Thus Spake Babaji - online Q and A, No.52

Thus Spake Babaji - online Q and A, No.52
A live online Q and A session, recorded on 15 August 2021, with US participants

Register to join the live online meditation and Q&A with Babaji at https://www.shivarudrabalayogi.org/en/online-satsang

In this session Shri Babaji gives guidance on the following:

0:00 Introduction from Babaji
1:56 The culmination of Swamiji's Tapas
6:12 Meaning of Yoga 'union'
7:41 How a Yogi uses the mind in the world
8:47 Meaning of 'bala' in Shivabalayogi
9:29 How to get unstuck from the changing reality
14:36 Is it memory that causes time?
16:49 Stopping the cravings of the mind
18:18 What keeps the Yogi's body functioning?
20:52 Can God be reached in our current state or only in samadhi state?
22:56 Do we see ourselves in other people, and who is watching through me?
24:34 As we go through our daily lives how can we develop positive karma?
27:18 Going to the route cause
31:57 How to integrate all sadhanas
36:21 How to practice discrimination of the real and unreal and control of the senses
39:53 How to carry the peace from meditation into daily life
41:39 What to say to people who have a fear of disappearing from the world
45:02 Mind out of alignment with the physical body
46:45 Physical exercise
47:33 What part of the mind does desire come from?
49:54 How to 'watch' the desire
50:45 Samadhi versus sleep
51:50 What to do when your help is rejected
___
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Transcript

Discourse: Thus Spake Babaji - online Q and A No. 52
 Mind and Happiness
You tube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdFBzMCf9ec
Recorded: 15 August 2021

Start of short discourse

   Babaji Commences:

Omkaara Naada Brahma, Ardhanareeshwarah
 Sri Jagad Guru Naatha, Shivabalayogeshwaro Parabrahma Rishihi
 Gnaana Bhakti Vairagya Siddhyartam, Bhikshandehi cha Satgurudeva
 Baandava Guru Bhaktascha Swadesho Guru Charana Kamalam

   Good morning, America!  It is lovely to see you all again.  Since this morning it has been quite hectic.  Today is India’s independence day, seventy-fifth independence day for India.  So, we did a flag hoist, conveyed a small message about independence.  I said, in fact, spirituality’s basic idea is to become independent in every possible way, that you don't have to depend on anything, but you have to discover yourself first.  When you discover yourself, you will understand you really don't need anything; you are really independent.  Perfectly, that is the soul as the atman that you are.  You won't need even oxygen, you won't need any world, you won't need any solar system, nothing is needed.  You are totally independent.  So, like that, that is the idea of independence.  

Start of Questions and Answers

Question:   Baba, thank You.  Baba, last week You were celebrating Shivabalayogi’s sixtieth tapas year of completion.  That was a very special event.  I have a couple of questions about that  I have wondered.  Did He come out of the tapas after eight years and then go back in for another four years or was it straight twelve years? 

Babaji Maharaj:   It was straight twelve years actually.  He didn't come out.  

Question:   Okay.  And then when Shiva and Parvati appeared to Him after He completed it to kind of congratulate Him, He had kind of completed His tapas but He had to wait a little while before they appeared? Or when did they appear, right at the very end? 

Babaji Maharaj:   I think like the very end when the nirvikalpa samadhi had happened.  So, probably that manifestation happened because they woke Him up by tapping on His thighs.  So that was when He came out; He saw the male and female figure standing.  He was wondering for a while because till then He used to see the Jangama Sage only every month, coming on the full moon day.  So, then He was wondering and He inquired, "May I know who you are?”   That's when Lord Shiva said “This world worships me as Shankar Bhagawan.  And this is my consort, Parvati.”  Then to Swamiji a thought came, "Oh, this is Bhagawan.  God has come."  So, then He prostrated and Lord Shiva said, the conversations, “Now your tapas is over.  Because of your prarabdha we got manifested and helped you to do the tapas.  Now you can get up and go, whatever you want to do, you can do.   So, there is no problem.  So, your job is done.”  But Swamiji had no desires, no imaginations further in His mind, nothing was coming.  He said, "I don't have any such desires.  I don't have.  But if You have anything that I can do for You, I'll be happy to do it for You."  So, that's what He said.  Then Shiva said, "People of this world have forgotten themselves.  You initiate them, teach them meditation, help them to do it so that they can realize themselves, they can know about themselves."  So, then they disappeared after this.  This is what happened.  

   So, at this point, this might be interesting, that I asked Him once,  “We generally have heard…” I told Swamiji, “…when the mind merges with the Self, that's when the total Self-realization happens.  And there is no more craving; all cravings are abandoned, and the mind settles into the Self totally contented.”  Then Swamiji said, "Look, if the droplet falls to the ocean and becomes one with it, is the same, or if the entire ocean overflows the droplet, then also it engulfs the droplet.  It's like that.  So, Lord Shiva and Parvati, they entered my body.”  That's how Swamiji explained.  “So, they engulfed me, they overflowed me, so the ‘I’ was not there.”  So that's how Swamiji explained that situation.  

Question:   Thank You, Baba.  So, yoga, the word means union.  And I think You were just touching on it, but will You explain exactly? It is union of what with what? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Mind means when… suppose, this is the absolute.  When an imagination had happened, so that the mind comes for a while - like in the beginning it was that Brahma concept, which enormous amount of consciousness arose to create.  But it remained in the awareness of the Self.  There was no ego, no other desire, just created, just imagined and the creation happened.  So, afterward generation after generation, the consciousness got bit corrupted with insecurity, power, wanting or desires.  So, when it comes out in the human being, it has become mind.  It is this mind which has to merge back into the Self.  So, if this mind can become totally silent, then it comes towards the Ultimate Truth and merges with the Self.  If it is into imagination, it remains away in consciousness, away and away and away, spins and spins.  That’s what happens.  So, it is the mind which merges with the Self.  

Question:   So, the mind has created this individual separate imagined individual person.  Then when it becomes quiet, it goes back.  And does it come back out?  Samadhi is when the individual no longer exists, is that right? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes.  

Question:   So, the mind goes back, but you still have a mind to use, Baba, You seem to have a really good mind.  

Babaji Maharaj:   It's available if we want to use, not that always it remains as a mind.  Say, if I need to think, it comes up.  Then once the thought is over, it is not absorbed as an imprint and we don't get involved with the thought as any reality.  So, it goes back.  So, it goes and settles into the Self.  So, that's what really happens.  But it's available with the help of the brain, the thinking is possible, creativity is possible.  So, that's what happens.  So, Kevin asked because Parvati and Shiva entered Swamiji's body, is that why that Swamiji's name came as Shiva Bala Yogi.  Exactly, yes.  Because Bala is one of the names of Goddess Parvati.  So, Shiva is Lord Shiva's name.  That's how His name is Shiva Bala Yogi.  Many people in India misunderstand Bala means young, a young boy, a small child, a child boy, but it's not so.  It is Shiva and Parvati's name, Shiva Bala Yogi.  

Question:   Baba, one more question.  There seems to be in our life three levels of reality.  One would be what we call the common world, all the material world, the trees, the stars, the planets, the cars, everything.  And then there is the mental world or the perceiver.  And then there is the Self, which is the consciousness, which is I guess perceiving itself.  So, you have kind of the perceived, which is an object, you have the perceiver, which is this kind of ‘I am,’ and then you have that that's perceiving, which is I guess the Self.  But these three realities, two of them are changing. So, by Your definition that the truth is that which doesn't change, the real is what doesn't change, if something… The nature of the mental and the physical world seems to be… only thing absolute about that is change, it's always changing.  But then the nature of the Self is it's never changing.  Could You comment on these three realities and how do we get unstuck from the changing reality? 

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, this world, what you spoke, constantly keeps moving, that is the time -  it doesn't stay in one position.  So, then it loses its shape also.  So, that is how it appears and disappears finally.  So, when it appears and disappears, it cannot be a reality.  In the same way in the mind also, mind is imagining, but it doesn't stay into one particular imagination.  So, if it can stay into one particular imagination, that gets into the highest, bhakti’s highest pitch, but commonly for people it doesn't happen.  It keeps changing.  It changes its stories, changes characters, changes the thing, changes the place, it imagines something else, it imagines something else.  Then it takes from both and makes some other imagination; like that the story keeps going.  Because of this change, it has appeared only due to the imagination of the mind.  So, that is why it cannot be a reality and that imagination is going to end.  It's not a permanent entity.  It's not going to be there forever.  So, that's why it is not reality.  

   Whereas like the space, the Ultimate Truth is unchangeable because it never appeared like that and it's not going to disappear also.  A certain thing which never appeared, where do you make it disappear? Impossible.  Like the space, you try to make it appear? It is already there, you don't have to make it appear.  And try to make it disappear? Impossible, that's much more difficult.  That's why that is the unchangeable Ultimate Truth and it is also Supreme Consciousness.  This you experience in your samadhi state, when the mind totally becomes stabilized and still, total silence is achieved.  So that's what the reality is in that stillness and the silence, total silence of the consciousness.  So, when the consciousness spins, means it vibrates, so then the imagination starts, then it spins, spins and the stories are built up, characters are built up, the objects are built up, new, new resources are built up.  But then after a certain time, different object matters may have its own time.  Like if a human being has hundred years, a mountain, a stone may have its own time.  And this earth may have its own time.  Solar system may have its own time.  It may come to an end tomorrow or it may go on for a billion years.  So, you never know.  Sun has its own time limit.  Like that everything has its own time limit and it's going to disappear.  So, it cannot be a reality.  

Question:   Yeah, there was a time when the earth didn't exist.  

Babaji Maharaj:   And there's going to be a time when the earth will not exist.  

Question:   So, Baba is memory what causes time?  You know, without memory, could you have a sense of time?  

Babaji Maharaj:   Not simply the memory. Though, memory plays a major part, but whatever imprints that the mind has absorbed, that remains in the mind as symptoms of acquired habits until it's not completely cleared.  So till then it is involved into the time limit.  It imagines the time always.  That's what happens.  And that's why it is miserable also.  Like I said, mind is either brooding about the past, or is anxious about the future.  It goes further and it goes back.  It doesn't stay in itself.  That is the problem that happens.  

Question:   So, even if you're not remembering a specific incident, subliminally or subconsciously, those impressions are there.  And they'll still keep you caught in the changing world.  

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah.  Like for example, in my childhood… my childhood was very comfortable, siblings, everyone, very loving, caring.  Yet I felt something miserable about this world.  I missed something.  I felt as if I had come to the place where I don't belong to.  That type of feelings used to come.  So, these are all the previous lives’ experiences probably that had remained in the mind as symptoms.  Though it was not a perfect memory of what really happened in the previous life; it cannot be because the previous life’s brain is dead.  Once that is dead, the memory is not there, but habits are there.  So, because of that only that inclination was appearing.  So, it made me a bit miserable, an unknown pain type, painful type…  So, I couldn't express, but I was bit miserable.  That's much I can tell.  So, that is how it happens.  The symptoms [laughs].

Question:   So, if we're not conscious of them, we just get rid of them by keeping our mind quiet and they dissolve?   

Babaji Maharaj:   Quiet.  Because that again happens due to imagination.   Because as long as the symptoms are there, mind gets into creativity and imaginations.  And that makes these things.  So, only when this craving of the mind stops totally, subsides, manolaya, once for all, complete, totally absolute, silence is achieved, then only we get out of the suffering or any such thing, miserable condition, then total peace comes.  Then when nothing occurs in the mind, so you don't have anything to feel.  If anything occurs in the mind, then that can lead into either a good or a bad feeling, a thought, either a right or a not right, either a happy or unhappy thought.  So, if there is no imagination at all, just a pure consciousness, so there is nothing - nothing miserable.  So, nothing happens.  When this world's happiness is not there, unhappiness also is not there.  So, you have to make the mind silent to get rid completely once for all.  

Question:   What makes the body keep functioning? We think that we need that in order to make things happen.  

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, as I have spoken before, probably a small, satvik ego which makes you, induces you into some acting, mechanically most of the time of course; an attachment to Shivabalayogi’s name, as my Guru, and wanting to spread His message. So, like this, and whatever I experienced as the truth.  So, if there is anybody who would like to take this knowledge from me, to share with them.  So, all these are the small, mechanical, satvik ego that happens.  So, this keeps us to keep going.  Otherwise, if total silence happens, and there is no activity, means no touch with the brain, then slowly brain falls down.  Simply oxygen and blood itself is not enough.  Mind's application onto the brain is very important.  A storyteller is there.  He goes on trying to tell the story.  If there is nobody around him to listen, then he becomes bewildered and he stops.  He cannot imagine anything further.  So, as long as there are people who listen to his story, he goes on and on and on storytelling.  So that's how the mind keeps storytelling all the time if there is somebody to listen to that; if that becomes totally silent, then the body falls down.  

Question:   So, you have to have that kind of shadow ego to continue with the body.  

Babaji Maharaj:   So that people are benefited by the presence of this body in this world.  

Question:   So that shadow ego, does it give, feed, life force, or prana into the brain? 

Babaji Maharaj:   That's what keeps the body alive.  So, what you are telling is the right thing.  It supplies the prana, the life current from the Pure Consciousness.  So, then this body is alive with that.  The light force is there.  Like the light is there in the bulb.  

Question:   Hi, Baba.  Nice to see You.  Thank You for talking to me.  My question is, with my current level of spiritual development, can God be reached directly in communication or will that come later when a samadhi level is reached? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, meditation has to go deeper.  It has to become silent and go closer.  So, then its attention has to turn towards God, totally, one hundred percent.  And then only the communication can reach God, actually.  

Question:   Baba, he mentioned samadhi.  You don't necessarily have to go into samadhi to have those experiences of Divinity though, do you, Baba? 

Babaji Maharaj:   If you need to experience one hundred percent, then you go to samadhi.  If you have a small prayer, obtaining God's grace is a slightly different story.  For that, when you pray, if your mind is best concentrated, then that introvert-going it touches the Divinity, then the grace automatically flows.  But to communicate or means in communion, in union with the Divinity means you have to go to samadhi.  Means the mind has to totally become standstill, samaana.  

Question:   That would be impersonal God, correct? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes.  

Question:   There couldn't be any form when the mind is still.  

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, if it's to be the form, when the mind is still active, when the mind visualizes such a form and prays and prays out of total faith and devotion, then a communion, communication with such a form can become possible.  That also requires a very deeper meditation, then the mind becomes single pointed.  

Question:   Hello Babaji. When I look through my own physical eyes outside, and I see objects and animals and people, am I actually seeing myself in them?  And when they look at me, are they actually seeing themselves in me?  And who is really seeing through me? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Actually, you are seeing all these animals, this world in yourself and you are seeing.  Both are the same.  There are no different personalities.  You are the one who is seeing and you are seeing all of them in you only.  Just like in the dream also, you are the one who is watching the dream, seeing the dream.  And everything you see in the dream, you are seeing within you only, in you only.  

Same Questioner:   And so others see me from their perspective, more or less, they don't really see me.

Babaji Maharaj:   You don't know that one.  You have to be in their consciousness.  That's what you are imagining as if they are different from you.  That's why you don't get to see what is from their perception.  That is also your imagination.  

Question:   Pranaams Babaji.  I wanted to ask, as we go through our daily lives, lot of us are very busy, we take action, and I wanted to see what would be positive ways to develop positive karma as we go through our lives.  

Babaji Maharaj:   One important point is, let go in the mind as you go on. Physically you be active.  Don't keep anything in the mind to play.  Let go, let go.  And whatever result comes, accept and let go of the things if it is not according to your expectations. And you act upon and then let it go from the mind. Somebody has acted upon with you; let it go from the mind.  So, body and mind are totally different here, what I am trying to explain.  Let go in the mind so that mind does not keep anything as an imprint.  So that is how even while you are active also, you won't be acquiring any karmas.  Like a yogi has stopped the future, means He is not acquiring anything.  He is active in the world - He might be moving His hand, He might be dancing, He might be running, He might be eating, He might be talking.  But He is not keeping anything in the mind.  It’s all let go.  

Like, for example, when you ask a question, whatever I answer, it lets go automatically.  So, I cannot keep it and keep thinking about that one.  Only if somebody comments or I get to read, I keep wondering, “O, all this came out as an answer.”  So that doesn't remain in my consciousness.  Like that, if you let go, let go, let go.  So, nothing absorbed as an imprint and then there is no karma at all.  Means, finally you get liberated when this body dies.  You are not reborn at all.  As long as there is some karma, you are reborn.  If you aren’t reborn, means you don't have any karma.  That happens when the mind is totally clear; no desires, no craving, no imagination.  This can be possible when you are active in the wall.  You let it go, let go.  That's what it is.  

Question:   It's so good to see You, Baba.  I want to tell You about this experience, which is actually a lesson that I had this week, which is surprisingly almost everything You've been talking about this morning and the questions that Agastya has been asking and Your answers.  So, I wanted to tell You this experience and then I have a question about it afterwards.  So, I make art, as You know.  I make art and art pieces.  So, this week, I had decided, I took a milk carton,  I cut the front and back and the sides off and I painted it and cut it in the shape of a house.  I painted it, drew some drawings.  I then glued it together as a cover and I put in some pages that I could then do drawings of my house as you go through.  And my intention when I started was really to express the past year and a half of being in my house during COVID.  So, when I was working on this, I sat back and I looked at it and said, “O, there's my house.”  And then the thought came, “No, this is not my house.  This is a milk carton.”  And then I thought, “Ah,” and then I thought, “No, this is not a milk carton.  This is a tree that has been cut down turned into pulp and made into a milk carton.”  And then I thought, “Ah,” and I thought, “No, this is not a tree that has been cut down.  This is the seed of a tree that has then been cut down, etc.”  And then I thought, “No, this is not the seed because the seed is space.”  So, then I thought, what I thought was my house, my art project that is the house, is really a reincarnation and a changing of the form of something that has started long ago as space that had transformed into the seed, into the tree, into the pulp, into the milk carton and into my art project.  And one day we'll go back to space.  So, my question is, how might I keep in the forefront of my experiences and understand that just because I have a word for something does not mean I understand it at all?  

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, scientifically also, like this, if you try to go to the root cause without bothering the immediate cause or the nearest cause - you try to go to the root cause.  Like you are talking of the tree, you built a house, when trying to go back from where this came, it came from a tree from the pulp, from this thing happened, from this thing happened.  Finally, it was the seed and the seed, if it is planted in the earth, it becomes again plant and the tree.  So where is the end?  So, for the end, you have to skillfully withdraw the seed from the earth so that it doesn't grow into a tree.  Then what remains?  Nothing, nothing happens. When nothing happens, that nothing is the space.  That space is the Ultimate Truth.  So, that's how you reach the Ultimate Truth.  Like our body also reincarnates, reincarnates, reincarnates.  If skillfully we withdraw one, the seed which gives rise to reincarnation; that is the mind which always gives rise to seed of a tree, so the seed of imagination -  if we stop that imagination, it ends.  It goes to the Ultimate Truth; it is nothing, it becomes nothing.  When there is no reincarnation, it is nothing and that nothing is space.  That's how the space exists like nothing.  So that's how you realize you are that space then.  So that is how Realization also occurs, that you are one with that Ultimate Truth.  

Question:   Pranaams Babaji.  My question is about Kriya yoga.  Kriya yoga is a certain sadhana.  What we are meditating now is a sadhana.  What is the connection?  How do I integrate everything?  I think Kriya yoga is a lot of breathing exercises.  

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, you see, this meditation is where you don't have any anchor, yet you meditate.  That means the mind meditates on the mind.  That's what is happening here when you try to meditate also.  Simply you are using eyeballs in the beginning so that it can withhold the mind strongly there.  Then slowly as thoughts all vanish, you realize that the mind is trying to watch itself.  That is the final reality.  Whereas things like you are talking of, Kriya yoga and all other types of sadhana that has been told, they are like preliminary round exercises to practice the single pointedness of the mind.  Mind tries to sit on that one.  When breathing exercise you are doing, your mind stops on the breath one day, say, suppose.  But then it stops only on the breath.  It needs breath to stop.  If the breath is not there, it again runs away, it spins.  That's how it's only a preliminary round that you can practice this single pointedness of the mind.  That's what happens with all other sadhanas except this meditation.  That's why I have often told in my talks, “This meditation is one of the highest methods practiced in ancient times of India called Rigvedic era, since time immemorial.”  Afterward, when people try to simplify, they thought, "How to stop the mind on its own?  Where do you watch?  What are you trying to watch?"  These types of doubts occur.   So they lost confidence.  They wanted it easier.  They wanted some form of either a thought or either a drishya, because the Creation is made up of sound and sight.  Both are needed based on this.  

So, the mind uses either a sound or a sight as an anchor.  So, the breath also, it uses it so that it can try to become concentrated there.  But finally, you have to abandon that breathing also.  Then only the mind can go introvert.   Like if you remember Ramakrishna Paramahamsa's story also - He was a great devotee of Mother Kali.  He went to the state of great tapas.  Kali appeared.  But when Totapuri came, wanted to initiate him into nirvikalpa samadhi and sanyas, He (Ramakrishna Paramahamsa) said, "I have to take Mother's permission." So Totapuri ridicules, "O, it is all child's play.  You go and ask your mother." So, Ramakrishna goes inside temple and coming back after some time He tells, "Okay, Mother has permitted.  Now I can take initiation from you for nirvikalpa samadhi.”  When He is made to sit down, every now and then He opens his eyes and tells, "I am able to withdraw my mind from all senses, in every way, but Mother is standing.  I am unable to remove."  Then it is said that he (Totapuri) took a sword and cut the wooden idol of Goddess Mother telling, "Now Mother is dead.  She no more exists.  Don't bother about her.  Then close the eyes.”  Then he took a piece of glass and pierced here (points in-between eyebrows),  and then Ramakrishna went into a nirvikalpa samadhi.  Several days He was like that one.  So, then Totapuri himself wondered, how quickly He has gone into a nirvikalpa samadhi.  So, that is what happens - this meditation, or any anchor like the Kriya yoga and other things.  

Question:   Hello Babaji.  Thanks again for being here.  Nice to see You.  I've been reading some of Adi Shankara’s ‘The Crest Jewel of Discrimination’.  And I had a question about two of His four qualifications for attainment.  The practice of discrimination between the unreal and the real.  And renunciation, the giving up of all the pleasures of the eyes, ears and other senses.  And more about like without being completely in tapas, where I'm sure that would melt all that away, in our like waking day when we're not in meditation, what's the best way to practice those things?  Like for example, when I was sitting out in my garden enjoying the flowers, I thought to myself, "Should I be doing that?  That's a pleasure of the eyes." Or, "Should I not listen to music?”  I mean, do we need to give those things up?  Or do we just need to practice saying when you're doing that that “It's not real because it's not the atman.”  So, I'm just kind of trying to figure out how to work those things into my day without...  

Babaji Maharaj:   Some of the points I will give you for discrimination.  Discrimination means, what is it that is permanent, what is it that can give us a permanent happiness once for all?  Like I used to think of twelve months, all the twenty-four hours the happiness must be there.  What is it that can give us this happiness, that highest?  Twenty-four hours it must remain, no fluctuation, no unhappiness must come.  Always there must be only happiness.  How is it possible?  Then you think, if a certain thing is impermanent, then how can it give a permanent happiness?  Like the entire universe, including our own physical body, or anything in the garden, they are all impermanent.  So, they cannot give us permanent happiness.  Maybe it can give for one hour, few hours or few days as long as it is alive.  Once it is gone though it cannot give any more happiness if we depend on that.  So, we must try not to depend on such things which are impermanent themselves. 

 Now what could be the permanent thing?  So that's what you have to see.  So, now, to give up means mentally if you can give up is enough.  If you are alert that “Everything is impermanent, nothing is permanent, I must be careful about it.”  So, for a while even if you enjoy the flower, so gradually in the devotional path it is taught, instead of enjoying it only as a flower, try to see God in that flower.  Try to enjoy God.  Slowly God is the permanent thing.  So, then you try to see God in other things also - God in the thorn, God in the plant, God in the tree, God in the leaves, God in the garden, God in the grass.  And then everywhere it's God in the dog, God in the world, everywhere.  Then slowly your mind gets tuned into the Divinity, God.  That is the permanent things.  Then you get that happiness, permanent, all the time.  Like that you can practice.  

Question:   Pranaam Babaji, I had a question that when I sit for meditation it is all good and peaceful, but how to carry that quality in your day-to-day transactions.  Because I see myself going in a state of identification with some health issue or some complaint with my parents that they forced me into some profession.  So, that peace doesn't continue into the day-to-day transactions.  And there's a kind of attachment that happens to sitting in meditation alone.  So, isn't that reinforcing duality in some way, creating a difference between sitting alone and then difference in operating in the day?

Babaji Maharaj:   What is happening here, one important point, you must not allow any such thing to play on your mind for longer time.  For a while even if it comes, then let go.  That's what we try to teach.  Physically you keep moving; whatever action you want to do you try to do.  But mentally don't keep it for a long time.  If anybody has hurt you, if anybody has forced you - suppose parents have forced you to go into a profession, probably you did not like, but you are doing it.  If you are doing, then do it simply.  When you have no choice, you want to listen to your parents, simply go on doing, but don't allow it to play on the mind.  Then at least the mind is peaceful.  Though the body might be miserable because you didn't like the profession but you have to do it because parents imposed it or wanted you to do that one, but at least you can keep the mind peaceful.  So let go.  That is important.  

Question:   Hello, Baba.  It's Clifford.  So, Baba, spiritual practice seems to be all about making efforts to disappear, to disappear as a separate existence.  However, when some people think about this practice, disappearing as a separate existence, their comment was, “I'm going to disappear anyway.  Why can't I have permanent peace, fulfilment and a world?  What good is the space without all the optics of the world to enjoy?” So, they have an inherent, some people have an inherent resistance to the concept of disappearing as a separate existence.  So, what do we say to these people that have this fear, or this perception that “Ah, no world, that's not for me.”  

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, the body disappears one day and they don't know what will happen to them when the body disappears.  So, all they have to make is thoughts and visions, the imaginations dissolve in the mind.  That's all.  They can be active in this world as long as they want to be.  Simply try to make the things that appear in the mind disappear.  That's what has to disappear.  They don't have to try to disappear in any other way.  They simply try to make the thoughts and visions disappear from the mind.  That is what the basic teachings of the meditation and spiritual truths that we try to teach.  So, if they understand these points that when the mind is quiet - peaceful, that means, both are same.  When the mind is peaceful, it is quiet.  When the mind is quiet, it is peaceful.  When a person owns an object, he has desire.  When that object comes to him, for a while when the mind stops, then only he enjoys that peace or happiness.  If it doesn't stop, he cannot enjoy ever.  Means if it stops on that object, “O, I got it, this is mine” that happiness comes for a while.  Then afterwards it disappears because the object is not always permanent.  So, that's what they have to think. 

If they want a permanent happiness, they are interested in the happiness really, then they have to go for the permanent entity.  All the thing that they have to do is make the thoughts and visions disappear in the mind.  They don't have to disappear.  They don't have to bother about themselves disappearing.  Simply, the imagined identity has to disappear.  Then they are happy.  Their identification with the body has to disappear.  The body will remain.  They will remain.  They are not going to disappear.  So, if they understand these points, I'm sure they will be happy.  

Question:   Hi, Baba.  Thank You so much for doing this again this week.  I had a question.  I've asked You previously, and I'm wondering if You could review it for me again.  I asked You previously that when I was meditating, I would sometimes feel that my body is out of alignment with my physical body, that a spiritual body is facing in a different direction or, and as I've been meditating more, like today it seemed like my body just disappeared.  When I have those feelings, it sort of seems to pull me out of meditation because I don't really know what's going on.  And it just, the experience seems to overtake the meditating.  I'm wondering if You could provide some insight.  

Babaji Maharaj:   When the mind becomes totally better concentrated, giving up all its imaginations, it tries to get detached from the brain.  So, that's when you are likely to experience these things that you are telling as if the body disappearing or you are not there or something happening.  But actually, body does not disappear like that in this dimension of the world.  So, you assure yourself, you don't have to worry.  You just continue the meditation.  If you still feel a bit miserable if the body has disappeared, you try to touch your body and see that it is there, then you will feel, convinced that the body is here, it's not disappeared, then continue the meditation.  It is becoming concentrated.  That is very good.  You have to continue with that one.  

Same Questioner:   Okay, so it's good to feel that?  

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes.  

Same Questioner:    Can I ask You another question?  I think with all of the COVID experience, let's say, in the last year and a half, I haven't been doing as much physical kinds of moving around.  And when I go for reflexology, they crunch the crystals in the bottom of the feet.  And what I'm noticing is that my back seems to be kind of crunchy.  And I'm wondering if those same crystals accumulate in the spine with lack of movement.  And is there a way to clear that? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, you might better practice some yoga exercises and keep moving.  That is important.  Then you can overcome this problem.  It will be all right.  

Question:   Hi Baba, good to see You.  Thank You so much for being with us today.  It's a miracle.  A lot has been said today about worldly things, worldly perceptions, imagination and things like that.  And what I'm wondering is what part of the mind, where in the mind does desire come from? 

Babaji Maharaj:   So, first thing, what you have to understand is you cannot locate the mind as it is, so you cannot find any location from where this is rising, impossible.  But instead, why this is happening, from where this is arising? Means, because of the misidentification about yourself with the physical body, that is the reason this is arising.  Then within the mind, the desires arise.  Because it looks for the peace and happiness.  It is looking for the peace and happiness that which it had enjoyed by remaining in the Self.  But temporarily it has fallen in consciousness due to imaginations about itself as something else.  And that's why now, temporarily, it has become miserable.  And it is looking for that peace.  That is how the desire arises in the mind only.  Once everything subsides, then it knows about itself, then it doesn't need any desire for its happiness.  So, what you have to understand is the desire that is arising is simply an imagination.  It really does not exist in the mind.  So, if you just watch using the eyeballs, that is the technique of meditation that we teach, then this desire subsides as the imagination goes; as the thought disappears, then this desire also goes.  Then you will find the same peace and happiness that which you are trying to look through desires.  So, that is where you have to locate - meditation and just watch.  

Question:   To clarify something You said, they are just kind of watch the desire.  By that, you don't mean literally watch the desire? Do You mean, just don't get involved in it, just watch it, don't entertain it?

Babaji Maharaj:   Watch the desire means desire which comes as a thought first.  A desire is only a thought in the mind.  So, just watch that.  That is what ‘you are meditating’ means.  You are just watching.  You don't get involved with that thought.  If you are simply watching, you don't really get involved with that thought.  You get involved only when you try to analyze, when you want to own it.  

Question:   When meditating, some fall asleep and say they went into samadhi.  Is it sleep because of tiredness, or samadhi?  How do you distinguish between the two? 

Babaji Maharaj:   No, if samadhi occurs, no sleep comes.  It doesn't happen.  It is because of the sleep the sleep happens.  The person, means when the brain goes to sleep, so then a person falls asleep.  Because in samadhi, they must not disappear.  They must not become unconscious.  Many people, simply they claim it, simply they claim.  It is not samadhi actually.  It is that they have fallen asleep, temporarily.  When they fall asleep, if it is a better sound sleep, they will enjoy happiness.  Then they misunderstand that to be a samadhi.  That is not true.  In samadhi, you exist always; you don't disappear.  

Question:   When a devotee is facing a problem and we try to help, and that support as part of our compassion and genuine nurturing is rejected or not accepted, or not even wanted, to come out of confusion, do we just let go, blessing the person?  To what extent should we continue to pursue? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Like, mentally you pray to the Divine, so the Divine might bless the other.  Because the other has rejected your help, doesn't need.  It is not wanted.  So, you cannot help it.  You cannot help this world if it doesn't want the help.  It is not easy to help somebody.  Like, I can teach only to such people who are ready to take my teachings.  If a person rejects my teachings, I cannot help it.  But I am not going to forget what I have learned.  In the same way, you don't have to give up your nature.  God will send somebody else for you to help.  You might be able to help somebody else who might be in need and who might accept.  If one does not accept, doesn't want your help, that's it.  No problem.  Let it go.

End of Questions and Answers

End of Session