Baba says, ‘if someone says anything that could cause sorrow, listen but do not hear it’. Make this effort.

I have been in sorrow and been suffering for half a cycle. The Father has come to remove all sorrow and give me constant happiness. He doesn’t do so through mercy or by waving a magic wand. He does so by showing me the right way to live. For half a cycle, I had been following Ravan’s dictates, doing everything under the influence of body consciousness and the vices. That inevitably caused me sorrow. By learning the right way to think, act and be, I bring happiness to myself and others.

This is my aim- to be happy. I have to make this firm and hold on to it in my intellect. This is important because in a world where giving and taking sorrow is ‘business as usual’, I have to pay attention to stay safe.

At this time in the cycle, only God knows and speaks the truth. Only truth gives me happiness because it is always the same, constant. This is not the case with anything I see or hear about from human beings. Why? because we are all seeing and hearing things through our body conscious prisms. I see something and my mind draws conclusions about what I saw based on my own filters- most often, they are wrong. Same with what I hear and usually by the time something gets to me, it is distorted anyway. It already has someone else’s color on it.

Listen to just the One and see just the one Point, says Baba. Don’t see the expansion, but just see the essence. Don’t hear all the expansion, but always hear the essence.

When I look at the expansion, I become obstructed, whereas when I stabilize in the essence, that is, in the point form, my stage becomes that of a point; a full stop is applied. I also put a point, a full stop to my actions. This of course requires practice over a long period of time of seeing the expansion, but not seeing it; of hearing it but not hearing it.

This is what is known as being a tapaswi, says Baba. Am I doing such tapasya?

Often, our senses rule us instead of the other way around. ‘I didn’t want to look, but yet I saw it; I didn’t want to listen, but yet I heard it’. When I have my aim of being happy firmly planted in my intellect, I will pay attention. I will be very picky about what I take in. When I don’t have any connection with something, I am not motivated to see or hear it. Yes, it might seem compelling but it has nothing to do with me. When I am walking along the road to get to my destination and I see a side road, I don’t go to explore it, I focus on getting to my destination when that is my priority. It’s the same here. Gossip is like the dark alleyways that take me off course.

Something else I don’t do as I walk along the road is touch waste. Stuff that doesn’t concern me, stuff about others or other’s opinions about me…that is waste. If I absorb it in the mind or intellect, thinking, ‘I’m sure he meant this or that, he said this, she said that’, I just touched waste! Soon, the germs and smell spreads into the atmosphere due to which the atmosphere is not able to be powerful. So no matter what, says Baba, have good wishes and benevolent feelings for everyone. It is more doing myself a favor than anyone else.

Listening to wasteful things starts of a chain of waste thoughts, wastes time and it deprives me from earning an income. Instead, Baba says, churn the ocean of knowledge every day and your mercury of happiness will rise. It rises because I am making an income! I am learning new aspects of what constitutes righteous living and imbibing them makes my life better, richer. It is also the only income I can take with me through the cycle and set myself up for success.

While walking and moving around, spin the discus of self-realization, He says. That enables me to see my whole story, it reminds me of who I am and Whom I belong to. It reminds me that I am now playing a role alongside God as His helper in the task of re-establishing heaven. That is where I am going!

When you see or hear something wrong about another person, don’t keep it in your heart, says Baba. Yes, someone may have indeed done something wrong and what is wrong is wrong but when I keep it in my heart, I poison myself. Give it to the Father and finish it, He says. Now, it is His responsibility. Make yourself free from it and get back to spending time with Baba, thinking about your attainments i.e. all the things that bring me happiness. Never lose sight of the aim…

Remain free from obstacles, He says, with just pure feelings, one feeling, one wish and being lost in the love of One. Finish the stock of wasteful things and accumulate a stock of things of happiness. Let there be spirituality in every thought, word and action.