Lessons living with Mohanji – Days 59 & 60 

by Christopher Greenwood

Day 59 Lesson – Facing the fear of society 

Good morning, everybody. I hope you’re all doing well. 

When I look at Mohanji and his life, I see it’s far from ordinary. I’ve never met anyone who has had to face such severe adversities in life – such as the loss of his daughter Ammu, betrayal in a business where all was taken away, instances where people have tried to control him, many who have betrayed him, and even character assassinated him. This was by some of those who were the closest to him at the time. 

I think such adversities for any person would have completely destroyed them, but Mohanji has kept going on. Even now, when he faces challenges, it’s no problem. He takes it as it comes. He’s truly fearless. I feel it’s like a ‘bring it on’ kind of attitude, contrary to boasting as it is confidence with a warrior-like approach to life and whatever the situation, its real fearlessness. Hearing the stories of his life and simply observing him, I began to admire his fearlessness and still do. 

I used to be very worried about what others might think about me, about what I said, and how it’d be interpreted. I remember the days, just out of University, I had just started my working career, it would take me maybe an hour to write a simple email just to ask somebody to do a job because I was really worried about what they would think – what they would say. It was very over-polite, over-complicated, and very apologetic for asking people to do their job. 

Over time, I developed the confidence to face those fears and fit comfortably into ‘ordinary’ society. It became natural, but when it came to staying with Mohanji, there was a different fear when I became an Acharya, mainly as this life is very different from what I have within my usual circle of friends and family. I was worried about what my friends might think and what others would think, especially when I began to speak about meditations and making videos on various topics in early 2020 when Corona had just taken hold. 

An element of this was still there when I came to the house as well earlier, as I’d speak to Mohanji then, and I would tell him that what he was saying were fantastic insights, and more people should know about them. Once in a quiet, matter-of-fact manner, Mohanji said, “Yeah, they should. You should make some videos and speak about it.” I had a big resistance to this, and it was definitely pushing up against my comfort zone, and one that I could feel would be good to break. So I was happy to move forward and push through that. 

Still, when I was doing those videos, it meant many retakes because I was very overcritical. My inner voice would always say, what would people think, how will they interpret this, but what helped me and what I learned was seeing how Mohanji always approached these situations – head-on and unapologetic. 

He had told me before that there can only be two outcomes for people and society; one is that society accepts you and enjoys you, or two, the society rejects you. That’s it. That’s pretty much what the two options are within society. 

He says, for those who reject you, it’s no problem. Not everybody needs to like you, and they shouldn’t like you because there are 7.5 billion people out there with their orientation and uniqueness. 

I’ve seen he is this way too with people, especially when people connect to him – if they connect to him and they’re receiving transformation, he’s very happy because their life has been improved; they give more to society. Yet if people don’t enjoy him and are not so interested in what he’s doing, he’s also okay; he has no problem. In fact, in his very first podcast, he said that he’s actually happy in some ways if people decide he’s not for them because it means he doesn’t have the responsibility. 

One of the biggest learnings here for me has been facing that fear of society, and it wasn’t until I started to overcome this that I realized that by holding on to those fears, which were rooted in an insecurity, I was actually denying my own experience which was smothering my own truth and this was hurting no one really but myself. 

I’ve had several experiences of transformation in my life because of Mohanji. Since living with him for a long period, I’ve learned new dimensions of what he is. For me, it’s the reality of what I have experienced and observed. I was feeling reluctant to share this because of fear of what others would think, but then I realized that I denied my experiences, my existence, and denying a big part of my life. Creating these daily recordings has been facing and overcoming that fear. Now I am very happy and thankful to Mohanji for that inspiration and energy to break through this, as now it allows me to be more natural. That’s how I feel.

I also understand that some people will accept me, and others will reject me because this is how society is. And I’m fine with that, but most of all, I’m happy that I can begin to accept myself more and overcome these fears and live my experiences. This was one big learning that I was contemplating this morning.

I have shared a link below to the podcast on fearlessness, facing fears that Mohanji has shared before as well. Have a great day.

https://mohanji.podbean.com/e/ms31-look-into-the-eyes-of-fears/

Day 60 Lesson – The programs continue 

Good morning everybody. I hope you’re doing well. 

Yesterday was a day spent travelling with Mohanji as Ananth and I joined Mohanji for his trip to Kerala. 

Today I share an overview of our day yesterday, as we’ve travelled to Kerala, which is Mohanji’s home state in India. Mohanji, Ananth, and I set off early in the morning after breakfast. It was roughly an eight-hour drive, and we made just one stop so that we could arrive in good time because Mohanji had a program scheduled that afternoon, and we wanted to make sure there was enough time to put our things in our place, have some food and find the right spot to set up for Mohanji’s program. 

As I had shared in previous recordings, Mohanji doesn’t stop. In the car, the work continues for the duration of the journey. He’s responding to messages, attending calls, maybe checking up on some things, and this was for the whole eight hours.

Once we arrived, we were welcomed and greeted courteously by the manager and the staff. The people welcomed us, but all the animals had come to welcome Mohanji too. There were some geese gaggling, some guinea fowls, some chickens, and a very big boisterous turkey came, and they all became very active soon after Mohanji arrived. 

We were waiting for the bags to be unpacked and deciding on the rooms; there was just a short time to check as we just made sure we had a bit of an orientation of the place. Then we had to begin finding the location where we’d set up for the Mohanji’s event, where the equipment would go, camera, etc. It’s fairly rural, so there was no internet. We had to find a good place where it was a good spot for the signal, and we settled on this nice place overlooking the farmland around the building. 

This is how the schedule and the activities are like for Mohanji – as soon as we arrive at one location, we’re already getting ready for the next program, finding the right location, making sure the signal and the connection was good, the framing, etc. – the pace doesn’t stop, and I am sure the rest of the trip will be like this too. But there was enough time to grab and eat one of the Vada pav here, which I think I’ve mentioned before is this bread bun with the potato inside with spices. It’s really tasty. We had packed for the journey; we also shared this as annadaan with some of the local people working here. 

Mohanji finished his program – he conducted it. I stayed there to make sure everything was okay technically. Ananth continued to organize the room, unpack things and settle everything a little bit more. 

Once the program was finished, Mohanji decided to say a proper hello to the birds. So we walked back over to where they were. We were outside talking with the manager, and pretty soon, this big feisty turkey came. He had already shown who he was when we arrived; I think this must be his territory because he was chasing away our driver, which was quite amusing. The driver didn’t know what to do. 

It was amazing to watch this interaction with Mohanji because he started to walk over straight away and became very vocal – not the usual sounds, but some different type of interaction. It was as if he was speaking with Mohanji for some time, walking backwards and forward and pacing around. Then he became very active, he started jumping at Mohanji, and instantly, a protector came from nowhere. This small black chicken came from nowhere and chased away this big turkey. It’s as if the small chicken had come to protect Mohanji. This was a funny sight because the small black chicken chased away this big turkey, maybe three times its size. 

Mohanji commented jokingly, “This is what I mean by attitude. You don’t have to be the biggest or the strongest.” Then the chicken continued to stand guard and kept the turkey from coming back. This was interesting just to watch and observe.

From previous retreats, I’ve also noticed that Mohanji always has this deep connection with animals at the location he comes to. This is a brief overview of our day yesterday, and as we’re travelling, I’ll probably share some more. 

I hope you have a great day ahead.

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|| JAI BRAHMARISHI MOHANJI ||

Edited & Published by – Testimonials Team, 19th September 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

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Speaking the truth

By Mina Obradovic, Serbia

During the time spent with Mohanji, a couple of important thoughts related to what we believe in popped up in my mind. Since I come from the Balkans, I know that Gurus are not easily accepted in our region. Here, I will not go into the importance of Gurus and why, but from my experience, no spiritual practice or ‘direct connection with God’ is enough to reach the highest human potential.

Through the years that I have been with Mohanji, I have met various people with different motives around him. A common problem with people is that they do not have enough courage to say that they love, respect or follow Mohanji. By doing this, no one loses but them. Especially Mohanji, he loses nothing. He was born with a purpose, and when that purpose is done, he will leave this Earth.

Between his physical birth and death, there is his life that exists for us. A Guru provides a long rope, but it is up to us to grab it and, with determination, climb to the top. We cannot expect the Guru to stand at the end of the rope and encourage us to walk. Maybe he will do that, and if he does, it is a blessing, but it can also happen that the Guru tells us exactly the opposite. We will certainly come across various tests. 

A similar thing happened to me with Mohanji. Connecting with him was not easy at all. I was not particularly encouraged to approach him; he would often ask me, “What are you doing with me? I am an ordinary man with a beard. You are mistaken if you think I have powers.” I would laugh at every such word of his because I knew who he was.

I have already experienced him and watched him closely for years, and no one and nothing in this world can now change my opinion of him – not even himself. That is why now, after more than four years, I can experience true and significant transformations in my life because of him. But this did not happen overnight. 

Unless we stay with the Guru experiencing the ‘mud’, we will never experience the ‘gold.’ Suppose we are easily shaken by external factors, our innate doubts and prejudices and our tendency to blame others. In that case, if we don’t bother to open our eyes to what is in front of us, we will never get anything from anyone, even the most powerful Guru that can exist.

The true signs of the path we are walking on are always very subtle, and the ‘denser’ levels of existence always distract us more. I liked how Mohanji explained this point while talking about the holy mountain Arunachala, in Tiruvannamalai, in India. Many people do not know how powerful Arunachala is and that it is not really just a mountain. It is a very powerful energy centre from which we can experience great benefits if we are open to it. 

From the outside, it looks so ordinary. It is covered with stones and nature. If an ordinary person passes by it, he may never know its power. However, people who have reached a certain level of consciousness see Arunachala as a huge portal to the energetic (to us, invisible) world, where very powerful Masters live, who are not in their physical bodies.

The Arunachala Hill

They live energetically in the mountain’s interior, and many Masters and Saints have seen them inside, with their inner eye. They do not reveal themselves to people often, but they live for our good and often help humanity. Setting foot on this mountain is a blessing in itself, and it is said that there is not a single negative particle on it. They say that every person who steps on it has to be ‘approved’ by Masters from the mountain’s interior. So, not everyone gets the opportunity to set foot on this revered mountain if not allowed.

Although we know the power of this mountain, its external appearance is not at all interesting. Mohanji says, “They have set up all sorts of distractions around the mountain – selling food, drinks, offering entertainment, etc., so you can’t easily wonder at this mountain and discover its power.”

I would describe a true Guru in the same way. The subtle signs of who he is, our journey, and our destination are visible only to those who “have the eyes to see”. Not everyone will dare to look, and even fewer will stand by the Guru despite the sceptical world.

Because of certain past lives that I accidentally found out about, until recently, I often had the fear that someone would beat me up and kill me because I had a Guru. The first time I felt that fear, I failed to understand it fully. Over time, it became clear to me. 

Months after I first felt this fear, I met Mohanji and said that I often see in my visions a mass of people approaching me to kill me. This fear arose mainly during my endeavours to write about my path.

At that time, I had a deadline to finish blogs in which I talked about my experiences with Jesus and Mohanji, and out of fear, I could not continue writing. I knew the blog needed to be published, but subconsciously, fear prevented me. Without my conscious control, it caused me fatigue, confusion, things that would stop me from finishing it.

I was sad because I wanted to finish that text for a long time. When I asked him, Mohanji confirmed that the fear came from a past life experience and that he will make sure to remove it so that I feel free. Over the next few months, the fear intensified and then disappeared.

Despite this fear, I never distanced myself from Mohanji, I never hid the truth that he is the source of oxygen in my life, and I never lost sight of my intention to finish the blogs. I knew I didn’t want to live a life of fear, and every time fear came to the surface, I would think, “The worst that can happen is that someone really beats me up, and I die. One day, I’m sure to die.” I decided that I would rather die living what I believe in, with Mohanji, no matter how much someone doesn’t understand it, than live longer like a coward, in fear.

Of course, I assumed that my life wouldn’t really end in a couple of days, ha-ha, but I deliberately created such an image in my head to know my priority. It gave me clarity. Also, although it may sound mild, the fear was really intense, and my reality was sometimes such that someone would knock on my door any minute to kill me.

No matter how deep my fear was, and no matter that I had indeed been killed in a past life for a similar thing, I was not interested in people and their opinions. I felt fear in my stomach area until Mohanji completely removed it; it was there, but that never stopped me from courageously saying who is behind my transformation, who is responsible for the quality of my life. Just as I am never ashamed to say that my mother and father are responsible for my life, I will also never hesitate to speak the truth of what Mohanji is to me; there is no fear or a desire to be accepted by superficial people.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that I go down the street and talk about the details of my spiritual journey with everyone, but it is clear what credits in my life go to Mohanji. It is not ‘divine energy’ or ‘universal energy’; it is Mohanji. Whoever asks me, I will always answer directly. I do not hesitate to say this, and no one who walks the path of spirituality should hesitate if he has such an experience, of course.

Another way I dealt with this fear was by connecting to the past lives that I received long ago. In that life, I left my Guru for silly reasons like these and then bitterly repented. It was clear to me that there was nothing more important to me than my connection with Mohanji, and even though I often don’t see him physically, the ‘bridge’ to him that I always keep stable gives me oxygen despite all the storms.

I told this story because even if we have a huge fear, and if everything around us seems to be collapsing, and if society labels us as crazy, having a Guru is our whim and fashion, etc., we ALWAYS have an option. If we truly understand the importance of our connection, NOTHING can get us off that track.

That is why it is important to take as much time as we need to understand the path we are walking, but once we make the decision, we should not leave or stay half-heartedly. If other people’s opinions are more important than what we experienced first hand (even if it’s about our friend, partner, business associate), then we have no face. We have no integrity. 

That’s why it is strange to me when people hear something about a person they personally know and love, sometimes they don’t go to that person to check if the rumour is true, but they are in a hurry to make a decision based on someone’s opinion or experience, which often has nothing to do with the truth. Again, this is no one’s loss but ours alone.

Our integrity decreases with this behaviour; we lose our personality. Our self-confidence also decreases because our whole life begins to depend on other people. It’s like asking our life to walk on two match-sticks. If someone takes away one of the matches because they decided they don’t like it, our world collapses. We must be careful in whose hands we place our stability.

The important thing I also learned from my time with Mohanji is that the path of spirituality is mostly unknown and unpredictable. In the beginning, no one promised me how far I would get or that I would get anything from this path. That courage in us to dive into the unknown because we have enough clarity to see subtle signs and believe in our own experience is our integrity. If we ignore any evidence that our path is what we want and start believing in the ‘dense’ aspects of this world that are much more talked about and much less important, we will lose a lot. 

The truth is always before our eyes, but distractions and our tendency to cling to negativity are habits. It will always be more interesting for us to gossip, talk about other people’s money, about who sleeps with whom. We will then die one day with regret for wasting time on such unimportant things, when we could focus on ourselves and reach the highest level of consciousness, explore our possibilities, talents, achieve something that will help the world around us, helpless beings, etc. 

That is why Mohanji says, “People bring flowers to the cemetery because they could not give that person love while they were alive.” But why are we doing this? If someone dies, we can be sad, that’s fine, but if we said the right words at the right time and did the best we could when it was needed, there will be very little or no remorse. 

What is it that distracts us every day? If it’s fear, why don’t we dare face it? Why do we lose precious connections because of other people’s opinions? My opinion is that if we really believe in ourselves, we will never try to hide our truth, not even a little.

|| JAI BRAHMARISHI MOHANJI ||

Edited & Published by – Testimonials Team, 24th June 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