The Mother Concept and Consciousness | Thus Spake Babaji - online Q&A No.94

The Mother Concept and Consciousness | Thus Spake Babaji - online Q&A No.94
Recorded on 8 May 2022 with US participants.

Register your free place for the live online meditation and Q&A with Babaji every Saturday: https://www.shivarudrabalayogi.org/en/online-satsang 

0:00 Intro
0:06 Mother and the Divine Mother in personified and unmanifest form
6:59 What is love?
9:06 Is pure love just pure oneness?
13:10 Explaining consciousness
16:32 Thoughts and consciousness
20:50 Spirit and Soul
25:49 Chanting the Gayatri mantra for a dying person
27:34 Spiritual beings having a human experience
29:38 Difference between energy of Shiva and that of Divine Mother, Adi Para Shakti
30:20 Innate objects and consciousness
32:49 Can you become Self-Realised during or after transition after death?
33:23 Is the emptiness that the Buddhists describe as the essence of existence the same as the 'space' that Babaji talks of?
35:43 When you 'watch' in meditation, 'you are not doing anything else mentally'
38:45 How does sitting in silence during meditation clear the impressions in the mind?
40:17 Impressions in the mind and memories
42:28 What is the 'ground truth' reality?  Once Mahasamdhi occurs does the universe disappear?
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Transcript

Discourse: Thus Spake Babaji - online Q and A No. 94
 The Mother Concept and Consciousness
You tube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__TEq7LSWG0
Recorded: 08 May 2022

Start of Questions and Answers

Question:   Today is Mother's Day, I don't know about the rest of the world, but in the United States it's Mother's Day.  And for most of us, Mother is the closest thing to unconditional divine love that we experience.  So, could You talk a little bit about Mother, the Divine Mother in both her personified form as well as impersonal or unmanifest?   

Babaji Maharaj:   Even in the legendary stories that we have heard since childhood - like the first time legend that we heard; the beginning of Creation, when the Divine wanted to create after Rudra went into samadhi, then enormous fire also came into existence.  That engulfed all the creation that went on getting created.  Then it says, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, the Trinity and the first yogis of Brahma's conscious creation in mind only, Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanatsujata, Sanath Kumara - they are the first yogis of the creation. That’s what it says, they all prayed to that fire, the Divinity, to assume the form of a Mother.  Because with a concept, a mother is the kindest who would conditionally forgive her creation, everybody; you don't have to apologize.  For all others you apologize and then they might forgive you, but for mother, you don't need to apologize at all.  And another point, Swamiji used to tell, “If you want to be a saint, you need to have the mother's heart, readily ready to forgive, grace upon, bless everyone, then you are a saint”,  He used to say.  So, these are some of the things. And Adi Shankara saying, "There can be a bad son, but never a bad mother; can never happen in the Creation."  So, I am sure almost everybody in the Creation, in the world accept mother concept as the greatest, highest, awesome.  We all adore, worship our mothers.  We feel so fortunate that we were born to such mothers who taught us the bhakti marga, scientifically, moderately, without any blind beliefs, total faith, like that.  So, I greet all creatures of this world, including humanity, that all of you are fortunate to have had a mother to be born on this earth.  Know that mother is the Divine Goddess.  As we talk of the mind or Supreme Consciousness, or the Supreme Being is the combination of Consciousness and Energy.  Energy is known as the Adi Parashakti, the Mother Goddess, the first invincible, invisible Divinity, the energy, Divine Energy.  That is Mother Goddess, Bhuvaneshwari, and She is the Goddess, the Lady of the Universe, the Creation.  So, like this, it's never-ending.  I am sure all of you love your mothers; you enjoy being with them.  May you all be blessed by your mothers, the Divinity.  May the Divine bless you all.  And as a mother, I love and bless all of you.

Question:     Thank You, Baba.  We talk a lot about consciousness, but we don't talk that much about the Shakti or the vital force.  And You've said that they are always together.  It's two aspects of one thing.  And you think of the Shakti; consciousness couldn't move without energy.  And so without that mother, nothing could be born.  It's such an amazing principle.  

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, here, one minute, sorry for intruding.  I remember an incident some thirty years ago. I was in the Ashram, and a monk came.  He was from our Karnataka.  He spoke my language, and he was very happy to have met a person from Karnataka.  He offered to teach me Devanagari, the Sanskrit language.  “Okay”, I said, “Okay, I will come.  Because I'm dedicated to this institution of my Master, whenever I get time, only then I will come.  You must not feel bad about it.  Because I will have to show my reverence to you; you are going to be a teacher for me.”  Then I started going.  Then he used to criticize this person, that person, this saint, that saint.  He was a bit negative in nature, which I don't like.  So, one day he came to Ashram.  So, when I was going to the school to fetch the children with their mother - we were sitting in an autorickshaw, next to her I sat.  I considered her as an elder sister.  She also considered me a brother.  So next time when I went to the master, he was ridiculing, “What sort of Ashram is there.  Ladies come to the Ashram; what nonsense is that? And you know, you being a bachelor, brahmachari, you sat with her in the autorickshaw.  This is very ridiculous.  This is a sin.”  I said, “If I had come out of the womb of my father, probably I would have accepted.  I'm sorry, I have come out of the womb of my mother.  How can I dislike or hate her?  I love.  That's what is my concept; all are my mothers, whoever it is.   So, I don't mind dusting my Guru’s Ashram.  I don't have to learn your Sanskrit.  Namaste.”  

Question:   That's a good lesson.  We could all benefit from Baba, walking away from things that aren't serving us.  So, Baba, the other side of mother is that mother-ness.  There's motherhood.  Motherhood's bigger, you don't have to even give birth to a child.  The females seem to have a bigger portion of that than males.  But mother-ness is in all of us - love and cherish and protect and provide and all that.  What exactly is love?  Where does it start?  What is it? 

Babaji Maharaj:   A love should be from the depth of the heart, unconditional, not for any other purpose.  You love for sake of love.  This is possible when you can see yourself everywhere, all pervading, in everything, as everything.  So that's when, because, as sometimes, Swamiji one time was telling, “Everybody love themselves.  Only when they can see themselves in others also, then they will be able to love unconditionally.”  That's what is possible.  That's the real love.  Otherwise, He said that it is lust and greed.  Love for any materialistic or the bodily gains, any such thing is not at all a love.  And such a love is unconditional, unconditionally forgiving.  Don’t mind for anything.  People criticize, people might praise, people might curse, people might talk nonsense - doesn't matter, it's okay.  It's only a childish thing.  We have to forgive and bear with it.  No problem.  We don't have to lose our temper.  We don't curse anybody.  We just love.  That is the love.  Love for sake of love.  

Question:   So, Baba, as we grow in consciousness or more enlightened, closer to Self-realization, it seems that you start to identify more with being the consciousness instead of being the person or all the thoughts and ideas.  And that consciousness is a universal thing.  You start to see that in everything.  So automatically, you start to feel like you are part of the whole.  Or the whole is part of you, one of the other.  So, that kind of feeling of unity, that's kind of like what love feels like.  That just pure love would be just pure oneness.  It seems like love takes two things and makes it feel like it's one thing.  

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, first you need to understand where you belong to.  Like, for example - I have told this example many times how the consciousness expands.  You go out of America and you meet another American, you feel that love.  How beautifully, a brotherly love, a friendly love, unconditional love.  He is our own.  Like that you go to some other planet and you meet a person from planet Earth.  How much you love, you would like to love that.  The day that we all realize we all live, exist in one single space.  No two items are there.  So, we all belong to one space.  That's what the Divine who came as an untouchable person in front of Adi Shankara said.  When Adi Shankara said, “Give way to me”, so then that person says, "If there is any place beyond brahmanda”, brahmanda means this absolute space, “show me that place, then I will go away there.  You are also in the same brahmanda.  I am also in the same brahmanda.”  Then He disappears.  Then Adi Shankara prostrates.  “The one who has this knowledge and wisdom is equivalent to my Guru.”  So, this knowledge, this experience and wisdom is what gives you the love, ability to love unconditionally.  Because we are loving ourselves, not with this narrow body, but with the vast boundless space as ourselves.  That is the Supreme Consciousness.  

Question:   So, in essence, we are not loving ourselves, we are love itself.  

Babaji Maharaj:   Exactly, you’re right.  

Question:   Great.  Hey, I want to share a story since we've done a lot of stories.  It relates to the mother.  It left a big impression on me.  Swami Satchidananda who’s such a great storyteller, he used to tell the story about how Shiva and Vishnu have been out for 50,000 years fighting the asuras, the forces of duality and darkness.  And 50,000 years in divine time, it's not long.  But they come back and they're bragging to their consorts, in this case, it's Parvati and Lakshmi, about how great warriors they were, how they slayed all these asuras.  And they didn't give any credit to their Shaktis, to their consorts.  And the consorts, Parvati and Lakshmi became offended.  And they withdrew their energy.  And then as soon as they did, Shiva and Vishnu couldn't do anything.  They were powerless.  And then the whole creation started to kind of implode.  So, then they begged for forgiveness, and apologized; and they forgave them and everything went on.  

So, Baba, how would You explain consciousness to somebody, to a layperson?  A lot of people aren't even aware that they are conscious.  And I don't mean that in a negative way.  They don't think of consciousness as a separate thing.  

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, you see, couple of points.  One is, familiarly I talk, amongst millions of thoughts, there is one thing which is not a thought; a reality of the consciousness of your existence.  It means a feeling that you have that ‘I exist’, ‘I’, ‘That’.  So, that is the consciousness.  Another thing, consciousness means wherever you apply your consciousness, you become aware of that.  Just like now when I'm talking, you all apply your mind.  That mind is the combination of consciousness and energy.  They both are same, inseparable.  There is energy in the consciousness and there is consciousness in the energy.  Like that.  That is what I mean to be the consciousness.  Your consciousness, be mindful, be conscious.  So now you practice meditation to achieve this consciousness awareness.  Conscious awareness – am I right, the word?  So, like that, that's what the consciousness is.  

Question:   I struggle with that Baba because, to me, my experience is that wherever I put my awareness, which is kind of like my attention, then I become conscious of what it's on.  And I've also had the experience that prior to becoming conscious, this ‘I’, prior to knowingness, is just this sense of aware, being aware.  Your consciousness of existence is that pure awareness.  And that pure awareness then starts to know, and as soon as it knows, it becomes conscious.  The energy and consciousness separate.  

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, you see, you are right.  Either way, whoever understands whichever terminology.  You apply your consciousness and become aware.  Or you apply your awareness and become conscious.  We both are same, no conflict.  

Question:   Because I like using the term consciousness for knowingness, knowingness.  You know, I'm conscious of that and just knowingness.  But then when I go beyond knowingness, I don't disappear.  I just become that pure awareness, that consciousness of existence.  It helped me when I finally equated that pure consciousness and pure awareness is the same thing.  That means there's just no thoughts in there.  But yet it knows it exists, but intuitively, directly without any second.  Is that correct? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes.  

Question:   So, thoughts don't seem to know themselves.  They seem to be the objects of perception.  Meaning there's a perceiver or a consciousness of existence that observes the thoughts in our mind.  Thoughts seem to be more like objects that consciousness perceives.  They don't seem to perceive themselves.  

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, now we take up as the mind, consciousness.  Consciousness is able to imagine and a thought appears.  And that consciousness is able to watch that thought.  Because that thought is within itself.  It doesn't go outside it.  That's why it is able to see that one.  So that's how.  So now, and if it goes on and on and on like that with its imaginations and thoughts, it's likely to forget about itself in due course of time.  That's what has happened to every soul.  And then through meditation you get rid of all imaginations, you stop imagining.  Then you gain that back again to the consciousness.  The consciousness becomes conscious of the consciousness.  

Question:   Okay, so related to that.  You know, when we're so involved in our thinking, we tend to think that we are our thoughts.  But then as you meditate and you start to get some distance, you start to be able to kind of perceive or witness your thoughts.  And then they seem like objects of perception.  And I am viewing what's going on in my mind, but I am separate.  Or that's happening in me, like You said.  It's like the ocean and all these things of consciousness and all these things are just appearing and disappearing constantly.  But the thought itself doesn't seem to know itself.  It seems like I know the thought or the consciousness knows the thought.  

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, as long as that consciousness enters the thought, then the thought is noticed.  And then the consciousness analyzes the thought and elaborates further, thus getting involved and creating further thoughts.  But the thought itself doesn't know from where it has come because it cannot see the consciousness.  Thoughts cannot see the consciousness.  As long as that thought doesn't dissolve, one with the consciousness, it cannot see consciousness.  In the same way, like people, we all of this world cannot see God, though God is all pervaded because we are the imagination of that Divinity.  Once we need to dissolve ourselves, whatever we have imagined about ourselves, then only we will be able to see that Divinity which is consciousness again.  So, you have to become - to know the space, it is like you have to become the space itself.  

Question:   Yeah, to know the Self, you have to stop thinking.  

Babaji Maharaj:   Stop thinking.  As long as you are thinking, it can never give the truth.  It can give only what it thinks.  The more it thinks it limits; the more you try to measure with a measuring tape, you are going to limit the space.  

Question:   Yeah, all these truths that You have been giving us for so long, they just get simpler and simpler.  Stop thinking and you’ll know the Self, done. If you know the Self, you will be at peace.  That's all you need to know.  

Babaji Maharaj: You are there. 

Same Questioner: Okay.  Two terms, spirit and soul are used in the West.  We don't usually use terms like atman and jiva and brahman and parabrahman.  How would You define a soul and spirit? 

Babaji Maharaj:   You have more to say? 

Question:   Well, I was just going to say, I think in my mind, I tend to think of a soul as a kind of an individualized being without a form.  And then I think of spirit as being much bigger, more like consciousness, pure consciousness or something like that.  

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, in my understanding, spirit means infinite, where you cannot see through naked eyes.  It exists and it appears to be not existing.  So, it is there and it is not there.  That's what is the spirit form we tell.  And the soul, atman – atma in Sanskrit, I think ancient people used this word to tell because first they addressed it as tatva, ‘that,’ then they try to tell this, ‘The substance which has substantial existence value’.  Because if you try to go on looking into that, you fail to understand whether you should tell that it exists or it does not exist, whether it is atman or anatman, these types of arguments have happened so many times in scriptures, these things.  So that's why you cannot establish either of the things because both are imagined terminologies.  It has to stop.  Only then you are really aware of yourself.  So that's what really happened.  But for sake of understanding and communication, this is what somewhat it comes to.  A substance which has substantial existence value.  That's what in samadhi, a yogi experiences, then he understands, becomes aware of the fact that this space is not simply inert, void; it is supremely conscious.  It can become conscious of its existence.  If it goes further into mahasamadhi, it goes beyond and that also stops.  But if it comes, that's how only in duality, you are alone, imagine. There is no second object there at all anywhere.  But yet you have to imagine a second object to know yourself that you are an eternal existence.  

Question:   The normal kind of knowing is there is a subject and an object in the process of knowing.  But in that infinite space, there is no second.  But initially it knows itself intuitively, but then you can even go beyond that where it is so infinite it’s not even aware of itself.  

Babaji Maharaj:   It's like you are doing a mono-acting.  You become the hero and you become the villain and you slay yourself.  Then you discover there is neither hero nor villain.  There was also - like that.  

Question:   That's kind of related  I think to the savikalpa samadhi, would maybe relate to that space of feeling you're infinite.  But you haven't gone beyond that.  There is still the ‘I’ there, the ‘I feel, I am infinite,  I am the consciousness.’  

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes.  

Question:   And it seems like that's more common to attain.  What You and Shivbalayogi Maharaj have attained, the nirvikalpa is so rare.  You don’t call one a yogi until they’ve attained nirvikalpa, so there’s hardly any yogis. But once most people obtain that savikalpastate where they feel ‘I am infinite’, but they don't go beyond that.  

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, they end up defining.  Again, that means they end up thinking, they end up imagining; that which has to stop.    

Question:   So, Baba, when people are passing away, the body is dying, it's usually prescribed to chant the Gayatri mantra.  Does chanting the Gayatri help the departing person, or is it mainly to help the people that are chanting it that are suffering because of the loss of the one living on? 

Babaji Maharaj:   If the departing person's consciousness can hear or absorb that sound effect, that can be very beneficial.  It can make that consciousness to get reduced of its violent thinking and become more non-violent. Cool down, cool down, serenity, quietening type.  So that is definitely helpful.  Once that happens to consciousness, that gets an elevated birth in the next time, if at all it has to be born.  So that wonder can happen if still that consciousness is there.  So, whatever it is, it is not a waste of exercise, not at all a waste.  At least it will be helpful for the person who chants, and for anybody who can consciously hear that sound effect.  

Question:   So, the mechanics there are, if you can hear that, it will cool down your mind, it will quiet your mind, and that will be beneficial to whatever degree you can do that.  

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes.  

Question:   Okay.  Would You comment on this saying that we're not human beings having a spiritual experience, we're spiritual beings having a human experience? 

Babaji Maharaj:   [laughs] See, that is what has happened, spiritual beings having human experience.  Now as human beings, we have to experience that we are that spirit, we need to have the spiritual experience.  Otherwise, we get carried away that we are only human beings.  We forget that we are that spiritual being.  So, this thing is very important.  It has come into journey, it needs to go back, a reverse journey is also equally important.  One journey has happened, spiritual beings have become human beings, but the human being has to go back to the spiritual being.  

Question:   It's good to remember that not everybody is on the return journey.  In fact, most people seem to be on the outward journey, but both aspects of one big divine reality.  

Babaji Maharaj:   When a yogi comes, that's what he tries to create, an awareness, “Enough of human beings.  Now go back to your spiritual being.” [laughs]

Question:   Nisargadatta Maharaj said that it's not liberation of the person, it's liberation from the person.  

Babaji Maharaj:   [laughs] Yes.  

Question:   There is no liberation for the person, because it's always going to be in boundaries.  

Babaji Maharaj:   It makes sense.  

Question:   What's the difference between the energy of Shiva and that of Divine Mother, if we're calling Divine Mother as Adi Parashakti?  

Babaji Maharaj:   There is no such thing as Shiva’s energy or Adi Parashakti’s energy.  Shiva and Adi Parashakti, they both are one and the same inseparable existence, Shiva-Shakti.  So that's what is the Supreme Consciousness and Supreme Energy.  Mother is not a different entity from Shiva that she has a different energy and Shiva has a different energy.  

Question:   The other part of the question is, innate objects are also in existence, but we define innate as lacking consciousness.  

Babaji Maharaj:   Consciousness is all-pervaded, everywhere it is there.  It's a different matter, somewhere the manifestation could be there.  At some places the manifestation or its connection to this universe may be temporarily below, behind the screens.  Because only wherever that brain is there, developed brain is there, then the consciousness is depicted.  Like in human beings, the well-developed brain is there.  That is how a consciousness is depicted very well with discrimination, thinking ability, ability to use intelligence, wisdom, all these things are possible.  Like in all other creatures, though living species, they are able to adopt an instinct; based on the instinct, generation after generation, they learn from the mothers how to hunt for their food.  And that's all.  More than that they don't think, they don't discriminate what is happening, “Why we are born as animals, why we are not human beings?”  All these things they cannot think.  It is simply there.  The same way if it is a stone or any such thing, though the consciousness is there, but it is not depicted, it is not manifested.  Because the brain is absent there.  

Question:   So, basically anything that exists… since consciousness is the fundamental material, everything is a form of consciousness.  But not all forms have self-awareness.  

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes, yes.  So, that's how we recognize if the consciousness is depicted as a living species, in science or in other things, different terminology.  But the facts are different.  

Question:   Yeah, I always like the, ‘May there be peace and happiness in all forms of consciousness.’  That always makes me feel good.

Can you become Self-realized after you transition, if you were close in the physical world, can you become Self-realized during a transition or after transition? 

Babaji Maharaj:   During the transition is possible.  When that happens, then it merges.  After the transition, it would have merged already.  It won't exist as an individual soul.  

Question:   Babaji, my question relates to something I've been convinced of for a long time, which is that many of the world's religions are teaching really one and the same wisdom.  It is just described and expressed in different ways that go through cultural filters, but that the underlying wisdom is the same.  Along those lines, I was watching a very interesting documentary about greed and why humans are greedy.  And it talked about the psychological, the neurological and the spiritual reasons for this greed behavior.  And there was an interview with a Buddhist teacher who said that the essence of existence of the universe is emptiness.  And I've heard this term used by Buddhists before.  And it puts me in mind of your teachings about space.  But my question is, is it the same thing - The emptiness that I heard the Buddhist teacher describe as the essence of everything and the space that You teach us about? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Though the beginning terminology is definitely the same, but we must not conclude it as either emptiness or just the space what we have understood as a void place.  It is beyond that.  No terminology, no attributions.  It is neither absolute nor zero.  It appears to be zero, it appears to be absolute, like that; it is there and it is not there.  That's what Buddha meant when He spoke; actual word He has told is nirvana.  Nirvana means it appears to be nothing, but it is there.  

Same Questioner:   Thank You Babaji.  

Question:   Pranaams Babaji.  Baba, a few Zoom sessions ago, You had said something before we went in to meditate that I found really helpful.  You had said “When you're watching, you're not doing anything else mentally.  Remember this point.”  And I wonder if You might talk about and explain why that's such an important point so that the meditation method is successful for us.  

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, if you don't just watch…  now first thing, mind has two aspects - one is its ability to watch and its ability to think; both are there.  When you achieve one of them thoroughly, one hundred percent, then the other aspect stops.  It gets reduced.  It gets composed.  So that's why here, now mind, it has become mind, the same consciousness, because it is consistently thinking, thinking, thinking through analyzations, making judgments. And that is why when people want to meditate, their thoughts and visions don't come to an end.  Mind doesn't become silent.  They are unable to achieve the silence of the mind and then they are unable to become aware of themselves as that ultimate truth.  That is not possible because the mind is constantly thinking, thinking.  When it is thinking means it is imagining.  So that's why now it is taught, you just watch.  Repeatedly we keep talking, “Watch in between eyebrows and do not repeat anything, means no mantra, no name, don't reverberate anything in your mind and do not imagine anything.”  This is the greatest instruction, the third point.  “Do not imagine anything.”  If you are thinking, you are going to imagine.  We teach any thought or any vision come whether it is good or bad, but you don't imagine whether it is good or bad, then you will get involved.  You will create further thoughts, further thoughts and get involved in the millions of thoughts.  Just watch.  So, when you are watching, when you are able to achieve that watching, then the mind stops thinking.  As the mind stops thinking, all thoughts and visions dissolve, all the created things by the consciousness dissolve, only that consciousness of existence remains.  That's how consciousness becomes aware and that awareness becomes consciousness of.  

Same Questioner:   Thank You so much.  

Question:   How does sitting in silence during meditation clear the impressions in the mind? 

Babaji Maharaj:   So, when you are silent - I have already answered to this question - if you are silent, all those thoughts, they lose existence value.  A thought exists as long as you hold on to that thought with an imagination.  The mind has a tendency, when it watches a thought or a vision, it cannot keep quiet.  It has to analyze, like “This is good, this is bad, why is this, why not this, is this mine, this is not mine” about this world, anything that it comes across it doesn't keep quiet.  Now your job is to achieve that quietness.  If it becomes quiet, then all thoughts automatically get dropped because you are not holding.  What happens, when your mind thinks, a thought appears.  Watching that thought, mind forgets “This thought is there because of my imagination”.  Instead, that mind starts considering that thought to be a fundamental reality and gets involved with that thought as if it is a reality.  So that's what happens.  So that is why watching is taught.  When you are silently able to sit, the rest of the thoughts and visions automatically disappear.  Then only the consciousness of existence, that ultimate truth is experienced.  

Question:   Baba, there are a couple of things there.  Impressions we think of as samskaras which would be those judgments that have kind of formed our behavior and our personality.  But there are also memories.  We have memories of those judgments and our experiences.  So, somehow, we get rid of the binding impressions, but we don't get rid of the memories.  You have an amazing memory.  You seem to remember everything.  

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, memory is in the brain actually.  Simply the concentrated mind when it taps the brain, then the folder gets opened.  That's what happens.  So that's why every life when the body dies, along with that actual memory is lost; you don't remember what you were, where you were born if at all you were born, with whom you were born, who were your siblings, who were your parents, who was wife, who was this and that, everything is forgotten.  Ashtavakra says that is the boon of the Divinity, otherwise how would you have managed fifty lives?  If you remember your wives and others, children and this, that everything, one would go mad. Emotions, managing all things.  So that's what happens. Technically, scientifically, spiritually, along with the death of the brain, all memory is lost.  As long as that brain is there, you can remember exactly what happened.  Like we are able to remember our childhood.  I have controlled my mind, achieved Self-realization, I am able to keep the mind quiet.  I don't allow it to keep playing all the time, but I can apply it on the brain and remember what happened when I was seven years old, something like that we can recall that one.  

Question:   So, it's on the hard drive, but it's not playing, uninvited?

Babaji Maharaj:    Software is pure.  There's nothing in it.  

Question:   Thank You so much Baba for being here.  I have a question that came up.  Actually, I'm really interested in science and this kind of stimulated my thought process and reminded me of Your teachings.  It was from like a neuroscience perspective where they've sort of just realized that the brain is constructing almost like an abstract reality from whatever ground truth reality is, and basically you build up your own perception of color, your perception of sound, your perception of everything else.  So that made me really think deeply about everything that's going on, everything you're perceiving is your own world.  I guess it made me think, what is this ground truth reality that we see?  Maybe that's sort of what we merge into when you finally are able to Self-realize.  And I guess that's sort of the question and then also, once mahasamadhi occurs, is there still a world or a universe?  Does that just disappear or does that remain and it's not perceived?

Babaji Maharaj:   At least for the person who attains mahasamadhi, everything dissolves.  He gets to experience this before the actual merger; impermanent and also simply it is an appearance.  It has no other solid ground reality because it is created only by the technology of consciousness imagination.  No other raw material is there, so no solid creation has happened.  Though this world appears to be so solid, but it is really not solid.  As you were talking about neuroscience, the ground reality and it is creating something, that's why I also tell the brain can be a very wonderful servant, but a very bad master.  It's just like a computer.  It doesn't know what the truth is.  It will simply reflect whatever comes to it because it cannot give the context.  Thus, nobody knows what this world is in any field, through science, technology or spirituality. They will simply have to imagine, give a terminology so that they can communicate in this world, so that they can understand in a particular way.  A mango becomes mango because everybody accepted it as a mango.  A sweetness becomes sweetness because everybody accepted it as a sweetness.  This would be the neuro truth also.  So, that's what happens, that it cannot give the ground reality.  That's what it is.  That's why we tell as long as the mind is imagining, it cannot give the ground reality of what the truth is.  It has to go, everything.  That's how probably Einstein also realized one has to cross the barrier of time and space.  That cannot be demonstrated.  An individual has to experience and go to that level of understanding.  Until then, even if the Master explains, it will be very difficult for the truth to penetrate the inner layers of the consciousness.  That's why Master teaches you meditate.  You meditate.  That means you develop, elevate yourself to a better understanding capacity.  The more mind becomes quiet and quiet and quiet and becomes concentrated then it gains this ability.  Otherwise, you see, when a Master teaches, students keep arguing; they don't understand.  For example, what Buddha has told about nirvana, many people keep arguing – anatman and atman is not there and emptiness and this and that.  A real teacher understands we have to go beyond.  It is neither existence nor non-existence.  It is beyond that.  Like that. 

End of Questions and Answers

End of Session