Life has to go through a process of transformation. If transformation is not your goal then life will be a drift. Every experience should allow you to grow in love, and joy. You have to learn to frame an experience in such a way that there is growth. Your focus is to convert ‘samsara’ into ‘nirvana’ or bondage into salvation. For that to happen, what is important is atma smaranam or self-remembrance.

If we can remember to be constantly awake to our inner world of thoughts, interpretations, emotions, likes and dislikes, a new level of reality will open up and thus we will be free from our inner prisons.

Have no fear. There are both legitimate fears and illegitimate fears. When a tiger comes near you, there is fear, and it is a legitimate fear. The fear of the future is not legitimate.

A lady came to me and said, “I am afraid of what my future is going to be since my husband’s company has been taken over by another company.” I told her that it is not something she has to be afraid of. Look into your life… lots of wonderful things have happened. You were born in a poor family, and see how well placed you are now. So, draw your energy from the best things which have happened to you.

Finally, one who has opened up the spiritual lock, the hidden energies in oneself? This happens when there is inner purity and inner calmness. Such a person is at the highest level.

Life is a combination of ignorance and knowledge. It needs fine-tuning. Suppose your house has Italian marble but is not polished, then it will look like ordinary flooring. Similarly, you have knowledge but is not polished with humility, understanding, and love, then such knowledge will not shine forth.

Look at life with awareness. Recognition helps us to act wisely. If people think, “I know, I need not change,” such knowledge will blind a person; it will not free him.