Question: A have a question about the negative forces. I often hear negative voices and while meditating they get stronger. They hinder me.

Guru: Because they do not like the disciplines that you are going to set in motion. And they will tempt you to get away easily from the disciplined, orderly life because a lot of people have the misconception to believe that you can gain great spiritual height without discipline. Who are those forces? Who are those voices within you talking? They are all a part of the sense objects that exist within you, that you have tended to for a long time. What we have to do is to begin to say ‘No’. Learn to smile and say ‘No’. And if you can say ‘No’ to yourself with a smile on your cheek, then you will understand that a force within you will realise you have begun a spiritual journey in real terms.

I will share with you something that happened to me. My father was very authoritarian. When I was six years old I went to the toilet, closed the door, took a mirror and exercised to say ‘No’. So I sat there, looking at the mirror and practised ‘No’ in any form and loudness. My parents wanted to go to the toilet, but I wouldn’t let them in! Instead, they heard a permanent ‘No, no, no’ … And I didn’t stop until I could say ‘No’ with a nice smile on my face. Of course, my parents were worried and angry.

After quite some time I came out of the toilet. My father and mother were going about their business. I was prepared now to say ‘No’. And the first thing my father said was ‘Have you been naughty?’ No was very easy. ‘Have you eaten your food?’ I said ‘No I am not going to eat any food’. And my father was quite mad with me. So you have the choice within you to learn to say ‘No’ to these forces inside you and master them. For you must not be a prisoner of your sense objects.

I started so young to train myself to say ‘No’. Often I have to say ‘No’ to people who come to Skanda Vale, who want to behave in an awkward way. But my way of saying ‘No’ is with a lot of love. And sometimes I even go and stroke the person’s cheek and say ‘Sorry’. When the senses are making demands on you, you say to the senses ‘Sorry, I can’t agree with you’. I promise you they will start blushing!

I know how difficult it is. I promise you because as soon as a human being starts on the spiritual journey, and begins to discipline himself, a lot of obstructions are placed on the path of that human being. It is by the senses demanding that you reduce your devotion and dedication.

Can you imagine me inside you? How mischievous I will be in your senses? If I want to stop you from meditating? It will never be anything like the comparison you are making inside you at the moment. I will be totally and absolutely mischievous. That is how you must think. Every time you have got those voices inside you misleading you, remember it is me. So you have a battle with me inside you. Because that is how you are going to evolve.

Imagine if everything was nice and rosy? You will never make an effort. Every person who evolves spiritually, who wants to evolve spiritually, has to do battle with the lower nature.

There was a very great saint, he had meditated and done great spiritual austerities for a long time. And he went to the Lord and said ‘My Lord, I have mastered all my senses. I am so sure of myself now; please grant me some boons so that I can be with you’. And he went on doing this, constantly badgering the Lord. So the Lord said to him ‘Go back. You go and carry on your spiritual sadhana; I will keep an eye on you.’

So he was so convinced and happy that the Lord was ultimately going to watch him; his great spiritual sadhana. So there he was under the tree, in immense bliss, expecting the Lord to come. But what happened to him was a bee came. It was going around his ear ‘zzzzz…’ and all the time trying to enter his nose. And he was getting more angry every minute until he was literally hot with rage. He lifted his hand and would give a swipe at this bee. And when he did that, the bee stood in front of him – as the Lord – and said ‘I thought you had controlled your anger?!’

I am only giving you an example. That, when the person thinks even that he has been liberated, that is a warning for himself not to delude himself. Because the senses will make demands.

That is why we put people through the third degree! Giving them more and more agitation until the ugliness of the human being surfaces. That is why all Gurus are born with a wooden spoon; stirring things up, not allowing it to stay in the same way – to get all the poison which is inside the human being out. Not corked.

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