Ganga Darshan will always remain a place of hardness and discipline. A hospital is not a place where healthy people stay. A health centre is not a place where healthy people go. Although the name is health centre, it is filled with sick people, and yoga centres are filled with bhoga people.
This bhoga, this desire for enjoyment, distracts and diverts the mind and does not allow it to become focused. Just as when living in a hospital, surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of sick people you are focussing only on your health improvement, in the ashram the approach and understanding has to be similar.
Everybody has problems and is sick mentally, emotionally, psychically, spiritually, physically; we are all weak and sick and have to look after our health. When the doctor says, “This is what has to be done,” then do it. In a hospital the way to improve is by following the yogic instructions of the doctor. In the ashram you will improve by following the yogic instructions.
Therefore, the systems in this ashram are not going to change; perceptions, responses and awareness will need to change. You need to remove the masks that you put on every day. You need to connect with positivity in life for it is the destiny of every human being.
Connecting to positivity is not becoming part of a group. If connecting to positivity can improve your life, then why not do it? These are the questions you should ask yourself every night when you go to sleep:
Where did I lose my positive connection today?
Why did I lose it?
Then the next day make the effort not to lose that connection. Every night when you go to sleep, think of one good thing that you can try to do the following day to maintain the connection with the positive. In this way, you will gradually be able to deal with the mental responses and distractions which do not allow you to connect with yourself.
Secondly, learn to open the mind, learn to keep the eyes open. With the mind and eyes open there are many opportunities in this life that you can avail yourself of. Otherwise you can be doing the same thing for many years; yet if your mind and eyes are not open, you will always need to be guided.
If you shut your eyes and mind, there is no learning no matter who you are and what you claim to be. If you can keep your eyes and mind open, learning is fast.
24 January 2016, Ganga Darshan, Munger