Dear Divine Souls

As I have often told you, we will certainly not live for more than a hundred years. Bearing this in mind, I expect that you all will strive to increase the effect that the Divine will have in your lives. It is essential to develop your spiritual life.

Nowadays, everyone has a personal mobile telephone and everywhere there are satellites. When people telephone each other, they always hear, “Please try again later, the line is busy.” In the same way, your lives are also very busy! However, you do not really know why you have made your life so busy. You may be busy with particular things but sometimes you make yourselves busy for no real reason. If you always make yourself busy, then your life will be full of tension. I don’t like you to be so tense. I feel that you should always be free. Only when you make yourself free will your mind be relaxed and peaceful.

How can you be free? Do not always think that what you think should happen. Stop expecting that what you wish will happen. It is great and good to have a human life. You can look after and live in this body for up to one hundred years but do not just finish your life by only educating yourself, marrying, having some children and dying. Don’t just live like that, the way that everyone else does. This has been happening for the past 25,000 years. At least this generation can think deeply about their lives and the meaning of life.

The great saints, siddhas and incarnations of the Divine who lives in the past did not want to meet ordinary people because they disturbed them. They reasoned that they did not want to waste their time giving their advice to you and teaching you because they thought that you would not follow it - because you all want to enjoy the material life. It was a waste of time for them. However, Hinduism is a precious religious path because it does not restrict spiritual development to monks, nuns and priests. It teaches that you can experience enlightenment even if you are married and have several children. Nevertheless, it does teach that if you are married and too attached to your family, this will disturb your path to enlightenment. If you think, “This is my child, my child”, you will not develop and you will not allow the child to develop either. This is a great disturbance for you. If you have a son and he has taken up a profession, say as an engineer, then you have to allow him to make his own decisions. His decision may be right or wrong, but you should not force your ideas on him. Parents never like to allow their children to decide for themselves but I want to tell today’s generation to allow their children to make their own decisions.

You are all from different countries. I was born in Sri Lanka and came to India. Why have we come together? For a spiritual reason. Coming together for this common goal, how can we live peaceful lives? I am doing my best to give you my teachings. Will you be happy if you have lots of money? No. Will you be happy because you have four or five children? No. Will you be happy just because you studied to become an engineer, a doctor or an accountant? No. All these things will not give you the peace of mind for which you are searching. The only way to get that peace of mind is to follow spirituality. Why? Because on the path of spirituality you will not think of yourself as a big person or a great being. In spirituality, you are surrendering totally to God. There is Divinity within everyone and there is a divine power, which is higher than all of us. If you start believing in that power, then automatically you will get peace of mind.

Otherwise, what will happen? Your ego, jealousy, negative thoughts and bad habits will continually come up inside you. This is basic human nature. The animals have similar qualities. They were inborn in you. So, leave these qualities behind and start on the spiritual path. When you were born, you were very, very pure but the environment in which you grew up instilled these things into you. You imbibe the negative qualities from the background and environment in which you were raised. If you grew up in the Ashram, you won’t have such ideas. There is only a small chance that negative qualities will appear in those who grow up in the Ashram. Therefore, in the Ashram, you have the chance to have a pure life.

I always tell you not to be idle on the spiritual path and just do nothing about it. You can at least do something. You can pray to the Divine whilst you are walking, you can do a little meditation once or twice a day, you can do some good service to this world or for others or you can work with children. Children (the children in the Ashram too!) can be very, very naughty, but you should enjoy that naughtiness! When they behave like that, remember what you did when you were young! If you spend your spare time doing meditation, giving service and helping others, then unnecessary thoughts will not arise in your mind. However, if you are studying then concentrate solely on your studies. You can decide what to do after finishing your studies and then everything will go well for you.

So, don’t forget my main message that there is a great power above and beyond us. Never forget that power. Don’t always feel that what you think should happen. Think that what that great power asks you to do is what you will do. You cannot do anything by yourself. You feel that you are doing this and that. For example, you might think that your daughter should marry a doctor, but it is really God’s wish if she marries a doctor). It is not your wish that will happen in this world, but only Divine wish will take place.

Let us think, “O God, everything is happening according to Your wish. Everything is for good. All that happens is for the best and will bring me happiness. Pray in this way. Don’t make yourself tense. Take it easy! Be happy always. I am with you all and I bless you all.

Jai Prema Shanti, Jai Prema Shanti, Jai Prema Shanti.

Swami Premananda