It all depends on what your definition of the word “Loss” is.
What is ‘Loss’ to you- may not be a ‘loss’ for the one who is moving beyond the mind – towards the unknown – the unseen! What may be a loss to a common man – may not be a loss to a Buddha! And let it be clear that there is not just one Gautama Buddha but many Buddhas have happened and many are yet to happen!
And who knows – there may be one of you all – who is just about to start flowering…..and for such a ‘buddha’ – there is absolutely no sense of ‘loss’!
Buddha is not a name – it is a ‘stage’ of your consciousness – the moment you reach the ultimates state of consciousness – you become a Buddha.
All those of you – who are truly resonating with my sharing – are in a way moving towards the beyond – the beautiful stage of blissfulness!
In reality, there is never a loss and there is never a loser. But because the Mind is always behind gaining something, the sense of ‘loss’ appears to be real.
I liked your question- I can see that it has come out of pure innocence. And I love innocence, there is a certain beauty to it, a certain charm to it.
An innocent woman looks more beautiful than anybody else. And an innocent man looks far sweeter than a grain of sugar!
A good makeup makes you look good. But it is only a good heart that makes you look beautiful!
Once it happened – a young monk – and he was a meditative man, a man of heart and he was alone, in his aloneness – he was happy, blissful. And it was getting dark – and a thief sneaked into his house. The young monk was in a deep meditative state…..
The thief became busy in his work. He stole some food, some clothes, some money – there was not much, but the thief was determined to get as much as he can. He had been going through a tough time. And this was the only house he was able to break in – and so he was busy…..and suddenly the young monk came walking towards him, the thief turned around, he was filled with fear – he said “ Sir….I…….”
The young monk smiled. Looking at the thief, he said “You take these apples also, you must be hungry. And take a few for your children, your wife, and your father is sick, so take some medicines for him also – in that drawer you will find some medicines.”
The thief wondered what kind of man is this! 20 years – he has been stealing through many apartments – and whenever he was caught – he was beaten – he was beaten so much that he would bleed, he was kicked, he was thrown into the jail……but this man……this man seems to be something……now a new question was born in his heart – “How to steal from such man?” suddenly his hands started shaking – he fell on the ground and bowed before the young monk – he started crying…..he said “You must be something – because whosoever has caught me, has almost beaten me to death. They all have condemned me – labeled me as a bad guy but you…you seems to be so different…your peace….your blissful presence….your compassionate eyes……and how on this planet could you know that my father is sick…..how you could you know that my family is starving…..I am in need but now I cannot steal a single penny from your house….I am a thief but even a thief has some dignity. And looking at you- I certainly have no thoughts of stealing anymore.”
The young monk said “ Bhola – it is okay. You need not steal – but now that I am telling you – you can go ahead and pick up all that you need from my house and then leave….”
The thief was now completely moved. “How on this planet does this man know my name!” he wondered because his name was Bhola!
Bhola gathered a few apples and some money and then left.
But the young monk felt sad for him – looking at the moon, he said: “If it was possible, then I would have also given the moon to this man….”
The heart of the master is filled with compassion……to the master – there is absolutely no sense of loss! And because there is no sense of loss – how can there be a sense of gain? To the enlightened one – there no such thing as LOSS or GAIN – he simply lives moment to moment – in suchness!
To be able to live in suchness – you have to meditate. You all have to spend quality time – early morning in deep meditation. You all have to focus on your diet. I am not saying that if you are a non-vegetarian – that you should stop eating non-veg. Eat non-veg as much as you want to – eat anything that you like to eat – but be sure that every morning you all meditate.
However – in the larger interest of my followers and readers – I want to emphasis that irrespective whether you are a vegetarian or non-vegetarian – just avoid eating spicy food. If you are eating non-veg – let it be like the Westerners – non-spicy. Because of spice (chili), many things are disturbed within you – spicy food gives birth to many negative emotions and these negativity than goes on disturbing your inner peace. So all you have to do is to avoid eating spicy and then you can eat all that you can digest and is available under this sky!
Never repress. To repress your feelings – to repress your emotions is the greatest harm you can do to yourself. That is why I always tell people to eat what suits them – eating non-veg does NOT make you a demon – and eating veg does NOT make you an angel. Eating has nothing do with your KARMA. As long as you eat clean hygienic food, less spicy food – all is well!
But the mind cannot understand this. A man enslaved by his mind cannot understand this. The mind goes on creating many illusions – that I am somebody – that I am someone special – that I don’t eat non-veg – that is all but the play of the mind. It has nothing to do with reality. And the reality can only be realized by a man of heart!
Only a man of heart – a woman of the heart can meditate, can experience the beauty of meditation – because such a person is less of logic and more of love! Such a person has realized that life has nothing do with logic but has more to do with love! And only such a person can come towards the light of enlightenment – towards the ultimate consciousness – the essence is in the innocence – the beauty is in his innocence – the success also is in his innocence!
Whenever a man or a woman comes with a question that has a certain fragrance of innocence, he or she will always get an answer – always!
Prayers are answered only when they come out of innocence! Questions are answered only when they evolve through innocence.
And whenever a man or woman comes with a question that has a lot of logic and head to it – he or she will never be satisfied with the answers – whole life they will spend in finding the answers, but will never be satisfied.
The mind cannot be satisfied. The heart can. The heart is always filled with innocence. The problem is the Mind. The Mind goes on projecting thoughts that are not real but the mind makes you believe that it *is* real!
Many people come to me and most of them are rejected because their questions are of the head and I am a man of heart – how can the connection happen? I am saying something and they don’t understand – and they will say something and I don’t understand – the heart cannot understand the head and so only a few, a very few I connect with – they can understand my words, they can understand my message. And the message is of love – and for love, there is no loss – the ‘sense of loss’ is of the mind – not of the heart – the heart is always happy to be in its own bliss – it is only the heart that understands the language of love. I understand the language of the heart – and the majority that comes to me – don’t understand. It is not my problem, it is the problem of their mind.
When you come face to face with the death of your near and dear ones – you think it is a loss but in reality, the journey of those who have left you never ends – they have not left you forever. They are not gone forever. They have just slipped out of the old skin – just the way a snake slips out of its old skin and gains a new young skin. Similarly, those whom you think that you have lost – are not lost, they have simply moved from an old body to a new young baby body. Now, this new body can be of human or animal or bird or for matter in any possible physical form – but the bottom line is – your mind thinks it is a loss, but in reality, there is no loss, for the journey of the soul continues, it never stops until the soul attains self-realization – the peal of CONSCIOUSNESS! The West calls it CHRIST CONSCIOUSNESS, the EAST calls it KRISHNA CONSCIOUSNESS – names differs – the truth remains – CONSCIOUSNESS!
Remain rooted within. We all have to do our duties because we all have responsibilities. But do your duty by being detached. Detachment means NOT that you are not involved but that you are NOT entangled. Than whether promotion comes or not – it doesn’t matter – you are simply doing your duty with 100% attention. And when you do your duty without expecting any ‘fruits’ in return – you will be able to give an outstanding performance. Krishna was saying the same thing to Arjuna – you just do your job – do not think about the returns – just do what you are doing by BEING HERE NOW – be total in the NOW moment and let me tell you all – if you do so – you all will excel in your careers or businesses.
Your misery begins with your expectations. Your misery begins with your attachments. IT IS THE SENSE OF ATTACHMENT that gives birth to the SENSE OF LOSS! When you live in total DETACHMENT – where is the question of loss and where is the question of gain. You simply live in your own bliss – your own peace!
For a man who lives his whole life in a detached way – there is no loss but there is an abundance of love! True love blossoms only when you live in detachment! Total detachment.
The whole journey of life is to come closer to the state of consciousness – higher consciousness! And Paramhansa Yogananda reveals the essence of consciousness in the most beautiful way……
Money has nothing to do with consciousness. Else all the millionaires and billionaires would have experienced the higher realms of consciousness! In reality, they are so much trapped in their treasures of money that they experience more miseries than the poor!
The poor thinks that money brings everything – everything! But the poor are unaware of how many times the rich has to visit the clinics and the hospitals! The poor are unaware of how many times the rich has to visit the courtrooms and lawyers. The poor are unaware of how much of jealousy and hatred the rich has to face throughout his or her life. But still – at least once in a lifetime – every person who is poor should become rich so that he or she understands that MONEY is NOT the answer to all the questions of life!
The birth and rebirth, therefore, is totally based on WHAT is the state of your mind during the last moment of your life. Therefore it is necessary to keep your mind in a state of happiness when death is nearing. So that when the body dies, the happy mind can move on to the next journey with much ease than otherwise. In the Hindu faith, we call it GATI (Speed) for the soul to move ahead and reincarnate. As long as the mind remains, the cycle of birth and rebirth continues…
The definition of Loss therefore is totally based on the state of your mind. To a common man – a much base level soul – the pleasure of this material world is valuable. And so if anything of it is missed than to such a person it is a loss!
But for Buddha – the definition of loss doesn’t exist because for Him there is nothing called loss that exists in the dictionary of life!
And that reminds me of a beautiful incident….
Prince Siddhartha (the future Gautama Buddha) had decided to leave all of his pleasures and his kingdom to set on his journey towards the beyond. And so on a dark night, he slips out of his palace and asks his driver (charioteer) to drop him at the boundary of his kingdom. On the way, the driver starts crying, he loved Buddha (Prince Siddharta), he was attached, he cannot see his master leaving everything behind – and so just before Buddha was about to step out of his kingdom – the driver says “I am just a driver, and also this is not my business to interfere. Your order is your order, so I have brought you to the boundary of your kingdom. But if you don’t mind let me say a few words. What are you doing? This is what everyone aspires to be – a Prince-like you! You were born as Prince. Why are you leaving everything? Remember the Palace, remember your beautiful wife, remember your father, the kingdom, and the happiness it brings?”
Buddha looked into the driver’s eyes and said -“I cannot understand what you are talking about. I have not left any palace behind or any kingdom. I have left ONLY a nightmare. The word renunciation means you are leaving something valuable behind. I have not renounced anything. There was nothing to be renounced. The whole thing is on fire. It was a nightmare. And I thank you because you have helped me to come out of it.”
And Buddha leaves for the beyond…
Meditate on HIS words – “There was NOTHING to renounce.”
Now tell me – and through your question, I ask all my genuine followers and readers – tell me – what must be the definition of loss for Buddha? Or for the matter – will there be anything such as ‘LOSS’ for the Buddha?
This sense or feeling of LOSS is purely a by-product of our MIND. Based on the state of our mind – we decide what is loss and what is not. And for someone like Buddha – who have gone beyond the mind – there is absolutely NO feeling of LOSS – NO sense of LOSS – the word LOSS simply doesn’t exist in the ‘dictionary’ of HIS life!
LOSS. SUFFERING is of the MIND. You suffer because you have become the mind. You are totally trapped in your MIND. The MIND has become your boss – and MIND is a dangerous boss – it can lead you to many miseries.
Ignorance makes you believe that everything that you have or you are – is forever.
In reality, everything is temporary – you are moving on every minute – change is constant. Except for change, everything else changes. So the sense of ‘loss’ is also of the mind – because existence knows nothing about loss or gain. And you will also overcome this illusion of loss and gain – once you start moving with the existence – once you start moving beyond the mind. And then you can laugh and that laughter will be a burst of blissful laughter!
“Fools laugh at others. Wisdom laughs at itself.” – Osho
The wise are never moved by any loss – because for him or her – there is no such thing as a loss – the word ‘loss’ simply doesn’t exist in his dictionary.
A person who is trapped in the mind – gets stuck in the game of loss and gain. A person who has moved beyond the mind – has nothing to lose and nothing to gain and so such a person CAN laugh – and such a laugh is indeed blissful laughter – a peal of beautiful laughter!
You all can also laugh. But your laughter will have a certain fragrance of blissfulness when it comes from your heart and NOT from your mind. Whenever you laugh from the depth of your heart – you are in the highest state of meditation – it is a state of trance – it may be for a minute – but even that one minute – you experience what it is to be OUT OF MIND!
Imagine – how beautiful it must for those who live their whole life by being out of mind! That is how the real YOGI lives – that is how Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Arjuna, Mahavira, and all the enlightened beings live – in the state of NO MIND!
Incidentally, this Diwali, my new book “NO MIND” is coming – a book that remains very close to my heart. Because this is the sole essence of our spiritual journey – from MIND to NO MIND!
And once you reach the stage of NO MIND – tell me – tell me you all – how can you define what is LOSS and what is GAIN! You are simply out of all that has been blocking you – your joy – your peace…..out – up in the sky you are – flying like an Eagle – with NO MIND but a HEART that knows all – that can relate to the depths of this existence – that can vibrate with this whole universal cosmos!
It all begins with you. It all ends with you. The person, the guide, the guru you have been seeking is nowhere to be found but within YOUR ‘SELF’.
“SELF IS THE GURU”- says the most beautiful saint – the one that I love the most – Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi! What a man – how compassionate, how benevolent and how much did he share and that too in the most simple language – truly such a man happens after centuries – my salute to HIS HOLINESS and I humbly prostrate before HIM…..
Once you come closer to your self, once you become more and more meditative – your ‘self’ will start guiding you towards the GURU – a time will come in your life when you – your ‘self’ will identify who is your Guru and that would be the turning point of your life. The Guru will then take you to the next stage of your spiritual journey, based on the depth of your ‘readiness’!
And so the SELF is the GURU – and our journey has to be towards our SELF – because that is the first step – the very first baby step towards the vast realms of higher consciousness!
And to the man who has attained the realms of higher consciousness – the 12th house is the most beautiful house. It is the ultimate peak of his liberation – his oneness, his freedom from mind and from all those distractions that have been holding him back – and stopping him from experiencing the beyond – the unseen, the unknown!
To a material man – to a man who is still caught in counting his bank balance and searching for more sex, struggling for more pleasures, more fame – for such a man – 12th house seems to be a house of loss!
But to a man who has left everything behind – who is on his way towards the beyond – for him – 12th house is the house of ultimate liberation!
And so I always tell all my followers that never jump on ‘labeling’ any house or for the matter any person – because every person can transform into a saint and every house can transform into an abode of peace, of bliss and happiness!
It all depends on what your state of consciousness is – it all depends at what level of consciousness you were born and it depends at what level of consciousness you die! The journey of birth and rebirth is purely based on the state of consciousness – the greater the state of consciousness the greater is the joy of life!
Your next birth is totally based on what level of Consciousness you were while breathing the last moment of your life.
Any spiritual planet – placed in a positive nakshatra – be it – Jupiter, be it Ketu, be it Neptune or be it Uranus – any such planet in the 12th house – promises a ‘potential’ to move beyond mind, to experience the bliss of meditation.
Uranus and Neptune are the most ignored planets. In reality – Uranus and Neptune are the planets of higher realms of consciousness.
But people don’t get it. The truth remains far away, and people are just lost in the play of the mind which brings no truth but many illusions that serve no purpose to your life!
But who wants to listen? Half of them are busy in offending others and half of them are busy in making their own stories – so it is better to stay silent.
Uranus – is the higher consciousness of Mercury.
Neptune – is the higher consciousness of Venus.
And whenever these two have joined Mercury or Venus in the birth chart – someone beautiful is born! Some uniqueness is born that the world has never seen, never known, never experienced!
Any contact with these higher octave planets – brings a unique story to the table! Uranus – Sun, Uranus Moon, Uranus Jupiter……..suddenly the person is changed – to something that he or she had never imagined of!
But change demands disruptiveness. Transformation demands a certain pain. And so individuals who have planets in aspect with Uranus or Neptune often goes through a certain pain – but this pain, this agony brings an altogether a new world before him – a world that takes him or her to new heights – to new self-realizations!
But the positive support of the Kundli, in general, has to be there – only then the flowering happens with such combinations with Uranus and Neptune.
I personally love Uranus. And I love Neptune. To me, they are the real miracle planets. Miracle planets – wow – as I am writing this answer these words have come – Miracle planets! And indeed they are.
Trance. Meditation. The courage to ‘Jump’ into the unknown – all these qualities are possible only when there is a certain connection to these Miracle planets!
Today is – Shri Krishna Janmashtami the Krishna consciousness that we all celebrate. What a beautiful day! There is much to share, there is much to talk about and with you all on this wonderful journey of self-realization – what else is more needed!
The ‘journey’ continues……let us all meditate on HIS holy name and let us all in our small way – through our small step keep moving ahead…towards the beyond – from MIND to NO MIND!
12th house is the place of NO MIND. Where there is absolutely NOTHING and it is this NOTHINGNESS that we all should seek – by being more and more meditative!
The man of awareness – from all the 12 houses of your astrology – seeks only one house and that house is the 12th HOUSE! Because there the liberation is – and liberation or Moksha is possible only when you liberate your ‘self’ from the clutches of the MIND – from the trap of the MIND!
So you – my dear fellow and to all my dear followers and readers – I appeal – that come, come you all and let us move towards the final liberation – towards the 12th – towards the beyond – where there is nothing and yet where there is everything! The ending is the beginning…..
From being a ‘somebody’ to becoming a ‘nobody’ – is the way towards the self – divine – God experience, towards LOVE!
Love blossom only when you become a nobody – then there is no smell of Ego – no smell of possessiveness – no smell of fear of losing anybody – no fear of any LOSS!
Then there is a certain fragrance to your love – to your existence. Then whosoever comes to you is transformed into something beautiful – then the miracle starts happening and life is no more the same!
And it all begins by turning into a nobody – into nothingness – the abode of 12th house!
Sai Baba resides in the 12th. Jesus. Muhammed. Buddha. Mahavira. Guru Nanak. All and all and the list is unending – all the divine enlightened beings reside in the abode of the 12th – for the master, there is no fear – no loss – no gain – nothing – pure nothingness! And in this nothingness – the eternal bliss comes, the peace – the love that you all have heard but in reality have never experienced!
And so now you all tell me – where is the question of loss – of taking away anything from you – which is meant for you!
Always remember – whatever is YOURS – will remain with you – nobody can take it away from you. So remove the myth of LOSS or GAIN. You are neither a LOSER nor are you a GAINER – you are simply YOUR “SELF”!
And this is the state of a real YOGI – who is happy to be – who is happy being alone, happy to remain engrossed deep within!
So come, come you all – I know you all have been through many cycles of birth and rebirths and yet there is no coming to the truth – yet the miseries remain, yet the blockages, yet the suffocations remain. But these all will start fading away the moment you start turning inwards. You all have great potential – especially I say this to all my dear followers because following me is not everybody’s potential. But since you all have been following me – I have absolutely no doubt that you all have the potential to become buddhas! I see you all – as budding buddhas! The bud is there within you and it can bloom any moment – so why wait – why to waste this precious human life which comes only once in a million years!
Distractions will be many – Sex. Pleasures. Beauty. Money. Property. Power. Status. And many many more – but remember that they all are not to bring any peace to you – any wisdom to you but in turn to take away all that is precious within you – and what could be more precious than the consciousness within you! The distractions are to block your consciousness – these distractions are of the 6th house, the 8th house – the 7th house, the 2nd house, the 11th house! Marak. Badhak – all these terms are simply a representation of distractions that is some way or the other goes on killing you virtually – blocking your values, your ethics, your consciousness!
The way is up towards the 12th – the journey should begin and it should begin NOW – before it is too late – before the time goes away — before this human body is dead – “you*should become ‘alive’ – you should rise towards the higher altitudes of your consciousness!
There is a ‘Buddha’ within each one of you – and I salute the Buddha within you – and I encourage you all – to let this Buddha within you blossom – let the bud within you bloom into a beautiful flower – let you all come more and more close to your ‘self’ consciousness…..
For an evolved soul, and for those who are willing to evolve – the 12th is the house of penance, of deep meditation.
Mediate.
Jai Shri Ganesha. Jai Guru.
