BABA: “People have created a picture of God in the frame of their minds and imprisoned Him in it. They then form fixed ideas of how, what and where God is, what He has to do, and how He has to behave and act, etc., and give the name ‘religion’ to this picture and regarded it as being equal to God. I don’t mean to say that it is not a good thing to belong to a religion, as all religions serve as signposts on the way to reach God, so consequently, they must be seen as having value. However, no religion should be considered as better or less than another. Every religion is of the same value and points basically to the essential meaning of human life, which is;
Love and Humanity
Thus every religion could be called a religion of love and humanity. I also teach you to be benign, loving and humane to one another. Forget your ego. Don’t put it in the foreground, but use it instead for the service of God and His fellow creatures. If you serve your fellow man in a selfless way, you serve God at the same time, for God resides in every single one of you. Nothing exists except God!
God alone is important.
Everything else is unimportant.
If you repeat this sentence as a holy Mantra again and again, your negative tendencies will vanish and you will become humane and eventually, divine.
First, you have to develop humanity,
Divinity then follows by itself.
Get rid of all your animal-like attachments and become humane. Animals also sleep, have sexual intercourse and enjoy themselves in different ways – there is nothing special about this. The human mind consists of concepts, ideas and imaginations, of presumed and adopted thoughts and ideas, which it attaches to its idea and concept of God. God, however, cannot be devised nor can He be grasped. God is beyond everything, and at the same time, is IN everything. God is in the religions, and simultaneously, He is outside of, and IS the religion.
Why do you identify yourselves with a religion?
Just be you.
Simply be you.
When you were born, you didn’t belong to anyone or to any religion. People around you gradually began to tell you what your name was, who you were, who you belonged to and what your religion or caste was. Everything was put onto you like a costume. In reality though, you belong to yourself – simply and solely. You are only you. So just BE you and play your role on the stage of this world. No matter what this role may look like, don’t identify yourself with it. It has been created by your good and bad actions (karma) from previous lives, so play your role with the attitude:
Everything comes from God,
And everything returns to God
Be sure, the curtain goes down after your performance. If you have played your role in the certainly that God alone is the actor, without attachment or craving for the fruits and results, then you will become free from everything. There is no need then for any further performance. Ask yourself:
Who am I in reality?
Where did I come from and where am I going?
What was previous to this life, and, what comes after it?
If you question this intensely and seriously enough, then you will reach your source. You will reach that which is called God and you will realize that God is limitless. When grace happens, you will experience yourself as the One – as God.
As long as you stick to your ideas of subjects and objects, and view the world as being of appearances only (including the ideas about God, which simply are not true) then truth will remain hidden from you, and, GOD IS TRUTH. This world, which you seem to love so dearly, is merely a manifestation of your own mind. Constantly you create your states and conditions by your imaginations, thoughts and emotions – now and in the future. Why do you run behind all these external ephemeral things? They only feign instant happiness for you. You will feel unhappy and dissatisfied again at the very next moment. Again and again you run behind this short-lived feeling of happiness. You must stop that once and for all.
Turn to the true and eternal happiness, that which is called divine bliss!
You arrived naked and empty handed into this world, and naked and empty handed you will also leave it one day. Your house, property and relations all stay behind. Often those, whom you loved so much, do not even accompany you to the cremation ground. The only one then, who can help you and stay by your side, is God. However, if you have ignored Him your whole life, you will not be in a position to think of Him at the time of death. If your mind has been filled all your life with perishable trifles – all the things which you estimated as being very important and precious, including your relations and acquaintances, these will leave you at this time. A person who has lived an egotistic and selfish life, without doing anything for others or for God, has been dead already whilst living. He has been a burden on this earth, which has nourished him, and his life has been wasted. Even a mushroom is more valuable than such a person as at least it can be used to make soup and serve as food.
The only goods you can take with you are the spiritual goods.
Spiritual goods are all those things, which you have selflessly done for others. For instance, the support you have given to the needy, and the good deeds you have done for, and in the name of, God are all spiritual goods. These will go with you into the spiritual world. Actually, they will be waiting there for you, similar to a deposit in the ‘cosmic bank’. This good ‘karmic capital’ will serve you for the best conditions in any future life times. It will either lead you to liberation from all the worldly (i.e. karmic burdens) and into the Divine Oneness, or it will provide you with a blessed life next time, during which you can continue to increase your cosmic account with auspicious deposits until God finally grants you the grace of liberation. Egotistic and selfish actions on the other hand, will, with 100% certainty, bring you an endless chain of life times full of struggles and suffering. They will see to it that you remain imprisoned in the worldly illusion. Thus I advise you:
Be happy!
Make others happy!
And reach God happily!
I want to say with ‘be happy’; be satisfied with what you have, be grateful to God for it and don’t be greedy. As it is already written in the Bible, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter heaven”. Enjoy the good things God gives you and be grateful. Accept everything with the certainty that God gives all this. Everything comes from God and goes back to God. Accept whatever happens to you – the pleasant as well as the inconvenient – without grumbling, and with gratitude. Don’t refuse anything God gives you to do and don’t crave for the fruit of your action. Leave all the results to Him. Remember the words of Jesus two thousand years ago, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, and, “Whatever you pray for yourself, pray also for your brother”. That means that you ask God to grant the same good things to others, which you desire and ask for, for yourself. Instead of being envious and jealous of the other person, be happy for him and for all the good things he has received. If you notice somebody suffering, you can, within your capacity, try to alleviate his grief. If you are not in a position to do so, then pray for him.
My religion is simply and solely humanity.
I bless you with the words, ‘Be happy’. Go is bliss and hence reach God happily, and additionally, bring others along the way to God. Everyone in the whole universe wants peace and happiness for himself. Be contented and immediately you are in peace. Happiness comes from contentedness, and contentedness is the absence of desires and ideas of how things should be. As soon as you can accept every situation in life without longing for a change, you are in peace and feel happy. If you have love for God it will be very easy and effortless for you, as you know that everything comes from God and eventually returns to God. So, out of love for God, accept everything as a present from God and feel grateful.
Everything happening to you is for your best
And happens out of pure love.
God loves you more than a thousand mothers and always wants the very best for you. At the same time, God sees your needs and fulfils them if it appears appropriate. When your desires do not get fulfilled, you can be certain that they would not have been in your best interests. In this case, God will not grant you the fulfillment of these wishes. If, for instance, you long for a fast Porsche car with which you certainly would meet with a severe accident, then God will avoid the fulfillment of this desire. God is always concerned with protecting His devotees”.