TRANSFORMATION

For the past few Sundays we talked about transformation. The spiritual journey is a journey of transformation. Transformation of the mind and heart. Now let’s talk of the transformation of the mind. Before you can transform your mind, you must know how you are thinking, your mental habits, what you are thinking about. We have talked a lot about this and today we shall talk about the application. If you do not apply what you know you will not gain the experience.

I give you an example, say you want to cook and you have the best recipe in the world of say the chicken curry but if you don’t apply, that means you don’t attempt to cook, you will never be good at it. Practice, first time maybe you fail, second time starts to get better, third time slightly better and you get better and better. The more you apply the better you get so much so that you don’t need the recipe anymore. But the best part of it is the taste of the food.

The spiritual journey is no different; you may have all the knowledge, all the books, all the recipes, all the prayers, all the teachings. So long as you don’t apply on a daily basis, you cannot taste the fruit of your actions. You cannot experience this joy that we are talking about. You cannot experience this harmony that we are talking about; you cannot experience this peace of mind we have been talking about. You say “I have been reading my prayers every day but I don’t get the harmony, I don’t have peace of mind.” This is just like reading the recipe every day and you cannot taste the chicken curry. “I read my chicken recipe daily, how many spices, how many this but I can’t taste my chicken curry.”

So spiritual journey is the same thing, you have to apply. Now how do you apply, this is something we shall talk about today. All of us have a different area in which we want to improve. Just take a look at two aspects. First of all the area we want to improve in terms of say anger. We are very irritated, we get very angry easily. I say start at home first. Start at home because at home most of us have our guards down. We can be very rude to our spouse, very rude to our children, very rude to our love ones. Why? “The person is staying with me so I can scold the person and the person cannot go away.” So start from home. How? By telling yourself for today for the whole day I want to be very careful not to get angry with anyone. That is how you apply. You must have an action plan. For you to do anything you must have an action plan. My plan is not to get angry with anyone. Not even with my children, my wife or my husband or whoever that comes along the way. I shall remember not to get angry. Now, how not to get angry? Focus on God.

Have love, have goodwill. It is repeated so many times in our prayer book, have love, kindness, understanding and goodwill for all. These four things are always there. So if you have this in mind, when you apply and then at the end of the day you say “Ok maybe two to three times I lose my temper. Tomorrow I will try again and again and again.” You will see the results. As long as you don’t have an action plan, you will never see results. I am telling you where to start today. Pick one thing; say tomorrow you want to have kindness. You want to experience kindness. So for tomorrow you say “I am going to be kind to everyone, human beings and all living things,” and then you apply, you practice kindness with people. People smile, you smile back. Open the door for people, at lift, let others go in first, at MRT trains, let others have the seat. You experience this. That is how you apply.

So as long as you don’t apply, what you know is just like what you have in the recipe of chicken curry, you cannot taste the chicken curry. You can say “I have the best recipe.” Of what use is it if you do not attempt to cook it.

You know you have the best recipe today because the Human Relations Approach to God is about interacting with people. That is what our Guru had taught us. Human relations approach to God is applicable in our day to day living. Every day I have to talk to someone, every day I have to meet someone, whether at home, in the work place, on the bus, I have to talk to someone. Be it the cashier at the supermarket, whoever, don’t be rude to the person. Maybe for that day the person has something in mind and serves you without saying thank you. It is Ok you need not be rude or scold that person for not saying thank you.” So if you look at all these little things, understanding comes in. So as long as you take one word every day, be it kindness, understanding or love or if you have issues, you get very irritated by someone’s rudeness, or if you are rude to everyone, say “From today I shall make sure I will remember not to be rude. If I am rude, I am rude to God.” Tell yourself that and that’s how you practice. If I am rude to someone, I am actually rude to God.

That is application. As long as you don’t apply, you cannot taste the fruit of your action. The taste you get is the joy, the happiness, the harmony, the peace of mind you get when you apply all these things. Then you realise people are kind to you, people are gentle to you. The people are gracious to you. Why? Because you are the fountain of love. As you give, you get back but here we want to get all these things but we don’t want to give. We want love, we want kindness. We want people to be nice to us but we don’t want to give.

You are the starting point, doesn’t matter whether the person is kind to you or not, that does not matter. Doesn’t matter if he says thank you or not. You are the generator of that love, kindness, understanding and good will. So if you start the day having an action plan and say “Today I want to be this.” I want to do this or I want to experience this quality which we talked about. Just take any quality, “Anger” and then at the end of the day you take stock and say “Maybe for that whole day I have done this and I will do better tomorrow.” Then tomorrow you start again until you are satisfied with that action plan of yours. Move on to the next one and that’s how you experience. If not forever you have this wonderful recipe that you have but we don’t know how to cook it. As long you don’t cook it, you cannot taste the food that you have cooked.

Your spiritual life is exactly the same thing. Going to places of worship, going to temple, chanting mantras, singing Bhajans are all the fertilizer for this soil. The foundation that you need because when we do all these things, when you are kind to someone and that someone is not kind or no kindness return, you are unaffected. Why? Your foundation is very strong, why? You are doing for God. If I say hello to someone and he did not say hello back to me, I don’t mind. I am doing for God. I won’t say “Why you did not say hello back to me

Don’t aspect anything from anyone when you give. This is unconditional love, you give love kindness, generosity, and understanding and do not expect anything in return and then you will be a happier person.