Another important factor for your consideration is the management of time. Time has a good side and a bad side. The good side of time is when something difficult gets accomplished easily and effortlessly. Time in this case acts as the bringer of luck. When a surprise gift of luck is offered, take it. It is usually a result of Divine Providence.

In its bad aspect, time is like a thief who steals life. When one becomes lethargic, one experiences a bad aspect of time. When lethargy is there, one feels unable to work or be productive. You suddenly realize that a long span of time has passed, even ten or twenty years, and you are about to retire.

Another bad aspect of time comes in the form of habitual negative thinking. You experience this as a constant internal struggle, a constant battle with negative thoughts. This aspect is not as bad as lethargy because thought usually leads to action. The problem is that negative thought leads to actions that are limited or unrewarding. So, constantly check your time management. Time and thought are both synonymous. When you become aware of your thoughts, you also become aware of time.

Always ask the question,"Who thinks these thoughts? Why should I host these thoughts?" You need to keep a calendar.

It is very important to see how you spend your time. If you have a calendar, you will be able to clearly see how your time is spent. It is good to keep track not just of the days, but also the hours. You can then become aware of when you have wasted a large block of time. Perhaps you watch television or talked on the telephone or played a game.

So, it is important to regulate your awareness of time through the calendar.

Universal Thinking

A technique to bring your consciousness to unlimited thinking is to move from individual consciousness to universal consciousness. Why does this work? Let me give you an example.

One day around the deadline to file income tax returns, I was watching TV. A reporter asked the President if he filed his return. The President told the reporter that he did not know. How did he not know? Because he gave someone else that job. His time was more precious.

By contrast, most of you just spend time taking care of your own personal needs. In the case of the President, he moved from personal consciousness to universal consciousness. The President plays an important role nationally and internationally. He concentrates on the large concerns and must leave some of his personal business to others.

It is very important to think beyond yourself. When you begin to have that type of thought, your consciousness expands to make your thinking universal.

Once while riding in a car, a devotee of mine asked, "Dattatreya Siva Baba, what is the craziest thing you have done in your life?" I told her that the craziest thing I that I have done is the way that I have spent my last moment. I know the stupidity of it. I am conscious of every moment and regret spending the moment the way I did. That is crazy.

The Source of Pain

The bulk of humanity is in pain. When will we find a permanent solution to the pain? This pain is related to matter. Matter is the source of pain. The body is the material source through which we experience pain. The body is also a source of pleasure. The pleasures that arise from the body are short-lived. The pain is long-lived.

We cannot deal with the pain successfully until we have transformed the nature of matter. Let me illustrate this idea. I said that the body is the source of both pleasure and pain. We are willing to take the pleasures that come out of the body, but we do not want the pain.

How can we deal with pain? Not certainly through painkillers which provide only temporary relief. We have to find a permanent solution. We won't be able to end the pain until we have dealt with matter itself. We must learn matter's nature, and then we must raise that nature to a higher dimension. So, any loss of pain will coincide with the evolution of matter.

When matter sheds its negative nature, it sheds the properties that cause decay which is the source of pain. So, the body will no longer be a source of pain when we reach a dimension where the body's decay is stopped.

The Purpose of the Human Race

How can we evolve the body to a level of non-decay? We can do this by turning the body into finer elements. If we turn the body into light, it transcends the boundaries of matter and enters into an unlimited dimension.

The body's evolution should not stop with light but should continue to evolve into the dimensions of air and then ultimately ether or "akash," in Sanskrit. Akash is a very fine vibration. Once we vibrate at the level of the akash, we reach a tremendous speed and have the freedom of unbound nature. And that is the purpose of the human race.

Time

Time affects matter more than it affects spirit. Spirit is timeless and unaffected by the ravages of time. Like all matter, the body is a victim to time. Time causes the involuntary decay in aging of the body without the body's permission. Time is tied to karmic law.

Ease

It is effortless to get anything done when one is at ease. You experience a situation more easily and openly when you are not tense. There is a natural tendency to complication. The mind has an innate need to introduce complication because the mind expects time to pass for actions to be completed. The mind will think, 'It is impossible for anything to happen easily.' The mind fights ease because when one is at ease, the mind disappears. The mind experiences the concept of ease as something that threatens its survival. So the mind fights.

Ego

I have seen many spiritual people who are very, very poor. What I have found in common in all of them is that they have a very strong ego. It is as if the only thing they have is their ego. These people may not have next month's rent or have money for their current bills, but they have an ego, which puzzles me.

Their ego is not consistent. Whenever they are threatened by situations that bring them to reality, they stoop down and give up their ego and self-esteem to get things down. If they have to pay the rent, they will beg, borrow or steal. Once the rent has been paid, their ego will shoot up to the moon. This is what they have to perceive. Once they can see what they are doing, it is possible for them to turn their life around.

Manifestation and Dreaming

Manifestation is just dreaming. There is a very close relationship between getting rich in a dream and getting rich in reality. Both are dreams. You think that only the dream at night is unreal. But the reality you experience in the waking state is also a dream. When you realize that, you are enlightened.

Now, what you might want to consider is how to dream in the waking state reality. How, say, you can dream a house or a relationship or a job or whatever you want into your reality. Carlos Castaneda talks about his master who taught him the art of dreaming. His master tells him, "Just start dreaming and dreaming and dreaming to understand a great deal of the secret of the relationship between matter and spirit." All that you need to do is to live in this dream state, even while you are awake.

How? Just remember the dream. You make your cells remember that you are living the dream. Or say you are sitting at a dirty table eating breakfast. You may as well want a nicer table. And then you see a servant bringing your breakfast. You look up and around and you see a magnificent French crystal chandelier on the ceiling and paintings of famous contemporary artists all over the walls. While you eat, you imagine yourself looking out the window and you see one of your gardeners working on the grounds. So your dream of a mansion begins to take on form. And you begin to live your dream.

Learn to substitute the positive dream for the negative dream. This is very important.