The True Meaning of Yoga | Thus Spake Babaji - online Q&A, No.157

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The True Meaning of Yoga | Thus Spake Babaji - online Q&A, No.157
Recorded on 4th January 2024 with Malaysian participants

0:00 Introduction from Babaji
0:53 Yoga is explained as the union with origin or self.  Which origin or self is Babaji referring to?
10:55 What should we do if after many years of meditation, the mind is not going inwards and more conscious of the real Self?
27:22 What is the real Self and how do we recognise it?
38:00 How has the Self forgotten itself?

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Transcript

The true meaning of yoga pt.2 – TSB 157

Questioner: 

Happy New Year Babaji. 

Introduction from Babaji

Babaji:

Happy New Year to all of you. May you all be blessed by Swamiji Maharaj to be the most fortunate for spiritual wealth, peace in the world, prosperity in the world and every lucky, choicest blessings from Swamiji. And thanks for holding this session. Helping me to convey my messages, experience, what Swamiji taught me, in these answers. 

Yoga is explained as the union with origin or self. Which origin or self is Babaji referring to?

Questioner: 

Thank you Babaji. I will just share the screen. Babaji, today we will be talking on the topic of the true meaning of yoga. ‘Yoga’ means union with the origin. Babaji has also clarified that we as human beings go through many life cycles. Effectively we re-incarnate and live different lives in different forms. Which means we have no recollection of our past lives. Therefore, when Babaji says yoga is essentially a union with the origin or Self, which origin or Self is Babaji referring to?

Babaji:

 When I refer to yourself or ‘we’ - not the physical body, which is born and which will die. It’s much beyond this, it is the consciousness of existence. Just now it is in the form of mind. Though you have never recognized or thought or understood or tried to see what the mind itself is. Generally, everybody is aware of what is going on in the mind. Like in the form of thoughts and visions, all these things are there. Then what is this mind itself in which thoughts and visions appear? Nothing appears to be there, yet it is there, in that only everything is happening. So much is happening. We call it mind, but we don't know where it is, what is its form. Like nobody has seen it in naked eyes. But now if you try to understand, mind means, it is a combination of consciousness and energy. That is the next closest imagined terminology I can use to identify what that is. This is also the source of consciousness of existence. The ‘I’-ness is coming to you always. You feel that you exist. “I am existing. I am here”. So that feeling that is coming is coming from there. Though you may not know the location at the moment. Simply in meditation, you try to concentrate on that. Without knowing what you are going to do, you are just asked to watch. So now, merging with the Self means the ultimate truth of this mind, this consciousness of existence, this individual imagined self - several of these are the things I have used to term or to make you understand what it is, closest -the ultimate truth of this is the origin. 

Like you know, now a little bit clue you have got. Mind itself is like space. It is there and it is not there. It exists and it doesn't seem to be existing. But yet it is there. Through, one clue that we can understand that it is there, the Self is there is the consciousness of your own existence. This will be more clearly visible or you are able to become aware or feel when you get rid of all thoughts and visions in your mind. So that is the first step efforts through meditation we consistently repeatedly try to teach - just watch in between eyebrows and do not bother about anything. That means I am trying to train you, to teach you so that you do not hold on to the thoughts and visions that are there as a habit in your mind, in you. In your mind and in you are the same. Mind and you are not different. There is no external located object or thing other than you called mind. It is the same because that is where the ‘I’ existence consciousness also is coming. So once you get trained… that’s why you sincerely need to practice. Closing the eyes your effort should be with all the sincerity, patience, dedication, just watch. Do not think what you are going to watch. You just watch in between eyebrows. You don’t bother what is visible there, what is not visible, you don’t have to bother. Then in due course of time all thoughts and visions will disappear. They will dissolve, just like the matter dissolves. 

Like we were discussing the other day in the other zoom classes also about the quantum physics type. Some of the basics which I understood in that is that matter is not solid. Quantum word has been used just like it keeps jumping in time and in shape. It is not the same shape at all times. Today it is seventy years. Sometimes later it will be eighty years old, the physical body. Like that all matter has its own age limit. If the human body has seventy to hundred years, a mountain may have its own age limit and earth, sun, moon, all have its own age limit. That is how the matter, means it keeps jumping one to another and then loses shape. This is possible when you do not get involved with the matter. That is what the quantum physics says. You just watch that one and you can make it dissolve. Now you cannot make this universe dissolve with the power of your mind, that is not possible. You need to be a higher consciousness than this universe. Like all the matter that is in your mind. So your mind is a higher consciousness. Actual mind is higher consciousness for all the matter that is in your mind. In meditation, in spirituality, that is what we try to teach you first. Moment after moment, you are involving with the thoughts and visions, matter that is in your mind. That is why it is not coming to an end, it is not disappearing. The source of all the matter is your mind's imagination. Using the creative technology, mind has imagined and the thoughts and visions are all there. It’s easy for us to understand that is in the mind, in the name of imagination, thoughts and visions. But if I simply tell this world also, the matter, all the matter is like thoughts and visions, appearance, it will be difficult to understand because only when you experience a higher consciousness you can understand this. So this will be possible when you strongly meditate deeper, go to deeper meditation for a longer time.

That's what we call it as Tapas. More than eight to ten hours of continuous meditation, when you would have gotten rid of all the thoughts and visions that are in the mind, then you would merge with that higher consciousness. Then you continue the Tapas. Then you will see that this matter called this universe, which we are also a micro-speck part of this universe holding this body, a part of this matter - that's why we cannot realize or understand this easily. We'll be able to get rid of, make this also dissolve. Then we will reach that higher consciousness which we refer to as becoming one with the origin, yoga - that is the yoga what we really mean when we talk about becoming a yogi or a yoga. A yogi would have achieved this in deep meditations when he would have achieved the samadhi practice. Samadhi is a total stillness of the present mind of yours. Once for all, all visions, all appearances, all thoughts, all stories would have come to an end that is in the mind. That means in science words, all matter that is in the mind would have come to an end, would have dissolved. And only pure consciousness. At that time, we won't call it mind when there is no appearance, no matter is there. We call it as pure consciousness. In the same way, what we mean as divinity which is a supreme pure consciousness is this space which is holding this universe, world; in its womb. Some words have been used in Upanishads – ‘the divine is holding the world in its womb’. So these are some of the points to understand the origin of the yoga.

What should we do if after many years of meditation, the mind is not going inwards and more conscious of the real Self?

Questioner:

 Thank you, Babaji. Next question. Through the practice of meditation, the mind is able to merge with the Self, thus attaining Self-realization, by turning the mind inwards, making the mind concentrated so that it automatically goes introverted and becomes conscious of the real Self. Babaji, I have been practicing meditation for more than twenty years now, and I am still unsure of how I am able to make my mind introverted and become more conscious of my real Self. What should I do? 

Babaji:

That is what the most important point. Twenty years or forty years, understanding the command of the Master. That means when the Master says “Keeping your back and neck straight and gently close your eyes” - follow the command. It is easy for you to close the eyes, not difficult. Then the next command, “Concentrate your mind and sight in between eyebrows, and just keep watching there. This is the point where many, many do not understand - that we have to just watch. Because here, to understand, the mind has two aspects. One is it is able to watch. That is what I call, “mind is a combination of consciousness and energy”. Consciousness means wherever you apply your mind, wherever you watch, that will happen; watching, only through your mind. Eyes are a media to watch this world. If you don’t have the physical eyes, you won't be able to watch this world, that is a different thing. But here, just to watch is… that is why you are asked to close the eyes, you don't have to watch this world. Close the eyes, try to watch in between eyebrows. That means when you watch hundred percent, you achieve, you won't be able to think at all. When you do not think, automatically all the matter… Because of science I have started using the word ‘matter’ so that everybody can understand. Matter means all the thoughts and visions that are the imagined, created by the mind; they will all dissolve. The mind doesn’t imagine any more. When it does not imagine means it does not analyze or makes any judgment. This needs to happen for a progressive meditation. 

The day anybody who can understand “All I have to do is just to watch”. I keep repeating in my talks or answering questions, “You are asked to watch, but you are not asked to watch what”. So, you don't have to bother what you are supposed to watch. You just watch in between eyebrows. Whatever is there… That is how Swamiji used to be very blunt and rough when He used to answer. “Eh, what is your botheration? I am asking you to just watch and you watch. Why are you asking what am I supposed to watch? I didn't ask you what you were supposed to watch. And don't bother what is there. You just watch. Then thoughts and visions come. Let them be there. You don't bother about it. If thoughts and visions are coming, let them be there. You don't bother.” So, that means you understand and you stop bothering about thoughts and you just watch. Then you will see the wonder that all the thoughts and visions, all the matter that is in the mind, they will all dissolve, disappear, evaporate, finish. And then you are able to experience the consciousness of existence. That is the purest. Consciousness. You cannot make that disappear. You become quiet. No matter you achieve samadhi, it is always there. 

That is how you are able to determine that you as that consciousness of existence is eternal. No power, nothing has created that. It was not created by your mind's imagination. Your own existence consciousness is not created by an imagination. So, it is there. The same ‘I’ can be experienced when you do Tapas one day and when you experience in samadhi also, your existence. Then also you will understand a higher consciousness did not create your real ‘I’. And that means this consciousness is when it is one with that higher consciousness is also the same. It is not just the ‘I’ that you had imagined hitherto. You are imagining about an imagined individual self, yourself with a name. Like for example, your name is Aruna and you are a woman and you are daughter of so-and-so, and you are a sister of so-and-so; so many, one or two or hundreds of imaginations about yourself will be there, all were sitting as a subtle body in your mind called consciousness. So, that is gone now. So, this is what you need to understand. Just you have to watch.During watching time, you need willpower. It could be awful. Torturesome, troublesome. How to watch just? Thoughts are coming and you keep thinking, thoughts are coming and you keep thinking. You won’t even understand the difference between the thoughts appearing in your mind and the thoughts you are creating freshly. Means you go on thinking about them. A thin edge of difference is there. 

Those thoughts appearing, visions are there because you had already thought about them. That is what I call as ‘acquired habits of the mind’. So, that will all get stirred up when you close the eyes. At that time, just have patience, exercise patience. That patience is what Guru teaches when you serve the Master. That patience is what my Master taught me for twenty years in the physical body when He was with us and we were serving Him. Whatever He subjected me into, whatever way He behaved; He got annoyed, He scolded or He did anything, He found faults or He criticized, He never appreciated -anything that He did He was actually training me to have this patience. This patience when you become an expert in having this patience, then meditation becomes so easy. When you close the eyes you realize you have to just watch and then you will watch. You will realize you don't have to bother about any thoughts or visions that are coming up, that appearing. Because by then you would have become an expert in patience. But the present day disciples don't have patience to get practiced into patience, to authorize the Master to help a student to practice patience. Their ego crops up. They become so arrogant, and they get annoyed. Sometimes disciples challenge us. “If you don't irritate me like this Master, then I will be able to respect you”. [laughs] Imagine, I heard one of my students telling me this. I had to become quiet. “Ok Baba, you have to respect me, then I will become quiet now. Let me have my patience”. So this is why they do not learn. 

Learning is so important - when you go to school, college, academically and if you have a reverence to the Master who is teaching you, then you will pay attention. Once you pay attention, that means you have patience in learning. That's when you are not giving rise to any other thoughts or visions in your mind. You are just listening to the talk of the Master when he is giving a lecture in the school/college. Then it penetrates your mind. So this is what precisely we did. That's how I learned. In the twenty years, I was simply observing why the Master was doing like that. Why the Master did it to me. I had realized. “He is training me into something. Soon I will understand. Let me keep quiet at least. At least let me have this thought. He is my Master after all. He has the right to scold me. He has the right to pull me up. If He wants, He has the right to cut me into pieces”. Like that we used to think in the early days. When I came to Swamiji, my mind used to think like this. Then it became easy for me. Then I developed patience, cultivated it. Occasionally I used to challenge in my mind with Swamiji. “Now that you are trying to irritate me, getting annoyed with me, I will love you more. Know that you cannot make me not to love you”. Even if the Master wants, that means all other powers of the world has gone away. You don't bother about any powers of the world. Nobody should be able to stop you from loving your Master. Finally, even if the Master himself or herself wants to make you not to love him also, he should not be able to do that one. You must love that much. You just love for sake of love. So where is this in the present day students? They accuse the Master. They judge the Master, “The Master is not Self-Realized at all”. Because Master didn't permit them to do whatever they wanted to do. So this happens. So how will they meditate? How will they develop patience? First is the patience.

I have always spoken from day one about dedication, discipline and patience. These are the things. Dedication has to come from the student. Student has to dedicate himself or herself to the Master when the Master is doing the mission work. Then the Master will teach both discipline and patience. When the protocol is taught, when you get pulled up for any small mistakes, sometimes it might appear “Oh, this was a small trivial mistake. But the Master is shouting so roughly and toughly as if he is going to kill me. I didn't do that much, a big mistake. Why is this old man getting so much annoyed?” Others who thought - I have seen other people getting irritated by Swamiji and leaving Him and going away. I saw in my life in those twenty years. Who were devotees for more than 30 years, who were so close to him, who were VIPs. VIPs, all these were there, but one time He lost His temper or He acted upon, He scolded, they just left him. They didn't want to step into the Ashram again. I said, “What are these people? They appeared so much devoted to Swamiji, but this is all what their devotion is? They never loved Swamiji that means.” I saw it with my eyes. “My God, it can be so dreaded. This is not easy to love the Master.” Because anything you do, but you will understand your capacity only when a test comes. You are able to hold this zoom class. Suddenly some technical problem comes to you. Internet is not working and the sound is not coming properly, muting, unmuting. So if you are an expert, you will try to rectify quickly. Otherwise you will be bewildered. “I don't know what to do Babaji, this is happening. We are unable to do the zoom class today.” So like that, anything - when the test comes, then your capacity is understood. So particularly when you are with the Master. Academically also, tests come. You have to face examinations. And then you are nervous at that time. “Oh, somebody help me to pass this.” Who will help? You have to read, prepare yourself, remain dedicated, be serious. Be disciplined, have patience, and be ready. The Master's Grace will descend, of course. Master will bless you. He will be with you always.

So like that, imagine even today when I remember those days, I feel so thrilled. Hair raising - what else fortune that you need? The most fortunate we were. At least I was to be with the Master for twenty years. To be with a Master like Swamiji, it was not easy to be close, closer to Him. From a long distance is a different thing. You come for a while, half an hour, have His darshan, and then go away. But if you had to stay with Him, day in and day out, and day time and night time, any time. And once He had picked up the cane, He wouldn't stop. Either you learn or you get out. Either you will become perfect, or you will break down, you are finished. You will come in some other… Swamiji sometimes used to tell, “If you break down and go, it may take many more lives, and some other life when I come back again, then you are lucky, then you might feel attracted to me. It all depends on you, how much you loved. I cannot tell that one”, like Swamiji used to tell. You have to love the Master. If you didn't love, somebody came and brainwashed you that, “Oh, your Master, this Master is not Self-Realized. I have seen him closely. He has this money, he has this thing, he travels in the car, he eats everything like us only, I have seen”, and you get brainwashed. “Oh, I see, he is not Self-Realized. All these years, what was I doing?” You also leave and go away. So what to say about these losers? It may take a hundred lives, thousand lives, fifty-five thousand life cycles. In some other life, they will come if they get attracted to the Master again, if at all. Means that much of time it takes. So all these things, flow are coming. I went on telling – please know everybody, whatever I am talking is only for sake of education. Not to accuse any individual or group of individuals, not to accuse any disciple, any students. What my Master taught me, what I underwent with the Master, what I learned. That was what I was trying to tell. I thought this might be enlightening to all of you. To be with the Master is not an easy job. That itself is a great Tapas. 

What is the real Self and how do we recognize it?

Questioner:

Thank you, Babaji. Babaji, what is the real Self that Babaji talks about? And how do we recognize our real Self, given that we are continuously reincarnating up to fifty-five thousand life cycles? 

Babaji:

So that is the important thing again, because your attention, you as the mind here, or you as the consciousness, you as that self is totally preoccupied with your own imagination. That's why thoughts and visions are there. If you observe twenty-four hours, you get up, you go into sleeping, you dream, and once you get up, you start thinking, imagining. That means all your attention is preoccupied, is totally busy with its own imaginations. So it is unable to watch or become aware of itself. So that itself is the truth. You don't have to go out anywhere, you don't have to see anything else. That is why these things are called, words are used, ‘peace within’, ‘the divine is in you’, ‘God is in you’. And you have the butter at home and you are going around looking for ghee. Ghee comes out of the butter, you understand? That is also an old saying. Everything is at home and you are going around in the town looking for ghee. That is how you are going around in this world. As Vashista talks, ghore - tough, harrowing world that is the jungle forest. This world is like a dreaded forest where you are likely to lose your way every moment. You turn here, you turn there, you lose, you get attracted to a mall, you go inside the mall. Coming out of the mall may take hours, you get trapped there. So many attractive shops are there, you get attracted, you go on looking at everything, you have a little bit of money. “Oh, what should I buy? What should I buy? What should I buy?” You go around the mall. Whole day is wasted, it's gone and you come out not buying anything. So, like that the maya/illusion is so much of a dreaded forest in this world and within your mind. 

So, your mind is so preoccupied, so busy. It won't listen to anybody. If I go and talk, stand on the highway and try to talk this philosophy, will anybody listen? Everybody is so busy in the world. They are looking for the same happiness, but they won't listen to me. They will expect the happiness to come from somewhere, they are looking in the forest. “Where is the way to go out? Where is the way to go out?” So that is why they are unable to know their own real Self. But that is there, as I have been talking, consciousness of existence is there. Amongst millions of thoughts - this is another thing I try to talk in my teachings and answer also - amongst millions of thoughts that is in your mind, all the thoughts which are imaginations, but there is one thing which is not an imagination. That is the consciousness of your own existence. You always have this feeling that you exist. This is in the form of awareness actually. Because you don't have to think with a thought, “Oh, I am existing, I am existing, I am existing”. You don't think like that. But you are able to feel that you exist. But that existence attention is on to thoughts and visions. That's why you are unable to know yourself. So, this has broken into a small droplet from the origin, the ultimate truth. Because of its reincarnating, reincarnating. If you remember, I have told in my talks every time the consciousness reincarnates, it gets split, it becomes diluted, means its power decreases. Like for destiny also I have told, when your consciousness was with its hundred thousand potency, whatever it would have thought, visualized, resolved, has become destiny for you now who has ten percent potency of that consciousness. So, you are unable to change your destiny easily with the help of your mind. To change your destiny, you have to reach the higher consciousness of yourself. That's how you have to meditate. Meditate, just watch. Meditating means you simply have to practice remaining quiet. Enough of thinking, analyzing. See, this world is different -always this doubt first comes to everybody, “Then what will I do in the world if I don't think?” “Man, you can always think in this world. You won't lose the thinking power as long as you are in this body. Don't worry about that just now. After you become a Master of your mind that you are able to keep quiet as long as you want to keep quiet, at that time if you want to think, you can always think. When you don't want to think, you can stop thinking. So, this remain assured.” So, now when you make all matter that is in the mind dissolve, then automatically the mind goes introverted. Means it starts merging into itself, going in itself. 

Just now it is known as extroverted with its own imaginations. It is conscious of this world and it tries to imagine about so many other worlds, or anything it can be imagining. It is all extroverted, totally. That's why anybody when we ask you to sit down, closing the eyes and meditate, it is so torturesome. Some people might even think of scolding me, “This old man is such an idiot. Every time he tortures me instead of asking me, giving me that Self-Realization, he wants me to close the eyes and keep watching. Hundreds of thoughts coming, how to get rid of that? That also this old man doesn't tell me properly.” You have never listened to me, I have been telling. I have been telling every time I answer a question. Every time I try to teach, I keep telling. Twenty years, twenty-three years now, I keep telling. Until you don't understand, so then your mind will be extrovert and busy. That's when you are unable to feel, that consciousness of existence also you don't have time to see that one; “That is there. What is that?” That is the greatest wonder. If any wondrous things is happening, we become so curious and rushed to see that one. But we don't bother about that greatest wonder that is within us, that is we ourselves, how we are existing. It doesn't appear to be there at all. So like that we have to visualize, understand, then practice watching, then only it will be possible that you become aware of yourself. In this process, I have spoken with few words, but this is a long process that you meditate, then you do Tapas, you become an expert. You go on doing that one. So people are not ready to take the first step of practicing patience with the Master. So how to teach them? Difficult, you see? So that is what one has to practice - patience, then practice meditation, then you are able to do Tapas. 

But don't have to lose heart; never lose hope or heart. I was also like you all only. I could do it, you can also do it, you can do it. Simply you need to understand that you need to do that. Then that's not difficult. You are hungry, you will learn to make some chapatis. If nobody else is there, if no chapatis is coming to you from anywhere else, but some wheat flour is kept in front of you, and some water is given to you and some flame is also there, and you are locked in a room and you are hungry, you will learn to mix the wheat flour with the water, and you will learn to make chapatis. If you are forced to do that one. That's what the training Master gives. If the Master pampers you by talking very sweetly all the time, not bothering about what you are learning, what you are not learning, then what will you learn? If the Master doesn't pamper you, he takes up his cane, know that you are the most fortunate one. That was how we considered ourselves the most fortunate to be with that great Master who came as Shiva Balayogi. He loved me so much, that's why He took cane into hands - He wanted to make me perfect. He knew one day I had to do Tapas. He took up His cane, how gracious He was, how kind He was, how compassionate He was really. Who can understand this compassion of the Master, this grace of a mother? A mother wants the child to be perfectly on the track. So this is all needed, then only you will know about that Self that you need to realize. Step by step if you undergo the training, then it will not be difficult. 

How has the Self forgotten itself?

Questioner:

Thank you Babaji. The next question. It is interesting what Babaji says, that once your imagination separates from the Self, ego and illusion sets in and the Self is forgotten. And that every time reincarnation happens, the mind acquires new imprints, the mind begins to analyze the new imprints and makes judgments. These imprints then become acquired habits of the mind. Can Babaji explain what you mean by the Self forgets itself of what it is over time and the many reincarnations it undergoes? 

Babaji:

See, a while ago for the last question also I was explaining the same, how you have become preoccupied with your own imaginations. Something like you go out of your home, no problem. You go in the town the whole day. When you go in the town, you should have had some aim why you are going out of home into the town. You couldn't have afforded to roam around the town aimlessly. If anybody asks “What are you doing in the town?” “Nothing. Just like that I came out of the home. I am going around the town, that is all.” You should have some aim why you came out of the home. From the secure comforts of the home, why did you come out? You came to go to a school to learn something. You have to search for that one. Then you will find, then you have to give your time and energy, then you will learn. Otherwise if you just came out to do the time-pass, you wouldn't learn anything at all. So that is how when you learn, want to learn the meditation, you are coming out of your comforts, your security. You want to learn, you want to know about yourself, what you really are. Otherwise you need to be aware sooner or later, the body through which you are living in this world, you are going around the world - you have a personality, you have a name - that body will die, inevitable. That's when Prince Siddhartha became a Buddha when He started thinking like this and when He became restless. He became Buddha. Today, the world adores him, gets inspired for non-violence, for peace, about Buddha. So Swamiji used to tell, “Swamiji is like Buddha. Whatever I teach, you need to understand thoroughly because when your students, next generation listen to you, you should be able to convey in the right sense of what I wanted to convey to you through you.” That he used to tell.

So that's why, when we got the chance to have the first-hand teachings from our Master physically then we could understand what He really wanted to teach. Not every devotee of Swamiji would have understood what He really wanted to teach. Because today many people have different ideas. “Swamiji just wanted me not to meditate”. One lady used to come to Dehradun Ashram I remember. “Swamiji told, "Do not meditate, otherwise you will get into samadhi."” Does this make any sense? She didn't want to meditate. Will Swamiji tell that you don't have to meditate, you will get into samadhi? Why will he do that? His very mission was, “You meditate and know yourself.” But every student will listen only that which is convenient to them and try to understand whatever is convenient to them. That much they will do it. “This is what Swamiji wanted me to do.” Go into a trance and do the dancing. Forty years later, they don't know what else. Further, they don't know how to meditate. They have not realized the Self. They simply can get up and dance and shout and threaten others, these two things. Like this, many people understood Swamiji according to their capacity, whatever they could understand. That's all they understood. So, this is also very important. Dedicating with apt attention. That's what I was trying to tell in the previous question also. Understanding what the Master wanted to teach. Otherwise if we don't realize, this body will go. You know, fifty years ago, when I came, this body was twenty years. I came to Swamiji, I was twenty years old. Today it is seventy years, but we are grateful to the Master. Our twenty years with Him and the next thirty years have not gone to waste. Seventy years of this body is not wasted. We are grateful to the compassion, and grace and blessings of the Master. We learned something. The world may not have been able to understand. The world might not have seen me in those days also.

Even today, those people who saw me washing the utensils, they don't want to consider me that I can teach something. They just want to treat me like only that utensil-washing person. “How dare he has become a yogi”, they don't take it kindly, but in front of others, they just try to do pranams. It's up to them. They are not destined to learn anything. Those are the people who did not learn from such a great Master. What will they learn from me? In this forum, I am only a disciple of Shivabalayogi. This is a different thing. Means, if people don't learn, this is what one needs to learn. That is the reason a reverence to the Master is important. It is a stone. You just pour the water. But the imagination that you would have about that stone is the thing which will make difference for you. You should imagine you are pouring water on Lord Shiva on a Shivalingam. If you imagine “Oh, after all this is a stone” and keep pouring water and everybody is watching, it's useless for you. You are doing a waste of exercise. You won't gain anything. You won't learn anything. Because you are considering that as only a stone. That's what you have learned from childhood. Everybody told “This is after all a stone.” One politician said, "All those people who worship this stone are like animals, idiots.". They used to say like this. And he became popular for people. Out of curiosity, they used to go to me, “He is telling, he is an atheist, he says “There is no god. It is not god. Why are you wasting your time pouring your water on the stone?”” I used to say, "I love this stone. This is my god. For me, this is god. This is my Swamiji. Not simply a stone idol of a little Satyaraju is here. This is my loving Swamiji sitting here. I pour water on him. It's up to me. It's my wishes.  Who are you to object? You don't like to pour, you don't pour, you go away, you don't like to do pranams, you go away.”

So this is very important, how much you have reverence or attachment or love to your Master. Then you will learn. No power can brainwash you then. And no power can stop you from learning. If don't want to learn, no power can make you learn also. Even the greatest yogis coming to this world cannot teach everybody - because they didn't want to learn. Not that the Master didn't have capacity. Master had the capacity. But simply people came in hundreds and millions. Some came to gossip. We saw people used to be standing around His dais when Swamiji used to come and sit down. As much time they got used to keep gossiping, some used to gossip, and some used to be curiously listening to those gossips. So they never learnt anything, they never tried to meditate and time wasted, gone. So this learning, you will learn only when you consider the Master as a Master. You have to consider. You can think it's only simply Babaji sitting, an old man. And he has lots of money and he has nothing to teach. So we don't have to stay with him. We need to discard him. He is jeopardizing his own mission. He cannot teach anything. Fifteen years you stay, you serve and you did not learn, what can I do? It's not my fault if that person did not learn anything. And just called me I'm only a stone, a useless stone. Why was the need to pour water on me? No. Stone did not do anything. It didn't ask you to pour water or do worship. It is simply there. It is your imagination which can elevate you to that divinity one day. So that is the essence of Bhakti and Spirituality. So that reverence you need to have to the Master to learn. Every moment we used be… even today my Guru's words keep ringing in the ears. I cannot waste my time even for a single day. I cannot just keep sitting there. I will be doing something. The eyes were troubling but I cannot sit and relax like that one. I will be doing something. I will be trying to send some words to someone and trying to see some emails. And I try to meditate and try to learn something to teach others - like that it keeps going on.

So that reverence you need to have to the Master. Once you have, you will be serious to learn. The Master asked you to meditate, you should meditate. Every day you meditate. Once in a while we come on the zoom. In these Thursday zooms we come once in a fortnight, right? Fifteen days. Sometimes in the middle some other business, busy things happen and we are unable to hold this zoom classes. But what were you doing idiot? Not directed to any particular person - jokingly I said. That's how Swamiji used to address me. What were you doing all these fifteen days, all this one month that we didn't come on the zoom? Were you meditating? Were you just watching in between eyebrows? So this seriousness is necessary from the Master. Then you will know yourself. It's not very difficult. Simply you have to stop all other thoughts and visions, then you will know. Because it is there, you are there, you are the one. Where can you go away from yourself? If it was something else it could have gone away. This body will go away from you, one day it will die. But you cannot go away from yourself. You are the only one who will accompany you when the body dies. Even if you take up a next birth also, it is you who is going to take. Anybody who were your parents who was your husband who was your wife who was your children, nobody may be there again. Who were there in your fifty lives? Are they here again? If all the fifty lives people would have been born to you or become your husbands or become your wives, become your parents, was it possible? No possibility. So when this body is available, Ashtavakra talks. 

When this body is available do not waste a moment. Learn the things from your Master. Adopting such methods you learn. Even Krishna talks, “Before death shall claim thee” - all these great Masters always talked about death as an inevitable thing. This quantum physics, the matter is going to jump. This body called matter is going to jump. From its childhood to the early teens. It will jump to the teens, then it will jump to the youth. It will jump into the middle age. Then it will jump into the old age. Then it will jump into a dead body. So that's how things will happen. Masters used to scold in those days, “What are you wasting your time?” This thing Swamiji spoke to me. Often He spoke to me about death also. “If you keep wasting your time, body will die. Today I am in front of you as a fifty year old and you are just twenty year old. One day will come, you will be seventy year old and your students will be twenty year old” - He used to tell me this. “Then you will see what your body has become. So don't waste time”, He used to say. Nobody should waste. You have a challenge. You have to earn your livelihood. You need some financial backing. You need a home. You need a support, secure system. But in the midst of that, without wasting, practice meditation every day, then when you get rid of all other thoughts, then you are visible. The secret of yourself is revealed.