WHY BELIEVE?

 

Non-believing has as its essence believing. You will never have a non-believer in this world anywhere, ever. Everyone believes in something. You think you’ll have a puncture and carry a spare wheel. You look at yourself in the mirror and think or feel that you look so pretty, and you might be ugly. So, you believe.

Belief is nothing else but a mental conception. You always believe in believing, non-believing; you still believe in thinking. So where is the difference? No difference at all. But when you apply that word to theology, you say, “I believe in God” it is a different thing altogether, and the essence of itself is the same thing. I believe in God. How can I believe in God when I have not seen, known, or experienced Him? Is that not non-believing? Is that not just a mental concept conjured up in your mind into a fictitious figure? And He would be fictitious because you have not experienced Him. It is fiction, created by yourself and no one else.

Yes, there have been your parents, your teachers and all the various churches or what have you. They say, “Believe, believe, believe, and you go to Heaven.” Do you go to Heaven by believing? I ask you this question. I believe in Heaven, okay, so because I believe in Heaven, I will go to Heaven. Yes, you will, fictitiously, in your imagination; because there is no Heaven and no Hell. What you make of life is all here. Heaven is here, and hell is here. And the other dimension after you leave this body has nothing to do with Heaven or Hell, but only that which you have created in your mind because of your belief.

THE FORERUNNER OF BELIEF SHOULD ALWAYS BE EXPERIENCE

The belief system is sound but not so much applicable to this age. In this time of high technology, everything has to be proven. If I tell you, “Believe me that you are not sitting separately away from me, you are attached to me, and billions and billions of atoms attach you to me.” You would say, “Guruji is talking rubbish.” But if I bring you a very high-powered microscope to show you all those atoms attaching us, you see with your own eyes. Then you will say, “Guruji, that is true.” For nothing is apart – everything is just a mass. I personally also have beliefs, but my beliefs are founded on experience. So, the forerunner of belief should always be experience.

If you wear a size thirty-six dress, you will not go into a shop believing that it will fit you. You go into that dressing room, and you will try it on and see if it works well. Then you will buy that dress. If these things can be done in tiny little things like dresses, suits, pants, and shoes, why can they not be done on a higher level? Try it on. Try God on you. Experience Him as it fits you, and then take Him, and He does not charge any money, unlike Woolworths, Harrods, or any of those places. Try Him on, fit Him on, and He will fit so snugly to you because He is like these stretchable socks; you know that anywhere you can buy a pair of socks, and they stretch to the size of your feet.

THE ACCEPTANCE OF DIVINITY IS BASED ON EXPERIENCE

Belief is always constituted by one’s personal ideologies and personal conceptions of the thing you believe. The acceptance of Divinity is not dependent on belief. No, the acceptance of Divinity is based on experience. When you experience within yourself that Divine force permeating you, you can never deny it. After you have eaten and tasted honey, you can never deny the sweetness of that honey, and you have tasted it.

Meanwhile, if it stands on a store shelf or in your kitchen unopened and you tell all your friends, “Ah, you know that is honey, it is very sweet.” But you that have not experienced the sweetness of the honey, what right have you to tell another that that honey on the shelf is sweet? And those are the false prophets that the Bible talked about. They have not experienced anything yet and want to speak of the glory, greatness, and beautifulness of love and God. Why did you not talk about cabbages, cauliflowers, or carrots that you have tasted and eaten, boiled, fried, barbecued or curried? Talk about that. Say, “Yes, I did a curry dish from vegetables, and I put in a pinch of garam masala and a pinch of all the other stuff that goes in it.” Talk about that.

THERE IS NO ETERNAL DAMNATION

Never talk about anything you have not personally experienced. That is the greatest mistake our churches are making. They say, “Believe in this and believe in that and you shall be saved. Otherwise, you will land up in eternal damnation.” Damn, those buggers. Because there is no eternal damnation.

How can damnation ever be eternal? If damnation is eternal, then Divinity is also eternal, and how can the two co-exist? Divinity and damnation, how can they co-exist? Because there is only one eternity, and two things cannot exist eternally together. When it comes to eternity, there is only oneness all the time. That is the biggest mistake all our churches, temples, mosques, and synagogues have made. When they cannot get you in their folds with love, they try to contact you with the threat of eternal damnation. If you do not pay your dues to the church, synagogue, or temple, you are damned. You are damned. Now the word damned is perfect. To dam up water means the water cannot flow. It stays in the same place. There is no flowing, and you stagnate. It is only flowing water that does not stagnate; that is how the word “dam” or “damnation” originated.

IN THE SPIRITUAL PATH, NOTHING CAN STAGNATE

This is a contradiction of terms because nothing can stagnate in the spiritual path. It is forever flowing and ever-flowing despite all the adverse circumstances. It is forever flowing towards good because evolution takes you further and further and further away, and closer and closer and closer to that which is good. Do you see the contradictions there? And on top of it, they tell you, “Believe in it.” Experience is what one requires. If I tell you a plate of food is good, believe it. But when you eat it, it does not suit your palate; it is not good. So why, in the first place, must you take my word?

When I sit down to a meal, people offer me various condiments. “Have this Guruji, have that.” I say, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, let me taste first, and if anything is necessary for me to add to it, then I will add on.” But I have seen people adding a lot of salt, pepper, and all the other blah-blahs without even having tasted the food. Is that not foolish? That is like belief. When you go to the restaurant, how can you assume the cook has not put in the right amount of pepper or salt? How can you believe that in your mind and start throwing it in? Taste it first, and then if you feel something else is necessary, you add on. You can always add salt, but it is challenging to take out if there is too much of it. But you can add it later. Do you see the contradiction of belief? In your mind, you have conceived that there is not enough salt and what right have you to do that without tasting the food? Taste it first, and then if you find the salt is not enough, put it on, and add on. And that is a straightforward analogy of what people do in everything in life.

DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO BUT BE HONEST AND SINCERE

If you are driving a car in America, you look to the left first to see if cars are coming, and then you look to the right. In England, when English people drive, they look to the right first to see if the cars are coming, and then they look to the left. Both are right. It depends upon the system in which you are living. There are no rights and wrongs in life. Do whatever you want to do, but just be honest and sincere. Believe what you want to believe in, and if your belief is strong enough, you can do anything. As they say, faith can move mountains, but have you got enough confidence to move a mountain? Show me any man throughout this world that has moved a mountain. No. But you can drive more incredible things than mountains. Move the Heart.

MOVE THE HEART

The heaviest burden any person can have or carries is the burden of the Heart, and you can move that. Forget the mountains. Let them be where they are; they are doing you no harm. Forget them; they are there so beautiful. Drive past, walk past, and enjoy the scenery; it is lovely. Why do you want to move mountains? But that is an analogy, of course, as we know. But the truth is, move the mountain of the Heart to greater and greater heights, meaning greater and greater expansion of the Heart so that you can embrace the entirety of the Heart, the whole of the universe in your Heart. Then you can say, “Ah, this life has been so well lived.”

So, from the region of the living dead, become living, alive. That is the aim and goal, and that does not come through belief. That comes through experiencing that which you might have once believed. In other words, the belief, a mental conception, has become a concrete reality within yourself.

A LITTLE STORY

We condemn the East for having all those statues in the temples of Rama, Krishna, Sita, Parvati, Shiva, and so many gods. A little story. This man was drowning, and there were about three hundred thousand gods. So, he started praying to one God, “Oh lord, save me; I am drowning.” A moment later, he prays to another god, “Oh lord, save me.” Then he prays to Brahma, “Oh, save me.” Then he prays to Parvati, “Oh, save me.” Then he prays to Vishnu, “Oh, save me.” Ommmm. Then he prays to another God, Shiva, “Oh, save me.” So all these gods heard this man’s prayers, but when he prayed to one and said, “Oh save me,” and a moment later he prayed to the other; so the first one thought, “Oh well, seeing that he is praying to him, I will not go to save him, the other one will go.” And when he prayed to the third one, he said, “Okay, well look, seeing that he is praying to him, I will not go, I will sit still, that other one will go.” And in the end, the man was drowned.

IF YOU HAVE A BELIEF SYSTEM, LET IT BE ONE-POINTED

So, if you have a belief system, let it be one-pointed, believe in anything. All these idols and things you find in certain religions are made as symbols. That idol is not Divine in itself, but it is a symbol to make you remember Divinity. All of you have pictures of me in your rooms and lounges to remind you of the teachings I am giving you. Gururaj said this, and Gururaj said that. It is a reminder of those teachings, and then when you reach the finality, when you get to the end, you will say, “That is not Gururaj’s picture; that is my picture. For I have merged, and he has merged within me. We are one. So that picture on the wall is not of Gururaj, but it is me, and it is him, merged.” This comes from experience and not from belief.

… Gururaj Ananda Yogi. Satsang UK 1984 – 09