Attention and joy, (2nd Day of 3 day shibir), Bordi (India), 27 January 1977.

...wobbling too much and how to fix the attention. Now the quality of attention changes according to the state of your evolution. For example, in an animal...

So where is the attention placed in the human being? It is not a fixed point. You can say, attention is the surface or the edge of awareness. Wherever we are made aware, the attention gets diverted to that point. If you can find some analogy, all the files (filings) of iron have got a power to be attracted towards the magnet. Where is that power, you cannot locate - it is all over. Wherever the magnet is placed the files are attracted. Our attention is also like that, that wherever we are attracted, our attention goes there.

It is existing in the whole body, in the sense that it can be diverted anywhere, outside the body. Also inside the body, in case if there is any pain or there is any trouble. It floats over the nerves, it floats over the whole nervous system, but there is a controlling centre in the brain. If it is hit then we can remain conscious, but without any attention. Also, if somebody is hit on the Vishuddhi Chakra, it can happen. It can happen even in the lower chakras if somebody is hit. That portion will lose its attention because you cannot feel, in that part.

The difference is this, that you can pay attention to those points, if you want to, even if they are numbed. For example, if my hand is numb I can pay attention to that, means I can look at it, I can think of it. But there is a point in our being [which], if that is hit then we cannot even think, we are just lying unconscious they say, but eyes are open, hands are moving, legs are moving. That point is at the point of Vishuddhi Chakra here. And if you can draw a line from here to the point where is the peetha of Vishuddhi Chakra is inside, inside the brain; along that line if you are hit anywhere you become attention-less, you cannot pay attention anywhere. This line passes through, also, Agnya Chakra. Because when this point is connected with Vishuddhi Chakra at the back, in here, and at the peetha inside, then a kind of a triangle is formed and all this line or this area can affect your attention. Your heart is moving, your limbs are moving but you are not paying attention anywhere.

So when you pay attention to something, actually you pay attention, normally - when you are not realised - through your brain centres. After realisation, you can pay attention through your other centres also. You do pay. This is a very big difference between a person who is realised and who is not realised. Or you can say that you can become effective through your other centres by paying attention to them. You can feel the centres which are obstructed in your body, which you never felt before. Not only that, but you can feel the centres of other people. That means your central nervous system is being blessed by a new awareness by which it can convey to you, communicate to you, the attention paid by your centres and also it can take your attention in a subtler way into the centres of others.

So, first thing that happens to you is that your attention becomes subtler. Attention becoming subtler means you start understanding deeper things. For example, a bird can see a flower but cannot feel the beauty of a flower. And a unrealised person can see the beauty of a flower, but cannot see the vibrations of the flower. So you become subtler, your attention becomes subtler. You definitely are at a higher evolutionary stage than the other people are.

Now we have to see how we use our attention.

You have seen, even when you were not realised, that, supposing you start developing an art in your hand from your very childhood, then you develop the deftness of that particular art, because a kind of a myelin sheath grows on the nerves. In the same way, when you are realised, I would say when you are a newly born person, if you start respecting your attention then gradually you develop a deftness for Sahaja Yoga. But so many people, when they get realised, they hardly come second time. Even if they come second time, they do not develop the feeling of vibrations more, they still go on being busy with their day-to-day work, wasting their attention on things which do not give you the subtler feeling. So the subtleness, the deftness of the art of Sahaja does not develop itself.

For example, I would say a person who is over-read, as soon as he gets his realisation he starts tallying it with what he has read, this makes his attention again wasted. As it is, his attention has been fixed by these conventional ideas; some of them are correct, some are incorrect, some are absolutely faulty, some are useless. Some are only because they wanted to make money, they have published some trash.As soon as you get realisation, you go back to your own gross awareness and start tallying this subtle with the gross, so you start again losing your vibrations. Actually after getting realisation I have seen, with small children, they sleep for very long hours. They become little inactive for some time. But if an elder gets it he will immediately go to the book store, buy one book on Kundalini and start reading about it.

Then some of you, not understanding that you have become somebody else, take it for granted, "Alright, Mataji has been very kind; She says I am far, but how am I to believe?" As if by believing it they are going to give some money to Me or I don't know what they are going to give. "I can see the vibrations coming, but what's the use of getting the vibrations? Why did She give us vibrations?" Again come back to the gross idea of utility, because that's human nature, has been so far, to make everything into utility. Everything must be utilised, you see. Man thinks no end of himself. So he starts putting his realisation into utility. "What utility it has? How many people are going to get it? What is going to happen? What is the ratio? What is the schedule? What is this? What is that?"

You have been given this subtleness to enjoy. Like, if we enjoy the beauty of flower, we just enjoy. Do we go to the books and find out, "What we should do about with this enjoyment of ours? How to enjoy this flower?” And then “What to do?” And, “Who has described about the flowers, so let us see if this is fitting into that?" But is done very commonly and I really don't know how to say, because it's such a foolish thing. And I am only afraid that, sometimes, if I say, they will feel hurt, and, as human beings are, they get hurt for nothing at all. That's very foolish.

Children are very sensible that way. Once they get it they start enjoying it. They just enjoy it. They just sleep off! They are not bothered. They think, that it’s something that is to be enjoyed, “Let us enjoy it." So at the very outset it happens like that.

And the man doesn't know that how he has made himself even much more gross than he was ever in this Kali Yuga, in these modern times: by organising things according to his own ideas and conceptions. He has become so unnatural, so foolish that discrimination between joy and ugliness, he does not have. He's so confused.

So, first of all, it is not only one reason but there are many reasons. And as I described to you, inherently, it is the human, gross activities before realisation. If you understand the disease, from where it has come, sometimes it's easier to correct it. You cannot just correct the disease without understanding the history behind it. If you are a student of history you will know how human beings have behaved. I mean, you just start wondering, what's wrong with these people? God created one world! I mean just think, a person like Me coming on this earth, suddenly you find there are so many countries being created. Alright created, you can have separate countries if you cannot manage the whole world together, but then the fighting going on, killing each other. All kinds of problems for nothing at all, I mean it's such a madhouse!

So historically if you see how man has made himself mad - it's not easy (laughing) to compile all that in one lecture, you'll have to write volumes. I think there are already written volumes. So, there is [a] historical background, which has spoilt your attention.Physically, those who come for physical handicap or physical trouble or something like that because they are sick, are sometime little better than the people who do not have this, because they definitely get the relief part of the joy. If they get their relief, there is a little shadow of joy that they feel and, then they start understanding that it is to be enjoyed. But I would say, they too once they get the relief they just disappear. Not understanding that there is something greater than this to be tasted and enjoyed.And the physical enjoyment in Sahaja Yoga, itself, is sufficient to keep your attention subtler. You do not have to fix your attention but you have to get subtler and subtler in your attention.

Fixing up of your attention, as you know, is a very wrong method. That was done by some yogis and you know what is the result of that: their chakras were all broken and finished. When they fixed their attention onto Agnya Chakra, you have seen that Agnya Chakra is broken. You are not to fix any attention but you have to make your attention subtler and subtler.

As I told you that a magnet, when brought say near the stones nothing happens to the stones, they are just there; you move the magnet any way you like. But when you take it to the iron filings, only, the filings are attracted towards the magnet. In the same way the attention of a Sahaja Yogi should be so subtle that he should feel the vibrations, he should think of vibrations, he should eat vibration, drink vibration and enjoy them.

On the physical side, many people tell Me that, "We went to their house and they offered me laddoos and I had to eat. What can you do, Mataji?" Actually, you see, they felt attracted towards the shape of the laddoos. They ate it, but they didn't see the vibrations of those laddoos, they just ate it off and then they had a stomach trouble. When they have a stomach trouble, then they said, "Mataji, we have lost our vibrations, now what to do? We ate the laddoos." But if you had seen that there are no vibrations in that laddoo, you should have said that, "Today I am not supposed to eat anything," or something like that, and you should not have eaten them!If you see a born-realised child, he will never eat. Even the mother beats the child, he'll say, "Alright, beat me but I'm not going to eat it!" Because they are not going to eat the filth, such children are supposed to be very obstinate, they think they are obstinate. Because they know, "There is no vibration, so why should we eat because we are not going to enjoy."

So on the physical side, there are so many such mistakes you have committed. If you take to now, say habits you have, supposing you have a habit of say, pulling your hair. There was some lady who had a habit of pulling her hair and she used to become bald here, then bald here, then bald here and the hair used to grow this side, then she used to have a bald head here. Then she will pull her hair here. Such a person! So she came to Me for treatment. Imagine! So I told her, "Why do you do like this?" She says, "Now my attention is like that, it always starts pulling my hair." I said, "What to do? Such an attention you have got!" So, you know her elder sister used to beat her on her hand, any time she put her hand. She said, "You must beat me, if you don't beat me I'll beat you." But the beating was on and everybody used to look at them, "What are they doing between each other?" And still, you see, she could not stop it! All habits are like this monkey business. All of them are like that, because the matter is trying to sit on top of our attention, all the time, and so we form habits. Certain habits are alright, convenient, and convenience like that.

I mean some people to break habits, you know, they say "We'll not sit on the ground nor sit on the chair." "So where will you sit?" "We'll sit in a sitting pose and we'll practice that sort of a thing."I mean you need not do such a nonsense. I'm meaning that certain things are alright, don't go to extremes. But certain habits that we acquired, is mostly because of fashions. And we start, because somebody's smoking, he forces you, he says “Alright”, and one bad habit we have got, is not to say no to anyone.

"How to say 'No', you see, they were all drinking and they offered us drinks and we said 'No,' but they were just forcing us. Then it looked very bad, you know, not to drink and... And they offered one cup, glass of drink to me and then I said, 'Alright, I'll have very little sip,' you know one day and then I had it like that. And then my relations, you see, they came and they invited us for dinner and we had to go, and then they started a cabaret dance, you know, and we had to see, after all it would look very bad not to see a naked woman."(laughing)“Oh, we are very innocent people!” So we go on explaining, "What to do now, this is the society, this is the fashion, this is the style, this is how it is."

But a Sahaja Yogi is a special one, he's a chosen one. Because you haven't got your own value. tumala kimat nai sataji (Marathi) You have not valued yourself as I have valued you. This is a fact which very few realise really, that to get realisation like this, there must be something tremendous that Mataji must have done. She must have put in lot of labour, to work this out Herself; She must have done tremendous tapasyas in all Her lives. And even in this life She must have worked very hard, day in and day out. And here we are when we get it, how common place the whole thing is, how we are about it.

I thought by giving realisation you will immediately see your value and you'll think that you are something great and that you have got this realisation and the sakshatkar, but it is not so. And you start compromising with gross things in life.There is a huge populace which is to be led by one of you. One of you can lead all of them. Leaders do not compromise, leaders do not solve the problems of the people whom they lead, but they give them problems to be solved. They stand above them, they are much above them, they do not compromise, they do not bend. Others bend before them.

If the light starts falling and faltering on the roads, what will the person do who is carrying the light in the hand? You all are like the torches and what kind of life you should have and a personality you should have, it is for you to decide. That's the attention - gives the priorities.

When you understand how your physical bringing, presence, this body of yours, has to be clean, has to be beautiful, has to be soft, kind, has to be elegant, dignified.I have seen people in groups, when you are sitting down, behaving in a manner [that] even an ordinarily educated person won't behave. The reason is, you have not yet realised that you are the leaders and people are watching you. There should be a kind of a masti, should be satisfied with yourself.

So on the physical aspect, what you eat, what you see, what you like, the whole priorities must change. What should be most important is Sahaja; in every circumstance, in every method, a habit - sahaja.Sahaja means is born with you, Sahaja doesn't mean easy. Many people confuse. You have now got your right; that one was born with you. So for you, it is necessary to know that you are a Sahaja and that you are not going to accept anything that is asahaja. Sahaja means that! Sahaja means that you take the light of Sahaja above everything else over the darkness and not to accept darkness which is asahaja. So how can you have any habits which give you sympathetic bondage? Sahaja means you have a special, subtle awareness. A king doesn't clean the streets.

On the physical side your attention is lost like that, because you indulge into all asahaja methods that you had before, that others have. You get lost into the asahaja system of life. You have to change the complete system of the whole world in which people become Sahaja and not asahaja. Then only the whole thing will become a Sahaja for you.

It is a big misunderstanding about Sahaja Yogis. They think "Oh! When it will come sahaja, then we will do this work, then we'll go around and talk to people - it should come sahaja," nothing doing. This is a very wrong attitude. ‘Sahaja’ means that you have got the light of Sahaja within you and how can you tolerate anything...

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...of your life is concerned, means you must know what to dress up, how to talk, where to go, whom to meet, who are your brothers, who are your sisters, who are your sons and who are your parents. That is how your attention is lost.

Then your gross habits: your old life that was there which has to be just chiseled out, is to be finished. And you cannot go on, because if you go on, you will catch up here and catch up there, then you'll break your neck, you'll come to Me, "Mother, I have broken my back and this has happened, that has happened, it's paining, I'm getting hot, I'm getting headache, I am doing this." Till you become Sahaja it will go on working on you. But why not become your Self?

For example a human being cannot sleep like a dog, for example. If he starts sleeping like a dog because there are all dogs around, then he is going to get the pain. In the same way if you are going to be asahaja because all are asahajas, you are going to get into trouble. Because the dog doesn't feel, though he might be getting pain, but he doesn't feel it. But you definitely feel it. The person who is not yet to reborn, doesn't feel it, he gets the problem but he doesn't feel it, you can feel it, and you jolly-well have to give it up, sooner the better! If you don't give it up then you are again going back to the same darkness and this new darkness may be hellish, it can be terrible.It’s better to die as human beings then, because then you can go on being born again as animals, this, that. But to be born again and knowing [the Truth], [if] you go on back again to your former habits, it can be very dangerous. That's how I fix your attention, with little fear into your mind, to your subtler being. The subtler being can only enjoy. In the morning you did enjoy the meditation, you had become subtler, I pushed you down there. But you have to keep yourself subtler by remembering, by remembering what has happened, how physically you felt nice.

One of the worst habits that human beings have is to see the watch. It’s so painful to Me when I'm talking, people see the watch. I just can't bear it! Because now you are beyond time, beyond space. What are you going to do by saving time? What have you done so far? That shows your priorities. Our priorities must change and you can change them easily once you start enjoying. Once you have tasted the nectar of Divine Love, the Amruta, then you are not going to drink dirty water. But you first of all remember that, the joy that you enjoyed. That is one way of fixing, so-called fixing, your subtleties.It's the attention which gets covered by gross things of life, even in the emotional side of it, for example, you have relationships. We have seen some Sahaja Yogis being lost like that. They had some very gross relationships with people, even gurus and some of them were friends and some other dirty relationships, you can say, and they couldn't give up and they are lost.

So you have to sit down and find out, "Why am I not enjoying myself? I am the loser. Because those things, if they were joy-giving, I would not have run towards them from one to another. They never satisfied me fully; so why to go back to them again?"

The emotional enjoyments, which you regard as something very important, are also to be weighed in the new dimension of your attention and the subtleties. You consider somebody as your very-near-and-dear and you have a business relationship, or some sort of a...I don't know, what sorts of human relations people have. You must know that it is very superficial and you cannot have any joy out of it. Like you drink water from a cup, now the cup itself is superficial, the water is superficial; the most important thing is your tongue which can feel the water. If the tongue cannot feel the water and if the water feels like stones, what's the use of taking water? So the most important thing is the taste in the tongue, in the essence.

In the same way the essence of our enjoyment is the joy and the joy is in feeling the vibrations. So wherever you get the joy, you should have it. But the new awareness is not so much gone into your being, that's why this is a problem. Otherwise for human beings it is not difficult to tell him that, "This is nice, you drink." He takes it and he knows it is nice. He won't eat something that is bitter. If you have to give him something horrible tasting, you'll have to give him chocolate first and chocolate later. But human beings, when they become evolved, I have seen that they are more prone towards the horrible things because of their previous attractions. So, put your attention fully towards divine, pull it out, completely towards It. So that there is no attention left towards the gross side.Even now I find people coming and asking Me, "Mataji, I have a problem, I want a job, what should I do? Mother, this is to be done, that is to be done?" Of Course that is by-the-way is alright. But if that attracts your attention, means you have lost sense of your understanding that you are a Sahaja Yogi and that your joy is in the subtler form, and you can enjoy it. So these gross things are never going to give you joy, so why not ask for something that is going to give you that subtle joy which you can enjoy; only you can enjoy.

So this is what happens to our attention. We get lost because of our previous ideas and our emotional bindings. And we can also say that our spiritual bindings, so-called, "We are Hindus, Muslims, Christians; we are vegetarians, non-vegetarians; we are -" I don't know, "We are Brahmins, non-Brahmins, and all kind of things we are”, but we are not what we are.And, all these things again also come back to you that, "We are Jains, so we are Jains, so we are very great people." You get Me any Jain from anywhere or anyone from anywhere, does he have the sense of vibrations? Then how is it that person becomes your guru or that person can teach you about these things. You are now a master. Does the headmaster come and learns from the boys who are admitted in the schools?I have seen even a newcomer who comes in, if he has a badha, he can entice away at least 5% of Sahaja Yogis, easily. He will talk big, he will show-off and he can bring some guru inside and five percent will run after that, minimum. How do you explain it? Only thing is that you should not be one of them. Everyone should think for oneself and not for others. You should think that this, you are capable of or not? So in spiritual bindings also your attention is lost like that and all these dimensions are outside.

Now in a description of Gokul, of Vrindavan, you must have read that when Krishna used to play His flute, all the women who were working - the gopis in the household - would leave every work, everything. The milk would be while boiling and they - work was half-done or full-done; they were eating their food or in whatever pose they were sitting, they would just get up and run towards that murli (flute). And when they would go there; they would stand just like a picture, chitrawat se thade - just like a picture, no movement in the body, nothing, just standing and listening with full attention. What was so...? He was not even speaking. Just a murli being played and all of them just listening, like a picture. What was it? The enjoyment that they were feeling; the enjoyment they were enjoying within themselves, the joy that was pouring into them with that murli - just standing and listening, that's all. What is that? That is the subtleness of that enjoyment. Just like meditation they would stand. In the same way your attention and mind should be on Sahaja, on your being one with God.

You are one with God; put your centrifugal force towards God, completely. Put yourself in connection, all the time, with God and the rest of the work is done, yantrawat, just like instruments, the whole thing will start working.

The human mind is used to do things in a ritual way. That they think that, if you have to raise this house now you have to dig the...first the foundation, then the pile, piling up and then you have those pillars and then you have to have the roof. And, that is how, one after another they plan out things. But in God's own kingdom there is no planning, you just sit down and you just enjoy!

If your attention is there, all the work is done. Full attention and then He takes out work. And give full priority to that! Do not compromise your way through. You have to help others also to come up, so [you] must remember, for that also, your attention should be on your Atma, on your Spirit, on God - completely one with Him in that joy. The whole heart is there and with your both hands and with your both feet, with all your attention you can pull out people, because your attention is all the time fed, nurtured and looked after. Then you will enjoy also the lifting of the people.

Nothing can be alright, unless and until you develop the subtleties of your attention. And, they develop, by receding your attention from all that is gross. Recede your attention! Whenever it goes too much into any thought like that, "Oh, Forget it!" But into vibrations pay full attention. Seeing vibrations, you pay full attention; seeing your own vibrations, pay full attention. Other things you need not worry, they will be all looked after. That is how your attention is subtler in the Kingdom of God. The style is different.When the lotus is in the mud and it has to come out. It finds its way through many crevices and many holes in that mud. But when it is out, out in the open, absolutely liberated, free, then it does not go on dashing here and there, but just opens out and receives the beautiful dew. And the dew melts the fragrance in the lotus; automatically the fragrance starts flowing. It's a different style altogether, its different method; it's a different way of life - that is being Sahaja. Just whether you are sleeping or you are awake, keep your attention...