Baba says, ‘to be able to mold yourself according to the time is to become real gold‘.

To be able to mold oneself is a great specialty, says Baba. Many children go ahead in other subjects, but to be able to mold yourself according to the time through your practical dharna is to be real gold. This is also what is known as being obstacle free. If I am not obstacle free i.e. if I cannot mold myself, I will spend my life battling sanskars- either my own or of others and I will deprive myself of the contentment, peace and happiness that are my birthright. I will deprive myself of experiencing the love link with God because I am busy with trivial things.

This is what Maya does, cautions Baba. She doesn’t want you to ignore her and remember the Father. She wants you to be body conscious and love her. That is why she creates so many obstacles. Her job is to try to break my love link with God and my job is to ignore her i.e. not take the bait. That can only be possible when I know how to mold myself by saying ‘I first’. If I wait for others to change before I change, then that is creating an obstacle or conflict in my own progress and making things easy for Maya.

To be able to mold myself is also a sign of wisdom and self-respect. If I am dependent on others changing in order for me to change then there is no respect in that. I have to own my own destiny. If there is a rock in front of me and I stop, it doesn’t affect the rock, it hinders my journey. I have to be motivated and resourceful enough to figure out a way around the rock. Sometimes, we make the mistake of trying to break the rock, fight it, try to explain/fix/cajole etc. This is not wisdom. The sensible thing to do is work around it. This is called being an easy-yogi. I mold myself according to the time, the situation and the soul in front of me and move forward on my journey.

When I forget this and decide to break the rock, I find life very hard. It feels like such a sacrifice, I think I have been asked to die. I have thoughts such as: ‘Do I always have to die in every situation, every time? Am I here for dying for others and others are here to enjoy themselves? How come only I have to change? Is it just my responsibility? Others have to do this too! And yet, I am the one who always has to die; this is just too hard’. This is how I quickly lose my self-respect and feel like a sacrificial lamb!

Remember who you are, says Baba. When I truly do, I realize that this is the completely wrong frame with which to see life.

‘Being right’ is one of the greatest traps in Brahmin life. When I frame life in this way- as ‘right and wrong’, I let this false sense of justice deceive me and take me off track. I think it’s okay to feel the way I feel. Yes, perhaps I was indeed right and the other person was wrong but what Baba is teaching me is – that is not the point! ‘Right vs wrong’ is a very body conscious frame. To be a soul, to be an angel is to reconcile, is to accommodate.

This is also the hallmark of golden aged deities. They interact with one another, work with one another very naturally. They don’t ‘try hard’, ‘swallow their pride’, ‘bite their tongue’, ‘grind their teeth’ and they certainly don’t feel as if they are ‘dying’! These are all characteristics of self-suppression, not tolerance or love. Suppression is not my original sanskar, love is. In the golden age, we naturally love and flow. We are not stuck, it is not an effort. This is soul-consciousness where it isn’t about ‘winning’ or ‘being right’ or ‘giving up’. It is about brotherhood and unity and oneness.

When I transform myself in this way, when I can mold myself according to the time and service, according to the soul and situation, I become real gold, that is, I become a golden-aged human being. It requires power, it requires self-respect which come from knowledge and remembrance. I have the knowledge of who I am, now let me remember it. It is a tug-o-war between Baba and Maya at all times. Baba is trying to pull me upward and the scenes of Drama and sanskars try to pull me downward. When a scene unfolds that may not look beneficial at the time, I have to trust the drama, not fight it. Yes, I don’t understand it now but I know that there is benefit in every scene. No matter who comes in front of me, no matter what the ‘rock’ or behavior, I have to resist the sanskar to judge and label and ‘be right’. I have to work around not out of compulsion but because that’s who I am, it’s what I do. This is how I build soul power, this is how I make spiritual progress. And that, is the point. That, is real gold.