Hari Om.So, what's the purpose of this life? What's our purpose here? Our purpose in this life is to become a jivan mukti. And we've failed miserably to become that jivan mukti. What's the meaning of jivan mukti? It means total liberation of the self. And why can't we become jivan muktis? Today, Sujana, the little baby girl who runs around here during service, stayed over and I was playing with her for most of the day. I looked at her and said, 'she can become a jivan mukti'. Why? Because she doesn't have a mind. She didn't ask for her father, or cry for her mother. She just was.
There's one factor called the mind that stops us from becoming jivan muktis. The only reason the mind affects us is because the mind is controlled strongly by our sense of ego, which does not allow our mind to function in any other way. And our ego is so big that some of us drown in it. Others suffocate in it, because the more egoistic we become, the more idiotic our behaviour is. We lose all sense of logic and intelligence, and we follow this thing which seemingly makes us better than anyone else, and this ego stops us from becoming jivan muktis.
When I said jivan mukti just now, you heard one lady laugh here. The only reason she laughed is because it is most difficult for women to become jivan muktis, They have too much mind. The emotions and heart rest in the mind. All human beings are supposed to have a connection between the solar plexus and the medulla oblongata, but women have everything connected to the mind. Therefore you'll find there's a limited number of female jivan mukis. You can count them on one hand. Why? Because women work from emotion and not logic. Many of us are married here – we are a victim of tears. As soon as you see the tears you give in. That's emotion. Not logic.
So we want to become jivan muktis, but we don't want to give up this thing called ego. What does ego stand for? Enlarged Growth of the Oblongata. Because your mind is also there it's so big. If you look, you'll see there are more women here in service than men - so they're going to catch me in a corner afterwards (laughs). Give up your mind and all the stories you carry in your mind. Give them up. I have a saying: just worry about today, worry not about tomorrow because tomorrow will become today tomorrow. Take every day, second, minute, hour, as it comes.
We have a habit of living in expectation. And then when the expectation is not fulfilled we are a wreck, a nervous wreck. Live without expectation. Live as though you're walking into town. Do you watch your steps? No, you don't even know you're walking half the time. Your right leg goes, your left leg goes. It's automated. Live like that. Your legs are in total rhythm and you don't have control of that. There's no mind involved. It just happens. And that's the rhythm we all need to get into to become jivan muktis.
So our purpose in this life is to become better people. Are we becoming better people? No we are not. We always have something negative to say about somebody or something. Always. I can speak to any one of you and after a long discussion you will have spoken about somebody else. There's no exception to the rule. Somehow, some name will come into the discussion. We live like that because we live in the ego. Our ego is based on many aspects of our lives. The house we live in, the clothes we wear, our car, our profession - all that creates is opportunity for our ego to get bigger and bigger. And as long as you have that, your jivan mukti state is decreasing. We always have to make a comment, and most of the comments you make are sarcastic. But it doesn't matter. Don't let people affect you by their nasty comments and nasty remarks. Just smile and carry on.
Do you know why people make nasty remarks and nasty comments? Because they are reflecting themselves on you. They are trying to justify themselves, so they reflect themselves by making comments about you. Stop accepting it by fighting back. Change. Let us all become jivan muktis. You're staring at me like it's an impossible task. Already you've failed. Let us all become jivan muktis. You are afraid of it because you don't have evenness of mind. Your mind is telling you that you're going to fail.
How many of you here want to become jivan muktis? You are halfway there. You are a jivan, a being, a Self. To liberate the Self is to give up this physical self. When I say you must give up this physical self, what I mean is don't get caught with glorifying this physical self. It's nothing. Life is so short. Before you know it, it's ended. Look at those four young kids coming from work who had an accident. All four died here at Ottowa. All died, aged 24, 22, 26. Think about it and we still want to go and glorify this body. It's useless. Right now one of the bodies is lying in a mortuary for a funeral tomorrow. Can that body get up and look in the mirror and do all the glorifications for the funeral, then get back in the coffin? No it can't. The self is missing. It's that self that can make you a jivan mukti.
If I die tomorrow, you'll all come here. Not one of you will ask Seelan, 'Is Guru here?' You'll ask Seelan, 'Did the body come'? That will happen to all of you, whether it's your father or your mother. Think about it. The moment the Self leaves the body, you are just a body to everybody – to your wife, your husband, your son, your brother. They all look at it as one of the most useless things, yet we glorify it. Every minute of the day, we are busy. If we don't have one of those small mirrors, we've got lip ice, or something. That is because we have this thing called ego. And as long as we have this we're not going to run away from glorifying this body and making this body the most beautiful thing there is. And when it comes in contact with fire in the cremation hall, it's nothing. But we'll glorify it. Because that is the only thing that gives us some kind of justification that 'I'm beautiful'. Beauty doesn't lie in all this. Beauty lies in the self, the inner self, the greater self the bigger self. The self within. As Krishna says, in the Bhagavad Gita, 'All beauty is beyond me'. What does that mean? This is not beautiful at all. This is just temporary. Tomorrow morning you're not the same person. You have one more crease added to your face and you try to cover it up. So, every day this body is getting older and changing. So when it's changing there's no reality.
What is the definition of reality? Anything that doesn't change, the eternal truth, Self. I am not real because when I was younger my hair was black. After I met you all, it's grey. Every morning it takes me longer to get out of bed because there's more pain in the body. So if I am changing I'm not real. I am an apparent reality, a changeable reality. So we need to get away from this concept of 'I am real'. This body is real and if you've got one more crease, you add a little more foundation. We must change from that. The only difference, when you're younger, is that creases are painful. When you're older, there's no pain. So why do we worry?
Let us now get rid of this thing called ego. Start slowly. If I have to start I'll go to my room and write the word 'ego' on my mirror – the three most powerful letters – and every time you go there, you'll leave the mirror and start to look at the other self - the self that will make you a jivan mukti. That is the self. Or write on your mirror, 'This is not me'. And see how you can change your life.
You want to know how you can change? Kill the mind. How do you kill the mind? Start with your taste. Kill your tastebuds. Have no taste. Then go to the other senses. When you go now, I'm going to put a box there at the gate. Put your ego inside. Don't put your name - I don't want to know who you are - and start to live life simply.
Simplicity is the ultimate spirituality. You can't have ego and be spiritual. It won't work because somehow the ego becomes bigger than you. So I'll leave you with that. What is the purpose of this life? It is to become a jivan mukti.
Hari Om
