This talk is about the goal of life. We are all aware of the prayer given to us by our Revered Sri Ramchandraji Maharaj. The prayer is universal, it does not talk about any particular God. That is not restricted to any race or religion. The main point when we say this is not to talk against any of the religious prayers but try to impress upon you that Prayer has to be Spiritual, and when we talk about spirituality we talk about something other than our self. So long as we think about ourself it is selfishness at its worst and most of the time materialistic. When we talk about others it is basically spiritual. The first sentence of the prayer of the Master is "O! Master! Thou art the real goal of human life' When we say that God or the Ultimate or the Brahman, Allah or Khuda is the goal for the human life many of us have been trained to think that it is something that is far off and that is something that we have to reach after labourious struggle. People have often considered this type of awareness or aspiration to reach the Goal as something that is connected with the recluses or for people who need not bother about anything here or who bother only about that and nothing else and it is as though something not connected directly with our day to day existence. The goal of getting a job, goal of getting monthly salary, the goal of selling goods, goal of going to such and such place or getting an alliance for daughter or son etc. etc. are the goals we accept in day to day life. But here, in this prayer we talk about Master as a goal ('O Master! Thou art the real goal of human life'). When we say this there is a shift already from the traditional thinking to this prayer because in it we say that it is the goal of human life

Human life is something that is very active, it covers all the aspects of that just now we have narrated and much more. All these things are part of human life and when we say God is the goal of human life, we are saying that the human life culminates in God. The Shift is already very clear we are not thinking of God who is far away from human life but who is going to be an integral part of human life. As on date God has been alienated by all religions and any duty that is God oriented is something that is to be done in addition to something that is more mundane and practical. We should know that the sphere of God is not something that is far away from us, it is not cut off from the other things but is something that includes everything, from our getting-up to going to bed, all aspects of our life is connected with God and that is the Goal we want to achieve. It is a very simple thing which has been forgotten, not that people have not understood the value of God, everyone has understood it but other prayers have not stressed the goal which is important. That God resides deep in the heart, every saint has stated. Please note that heart is something about which we are not even aware of unless we get a heart attack, otherwise normally we are not aware of its functioning. If does not even beat, so far as we know, ie. it beats but we don't hear We really don't know what is happening to it, unless some problem comes: Similarly we think in terms of God only when there is a problem. That has been the way. Just as we remember heart when it gets into trouble, we think about God when we are in trouble, not always.

As against it the approach of Rev Babuji Maharaj is that it should be something that we should be aware of it all the time. We ought to know that this is the main thing that keeps us going. All our actions must be so oriented as not to cast a burden on the heart and so also on Godly values. Why should we be virtuous? The reason for that is otherwise God gets affected. Who is that God?, The peace that we have in our heart, the calm that is within. Anything that we do which is against the norms upsets the calm and peace within us. Whether we ignore that upsetting attitude or we accept it and try to solve that problem the fact remains whenever we do something that is not good for us, there is an upsetting of peace or calm. We know what happens to the heart when we do not follow restrictions on diet etc. We normally do not see such an importance when we violate spiritual injunctions. In spirituality what happens is that when you do something that is not correct, automatically the heart, gives a signal that something is wrong or in other words the Divinity in us starts telling that something is wrong. We can definitely keep it down. That is what we call conscience. Many people have recognized it as the voice of God. The conscience protests. We are all aware of it but we try to lull it saying "O. K it's all right. We cannot help this".' That means, it is just like a diabetic patient who goes on eating sweets. Many of us are of this category. Just as a diabetic who cannot resist eating sweets, so also a person who has got this 'asuric pravrtti' tends to do something evil or saying 'what can I do, this is how every body behaves. I shall also behave like this, there is nothing wrong about it, we will see when things go out of hand'. For remedy, there are enough doctors. Who are all these doctors, we have found in spirituality? Any sanyasi in the street. Any temple that is available to us nearby. They are really not the solutions. Doctors are not the persons to solve the problem, but we have to solve the problem by discipline suggested by them. Doctors will come into picture only when things go out of hand. But this asuric tendency persists.

The first sentence of prayer of Rev Babuji Maharaj is, that God is the goal of human life. The goal is not something else other than this God. Where do we find this God, We find this God in our own heart. We are not going to search him elsewhere, so the goal is not far off, the goal is within us. If so why is it we say that He is the goal of human life? As on date we have found other things as goal of human life: to become rich, to become popular, to become powerful, to become somebody in the street, this is the approach we have. As against it the approach should be to see that the goal within us has got a full command over our existence. The yielding to that Divinity that is within us, that is way to reach the real goal. To be aware of the presence of the Divinity in us and to see that the Divinity percolates into every action of ours that is the way to express God. The Divinity has to have its influence or allowed to have its influence on everything that we do starting from getting up from the bed to going to bed. We should think that the Divinity is breaking its fast. We should share food with others, thinking that the Divinity has given us and therefore we share it with others. This type of sharing is a fundamental ethics actually. These are the values that we have got to develop When we go to our office, whatever work we do, we should go there with a feeling that it is the God, who permitted us to do that work It is a trust, God has reposed in us with this work and therefore this work has to be excellent, not because we are egoistic, not because we are competent, not because we are excellent, the work has to be excellent, but for the only reason that God wanted us to do this, it is Divinity that wants us to do this. It is the will of the Divine that makes us work. Whatever the work, may be that of a sweeper or of the President of India, it doesn't matter much what it is, it may be just a cook in the house or somebody who is governing the state, it doesn't matter much. Whatever work that is given to us is to be done with the feeling that it is the Divinity which permits us to work as a trustee. After us somebody will do this and before us somebody else has done that work. Only some brief interval is given to us, prior to that somebody else has done that, after us somebody else will do that work, and the work will go on. 'Karma' is something that will go on, because when creation has started karma has started. It will go on, whether we live or may not live. It is not going to stop. No work stops for any person's sake. It goes on, but we do it as if we are the persons to do it, and we are the doers. This is one of the fundamental things again taught by all religions. They said every time that it is God who does everything.

Every religion has said it, but they said it as something that has to be understood by us and not something to be practiced by us. If we take it as a message that is given to us, and we say why not we do like this, the religious leaders say 'no, no, in your Ashrama you can't do it, you become a 'Sanyasi' and then follow it. Only in a sanyasa life you will be in a position to do all these things, because so long as you are having your house, you will have attachments, you will not be able to do anything in a detached way". Thus they eliminate this process by saying that bread-winning is not the job of God. My Master feels that breadwinning is job of only the God for His people. It is God who gives for my children and for our other dependents, not 'we'. That is what Rev Babuji Maharaj wants us to understand. If is not we who did anything. It is God who did in our form. As a trustee, we do this work. When this happens, the goal is brought nearer. The goal of life, God being the goal of human life becomes nearer to us as something that is tangible. It is a feeling which is concrete, not any big words. God as a goal of human life, cannot be realised if we go to Himalayas, or we go to some other place and we try to locate a God with four hands and thousand heads and thousand feet and insist on realising such a God. That is not the God that we want. That is not the personality we are seeking.

Even if we see, one such what is it going to do? For those people who know a bit of tradition, particularly Hindu stories, Dhruva has seen God in seventh year, so what? He lived 10000 years after that, not seeing God all the time but working as a King. And that is our tradition. He allowed that particular experience to percolate in his action, and he behaved in such a way to make others feel Aha! here is a person who is influenced by God and in whose action we see Divinity only. These great people who have seen God, did not cease to exist afterwards. The God that the modern man wants is the God who is with us all the time, who keeps company with us and who gives inspiration to work for others who are dependent upon us, others who expect us to do something, others who demand certain things from us as an obligation to society. This influx of Divinity in our action, in every action that we do is what is the goal. We will be 'in God', 'with God', 'for God' in the society in which we are asked to live as a trustee of God. This is the goal. What is the goal of human life? To enable others to see Divinity in us, this is possible by our seeing the Divinity in them. This again is possible when we know the commonness of our origin.

When we know that all of us have come from one origin, there is no question of separateness between ourselves. We know each of us is a heir to that Divinity we are direct descendants, we are successors; we are representatives of that Divinity. Only thing is we have chosen to represent ourselves and not the Divinity The crux is we have chosen to represent ourselves not that Divinity. We have only to express that Divinity, then the problem is solved. That is more natural, what we are doing is unnatural. That is permanent, this is temporary. We are not going to exist forever. Narayana is not going to exist after some time. But Divinity will continue forever in some form or the other. Another form will definitely be there. No individual existence is permanent. But the permanent existence is always there in all of us. If it expresses fully in all of us there is only cordiality, there is only compassion, there is only love. Only when 'I' exist, 'them' is a conflict, there is competition. I try to be a one-up, I try to see that you are one-down. One-up is O. K. but I also insist that you are one-down and that is the beginning of our gurudoms. Any guru, for that matter, insists that somebody else is lower than him. But the fact is that there is only one above, and that is Divinity, and all of us are equal. Equality for all and no special privilege for anybody, is not only democratic but spiritual. That is the spiritual truth, under the one umbrella of God all of us are equal, and there is nothing special about any of us. The moment I grant myself a speciality or you grant me a speciality and I accept it, or I impose my speciality on you and you accept it, I think division has started, dichotomy has started, we started failing God and have got fallen. That is the trouble of Gurudom. Any guru for that matter, this is fundamental point, he will say he is above others. But we will never say we are above others so long as we know that it is Divinity that is there in all and that awareness will always make us feel humble.

That is why the Hindu tradition says 'Namaste'. The 'Te' there is accusitive plural of 'sa ha' (He). Namaste would mean I salute 'Him' in 'You'. I don't salute you. I salute 'Him' in you. 'Namaste' is not equal to 'Namaskar'. There it is, 'akar'. 'Namaha' 'akar', I am offering salute to your akar. A lot of degradation in thinking. People take it as equivalent. They are not equivalent. 'Namaste' is the truth. 'Namaskar' is ahamkar. Your 'ahamkar' and his 'ahamkar'. Once we get into this habit we tend to fall. Don't recognise any form. Recognise the spirit. The spirit is Divinity. The spirit is God and to see that God in every one is the goal of human life. 'O Master! Thou art the real goal of human life', the real goal is trying to see Divinity in all. It is not seeing one Master in some far off place.

If Arjuna had seen the 'Viswa roopa' of Lord Krishna, he was no better the next day, he was a worse fool after some time As you know in the 'Maha Prasthan' he was the third person to fall. A person who has seen God has fallen in 'MahaPrasthan', that is told in our tradition. Have you had the vision of God? Yes sir, but then so what? It is of no use. If that vision of God is something which enables us to see the same God in every one then we have got our goal. Then definitely there is no rebirth for us. Because then there is no attachment to any form. We are able to see Him as 'He is in Himself'. The various forms of God have meaning as His replicas-only. The spirit behind everyone is divinity, it is the Great Master. We pray to Him to enable us to see that.

Now what prevents us from seeing this? "I am yet but a slave of my wishes putting a bar to my advancement". What makes us not to see that, is our wishes. We are slaves to our wishes putting a bar to our advancement, advancement of seeing the divinity in others all the rime. We do see Him in our meditation, we do feel lightness, we do feel certain sparks. We do feel the calmness, the quietitude, the one hour we sit - wonderful. Well, the sixty first minute, we are back with our wishes with double the force. What are we to do? What we want is 24 hours awareness of the Divinity in us and in others, that is what we are seeking. That is the Goal and what is it that is standing between us and that. It is our wishes. Our wishes which want us to distinguish amongst us. I have been given a name, and I have a form. This 'Naama' and 'Roopa' are not allowing us to be one with each other Your 'naama' and 'roopa' are different from my 'naama' and 'roopa' and, therefore we are two different and not one. When I close my eyes and think philosophically, I find no difference, everything is same but the moment I open my eyes, I see this difference. This wish for existence which has given me a name and form is the barrier. It is the fundamental barrier that stands between us and others. In reality we feel that we really want to see God in all. But still we feel what other persons have, should be ours, and we may not be in a position to give what we have to others. When it comes to the question of sharing, real problem is, we are not in a position to give and still feel that it is something that we should give. This wish to hold on, the possessiveness is what is exactly standing between us. So long as we do not get out of this barrier, we are not going to see Him.

How is it possible to go beyond this? Is it possible at all? Is it possible humanly for anybody, for any existence to say that 'I am not going to have any barrier with anybody else. No surely you are not going to get out of this barrier easily. So long as the body is there we are bound to have this problem. So long as we are enmeshed in this body, it is going to be a problem. But when is this problem solved? Only when the 'sheaths' are torn. Just as you take a seed, if it is sowed as it is with all the sheaths then it grows into a tree, You remove the sheath, then you can never make it sprout. Similarly human existence cannot continue once these sheaths are removed. However that is not our purpose. God has created us to live here. We cannot take out the sheath and say we have nothing to do and say 'I am off'. That is the solution of a Sanyasi. He wants to takeout the sheaths and be off. We want to be fruitful to this earth. Divinity wants us to express ourselves as useful personalities. So these wishes which are binding us today shall grow out of ourselves and our wish shall be something connected with all. The 'shanti' that we have got should be a 'Viswa Shanti'. That is what we should aspire for. So long as this is our individual wish and we try to hold on we will never reach the stage of seeing God in all. But if we start changing our attitudes and not only pray for ourselves but pray for all the people in this world, we grow out of this limitation and our banyan tree grows bigger. It is still a tree, it is bound to have its existence but our Banyan Tree is much bigger. That is the reason why we say God is a 'Vata patra sayi'. The importance of the concept of a 'vatapatra or a vatavriksha is, we want to spread like that. Our concern is not only for our shade but the shade for all and try to provide some shelter to others.

This type of altruistic existence when it takes over, then our selfishness or the self which is encasing us all the time starts giving way so that at the final moment of departure from the life, it is not possible for any form to catch you again. This form that has captured us now having left us, no more form is available to capture us and, therefore, we are liberated. This is the truth of 'liberation'. We get liberated only when we grow out of ourselves. We can grow out of ourselves and not destroy self. The 'sanyasi' saying nothing doing, I don't want anything else, I peel off one after the other all the 'kosas' and I am off is one approach. That is not Divinity. God might have blessed them, God always blesses all, because His Love is such that He does not distinguish between a sanyasi and a Grihastha. God will not distinguish. He is samavarthi and samadrshti. But the divine and social relevance of our existence and the purpose of creation according to which we should be relevant to others is possible in the dynamic approach of Sri Ramachandra and not that of the sanyasi.

The individual creation if it grows to the level of taking that of the universal thing, then where is the question of Samskara? A man who thinks in terms of his welfare, his children's welfare and limited circles, naturally will again get into this shell. When a person does service without any concern for himself and does it as a matter of a trustee to the Divine - trustee of the Divine in him, and the self has grown to the extent - the sheaths are shattered and modified in such a way they can not be born again That is really the method. This is the way of liberation.

"I am yet but a slave of my wishes putting a bar to my advancement" means as on date all of us are confined to ourselves to some extent greater or lesser. Whatever it is, there is certain extent and the question is who is going to help us out of this? Master says 'Thou art the only God and power to bring me up to that stage". It is Divinity and Divinity alone which is in a position to help us. Now should we simply say this prayer and not do anything else? No, it is the truth that Divinity and Divinity alone will take us, but the awareness of that Divinity becomes possible in our consciousness only by repeated attempts and that is Sadhana. The Sadhana aspect of it is - we make a genuine effort every day to see how much of our consciousness, consciousness in the sense - self consciousness (self awareness) is reduced and a universal awareness is increased. This sadhana goes on. Only when this exercise continues regularly then we find the relevance of that sentence- the meaning of that sentence - that the God alone does everything. In the beginning we alone do it, then we come to know that we could not have done all these things but for that influx, but for that help that is coming from Divinity. It is a bit difficult to accept that it is Divinity alone which is guiding us all the time. We can fool ourselves so. We will not be aware of it. If we can accept it prematurely that can lead to one more problem also namely we start thinking that "if God is the means and He is going to make me think about Him, then let Him wake me up at 4'O clock, let Him make me sit etc." We try to give a perverse interpretation there, because that is not the truth in our existence now. That is a truth at higher level of consciousness. That is why they say truths are at different levels.

That God alone does everything is the ultimate truth but it is not all that truth for a beginner. We alone have to do our Sadhana. Later we came to know that we could not have done all these things but for the Divine inspiration. We become aware of this particular sheath of Divinity in us much later. To start with it is our own effort. If we say in the beginning itself that God will make us meditate, He will never make us meditate, nor do we meditate.

We have to make certain efforts. That is why this prayer. 'Thou art the only God and power to bring me upto that stage'. He is the only God and power to bring us upto that stage, what are we to do. To say "I have nothing to do, I will sleep, I will sit down and do whatever I like, What is there for me to do? It is for Him to do" is not correct. However, that is the normal excuse that every person makes immediately after formally joining any 'Samstha'. Any 'Samstha' not only this, any cult one joins. After some time we say, alright today is the birthday of Lord Christ, so let us think about Christ. We joined Christianity having formally got ourselves baptised into it, it is now the headache of the Christ to make us Christians, not we. We will not make any effort and that is what is happening We are satisfied with the badge. The baptism, nothing more. We take to Sri Vaishnavism, we go to somebody, he gives us this chakrankitas and the moment the'chakras' are given to us O.K the job is over. What to do next, it is the problem of my Master, He has accepted us as His disciples. It is His problem. What are to do with it. This is the most common approach and the easiest, for those who do not want to get out of their wishes. He thinks that he has come to the third sentence of the prayer but in fact he is at the second sentence of the prayer "I am yet but a slave of my wishes". He is at that level but thinks that he is at the third "thou art the only God and power to bring me upto that stage" He brings this sentence prematurely. This is what is happening in religions and a spiritual student will never commit this mistake. He knows that the third stage is not real in the beginning. Though it is real all the time, he comes to know that it is real all the time when he comes to the last stage of Prayer. He knows the inclination to think about the Divinity itself would not have come but for the fact that Divine Grace was there. That is the amount of gratitude that he would be feeling because once he knows how badly he was a slave of his wishes, then the question dawns, "is it possible for me, or was it possible for me to come to this stage of refuge?" Then he knows that it must be only His grace which has brought him to this stage. Out of humility he says this and it is at a very high stage in spirituality.

In the beginning it is a very conscious decision he takes to reach the ultimate. It is a very conscious decision, very personalised decision. He decides "I shall do this sadhana and get out of my wishes', but when he really succeeds in getting out of the wishes and grows in the spiritual realm, he starts recognising the influx of Divinity then says 'perhaps even in the beginning I would not have started but for this". What is truth at a higher level, if it is unfortunately accepted at a lower level, one becomes once and for all the laziest fellow in Sadhana. We should do our sadhana as it ought to be done, then only we progress, whichever system you follow, do the sadhana. Do not expect the results from the first day, it will come after some time.

Now what is Sadhana about? Having understood the goal of human life, that is to live with the feeling of Divinity in us and in others all the time and working as a trustee of the Divine, how do we achieve this? It is possible only when a certain annihilation of self is also established. How do we do this? That requires 'Sadhana'. And what exactly is the sadhana in this system that my Master Sri Ramchandraji has given? He say's "meditate" He say's "clean yourself", He says "feel humble before Divinity". These are the three things he has asked us to do. One is meditation, another is cleaning and the third thing is feeling humble before God. The humility that is expected before God is what we call prayer. The Prayer is so simple, and it drives this point that "I am incapable of controlling my wishes and I seek refuge in Thee", that is all what we discussed so far. This humility is fundamental. Now coming to the method of meditation it is essentially an attempt to feel the Divine light in the heart. Why only this idea of Divine light? Why not something else? Why not we accept a form? If our goal is spirituality, if our goal is trying to see Divinity in all, that means, we have to ignore all the forms that we see. It is this form and name that enables us see the particular selves. What spirituality demands is we should see spirit in all. So that means we should go beyond this form and name, any form for that matter. Form is materialistic. It has limitations of space and time. The space is the thickness, the height, whatever it is, the three dimensional picture is there. The time factor ensures that we do not see the same form twice. Only thing is our eyes are not all that quick to see the difference between the second to second variance in our existence. Science says that every second certain cells die, every second some cells are born. This is what we have been told. That means there is a change that is happening, but not visible to us all the time immediately but over a period of time we become aware of that. When we go back 5 years in memory we know that a person has grown older or younger. Every day it is changing, every second it should change. It is agreed, the change is there.

The method of meditation given by the Master is therefore on the Divine light in the heart which is simple and is the surest means of success.