Man is born with a sankalpa. Everybody has a sankalpa in him. I am not talking about desires – you want to have children; you want to have them educated and get them married; you want to have a lot of money – this is desire, your wish and what you want. Man is born with a sankalpa but does not really know it. In order to know what your sankalpa is you have to wait patiently and during that time you should try and discover your own sankalpa, the one you really have. It takes time but once you have discovered your sankalpa, it works wonders in life. It is a very fulfilling experience.
Everybody is on the scale of evolution. At a particular point of evolution everybody has a sankalpa which they want to attain in life. If one has a birth analysis or if one is brought to the point of hypnotism and is made to speak again and again, then one can compel the person to speak his sankalpa. Sometimes it happens. Many years ago there was a sannyasin here. She was about twenty-five and she was doing very well. However, one day many years ago when I was in another ashram, I gave her a session in hypnotism and she said, “I want to go back and marry.” In real life she was entirely different, she was very disciplined. When she came out of the session she did not know what she had said. I made her grow her hair and purchase a sari and all the necessary things. One day I called her and said, “I am going to give you a present.” I gave her the present, informed her parents and sent her back. That was her sankalpa.
The construction of the human mind is such that the originality of the mind cannot be realized. This is because the mind is extremely brainwashed and indoctrinated by the society in which you live, by the culture you follow, by the religion you believe in or by the values which you endear.
We have created our own pigeon holes from our local life and therefore we are not able to reveal our innate desire or our innate, inherent sankalpa. We do not know it. Once you are quiet, the mind becomes quiet and disturbances are removed. Then you can have a glimpse.
4 December 1985, Munger