Lessons living with Mohanji – Day 3

Day 3 Lesson – Flexibility

by Christopher Greenwood

I share today a continuous lesson of living with Mohanji, a lesson on being flexible in all situations and on breaking comfort zones. Working with Mohanji is extremely dynamic, and activities can change daily, if not hourly. I have had to develop the ability to be flexible and move at very short notice, and this has given me practical experiences on the importance of being flexible.

Have a great day ahead.

—

Good morning, everybody. I hope you’re doing well. My name is Christopher. In these short audio recordings, I’m sharing some of my experiences, stories, and lessons of living with Mohanji. 

Today, I wanted to talk about flexibility because flexibility has been incredibly essential in living and working with Mohanji. This is because the nature of the work, especially with my role of looking after the office is such that the activities are extremely dynamic. We have a macro-picture view of all of the platforms that Mohanji has founded, ranging from the Mohanji Foundation itself to the World Consciousness Alliance and to Early Birds Club. On the other hand, there are Mohanji’s personal activities and my tasks of managing his time, the interviews, the satsangs, and all similar types of activities.

So, it’s extremely dynamic; no two days are alike. Whilst we make a broad structure of a daily plan when we meet, talk and catch up on topics, it can change at a moment’s notice. So, flexibility is crucial. Something that Mohanji told me at the start when I first arrived here was reminding me that this is the path of Shiva. And what does that mean? Essentially, it means that when you’re making a commitment, or at least have an aspiration, to reach the state of Shiva, reaching there from where I am now, means total annihilation, hard-core destruction of patterns, habits, comfort zones, and identifications. When I look back, I feel I really benefited from many circumstances in which it was really tough and difficult, where I had to really push through some resistance to move forward and break comfort zones. But at the time, it was quite a challenge. One of these situations is related to making an audio recording like this. Maybe six months ago, I would have never done something like this, I wouldn’t have had the confidence. The same goes for making the video recordings which I was putting out about certain topics. And what I realise now, living with Mohanji in quite close proximity, is that whilst it’s tough, there are more opportunities presented to break through your comfort zones. 

Also, Mohanji doesn’t really ask for anything; he is just there. He’s available as a reflection of what you need to progress on; on your journey or what I need to progress on, on my journey. So I can now see a pattern, or maybe a commonality in that all the tasks that I’ve been involved in. It has helped move me through a comfort zone, a habit or a pattern that I’ve had. And now looking back on them, I’m extremely grateful for them. Because this comes with such care and consideration from Mohanji too, as he said to me as well, it’s not his job to make anybody crumble or make anybody break. No. For him, his goal is to take people to the highest. But achieving that requires moving out of our comfort zones, moving out of our habits, moving out of our patterns. And so, when he gives us something, he always sees, as I understand now, the potential for the person or the person’s capacity.

So, I’ll give an example: when I was making the podcast for the first time, this was completely new. I had an interest in it, but I had no idea how to edit audio. So, it required researching the podcast platform, finding the best one, learning to edit audios, practising, watching lots of YouTube videos, lots of trials and errors, until I perfected it. And at the time, when I first started, I was still employed full time, too. It took a lot of time to edit these audios, which created quite a bit of stress for me. But soon I became comfortable with it. I could manage it. And I was happy. As soon as that happened, I spoke with Mohanji, and he said: “You know what, I think people like the podcast, but I think it’d be better if we start making daily podcasts now.” My first reaction was, ‘Oh my God, how am I going to do this? This is just going to be impossible. I don’t need to just learn audio editing; now, I have to increase the workload by about four times. It is already taking me two or three hours just to do one. How am I going to do it?’ 

So, it was uncomfortable. But when I look back, the lesson he was giving me or the opportunity for a practical lesson was being flexible. And more often than not, when Mohanji gives me or anybody else in the organisation a task, he’s actually looking for an outcome, which doesn’t necessarily mean that I need to do that task all by myself, or that someone else needs to do it all by themselves. They just take the responsibility to make it happen. And this has been great learning because what I quickly realised is the need for building a team, to bring people in. And the flexibility actually comes in finding the opportunities, the avenues, and the ways to make something happen. That’s what being flexible is in that context. 

So this is what I want to share today. And to give another example as well: I have been looking after the recording equipment for all the satsangs. So, the video, the camera, all the lights, because Ananth is doing some training at the moment, and he’s not here. I had to learn how to do that too. And yesterday was a big day; it was Diwali. So, I wanted to make sure that everything worked well. And I felt quite a lot of pressure because I knew a lot of people were waiting for the satsang. I planned the day to give myself enough time, it was quite leisurely, I had some tea in between, and that type of thing. And I thought, ‘I’ve got this sorted, I’ve got it nailed’. And then I got a phone call, maybe at lunchtime, from Ami in South Africa, with a great opportunity actually, I can’t deny that, for Mohanji to speak on South African news TV. This is great, that’s a fantastic reach, and all that was required was a short Diwali message recording, just to be recorded, edited, and sent to her news team. I think I had about two hours to do that. Normally, that would have sent me into a panic six months ago. ‘How am I going to fit this in, I’ve got a satsang coming up, I’m trying to prepare for this, there’s no way I can do this’. But, I realised that this is now what needs to be done in the time available. That’s doing what we have to do, rather than what we’d like to do; noticing as well that there’s a freedom in that too. So, that recording went out and got broadcast on time to all the people in South Africa. So it worked out well. 

It’s only through having the approach of flexibility that that was able to happen for me. Both in the earlier days and especially now living with Mohanji, the destruction of these comfort zones and patterns, being flexible, can be equated to sitting next to a fire, essentially. Because opportunities are provided for the transformation. And that’s what Mohanji is giving us. All of us really have the opportunity to transform into something higher. And so, when we’re sat next to the fire, there are, I think, two options: we either transform, or we get burned and run away.

I hope this account was useful and insightful for you. 

This idea of flexibility brings into our life the lesson that with life there are all situations that we’re faced with; but if we approach them with an attitude of acceptance and flexibility, we can find a way, we can navigate through them successfully. We can understand our capacity; we can understand what we can do. We can understand if we need some assistance, and we can flow with life much more easily.

Thank you for listening, and I hope you have a great day ahead.

|| JAI BRAHMARISHI MOHANJI||

Edited & Published by – Testimonials Team, 24^th January 2021

Disclaimer:

The views, opinions, and positions expressed by the authors and those providing comments on these blogs are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions or positions of Mohanji, Mohanji Foundation, it’s members, employees or any other individual or entity associated with Mohanji or Mohanji Foundation. We make no representations as to accuracy, completeness, timeliness, suitability or validity of any information presented by individual authors and/or commenters on our blogs and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries or damages arising from its display or use.

We reserve the right to delete, edit, or alter in any manner we see fit blog entries or comments that we, in our sole discretion, deem to be obscene, offensive, defamatory, threatening, in violation of trademark, copyright or other laws, of an express commercial nature, or otherwise unacceptable.

— Mohanji Testimonials Team