You are the architect of your own life
I once visited a very powerful healer in India. She lived in a beautiful garden style villa that served as her ashram. She lived there with more than 30 people from all walks of life. Some of them had severe chronic illness, some of them were alcoholics. Some of them had run away from the problems and challenges that life placed on them. All of them had tried to leave the ashram from time to time and eventually, all returned.
I asked the healer while I was visiting why these people, some of whom were former CEO’s, military leaders, and political leaders, chose to stay with her and return so often. She spoke words to me that I will never forget. She said,
“They live within my field. If they leave, I cannot sustain them. As long as they are with me, I take their illnesses from them and leave them with happiness.”
I did not believe her words initially. I talked with a number of these individuals. I was particularly impressed by the words of the man who had left his job in the Indian Army. He had been a general but had developed some issues which required him to seek her help. He said;
“I cannot control my drinking while I am away from Ma. While I am here, I cannot think of anything other than my happiness. I don’t even need a drop. So I stay.”
The man was highly educated, intelligent, and well spoken. He was not under a trance of any type. He was very sincere. The General and the other people who lived under the auspices of Ma’s divine power taught me something during my stay.
By the power of thoughts you are building your life one day at a time.
The power of thought, as Emerson says, is a spiritual power. It is the greatest
power that man has at his disposal. The world today is in its present state simply
as a result of mankind’s collective thinking; each nation is in its present state of
either peace and prosperity, or poverty, murder and anarchy, simply as a result
of its thinking as a nation; and each individual is what he is, and his life is what
it is, and his circumstances are what they are, simply as results of his thoughts.
What a man thinks, he becomes; what a man thinks is the mainspring of all his
actions; what a man thinks attracts to him his circumstances and environment;
what a man thinks determines what type of friends and companions will gather
around him; what a man thinks decides whether he shall be happy or miserable,
successful or unsuccessful, healthy or unhealthy, prosperous or poverty-stricken,
hated or loved.
What a man thinks either builds up his character or pulls it down.
What a man thinks can overcome fate or strengthen it, can bring him into align-
ment with his glorious destiny, or make him an outcast and a wanderer in desert
places. Indeed, there is no limit to the power of thought, because it is a spiritual
power of intense potency. It is the power which distinguishes man from the brute,
it is the power by which he can mount up to God, it is the power which can make
the unsuccessful successful in the battle of life, it is the power which can make
the loftiest achievement possible, it is the power by which difficulties can be over-
come, disadvantages of birth and parentage surmounted, and the life beautified
and inspired and energized with God-given powers.
By thought man either blesses or curses himself. By it he brings into his life either
success or failure, health or disease, happiness or unhappiness, poverty or pros-
perity. It is all in his mind and the character of his thought. Whatever there is in
your life or mine, of disharmony, lack, sickness or unhappiness, is the result of
our disharmonious thought. We live in an orderly Universe, but we do not react
harmoniously to our environment, we are not in correspondence with the hidden
law and order around us. It is not necessary for the universe to be altered; what
is needed is that we ourselves should be changed. Within ourselves is the cause
of the disorder in our own individual world—for we each live in a little world of
our own creation— therefore, the disorder and trouble that afflicts us, or the lack
that restricts our life, can never be overcome, save by a change of mind, habit of
thought, and mental attitude.
Ma took this teaching to a divine level and before she left this world, she sustained the lives of hundreds. I saw her writhing in pain from time to time. She moved very little, and she often looked as though she needed to sleep. She explained that it was her duty as an Avatar to give her followers a respite from the world. She could bear it better than they could. I love her for those words, and some day, I hope that we all find the power to give ourselves respites from the world, without the need of medicine or Avatars.