PRISONERS OF OUR OWN MIND

Last week we spoke about freedom of choices. We are free to make choices in life and we face the consequences of our choices. God does not make choices for you. He doesn’t tell you do this or that. As human beings we have been given intelligences, we have been given freedom of choices. Although we are given freedom of choices, we are all prisoners. I tell you why. We are prisoners of the past, present and the future. We are imprisoned by our own minds, our own thinking. The mind has made us a prisoner, whether you know it or you don’t know it, we are prisoners of our own minds, our own thinking. Let’s examine this. To be a prisoner of the past, you are caught by the baggage that you carry, the hurt feelings. The people who have caused you problems, you have not forgiven them. So long as you have not forgiven them, you are imprisoned in the past. Every time you think about it, it brings you bad memories. Not only that, you have a Karmic bind with the person whom you have not forgiven. Some people are forever imprisoned in the past.

Some people are imprisoned in the future because whatever is going to happen they say it cannot be done. What if, what if always what if? They are always imprisoned in the future. Most of us are either imprisoned in the past, present or the future. Let us look at how you are imprisoned in the present. Through your attachment. As long as you are attached to material things, family ties, to anything, you are a prisoner. So ask yourself which one of you, are you imprisoned in all the three stages or are you just imprisoned in one?

The spiritual journey is a journey in which we are teaching you to get freedom. What is liberation, what is Moksha, what is enlightenment? Freedom. Freedom from what? Freedom from yourself, freedom from your thinking. For the past many months, every Sunday, we have been telling you think about what you are thinking. What is your mental habit? Know yourself. All these points to one thing, liberation. Freedom from your own thinking. You want to be happy, you want to joyous but yet we are prisoners. Without realising it we imprison ourselves. God doesn’t imprison us; we imprison ourselves by our own thinking. How do we imprison ourselves by our thinking because of superstitions, false beliefs, we are trapped in this. We have to get out of it.

The spiritual journey which we have been telling you every Sunday and all the Masters who have been saying for the past five thousand years is only one thing, Freedom. So think about it. Do you wish to be entrenched as a prisoner in the past, the future or the present? We do not want to be free from these three, do we not want to have freedom? To have freedom please forgive all those who have hurt you. Release them, and then you don’t carry the baggage to the present. Now address the present, be detached. Detachment doesn’t mean you don’t care. Detachment means if you have it you are happy, if you don’t have you are happy also. You ask God a lot of things, if He doesn’t give you, you are unhappy, you scold Him. That is not the way.

Ask yourself, if you ask God for something, what have you done to ensure the condition in which you have prepared yourself is right to receive what He is going to give you. If you ask God for something, what have you done for yourself to ensure that the condition you create for yourself is ready for you to receive what He is going to give? Think about it. You say you ask God for a beautiful house, have you prepared for that condition in which for you to receive that gift? If you have not, then don’t ask. All that we say every Sunday is this you are your own self; you decide for yourself what you want to do. You get to know yourself and by getting to know yourself, you get to know the God within you, the divinity within you. Forget about powers; forget about all these super powers you hear people telling you. When you have achieved liberation you will get it automatically but if you go for the sake of powers you won’t get it. Your focus is wrong. Get to know the divinity within yourself and all the powers will come. All the knowledge will come. All the truth within you will be revealed. You don’t have to find any books. You think and you get it. That is the truth.

So for the past twenty over years, we have said this over and over again. First of all, get to know what is your thinking habit, your mental thinking habit. Forgive all those who have hurt you in the past. In the present, learn to be detached. Then be thankful, have a thankful heart. Whether you get it or you don’t get it be thankful for it. Gratitude is a quality which brings you closer to God. We pray to get something, we don’t get it, we are not happy. If you are not successful in doing something, never mind, thank God for it and then ask yourself what can I learn from it?

Life is a learning journey; spiritual journey is a learning journey. That is why we are given choices. If you give someone everything, the person will grow up to learn nothing. Like this, as human beings we have to learn. We learn from our mistakes, good or bad we learn. Provided we make an attempt to learn it, if we don’t learn it then you have missed the boat, you have missed the opportunity. So again come back to freedom, the spiritual journey is a journey to freedom, freedom from yourself, freedom from your thinking, freedom from this mind that has trapped us in the past, present and the future, freedom from your possessions. That is what the spiritual journey is all about, freedom. That is Liberation, Enlightenment, Moksha.