Faith and Practice | Thus Spake Babaji - online Q&A, No.158

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Faith and Practice | Thus Spake Babaji - online Q&A, No.158
Recorded on 23rd December 2023 with worldwide participants

0:00 Introduction from Babaji
2:53 What is faith and why is it necessary on the path of spirituality?
4:23 Is faith necessary to practice meditation and does the practice of meditation help to develop faith?
6183 In meditation when the mind becomes concentrated and settles down, developing self-confidence, is that connected to faith?
9:58 Where does this initial faith come from?  
17:55 Is the source of the faith in the Guru and Guru's teachings, the one Real Self?
20:01 What is the importance of practicing at least 1 hour of meditation every day?
25.50 How to avoid getting attracted to the world and losing the path
35:55 Should we be willing to let go of any preconception we have built up in our mind to be ready to learn?
40:15 Ambaji on the need for soldiers to surrender during tough training in the army and Babaji's comments on tough training in the Ashram
43:33 Ambaji on Babaji's unwavering discipline
44:49 Ramana Maharshi upholding his duty even through physical illness and Swamiji refusing to stop His routine while undergoing dialysis
47:78 In meditation what should we do if the focus keeps dropping from the eyebrows to the heart area?
48:37 How do we develop the kind of faith that will make our master manifest before us?
49:45 Are there ways other than doing our meditation practice of showing our faith to Babaji?
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Transcript

Faith and Practice | In Quest of Truth - Q&A, No.158

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/POzBqAXdj10

Recorded on 23rd December 2023 with worldwide participants

Shri Babaji:  

Om
 Omkaara Naadabrahma, Ardhanareeshwarah
 Sri Jagadguru Naatha Shivabalayogeshwaro Prabrahma Rishih
 Jnana Bhakti Vairagya Siddhyartam, Bhikshan Dhehi cha Sadguru Deva
 Baandava Guru Bhaktascha Swadesho Guru Charana Kamalam
 
 

May the Divine Guru bless you all. We offer our surrender at the Lotus Feet of beloved Master with deep love and reverence, and my greetings to you all with love and blessings. So here we are one more time. Another opportunity. Every moment is an opportunity in life, if only we know how to utilize. If we understand how to utilize the life and achieve the highest that is possible. To remind you one more time, you will be closing the eyes just to become quiet mentally. That is what is meditation. Remember, no target is given to watch. But you are asked to watch. That means when you watch, you shall not think about any target. Shall not try to locate any target. Just try to watch at one point here in between eyebrows. If it is difficult in the beginning, anything that’s visible in front of the eyes, when you close the eyes, just watch there. Eventually the eyeballs will come in between eyebrows. That is one point. Then it can hold the mind quietly. All the visions and thoughts that appear, you just have to watch them. That is the very highly skilled job. You need to have patience, and just a thin edge of difference when a thought appears and you start thinking about it – you have to avoid starting to think about it. That is what is meditation. Just observe.
 
 Question:  Babaji the topic today is faith and practice.

Shri Babaji:  Wonderful. Nice. 

Question:  So Baba, the first question. What is faith, and why is it necessary on the path of spirituality?

Shri Babaji:  Where there is no doubt, that is faith. Means you have self-confidence, which can keep you to get going all the time. Faith is self-confidence, in my opinion. Faith, actually, when you need an anchor, you trust that anchor. Like for example, we have a guru or we have a God concept. We need to have faith in that. This faith can keep us going, giving us all the self-confidence, removing all the doubts that might occur on the path. Whether we are going in the right direction or not, whether we will be protected, whether everything will be all right, and so on. Anything that can create a doubt, that is overcome by the effect of faith. That's why faith is very, very important. It's always recommended. 

 Question:  Thank you, Babaji. Is faith necessary to start practising meditation? And does the practice of meditation also help to develop faith?
 
 Shri Babaji:  Yeah. You need to have faith that you can do it. You need to have faith that the method given to you is right, it is meaningful, it will take you to a result at the end of the tunnel. And the meditation, it is a systematic approach. So, this faith is recommended and you must have. You need to have. Otherwise, doubts can come, demotivating you always. You may not feel inspired and enthusiastic to go further. To keep you motivated and keep you inspired, this faith is very necessary. That's why all the great masters have always told, Ramakrishna Paramahansa; “Faith in the name of Lord, can work wonders.” And Swamiji also used to tell, it's flowing, the grace of the divinity, grace of the guru. It's flowing in all directions at all times. You need to build a dam called faith to catch. And your consciousness is the catchment area. Then it gives you self-confidence to keep going. You will jump into it. You will not look back. So that's why faith is very necessary, and it's always recommended. You need to have faith and cultivate and sustain yourself.
 
 
 Question:  Thank you, Babaji. So, in the practice of meditation, the mind becomes more concentrated and also settled down. And Babaji has mentioned that we also become more confident as well, self-confidence can come. Is that connected to faith, Babaji, how the mind becomes concentrated?
 
 Shri Babaji:  Exactly. You see, some people ask the question, “Without some experience, how can we have faith?” So, without practicing, without getting into the job, without trying to do something, you can never experience. So, to start doing, you need to have faith. I've always told in my talks many times, that when you first time went to learn a language in a primary school or a nursery school, when the teacher told, wrote on the board as ‘A’, ‘B’, you took it with good faith. You never felt like asking “Why I should write this as ‘A’, why this as ‘B’ and why not something else?” Like that, if you keep questioning, then you will never learn. Well, at the most the teacher can say, “This is how the ‘A’ is written. The ‘A’ is pronounced and everybody uses in English language this alphabet as ‘A’.” If still you have doubt, you don't believe it, then you can reach nowhere. You will never start. You will never practice anything. For that, you needed to have faith. But when you get into practice, you will definitely experience the truth. 

That's what Swamiji used to tell. “You don't have to believe me blindly, but to begin with have faith that you need to meditate, sit down and meditate in the way that I will tell you. So once you do that one, then you will know the truth to yourself.” Because this is always an individual experience. So, everybody will have to understand this. That's why faith and practice are interconnected. If you have faith, you have self-confidence and you will feel motivated and you will get into practice. If you practice, you will get.
 
 
 Question:  Thank you, Babaji. So where does this initial faith come from? Babaji himself naturally had that hundred percent faith with his Guru, Swamiji. But other people may not naturally have that faith. So, where does this faith come from, Babaji?
 
 Shri Babaji:  For me, I fell in love with Swamiji, and that love was unconditional. Just for the sake of love, I loved Him. And that gave enormous faith also. Because I never bothered about anything else. I did not have any expectations at all. Simply what He told, I had to do it. And I did it. Thus, I experienced the truth also. So that's how it can naturally come. Otherwise, if it doesn't come naturally, then you need to cultivate. You need to assure yourself. You need to positively think and assure yourself that it will come. “Let me do it and see. If it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. At least let me try, there is no harm in it. There is no side effect.” So, like that if you think, you can cultivate that faith. 

For me, it came very naturally. Probably since childhood, we were introduced to spirituality and the religious practices of worshipping God, remembering God, chanting with chants and singing. So, all these things came very naturally. And the mind was also very less exposed to the outside world. So, when the mind gets exposed to the outside world, it itself is not a wrong thing. When you get exposed to the outside world, your intelligence must grow. It should become broad-minded. Then you should be able to understand and then get into the job of practice. If you keep doubting, means by the exposure that you got to the world, you never learnt anything properly. That is the meaning, in my opinion, because life is the best teacher. 

See, after going to the ashram fifty years ago, we got tremendously exposed to the outside world. For people from different walks of life, people came to the ashram, good, bad, right, wrong, whatever they were. We saw so many types. But that gave an intelligence to us. An understanding, intelligence means. “Oh, this is how human beings are. We have to accept, we have to understand, we have to be careful.” All these things came. That is how the intelligence works. So then, you will never have any doubt. You will be careful more than that. So like that, you can be careful, but you need to have faith. 

See, every day, we all have to live in this world. We need to have faith that the earth will sustain us, hold us to stand on it. And that the sky is not going to fall on us. The roof of our house is not going to fall on us. We have to go and earn our livelihood. We will be able to do, we need to have that faith. And when we will work. So everywhere in everything, you need to have faith. If you don't have faith, you won't be able to practice or work. If you keep doubting, “Oh no, I cannot do the studies at all,” then you lose confidence, you doubt yourself. And then you don't do it also. Along with that one you stop doing the thing, you don't focus, you don't study at all. And then you keep complaining, “I don't feel motivated, I don't feel motivated.” So, you are the reason that you didn't exercise any faith. You never learned to have faith, confidence in yourself. This is what is necessary. 

In every life, everywhere in the world; when they were experimenting, scientists, they had confidence that they will reach somewhere, that a systematic approach is there. And they tried this method, they tried that method. So that was how in ancient times also, sages sat and pondered over the Self. “Are we born with this body? Are we going to become extinct when the body will die? If not, what are we then? Why is that I am not aware if it is something else?” So like this, they pondered, they thought, they thought and pondered; application of intelligence. All this could be possible because they had faith; that somewhere they are going to reach the goal, and they are going to find out what the truth is. So, then you need to have faith. 

So, all those people who don't have faith and who simply criticise, they are not intelligent. They are fools. They are fooling themselves. They don't want to understand at all. They don't want to put in an effort, practice at all. So that's how, whether it is a job, whether it is studies, whether anywhere; when we are doing the mission work, we need to have faith. Some interesting people will come. They will learn. They will be benefited. Some people might criticise and go away. Just because some people criticise and go away, we cannot give up our mission work. Whoever wants to learn, we are ready to teach them. We don't lose enthusiasm. We don't lose our motivation. That was what our Guru taught us. And we learn to remain motivated all the time. If somebody didn't want to learn, criticised us and went away, that is their loss. Because what I have gained, I know that one. And I am not going to lose that knowledge and wisdom. If everybody is ready to learn, I am ready to teach them. 

So that is why faith is important. Through that only you can feel motivated, then you will practice. If you practice, you will get it. So, all these are interconnected. Having faith and having self-confidence, feeling motivated, and then practice. Practice is the mantra that can make you perfect. In anything you need practice, whether you are going to bake a bread or you are going to make a machinery or you are going to pass a competitive exam, anything, you need to have faith and self-confidence, is necessary. So, then that means you are ready to work. If you are not ready to have faith, that means you are lazy, you don't want to do it. But then you keep giving excuses and trying to blame somebody else. So that's what happens. 

So, faith is the thing which can work wonders, but it's you who need to have faith. Like Swamiji used to tell, if you cannot have faith, no God can help you. If you have faith, no power can stop you. He said, Swamiji, you can lose anything in the world. Even if you are going to lose your life is no problem, but never lose faith. That's important.
 
 
 Question:  So Babaji, the source of that faith in the Guru or Guru's teachings, is really the source of that one's real Self, you are connecting to your real Self?
 
 
 Shri Babaji:  Yes, you are the source of your faith. You need to raise the sail. That is the faith. You need to build the dam. That is the faith. So, you need to have faith. When you went to school, you went with all the faith. If you had doubts, you would never have gone to a school or academy. You would never have become qualified at all. You had faith, then you went to school and college and got qualified academically. Anything that you would have learned, you had faith, that's when you learned. If you didn't have faith, you wouldn't have learned. If you have not learned anything in life, it means you never had any faith in you, you never had any self-confidence. You just wanted to sit down and time-pass. That's what Swamiji, He used to talk very bluntly like this. The need to have faith is your responsibility, He used to tell. I will initiate you. I will tell you the method. To go sit down and do is your job. Giving you the technique is my job. I am doing that. Having the faith is your job, then I will bless you. My grace will descend on you. But you need to have faith. If you don't have faith, the grace will simply pass by on your head, then you will never be able to catch that. So that's what is faith. And you are the source of faith.
 
 Question:  So Babaji, both Babaji and Swamiji are very strict about the practice of meditation; every day for one hour at least. Could Babaji explain why this is so important? 

Shri Babaji: See, once the technique is given, with that technique, you need to practice. Then only the results will come. If you don't practice, the results will never come. You don't practice, and then tell “Meditation is not coming. I don't know, it is not happening to me.” So, when you don't meditate, how will it happen? You put the dough inside the oven, but you never give electricity, flame or heat that is necessary, and then keep complaining, “This is not baking at all, the bread is not getting baked at all.” The reason is that you have not put the electrical connection, that light; that is what is the faith and practice. So, when meditation you are initiated, understand that technique. Either understand the technique and then practice, or have total faith, just do that one. 

Like for example, “Concentrate your mind and sight in between your eyebrows and just keep watching there” means just keep watching there is your job, then you will get it. You will understand also once the mind stops working. If you are unable to follow, means you never had faith, you didn't have the self-confidence. Well, okay, otherwise you think and try to understand, apply your intelligence. “Oh, the Guru said that I need to watch in between eyebrows. Then let me ask the question, what will happen if I simply watch?” That question is no problem, you can always ask, we can explain. But you need to apply and go further. Simply ask a question just for the sake of asking a question and never practice. If you ask me, “Why should we watch?” Then I can tell you, you need to silence your mind. If you watch, you will stop thinking. Once you stop thinking, your mind will become quiet. Then its attention turns to itself. Then you will become aware of what you are. 

Like this, I can explain. But then you need to watch. You don't watch, again you come back, “No, I was trying to watch, and it is not happening, it is not happening.” Because you have become habitual. The eyeballs are habitual to move parallelly, it doesn't come into one direction. You just watch. When you watch, it will also stop. So, when you watch, it will stop. If you don't watch, it won't stop. You are pressing the brakes and you are complaining “The vehicle is not moving, vehicle is not moving.” You forget that your legs are on the brake. You need to press the accelerator. After removing the handbrake and gear, everything is alright; you put the gear into the driving position, even if it is automatic, from parking to driving and then press the accelerator, then the vehicle moves. That is the practice, faith and practice. 

That's why Swamiji used to tell, “Every day I initiate people. When I initiate, if only they consider that this is a command from my commander, and just do it, never bother for anything else, then things will happen; samadhi can come like that.” But the mind has become habitual to millions of things by getting exposed. See, this is important. Getting exposed is a good thing, but that exposure must give you a good experience. A maturity, a real intelligence application, and you should become careful. You should understand what is permanent, what is impermanent, what is good for me, what is not good for me. What is real, what is unreal for me, which can give me happiness, and which is not going to give me happiness. That intelligence needs to be applied if you get exposed to the world. If a person is mature, that means he has seen the world. 

Simply we tell, but sometimes people often, we have seen, they get exposed to the world, but they get carried away. They don't apply intelligence at all; they don't understand what is good or bad. They simply get carried away and then want somebody else to do it for them. The ‘Purushartha’ word was used always in ancient times, that’s what Guru said. Swamiji used to tell, “You have to put in an effort. You sit down and do it, then it will come.”

Question: So Baba, getting exposed to this world, the world can also suck you in, be attractive in many situations, and it may be easy for some people to lose their path because the world appears attractive. 

Shri Babaji: Yeah, you see, that is why application of proper intelligence is necessary. When you go out of your home and see the world, you should be able to learn. Life teaches; every moment there is a teaching. The one who refuses to learn from life will always be condemned as an idiot, fool, gets carried away, will never learn. They will be keep repeating mistakes in the life. So, once we get exposed, means that it is a teaching. So, one time we might do a mistake, and we might fall down, get scratches all over the body. We might break some bones, then we must be careful. “Oh, this is slippery. This floor is slippery, we need to be more careful.” Not that every day we are going to fall down. We should not do this one. So, somebody will cheat us someday. Next time we need to be careful, we should not allow that person to cheat us. We should defend ourselves, be careful. But every day if we are going to do the same thing, then we will be condemned to suffer in the life. We will be suffering all the time. If somebody troubles us, that means we did not learn our lessons. We continue to behave in the same way. 

You see, now our age is seventy, but we got such a wonderful exposure in the ashram for fifty years. We have learnt, but many times we have seen people repeating the same mistakes because of their habits. They are habitual. They don't want to learn. They don't want to change themselves. Ego is another problem. So that's when they don't have faith in themselves, and they don't want to learn. They don't want to practice. Then they keep suffering. Then they keep complaining. One person gives me pressure and sadness, hurts me. But how long am I going to allow him to keep hurting me? If a person is going to stay with me for thirty years, that person's nature is always to hurt. “Okay, you don't want to change. You want to hurt. But I am not going to get hurt anymore, enough.” Like that, I have to defend myself. Become strong mentally. In every way safeguard my physical body, my surroundings, so that that person doesn't successfully keep hurting me all the time. Mentally, we become strong. 

Because one important thing, to be happy is your existence right. This comes when you practice meditation. Amazing self-confidence. Amazing faith; faith in yourself. Faith in divinity. That's what I have always tried to tell. Faith means self-confidence, actually. Not a blind belief. Every time, say, one person comes every day he keeps lying to me. If I am going to believe and give him everything of mine, that means I am a fool. I never had proper self-confidence, never learned anything. Every day you get carried away. One day, he fooled me. It's okay, no problem. It was a mistake. But not every day we won't allow him to fool us. He may tell his lies because he is habitual, that person, anyway. But we won't get carried away. 

This comes with self-confidence. That is how you learn in life. Important. These things can always happen when you have faith. You will practice. If you don't practice, means you never had faith anywhere. Not in the name of God, not in the name of yourself, not in the name of your teacher, not in the name of your master. You never had any faith. You may stay with the master for five years, ten years, thirty years, forty years. But you never had faith in the master. And that's why you never learned anything. And you went on behaving in the same way because you nurtured and cultivated your ego. You never wanted to overcome that. 

It is something like you had an illness. Every time you went to a doctor and the doctor prescribed the medicine, but you never bought the medicine and you never listened to the doctor's advice. Again, you fell ill. Again, you went to doctor. Again, you received the prescription. You never took the medicine. You never followed doctor's advice. Same way you go to the master. The master initiates you. But you never cultivate faith. You never have any self-confidence. You never practice according to the master's advice. Then, finally, one day you blame the master, as if you knew very well. Because you did not practice, you did not get anything, and then you tell the master is not Self-realised. Whether he is Self-realized or not, it is not your problem. Your problem is whether you are Self-realised or not. Whether you have peace or not is your problem – that you try to overcome first. This can come when you have faith. 

So, forty years you are with the master; that means you never had any faith. You had ego. That is the thing Swamiji used to tell, one beautiful language. “Don't come to me as a royal person, as an army officer, as a businessman, as a rich person, as an intelligence officer. Come to me as a devotee. Because if you come with all those identities, that will have its own ego. You will nurture and cultivate that ego, and you will never learn anything from me. That ego refuses to learn, and you will remain the same after forty years. That’s why, come to me as a devotee, as my student.” That is why the Guru-disciple relationship is recommended. When you want to learn, you need to become a student. You need to become a disciple. That means you consider the master as the higher authority. Pay attention to what the master needs to teach you. And learn that seriously. Follow that advice seriously. Practice that advice seriously. Have that faith seriously. Then you have self-confidence. 

One time the master says, that should be enough. Even today it rings in our ears what Swamiji used to tell about faith. One day He said, “If you have faith in the name of Guru and chant in the Guru's name, the Guru will have to grace upon you.” Means, you see, when you chant in the mind, not simply to please the master in front of Him go and sit, “Oh, master, I love you so much. I love you so much.” So many people we saw in twenty three years, exclaiming, “Oh, I love you master. I love you master.” And then the third day they scolded, they criticised, and they went away. That is not the thing. Love the master in your heart, in your mind, within you. Really love. And then give the highest authority to the master. That means you will be serious when the master teaches. If the master tells one sentence, one word, that's enough, you will catch. Your mind will be receptive, and the inner layers of your mind will catch and you will do that one. 

That's when meditation came to us. We just did it. He wanted us to watch. The day we understood,  just went on watching. Even during tapas also, in all the visions, the teaching came, “Do not react. Anybody manifesting themselves, do not react. Just keep quiet.” Then the consciousness became pure and pure and pure and became quiet and went on merging within itself. So that's how faith and confidence and practice works. 

Question:  Thank you, Babaji. So, Babaji, we should be willing to let go of anything in our mind, any preconceptions that we've built up. We really want to listen to the guru, to Babaji. We need to let go of anything in our minds and just simply listen. 

Shri Babaji:  Yeah, that's what, you see, sometimes in our teachings we have tried to tell – surrender. Here, surrender doesn't mean that you become a slave of the master, not that. You can be like a servant; the master can exploit you – that is not the relationship. Not that slavery, not that surrender. Surrender means you become serious. You are ready to learn. And you want the master to teach you. You allow the master to teach you. You allow the master to correct your mistakes. When the master is trying to correct your mistakes, do not show any ego; accept it, and then correct yourself. That is the surrender. Then you can progress in meditation, in anything you can progress. 

When the master is teaching, listen to the master. That means you are authorizing the master, because then only you will be serious and you will listen to the master. Then you will rectify your mistakes. Quietly also you can rectify your mistakes. Your consciousness becomes pure. You will love everybody unconditionally. There shall not be any discrimination or partiality. You are able to forgive and forget. This maturity comes when you really surrender to the master; that surrender, what I explained to you now, is important. Many people may misunderstand, surrendering means we have to become a slave to the master. Not the slavery of this world. But you respect, have reverence to the master. Then only you will seriously learn. 

One time one sentence is good enough. The master told us fifty years ago, “Look after the ashram”. Not in our wildest dreams we forgot this ashram belongs to our master. It is His property. We are here only as a caretaker, as a servant. We have to look after the ashram. Not that we are going to take away the property for myself. So, that is the slavery. That means that is the reverence you have to the master. No matter whatever the master would have behaved with us, we don't entertain all such things. Instead, we took it positively. All such things master behaved so that we can learn, so that we can become a commando; so that we can become Self-realised. That's why He did. Whatever He behaved, He did for our sake; to teach us He behaved like that one. 

So when we behave like that to teach our students, many times students misunderstand and lose faith in us. So, they are the losers. What to do? So that is why this slavery means having faith. When you have faith, you will have self-confidence, and then you will practice. You mean business. You will take it seriously, what the master says. If I say, “You now study,” you will study. “You now meditate,” you will meditate. “You just watch,” you will watch. You won't do anything else. You won't bother. Then things happen. 

Question:  Thank you, Babaji for this wonderful session.
 
 

Shri Babaji: Ambaji has a question here. We will listen and answer to that. 
 
 

Ambaji:  Baba, in the army, when the young soldiers join the army, the first few years are very, very tough training. It's physically very gruelling training. Because they are young, they leave their houses very young, like between 18 and 21. And they leave the comforts of the house when directly joining the army, they have to get up at four in the morning for a drill. And one mistake, they'll be punished. So the soldiers, they say that you just have to follow the command. You should stop thinking first. Because the more you think, the more you go into that, you won't be able to ever complete the training process. And you will never become an officer. 

So, in life also, like when you were saying that you have to surrender. So if there's a surrender, that means you have to surrender your ego completely. You have to completely surrender the ego and just follow the command. And if I follow the command, I will be an officer one day. Otherwise, I leave, and I blame the entire system. World over, the army, they will only say, just follow the officer's command. 

Shri Babaji:  Yeah, you see, it might be painful. Even for the trainer also, sometimes it might be painful; we have to subject students to this gruelling, but without that, they won't become. They will fail. So, without the examination, you wouldn't have qualified academically. That could have been painful when you were reading, and you are unable to time-pass, and you are unable to relax, and you are unable to do your own things. But you are forced to study. You studied, and you became something; if you had not studied, you wouldn't have. 

Ambaji:  Just lying on the bed and thinking, thinking, thinking and discriminating about everything, but not putting real effort, then I will be the failure. How can I then blame the world? 

Shri Babaji:  See, in the ashram also, outsiders might think you are all living comfortably, glamorously, but it is not. When anybody comes inside, they will understand that all of you have to work. So much work. So, if I get up at four thirty, you have to get up at four thirty. So, it is painful for me, I would like to allow people to sleep for some more time, but if I allow them, then they will be sleeping and they won't do it. I have to take that tough step, painfully, so that you become perfect. 

So that's how we consider our master; took such tough steps towards me. And he was so kind. He made me so perfect because of that only. So, we had that faith. We never lost that faith. Fifty years, we met Him fifty five years ago, but we never lost that faith. The first day in 1971 when I saw Him, today also the same amount of faith and love is there. It never diminished even a single 0.01% also. Even Swamiji himself, my guru Himself could not make me lose that faith and love to Him when He tested also. 

Ambaji: In the past thirty two years we haven't seen a more disciplined person, anyone. Your discipline, no one has seen. Everybody waivers from their routine, but your routine, even if it’s rainy, it's stormy, it's winter, it's summer, it's the same thing. 

Shri Babaji:  See, when there is a Zoom class that we have to take, I feel so enthusiastic, “Oh, so many people will be waiting for me. I must be right on time. I must come here, make them sit for meditation, then I have to answer the questions so that it can be enlightening to them. They can learn that discipline in their life, then they can meditate, then the results will come. Then only you become Self-realised.” Swamiji had to take that pain; it would have been painful for Him, but if he had not done so, I wouldn't have become Self-Realised. I'm not boasting or claiming; somebody might tell I'm not Self-Realised, that’s no problem. But today we have the honour in the world because of His grace. We consider whatever toughness He showed, it was His grace. He was very kind that He was tough to me. He didn't pamper me; He was so kind. 

Ambaji:  And then last, I just want to share this. When Ramana Maharishi was very, very sick towards the last day of His life, He wanted to go and give darshan. And the author writes that even that day, the day He was suffering and His body was emaciated to nothing, He followed the same routine, same determination and same enthusiasm. He wanted to go and give darshan to His devotees. He said, it's not that what they are going to get, it's my duty, it's my dharma to give that. 

Shri Babaji:  Exactly. With our Guru Swamiji also, the final years He was also undergoing dialysis. Several hours He had to be lying with that dialysis process. It was just like a worldly thing; unmindful, He had nothing in his consciousness. His body was undergoing, He was watching like that one. Then the doctors would advise, “No, you must not go out and sit for darshan in that dais like that. Swamiji would refuse, “No, no, devotees come from a long distance. They will be very hurt. I don't want to hurt my devotees. I have to go and sit down and give darshan.” He followed His routine, getting up in the morning, going around, doing other things, attending to things and meeting people, giving darshan in the evening, He sat there. Nobody could make out that He was not well. He sat and met people. 

Like that, they all followed such discipline. Swamiji followed such discipline every day. From him only, we learned to be disciplined. 

Yeah, that was Ambaji's experienced opinion, expert opinion. Thanks, Ambaji for giving some of your opinions. It's wonderful. We ourselves know that Ambaji is with us since more than thirty years, such a disciplined girl. She has had such faith and self-confidence. She has lived in the ashram along with me, facing the toughness of the life of the ashram, getting blamed all the time. She keeps going. She's still going. She has never blamed me and never wanted to leave me and go away. Oh, some hands are being raised; though time is getting now, we will take a couple of questions quickly. 

Questioner 1: Baba, in meditation, if one finds oneself and the focus keeps dropping from the point between the eyebrows to the heart, and the heart feels blissful, and you want to stay here, it just seems like sometimes it's dropping from here to here.
 
 Shri Babaji: It happens, because when the mind is here, it gains a little bit of purification, then it gets dropped to the heart, means towards itself, actually. Not that it has to come from here to here; it appears to be so. But that must not be given up. You have to bring it back and practice more, more and more. Because this is a glimpse of that blissfulness that you get, is a good thing, it's a progressive sign, but you need to practice more and more. Bring it one hundred percent. Till then, keep continuing. Good boy.

Questioner 2:  Pranam Babaji, with regard to faith, like after Swamiji passed away, He appeared to you through the photograph and He also manifested soon in Mysore where you were, and He said that you will meditate, you will go into the tapas in November. And then in November, He came out of the photo to initiate you into the tapas. So, that is also faith, correct? 

Shri Babaji:  Yes.
 
 Questioner 2:  And how do we develop that kind of faith? How one can develop so that our master, I mean, what we believe in, can manifest for us. 

Shri Babaji:  Have it in your consciousness that it will happen. Till the last breath of life, never give up that faith filled with hope. Never bother whether it's going to happen or not. Your job is just to have faith. When the time is ripe, it will happen.
 
 
 Questioner 3:  Baba, you had so many opportunities to show your faith to Swamiji by working in the ashram. And as devotees in the United States, we can meditate for an hour a day, but are there other ways to show our faith or other ways that you'll test us or ask us to show faith in the way that you're able to show Swamiji your faith? 

Shri Babaji:  See, when you love your master, the distance will never matter. You are always connected to me. That is how you can show your faith. You always follow what we told you to follow. The way we need you to meditate, you just meditate. And have faith that your master is always with you in your heart. That's how you can show your faith. And then you will feel the connection also. Somewhere something will manifest always and you will get the experience. 

Questioner 3:  Will you ever ask more of us? 

Shri Babaji:  It will slowly, it will come. It will come. We won't reveal what we are going to ask you. The day when we ask, you must be ready to pass the test. Cultivate that faith. One day, I will ask you. My blessings.

End of session