Almighty Lord, prompt these sadhaks, prompt these devotees of Yours to ever walk the path that leads to their own highest blessedness. Prompt them to live their life in such a way that it creates for them a spiritual karma that liberates them forever from all karma. That is my humble prayer at this moment.

Radiant Divinities! We receive from others what we make them do. It is not people who do things to other people, rather it is people who make other people do things to them, in a way which they have worked for, whether known to themselves or not. If you have keen introspection, analysis, then after a situation has occurred you find, “Yes, indeed, it is I who worked for it.”

Sometimes we invite temptations, sometimes we invite aggravated situations by working for them, many a time half knowingly. We play with life in such a way that things do not merely happen to us, but we make them happen to us. Most of the time this is so. Karmic occurrences and experience are there no doubt; we do not deny it. But over and above, in addition, it is we who many a time bring about situations through our folly or through our wantonness.

It is said: “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” And that is why many a time mystics have prayed to God: “O Lord, save me from myself.” This is a point seekers should be aware of. We, by our behaviour, our thoughts, our intentional acts, attract to ourselves situations. People act towards us in certain ways, not because they wanted to do it, but because we invited them to do it.

We then complain to God: “Why, how could this happen to me?” Why not? You have asked for it; you have worked for it. Therefore, when they speak of trying to discriminate between what is favourable and helpful to our spiritual life and what is not helpful, it is not only in regard to outer things and people, outer factors and environment, but also we have to discriminate within as well, find the very subtle, little known, hidden motivations for our actions.

If, day after day, a young girl in a house, instead of busying herself with helping her mother and trying to be a useful member of her family, continuously comes out on the balcony and attracts the attention of a neighbouring youth who then starts whistling at her, whose fault is it? Is it the fault of the person on the street, or is it the fault of the person in the house? She will say: “Father, that young person watches me and whistles to attract my attention.” Father will lodge a complaint with the police. They will go and interrogate the young man. And they will never know that the whole situation was brought about not by anyone else, but by the so-called aggrieved person who caused it by her own actions.

In this way, from inside, we many a time harbour thoughts and motives that attract towards us certain situations, and then we blame God, take a report to God: “How can this situation come to me? I am doing japa, I am worshipping daily, I am reading the scriptures, meditating.” Yes, you are doing all these things, but the fact is, that inside, you are also doing something else that no one knows. But you should not think that God does not know. Other human beings may not know, but there is Someone within you and He is nothing but Consciousness, knowing, knowing, knowing everything from all the ten directions. Even if something misses you, it does not miss Him. He is awareness—prajnana. He is jnanasvarupa (full of knowledge). Nothing misses Him.

So when this is the situation, how can you complain: “How can this happen to me?” How can anything else happen to you when inwardly, by stages, you have worked for it, you have created it outside from inside? Therefore, it is necessary that seekers and sadhaks be wise, not go into self-deception, not be asleep inside. Gurudev said: “Even inside, you must decide what is favourable to me, what is unfavourable, what are the deep, hidden motivations of my actions. Know yourself in this level, in this sense also and make the requisite adjustment, requisite change within.”

A deep thinker said, “Life is a mirror.” You see in it what you show into it. If you stand before a mirror and make a pleasant face, a pleasant face looks back at you. If you make an unpleasant face, an unpleasant face looks back at you. What comes to you from inside the mirror is created by you standing outside. Because happiness and misery, favourable environment and unfavourable environment, to a large extent depend upon our state of mind, how we look at it. Happiness is not contained in things, situations or the environment outside. Happiness or unhappiness is in how we look at it through our mind. It is, therefore, the situation within. It is the state of our mind that makes our happiness or unhappiness.

If that inner state is adjusted and corrected, then nothing has the power to give us any experience except that which we give to it. We give it the power to affect us in either this way or that way by the state of our mind. If our state of mind is right, then even a situation which may put an unwise person into sorrow or unhappiness will not have the power to put us into sorrow or unhappiness. Because our mind approaches the situation in a different state.

It is told that a traveller into a rural area asked a shepherd: “How do you think the weather will be today?” “Oh, it will be weather that I like.” “How do you know it will be weather that you like, how can you say that?” The shepherd answered: “It is like this, sir, knowing that over such things as the weather I have no control, knowing I cannot change it, long ago I decided that whatever weather comes I will like it. And therefore, now I am at peace. I am always sure that I will get weather that is to my liking 365 days of the year. Because I cannot change it, I have started liking whatever I get. Instead of always trying to get only that thing that I like, I decided that it is wiser to like whatever thing I get. Therefore, I always like the weather I get.” So it was not the weather that mattered, it was his inner state of looking at it, relating himself to it, perceiving it, that mattered. So, he had the key to happiness.

The key is inside. It is a state of mind that we diligently create within us that ultimately has the effect of creating happiness or misery for us. Therefore, mind alone is the cause of bondage and liberation. Mind is the cause of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow. Whatever it is, mana eva karanam manushyanam—for human beings, mind itself is the main cause. And in the higher metaphysical sense, Vedanta says: “manahkalpitam jagat—this world is created by your mind.”

That is too high for us, we need not bother about it. Let us not look upon it now from this great truth. Let us look upon it from a psychological angle, an immediate angle, that which is of relevance to us here, now, today. Today let us apply this truth, find out this truth: “I make my day; I make my happiness and misery; I make my darkness and light; I from within create it.” A picture does not paint itself. It is the artist with his brush who paints it. If he dips it in green, he cannot expect blue to appear on the canvas; if he dips it in red, he cannot expect yellow. So what he uses, that appears for him. Apply this truth and then see what happens. God bless you!