Today Gurudeva answers a question about what happens to pets after they die, then goes on to explain more about will power, how we need it to progress on the spiritual path. He talks about anger and how one moment of anger can destroy a month's worth of spiritual effort. Gurudeva invites devotees worldwide to arrange for his daily talk to be played on local radio stations.

Unedited Transcript:

Today at Kauai Aadheenam. 7th of April.

We have a question here from Lee Austin. Very happy that you sent in this very nice question. "Can an animal that has died, like a dog or a cat, visit you on the astral plane before reincarnation?"

Well ... yes, of course! The law of reincarnation applies to animals, birds and fish, people and everything. So if you have a favorite dog and that dog passes on, that dog is a friend of yours in the inner worlds, protecting you, loving you even better than in the physical world. It could be wherever you are all the time till the process of reincarnation, which is reentering the flesh, brings him back to physical birth. Perhaps the same dog, you might get as a little puppy from the pet store.

We have been talking a lot about willpower and the value of it. Very determined people often have a selfish willpower. They are thinking only of themselves. That is not spiritual. If you want to be spiritual, be very determined for the benefit of others. That is spiritual, forgetting about the little self and trying to find the soul power within. When we do that, we think of others. We feel for others, we do what we can to help others.

Children are nicer to their mothers and fathers and show appreciation for the loving care that their mothers and fathers give. Wives who have soul power are kinder to their children and their husbands and the relatives and so are the husbands. Soul power is the kind of willpower that we want to have to help us on the spiritual path. What is the spiritual path? That is the path up the hill. What is the hill? The hill is the spine and there are various resting places along the spine, which are chakras or wheels or states of consciousness. As the kundalini goes up the spine, slowly and imperceptibly, the mind opens up from caring about our personal selves to caring about others. From thinking that we are a physical body, to thinking that we are and experiencing that we are a soul body living in a physical body. That is the path up the spine.

Now, there are many on the path that go up the spine and down the spine, up the spine and down the spine. That is unacceptable behavior because one moment of anger can destroy one month of spiritual striving. Why? Why could that happen? One moment of anger destroy one month of spiritual striving? Spiritual striving would be like performing sadhana and meditation for an hour each day for the month, over 30 hours. One moment of anger, maybe 30 seconds, could just destroy the benefit of those 30 hours because you are developing prana, energy, the spiritual energy during the time you are doing the spiritual practices and prayers. When we become angry, it is a temporary insanity, I would say, because we don't know what we are doing. It is not even reasonable. We are expending all that energy, it just all goes away off into the air. If you walked into a room and somebody was sitting there, looking rather calm but they had exploded in anger a few minutes before, you could feel that energy in the room. It would still be there. That would be the energy of their spiritual life for the past 30 days. Think about that.

There are many ways to manage anger. One big, wonderful way is love, because you cannot get angry at someone you love. Not possible. Be perturbed maybe, but not angry. No explosion can happen. Therefore, like we said yesterday and the day before: With love in the will, the spirit is free. Love in the will.

We have here with us, Yogi Yuganatha who is going to give a free-flowing translation in the beautiful Malay language.

{Yogi Yuganatha speaks in Malay.}

Gurudeva: Thank you, Yogi Yuganatha. We are happy that you are speaking to our Malay devotees through cyberspace in this beautiful, beautiful language.

We would like to mention that it has been brought up that these programs can be downloaded and put on local radio stations. You have our permission to do so and if you do this, please let us know how it is working out. Please let us know how the sound comes forth on the local radio station. I know in Canada, the Tamil broadcast wants to download or get tapes from us, which we will be very happy to provide. But it will be much easier for us if you just download 'Today at Kauai Aadheenam.' Put it on the radio program. Especially the multi-language editions will be very, very beneficial, especially for the younger generation. We want to encourage each and every one of you to write in questions. If it is personal and you don't want your name mentioned, then I'll just give a general answer. We can talk on many subjects, not only spiritual subjects but all kinds of human issues. With fifty years of experience, there is a lot to tell you.

I want to thank Yogi Yuganatha. Thank you very much.

Yogi: You are welcome, Gurudeva!

Gurudeva: I learnt only one word in Malay and that is, awaas. Caution. Be careful. Take care of yourself.