Thus Spake Babaji - online Q and A, No.34

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Thus Spake Babaji - online Q and A, No.34
A live online Q and A session, recorded on 25 April 2021, with US participants.

In this session Shri Babaji gives guidance on the following:

0:00 Introduction
0:07 Is a Self-Realized person free of desire?
2:41 How does a personality of a Self-Realized person function?
3:53 What does Babaji see in us?
5:03 Babaji's explanation of His answer "I made myself disappear"
6:46 The bliss of the Self
8:16 Isn't bliss an experience of individuality?
9:27 Explanation of a passage from the Bhagavad Gita
12:34 Liberation from the cycle of birth and death
18:59 The senses and watching during meditation
22:30 Using sexuality and tantra yoga for spiritual progress
24:20 The computer's effect on the brain
26:32 Anger arising through breathing exercise
27:57 Service and meditation
30:21 Destiny and Self-Realization
33:40 Keeping our attention on something while active in the world
36:25 Sustaining the effects of meditation in daily life
41:07 Death and what comes back in reincarnation?
50:09 Should one have caution to feelings of sweetness?

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Transcript

Discourse: Thus Spake Babaji - online Q and A No. 34
Recorded: 04 June 2021 with US participants

Start of Questions and Answers

Question:    You've said that a Self-realized person lives in a state of supreme peace and total contentment.  Does that mean that they're free of desire?  And if so, how does a person continue to live without desire? 

Babaji Maharaj:   A desire would be quite limited.  Like, I have told, we call it as a satvik ego, an attachment to the Master's name and wanting to spread the message of Master, whatever Swamiji wanted to teach as meditation, that awareness.  So, the rest of the thing mechanically happen.  Most of the time through others, through this thing, that thing happens.  So, very rarely that I have to bring the mind up to the thinking level.  So, thinking itself will not be a desire.  A desire actually generates more craving.  So, that type of desire will not be there.  I don't have anything to achieve, just to spread my Guru's message.  So, whoever is destined, they will be brought by Guru to receive our blessings, our teachings, all these things.  So, we won't have that much of desires.  So, a little bit of consciousness, also I have explained, a very little bit of consciousness is in touch with the brain to keep the body alive enough.  Day by day, it becomes definitely very difficult.  Like things, to execute more things with a desirous attitude of wanting.  There is no such attitude of wanting to travel.  If some people respectfully with all the love and care invite, if I can go and teach meditation, that is all.  I don't have any such desire I have to do sightseeing, I have to explore the world, I have to explore Moon and Sun, Mars, nothing; it is all the end, finished.  Whatever I needed to explore, it is done; that is the Self, that is amazing.  So, that is the greatest wonder we have explored - nothing else is as great as the Self.  

Question:   So, Baba, the personality continues to function more or less spontaneously, just carried out by the laws of nature? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes, body most of the time functions mechanically, having a food, going to sleep and just relaxing quietly.  Even if I am alone quietly, if I am not doing anything, if I don't have to talk or any such thing, it is at peace and totally relaxing.  There is hardly any load on the brain, so the brain also is quiet and relaxed.  So, that is how it works.  That is why when a question is asked, easily, spontaneously the answer comes.  I myself cannot imagine too much and go on lecturing, give a long lecture like that.  So, I cannot talk colorful stories, colorful things - only connected to the subject.  

Question:   So, the intellect is not really involved in Your answers, it just spontaneously comes out?  

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes, all answers spontaneously come out.  In the chat, the question has come - shall I will just answer?  He asked, "When you see us in U.S., what do You see in us?"  I always see the atman, the Self that is all pervaded.  Just like, for example, there is object matter and space.  Object matter and space - it is okay if not USA, anything, anything else; the whole world, the universe, seeing you all.  So, my mind sees only the atman, just like you see either the space or the object matter.  Generally, when people enter an atmosphere, space seldom attracts them, they get attracted to all the objects, pillars, chairs, this, that thing.  But for me, it is the space which attracts as the ultimate truth.  So, I see only the Self.  It is the Self which questions, it is the Self which answers, it is the Self which has already understood, it is the Self which is going to understand.  

Question:   Thank You Baba.  I think You said once that somebody asked what Your greatest achievement was, or maybe what You accomplished in tapas, and You said something to the effect that “I made myself disappear.”  Can You comment on that?

Babaji Maharaj:   As you go on meditating, means when you just follow the instructions of the Master and just watch…  So, I did not get involved into any imagination, any creativity, any previous resolutions which would have made things to manifest, or mental projection, or to the extent of manifestation, nothing came to me.  The ‘I’ did not come at that time; “I am seeing this, I am getting this, I am getting Self-realization.”  So, at that stage, the ‘I’ disappears.  So, by meditating, you make the individually imagined self, that ‘I’ to disappear.  The personality or the body, like the previous name before my tapas was Srinivasa Dikshit - all that disappeared, that imagination, that idea, idea of the ‘I’ existing, non-existing, anything disappeared totally, all ideas.  They all appeared to be simply ideas that were there with an imagination; they all disappeared. Simply existed. Without the thinking of that ‘I exist’ also the existence was there.  

Facilitator:   Beautiful, thank You Baba.  

Question:   My question is, the Self is satchitananda, so the Self is bliss, and again there is anandmaya kosh which is like trying to chase bliss in meditation, and You teach us not to chase any experience or bliss.  So, how is the bliss of the Self different from anandmaya kosh? 

Babaji Maharaj:   The Self is already in supreme peace, because it doesn't need anything.  You can enjoy the best happiness only when you don't need anything, when there is no desire.  When there is desire, craving comes and the duality doubts happen; “Will it happen, will it not happen?”  So, when you go back to the Self, the Self is already in supreme peace, but presently when the Self has taken the shape of a jivatma and the mind subsequently, that mind has lost its peace because of its craving, its imagination; it is looking for peace somewhere else other than itself.  It is going to look for the peace with a desire to have that peace.  So, by meditating in this technique, you lose that desire to have peace and you have peace.  That is like the moksha sanyasa yoga type.  You don't even have the wish to get the moksha and then you are there.  

Question:   Baba, that satchitananda (or sachchidanda) comes up a lot, you know, truth, consciousness and bliss.  But isn't bliss an experience?  Wouldn't that be on the level of some kind of individuality? Wouldn’t there have to be someone to experience the bliss? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, so that is one reason I have tried to use ‘to go beyond bliss.’  Peace is the thing to be achieved.  Even in Vedic era, they have recommended ‘Om shanti shanti, shanti’ – peace. Because peace settles down the mind,  you get composed.  So, you are that peace, you don't have anything else to experience.  You remain quiet.  When you are quiet, you automatically have peace; you don't have to experience with a separate entity, that doesn't happen.  You already, always are at peace.  Here, see the sentence changes - you are not experiencing the peace, you are at peace.  

Question:   I just have a question from Bhagavad Gita.  I have been pondering over this point from chapter 2.  I think I understand but then again I go into a contemplation, I am not sure whether I did understand it.  So, I was wondering if You can throw some light on that?  

Babaji Maharaj:   What is written actually? 

Same Questioner:   The shloka number is 46 from chapter 2 – Yaavan Artha Udapaane Sarvathah Samplutodake, Taavaanasarveshu Vedeshu Brahmanasya Vijaanathah.

Babaji Maharaj:    Is the meaning given?  Slightly, I need a little bit of meaning, then I can comment on that one, if you read the meaning. In a simple way also if you tell, I can comment.  

Same Questioner:   The way I understood this;
just like there is water in a well, there is no need for that when you are surrounded by water everywhere. Similarly it is with the Vedas.

Babaji Maharaj:   This is probably, just like if you are in the midst of water, you don't need the well, you are already in the water.  Means when you go back to the Self, you don't need the body or this world.  There is no need of anything at all.  You would have achieved the total contentment, that is, Self is contented only because it doesn't need anything else.  In the same way, Vedas also you need when you need to understand, when you need to get motivated.  Once you have achieved that Self-realization, you don't need any Upanishad or Vedas once the Self-realization has happened. So till then, to motivate - that's why we also advise - to motivate yourself you read the spiritual text that is closer to the truth.  And once you achieve Self-realization you are totally quiet; you don't have to read anything.  

Same Questioner:   So, I was actually cross-referencing it with Om Purnamadha Purnamidam Purnat Purnamudycyate, Purnasya Purnamaadaaya Purnameva Vashishyate.

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, they say, this world, this universe which has come out of that Absolute Truth, and because this universe has come out of that Absolute, this universe also belongs to Absolute only, is a part or is Absolute only -  it is not different from the Absolute.  So, when this absoluteness, this world is not going to be there, this would have merged with that Absolute which is unchangeable, attributeless.  

Question:   Pranaam Babaji. The goal of meditation is complete stillness of mind.  Without being established in this silence, there is no liberation from the cycle of birth and death,  there is no jivan mukti.  Now, for a worldly person, this is a difficult, if not impossible task.  In other systems of philosophy, especially Vedanta, they say if you have had a glimpse of the stillness, if you have realized that you are the immortal Self, but you are not established in it, even then liberation from cycles of birth and death is still possible.  They call it videha mukti.  What are Your comments on that? 

Babaji Maharaj:   That is why, if a person is active in the world, like is a grihasta, has so many duties, adopted duties; to look after family, work, earn a livelihood, all these things,  in that case a karma yoga is recommended.  Karma yoga means, in a simple way, you work to achieve anything. Having a desire itself is not a problem.  Simply, when the results come after you put in an effort, so you have some expectations.  But if the result is not according to your expectations, then your mind is likely to go into a brooding and get disturbed.  So, simply having acceptance is the yoga.  So, if you accept the results, go on accepting the result as it comes, one after another, one after another.  “Though I wanted it to happen like this, if it has not happened, if what has happened is something else, maybe God has better things in His store.”  So, then your mind recedes and becomes quiet.  Thus, eventually you would have achieved silence of the mind.  When silence of the mind happens, your attention turns introvert to itself.  The mind pays attention to itself.  Then mind disappears, manolaya happens, then only the Self exists there.  

So, for this only in Yoga Vashista also Shuka Maharishi and Janaka’s story comes; our Master also used to tell this often for grihastas.  So, one day, Shuka Maharishi starts thinking, “We hear that Janaka Maharaja is jivanmukta - while alive he is the totally liberated one.  I wonder how it is possible.  I was born as a bramachari in the ashram and born and brought up without any desires.  I just meditated and achieved this quietness within me and the awareness of the Self.  How come for Janaka who has to attend to the political needs, his kingdom's needs, his family needs, how can he keep himself, his attention to the Self and yet execute the duties?”  Then Veda Vyasa tells, “Because you will consider me only as a father and you will take me very lightly, you will not take me seriously, go to Janaka, considering him as a Guru” - here, that is why Guru-disciple relationship is recommended so that you can have reverence, you can have seriousness to follow the instructions – “go and ask him questions reverentially.”  Well, when Shuka Maharishi comes, Janaka also hears about it and he instructs his servants, “Keep him standing at the doors for three days.  Don't give him any reception, don't ask him even for water.”  Then after three days he asks his servants, Janaka.  Then the servant says “He is totally composed, at peace, all the time smiling.  He did not get annoyed with us.  He said, “Because you are just following the address of your Master, so I don't have anything against you.”  He just stands.  He didn't demand anything.”  So, Janaka Maharaja comes and receives him, gives him all the reception.  Then he asks him, “What is the reason that you have come?”  So, Shuka Maharishi asks him, “This is the thing.  How is that you are able to keep your attention on to the Self while you are executing your duty as a householder, as a king?  You have to attend to kingdom and politics, favor and not favor, all these things.”  Then Janaka Maharaja tells, "I have a court job.  In the evening I will answer your question.  In the daytime I would like you to go around my Mithila Puri."  But before going he keeps a jyoti, a candle on his head telling, "Please take care that this candle does not fall down.  That is very important.”  So, Shuka Maharishi goes around the town and comes back in the evening.  Again, he is attended to and Janaka Maharaja discusses things with him.  "How did you find my Mithila Puri?" Then Shuka Maharishi tells, "O, raja, how can I tell you?  Though my eyes were watching, my mind was attentive so that the candle should not fall down.  So, when the mind was attentive to that one, even on seeing the Mithila Puri, I didn't actually see anything.”  So, then Janaka Maharaja tells, "This is the answer for your questions.  There is nothing else that you have to learn once you learn this thing."  The grihasta has to live like that one - if he practices this one.  And also, Swamiji said, "You practice for one-hour meditation.  Next, twenty-three hours you can attend to your family needs, your business needs, your rest, recreation, anything.  So, all this one-hour meditation can take care of other twenty-three hours that your mind will not absorb imprints, it can remain quiet.  Mechanically you will be able to deliver things, that would be possible.”  That is what is recommended for a grihasta.  

Question:   Hello, Baba.  As I was meditating, I was observing the senses.  Actually, I work with children, I do speech therapy and language therapy.  Everything has changed because I have changed.  With them I am able to do a lot of good things for them.  But now, as I am meditating, I realize that my senses are totally changed in meditation.  My ears, I hear this huge beetles’ sound.  My eyes are only seeing within.  And no speech, but of course, there is the inner speech.  So, what I am saying is - I don't know what I am saying… I seem to be more and more, the senses are totally changed for me.  And I realize now my personality has changed and it really doesn't matter who I am, because I don't know who I am, but I don't care.  I am just trying to do my everyday work.  But I just want to understand more about the senses.  

Babaji Maharaj:   You must try to understand, while meditating, the instructions given is, just you have to watch.  You don't have to think about beetles or bootles, anything.  They are all wild imaginations that the mind produces.  And then it will make you to think, "Who am I?  I don't care who ever I am.”  So, all these things really have no meaning.  You have to become quiet mentally, then the attention of the mind goes to itself.  Then only the real secret of yourself will be revealed.  So, if you don't care for yourself, you can live in the world and you don't have to meditate.  If you care for your real Self, then you meditate.  Then you follow the instruction.  Don’t bother about sensory organs or anything.  Nothing really exists.  Only you exist.  

Same Questioner:   Okay. And so, I've learned a trick.  I realized that when I'm looking within and I draw everything into this tiny little circle -I just  have that one thought.  I like pull everything in so that there's no other thought.  It's just like a little circle of thought.  

Babaji Maharaj:   You are trying to do with the help of an anchor.  Whereas even that is also not necessary.  You just watch the front portion.  Don't bother to think about any circle, anything.  Don't allow your mind to get involved.  Then it will become silent and it will become single-pointedly concentrated, then goes introvert, its attention turns to itself.  You are trying to watch a movie.  I am asking you to stop watching the movie so that you can remember you are sitting and watching the movie.  You are talking about the movie.  You don't want to talk anything about yourself.  Understand?

Same Questioner:   We can't control anything?

Babaji Maharaj:     You don't have to control anything.  You just keep quiet mentally.  

Same Questioner:   Just keep quiet.  Okay, thank You.  

Question:   Hey Babaji, nice to meet you again.  I have a question.  What's Your take on using sexuality and tantra yoga for spiritual progress? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Nothing is needed.  They are all lust and greed creations.  It will suck you into the world to enjoy everything.  You just practice meditation and then you live any way of life you want to live in this world, that is no problem.  While meditating, you just meditate.  That's what is important.  When you have to shoot, just shoot.  Don't keep counting the bullets.  Means this is just an example.  Don't misunderstand me for anything else please - just an example came.  So, in meditation, you just watch in-between eyebrows.  Don't bother about anything.  And anything else of the world if you try to use it, you are likely to get carried away and lose the actual meditation.  That is important.  After meditating, then you can live any way of life.  It is up to you.  You will be able to restrain yourself, control yourself, and you will know where and when to stop also.  

Same Questioner:   I see, so You are saying that the meditation should be the core focus for your spiritual progress.  And then anything else that you are doing, you are just doing it separately.  

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes, it is giving you only a temporary satisfaction that you live in this world.  

Same Questioner:   Thank You, Babaji.  

Question:   Hi, Babaji.  It is really nice to see You again.  Thank You so much for doing this.  This is really wonderful and I really appreciate it during the pandemic.  My question was, during the pandemic there is a lot of use of technology and working on converting things from the three-dimensional world into the two-dimensional world.  Like instead of meeting with your friends, you do it through the computer.  I am wondering, I have been trying to take time off from technology because it seems that it is easier for my brain to focus when I spend more time off of technology.  So, I am wondering what is Your opinion on the computer's effect on the brain? 

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, if you know the limitations, you don't become addicted - you use it, do not allow the computer to use you.  That is important.  Then everything that we have discovered or invented in this world can be very useful.  If only we have the mind under our control.  If the mind is purified, we gain the ability to consider about a larger cause, about each other, welfare of the world.  Like a computer has come into existence.  A computer can be a wonderful thing if we know how to use it, knowing its limitations.  Finally at the end of the day, it is the human mind which has to apply the brain and use the computer.  Computer should not be using you.  So, then the computer is useful when you will know the limitation.  You don't have to be there all the twenty-four hours.  You are there for some time and then do other things also.  You have to take out time and practice meditation also so that you can take care of yourself.  You can take control of your mind.  You can be the master of your mind.  

Same Questioner:   Thank You.  Thanks so much.  

Question:   Okay, so, I have a question.  I found that repeatedly breathing up and down the spine consciously for prolonged periods of time can actually produce tremendous anger.  I mean it sounds counterintuitive but I have found that to be true.  Could there will be a reason that energies are actually twisted by doing that in a way that it actually produces anger by repeatedly doing that?  

Babaji Maharaj:   It should not.  The pranayama should not produce any anger.  In fact, the pranayama should bring down the restlessness of the mind.  The restlessness of the mind only gives rise to all these things of anger or any such things.  If you just focus on the pranayama when you are doing - in any way, long inhale-exhale, spine, or anywhere is no problem -  just if you simply focus without trying to bother about anything else, then you will see the mind cooling down.  It comes down, restlessness.  That's why we even recommend before meditation for a couple of minutes, two to three minutes you can do pranayama and then go to meditation, silently watching in between eyebrows. Then it can be very helpful in meditation in fact.  

Question:   Baba, thank You for being here taking our questions, really wonderful.  I have a question about service and meditation.  So, I have a friend who has a friend that needs a place to stay temporarily.  Then in my own life, I have a lot of things to do around my house that require a lot of energy and just personally, I'm very easily distracted.  This also continues on to just like meditation and tapas.  How do we differentiate the value and importance of seva?  How do we differentiate that from our need to not be concerned with others while we're meditating or taking care of our own lives personally? 

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, the meditation is taught so that you are mind becomes quiet and eventually achieves the Self-awareness.  It settles into the Self.  This is what is needed.  On the other hand, what you do in this world really it doesn't matter.  But what I assure you is when you practice meditation, your mind becomes purified.  It gives up selfishness, narrow-mindedness.  So thus, by meditating you can achieve a Self-realization.  Also, you can live a very matured life in this world.  Means consideration to each other.  You will be able to consider a larger cause in a much better way; seva.  You can do much better seva without any expectations.  Selflessly you can surrender to the Divine.  Mentally, you are quiet in the Self-awareness.  Just like I told the story of King Janaka; Janaka did what a king does, the seva of his subjects and he remained mentally in his Self.  So that's how these two things can go simultaneously.  There is no need that you have to abandon one to do the other thing.  

Same Questioner:   Thank You Baba.  Thank You.

Question:   Thank You so much and it's wonderful to see You again.  I had two or three questions but a lot of them were brought up by others and I'm so happy that for some reason, you know, I got answers.  I still have one or two doubts so let me quickly bring them up because I know we're at forty-five minutes time.  Number one, Baba, You mentioned that after Self-realization You are just doing what Your Master told You and helping people gain Self-realization.  At the same time, those who are destined to be Self-realized will be Self-realized.  So, that destiny word is kind of bothering me a little bit, thinking that if it is predetermined who is going to get Self-realized, then what is the purpose of us trying? Especially when I see around so many people who are, including me, bothered by events in the world.  

Babaji Maharaj:   Some points about this.  Often we have seen people getting confused with putting in action, efforts, purusharta and destiny.  So, now here you are sitting with me and I am recommending you to meditate.  You ask a question and I answer.  So, why don't you consider this also as a destiny?  You are destined to meet a Master, you are destined to listen to his teachings and you go into meditation, and you are destined to go into meditation.  So, that is how things happen.  If you simply sit in the corner and not do anything, you cannot expect your mind to become Self-realized.  Your mind will become a devil's workshop.  So, here, actually the destiny is taught; when you put an effort, if the results come, so that the results must not be disturbing you, ‘you are destined to have this, undergo this’.  If the results were not according to your expectations, accept the results.  That is why the word ‘destiny’ is used.  Otherwise, in Upanishadic era, Vedic era, they have also recommended the word ‘purusharta’;  self-efforts is important.  Yoga Vashista, all these scriptures talk, all the sages have spoken about self-efforts.  They pondered and they went in quest of the knowledge.  Like the things came, as a child the things came to my mind also.  “If we are that atman, why is that I am not aware of it consciously?  What has prevented me to be not aware of that one?  If there is happiness, it must be there at all times.”  Like these type of questions came which led me towards spirituality.  So, destiny, you are destined to go back to the Self.  In which way you are going, it is already decided and you will do it.  If you have to meditate, you will definitely meditate.  

Same Questioner:   Thank You so much Baba.  One last question, very quickly I am going to ask.  Baba, You mentioned the story of Shukadeva and Janaka, right?  When Shukadeva was holding the candle on top of his head and going around the kingdom, and his focus was on the candle so it stays lit.  My question is, during the day You recommended at least one hour of meditation.  During the rest of the twenty-three hours, people who are not Self-realized like me, we get distracted.  But do You recommend keeping our attention on something during those twenty-three hours while we are physically active? 

Babaji Maharaj:   That is also a good idea.  Like you can remember the name of the Master, you can remember a small mantra which easily you can keep repeating; while working, in the middle you can try to remember.  Also, in that one hour of meditation, when you are able to achieve total silence for the whole one hour - if you remember, that is what is actually meditation.  When you are able to keep the mind totally quiet for one hour, that is the real meditation, you can tell that “I meditated.”  Till then, you are trying to meditate.  So, that is important.  The mind runs and you are trying to bring it back, it runs and you are trying to concentrate.  So, go on practicing in this one hour also.  When strongly you are able to just follow the instruction - just watch and you do not do anything.  When you just watch, your mind becomes quiet.  It is mentally that you try to watch, you try to do anything.  You are watching and you are not watching.  You watch and you don’t have to watch anything mentally.  Keep quiet.  Do not allow the mind to get involved.  Then, it takes care of your mind's quietness for the next twenty-three hours.  It won’t absorb any imprints.  Just like you write on a white paper,  instantly it gets erased.  The mind does not keep anything for itself.  This becomes possible eventually if you go on practicing. This is how we have practiced.  Now, even if I talk, I gossip any topic, anything, or you gossip to me, my mind does not absorb anything.  It remains silent.  It is like anything you write, it simply disappears.  I do not take anything seriously.  Nothing sits into my consciousness.  This will be possible for you also.  

Same Questioner:   Thank You, Baba.  

Question:   So, I have been coming a few times now to this meditation.  I asked You two or three weeks ago about dealing with feelings of anxious, overthinking feelings, since I have been living alone with the pandemic.  So, I have been following Your guidance by meditating on the point between the brows.  Since we last met, I had meditation sessions that have gone as long as three hours into the night, where I really gone very deep into myself and  afterwards felt a lot of bliss and a lot of peace.  Very much like my soul, like my atma.  So, my question, kind of as I am going on this journey, is how is it that I can experience such bliss after prolonged meditations?  But then, once I get back into the world and back into my job, it feels like I am right back where I started.  Like, it doesn't feel like the knowledge that I am gaining in my meditation is infiltrating my life once I get back into it.  

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, one thing, continue with your practice of one-hour meditation, the more strongly, more perfectly when you are able to achieve silence, slowly the mind gains upper hand, ability not to absorb any imprints, not to become habitual to any of the things you come across in this world.  And also, slowly, you try to adopt in your life in such a way that you do everything only for the need, not wasting the time unnecessarily.  Do not unnecessarily gossip and mingle with people who are not on this line, avoid such things which are just to waste the time.  Wherever, like you need to earn a livelihood, you want to work, you work for that.  Focus on that work and just earn the livelihood.  Don't have to be thinking what happens, what doesn't happen all the time.  And if you want to help somebody, you help somebody, like that, all the good things, and reduce your involvement only to the needs.  Often, we go beyond our needs to what you call ‘time-pass’.  We just want to kill the time and you keep doing all these things.  If you avoid at all such time; whenever you have time try to sit for even ten minutes of meditation.  Remember the Divinity that is all-pervaded.  Like that, you try to remember God more and then you can overcome these effects of the world.  Even though you are going to be in the world, you won't be affected mentally.  It will give you more peace and maturity.  Bless you.  

Same Questioner:   I feel that when I go back into the world, it's important for me to remember that I am actually working on progressing myself.  

Babaji Maharaj:   That will give you positive thinking abilities also.  

Same Questioner:  I see that you're of course picking up on what's going on with me, I go to work and then I am overextending myself in conversation.  I'm talking with everybody about what they want to talk about when really, I'd rather have this space to just be aware of myself and observe myself and be more meditative in my actions.  

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes.  Yes.

Same Questioner:   And I think doing that and just being more aware of what I need to be doing for myself will continue my practice.  

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes. That's what I'm recommending.  Bless you.  

Question:   Hello Baba.  I have a question about death.  I'm interacting with someone who's been a part of my life for a very long time who is dying of cancer.  He may have a week or two more.  He's not in pain because he's on pain medication.  But I'm seeing day by day the life force leave his brain and his body.  It's like nothing I've ever experienced before, watching death happen day by day in a very strange way.  And all the time that You've referred to millions of lifetimes and how many lives we have to come back again and over and over.  I'm just wondering what is it that actually comes back again and again, whether it's just some force of life like a flower or whether it has anything to do with the person that's there now that I know as this person.  

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, you know a person as a person with the idea of the physical body. Once it goes away the same physical body or that same physical personality will not be there.  But inside you have a mind.  This mind is infinite.  Like I have repeatedly told, nobody has seen the mind in naked eyes.  You cannot show your mind what its color or shape is, yet you recognize, you understand you have a mind.  You tell, “My mind wants to do this.  My mind wants to go there.  I want to do this.”  Like that the language changes.  So, there is no difference between you and your mind.  You are thinking.  So, this world appears to you based on your attitude, mental attitude.  Whatever you keep thinking, so the things start appearing in the same way.  Sometimes, the things can be very panicking, scary, painful.  Sometimes it can be excited, happy, at peace.  All these things happen within the mind only.  This mind is an infinite form which originally is pure consciousness and energy combination.  That is the nearest clue we can give, nearest word that has been used since Vedic era - consciousness.  This consciousness is what is known as the atman also.  This is the thing which assumes based on its own imagination a next incarnation.  Though it is actually the physical body which is born and the physical body which dies - the consciousness is not born - but consciousness, due to its illusion, its own imaginations, it gets to see whatever it imagines.  So, now finally, the formula what we recommend; when this physical body is available to you, as long as this is available, this is a once in a life cycle opportunity that you must try to silence your mind.  Stop your mind.  That is the idea of spirituality's first point, idea of meditation also - to silence your mind.  If you silence your mind, you can get rid of being born again and again.  

Because in this world, or in any world that the mind might create, the total peace is not at all guaranteed at all times.  Even if God comes to this world, He is not allowed to sit peacefully.  The world is like that.  If you look back into historical time, or mythological times, or any such things, all the times humanity and people have been into conflicts losing peace, inability to love and consider about each other, understand about each other, communicate with each other properly.  Thus, everybody loses their peace and everybody is under tension and stressed very much.  People want to get rid of this.  They are looking for peace; “If there is something which can give us peace”.  This peace can be achieved when you quieten your mind, when you silence your mind through this practice of meditation.  In this process you also gain one thing.  Your attention will go to your real Self and you will understand how you exist as the immortal soul.  Then when this body goes, you don't have to be reborn because you have no imagination, no desires.  That means no cravings are there.  You have not missed anything, no brooding, nothing, whatever the past, it’s over.  I have nothing to bother.  The future is not there.  In the present I am That.  I am That.  So that is what it is.  This is what one can achieve when the physical body is available, is healthy.  This is also important.  Brain and physical body’s health, they are all important.  Otherwise, it becomes very difficult.  You know, some saints in India who had come, they are singing, they have been great poets also, musicians also, they were Self-realized souls, they have sung like this – “Just now when your body is intact and good, remember the sweet name of the Divinity.  Because when the body is about to die, when you are unconscious about the surroundings, when you are unable to remember anything, how can you remember that Divine?”  Like this, they have told.  So, body is also important.  When the body is available, if you practice meditation, you can win in the end.  

Same Questioner:   So, if you attain liberation, that is the truth, if you attain liberation in this body.  And if you don't succeed in that attainment of liberation in this life, then the consciousness that has to return, the atma that must return, is it related to the atma that you had during this life now?  Is there any relationship with that atma that returns to the atma that you have now? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Not necessarily.  There is no conclusive answer.  It's very mind-boggling.  What we saw, we experienced in our tapas, once the consciousness leaves the body, it forgets its previous life.  Because with the death of the brain, all memory is lost.  Just like you don't remember anything of your previous life, in which world you were there, which relationships you were there, all these things.  But the mind simply carries in a symptomatic way, symptoms are carried within the mind.  Based on that only, it assumes the next incarnation.  And sometimes you will feel very much attached to somebody unknown to you.  Like to a Master, to a Guru or to a friend, to somebody.  That is likely that in previous lives you were with such a person, with such an atma, that's why you get attracted.  It is possible.  But nobody can remember exactly where you were, what happened.  So, these two things are two different things.  A soul can come back with the same relationship, but it won't remember what you were.  It will get attracted - somewhere with some personality, the moment you go near, you feel very much attracted.  So, all these things happen.  So, that is the clue that these things do happen, actually.  

Same Questioner:   So, that is not just an imaginary thing when you feel that you knew this person at some point, somewhere in the cycle of the universe, that it is not just your imagination.  

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes, in my opinion.  Yes.  

Same Questioner:   Thank You.  Thank You very much.  

Question:   Babaji, my heartfelt joy and thanks for coming to us.  I sit here and I feel tremendous - I can't even say tremendous -  I feel a deep sweetness coming from each person that I connect with.  I feel then sweetness within myself.  I feel their sweetness, their sincerity, their struggles, all of that.  I know it is important for me not to build the self around that, “O, I am a compassionate person”, or to let any thoughts come in that might spoil it.  But I wonder how… I get a little bit confused by all of this talk, and I think, is there something wrong; do I have to be especially mindful of anything surrounding feelings of sweetness?  It's not like it creates craving in me or that I want to listen to one person and not another.  But is there some caution that I should have here?  Or is it the atman?  I don't know.  

Babaji Maharaj:   When you practice meditation, your mind becomes more mature and gains ability.  You just be yourself.  You just love people without expecting anything from anybody.  Then you will see the whole world is very sweet.  

Same Questioner:   No caution needed, eh?  

End of Questions and Answers

Babaji Maharaj now concludes the session.

   Wonderful.  All my love and blessings, our grace of our beloved Master, and our love to you all.  May you all be blessed.

End of Session