Shri Bhairavanath puja. Garlate ashram, Lecco (Italy), 6 August 1989.

Today, we have gathered here to do puja to Bhairavanath. I think we have not understood the significance of Bhairavanath who runs up and down on the Ida Nadi. Ida Nadi is the nadi of Chandrama, is of the moon. So this is a channel for us to cool down. So the work of Bhairavanath ji is to cool us down.

For example, people have a hot temper with their ego, with their liver, whatever it is, and if a person is in a big temper, then Bhairavanath plays tricks on that person to cool him down. He organizes everything under his own control with ganas’ help, with Ganapati’s help, to cool down your temperament, to give you a balance. So, if somebody is a very hot-tempered person and he crosses all the limits of his temper, then somehow or other, Bhairavanath will organise, also with the help of Hanumana, to show that this stupidity of anger is no good.

So, for example, people who are depressed or who become left-sided, Hanumana tries to help them to come out of it, no doubt, but also Bhairavanath helps them very much more to come out of it.

Now a person who is left-sided cannot be collective. It is very difficult for a person who is very left-sided, who is all the time feeling very sad, unhappy and worried, cannot enjoy the fun of collectivity. While a hot-tempered person, a right-sided person, does not enjoy any collectivity, does not allow anybody to enjoy collectivity, no doubt, but tries to be in the collective, that it can assert. Because such a person tries to show the superiority, he’s something superior. Naturally, he cannot enjoy the collective.

On the contrary, the person who is depressed, all the time thinks: “Nobody loves me, nobody cares for me, I’m so depressed, this, that,” – all the time expecting from others something, also cannot enjoy the collective. Such a left sided person will find everything is something unhappy.

Like the other day, I went to Moscow. There was a lady with us who was a Sahaja Yogini – left-sided Sahaja Yogini. So we went to have our food and it started raining and they couldn’t get a taxi. But then a car came in and we went there. Then they said that, “You are very late so you have to sit on the other side, you have to take the seats”, which were more expensive.

So, this lady started saying, “What all problems, no taxi, it is raining and we can’t get a seat”. I said, “This is all fun; this is not something a problem”. This ‘problema’ word should be given up. This is a new word I have learned, because ‘problem’ we used to use only for geometry in our young age. [Laughter] Now this sort of a attitude, negative attitude – to find everything negative – is the way we really spoil our left side.

But then a gentleman who had invited us came and he said, “We are sitting on the other side waiting for you.” So, we went to the other side, enjoyed nice food, everything was fine. I said, “See now, you were only counting how many negative things there are, and you were not seeing the fun”. So she asked me, “What should I do?” I said, “You take Bhairava’s name. Sit with your left hand towards the photograph and right hand on the Mother Earth. And that’s how all your bhoots of negativity will go away”.

So Bhairava always has a light in his hand, always light in his hand. And he runs up and down Ida Nadi to make light for you to see that there’s nothing negative. And this negativity comes to us by many ways. One of the negativities are that: “This is mine”, like: “my child, my husband, my property”. MY. So then, you see, once you get attached in this manner, what you find, that your children also become negative.

But if you want to be positive, it is very easy and for that you should see where is your attention. Are you only seeing problema or you are seeing some fun in it? There are people who cannot make fun out of anything. If it is a sunny day they will cry, “Oh God, what a sunny day!” And if it is a day with clouds, they will say, “Oh, what a day!” Nothing can please them. But to enjoy the positivity in every negativity is the capacity of a Sahaja Yogi. The negativity doesn’t exist, it’s a ignorance. Also, it is not ignorance because ignorance also doesn’t exist. If everything is the All-pervading Power, then how can there be ignorance? But supposing, in the folds of this Power, if you hide, run away, you will say that there is negativity. Like, you hide yourself in a cave, close it properly, and say that there is no sun.

So, those people who cannot become collective are either right-sided or left-sided, but more left-sided. But left-sided people can be collective in negativity. They say, there is a very big fraternity of bhoots. You see some drunkards sitting together. They are saying, “See there’re so many problems, ecological problems”. They are drunkards, all drunk, “And there are problems of other kinds. When will this end?” So then, another one says, “Wait, wait, wait. I’ve heard that the whole world is going to collapse very soon”. Then the third one says, “Thanks God, we are going to be collapsed, finished”. Then the fourth one says, “But what will happen to our pubs?” They say, “It’s all right. If we are not existing, what does it matter?” That’s how the fraternity of the bhoots act. They cannot see fun at all, they cannot enjoy at all, and they become very – sort of think they are very meditating, they are some higher people, they are something superior – in negativity. But the end of these people is that they become lunatics, while the end of the right-sided people is they become idiotic.

Once, I went to a lunatic asylum and while going there I met a lady and she was quite all right, I mean I thought she was a quite all right woman. So, I started talking to her. And she just started talking very wisely, “See my brother-in-law is there, and I think it isn’t necessary that he should be helped, and we should not do this, that”. All kinds of things she was telling me, showing me, as if she was very nice and kind and no one loves her. And she said, “I’m very insecure” and this and that.

Suddenly, the doctor came in. And she started abusing him, shouting at him. I said, “What’s this?” So, the doctor sent for people that, “Catch hold of this woman”. He told me, “She’s the most violent lunatic and why are you talking to her?” I did have a headache but I didn’t know she was a lunatic. Maybe, in my presence her bhoots might have a little bit run away and were playing tricks. But you can see that clearly.

So this emotional attachment is too much. And to emotionally, to worry about somebody that, “You see, this is my child, this is my ‘this thing’, this is this and this is that”. And all the time wasting your precious life in these things, is not the way a Sahaja Yogi should live. If a Sahaja Yogi cannot become collective, then know that he is not a Sahaja Yogi.

So one has to know that this is the work of Bhairavanath within us. Another work, that he gives us light in darkness, is that he destroys all the bhoots within us and all kinds of bhootish ideas and funny ideas about attachments and also the depressiveness.

So today, I am very happy that we are worshipping Shri Bhairava because he is very much connected with Ganesha. As you know, Shri Ganesha is at the Mooladhara and while Bhairava moves onto the left-side and goes to the right-side [of the head]. So all kinds of conditionings, all kinds of habits, can be conquered through the help of Bhairavanath.

In Nepal, we have a very huge, big Bhairavanath’s statue, which is really a swayambu, and people are more left-sided, so they are afraid of Bhairavanath. So, if somebody has a bad habit, say, of stealing, they take him to in front of Bhairavanath and put his light there, make a flame. I mean, the police takes them. And then they ask him, “Now, say before Bhairavanath, confess it”. And they confess what wrong they have done. So he protects us, also, from doing wrong things, sly things like thieving. Whatever we think we can do secretly, can be hidden, but you cannot hide it from Bhairavanath. If you don’t change then he exposes you completely. That’s how he has exposed all the horrible false gurus.

So today, we are here to worship this great deity of Bhairavanatha who incarnated on this earth later on. Ultimately as Mahavira also. So he stands on the gate of hell and stops people from falling into hell. But if you want to go to hell, if it is your desire, is your willpower like that working that, “I should go to hell”, then he says, “All right, you can go.”

But as you know, now the hell is also full of people. So, it’s better that we should try to fight our negativity and become fun loving, enjoying others, loving others, not worrying about what others are doing to you but only thinking what good you can do to others.

So, today’s special puja for Bhairavanath, we offer, to give us a sense to laugh, to enjoy, to have fun.

May God bless you all.