy of grabbing. As kids we were born with this tendency. If you leave a child here, it will go and grab this flower, grab this sheet, pull that chair, turn everything around upside down, and hold on to things.
It will hold on to anything, even a knife. Without knowing it is going to hurt its hand, the child with grab a knife. But mothers are very clever, they will give the child something else to loosen the child's grip from the knife. Isn't that so?
When children catch on to something that is not good, you give them something else.
So this is one type of joy, the joy of getting, having. This is a childish joy; childish happiness. There is another type of happiness, joy, that comes from giving.
Many ladies here, when guests are coming home, or children are coming home, what do you do? You make many different types of food and decorate it and put it on the table. Your joy as a mother is in giving, isn't it!
Look at grandparents, they love to give gifts to the children, isn't it?! There is a joy in giving, and this is a mature joy.
We cannot live life by just having the joy of getting without understanding the joy in giving.

Once you have a little taste of the joy that comes from giving, you will find that life is worth living, life is fulfilling.
So, smile more!

You know a baby smiles 400 times a day, a adolescent smiles only 17 times and an adult rarely smiles. And if you become an officer or a politician, then forget about it. Your smile disappears, flies away.
A smile is not something artificial, it should come from within. That can only happen when the stress is gone, when we go deep in meditation.

If someone says, 'I am meditating', that means that they smile more; there is serenity, sensitivity and sensibility, and this is spirituality.

Spirituality means sensibility, sensitivity, sweetness, smile; all these put together.