Going on the right path | In Quest of Truth - Q&A with Babaji, No.214

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Going on the right path | In Quest of Truth - Q&A with Babaji, No.214
Recorded on 19 October 2024 with worldwide participants

0:00 Intro
0:07 What is the right path to take in life?
2:30 Why is it that many people seem to chose the wrong path in life?
5:49 Is it necessary to have the intelligence to realise we have to go for the permanent truth, the permanent happiness?
11:11 What is the importance of finding a master, a guru, to show us the right path?
17:08 Why do we not go for god itself? 
22:42 How can we remain inspired and motivated to stay on the spiritual path?
29:16 What is the importance of adopting the right technique?
36:07 Do we need to understand all the time in our lives that we need to silence our mind?
38:21 Should a person directly activate the third eye using the shambhavi mudra?
41:46 How long should we be doing the meditation for?
43:28 In meditation my body starts to rotate anti-clockwise, why is this?
44:27 When Babaji was being trained by Swamiji and was, for example, doing cleaning, did he imagine Swamiji at the same time?
45:25 Vendanta emphasises viveka and vairagya - how does one fully live in the world and at the same time practice vairagya?
47:31 Is it the brain that gives us trouble and is it the brain that carries karma?
48:38 How to be fearless and face things in life outside the practice of meditation?
49:38 Will our karma reduce as we practice meditation?
50:56 What about the karma that has already accumulated, how can this be reduced?
51:31 What is paravak or Dakshinamurthi, silence?
52:41 In what way should thinking be used?  Should we simply follow silence?
53:15 Thoughts about what we need to do in the day keep coming in meditation
55:49 Head moves to the left side during meditation
57:06 During recovery after illness the mind is very fuzzy and meditation is difficult
59:23 What is the eternal truth?
1:00:08 Experience of hair-twirling on top of head during meditation

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Website: http://www.srby.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shivarudrabalayogi
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SRBYmission
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shivarudrabalayogi/

Transcript

Discourse: In Quest of Truth – online Q&A no. 214
 Going on the Right Path
You tube Link: https://youtu.be/raSyCoFlezU 
Recorded: 19 October 2024

Start of Questions and Answers

Question:   The first question Babaji, what is the right path to take in life? 

Babaji Maharaj:   See, first thing what we need to understand is that time and again I have told, knowingly or unknowingly everybody is looking for peace and happiness.  So now, if we don't know the right path, we would not be able to obtain the right sense of happiness or what you call permanent happiness.  Like, funnily as a child, I used to think, “If the happiness is there, it should be there once for all, twelve months and twenty-four hours.  Why the fluctuation?  Why is that in this world?  Is there something wrong in me, something wrong in the world?”  Like, that I used to think then.  

So, this is what is important; the mind is searching for that peace that it had enjoyed by remaining in the Self.  So now, we have to apply our wisdom, apply brains to understand that we need to go and try to obtain peace and happiness from whichever existence is permanent, eternal, which simply doesn't appear and disappear, come and go, come into existence and then get destroyed.  

So, that is what we have to understand in spirituality also, that the entire universe or any appearance, what we call it as world, universe, etc., including our own physical body, cannot give a permanent happiness once for all, because it itself is not permanent; impermanent.  Our body also is impermanent.  If we depend on our physical body, always we won't be able to get happiness; it has its own limitations.  So, that's what we have to try to know and tread the path to achieve such a thing; that is the right path in my opinion.  

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  Babaji, why is it that many people seem to choose the wrong path in life, even though we're all looking for that peace and happiness? 

Babaji Maharaj:   See, anything you do in the world is looking for happiness only.  So, if you don't get happiness, you won't like to do it.  But if you don't know the path, you'll go for the wrong things which are impermanent.  So, we don't understand which is permanent.  For that, we need to gain observation power.  That observation power comes when our mind, our consciousness is better concentrated, more focused, is ready to observe the most infinite thing that exists.  Like for example, I have told, when you enter a room, your mind seldom pays attention to the most infinite thing that is space.  But it pays attention to all object matter – there is a wall, there is a fan, there is a table, there are people; like this, hundred things, and it pays attention to all of them.  

Like this in the world also, it goes on searching for happiness. Like marketing; we enter a market, we try to search for the best products that we want to buy.  We try to search, we see the ingredients, all such things.  So, this is what we have to see.  If there is any such product which mentions “This is a permanent existence, this will never disappear or go away from you.  If you obtain this, this will give you happiness.”  Is there is any such thing which is sold in any market, anywhere in the trade; nobody can guarantee that.  Even if they give money or power or any such thing.  Say, somebody says “I can give you that status that you can be the emperor of this world.”  Just like Yamaraja, the Death God, offered to Nachiketa in Katopanishad, “I can offer you the emperorship, go and enjoy for 5,000 years.”  But that young boy asked “Is it final and eternal or permanent?  Or is there anything that can avoid me coming back to you?”  Then Yamaraja said, “No, nobody can give that permanent thing, not possible.  Your body has to die.”  So, like that, that is the application of wisdom.  Nachiketa had this, you see?  So, this is what we also have to apply. As we live in this world, it’s no problem.  You can obtain anything you like.  You can enjoy.  But we need to know limitations.  So, before this universe ends, before our own physical body ends, that means we die, we need to find the final solution for this happiness and peace that we are looking for.  

Question:   Thank You Babaji.  Babaji mentioned the intelligence, the realization that is necessary to go for the permanent, the permanent truth, the permanent happiness.  So, for anyone, it's necessary to have that intelligence, otherwise we wouldn't realize what to go for?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, we should be able to discriminate properly what is real, what is unreal, what is permanent, what is impermanent.  Like when we go to market, some people might simply go pay whatever the retailer tells, “This is the price” – “I need this product, you come”.  That may be of lower quality, they won't examine what you want.  You go for a certain thing, but you might end up buying that which is not up to that mark, that which you wanted actually.  That's because you did not apply your wisdom to search for the right product, right ingredients.  You did not negotiate and did not ask the retailer to show you the product what it is.  

Nowadays, everybody searches online, even a small vegetable needed, they search online.  But very often, most of the people never bother to look into any quality; they simply go, look and click a button and ‘pay now’ selected and pay and done; that will come in a packet.  Whether that is of good quality or not also, they don't apply brains, they are in a rush.  This is what practically we see.  But some people, I see that they keep searching, half an hour, one hour they can be searching for one small product, because so many things are there in the world, online available, everything, the whole world is available.  But we need to learn, that means we have to apply brains, have patience to search for the right product that we are looking.  If we are looking for a medicine, if we are looking for a vitamin, vitamin tablets, magnesium, anything, for that we have to look for the right product, which is it which can give us health.  Or we try to buy a eatable, any such thing.  

So, like that, finally, when we want happiness, we must apply brains and use wisdom that we should discriminate where this permanent happiness can be available.  That's when this thought gradually will come.  Mind has this power to observe, but if it is too scattered in imagination and preoccupied with its own imagination, it won't be able to pay attention properly.  But if it is more focused, it is less confused, then it will gain observation power.  It will start thinking.  “Which is that thing…?”  That's what the ancient sages were, wise.  They were all wise people.  They were like genius people, like the scientists we call a genius, who observes with a powerful telescope what's happening with the black hole, what is it, and we try to study – all these things.  In the same way, those people, they studied which is it that is permanent, is our own existence permanent, are we going to be born with this body, are we going to become extinct when the body dies?  

Like this, I also thought as a youngster.  “If at all we are that eternal soul, why is that I'm not aware at the moment?”  So, like this, one has to apply wisdom, think properly, then go for that one, search.  And if there is any doubt, ask a Master, seeking His guidance properly with all due respects, not with arrogance and ego.  Quietly.  So that's what Arjuna was told by Sri Krishna, “Before death claims thee, go to the knowers of truth, sitting at their lotus feet, seeking their permission with all your humility, ask an intelligent question.”  Question also needs to be intelligent.  The opportunity is given to you.  Yeah, you can raise your hand and come on, unmute and come in.  So, if you end up asking something which is silly and nothing to do with spiritual truth or the not a wise one, you are wasting that two minutes of time that is given to you, that opportunity is gone.  So, if you did not know you could have given to somebody else to ask that question.  So, you see, when we finally finish our session of Q&A, then we may get twenty minutes or thirty minutes at the most, when we invite usually others to ask questions.  So, in that one opportunity, they need to apply wisdom and tell us what they want to know exactly, the right question.  So that is the right path, the right question, selecting the right things, the right moment, the right time, everything matters.  

Question:   Could Babaji talk about the importance to find a Master, a Guru to show us the right path? 

Babaji Maharaj:   So, first, a student needs to be sincere and know what the student wants actually.  What is it you want?  We just want to go to a Guru, but that person's idea could be, “Can the Master produce a chain and give it to me?  Can the Master materialize an idol and give it to me?”  So, then such a person will look only for such masters who can do that one.  But if a person wants to know the Ultimate Truth, the permanent existence about ourselves, if a person can think, “What are we?  Are we simply born and are we going to die and finish, extinct? ‘Die’ means extinct, when this body dies, or are we going to exist in some form?  What is it?  How can we know that one?  What that truth is?”  Then such a person will search for such a Master who is a Self-realized, who would have realized, achieved mastery over that topic, who is able to guide you properly.  

That's what we always prayed, prayer to the Divine can be very effective and you will be definitely guided to the right Master.  And we used to pray, “O Lord, my Divine, please bless me to have such a Master who would have liberated Himself and who can lead me to liberation.”  That capacity must be there in a Master.  Otherwise, he will answer giving colorful things, more and more stories he will knit and he will put you into more illusions than removing the illusion.  You tell that you had a dream and if the master has not understood what the dream means, what the illusion, all this thing, then he will go on telling, “This is the story, this has happened, this has happened, this one indication has come,” and they go into messages.  That's what people keep asking questions, “What if I get some messages in the meditation?”  I have to advise them.  You meditate not to get messages just now.  You will be simply cheating yourself.  Your own imagination will crop up and you start considering that as a message coming from somewhere.  And you will simply end up doing nothing.  Those things will not give you anything.  Wait for some time.  Let your mind become silent and become more focused.  Then that inner thing will come.  The right thing will come, right guidance, right inspiration, and the right vibrations, everything will come.  It will take you back to the Self.  

So, that is how, like I have told Swamiji used to tell sometimes, “Even if God comes in front of you and offers, don't accept whatever He can offer.  Tell that you want God only.  Hey, there is God who can give everything.  So, instead of asking for God, you can just end up just asking for a small chocolate.  The supermarket is yours, come and take!  But you are happy with only one small chocolate and want to go away.”  So, that type of thing we do in this world always.  That's what Swamiji used to tell sometimes in His own inimitable way.  Beautifully He used to tell some examples.  In a simple way, He used to just tell.  

So, that is how we have to apply wisdom and try to understand about the right path always, the right thing, right Guru.  So, if you know what is it that you want.  Then online also if you want to search, you should know what you want first.  You simply go online, and you don't know what you want and you keep going on searching and you don't know what to select, so, then you are confused.  So, you know what you want, then you will select.  You will not compromise for any other Gurus if you want the Self and Self-realization.  But you are happy with a chain and a ring, then you will end up remaining there only.  You will go for such masters, tantrik babas and other people who can today…  Everybody has lent the trick of bringing out Shiva Lingam them from the mouth and producing these things.  Hundreds are there.  Like Adi Shankara said, “Udharanimitam bahukrutavesham.”  So, for life- trading, they assume so many type of forms, these gurus crop up.  And Veerabrahmayya said, “For every five onions there will be a guru.”  Onions – means that is an example, giving.  So, everybody starts claiming “I have become a guru.”  A real Guru will never claim or boast that “I am a Guru.”  You want to know, I will tell; you practice and you will know the truth, that's it.  It's up to you if you want to consider me a Guru and want to ask a question and want me to answer, then concentrate on what I answer.  That is important.  Very often people, they go on asking questions sometime.  They simply want me to endorse whatever they have already understood and then they don't want to ask anything else and they will disappear.  They won't come again.  They won't meditate.  They think that “Whatever I am doing is the right thing.”  Okay, that's it.  You will end up like that only, this life will go waste.  An opportunity has come to you.  You have obtained a human body, a well-developed brain which you would have used for the best possible thing, but you end up using for something else, something else.  

Question:   Babaji has said that we don't go for God Himself.  Why is that Babaji?  Is it because we are afraid to go through any hardship, we want to be comfortable all the time, we want things to happen the way that we want them to happen?  Why is it that we don't go for God itself? 

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, everybody wants happiness.  They want it in a shortcut, just like instant coffee – everything should come in a package.  They announce online.  So, that sounds easy.  A couple of times, people have asked questions, “Can the Self-realization come like a package, instantly like that, the fast food?”  I said, “For fast food or anything for obtaining fast, instant, you need to have a credit card.  You need to have money in the bank – that you have to earn.  That doesn't simply fall from the skies like that one.  For that you are ready to sit in front of computer the whole day, eight hours, twelve hours, twenty hours, meeting after meeting, meeting after meeting.  You are talking the whole day, you talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.  You have forgotten anything else of the world.  You cannot socialize.  You cannot talk any other topic.  So, you are so much immersed and sucked into that – to earn that money.  Then you have to put it into the bank.  Then you are so tired.  You have no time to think what you want to eat, to cook also.  You just go online.  “Okay, this is available, okay”, you just click a button and that is delivered to your home and you eat and sleep.  You don't know anything else.  You don't have time to think about yourself or anybody else belonging to you.  

Like that people are becoming, the youngsters; we are watching, see them.  They are so busy, so busy, so busy.  Companies give money but they will squeeze out whatever they want to.  They don't give you a private life, a peace.  So, this world doesn't give you time to think about your real Self.  That's why people don't want to go for these things.  They are in a rush.  “If I press a button, can God appear?”  I also thought “If I can press a button the world disappears.”  I thought in a different way, not that God appears.  I thought in a different way, “If the universe can disappear”; that gave me enormous peace.  But I knew things won't happen like that one.  We understood.  We went further.  We did sadhana, a long time practice of controlling our own.  

First we need to understand, “It is me who is gossiping within me, in the mind, chatterbox.  I have to become quiet.  Then I will be able to see the truth within me.”  So, people are gossiping, gossiping and when we are answering, when you are talking, they don't have time to listen to me at all.  What to do?  Sometimes for a gathering, if you are addressing, in the midst also people are busy messaging.  They are messaging.  They are very busy, friendly messaging, chatting.  They have no time to listen to us talking some philosophy or something about God.  They don't have time.  In our gatherings only we observe.  So many times we have told to keep the cell phone silent.  “Please, so that you are attentive to what I have to say.”  No; they are habitual, youngsters.  They have to be messaging.  All that quietly, they think that nobody is watching.  Our eyes keeps watching.  They are just keeping in their lap and messaging.  And they are looking at me as if they are listening very seriously.  But they don't listen.  So, all these things are to subject one not wanting to go for God if God is a difficult thing; that is the first thing.  

Humans want everything easily.  If God is difficult, we don't want that.  If anything is easy…  But the money is also difficult, but they go for it because they know that they want it.  A livelihood, a food, they need it.  Even if it is difficult, they go for it.  They don't tell, “O, it's very difficult to earn money.  I cannot.  I will just go and sit in a corner and die.”  Nobody will do that one.  They will work.  Whole day they are ready to work, youngsters, they are ready to work day and night, till early morning, 3.30, they can be working.  Because they are given money.  They are given money.  And their bosses will take work, new project work, new project work.  So, this is what we get to hear.  So, anywhere things don’t come easily.  We have to work for that.  Peace and happiness also don’t come easily.  Like that for five hundred dolllars, it doesn't come easily.  We have to work for it.  We have to work for it.  Plan for it applying wisdom.  Every day practice, every day practice.  

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  So, Babaji, how can we remain inspired and motivated to stay on the spiritual path in the same way that people strive to obtain money?  How can we remain motivated? 

Babaji Maharaj:   So, first thing we need to understand, we want happiness.  Then we need to apply wisdom; what happiness, how much happiness.  If we start thinking, “O, just two minutes, we will eat up this and finish,” and then that happiness is gone, then we get involved into so many things – like that.  And occasionally we need to read some beautiful scriptures.  Little, little; we didn't go into a deep studying of any scriptures to become a scholar, but one line, one line. Nachiketa insisting, “Is there anything for me to avoid coming back to you, O Death God?”  Then Death God has no answer, “No.”  They have given an example of Death God, but that is the inevitable.  They have tried to tell in the scripture that this is the inevitable thing.  Anybody, is it possible that we can avoid dying in this body?  No – that has to happen.  Whether we will live here seventy years or hundred years or five hundred years or whatever we use, whatever tricks and medicines we use, one day this body has to die.  So, how long we are going to depend on this body?  

So, this created such an impact.  As a young boy we read somewhere about this Katopanishad; we never forgot that one sentence. Nachiketa insisting again and again, and Yamaraja trying to give greed to that boy, “O, this world is yours.  You can go and become an emperor of the whole world.  I have powers to give you.”  Many people look at gurus, whether they have such powers that they can give this and this lottery and this work and such things.  So, what is the use of such powers if it cannot give you happiness, if it cannot give you a permanent existence in this world?  The body has to die finally,  so thus we have to apply wisdom and understand.  That's what the ancient people… Nachiketa, when he thought “Every day my father…” – Nachiketa was thinking in that scripture – “…my father gave discourse about birth and death, about the eternal existence of the soul.  But when it came for him to sacrifice his own son so that he can be dropped into the fire, he got frightened at that moment.”  Practically when it came, he got frightened.  He started crying, “How can I sacrifice my only son?”  Then he [Nachiketa] was puzzled and disgusted; “What is this?  My father, then if he could not have done this, he must not have uttered that word also.”  This is another lesson.  A word once we utter, that can become like a promise.  If we cannot do it, we must not talk about it much.  We must not boast, we must not claim unnecessarily.  That is also a lesson.  That's what made the young Nachiketa disgusted. “My father is not honest.  He spoke something else, but now he is behaving something else.”  

In this world, in the society, every second person we get to see this.  They talk something else and when it comes to doing, they do something else.  Somebody else, they call “This person has done so many wrong things; he doesn't do it.”  But if it is that person's own children, then they will cover it, “No, no, no, it is not such a big fault.  It is okay for them to do it.”  Somebody else does it, it is a crime.  If we do it, it's okay, no problem.  So, like this, we have adopted double standards in the world and we are never sincere.  That's why we don't understand what we have to do.  We need to feel inspired.  We have to draw inspiration from these things.  Scriptures are there.  Gurus are there; that teaching…   See, since ages, time immemorial, these scriptures are coming.  Even today in this modern era I could get these scriptures to read and understand and feel inspired all the time; that we also have written; I am answering questions.  So many materials are there on the YouTube; it is presented.  If anybody searches they will get.  One-one minute videos that have been produced by you all is so beautiful.  If they go for that, they can always feel inspired that this is the truth.  Coming to this Zoom class should be inspiring if there are no wrong expectations, if Self-realization or the permanent happiness is what everybody wants.  

So, while I am talking, again as a disclaimer I assure; there is no harm in living in the world.  You live a normal life.  You enjoy the world.  This thing doesn't teach that you have to give up the world and run away, anything.  Where will you run away?  You have to be on this earth only.  You cannot simply fly in the space and go out of space.  Even if you go in a spacecraft to some space station, after several months you have to return to earth, otherwise you will die there.  This is the fact now, we have to understand.  So, you live a life but understand the limitations.  Then while the time is available, opportunity is available, you work whole day and you earn something.  In olden days they used to earn.  They used to live happily.  After five o'clock they used to come home.  And they used to enjoy some time with family.  And they used to have everything.  But nowadays majority of people are losing this.  They are losing their happiness, their mental stability.  They are stressed out.  Physically also they are getting all types of illness to eyes and so many other things are happening.  

Question:   Thank You Babaji.  So, Babaji has mentioned how the wisdom is important to know what to go for.  

Babaji Maharaj:   That's how we can draw inspiration.  

Question:   And also, Babaji, the importance of the right technique to adopt.  Could Babaji talk about the importance of adopting the right technique? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes, when we meditated only we understood why the silencing of the mind is important.  Otherwise, you see, in this world we are used to communicate or see through a sound and sight.  Silently we don't understand how we can communicate to somebody.  Even if we have to call God to help us, we start thinking that we need to know some language and something; silently which God we will call.  If the Gods also have been given names and we need to know such names to call, that's what we keep thinking.  That's what we need to know, the right technique.  It is a technical matter to call God also, to pray to God also.  It's a technical matter.  Anything is a technical matter.  If we go to a restaurant we need to have money.  We need to have a credit card.  That is the technical matter.  Without that if we simply go, what will we pay and what will we order to eat? Anything in the world.  We need money or we need any such thing, traveling, anything.  We are asked “Do you have the credit card?” first.  If you don't have, “Please go away.”  We are not allowed to go there.  

The same way here also we need to understand what is the right technique, what can give this peace, what can give us the permanent happiness, what can make us one with God or understand God, how we can ask God.  That's what we noticed while meditating.  So, just now our mind is so preoccupied with our own imaginations.  How can it pay attention to anything else when it is so busy with the thoughts?  When the child is so busy playing video games it has no time to pay attention to anything else in the world.  It refuses to even eat also.  It doesn't want to eat, doesn't want to drink, doesn't want to look into anybody.  Anybody is going, the child gets annoyed.  It doesn't want to give up those video game things.  Means wherever we become preoccupied in this world we forget to see any other truth.  When we are so used to going to malls, we get up at 12 o'clock, have a shower, take our two-wheeler and go to a mall to enjoy something.  Where is the time for us to look into anything else, to think about anything else? We don't bother at all.  There are other important things in life also to understand.  So, simply we pass by the age, it goes like that one.  We become old and die without knowing anything.  

This is what we have to understand about the right technique.  For this we need a guide, a Master.  So, if you read the right scriptures then you will crave for such a right Guru also, who can guide you in the right sense, who will insist.  I keep insisting, I keep insisting.  Hundred times, thousand times I tell a person “This is what you have to do”, but they come up with some other imagination because they want a shortcut.  They are in a rush.  “Can this happen?  Can I do this one?”  I have already told, “This is the only way.”  If you believe it, do like this only.  They come up again with some other.  They write, “Is it okay if I do like this?  Is it okay?”  “No, not okay.  Not okay.  You are wasting your time.  You have to silence your mind first.  First silence your mind.  Till then nothing is okay.”  But that silencing, I can try to inspire you, I can give you stories, I can answer your questions, I can keep telling you.  But you have to silence your mind, everybody.  Nobody else will silence your mind.  Temporarily if you sit in front of me for ten minutes, for some time you might feel silenced and at peace.  But all the time you won't be able to sit in front of me like that.  

You have to be in the world, you have to go, you have to work, you have to earn, you have to live, you have to eat.  So many things are there, you have to attend to your duties also, responsibilities also.  While doing all such time, if you want to be enjoying the peace then practice meditation.  Meditate, that's what we keep telling.  I never told everybody that “All of you just keep sitting in front of me, I will give you everything”.  I never promised any such thing.  That's what Swamiji used to make fun, “If you tell that you have to meditate, then people will run away.  If you tell that you all come and sit down in front of me, I will give you everything, don't worry.  You don't have to do anything, then ten thousand people will come.”  That's what was the language Swamiji used to make fun.  He used to tell me, “See, that is the world.  I want them to meditate, they run away, nobody sits in front of me.  I sit on the dais and I keep gossiping, then hundred people come around and stand around me.  They pay so much attention to gossip”,  Swamiji told me once this. “If I tell them all of them to meditate, they will quietly, one by one give some excuse and go away.  One has an examination, another has the office, another has to attend a relative's wedding, another has to go somewhere else.  Like this, they will all disappear quietly.  But if I am gossiping…” – Swamiji said this; I am not talking anything.  I don't gossip.  Once, Swamiji said “If I am gossiping, they are all ready to stand around me when I am sitting on the dais.  You see, have you seen this, Seenu?” Swamiji told me this one day.  I listened to Him.  That's how I learned and I felt inspired from Swamiji's teachings.  This is how He taught me.  This was His Upanishad.

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  So, as we listen to Babaji give these teachings again and again, we need to understand all the time that it's we who need to silence the mind.  We need to continue putting efforts for that throughout our lives.  

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes, definitely.  Every moment that is possible for you, that you can dedicate yourself, you are disciplined, remain disciplined; have patience.  It will be… because long time, you have allowed your mind to go into such a dirt.  So, it needs to be cleansed.  That is the thing that needs to be cleansed.  Forget about the chakras and pakras.  First, the mind.  You know your mind.  You see, that's in front of you.  That's why I'm talking about mind.  Mind is the best subject.  You may not know about chakras where it exists, what it exists.  You'll be puzzled all the time, you keep asking.  Even if you claim, it will be a false claim.  But you know the mind very well.  Everybody knows this mind.  Even a child understands; when I talk to the ten-year-old boy, they understand they have the mind.  And there is tension because next day he has to go and face the test, face the examination.  That boy was telling, “It's a lot of tension for me.”  

So, then this is what.  So, you all know that mind is there and that's what you have to understand.  This mind needs to be cleansed, quietened, silenced.  Then see, your mind has the power to pay attention.  It automatically pays attention.  Either it pays attention to something else which it is not or it pays attention to itself.  ‘Which it is not’ means whichever has been imagined and is not going to be a permanent existence or entity.  That.  Then it will pay attention to itself.  That is what you keep using terminology, Self-realization, Self-realized Master.  That is all that is needed.  You just become quiet and you know who you are.  

Question:   Thank You, Baba.  Should a person directly activate the third eye by doing shambavi mudra without activating other chakras.  

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, definitely.  Mind is the powerhouse.  The shambavi mudra also, the same thing which Swamiji taught us and we are teaching.  Concentrating your mind and sight in between eyebrows.  Many people talk of third eye.  This third eye is when the mind is totally purified, has regained its form as pure consciousness.  That is when it has blossomed.  That's when the third eye is opened.  Don't look for any other eyes to open.  Don't try to cut your forehead unnecessarily.  Nothing will appear there.  

So, this mind is what is known as the third eye.  When this happens, it will lift the body consciousness known as the kundalini.  When the mind is purified, know that all chakras are also totally purified.  It is the mind, consciousness which is spread in the body; with imaginations it has become corrupted and impure.  Once mind is purified, the chakras all get cleansed automatically.  You don't even bother about chakras.  You don't have to see where it is.  It will also disappear.  It's only symbolically mentioned.  This place as a chakra, a commanding circle: ajna chakra, in between eyebrows. Means ‘commanding circle’, commanding things.  So that means if your mind comes here, then you will be the commander of your mind.  That's why this is known as the commanding place.  Until then, the mind will be commanding you.  

Then, this mind will get detached from the brain’s reflections.  And that is when one feels here [placing hand on top of the head], I have explained.  One feels here means the mind is totally purified and is blossomed.  Then symbolically a teacher would have explained, “When it is blossomed, it is blossomed like a thousand petals lotus.”  There is no lotus, no thousand petals.  Symbolically, it is compared.  When the mind is purified, it is just like a thousand petals lotus blossoming.  So that's what has been misunderstood.  And so many things, stories and stories and stories keep spreading.  

That's what I keep telling about dreams also.  If you don't know what the dreams are, some masters go on telling story after story; they are simply storytellers.  They don't know the science of these dreams, beautiful things.  How our mind works, how our mind works in collusion with the brain.  Though we know something, we may not be conclusively knowing yet, when you observe in tapas time also – it's not easy to answer these questions, that one needs to know.  But, you can become Self-realized.  Means you can merge with yourself and settle there peacefully.  

Question:   How long should we be doing the meditation for? 

Babaji Maharaj:   At least sit for one hour practice, beginning.  That's what our Master insisted.  Because He used to say the first thirty, forty minutes you are struggling; mind is running and you are struggling to bring it back.  Final five, ten minutes the concentration might pick up.  Then that is like warming up has happened.  So, like that, at least for one hour you sit down.  Then as you practice, you can raise a little more also, a little more also, is possible.  But don't be in a rush in one day that you want to do eight hours and get Self-realized.  Slowly, slowly, by process.  First achieve the perfection of one hour.  Means, one hour, comfortably your body should be stable and sitting.  Then when you close the eyes also, your breath should be going smoothly; inhale and exhale must not be stopped.  Then eyeballs also need to remain fixed to one place.  Then it is completely watching.  Then your mind also will cool down.  It will become quiet.  One hour when the mind is quiet and just watching and not doing anything at all, that is the real meditation.  Till then you are trying to meditate.  Understanding this point with all the patience, sincerely practice and then achieve it to yourself.  

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  In meditation, my body starts to rotate anti-clockwise.  Why is this? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Ah, you must take care that it does not rotate.  See, the body totally doesn't rotate when you are sitting.  You feel like as if you are rotating, if the neck rotates a little bit; these types of things might happen.  So, you must straighten yourself.  If necessary, get up and wash up your face again and then come back and sit again.  So, as your mind cools down, becomes more peaceful, the body stabilizes.  When the mind is excited or becoming nervous or any such which is known as a little bit of violence type of thing, then this body instability keeps happening; excited also it can make.  Slowly you need to cool down by practicing meditation.  Then it will be alright.  

Question:   When Babaji was being trained by Swamiji, and Babaji had to do some work, like cleaning, did He imagine Swamiji at the same time?  

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, in which way I used to do; “Let this service reach the lotus feet of Swamiji.  He has told and just I am doing.  More than that no need to worry or anything.”  Then mind used to stabilize; silently I used to simply go on.  So, like that the time of silent mind increased.  As I remembered Swamiji and prayed for a while also, every time I did pray and remember Swamiji, then started becoming silent.  So, gradually that silencing happened more like a meditation for me.  

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  Vedanta emphasizes viveka and vairagya.  How does one fully live in the world and at the same time practice vairagya?  

Babaji Maharaj:   See, vairagya doesn't mean that you have to give up the world, home, or run away anywhere.  Where will you run?  You have to be on this earth with this body.  But vairagya means understand the impermanence of the world and just be alert to know the limitations of the world.  You just try to be a normal person, but don't give rise to a greed in the mind.  Learn acceptance.  You put an effort, whatever you desire.  So, when the results come, you get something, accept it and remain satisfied like that.  You practice.  That is what is known as karma yoga also when you are active.  So, vairagya doesn't mean that you have to give up work.  

Like, for example, taking to sannyas, becoming a monk or becoming a householder, these are all a way of life.  A person has a choice to exercise.  It's one's own choice.  Nobody should try to impose.  Even a real guru or a yogi never tries to impose a way of life on any person, what you have to become.  You can become anything you like in this world.  Meditate.  Anybody can meditate.  A householder can meditate.  A monk can meditate.  Monk also has to meditate in fact.  Simply by becoming a monk, one doesn't become Self-realized.  So, these things, if you understand, you can live in the world and be alert.  Just know the impermanence of the world.  If anything happens, be ready to accept and remain satisfied.  

Facilitator:   Thank You, Babaji.  

Question:   Yes, Baba, would You say that the brain is what gives us trouble?  And does that carry our karma or does it always interfere with the mind? 

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, I have told before also, the brain is in touch with the universe, world.  It receives message and it passes on the message.  And in that process, it reflects as a thought process or a vision.  That is caught by the mind and registers in itself as the reality.  So, then that mind carries the karma.  

Same Questioner:   Originally, from the brain, would You say?

Babaji Maharaj:   Mind’s application on the brain activates the brain to be in touch with the world.  Not simply brain on its own doesn't do it.  

Same Questioner:   Okay, so that carries our karma of the mind?  

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes.

Same Questioner:   Okay, thank You.  

Question:   Thanks Babaji.  So, Babaji, on my path for the last fifteen years I often avoid things like my adult responsibilities, and I often leave things to the last minute.  Do you have anything You can teach me to be fearless and face everything other than your daily prescription to meditate for one hour a day? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Always try to think positively –do not avoid responsibilities.  Know that if you try to run away from the world, the world will go after you to eat you up.  It is better, whatever way of life you have adopted.  If you have responsibilities, convert it as a sadhana.  So, you consider that is your tapas, then your mind has to become quiet, that is all.  So, if you don't feel agitated to do any responsibilities, then your mind will recede.  That will serve as a meditation.  So, then you will be more successful in life.  

Same Questioner:   Thank You, Babaji.  

Question:   Pranaam Babaji.  If you do more time in meditation, our karma will reduce or it will vanish?

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, if your mind becomes silent, then it will not acquire any further karma.  As long as this body exists in this world, whatever karma is there, it will have to undergo.  Because human beings are very selfish.  They want to think, “While I am in this body, karma will vanish,” means “Whatever I wish, that must happen.”  That's what they don't want; anything they don't like must not happen.  Things will not work like that.  If you quieten your mind, you will stop your future karmas, you will not acquire any karma.  The moment you are born in this world, there was some karma that you are born.  But if you silence your mind, you can pass through peacefully.  Like I have written in one of the quotes, “To be with God doesn't mean that you don't face any difficulties.  In the midst of difficulties, you find peace.  That is what is God.”

Same Questioner:   Babaji, now if I do more meditation, karma I can decrease.  But what about that already accumulated karma.  How to reduce that one?  

Babaji Maharaj:   That will have to vanish in the mind.  If you silence your mind, then it will vanish.  

Same Questioner:   Thank you.  

Question:   What is Paravak or Dakshinamurti? 

Babaji Maharaj:   So, Dakshinamurti is Lord Shiva's incarnation.  Swamiji used to tell - in the beginning when the first yogis, Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanatsujata, Sanatkumara, first they also had some doubt – their consciousness had not become totally silent.  So, they asked Brahma, they asked Vishnu for guidance.  Then they said, “No, you have to go towards the southern direction.”  There they saw Lord Shiva sitting quietly, silently in total samadhi.  When they sat in front of Lord Shiva, Dakshinamurti, their consciousness also became totally silent and they became totally Self-realized.  All their doubts disappeared when they became totally silent, and they became aware of the Self.  So, that incarnation is known as Dakshinamurti, who taught these first yogis in silence.  

Question:   In what way should thinking be used – simply follow silence or insight?  

Babaji Maharaj:   You practice to remain silent when it is not necessary.  Then when needed you will be able to think positively in the right direction.  When you practice meditation this ability will come.  This is an ability to think positively, to think in the right direction.  But it comes with meditation only.  

Question:   Namaskaaram Babaji.  In everyday life with our families doing multiple things, even if not chasing money, the regular routine, even doing a service, there are so many things which we encounter, people whom we have to deal with.  So, silencing mind is not easy when I am meditating.  The thoughts keep coming; “What next? What should be done?”  Things like that.  How do we quieten the mind when we have such thoughts continuously coming?  Not conflicting thoughts, though.  To-do things, we have so many to-dos for the day.  How do we quieten?  Is it possible? 

Babaji Maharaj:   I fully understand the situation.  This thing usually happens to humans, not necessary to be chasing money.  It can be anything.  When you are busy, have adopted the responsibilities, you have to fulfill the responsibilities.  For that, two things.  One is while doing, when you are active, trying to fulfill the responsibilities, try to accept the results as it comes.  Do not feel agitated, “Why I have to do this, why I have to be doing this?” if you have adopted that way of life.  And fulfill those things.  Let it be like a tapas for you.  So, that can get converted as a meditation.  So, thus if your mind doesn’t feel agitated, if it simply accepts it.  Or you can remember the Divine, “Let these services of mine, let these responsibilities that I am undertaking reach the lotus feet of my Lord.”  Like that when you think, then you will feel better and peaceful.  This is one thing.  

   And during meditation also, you have to apply some willpower, some wisdom.  Anything that you need to do as a responsibility, you can do it either before meditation or after meditation.  During meditation if you try to understand, “If I keep worrying, then I cannot meditate and I cannot fulfill other responsibilities also.”  It is like you are neither here nor there type.  Like that you try to apply wisdom and try to watch in between eyebrows.  This is like a struggle that always happens, duel,   battle for anybody to win over the mind.  But don't give up.  Don't lose enthusiasm.  One day you can have an upper hand.  The mind will cool down.  

Same Questioner:   Thank You.  Thank you. Namakaaram.

Question:   Namaskaaram Babaji.  When I meditate then there is an automatic shift of my head to the left side, a little bit like that.  Is there any solution? 

Babaji Maharaj:   What I advise, if necessary you sit on to a wall, some back support and keep some pillow or cushion and try to practice with folded legs and you see that it should not go left.  Then your mind's concentration can get disturbed.  So, it will be alright if you practice like that.  If necessary, as I told, get up and wash your face, pour some water, then walk a little bit, come back and sit again.  Mentally remain determined and think that “I must not move bodily.  Let me sit steady”, like that one,  if you steadily sit down.  And gently close the eyes and gently keep watching in between eyebrows, then your body will stabilize.  It will not fall back like that one.  

Question:   Hello, Babaji.  It's good to see You as always.  Two weeks ago, I contracted COVID and I was very, very sick, just terrible.  And about a week ago I tested negative.  So, I don't have COVID, but I have most of the symptoms still with me.  So, my question is, my mind is still very fuzzy.  So, when I try to sit for meditation, it's so difficult to concentrate and it's very frustrating.  How should I deal with this frustration? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Remain relaxed when you are not well if the body still has such symptoms.  Try to sit comfortably, in a relaxed way if necessary.  You can straighten your legs also, you don't have to keep it folding, don't be sitting in a rigid way.  Just remain relaxed as if you are going to sleep and just try to feel yourself in a relaxed way slowly and slowly until you recover properly.  So, hundred percent strength is needed.  If the body is weak and is ill, it becomes a bit difficult to sit.  When you are trying to force or more rigid, then it will be more agitated, mind, it will trouble you more.  So, first thing, remain relaxed and try to take such a position that your body is relaxed and it is not sitting in a rigid way.  So, then you just close the eyes and try to watch the front portion.  Even don't think that you want to meditate or you are trying to meditate.  Instead of that, just watch and feel relaxed.  Try to feel yourself – “Ah, just nothing.  O God, so beautiful.  I am this.  I am here.”  Like that, you just relax.  That meditation will happen.  It will carry.  Our blessings.  

Question:   Babaji, what is the eternal truth? 

Babaji Maharaj:   You are that eternal truth, but you need to become aware of that.  Simply by listening to a theory, it will not sit in your consciousness.  Consciousness, when it is not into imagination, what it experiences of its existence is the eternal truth.  For this only you have to meditate and do sadhana so that you silence your mind.  When the mind is totally silenced, then it is able to pay attention to itself.  That is when you become aware of the Ultimate Truth also.  

Question:   I experienced hair twirling on top of the head during meditation.  How to stop?  What is the meaning if there is any reason? 

Babaji Maharaj:   So, you have to take care that you are not in a rush or rigidly you are forcing the eyes to close and concentrate.  Always remain relaxed.  If necessary, you get up and wash your face a little bit, come back and then sit again if is becoming like that.  Then relax, sit down, gently close the eyes and try to feel yourself first.  This is important.  Instead of looking into the central position for concentrating on that, that is what can be troublesome.  Try to look down a little bit towards the tip of the nose, then you will feel better and relaxed.  After some time, when you become more used to that position, then your eyes can get lifted.  So, these things will be helpful not to make you feel any such thing in the head also.  It will all cool down if you practice like this.  Remaining relaxed is very important.  

Facilitator:   Thank You, Baba.

End of Questions and Answers

Babaji Maharaj now concludes:

   Wonderful.  We had a wonderful session.  Some very beautiful questions came from you all also, and from Simon earlier.  I hope it has been beneficial to you all.  

End of Session