Today is a very special pooja. Ten years ago we officiated a wedding
here at the Gayathri Peedam, and now ten years later this very couple
are ready to take their vows again. I'm sure there's something wrong
with Mervin, but anyway... So Mervin and Karen have been married ten
years. They have two children ten years later. I pray that ten years
from now they won't have four children. Mervin can come first. What we
do is check the stress levels first so the man must come first, then the
lady. Today we have the blessings of Paramguru Agasthiarmuni, Bhogar
Maharishi, Yogiar Ramaiah, Swami Murugesu, and Kriya Babaji. So all of
you will experience a unique energy going through you. I saw this t-shirt in India that was so appropriate to this life that I'll remember it permanently: 'Life was so good, and so much better when Blackberry and Apple were just fruits'. Because, today when we talk of Blackberry and Apple we're talking about equipment. We cannot live without these gadgets any more. I'm sitting in the plane and an aunty about seventy years old put her hand in her bag and took out an Apple; and she's busy texting somebody. I mean, seventy years old: what does she want a cellphone for? At her age she should be contacting God because one leg is already there...
We are not human beings any more, we are gadget beings. That's how we live. Our life is being destroyed slowly; we have no more life. In Sri Lanka the saying is: 'This is my first wife', and they show their cellphone. 'I can go without my wife, but not without my cellphone.' Think about it. What have we become? Gadget individuals. And we only live by our gadgets. The reason we have so many rare and uncommon diseases is because of the gadgets. We have too many gadgets. And then on the plane I was watching this guy staring at the guy sitting next to me. And I'm thinking, 'Why is he staring at the guy next to me?' So I look around and see that he's busy on the phone, and he has three phones in his hand. Now we need to walk around with a container to carry all our phones.
And here we have 2014 coming up – a perfect seven a perfect Sani. I want to see how these gadget phones help you in 2014. You can't go to the gadget phone, push something and Navagraha is on. But we can't stay without it because we'll miss the gossip and the stories, and everything that is happening in this world – nothing good, but we'll miss it. We cannot avoid it so we'll carry this phone wherever we go.
When I was growing up, apple was just a fruit. Blackberry we had heard
of but never tasted, but we knew it was a fruit. Now every kid has a
Blackberry or an Apple. It's a status thing. 'What phone you got?' 'A
Nokia.' 'Ay, outdated man.' Why? Why do we have to? And when I came
back from India now, Seelan brings this thing to me. It's a gadget phone
- 'Dad, this is your gift'. And now I get this phone to complicate my
life more. Phones have become a status thing. How many of you can leave
home without your phone? You are the very people who go back to pick
your phones up. But how often do we leave home without praying? Do we go back home to pray? We just say 'God will forgive us', but the phone
won't forgive you. I don't know. This trip, I was only seeing gadgets.
And when they open the phone, you must see the way they flip it! We
don't live ourselves any more. We are not ourselves any more. We're
living for other people and their standards.
Christmas has been awaited and has past. Are we enlightened after this time? After Christmas are we enlightened beings or still gadget beings? It is time for us to get enlightened, and every day we get closer to the six by six by six, the grave, yet we're doing nothing to better our entry into that grave. We're just living and living and living. Doing nothing. Please look at life differently. The masters are only talking about these gadgets. People only have these gadgets. And to bluff themselves they have a profile picture of some deity to show how religious they are. Somebody was with their phone just now – it's got my picture on it. I am the ugliest person on Earth but they go and put my picture there. Why don't you put a picture of yourself when you get up in the morning? Because you'll drop the phone and run. You have to put a picture of yourself after you're finished with the mirror. The mirror can never tell you that you look beautiful. It only enhances what the public will tell you. Can you imagine? You're walking around in a new sari and someone says that you look nice in the sari. That's an insult! Without the sari how ugly will you look? The mirror makes you look nice for the public. Every stroke of foundation is not for you, it is for everybody else.
So, coming back to 2014: it's a year of Sani, not a good year. We've just come out of a bad time and we're going into a worse time, and it's going to get worse and worse until 2016. So it is for you to remember God daily. And once you remember God daily, you are protected by God. Believe me, God creates for you so many kinds of miracles that you don't even see right in front of you, just for you. And when one happens you think how good you are – it's really that God was there. You're not good. Without him you're nothing. The best of your experiences happen in your homes. The worst of your experiences happen outside. The most divine experiences happen in the ashram; and the most spiritual experiences happen at the feet of your guru. Remember that. If you know that, then you know God. If you experience that, you are experiencing God. Together that makes you divine.
Christmas has been awaited and has past. Are we enlightened after this time? After Christmas are we enlightened beings or still gadget beings? It is time for us to get enlightened, and every day we get closer to the six by six by six, the grave, yet we're doing nothing to better our entry into that grave. We're just living and living and living. Doing nothing. Please look at life differently. The masters are only talking about these gadgets. People only have these gadgets. And to bluff themselves they have a profile picture of some deity to show how religious they are. Somebody was with their phone just now – it's got my picture on it. I am the ugliest person on Earth but they go and put my picture there. Why don't you put a picture of yourself when you get up in the morning? Because you'll drop the phone and run. You have to put a picture of yourself after you're finished with the mirror. The mirror can never tell you that you look beautiful. It only enhances what the public will tell you. Can you imagine? You're walking around in a new sari and someone says that you look nice in the sari. That's an insult! Without the sari how ugly will you look? The mirror makes you look nice for the public. Every stroke of foundation is not for you, it is for everybody else.
So, coming back to 2014: it's a year of Sani, not a good year. We've just come out of a bad time and we're going into a worse time, and it's going to get worse and worse until 2016. So it is for you to remember God daily. And once you remember God daily, you are protected by God. Believe me, God creates for you so many kinds of miracles that you don't even see right in front of you, just for you. And when one happens you think how good you are – it's really that God was there. You're not good. Without him you're nothing. The best of your experiences happen in your homes. The worst of your experiences happen outside. The most divine experiences happen in the ashram; and the most spiritual experiences happen at the feet of your guru. Remember that. If you know that, then you know God. If you experience that, you are experiencing God. Together that makes you divine.
Hari om and God bless you.
