Today Gurudeva answers at length a question from a person who is not interested in what he is doing and having various problems in his life. Gurudeva answers a second question about the meaning of seeing Gods or holy people in dreams.

Unedited Transcript:

Today at Kauai Aadheenam. May 12, 1999.

Greetings, everyone in cyberspace! Today, I am on my way to the County Council of Kauai. To open their meeting with a beautiful blessing, we are taking our priest TYAGAnatha with us, in his dress of a traditional garb of a turban and dhoti and vibhuti to give a Sanskrit chant to empower the County leaders to do what they have to do to keep this Garden Island nice and safe for us to live on.

We have a question here, from Neeraj, a reader of TAKA. We are very happy that you have communicated with us. Neeraj says, he knows what he has to do and what is expected of him, has goals and objectives in his mind but has difficulty in motivating himself to achieve these goals. He sleeps a lot, eats the wrong food, builds up a lot of anger on the inside. He says, "I know my duties but I cannot carry them out properly. How can I overcome this?"

Well, Neeraj, speaking to you directly and to many others who are tuning in to cyberspace from, at least I would say, ten countries, perhaps your goals and objectives are not your own. Quite often, Asian young people get forced into a position and are given choices like "You can be a computer engineer or a computer engineer or a computer engineer. Those are your three choices." Or, "a doctor or a doctor or a doctor."

Is that life on planet Earth? No! Perhaps, you were born to be a great artist. Perhaps, you were born to sing and inspire and uplift people. Perhaps, you were born to express yourself the way you want to express yourself and earn your living in the way you want to earn your living. The healthiest, most productive and easiest, according to the Sanatana Dharma tradition, is to follow the profession of your father. The girl follows the profession of her mother. Hopefully, it is the housewife, living at home and raising up the next generation in dharma, so that they won't make mistakes and be a burden on society, on the community and the world at large, by creating more unwanted karmas in this life because of lack of parental control and supervision.

I know many young people are beaten by their parents to attain high grades and suddenly they commit suicide. They cannot stand the pressure.

Why aren't you interested in what you are doing? Because, obviously, you shouldn't be doing it. When we are enthused and driven by our soul to accomplish what we want to accomplish, we are up in the morning early, we are working late, we are eating the right foods, we have love for everyone. We have no fight going on, on the inside of us.

Neeraj, I hope this helps and all of you out there being forced into doing something that is not your nature to do, think about it. Don't allow yourself to be forced into a marriage. Don't allow yourself to be forced into an occupation simply because of some family values. It is unfair, unwise, unhealthy and you won't be happy for the rest of your life. I know many, many people who can testify to this gnawing unhappiness and sadness in doing something their parents forced them into doing it, be it a profession, whatever it may be. Their own soul(, they are driven) will drive them to express itself and earn its living in its own way.

We have a long question here from Sadhunathan Nadesan. Please give me a telephone call at the Himalayan Complex to talk about today.

When we have dreams of Gods and devas and holy people, it is because our soul is trying to guide us into the right path and dharma. Often, we have fallen off the path and dharma, into negative feelings and emotions. The soul itself is coming forward to help pull us back to that path.

This is an answer to another question that came in on email. Thank you, everyone, for your beautiful questions. If I am giving the right answers, please write and tell me that I gave the right answer and it was very helpful to you.

I am not suggesting that you disrespect your parents but I am suggesting that you respect yourself.

We'll be back again tomorrow in our cyberspace ashram, looking out through your computer screen, having your darshan as you are looking at my darshan as we communicate through cyberspace.

And, now the beautiful languages - French, Tamil and Malay.

Aum Namah Sivaya!