Whatever happens outside, your inner space is yours. Anything can be happening outside, which is not in your control, right? Most of the things happening outside are beyond your control. How can that determine your existence?
I always feel that you are your driver. You are your boss. You need to decide: “Okay, this is what it is. I have found it; now I will reach here”. Otherwise, you can also be all the time complaining, criticising, and judging. I mean, you can waste your time in all this.
But whatever happens outside, even if you can take one step forward in serving the world, that’s enough. If you can run, you run; if you can trot, you trot. If you can walk, you walk. If you’re sitting still, you do whatever you can. But I don’t think that at any time of the day or any time of life you can gain anything out of your confusions.
See, the world, what is around us? For example, this Covid situation now. Many of most people or us could not exercise whatever they planned the previous year. That’s fine. Okay, we became flexible! Flexibility. It’s very important. We have to be very flexible all the time, and flexibility is a real sign of spiritual maturity.
“When you are spiritually mature, you will be very flexible; you will accept things; okay, this is happening. No problem!”
Everything is fine, and you know some of those things could be like Shiva gave a boon to Bhasmasura. What was the boon he gave? The boon was whatever he touches will become ash. So Bhasmasura wanted to test this on Shiva himself. Shiva ran away. See, Shiva cannot give a boon. That is Shiva’s style. He is Bholenath; He is innocent. His whole demeanour is innocence. He is innocence incarnate.
So if you can’t understand Shiva as innocence, you cannot understand Shiva at all. So, he gave the blessing to Bhasmasura, and whatever you ask for, it’s yours. So, what happened? Whatever he can touch or whatever he touches becomes ash. So he wanted to try it on Shiva. Shiva ran away. And then, later on, other Gods had to configure to bring him to death.
So this is what Shiva is. Shiva will only give boons, you know. He gave the best of boons to Ravana, and Ravana was his great Bhakta. Shiva did not think; Shiva won’t think, He should not think, others should think, you see.
Look at the whole configuration of this; it’s beautiful, isn’t it? Like for example, you want to experience, you experience. If there is a problem with society, society will take care of it, but you want to experience this. Okay. You take responsibility for your experience also. For all your actions, you’re also responsible. This is the bottom line. I give it to you, but you are responsible. Like I give you the best of it, now you hold it, and you’re responsible for its maintenance.
So, every Master gives the disciple what he can handle or what he is eligible for. But then he (disciple) has to make responsible use of what he has. Like that, whatever is in the society is either irresponsible or responsible. Everybody is responsible for something like a Covid situation is the collective consciousness of a responsible generation.
And what can you do? You can’t do much about it. So what do you do? You take a step as best as you can and don’t really worry about the world outside. You have your conviction; you have your path; you have clarity – increase your clarity. You have a goal – achieve that goal in your own way. If you can’t travel at 120 km/h, travel at 20 km/h, but at least you are travelling; that’s more important. Keep moving!
And if you surrender your actions to the Masters, surrender means: “I offer it to you. This is a pure action, I surrender to you, and the intention is pure, my purpose is pure, I leave it to you,” then it takes place. It happens. An example is Ammucare (Indian version) or ACT Foundation; despite all the things, we have actually increased the activities during Corona, much more activity than before. It’s not that we are great, or we can cut across everything; it is the only intention – purity of intention. We are purity incarnates; we are divinity. Exercise it! And let anything happen outside, but we should not really deviate or change track. That’s not our path. We keep moving.
Transcription by Ulla Bernholdt
Proofread by Yogesh Pandit