Playing Emotions Unemotionally

It is common to be emotional. How easy is it to enact emotions? Actors can cry at the click of a clapper. How easy is that in normal life?
How did Gurudev learn to showcase emotions? Can we do a ditto on that?
How can being unemotional stabilize our mind?
Pick up the strands in the sutra - Playing emotions unemotionally.

Gurudevonline.com presents the pods of enlightenment, an audio biography of one of history's greatest saints.  'The Guru of Gurus' podcast series is comprised of 24 podcasts that present aspects of the mahaguru's life, philosophy, supernature, and mentorship.

Make some aspects of his biography into aspects of your biography.

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Transcript

Are emotions a hindrance and an obstacle to spiritual progress? Why did Gurudev make so much effort to circumvent them? How can you and I transcribe this strategy into our lives? And so ...

Playing emotions, unemotionally.

A young man from a little village in North India wanted to become an actor in Bollywood. 

Applied to the Film Institute, Poona, for an acting course. 

Got rejected. 

Later, circumstances and destiny turned him into one of the greatest actors in the world. A man who mastered the art of playing emotions, unemotionally!

Gurudev may have started his journey in this incarnation as any other commoner but he ended it as a superhero. 

Let’s examine how he achieved what he did vis a vis overcoming emotions – an almost impossible task for regulars on this planet. Look at me – I have been at it for years but my innings is still not a century at Lords. 

Our first interviewee, FC Sharma ji, was an old office associate of Gurudev who met the Mahaguru in the early 70s. He talks about two very interesting episodes - the first in which Gurudev took a test of the late Bagga ji, a disciple from Hamirpur, by either taking on another physical form or through Augarh who was adept at Bheess Badalna or changing forms. 

The second incident involves Gurudev’s mother and how he dealt with her not as her son but as a detached third-party.

FC Sharma ji: Guruji was not emotional because if a spiritual person, namely a Guru becomes emotional, then he cannot serve everyone justly, even if he wants to, because for him everyone should be equal. And when we are doing seva, in seva there can be no distinction, like this person is good and this one is bad. Because if I feel those emotions within myself, I won’t be able to do the spiritual treatment properly. For example, I cannot talk nicely to one person and behave rudely with another saying “Go back, your turn hasn’t come yet.” 

An incident happened at one of Guruji’s Sthan in Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh, which is still running till date. Guruji was on tour in Himachal and he wanted to see what was going on at the Sthan. So, he changed his form into that of an old man walking with a stick and stood in the line outside the Sthan. When he entered inside for his turn, the Sevadaar standing there told the old man to move out of the line and stand aside and informed him that he would be spoken to and dealt with later. Guruji returned from the visit and he asked the person running the Sthan, “You thought that I’m an old man? It was me, your Guru! What is the use of doing such seva where you differentiate between people based on their clothes and their faces and physical appearance?” The person felt very embarrassed about his attitude for mistakenly misjudging another. This was one practical example where Guruji taught us. He used to do all this to show and teach us so we don't make such errors. By doing this, he taught us that if you are doing seva of 1000 people and if you turn away even one person or avoid that person then all the seva you do is zero, a wasted effort. It means nothing then. And that’s why when we discuss emotions, he would say that an emotional person cannot make correct decisions. While deciding, he will definitely lean towards one side or another. Regardless, there is no value of emotions in the spiritual line. There are no relatives, no friends, no enemies. For a spiritual person, there is only one aim to find ways to solve the pain and problems of those who come to him and who are very sad or in trouble.

Q: Please tell us about the incident when Gurudev’s mother had come to the Sthan for treatment.

FC Sharma ji: This incident happened in 1974. Guruji’s Mataji (Gurudev’s Mother) came to Gurgaon and was staying with Guruji who at that time lived in a rental apartment with two rooms in Shivpuri. It was also from here that seva began. Guruji’s Mother was at the house while seva was going on inside. Guruji was standing outside. His mother stepped outside but could not walk properly and she took Guruji’s name and said, “Please treat me too.” Listen to Guruji’s answer! Guruji replied “Mother (Bebe in Punjabi), please stand in the line. The boys who are seated inside doing seva will heal you.” Listening to this, we were numb with shock wondering why Guruji replied this way. In the evening after seva ended, we asked Gurudev about this incident since she was his mother after all. He said, “Yes, she is my Mother. She has given me birth, she has taken care of me. But I cannot treat her and make her ok. Even if I can, I won’t do it.” We were confused by this new puzzle Guruji had presented to us that he had the power to heal but he would not do so. He went on to explain that he knew her condition and everything about her past, present and future. He said, “You see what is happening in front of your eyes but I can see what has happened in the past too. I know that if I treat Mataji, my Mother (Bebe) then she will have to take another birth to suffer the consequences of this.” 

Not being nepotistic or partial towards your family members is something he practiced and taught us too. Our personal relationships were not to be given preference, and our grievances were never to be discussed and presented to the visitors. These were the stringent rules that he followed and hoped that we would too. 

Pappu ji and Gaggu ji, two of the four musketeers of the Sthan are up next. They share another incident where Gurudev acted impartially and unemotionally.

Pappu ji: His brother had expired. the one who lived in Hariana. You have visited Hariana as well. So he went to Hariana to perform the last rites. After the funeral, when he returned to the Sthan, someone placed a plate full of (prasad) laddoos in front of Him. He blessed the laddoos and distributed the sweetmeats among the people gathered there. This is the hardest thing anyone can do. 

Gaggu ji: It's a very challenging task. To always keep emotions in control.

Pappu ji: That is a very difficult task.

To be detached from one’s own children is a task very few people have been able to master but Gurudev, besides being all knowing, was the master of role-play. He treated his family not as his flesh and blood but as separate beings with several past incarnations connected to his past lives. It is common hearsay that his eldest son was his grandfather from a past life while his younger son was his father. In spite of giving them birth in his own home and this being their association in a second life, he treated them with detachment but showed credible affection. One of his three daughters, the eldest, seems to be a spiritual connection of the past, while the other two were his aunts from a previous incarnation. 

Several saints and prophets of the past have given birth to close relatives and repaid them with a productive life, thereby squaring off their personal debts towards them.

Comments from Puran ji follow.

Q: How was he with his daughters, and sons, his wife, his brother, sister in laws, sister? What was his relationship as a family man? Was he very attached to them? 

Puran ji: Not at all. Totally unattached. Totally unattached.

Q: And how was his relationship with his sisters and brother? 

Puran ji: Same. Same. Same. He was totally detached from everything. Totally detached.

Puran ji lived for over a decade in Gurudev’s house and was privy to all the goings on. Since diplomacy has never been his forte, I find him easy to believe.

Gurudev’s relationship with his wife Mataji was very close. She had to bear a lot owing to his deep involvement in seva and the distractions that came with it. She worked very hard at home and at school where she taught. He was grateful for her efforts but again there was a sense of detachment that played as the background music. Her viewpoint follows:

Mataji: He did all his family duties very well as a husband. I never felt any lack or had any complaints related to the household. The children never felt that he didn’t love them enough. Sometimes, there used to be a lot of people at our place, so the children would complain that he didn’t spend time with them and love them enough. He said, “I don’t know how to express love the way people often hug and show their affection but I come to you to spend time with you.” In fact, he would spend 10 minutes with them and they would be satisfied for years thereafter. He would offer them such great love which he expressed through his words and conversations. He said he wasn’t like other parents. He never showed off or faked his love. He truly loved them from within.  

As far as role play was concerned, he was clear – he was everybody’s and yet belonged to no one. Every disciple and devotee felt that they were his favourite. If an unemotional being could give thousands this feeling, it was an indication that his enactment of the emotion of affection had far more outreach than genuine emotions harboured by most social beings who could at best emote with a mere handful of friends and family. He believed that he was a part of all life forms and yet attached to none. But he definitely transmitted a vibration that was caught and interpreted by others to signify love. He personified unemotional love, caring, and empathy for others without attachment, but with a sense of connectivity.

How does Raji Sharma, one of the old-guard, evaluate Gurudev’s emotional quotient and his views on love. A discussion follows.  

Q: Emotions are a great handicap in my personal opinion in spiritual progress. I wanted to know what your comments are on Gurudev’s emotional quotient? 

Raji ji: I look at it in 2 different manners. One is that Guruji showed emotions without feeling it. The other was that he was emotional to some of his… you could see that love in it, you know. I don't know if you will call it emotions. How would you differentiate love to emotions? 

Q: Love according to me would be a caring and a feeling, a part of somebody else’s being without being emotional about it. That love is infinite and it cannot… you cannot describe it the way I think Shelly or I’m not sure whether Shelley or Shakespeare described it as a sonnet which said “Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove”. Now, that kind of a love is just infatuation and attraction. And ‘Moh’, it’s attachment but true love…

Raji ji: ‘Moh’ is different, you see. ‘Moh’ - is a deeper sense of emotions to attachment. But I would say love used to ooze out of every pore of his body.

Q: Are you talking about emotional love or you are talking about genuine, feeling love?

Raji ji: Genuine, caring, universal love. You could feel it. His body language, his… each pore and each hair on his body showed it was love. 

Q: Ok, any other emotions you noticed in him like, did you notice him having emotions like envy, anger?

Raji ji: Never anger, never  anger. But it was like, you know, what he would say, ‘Putt ghussa na rakhien”- No anger. But “Phoonkar na chaddi” – phoonkar means don't have the poison. Be a snake without poison but don’t stop hissing. Hiss out, because then people will try and trample you.

Q: So, did you ever see him get attached to someone like say you for example, I thought he seemed very attached to you is what I had concurred when I saw his interaction with you. But I can probably sense now that it was a fondness and it was not a ...

Raji ji: Yes, it was more of a fondness. 

Let us return to three of the four musketeers to ascertain their views. Do remember these gentlemen though young at the time, spent a lot of time with Gurudev and saw his life through X-ray vision. Their opinions certainly hold weight when it comes to his life story. 

Gaggu ji: He was just like a father, a friend, whatever you can say. And with us, He was very free.

Pappu ji: Yes, this is completely true. He used to be free minded, a very good natured person. He would talk to us candidly as a friend, and would also talk to us as a Gurudev in conversations as a Guru, it wasn't that he didn't do so. He would often say, “You don't know, Please let me do my work. I have a lot of work to do. I have lots of people whose work I have to do.” He used to talk to us in Punjabi, not in Hindi. “I have to serve a lot of people” is what he would repeatedly state.

Nikku ji: He was full of qualities. But if I had to highlight a particular quality, then I think that he was very caring. There are no two ways about it. He was very caring. And the plus point that I saw in him was that, if at one point in time there were 50,000 or 1 lakh people who came and met him and sometimes 500 people for that matter who met him, after meeting Him, each would feel so satisfied, as though He was was seated there specially for her or him, to serve them. He would make them feel that he loved each and every one of them equally. Today, we can’t even make our own children feel this way.  

Pappu ji: He would make each person feel that s/he belonged to his family.

Nikku ji: If a person met him even once, then s/he would be in awe of him for life and could never leave his side. This was one. Secondly, there was one more quality. See, He was a Guru to all of us. The Highest. There was no one above Him for us at least. But He also had a family, he had older and younger sisters and elders in the family and relations. But the way he deftly handled these relationships, is a learning for us all. 

Gurudev’s behaviour with his brother-in-law, who happened to be Nikku ji’s father, was immaculate. So was it with his elder cousins. He played the role of the younger to the tee! 

Nikku continues.

Nikku ji: He was very caring, that way. He was very caring and he used to take great care of everybody. For example, suppose if any disciple’s wife came and complained about her husband to Gurudev, then Guruji used to take note of it. He would later scold that disciple that his disciple’s wife - his daughter in law - had complained, he would feel bad. He would tell the daughter in law “You don’t worry for them, I will, I’m sending him”. It was like that. He used to fully support his daughter in laws, the wives of his disciples.

His role play was almost script-like. If a lady positioned herself as his daughter in law, he would take her side, but if she positioned herself as his daughter, his stance would be different. 

It was the period before Shivratri, when he did not meet ladies, that my wife came to pay her respects. He declined to meet her. I went to his room and tested this theory. I said, “Ji, your daughter wants to see you.” And he said, “Sure, let her in.”

Pappu Sharma, son of Shambhu ji who was recruited by Gurudev at Kathog, and later started doing seva at Jwalaji, is our next interviewee. Affectionately called Pappu Pahadia which means Pappu from the mountains, he remembers the early years he spent at Gurudev’s home, like one of Gurudev’s adopted sons.

Pappu ji: Now Guruji was our Guruji and while we always treated Him as the Guru, we got every kind of love from him – the love of a grandparent, father, brother and friend. When I was 13 - 14 years old, I spent time with Guruji, then he treated me at the same level and the way teenagers like to be treated. However, when I grew older, he treated and guided me as a friend as well. The significance of a Guru for me, happened only in the year 1982, after many years, that I came to understand what the word ‘Guru’ truly meant.

The late Captain V.P. Sharma understood the concept of role-play. He was reverential to his Guru but when he treated the same person as a father, he behaved and acted like an errant son. He would criticise the behaviour of many of the administrators at Gurgaon, argue and get into conflict with them, and so on. He did not mind his P’s and Q’s when speaking to Gurudev. Amazingly, all Gurudev did was smile to show amusement at his antics. Gurudev would have been an Oscar winner for the best actor every year, if only those awards were given to the movie of life. 

Gurudev did not swallow a pill to outwit emotions. He achieved this after a lot of practice. Controlling anger was no mean task even for him, just like it wasn’t for many saints who came before Him. His second innings of spiritual life was far more productive as He had already accrued those gains in the first.

A man who looked after the farm from where both milk and vegetables were supplied to the Sthan was an ex-wrestler named Pehalwan ji who spent a lot of time with Gurudev. And his comments follow.

Pehelwan ji: If Gurudev was in pain, he wouldn’t show or talk of his pain to anyone. He was only interested in healing the pain of others.   

Q: Did he ever express that he was in pain?  

Pehelwan ji: No  

Q: Did you ever feel that he was sad?  

Pehelwan ji: No, where would he let us? He would never show us that he was sad. Even when he would get angry at anyone, he would just pretend that he was angry.

Most of the devotees were regular folk from villages and towns. They came from all walks of life and different social and commercial backgrounds. They would often request to do seva at events held at the Sthan. Unfortunately, sometimes even do-gooders make mistakes, and at other times a sense of arrogance prevails. 

Gurudev could not bear the callous treatment of visitors who came to the Sthan. When he noticed such behaviour, he would be forced to reprimand some of the Sevadaars. When their ears got longer, their list of mistakes got shorter.

The late FC Sharma Ji corroborates this. Though the sound quality of the interview is poor, it contains some gems which may be dusty but they are sparklers all the same.

Q: What can you say about Guruji’s emotions?

FC Sharma ji: Guruji would show emotions only ever, if there were any emotions at all, when someone would err during seva.

Q: So you’re saying that only when someone messed up during seva, it would upset him?

FC Sharma ji: Otherwise, there were no such emotions in Him.

Q: He had no emotions? Like he was never sad or upset?

FC Sharma ji: Even if he had to scold anyone, he would take that person privately in a corner and would scold him but never in public. 

Q: You said He would not scold anybody publicly. But he used to scold me in front of everyone…

FC Sharma ji: There was a reason for it.

Q: What?

FC Sharma ji: There were some karmas which had to be negated. He was not an emotional person. He didn’t care about loss or profit. 

What was muffled in the interview was that when I said that Gurudev used to fire me publicly, FC Sharma ji’s answer was amazing. He said he'd do it to help rid me of my negative karma. And I know this to be a fact because a very brilliant disciple of Gurudev taught me that if I were to do something wrong, I should voluntarily seek Gurudev’s punishment. When I did exactly that, the Mahaguru hurled a few swear words at me and asked, “Who taught you this?” That itself was proof of its validity.

Another disciple, Nitin Gadekar, comments on anger and how he perceived it. Putting his diplomacy aside, there is value in his words.

Q: You just said you read a lot about Sai Baba and that helped to bring you back to your own course with your own Guru. I have also read somewhere that Jesus also used to get angry sometimes. Did Sai Baba also get angry?   

Nitin ji: All the time. 

Q: And there’s Lord Parshuram who …  

Nitin ji: …who got angered all the time. 

Q: There were a lot of people who have been spiritually great, who also used to be angry. So, are you short-changing them also?  

Nitin ji: No. I think they had calmness inside. I think they were using that anger, that phenomena of anger was just for show. They were not really angry. Why really get angry? I don’t believe any of them were really angry. Even when Guruji used to shout or say some things, I’m sure that Guruji in His Greatness was doing something else. It was just a show while I do genuinely get upset.

Q: Ok.

Even though the emotion of anger was part of the curriculum in Gurudev’s early years, arrogance was not. Yet, overcoming anger was one of his missions. How he achieved it? That was entirely unique. Mataji shares one of his secret practices of anger control. However awkward it might sound, it clearly worked!

Mataji: Whenever someone picked a fight with him, he tried to argue less, he never retaliated. He tried to control and reduce his anger impulses. Sometimes, he abused anyone without reason and used foul language. After that when they retaliated or fought with him, his response was laughter. He spent time on finding ways to reduce anger. Of how to become unreactive when someone picks a fight. Of keeping anger in check and the mind calm. He did all of this. He did most of these things in the office. 

Not allowing their swear words to affect him, helped him negotiate with rising feelings of anger. He had a simple but lethal secret. If you could convert one side of the coin, the other would get converted too. He once told me that if I wanted to overcome sorrow, I must first conquer joy. Not an easily digestible concept but I worked on it and the results were forthcoming. In scriptural language, you could call it overcoming duality.

Let me share an intriguing demonstration of his role-play that I was witness to. A young man named Billu, a victim of alcoholism, walked into the farm one evening and I was sitting alone with Gurudev. Observing his liquored-up state, Gurudev lost it and gave him the yelling of his life… and probably mine as well! My God, could He scream?!

After the onslaught, Billu[1]  left the farm and I was left shell shocked. Gurudev turned around, smiled at me, and said “Barkhurdaar, Kaisi lagi hamari acting? (So how did you like my acting?)” That was His question. I almost liquidized my central regions. So scared, was I? But how could I tell Him that? 

It’s time to walk from the steam room of anger to the playground of humour. Gurudev’s sense of humour was part of his DNA. He was born with it and used it to his advantage.

Giri chimes in.

Giri ji: He always loved to laugh and make people laugh; He never wanted to see anybody crying. And whoever used to come to him crying, he always used to make it a point that he should go back laughing. He always used to make everybody laugh and send the people. Whoever it may be. How did he do this? Actually, he had control over everything, his feelings, his emotions, he lived for the present. Always he lived for the present. And probably spiritually he knows everything, so he... 

Q: But a man who was so loving, isn’t it a contradiction to say that he was also in control of his emotions, because he loved everybody so much?

Giri ji: Everything and everybody, he used to love animals, he used to love birds, he used to love cultivation, he used to love plants, he could converse with plants also.

‘Knowing everything’ technically implied the opening of the third eye and the ability to gaze into the past, present and future. This also meant awareness of everything negative that could or would happen to whoever he encountered, including his family, disciples and himself. I realized what a major psychological burden this could be. Knowing all that was to happen to people he interacted with, and not being able to warn them in explicit terms, needed superhuman self-control!

Gurudev could overhear conversations taking place at long distances and read people’s thoughts. He tried to keep these capabilities under wraps as much as he could, but the truth would often leak out. Sometimes he would divulge a few details. Yet, he lived a dual life of knowing and yet pretending that he was just as ignorant as anyone else. 

Sometimes, he would skip his dinner if he knew that one of his devotees had not received a square meal. This was one of the small burdens of knowingness. Sometimes, he would try to help people circumvent their destiny but some people did not know how to take his hints seriously enough. It was not possible to know what he knew and so perceptions differed. 

Gurudev once tried to dissuade me from making a trip to Delhi on a scooter. Little did I realize that he did so because he knew that I would be involved in an accident. A similar thing happened with Veeru, a young patient at the Sthan. Knowing what would transpire made him dispatch Bittu ji on his scooter without letting him in on the details of what he would encounter on the way. Sure enough, Bittu ji found Veeru’s car badly banged up with its passengers hurt and bleeding. Bittu ji got them medical aid and brought them to the Sthan, thereafter.

However, there was a silver lining to the dark cloud of knowingness. He could see the past, present and future of each of his devotees and disciples and it helped him identify those who had the destiny to evolve, and to also know the trials and tribulations of their journeys. His awareness made him a perfect mentor. It also helped him overcome his emotions. His knowing what was to happen and his acceptance of it, nullified emotions. But it did not nullify his role play. 

The reason he was willing to forgive our emotions was because he knew that over a period of time, he would help change our attitudes and improve our gunas. He knew the effort he had to put in to overcome his own weaknesses and so was extremely patient with us. As his weaknesses were mainly due to the conditioning of this incarnation, and because he had conquered all these several times in past lives, his cleansing needed lesser work. He knew that, so he empathised with the deep crevices of our emotional valleys. 

The reason he would not excuse egotism was because he knew that historically, arrogance, pride and the attitudes of ‘Me, mine and ours’ posed obstacles to seva, to bhakti, to gyan and made the spiritual race an obstacle course. He showcased humility, advocated it, and was extremely patient for the results. 

In a journey spanning 40 years, I surmised that those disciples who were humble went far ahead of those who were senior, more experienced, more impressive and more knowledgeable. Humility led to self-acceptance and enhanced self-worth. It helped us feel that we were a part of the oneness which was the common denominator of all life forms. It helped us become conscious of the inner constituents of our being rather than being in an exclusive state of material and physical existence.

Let us learn what ex-judge Virender ji has to say about the man who was His Icon.

Virender ji: Self-control, in the sense, I never saw any lust in him. Never! Let me say that particular trait was alien to his persona. Whether it is people coming and meeting him, it won’t affect him. You are a man or a woman, it won’t affect him. You are a child or an old man -- you are all kids for him. He would take everybody as his kids. “My Son”- He would call everyone him ‘Putt’ or “Child”- “My son”. My wife, I have never saw him meeting eyes with any woman. He would look down and talk to them and once they were out, he would convey the message to somebody else. In Guruji, I saw the finest level, the highest level of self-control you can see in an embodied soul. Nothing, nothing ever touched him. He wouldn’t be attracted by money. He wouldn’t be attracted by women. He wouldn’t be attracted by praise. Nothing affected him. Nothing at all.

The question of how to tackle negative thoughts when it came to treating the opposite gender was a common one put to him by most of us. And this is how he taught us to control it. He wanted us to look at a lady first in the form of an old woman or a budiya, and later as a child or a gudiya. This technique would help to outwit the vasnas that arose within us. Later, taking a cue from him, I developed an alternative technique of seeing a person as a skeleton, and this worked just as effectively.

Dr. Shankar Narayan had a strange experience in the early years which he shares with all of us. There is a unique lesson in it for us to capture.

Q: Are there any experiences about Him that you would like to share with people? That you might have seen something amazing or any feats that he might have shown you?

Dr Shankarnarayan ji: One day, what happened was that when I was to leave for the office soon, so Guruji was actually meditating or sleeping. I did not know. So, then I asked Mataji, “What should I do?” She said, “What do I say, son?” I asked her, “Should I only touch his feet and leave?” She said, “Ok.” I went and touched his feet and left. There was a big, vacant maidan. I was passing through it to reach the bus stand. When I reached the end of the ground, I heard all the children, including Babba (Gurudev’s son), running towards me and shouting my name, saying, “Doctor Uncle, Guruji is calling you. Come back.” Then I thought - What happened? When I returned -- this is a very very important fact about Guruji that I’m telling you -- He asked me to sit ‘Baitho (please sit)’. Then he showed me his hands and said, “The reason I had to call you back is because I was up there having a meeting. Because you touched my feet, I had to return back and exit that meeting abruptly. If I had not called you back, then you might have met with an accident or you might have been killed on the way because those gannas were very angry with you. That’s why I had to call you back.” 

I just want to clarify what Dr. Shankarnarayan said. He said that when he went to Gurgaon, Gurudev was on paath. So, he sought Mataji’s permission to leave. But before leaving he went and touched Gurudev’s feet. That triggered a kind of bluetooth response with Gurudev’s astral body which was in the middle of an astral meeting with the gannas. The ganns are beings who assist, help and support any institution like Shiv or Vishnu or others.

Dr. Shankarnarayan’s action of touching Gurudev’s feet, forced him to return to his physical body thereby disrupting the meeting with the ganns. Angered, the ganns became vengeful towards Dr. Shankarnarayan but thanks to Gurudev’s intervention, he was saved from their wrath. 

Not being able to control anger and reactivity is a problem faced by many. It undermines self-respect. The story shared by Dr. Shankarnarayan makes us realise that even the ganns had anger responses to things they did not appreciate. It certainly doesn’t nullify the weakness but assures us that with effort and dispatch we can circumvent this issue over time and to quite an extent, if not completely!

At the risk of repeating myself, let me ask you to join me in my learnings from Gurudev on emotions. I believe that unless we can curtail our emotions, we cannot change our Gunas, we cannot avoid attachments, we cannot become dispassionate and we cannot convert our rajasic tendencies from active to partially inactive.

 If we can’t do all this, then we will get stuck at either the earth plane or a couple of higher planes or a couple of lower planes. But we won’t be able to expand our consciousness to much higher planes which go far beyond the heavens that people talk about but don’t understand. I’m talking about the higher Lokas or astral realms. 

I believe that if you are listening to this biography, and if you are a devotee or a follower or a disciple of Gurudev, then you can probably qualify for much higher Lokas and much higher planes if you follow his example as a being. 

And that’s the message I would like to close this podcast with.

Aaye ho nibhaane ko jab kirdaar zameen par,

Aaye ho nibhaane ko jab kirdaar zameen par,

Kuch aisa kar chalo ki zamaana misaal de,

Kuch aisa kar chalo ki zamaana misaal de.