Friday, May 4, 2012

Yama, Niyama, Attachment, Non-attachment and Detachment

If we tell everyone that we follow sanatan dharma, it's the same as when the Christians say they follow the Ten Commandments. Ahimsa is one of the Hindu Ten Commandments, according to Sanatan Dharma. We need to follow those if we are Hindu. In Kriya yoga the commandments are Yama and Niyama. Yama is how you conduct yourself. Niyama is right living. Together they make up the Ten Commandments of Yoga, and only if you follow those commandments can you call yourself a yogi. If you don't follow them you are not a yogi. Only after you follow the Ten Commandments of Yama and Niyama, should you be performing asanam. Some of you say, 'I'm rushing to yoga classes at Virgin active!'. You go there and do asanam, yoga postures. That's not yoga at all because you don't practice the other nine aspects of yoga. You're only doing  one fraction of yoga.

I know some of you plan tomorrow to go to Isipingo temple and stand in one of those nice smelly queues. You know, when they pull that goat around the temple, the poor thing knows already that its days are numbered. Live a pure life of ahimsa in thought and deed. Once you live that life you have nothing to worry about in this physical, spiritual or material journey. But if you are not following ahimsa you have a lot to worry about. Just now we'll all become like the Chinese and eat everything: frogs, dogs, cats. You will become like that if you don't change. When I was growing up Sushi was my neighbour, not a food. Now you get sushi everywhere – uncooked fish. People eat it raw. All this is not good.

Why I'm telling you this is because the masters have indicated that before 2014 the whole of Africa will be having riots. South Africa is not so saintly that they will be excluded. We will all be involved. The coup has started in the Middle East and it'll spread downwards. Even Maitreya has predicted it. If and when this world comes to an end, let us be ready for the next world. We will have many different kinds of positive changes in the next two or three years. Are we ready?

What are the changes? Islands will be disappear, tsunamis, volcanoes, Japan might be non-existent. The only remains of the Seychelles may be the shells, everything else might be gone. Think about it. These are the predictions of the Masters. Get ready now. Start now. You still have time to make the change. Join the yoga classes to meditate and purify your mind, thoughts and actions.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says 'surrender'. But you'll never surrender because you're so attached to what you have: your car, your wife, your house, your son, your husband – 'my' is an attachment. And we'll carry on like that. We don't need that. Have a detached mind. Have a son, a daughter, and have relationships with them, but don't have attachment. Krishna says: 'Don't lament for the deceased'. But we'll cry, cry, cry - for nothing. And after three days a war is on about all the things that were left behind by the person who died, and who it goes to. Siblings don't talk to each other for years. It all comes down to one thing: attachment.

I'll tell you a quick story . Every story I tell you happens in Tongaat. A man died in Tongaat. And everybody went to the funeral, crying, crying. The wife arrives and she starts crying. But when they were about to close the coffin lid, she throws a cellphone inside the coffin and says, 'Call me when you're there!' Let us not have attachment. Whatever is yours will go with you, whatever is not yours will remain here. Don't say 'mine, mine, mine,' and get attached because 'bye-time' is hard. 'Mine now' bye later,' is hard. Don't get caught in that. Live this life of non-attachment. Not detachment. That is impossible. Non-attachment means you have interaction and connection with your family members, but when you leave to do your sadhana you don't think of them. With detachment you must have no relationship with your family whatsoever, not even to see them.

So let's live a non-attached life, and a pure life because, when the day comes, I'd really like to see all of you with me on the same train. And not a steam engine. We'll have to be flying. This engine is going to be very fast. If we are all on the same train we should all have the same values of Yama and Niyama, and only then is liberation possible. Don't think you can live a non-ahimsa life and attain this state. You can't. Believe me. The butcher has less karma than you. Did you know that? The guy at the abattoir has less karma than the butcher. You, the end-user, have the most karma. Think about it.

Hari Om. God bless you.