One who has complete (perfect) love is a jnani and the one who doesn’t have that is not a jnani and cannot become one.

Question: Nannagaru! Bless me to have sadhana that is without forgetfulness.

Answer: The mind without surrender does not get subdued. Therefore, be it rain or earthquakes, all of these are according to God's Plan.

We don’t know our last birth and we don’t know our next birth. He gives all types of different situations for the sake of training living beings. When the end comes, all is happiness. Throughout every situation, He watches every moment to see whether we are we losing happiness or not. You are depending on outside people for your happiness. The ones who do this won't get jnana. If one wants to control the mind, it won't come through pranayama. If you have happiness just because the situation of your family is good, you won't get jnana. Likewise, if you become sorrowful when situations are not convenient, you won't get jnana.

Some people look inside. If happiness comes, they make the inquiry, ‘Why did this happiness come?’ If sorrow comes, ‘Why did this sorrow come?’ If we depend upon the situations of our family and the physical senses, it will evolve into the form of sorrow. In the same way we should stand on our own two legs and depend upon ourselves for our own happiness.

The love the husband has for the wife and she for the husband is not real. It is for their own selves first. Everything else is afterwards. Meaning, she loves her husband for her own happiness. In America, if the wife and husband do not like each other, they will get a divorce. Here, according to our culture, they won't get a divorce but mentally they will become distant from each other.

If we give help to anyone, if we think that we did it for him or for her, we will fall into the mud. It will be well if we just consider that we are helping them for our own progress. When helping others, even if people don’t outwardly think it, still inside they think that they gave help. If you think like that, you will fall into the mud - ego will come.

God is more intelligent than us. When God takes a human body, in order to uplift living beings, they call it Avatara Purusha. We are born to experience karma. God sees our every thought and even if we say with the mouth that we have attained surrender, he won’t believe it.

The mind becomes external due to close friendships and enmities. There is nothing outside - everything that exists is inside. Though there is nothing outside, it seems like there is because of our vasanas (innate tendencies coming from past births) and our senses. After we get a thought, we remember about our children and our grandchildren. Unless that thought stops, jnana won't come. After a thought comes, the form is seen. If one doesn’t observe what is happening inside, though ten million births are taken, jnana won't come.

There is nothing great in doing something one likes, but it is great to be happy doing something one doesn’t like. We eat the vegetable cooked in our house but we won't eat the vegetable cooked in the house next door. Similarly, the thoughts that come into our mind and the work we do with our hands will determine our destinies.

If we ask anything from Buddha; if it is necessary he will tell, or else he will keep silent. When Buddha came to his house for bhiksha, he told his wife and child, ‘I don’t have gold, silver, or land. If you want me to teach about jnana, I will teach.’ Buddha liked his wife a lot and when he left his house and went to the forest, he didn’t go because he was angry with her; he went to attain salvation for himself. When he left, he paid obeisance to her feet, to her goodness and left. It is difficult to sell wood in a place where flowers were sold.* However, Buddha was able to do like that in that he was able to return to his old house for bhiksha.

People cannot remain in their village as they can at Arunachala. The reason for this is due to body attachment and the thought of, ‘What will this person think, what will that person think?’ Though we praise or blame Buddha, those disturbances will not go as far as the mind, just as the sky won't be affected whether one praises or blames it! There is no actual connection between the sky and us – it remains far from us. In the same way Buddha is also far from praise and blame. All worldly loves are dependent upon ego therefore they aren’t real.

Buddha was born under a tree, he gained jnana under a tree, he taught under a tree and he left his body under a tree. For that reason, he liked trees very much. Buddha ate only once in a day. He once said, that the one who eats once (a day) is a yogi, the one who eats twice is a bhogi, and the one who eats three times is a rogi.

Anand was Buddha’s younger stepbrother. One time he told Buddha, ‘Though I have done so much sadhana in your presence, the thought that you are my elder brother does not leave me.’

Then Buddha said, ‘You won't attain jnana unless that thought goes.’ Anand asked Buddha, ‘If you die where should the cremation be done?

Buddha quickly said, ‘Anand, this is a place (village) isn't it? There will be a cremation ground here, isn't it? If anyone dies in this village, they will burn the body there, won't they! Let the cremation be done there. It isn’t even necessary to remember the spot where Buddha died.’

Nevertheless, after Buddha died, twelve kings came and apportioned Buddha’s ash into twelve parts. They then each took one part to their kingdoms and built twelve pillars to house the ashes in.

When Buddha came to his house for bhiksha, his father Suddhodhana felt bad.

Then Buddha told his father, ‘You feel bad because I am asking for alms and I feel bad because your ignorance hasn’t left.’

He did not have any desire to be king or even have the thought of who would rule the kingdom after him. If there are no desires, there will not be sorrow. If one searches inside for the reason of that sorrow, it goes. But because we don’t do that, we just go about hanging onto trees and snake hills.

It is not enough just to be good. There should also be intelligence.

* It is difficult for a big, businessman who sold flowers in one place to thereafter sell wood in the same place. Similarly, the Buddha had to return to the place as a beggar in which he used to be King.