Day 15 Lesson – Consistency is difficult, but it transforms
by Christopher Greenwood
Today is a lesson about consistency and how it can transform when we’re committed to a path. And it came from a conversation with Mohanji, as I was curious about experiences that people have because I have never really had any amazing experiences or visions. For example, even though I’ve been practising Kriya yoga for over two years, I only see black. That’s because my eyes are closed: I don’t see anything else. So I was curious about this, and I asked Mohanji. And as it can be the way with Mohanji, if he feels something needs to be answered differently, he shifts it. So he shifted it to a more important message of consistency on the path. This was a light discussion, and it was quite fun.
He said that some people have various visions, and you can never be quite sure whether they are visions or projections. And he has said before that a real vision would transform you; you will know that you’ve had one. For example, he said, on a different type of vision, someone had said, “I don’t need Mohanji to be a medium for Shiva. I’m speaking directly to Shiva now”… or something like that. And Mohanji rightly said, “When did I ever say that I’m a medium for anybody?” Earlier that day, I had done a Shiva Lingam abhishekam. So he joked at me because he said, “You know, when I asked you to do a Shiva Lingam abhishekam, I asked you to pour water on the Shiva Lingam, not pour water on my head.” That made me laugh!
And again, we continued to speak that he doesn’t pretend to be anybody else. He is Mohanji, and his job is to take us directly to Shiva. He’s not carrying anybody on his shoulders or being the middleman. He’s showing us the way; he’s giving the path and (as I’ve shared in the previous messages) the platforms to help us. So any visions, hallucinations, or projections are something we need to handle. And he said the best method is always to stay surrendered to the Guru, whichever Guru that is. And he shared the story of Deepaka. And I only know this vaguely, so I share what I can remember because I think it’s a great story. It really rounds up this message.
Deepaka was serving his Guru consistently. His Guru is a crazy guy from the story, always abusing him, beating him, shouting at him. And at some point in their journey, the Guru developed leprosy. So he quickly became immobile and couldn’t move. And the wounds started getting really bad – they were oozing with pus. It smelt horrible, flies and everything. And Deepaka would clean the wounds every day and help his Guru.
And the Guru would abuse him. For example, when he was hungry, he would abuse Deepaka: “You haven’t given me any food. I’m hungry; I can’t move. How can you do this to me?” So then Deepaka would go and beg for some food. And when he came back, then the Guru would abuse him for leaving: “You’ve left me here, you don’t care about me.” So he couldn’t do anything right at all.
And in the story, Shiva was impressed by this. And he came to see Deepaka and said: “I’ve seen your great devotion. I’d like to give you a boon. Anything you want, I can give you.” Deepaka thought, and the only thing which came to his mind was for his Guru to be healed from all his diseases.
“But I’m Shiva; you don’t want anything from me?” “Nope. Just for my Guru to be healed.” Shiva left. Deepaka was excited, and he went to tell his Guru that Shiva came and he would heal him. Again, the Guru beat him up really bad, saying, “Trying to get rid of me, aren’t you? Had enough of serving me? You know I have to pay my karma. How will I do that if I’m healed?” Just abuse, abuse, abuse…
Deepaka went back to Shiva and just said, “I’m sorry, Shiva, but please don’t give me anything. My Guru was really angry.” So Shiva went away.
The point is that he had integrity: he wanted nothing. Then Vishnu heard about this and came. Vishnu asked him, “What can I give you?” Deepaka straight away said, “If there’s any gap in my bhakti towards my Guru, any gap in my devotion towards my Guru, please fill that up. I don’t want any gap between him and me. Please bless me that my devotion intensifies.”
So obviously, he didn’t tell his Guru this because he knew what would come next – the abuse and whatever else. But the Guru knew, and he asked, “So Maha Vishnu came, right?” Deepaka said, “Yes, he came.” The Guru said, “Well, now you’ve become bigger than me; you’ve actually grown higher than me. You’re much higher than me. You know, it takes thousands of years to have the darshan, the sort of darshan of Maha Vishnu you attained. And you’ve got that just by serving me.” And at that moment, the Guru completely stripped himself of all the diseases, and he was fine. He said, “I don’t have this disease; I just tested you. In that test, you passed, and you became bigger than me.”
That was the story that was shared with me; this is what happens when your commitment, conviction and integrity are strong. So to be careful of illusions was the message. To be careful of visions and to stay surrendered. He said as well at the end, that of all the messages, to sum up, that consistency is really difficult, but it transforms, and you’ll experience that yourself. And instead of searching for glories and anything else, glories are sure to come if we apply to work.
And I remembered I was curious how best to serve when I first connected to Mohanji. And I really enjoyed the simplicity of his message. Because even though I’m physically close to him now, so now I have that opportunity; back then, I didn’t. And his message was very clear. The best service you can do for a Guru or someone that you consider to be a Guru is to live the teachings – helping the helpless, leaving the Earth better than when we came, adding value to society, all the things that we’re doing for all the platforms – is service.
Day 16 Lesson – Visualize before starting a task. Set determination higher than expectations
Today’s message is another one of how Mohanji is really effective in work, completing tasks, activities and management. He gives such great advice. And at the moment, within the office, we have a strong focus on increasing visibility, promotion, and the right presentation of all the platform activities. So we asked the question: how can we make these platforms reach every corner of the world to reach more people – bring the awareness that we all benefit from, to more people.
And one of the platforms we have is the World Consciousness Alliance (WCA), which has Andra Baylus as the President. Simply put, WCA stands for humanity, towards raising the awareness of people to the highest level of human refinement: the highest potential that humans can express in the world, such as compassion, kindness, unconditional love, integrity, responsibility. And we’ve created this platform for the world to bring on performing artists, entertainers, and unite actors, artists, musicians, filmmakers, and various other personalities to speak the message that now is the time to unify skills and bring a positive shift to the consciousness of the world. So, it’s a grand global vision.
And in the past two weeks, we were speaking with the team about videos that we should be looking to create more of a promotion for the platform. So I started working on a concept of this to help the activity, and I was going to propose it to the team today or tomorrow. I put in a lot of effort and did my best. But something was missing. And I had the opportunity to ask Mohanji his view.
He’s quite straightforward. And I say, quite straightforward. In fact, he’s completely straightforward. He said he couldn’t feel much from it; it had no impact at all. He spoke about some practical tips to adjust my approach to some of these activities. It led to a conversation on how to make work more effective so that our activities carry inspiration for us and bring contentment to the work we’re doing. Because I think he must have felt I was becoming a bit deflated by the critique session.
And so we spoke, and this is my understanding of what he said – and therefore not his exact words, I want to be clear on that. It’s mainly around visualization of a task before you start doing it. And then also, around the fact that disappointments come when we have more expectations than determination over a task. That’s around visualizing something before you begin and making sure that our determination exceeds our expectations so that we don’t become disappointed. He said that before you undertake any task, it’s good to just sit with it for some time, don’t dive into it straight away. Just sit with it, and visualize it and picture what it could be. What’s the highest potential for that activity that you can achieve? And that’s because you need to know where you want to reach before you start walking. And so to visualize all aspects.
And in this case, who’s the audience? What is the message you’re trying to convey? What’s the attention level of people? That’s an important thing these days. And also, if the total stranger, fresh off the street, was to look at it, what are you expecting him to feel or do? And how should certain people feel once they have this? Are you expecting them to share it with friends? Will they talk about it? All these types of things to visualize as a whole picture.
And he also mentioned that today’s attention levels are very low, whereas distraction levels are very high. So with everything we’re doing, if we’re considering visual and audio, we have to remember that the subject itself has to be very attractive, or the visuals itself have to be very attractive to catch attention.
So that’s the first tip he shared: visualize the activity before you dive into it.
And then the next one was around success. For Mohanji, success to him is contentment. And from contentment comes happiness. So not necessarily be too bothered about any results or anything but that you’re content, that what you’ve done, is good to the best of your ability. He says the reason why many people aren’t successful is that they’re too focused on the result. They are focused on this specific result that might or might not come, and when it doesn’t come, they are disappointed. If it does, they are happy with the result rather than the goal or the vision. So whenever expectations supersede determination, we’re open to disappointments. And that’s because we put the result and what comes from that, over and above the determination to achieve a goal or to see through a vision.
Because if you have more determination, you won’t be worried much about the results. And if you don’t get the result you want, you are fine if your expectations are not met. Because if it hasn’t helped towards the goal or vision, you’ll do something else, change course or try something new. But if you have all your expectations pinned on them, and it doesn’t happen, then what comes next? Dissatisfaction, discontentment. Motivation takes a hit.
Determination should be connected to a goal that has clarity: there should be a very clear goal. There should be clarity about what is going to happen, what’s going to be achieved, and then determination becomes the friend to make that happen. And then it’s all about sheer determination of the result.
These are two things that I’ve picked up that I can now take into my work and complete this task. Because I didn’t fully take into account that picture in a rush to get something done to move straight into activity, I missed this visualization piece – which actually meant it’s become quite inefficient because now I need to rework, which I wasn’t expecting to.
And then, he also mentioned as well that there’s a difference between working hard and working purposefully. Working purposefully means we’re beginning to express a vision. That is, we are purposefully expressing a vision, whereas working hard is just an activity. For example, he said, “You know, a donkey works hard. But he’s got no idea why he’s working hard or what he’s carrying. He’s just doing it for the sake of it. Whereas working purposefully, you’re working towards a goal; you’re working towards a vision. And there’s actually little contentment if we don’t know what the vision is or what we’re working towards.”
A side product of having that clear vision and goals and working with purpose is that the distraction level is less; you’re less open to distractions because you’ve got a focus on where you want to go and what you want to achieve.
So these were the two main things that came out of that conversation:
- Visualization before starting an activity – look at all the aspects and facets which make up that; what does every piece of it look like, and how does it feel.
- Ensure that our determination is higher than our expectations, so we’re not so open to disappointments and what comes from them. Remembering that satisfaction comes from completion, seeing a vision expressed in the world, and a job well done to the best of our abilities, not the result itself.
|| JAI BRAHMARISHI MOHANJI||
Edited & Published by – Testimonials Team, 20th April 2021
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