Today Gurudeva talks about the difference between karma and fate. He explains how bad karma can be mitigated. He explains the principal of sadhana, doing the same practice every day at the same time, striving for right thought, right action, getting control of the intellectual and instinctive mind.

Unedited Transcript:

Today at Kauai Aadheenam. It is February 13th. Happy Mahasivaratri to each and everyone! We are so happy today. It is a fast day here. That doesn't mean the day is going to go by fast, it is going to go by very slowly because everybody will be up until after midnight. It means that we are not going to eat very much.

We have another group of Japanese devotees from Tokyo that just flew in. About fifty coming today to have an inspiring talk from me, answering all their many, many questions. This is the third group that has been here from Tokyo in the last three weeks. We'll be very happy to see them.

We were talking yesterday about karma. There is a big confusion about fate and karma. Karma is not fate and fate is not karma. Fate is pre-destined action caused by something else. You have no control of it. It actually comes from the Abrahamic religions, not from Sanatana Dharma. Karma you do have control of. You actually do because dharma is the controlling element of karma. Right action, right speech, right thought controls karma. Even the worst kinds of karma that you have created in the past and are now facing in the future can be mitigated. That means, not actually eliminated, but eliminated enough so that they are gentle karmas rather than rough karmas as they could have been if they were not mitigated through prayaschitta, which is penance and through sadhana, which is performing a religious practice at the same time everyday.

Right action, that means doing kindly things, not mean things. Right speech, that means no back-biting. Right thought, no sexual fantasies, no mental arguments, no plans to hurt somebody behind their back or to their face. Because, what you think you might like to do to somebody else, you are doing that to yourself through somebody else at some future time. That is the way it works, and that is the way it works. Most importantly, daily sadhana harnesses the instinctive-intellectual mind and opens the door to superconsciousness. The key of proper sadhana is that, and you only have to remember one thing; one thing only. That it is performed at the same time. The exact time. No fudging. No telling yourself, "I can't do my sadhana, it is six o'clock. I have to do it at seven." It doesn't work that way. The same time every day creates a habit pattern within the sub-conscious mind that is indelibly impressed there and that offers great control of the instinctive mind. Great control of the intellectual mind. Your instinctive mind and your intellectual mind are your tools of the soul to function on planet Earth and as you sleep at night on the astral plane.

If all of you in cyberspace who have been tuning in, in over 59 countries, if you are performing sadhana, and if you are performing sadhana now and again, here and there, at different times during the day, get it regulated so that it is a daily practice at the same time every day. Preferably in the early morning. I mean, you have nothing to do in the early morning. Get out of bed, take a bath, perform your sadhana. You've got the alarm clock to tell you to get out of bed. You've got your willpower to get out of that bed and take a bath and perform the sadhana. No excuses in the morning. Be sure that it is the same time every morning without fail. Now, if you don't want to do sadhana on Saturday and Sunday and sleep in, that is alright. But Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, same time every day. We'll talk more about this in our Cyberspace Ashram communications tomorrow.

Aum Namah Sivaya.