Living

Lessons living with Mohanji – Day 5

Posted on February 7, 2021February 6, 2021 by Mohanji Editorial Team

Day 5 Lesson – Living consciously

by Christopher Greenwood

When I arrived at the house, I was received with a welcome as a guest. In the early days, I would often sit at the table for breakfast and lunch with Mohanji. Before anybody eats in the house, food is offered to the beings around the house – birds, squirrels, and even ants. One time during lunch, I noticed how clean Mohanji’s plate was – it was spotless. And I made a mindless comment about him having such a clean plate; I was not thinking.

This was when he told me about the karmic implications of wasting food. Even a grain of rice has an impact, as this has the potential to become a field of rice. He shared a story about this.

Whilst I thought I lived consciously, I realized that there is always more I can do, especially as I feel responsible for making this Earth better for the generations to come. Simple but powerful changes can begin at home.

—

Good morning, everybody. I hope you had a great day yesterday.

Today, one of the lessons which I’ve learned living with Mohanji is about living consciously. And this is living consciously with our own environment and the impact that we have on Earth. This is from an observation of Mohanji, and I feel it’s a really important awareness to have in our lives, as it’s about the consumption of what we have in the world, of the basics such as food and water.

In a previous recording, I shared that the majority of Mohanji’s teachings aren’t necessarily spoken, and you have to have a keen eye to observe. And they can be incredibly profound. And I’ve also heard somebody say that if you don’t keep a close eye on Mohanji, he could easily slip away. Because he’s not overtly teaching here when we’re in the house – we’re not sitting down in a satsang and sharing. But everything he is doing can actually, potentially become a lesson if we have the eyes to see. And one of the overarching teachings which Mohanji shared to many is that everything we do here on Earth comes with a price. We have Earth, and we’re using it as a platform for our experience. So, what we think, what we say, what we do – it all has some cost. And he believes that we should be leaving it a better place than when we arrived.

So, when I first arrived at the house, there would be some days where I would have breakfast and lunch at the same time as Mohanji. At that time, I was a new guest, and I would join everyone at the food table. Everybody eats each meal together. Before we eat, all the fresh food cooked that day is first offered to all the beings around the house. So it’s placed out for all the birds that come – the crows, the various other Indian birds that I don’t know the name of. And then you have the squirrels come as well. They will then flick over the food on the ground, so the ants get to eat as well. So everyone’s fed before we eat. And the food is also offered to the deities.

And during this time, I observed Mohanji and how he was eating – he only took very little food and was very conscious. He didn’t load the plate – he took a small amount and then would add more, as and when he needed it. I also noticed that nothing gets wasted; it’s all eaten. So everything is gone – the plate is completely clean, even right down to the last grain of rice. I think I just made a thoughtless comment at that time about him having a clean plate. And this is when he told me that everything here has a price and that we should respect everything – all our materials. He said that wasting food actually comes with a karmic price because even a grain of rice (if you’re wasting that grain) had the potential to become a whole field of rice.

He then shared a story of a saint who was found in the gutters, near some grand wedding party. It was a grand event, a really big affair where hundreds of people were dancing, celebrations, and singing. As with many Indian weddings, there was plenty of food there, offered in a variety. When the people who were having food on their plates had enough, they would chuck the remaining food and the plates into the gutter. Normally the cows would come and eat that food. And he (the saint) was there, eating leftovers. When somebody saw him, they took pity on him because they thought he was a homeless man and he was hungry. They wanted to invite him to the wedding to come and eat some of the fresh food. But he actually said no. He said, “No, I need to do this. I’m helping them because they don’t know what they’re doing, throwing all this away.”

So that was the message for me there, and it was quite an impact. He also shared that if someone is serving food and the other person doesn’t eat, that burden goes to the person who served it. It had an impact on me; I instantly had a flashback to last Christmas, to my large family; I think there were maybe 20-25 of us; we had them around to mine and my brother’s house, and we cooked for them. I remembered all these plates coming back from all the kids, all half-full, and myself just chucking all the food into the bin. And I just had the realization that this is probably happening daily all over the world. Most of the time we’re not aware of what we’re doing – that’s overconsumption. And then people are probably overeating too – eating more than what they actually need, and it’s just coming out the other end, undigested. People glorify food; they glorify the amount they eat, the quantity, the size, and the variety of foods they have. And I then also thought that this is not just with food, it’s probably the same with water too.

With Mohanji, we are really conscious of the amount of water we use and everything else like electricity. Since I’m here, I’m using the Indian bucket system for showers and baths – which if you’re not aware of it, is that you fill up a bigger bucket with the water and then use a smaller one to wash. I appreciate that now because I’ve become aware of how much water I used to waste.

So this consciousness, just from that small observation, has completely shifted my awareness to be more conscious about what I’m using. And these are just the basics – food and water. I can apply that same thinking and logic to everything else that I consume here now. Also, to my personal products – how much am I using, why am I using it, where it comes from, where it’s made, and the impact of it. Technology, cars, washing machines, everything that we have, we’re taking things from the Earth all the time.

And for Mohanji, it even comes down to the extent where the other day, I noticed how conscious he is about the use of products and his impact as he’s walking on this Earth. For example, when we do satsangs, he has water and might use a tissue to wipe his mouth. When he had finished for the day, I wanted to throw it away, and he said, “What are you doing? I can still use that.” So even down to that level of keeping a tissue is the responsibility that he feels: We should take good care of everything that’s being used.

That’s the lesson for today, just from a small observation. I hope you enjoyed it. And maybe you can take that into your life. If everybody had this awareness around the world, it would probably be a very different place now. Thank you very much, and speak to you soon.

P.S. I asked Mohanji how we can reduce any karmic burden from food waste. He said by feeding the beings of the air, land, water, and human beings.

P.P.S. I’ve asked my brother to reduce the amount of food for Christmas this year because there’s always wastes.

|| JAI BRAHMARISHI MOHANJI||

Edited & Published by – Testimonials Team, 7^thFebruary 2021

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Lessons living with Mohanji – Day 3

Posted on January 24, 2021January 23, 2021 by Mohanji Editorial Team

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^thJanuary 2021

Disclaimer:

— Mohanji Testimonials Team

Lessons living with Mohanji – Day 1

Posted on January 14, 2021January 17, 2021 by Mohanji Editorial Team

By Christopher Greenwood

Dear family,

Have you ever wondered what it’d be like to live with Mohanji?

Lessons Living with Mohanji

WhatsApp Group (https://chat.whatsapp.com/KHnbnLbUvHGK5YaVE81lg9)

Since April, I have had the opportunity to live and work side by side with Mohanji. It has been a real blessing. I’m incredibly thankful.

As I work to help arrange Mohanji’s time, appointments and schedule, I’m aware of the many people around the world who’d like to be with him physically but can’t because of the Covid situation.

As a humble and modest gesture to all those who would like to be with him but can’t, I will begin a daily recording of Lessons Living with Mohanji. These will be short recordings of my time spent living with Mohanji, the lessons I’ve learnt and my insights into the Grand Tradition of Liberation.

Day 1 Lesson – Do what needs to be done today, today. Don’t delay.

Today’s recording is a lesson from Mohanji’s practical way of working with high efficiency and doing what needs to be done today, today.

Mohanji never rests, he is always working, and today the lesson is about efficiency.

I hope you find it useful.

Hello everybody, my name is Christopher Greenwood, and I’m a Mohanji Acharya. Through blessings, grace, destiny and situations of life, I’ve had the fortunate opportunity to work with Mohanji in very close proximity as part of his office, and more recently spend very close time with him, living with him, working with him due to the restrictions of lockdown and the corona situation, which has been an incredible blessing that I’m extremely thankful for.

One of the things which Mohanji had said to me when I took up this position, and also where I am now, spending time with him at home in India, is that there are many people across the world, who would love and are craving for the opportunity to see him physically and be in his presence. So, never forget that. And do what you can to serve those people, so that you can, through some way of your own, share the experience and give people a feeling and a flavour of what it’s like to spend time with me.

So, this is the first in a series of recordings. It is probably some videos, which is my humble attempt to share some of the learnings and the teachings, which I’ve managed to be privileged to since staying with Mohanji.

Now, for anyone who’s spent some time in close proximity to Mohanji, they’ll probably tell you that his pace is incredibly quick and efficient. And in fact, he said to me, numerous times: “If you could all go faster, then I could be doing much, much more. I have to actually reduce my speed down to about 20%, just so that you can cope and keep up.” And even then, we still struggle. So, the potential is there for much much more. And I’m sure this will come in the future.

So along with that theme, the first insight that I wanted to share with all of you today, is something that I’ve really been thankful for, which is this idea of efficiency, productivity and doing tasks now, doing them today. Because this is how Mohanji operates, and it’s how he has trained us here to work. And I’m now personally finding a lot of benefit from it. I mean, I get much more self-esteem, because things are completed on time, there’s much less stress because the mountain of activities to complete is much less. And also, there’s movement, a momentum, which, again, creates more motivation.

So, I’ll give some examples soon. But generally, if I speak about Mohanji’s way of working, he has a purpose, without a doubt, and he is completely crystal clear on what outcome he wants to achieve. So, everything for him is driving towards that. And as quick as we can reach that, the better because it’s better for everybody within the family and better for the world.

So, one thing that he does not compromise on is efficiency. So, he is incredibly efficient in his own work. And all the work he’s tasked with within a day, I’m still astounded at what he completes. And he manages to make sure that everything that is pending with him is completed within 24 hours. There are some exceptions, but generally, that’s the rule, any request, any call, any conversation, any message, any activity is completed within 24 hours and moved from his desk, as he says. So, sometimes that might not mean that everything has to be completely finalized. But if you imagine the work that comes into you, the request that comes into you, you’ve at least done some consideration, you’ve done some activity, you’ve transformed it in a way, and moved on to somebody else. So it’s now on their desk. So the idea of creating that movement is something that I’ve observed and taken into my day to day work, which is really good.

And he also does not accept any delay; the delay is not something that exists within his vocabulary because he doesn’t understand why that would happen. Any time there is a delay or ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’, can’t be accepted; there’s no tomorrow for Mohanji, it’s always now. It’s always today. Do what you can now when you have the time and do it promptly because that brings auspiciousness to the activity, generating further movement and momentum. Mohanji does not accept delay or inertia.

From my perspective, the examples of what I’d sort of share is how I used to work would be: if there was a request for Mohanji’s time, a task which I needed to complete, something which had come in unexpectedly, I would begin writing my list, and I’d be like in my mind ‘Okay, I can do that tomorrow, or I can leave this for tomorrow’. I soon realized that the pace of work means that you’ve got a mountain for tomorrow if you leave it for tomorrow. And if you leave that for tomorrow, the mountain grows, and quickly you become under this absolute burden of tasks and activities.

So now, as an example, if somebody says or Mohanji tells me: “Someone would like to meet me, can you arrange a time?” As soon as he says this to me, I’ll be on my phone; I’ll contact that person. I’ll look in the calendar, suggest the time and then pass that on to them as a suggestion. So straight away, it’s come from Mohanji to me, and then it’s gone to the other person. So, it’s off my desk. The same if I need to make a phone call, or the same if I need to make just a general conversation with somebody, as soon as I can, it’s done. If possible, the same for tasks is completing a document or completing a draft, sending them to be reviewed and updated.

So this might be an insight which you may not consider as so spiritual. But I’ve started this first talk because Mohanji quite often says that he’s more practical, before being spiritual. And when we’ve got activities to complete, a whole variety of platforms, activities to progress and strengthen, build up what we’re doing in the world, this momentum, this efficiency, and being practical before being spiritual are incredibly important. And that’s a general theme, which we have day to day working here. There’s a morning routine where we come together. We’ll have a conversation about the activities that completed yesterday, what needs to be completed today, discuss what has to happen. I’ll take that away and work on it so that everything needed to move today has moved by midday or by afternoon, and there’s momentum.

So, I hope that was useful insight for you; there’ll be more to come. You can send me questions or comments. And if there’s anything I could orientate towards or any questions which anybody has about being with Mohanji, living with Mohanji, I’d be happy to answer them as well. Have a great day.

Answer to a question about the delay:

Today, I was asked to clarify what no delay and procrastinate means and how to overcome this. So, I’ll share my experience and also the original message from Mohanji. So, no delay. That means no postponement, no tomorrow. It’s now. As simple as that. And if we can take that teaching into our life, we can become incredibly powerful. And if we take it to another level and look at Mohanji’s larger work, which is to take people to liberation – What’s he liberating us from? It’s this cycle of birth and death in the world. This karmic cycle. And what is karma? Unfulfilled pending desires. So, if to be liberated, we have to exhaust our karma, then there is no postponement, no tomorrow, there’s only now. That’s how he sees it. If he is taking us to the highest, finish it now, complete what needs to be completed. And that’s another dimension to the message.

The second point about procrastination is that I also had to come out of it recently here. For me, I had a little bit more encouragement, because Mohanji is here, and he definitely doesn’t allow people to sit idle, you have to move, so there’s an extra motivating force. But if we think of ourselves as a bundle of habits and patterns, we have essentially trained ourselves to be lazy and procrastinate. And the most predominant force is gravitational, to pull us down into a comfort zone. Suppose you take exercise, for example, when you’re trying to work out, increase fitness, increase strength, or increase muscles while doing the activity and having the momentum. In that case, it’s very easy to maintain. But once you stop, you quickly slip back into poor, unhealthy eating, not much movement, and it’s very easy to do that—the same with procrastination. You have to combat it with the opposite, which is action, and the activity of just doing it—getting on, getting moving. And do it now. And that can be cultivated. And I find that once I start just putting myself into action, looking at the task, don’t let my mind think ‘okay I’ll do that later’ or ‘I can do something else’, I just push through it. It’s an effort to rebuild and retrain to start activities. Once you start the activities and keep moving, you generate some momentum, which then brings results, which then brings motivation, which then brings satisfaction. And so it’s almost like you’re starting, pushing a big, heavy boulder. But once you start moving it and it starts rolling it’s much easier. So, it really is just taking that effort to achieve a purpose. And if our purpose is liberation, as for many people connected to Mohanji, then it is that message of no postponement, no tomorrow. It’s now.