Teachings

Overcoming self-doubt in spirituality

Guru Sri Subramanium explains how to overcome self-doubt by honing our willpower and strengthening our powers of speech.

Guru: God is the goal! But you have to first master yourself. You must relate all your senses to the Divine because all the senses are interacting with God.

Your vision; what you see is very superficial. What you hear is even more superficial. Your prana; when you take a breath you are like a fish! And the vibration of sound that comes from you is not wholesome. Why do we say not wholesome? Because you’re not conscious. The mind and the vibration of sound are not coordinated.

The way your heart functions in rhythm with the three Gunas – one is running away in one direction, and one in another direction. It is not focused on the point of concentration.

Be mindful. Don’t say anything that you do not mean. Be committed to what you say. Then when you do whatever you do, it has a bearing – you can have power in your hands.

To master these Gunas and your energies in your body is a lifetimes activity. Hence from one cycle of birth to another; from the primitive cycle to this cycle of consciousness, you have evolved and now you are very sophisticated. Sophistication is a way of saying “I’ve got it all under control, boy, I know what I’m doing! Ha! You can’t tell me what to do.”

And you think you can play with this sophistication – but you’re not in control. When you are in control, then you can really play with the energies that you have got. From the tip of my finger, I can play with any energy. But your mind is not powerful enough. To get the mind so powerful you are looking for this word called God and religion.

To go to God you have to master and be mindful of, all the sense objects. Focus! Make sure that when you are saying something, you are really saying it – sending this vibration straight to God, nowhere else.

Guru Sri Subramanium from Skanda Vale giving a spiritual talk

Develop power of speech through Satyam

If you want a reaction from what you are saying, then you have to really concentrate. Imagine yourselves, all of you, you are lying in bed with your partner and making love, and then you say to the partner “Oh, I love you”. How many times have you done that? But your mind is somewhere else. And the partner says “Hey, you’re not here!”

Be where you are. Don’t ever do anything where your mind is not focused. Make sure that you are mindful at every level.

When I see people, I go to them and say “Hi, how are you?” Do you think I don’t know how the person is? Do you know why I ask that? I want him to tell me how he is, or she is. I want to see how accurately you are going to interact with me. That’s what you call Satyam [truth].

So, the dialogue begins with “How are you?” and the association after that is about accuracy – between you and me, and you and God. Satyam is the biggest power. Accuracy, truthfulness, directness.

Develop strength through power of will – Iccha Shakti

You have to change the whole course and structure of your mind. You must know what you really want – what you really want in spiritual terms. Not what other people want. Not what other people have talked to you about but here, inside [touches heart] ... what you want.

I look inside you. I am a pickpocket… mentally.

Very quickly, before you move around I have picked your pocket, both mentally and physically! While I say ‘hello’ I do this [moves hand across the room] and I’m like a mind-sweeper, sweeping all the minds, saying “Oh, now, very interesting! What shall I do with these minds? Play with them? Have fun with them? Yes, that is what you want, have fun.”

Divine friends, the purpose of mastering those five senses is to be in control of yourself. To know where you are going, to be able to focus… it doesn’t matter what you want. But you must know and say to yourself “This is what I want”.

Forget the past. Live in this present moment

I amuse myself when I ask people ‘do you want spirituality, or what?’ You have to find the link between yourself and God. That’s the target that you have been working toward, from the early stages of your life until this consciousness.

You must get rid of guilt. Get rid of fear and constantly dwelling in the past. Past is beyond recovery. Now is the moment. Live in the moment, master the moment, be positive in the moment. Then you will change your whole attitude in your life.

Guru Sri Subramanium with translator at a Switzerland spiritual seminar

To open the chakra of your mind, for the Divine to occupy you, you must be fearless and lacking in pretence. Do you think the Lord does not know the most minute vibration that comes out of you? Because everything is visible.

The human being who wants to evolve spiritually must begin to perfect himself, to master himself. To invite the highest embodiment of energy and Maha Shakti into your system is a careful preparation. You have to make sure, every step of the way, that you are purifying yourself and advancing spiritually.

You are so much closer to God than you realise

If you had not paid most of your karma then you would not be able to sit in front of me. Because if you were still having to pay karma of a heinous character, I couldn’t even share the umbrella with you.

You know why is that? Because I will absorb that karma from you. So, you are in a very privileged position! We can be playmates in the drama of life. The birth of people who are privileged to come close to people who are advanced in spirituality is a very special opportunity.

The more you pay your karma, the more opportunity there is for you to open the chakra of your mind. What makes you want spirituality and not those many billions of people out there? Because from one cycle of birth to another, you have paid your karma. Karma will exact from you, the exact debt that you owe because that is the law of God.

Difficulties… or opportunities?

I am excited when I see people. I am excited because I want them to go to God. If you just even mention God’s name, I am excited! Because I know that God then will transform you. This is such an opportunity for you to come closer to God.

This is the most difficult time for you… and this is also the most opportunistic moment in your life. Because you’re torn between materialism and spirituality. We are here to cushion that for you.

Without your discovering and having the ability to place your entire trust in God, you are caught up with this feeling “Oh, I want spirituality, but, but, but, but… I can’t because I have got a wife, I have got a husband, I have got children… and so maybe not this incarnation, the one after that and maybe the one after that…”

[To a devotee] Don’t be disappointed, my girl. The purpose of birth is to learn, through your living, how to master your loinage; anger, fickleness, stupidity. These are the things you are learning to master in your life. Don’t worry. You’ll make the same mistake again and again and again until you become mindful.

So there is a purpose for birth. There is a purpose for your attachment. There is a purpose for you, through your suffering, to learn how you are mastering your loinage. You have to master your anger. You have to master your frustrations. You have to master all the faculties of your body because they have an extension to God.

That is why we say “Thy will be done, not my will, but God’s will.” That is what you are learning in this life, again, and again, and again.

It’s easy for a person to say "Oh, believe in God, and forget about everything else." No, no, don’t believe in God. Believe in yourself, for God is embodied in you. God is embodied in all of life.

If you offend anybody, you offend the divinity of that human being and God. So you don’t have to go looking for God, God is already there in you. So when I look at you, I say “Oh my, how wonderful – some part of God has come to see me!”

Be naughty. Be real. Don’t pretend to be holy.

Do you think God is there like that? [Puts hands together in sanctimonious prayer] No, no, no, God is so naughty. Because when you think you are good, he slowly stirs up your emotions. There’s a fire he lights inside, in the bottom of your… and that is the kundalini.

Kundalini… when God wants to stir you up, he puts the fire in the bottom of your… kundalini, and it starts rising, it goes to the brain, and then either you become mindful, or totally mad. That is called Krishna Leela, and, you know, if you’ve been trained in that school of naughtiness, there’s nothing greater than that.

Leela means doing all the naughty things and not being attached to it. You are learning it, and that is a mastery of your senses, how to manipulate with it. I love when people have advanced spiritually and they are in control of their emotions, and then you can play with them.

That’s why I say God is naughty. There is naughtiness in you that is a part of God, that makes you live. I love that naughtiness, it is the most attractive feature of a human being; if you are too pious and walking around like this [puts hands together], I don’t want to know you, because you haven’t yet discovered the Leela of God.

And… look at us! [referring to translater]. She sends her husband first, to be brainwashed by me, then she comes to flirt with me! What a wonderful example of Krishna Leela! But isn’t that true? You send your husband or wife; “You go and see Guru, he will teach you and you will enjoy his company” and the poor man, he arrives, sits there and listens to me, and Oh! He is enthralled.

Now it’s her turn for me to stir her kundalini, and send it flying into the brain. You can only do that when you are conscious. Mindfully, you can make people good and you are in control. Spirituality is about that.

If I were like other gurus, being very pompous and pretentious, and unable to relate to you, you wouldn’t come to see me. You come in the hope that I will pinch your bottom, and when you don’t get your pinch from me, then you are disappointed, isn’t that right? [turns to translater].

Translator: Of course!

Guru: There you are!

Devotee: No, I hope that I can pinch your bottom!

Guru: Oh, you are in a searching mood to know what I have got underneath my robe!

You see, her job, she sits there, and she thinks, hmm, I wonder what he’s got underneath that robe. That’s a pastime of all people because when you put on this robe, I promise you, you be a monk, and you’ve got men and women running after you to find out what is underneath there. [Turns to translater] Now you translate that into the camera!

Being honest will help you develop powers of concentration

Life is like that; always dreaming up, conjuring up, creating illusions in the mind. But our job is to bring it up, not suppress it. If you suppress it, then it is an undigested thought that is lying in your brain.

People say “I am going to meditate.” Do you know what they are doing? Daydreaming. You shut your eyes for one fraction of a moment, and you know what will come? All of these thoughts that I’ve just mentioned to you.

Don’t be daft, don’t think that you are going to think about God. You will be thinking of all the things that you have not digested in your mind. And so, if you bring these thoughts forward, and make it live, and digest them, then you won’t have a problem with concentration.

Divine friends, every vibration creates the aura around you. You present to me your visiting card and I either say, “Hmm, good, now I can play with him” [points to a devotee] “Hmm, I can play with him” [points to another] “Hmm, I know who he is…” And so I go like that [scans hand across the room] on everybody and the depth of your relationship with God also is registered. God is wise in the wisdom of all moralities.

You are the one who is pretentious, not God. You are the person who has forged an idea or concept in your mind that you have to be like this, to be with God. Like a bad pill, you have shoved it down God’s throat. And God is saying to you “Oh for heaven’s sake, that is not what I want you to be. I want you to be yourself.”

Love is the cornerstone of religion. If you have no love, you have no God. I look into your eyes and look for love. The more love you have, there is hope for your evolution.

Every minute is precious for you. Every minute of your life; transform every cell in your body to the embodiment of love. I know, when Mother comes and integrates with me, my whole body changes. You will enjoy that change when you have offered yourself to the Divine. Let God live in it, let God work with it. Let God use your brains to focus in your mind; that is the real purpose and word – surrender.

You are going to say to God ‘be here’ [touches head], ‘be here’ [touches mouth], ‘be here’ [touches heart], ‘be everywhere, I want you’. Don’t be fearful of God if you love him. Call Mother. Relate to God. Do you think I can do, or the swamis or members of the community can do anything without the grace of God? No way.

That single-minded power and Shakti comes from God, not by alone in a human being. That Shakti and energy can make you say ‘This is what I want, this is where I’m going, this is how I’m going to achieve it’ and you need that Shakti when you are undecided in all of your life.

I’ll creep into your brain and create a storm! That’s my job, not to allow you to be stagnant.

That is the experience of Divinity. Don’t believe about God, please don’t. You’re then believing about a dummy, non-functional; God is vital, without that energy, nothing will grow. The sperm in your body, the cells in your body, will be dead. You don’t need to be dead, you must be a vital force in the world in order to live consciously all the time.

Divine friends, to want God is one thing, to apply yourself, and achieve that goal to integrate with God, is another. I love you, but I’m not going to sit back and be a dormant lover. No way.

[To a devotee] I am not a sleeping partner, I know how naughty your mind is, and I will stimulate it more and more for you to be even more naughty: that is Divine. So don’t be guilty, all my photographs you can put them back now, in your room. In your drawer, underneath your bed, but I can see anywhere!

Divine friends, the drama of spirituality is immense… now for the next half an hour, you can question Swami!

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