DO NOT FEEL GUILTY

 

We do not need to bother ourselves about past experiences and past karma. The most incredible disease man suffers today is the sense of guilt, which is the cause of most mental and physical ailments, for the mind translates into its physical equivalent, the sense of guilt.

What are you guilty about? Why create greater and greater conflicts in your mind about what has happened in the past or might happen in the future? The past is gone. Some seeds have been sown, and who knows if they will grow. There might be a drought. Create the drought. Create the drought by just working and not thinking of what the future will bring or what the past has formulated for the future. Whatever has been done in the past, why feel guilty about it? How do you know you have done it? Are you sure that the real you have performed a specific action? No. You have not performed any action. You are not the doer. You are just an instrument. The Great Doer knows why your little ego had to go through these processes; therefore, we stop condemning ourselves.

We stop condemning ourselves, and when we stop condemning ourselves, we stop blaming others. When we stop condemning ourselves, we do not feel guilty. The past is the past, which was regulated within this process of evolution. Whatever you did, whatever happened, had to happen, and you did not make it happen. You were instrumental in the happening, but a greater will made it happen; a will be far more significant than what you think is your little egoistic will.

LET GO OF THE IDEA OF DOING

In that state, there is no karma. I once told you the story of Milarepa. When Milarepa, the great Tibetan yogi, was a young man, he said, “I did black deeds and then when I got more knowledge, I did white deeds. But now I have risen above both. I do no deeds.” And that area of no deeds is the greatest action, the greatest inaction in action, because the whole idea of doing is gone. “I do” has disappeared, and it is just done. That is how you clean off the slate of those experiences and samskaras.

You do not do. It is just done. You do not record. That machine records; you only fiddle with the knobs. Suppose life is lived like that. We just do. I am speaking to you. Do you think I am doing anything? I am doing nothing; I am just sitting here enjoying myself, that is all. You might say, “Oh, Gururaj is lecturing. He is working.” No, I am not. I am having fun. I shut off the mind, let the inner Self flow, and look at the beauty of the flow. Look at the music of the bubbling brook that passes through this voice, the symphony, the melody. Listen carefully. It is not only the words. For who is uttering the words? Not I. I am just an instrument. All I have learned is how to tune this instrument to the greater I, to the real I, and let Him do the bloody work. Why must I work? Because He flows through me, I still enjoy. That is my little fun. My little fun in this vast ecstasy of life.

THE MIND OF MAN IS RUNNING IN GROOVES

That is how we get rid of all these samskaras. Never be bothered; never feel guilty. You have harmed no one in your life, and no one has ever hurt you. I am putting forward a lot of new thoughts to you. Man’s mind is running in grooves, which must be altered, for in ages to come, that will be the salvation and consolation for man.

In Indian villages with no tarred roads, you have these dirt tracks, and the ox carts go through them all the time, creating these grooves. The ox pulls the cart, and the driver can sleep because the wheels run in the grooves. We have to put a stone in the track so the driver wakes up when the wheel hits it and jolts it. We have to wake up. We have to wake up because we are sleeping with fallacious beliefs. Sinner, sinner, sinner, sinner, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty; what for! Is that the hope for man, or is that condemnation of man?

The more guilty you feel, the more miserable you will feel. Who else could be the doer if He is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent? He is the doer; he does. The various mixtures and admixtures of the material you are made of, which includes the mind and the body, have formed specific patterns that make you experience life in a certain way. But if you do not experience life as the doer, if you have that idea, then whatever experiences you go through will not add to your karma. It will not, and that is how the ego is clarified. That is how this most significant disease in the world, guilt, can be eliminated. Do not feel guilty; that is the only way you will find the truth. Because guilt is like a whirlpool, you are always caught up in it. “I have done this, oh God. I have done this.”

LIVE HAPPILY AND BE OF GOOD CHEER

The organized religions came in, including all the theologies: Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, the lot, the works, and what did they do? When they could not capture us with love, they tried to hold us in fear – eternal damnation. It is not valid, and there can never be eternal damnation. If there were eternal damnation, then the Eternal God would also be damned, for there is only one eternity.

Live happily. Be of good cheer. Forget those samskaras. Forget those experiences, although they might be regulating your life today. Accept what is today and act accordingly. To make your flow smoother, put in changes wherever you can. Get rid of some of the boulders in this river of life, so the water flows smoother. And even if there are boulders in the river of life, how exciting for the seas to dash up against and rise and down again. It becomes a melody.

The river of life will forever flow. The water coming up the hill and reaching the ocean does not feel guilty because it has gone over all the dirt and debris in the river, or all the junk is thrown into it. Some rivers, by certain theologies, are called holy, only certain ones. They are all sacred, for they teach you the meaning of life. For the water at the start of evolution, the water here in the middle of evolution, and the water at the end of evolution is still the same, but ever afresh, ever anew, ever thirst-quenching, and not the stagnation of the pond. For in the stagnant pond where there is no movement and no work, inaction, there it festers and breeds all the feelings of insecurity and guilt, and you name it, and you have got it there in the pond which you call your life. And that is the greatest delusion, for you are not the stagnant pond but the flowing river. You see the attitude to life: to accept life as it is, not as it was or will be, for as the water is there too, it is changing, changing, changing, but the essence that you are is not changing in its constancy; it is constant.

WE CAN CHOOSE

A misconception creates the miseries and the sorrows of this world. People are tying you down with fear that, in turn, creates greater fear within yourself: I am going to burn in the fires of hell. No, you do not burn in any fire outside yourself, and you fry in your fat.

Life could be so beautiful, so joyful. Forget those experiences. Forget those samskaras. They are there, okay, they are there, and I am prepared to take the consequences, and I will take them laughingly like a man, not like a mouse. I will face those consequences, and when you have that idea, you become brave, for the spiritual path is for those that are brave. You have the choice with the little mind, which we can put to use; we can choose. And let the devil take his cares.

Speaking of choice, there was a chap giving a talk on the platform, and he asked the question, “If I put a pail of water on the platform here and another pail of beer here, and I call up a donkey to drink, what would the donkey choose?” On the one side is a pail of water, and on the other is a pail of beer. Now, the question is: what would the donkey choose? One person from the audience replied, “Water.” So, the lecturer asked, “Why?” “Because he is an ass.”

There are so many lovely things you can choose from. But first, feel guilt-free, and then perform an action for the sake of action and all those karmic seeds are burnt up. You create that drought where those bad seeds will not sprout, and the drought is created by action for the sake of action: acting for the sake of acting. And that is the excellent play of life, this lovely musical drama of life. You are always singing the high and low notes on and on and on in its eternal variety, and you enjoy it all.

LIFE IS TO BE ENJOYED

These cooks here on these courses take me around the world, one-day Mexican food, one-day Italian food, one-day American food, one-day Indian food; I cannot even remember the names of the things I eat. But how beautiful, every dish is so tasty, the variety of life. But I am not going to feel guilty that I ate Italian food today and Spanish food the day before yesterday. No, they are both enjoyable; they are all so lovely.

That is life. Whatever is put on the table, enjoy it. It depends on how you look at it, and if you look at it in its true perspective, you will find that the nutrients in all the foods are the same; they all contain all the combinations of the minerals and vitamins or the nourishments that the body requires. The taste is different just as far as the throat. After that, it is all the same. We only worry about this little passage from the lips to the throat. Is that your entirety? Is that your life? We emphasize this little thing that we think is everything, yet it is of no consequence. You are interested in the nutrition of life and not just these few taste buds there. If they can be pleased, why not enjoy, too?

… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1981 – 20