Faith Is Good Enough

For god’s sake, don’t try to surrender. I think this word surrender has been misused so many times that it is scary. So I would say keep that word away somewhere; put it in the lake if you want. Just be natural, simple and don’t try to surrender. If you have the confidence that there is a higher power that is helping you are looking over you that is good enough.
Whatever you cannot handle something, you say, ‘I give up’, and when you give up, you’ve surrendered. You can do that with frustration or with total relaxation.

They are not in conflict. Having a ‘yes mind’ does not mean blindly saying yes to everything. It means thinking positively with wisdom.
A ‘yes mind’ always goes with wisdom, not foolishness.
If someone says that the lake is very warm, you can jump into it, you can’t say, ‘Yes’. You should say, ‘I think your perception is different, you must thinking about summer. Right now it’s very cold’.
So a ‘yes mind’ is not simply nodding for everything someone says, but always seeing through wisdom.

Soul is in everything, right from an ant to bacteria; it is there everywhere. But a mature soul enters into your system at a particular stage, either during conception or in the fourth or fifth month, or even at the time of birth. These are the three possibilities, and you don’t know when it happens. So it’s better to just be.

This like going to a pharmacy and asking, ‘What is the best medicine you can give me?’
There is not just one thing, whatever you need, you can get everything here. Why should I limit myself to one advice for everybody? If someone is leaning to left I would say, move to right, and if someone is leaning to right, I would say move to left. Be in the centre!

I handle everything in the right manner. I suppose I don’t leave anything, so there is nothing left behind. So there’s nothing left and I suppose I’m right.

Animals do have a mind, they do have the feelings.
There was an article on how a leopard helped a baby monkey survive, and how a dog was helped by a dolphin. These are such many amazing things.
Usually we use the phrase ‘fighting like dogs and cats’, but in our ashram a kitten is being nursed by a dog. The kitten sits happily on the dog’s back and dog cuddles the kitten. They are such good friends.
Just a month ago, Bhanu (Gurudev’s sister) was telling me that she saw the peacock at our ashram escorting a snake. Usually peacock and snakes are staunch enemies, they kill each other, but because there were rabbits in the same place and the snake can kill the rabbits, the peacock escorted the snake out and saved the rabbits from being attacked by the snake.

So animals do have minds. If you see elephants, they are very intelligent. Our ashram elephant, if I give her rice, she will not take it in her trunk because she knows it will become messy. But if I give her a banana she will take it in her trunk. When I give her rice she will pull my hand and put it in her mouth.
The mahouts says that when she comes to my kutir (room) she runs, but when it’s time to go back, she’s very reluctant to go and doesn’t want to go. So she’ll do all sorts of pranks.
The mahout says, ‘She listens to me on the way to your kutir Gurudev, but she doesn’t listen to me on the way back’.
Animals are very intelligent. They do have a mind, but mostly they align themselves with nature. They don’t do anything against nature, they don’t overeat, and they don’t oversleep or not sleep. They don’t indulge in any excessive activity like human beings, like excess pleasure. They are better off because they are programmed to be aligned with nature.