Ashtavakra Samhita (Q&A) – The True Knower
Chapter 17, vv 6-12

Q&As – Ashtavakra Samhita Commentary with Shri Babaji
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“The True Knower” – Ashtavakra Samhita | Babaji Q&A, No. 262
Recorded on Mar 16, 2026 with US participants.

Chapter 17, “The True Knower”, Verse 6.

Agastya
“Rare indeed is that broad-minded one who has neither attraction nor aversion to righteous work, prosperity, pleasures, liberation or even cares about life or death.”

And Baba’s comments. “A real Yogi neither likes nor dislikes any duty and has no attraction to worldly prosperity, desires and even liberation. Such a yogi will not be bothered whether their body is alive or going to die. They are that eternal Soul, and in consciousness are established in It.” I’ll read that again. “They’re that eternal Soul, and in consciousness you are established in that.” Baba, would you elaborate a little on what that is saying. It says you are that eternal Soul. What is the eternal Soul? And in consciousness, you’re established in that.

Babaji
Meaning of these two things. You have a mind. If you silence the mind, what remains is the consciousness of existence, and that consciousness of existence, you can see it is infinite. Means it is not visible as matter to the naked eye. It would appear as if it is void space, but it is not actually void space. Void space is because we have assumed it as the void one. Simply it is the absolute existence. Its recognition is the Consciousness of Existence. The mind itself is so infinite, none of you would ever have seen it with the naked eyes, but yet you all recognize that you have a mind, and you know that one. Now this mind, because of its preoccupation with its imagination is away from its Self in consciousness of illusion. Something like you are sitting on a chair watching the movie on the TV screen, but your consciousness is totally drawn onto the movie screen, and you experience as if you are one in that movie. You would have forgotten you are sitting on the chair. You are not consciously aware that you are sitting on the chair. Now the Yogi stops that conscious attention to the movie which is going on within the mind. Then, when the silence happens, it (the mind) comes back to the Self which is just sitting. As an example I am telling. And it merges with that Self. That is what a yogi would have experienced, remaining in the Self always, even though a little bit consciousness might be in touch with the brain, or if the yogi needs to think, but it will quickly go back to the Self. It will always be settled into the Self. So mind settling into the Self, it is all in the infinite. It is not a matter. It is not a lid coming onto the box. Neither box nor lid is there. It’s only just like in the space.

Agastya
So, Baba, is that the Consciousness of Existence that you’re referring to?

Babaji
Yeah, first clue is the Consciousness of Existence that you will notice thoroughly when you get rid of all thoughts and visions. So first, what Ashtavakra talks, for a seeker to develop detachment. It is not as easy as we are talking. So whether it is there or not, mentally, it is always okay. Something like today, there is $10, it’s okay. Tomorrow you may get $100, mentally, it’s okay. There is no brooding, no anxiousness, no insecurity, because such a seeker would be ready. If at all the body has to go, it goes. What to do? It’s fine. We will come back again and do sadhana. That practice comes with meditation and understanding the impermanence of the world. A real seeker when he is determined to go for Self-Realization. So that’s what Ashtavakra talks. A Yogi once having achieved, also would remain like that as long as the body is there. He is not attached. He is not anxious that the body should always be there or that it should not go away. If it has to go he has nothing to lose. He is settled in its real Self.

Agastya
So Baba, are you considering the Soul, the Para Brahman, or the Consciousness of Existence.

Babaji
Beginning it is the Consciousness of Existence. Once that merges, where it merges, that is the Para Brahman, that is the ultimate Truth, which is beyond imaginations. That is the all pervaded, omnipresent, omnipotent, Divinity.

Agastya
So, it’s Eternal Existence.

Babaji
We can call that as Supreme Consciousness of Existence.

Agastya
You used to call it Pure Consciousness.

Babaji
Yes, Pure Consciousness is when mind gets rid of all thoughts and visions and nothing comes. Mind is totally silent. When it is totally silent, still, you will feel that you exist. That is what I talk of as Consciousness of Existence, and that is Pure Consciousness also, because there are no thoughts. That is the nearest definition or terminology I can use to call it a pure, like the pure sky type. And when that merges with the Self, that we call it as Supreme Consciousness of Existence, because It is the ultimate truth of this consciousness of existence.

Agastya
Could you also call that just pure awareness, Baba?

Babaji
Finally, a pure awareness is also fine — without any identity, without any other ideas.

Agastya
Right. Okay, thank you, reading on.

“It’s very rare indeed to see such Yogis in the world. Our beloved guru, Sri Swamiji, Shivabalayogi was one such great Yogi, who even after dropping his physical body, continued to give experiences to devotees that he is always available for all those who have complete faith in him. Swamiji himself used to say, you can see monks and mahatmas, but to see a yogi, one must be very fortunate and must have done some sadhana in previous lives.”

So Baba here, what are the mechanics of how those Divine beings or Self Realized souls can come to you? This is a basically saying, that if you have enough faith, that even after dropping a physical body, the Guru can come to the devotee.

Babaji
The mechanic is that your mind gets connected to its ultimate Truth, so that only graces upon You. In your imagination, it will be your guru. Once the body is dropped there is no identity, It is one with the Para Brahman. The Para Brahman we have to identify for the sake of our understanding and communication. A Yogi once they have dropped the body has become one, they don’t have any identity. They don’t exist as an individual soul anywhere in the space.

Agastya
So it’s our mind that creates, our love and faith in that form, that makes it manifest to to us?

Babaji
Through that (faith) your mind becomes single pointedly gets connected to the ultimate truth, enabling it to manifest.

Agastya
Verse seven.

“The Wise One neither longs for the dissolution of the universe, nor is averse to its existence. That Blessed One lives happy, accepting whatever simply comes as a matter of course.

Babaji
Yes, you see, when you are attached to a particular thing of this world, then you get affected if that particular thing doesn’t happen according to your desires. But if you are well aware that this is only an appearance and impermanent and you have nothing to do with that one—your ultimate truth is the Para Brahman, which is simply all pervading, as infinite Supreme Consciousness. When you are being there, you are unaffected by this world. Whether the appearance is there or the appearance disappears, it is the same thing. Mind is quiet and at peace. The appearance or disappearance doesn’t make any difference for the Supreme Peace that is in the Yogi.

Agastya
Is that because he’s aware he’s not the body and he’s not the mind, he’s the Consciousness of Existence that’s witnessing it?

Babaji
Yes, this awareness also, he has gone beyond. He has just become quiet, that is all.

Agastya
So, Baba, what’s it like to be a Self-Realized yogi? I mean, the mind merges back into the Self, into consciousness, but a Yogi continues to operate in the world, but he no longer has a sense of “I am”.

Babaji
Yes, when he answers a question, or he guides the seeker, he instructs how to do sadhana. In all these things, nothing is coming out with any idea of I or I am doing, or what I am. These ideas, all are dropped. Simply the instructions are given. There is no idea that I am your guru, and you are thinking of me as your guru, all these ideas get dropped. Nothing is there, simply giving the technique—you meditate, that is all. More than that I don’t have any idea. I don’t keep thinking that I am a tiger. I am a leopard. All these things. Nothing comes.

Agastya
So the Self Realized lives without a sense of I Am?

Babaji
All ideas are dropped. Yes,

Babaji
Somebody might address me as a Shiva Rudra, but in me that imagination is not there. The imagination, “Oh, I am Shiva Rudra. I have become special, or two horns have come on my head.” No such imaginations are there at all.

Agastya
Right, there’s no identity with being the body or the person. Is it no identity at all? Just universal.

Babaji
Just the quietness. Simple.

Agastya
Nice, okay.

Agastya
“After achieving Self-Realization a Yogi is unaffected by the existence appearance of this universe.” Baba, that term existence appearance, does that mean all that appears in consciousness, anything that appears.

Babaji
I would have used this to tell that it appears to be existing—with that meaning.

Agastya
So Maya is basically anything that appears in Consciousness.

Babaji
Maya, yes,

Agastya
“A yogi while alive in the physical body as a Jivanmukta, (liberated while alive, is always established in the Self, and even if the world disappears, it doesn’t matter to a Yogi, as their attention is not at all on this universe.”

Babaji
Yeah, mentally, he is not getting involved. He is only a witness. And with this body, which everybody calls a yogi or a Shiva Rudra, any such thing, that idea is also not there. That in this body I am the dweller, that also has gone. Everything is gone. Just like the world’s appearance is there, this body is also simply an appearance. With this function, we remain unaffected. Means no “I” is there, thus (a Yogi) remains unaffected.

Agastya
And that is achieved when you achieve Nirvikalpa Samadhi?

Babaji
Yeah, that is what is known as Nirvikalpa Samadhi. Means the mind, once for all, has stopped and merged into the Self without an iota of any idea, any vikalpa. No imagination at all is there about anything.

Agastya
Before Nirvikalpa, in Savikalpa (samadhi), does that come (the no imagination at state) or do you just skip over that? In Savikalpa there’s a sense of I am the witness. The “I” is still there.

Babaji
**Also, that actually is not there. You can skip over the Savikalpa if you directly give up the idea of everything. Through the meditation technique that Swamiji taught, which is one of the most ancient techniques of the Rig Vedic Era, or even before perhaps, in which the mind is not given any idea or any target to watch, you are just asked to watch. When you are just watching, mind becomes quiet and loses all ideas, all imaginations of itself, of the I. Everything disappears. Thus it straight away goes to Nirvikalpa. There is no need that you have to experience Savikalpa and then come to Nirvikalpa, you can go straight away. It already started, the watching without any idea. The beginning itself is without any idea.

Agastya
Well, that’s a beautiful point, Baba, that’s a beautiful distinction. I’ve wondered whether or not you have to go through that stage. But what you’re saying is, if you hang on to that idea, then you might have to go through that stage. You have to go through the savikalpa, I am the witness stage. You just keep watching, watching, watching, and then everything disappears, and you have Nirvikalpa. No need to go through the other.

Babaji
That’s it.

Agastya
That’s important point.

Babaji
Yes. The beginning itself is with no idea—just watching.

Agastya
I think people that have been meditating a while are aware of that. There is awareness, there’s no sense of I or anything, but you can still get your attention caught on that “I am the witness”, instead of just being the awareness.

Babaji
Right from the beginning itself, you start losing the idea of I am meditating.

Agastya
OK, Verse eight.

“Completely fulfilled by the knowledge of the Self, the mind absorbed, settled and fully contented in the Self—that one lives happy, seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and eating. A Self-Realized Yogi, externally would appear like any other ordinary human being, moving, talking to people, eating, etc, but consciously they’re never attached to their body actions. A Yogi would, of course, behave upholding moral values for a larger cause.”

Babaji
You see, people around us would like to know that I love them, I am kind to them, I am compassionate, or I am answering. All those ideas have been dropped here, so those terminologies have lost their meaning. Answering these questions also has lost its meaning for me because it (mind) has gone beyond and become quiet. This is a clue. The answer is a clue for the seeker to become quiet as soon as possible. That is all.

Agastya
Thank you, Baba. Well as you look at the world today, it gets easier to appreciate if you’re going to find any peace it is inside yourself.

Okay, verse nine.

“For that One for whom the ocean of this world has dried up, there is neither attraction nor aversion. Their gaze appears vacant, their actions purposeless and their senses inactive.”

Baba, that does not describe you.

Babaji
Yeah, definitely, you are right, because in this world, people are used to dualities. If I try to tell one, they will imagine another. If I keep quiet, they might imagine as if it is okay or yes. Like Buddha said, (when asked does) God exists. He kept quiet. Then the seeker thought, does it mean that he doesn’t exist? Buddha said, when did I say so? Neither was said, but always, common man, common people of this earth want to understand with one of them—to tell either it is there or it is not there. How can I tell that one. That’s what existent and non existent people keep arguing. Both have lost its meaning.

Agastya
Your comments: “For a yogi, the appearance of this universe is like a vague dream. Even if they’re watching this world, their conscious attention will be on the Self. Baba, you have said that several times in the past, which always is fascinating. When I asked you how the world appears to you, you said, like a vague dream. Would you explain what that is?

Babaji
Vague dream means, which doesn’t stay erected there, which has no existence value. Like I keep telling, for example, you write on the white paper, and it instantly gets erased, disappears. Whatever you write, like that, nothing stays actually. If I have to act upon a certain thing, sometimes I have to practice repeatedly, so for a while it is there, and then it disappears. After the job is done, it doesn’t stay as an imprint or as an attitude, as a perception. No perception is there at all. See, this world appears to you based on your perception. The perception itself has gone so the rest loses its meaning.

Agastya
Baba, the last part of the sentence, “their conscious attention will be on the Self”, this is really the key message. That it is our attention that liberates us. Where we put our attention by watching.

Babaji
It is the attention which will bind you. It is the attention which can liberate you. If you are attentive to imagining or imagined things or the appearance of the world you are binding (yourself). You stop that one so your attention goes back to Self, then you liberate yourself.

Agastya
So basically, if we pay attention, at least during meditation, to anything that is in the mind, any feeling, any memory, any imagination, then our attention is on the mind or on the world.

Babaji
That is the effect of the magnetic field of the Self. On one side, when the same consciousness has become mind, everything appears so solid in the world. Whatever it imagines, its perception about the world, everything appears so serious, and thus people get affected. But when it has come across that barrier and has come into the magnetic field of the Self, all ideas get dropped for the same consciousness. No more ideas are there because in the Self there are no ideas. We might call it as Divinity, but that Self has no idea that it is the Divine. For whose sake does it need to think that it is Divine when it itself is there. Simply that’s all. Nobody else is there.

Agastya
Yeah, you’ve used the analogy that the sun is unaware of where its rays are going. It’s just absorbed in itself.

Babaji
Yeah.

Agastya
“They are the ever silent one in consciousness. Their consciousness does not go into cravings anymore.”

Babaji
Yeah, one important point here, while answering the question as a teaching, I don’t think further that everybody should absorb this, and everybody should consider this or adopt this and do sadhana. I simply go on telling whoever has the attention, they will absorb and it’s done. Otherwise, it simply flows away, gets melted. That is why, in kathopanishad, Yama Dharma talking to nachiketak says, only once I will go on talking about it, and you must absorb, do not ask any questions. That was the way the ancient masters used to teach, because that was the status of a yogi. I go on answering when you question, even if it about the same thing. If a right type of question comes, then only the answer comes, otherwise that would have melted already, finished.

Agastya
So Baba, what has made it possible for us to be here hearing this wisdom of the Self and be guided and inspired to know the Self?

Babaji
Your own consciousness has thought of returning to the Self in this way, by finding a Master who can teach you, who can give you clues, who can tell you what to do. So that’s why you have a Master in front of you. That’s why you all are sitting here.

Agastya
So our own consciousness has manifested You as this form to guide us back to the Self.

Babaji
All of you participants had resolved some time ago, previous life or long ago, don’t know when it was. That has enabled this to be sitting like this.

Agastya
Baba, once you’ve kind of gotten this far, can you get off the path. Could you go another life and never be involved in meditation.

Babaji
Having achieved total Self Realization once for all that has stopped, then it won’t get dropped from that status, it is always there. Such is the magnetic power of the Self. Try to understand the magnetic power of this world, universe, appearances, that is the magnetic power of the illusion. That is a micro speck compared to the magnetic power of the Ultimate Truth, the Self. That you have to understand. If this micro speck has such power to attract your consciousness so strongly, because your mind is a micro speck of this worldly illusions power. You have to cross this barrier, that is why the tapas (is needed). You have to cross and come to the magnetic field of the Self, Ultimate Truth, then that Self takes you back. That is the power of the Self, actually. So once a yogi has come into the Self, then the magnetic power of anything else all has disappeared. The world has disappeared. That magnetic power also has disappeared. The illusion itself has disappeared. The illusion itself doesn’t exist.

Agastya
I have to think about that Baba.

The illusion itself doesn’t exist. Okay?

Verse 11. “The liberated one abides in the True Self in all circumstances, free of desires, free of mental inclinations. Ever free, enjoying.

So Baba. Does the Self-Realized person enjoy being alive in a body?

Babaji
No, the word has been used for sake of understanding by somebody. It means live happily in this world. It is just for sake of understanding. It’s not that in the world I am happy. Whether this world is there, whether I am in this world, whether the body is there, it’s always at Peace. I would like to repeat the word of Peace as a clue. It (mind) is totally settled, that Peace is the real enjoyment, if that is the word you all can understand. There is no need for me to use the word enjoyment, because what I’m trying to tell is that enjoyment is in duality. You obtain a relative existence and then start enjoying that, with the thought that you have obtained that. That duality has disappeared here. There is no duality, no “I” is there, that I have obtained Self Realization. All these ideas have gone. There is nothing exists. It is just at Peace.

Agastya
Yeah, peace is a beautiful thing. Supreme peace, there’s nothing wanted, nothing more can added. Baba, you have said, “Supreme Peace is beyond Bliss”.

Babaji
Yes, I used that one to tell that it (mind) is totally composed and settled in the Self. Being in the Self. Being there, to give that idea.

Agastya
Bliss is an excited state of the mind.

Babaji
It can give rise to excitement.

Agastya
“People have a lot of myths about Yogis. A Yogi is consciously established and abides in the Self at all times, situations and circumstances. People think a Yogi would know when they’re going to drop their body and things like the past and the future. In fact, for a yogi there is no past or future. The past is only in the memory.”

Babaji
Yeah, many times people have asked this question. When the idea of the body is not there at all, “I having a body”— so (the idea of) dropping that body doesn’t arise at all. Some clue is, you are in a deep sleep and one day the body gets dropped. There is no need for me to know. It is for the people of this world. It’s an excitement. Myths get created. After the Master goes away sometimes the devotees create or spread this. That the Master had already told, on a particular day, at this particular moment, I am going to drop the body. This is all story. Whereas I am not having any body at all that I am going to drop it. So I don’t have to have any imagination. I don’t have to look into the future, which is another imagination. When there is no imagination, I don’t have the idea of a body at all. So where is this? This is only a myth created, but people want to believe in that way. Our master knew when to drop the body, when he would drop the body. That is a big news for them, breaking news type. But for a yogi, it is nothing breaking. Everything is broken already.

Agastya
Also Baba, it’s often you hear that the Guru is going to come back. They are going to come back in a new form, another body.

Babaji
It’s the belief that the devotees would like to exercise because they are attached to the form. Once this form has gone, where is the identity, that identity has been put to Samadhi, The body has been put into the ground, or has been burnt, or something has happened, it’s over. That which achieved the yoga would have merged with the Ultimate Truth, the Self

Agastya
Verse 11 continued:

“The past is only in the memory of ordinary people, which does not exist. There is no future, only the present. If a Yogi has to exert their consciousness to know any future at all, then their consciousness comes away from the Self. Such a one would not be a Yogi. If at all a Yogi thinks, it will be in the purest form for the welfare of all beings in all worlds. Even then, their consciousness would be abiding in the Self only. Even if someone talks to a Yogi, or a Yogi is talking to somebody, always the Yogi’s consciousness is silent and does not go into any craving, dramatizing or picturizing, etc. It does not happen, as their consciousness is totally settled in the Self with contentment. Thus a Yogi is never attached to anything of the world.

Babaji
Try to understand this point now, the Ultimate Truth, the ParaBrahman, do we want to say that the Parabrahman will be thinking when he will have to be reborn again, or when he needs to come to the world? Then how can he be the divine or the Para Brahman? He is mentally worried: that He needs to be reborn, he needs to be coming; he needs to do all these things; there is much to be done. He (the Parabrahman) doesn’t have any idea that the world has been created at all. So that is the clue, how a yogi who has become one with That. The idea of coming back—for what purpose? Devotees want to believe in that way. I try to make them understand, if you have attachment in the name of the Guru, it is no problem—you do that one. When you invoke (the Guru), it is the same Para Brahman that will grace upon you through that form or through that name. So when the grace descends, you will be thinking it’s my Guru’s grace. That is the actual truth.

Babaji
All that is needed is to keep quiet. That is all the teaching.

Agastya
Yes. Baba, I think everybody that has been meditating for some time, or maybe even a short time, has an awareness that you are not anything that’s being thought or imagined. And when we meditate, we’re trying to keep our attention on that so we can become more aware of who we are.

Babaji
Actually, when we talk of the awareness, that also amounts to a little bit of duality. You are aware of. What is it that you have to be aware of? You simply have to be in your Self. Keep quiet. When you keep quiet, when you are in the quietness, you would have transcended that awareness also.

Agastya
Yes, that’s the breakdown of terminology. Baba, I used to play with the terms awareness and consciousness. I’ve kind settled for the time being on consciousness as I’m conscious of being alive. I am Consciousness of Existence. I’m conscious of you being here, us being here, everybody being on the call. But awareness steps back from that, and there’s no I involved anymore. I realize that all terminology is going to fall short of the Parabrahman.

So that’s what Ramana Maharishi simply said—both the seer and the scene disappear. Both the devotee and God disappear.

Well, the Seer disappears too.

Babaji
Everything, the ideas disappear finally.

Agastya
Right, Verse 12.

“Though seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, talking, speaking, walking, the Great One moves free of all effort and non effort, completely liberated.”

Your comments. “Though a (Yogi) might appear active bodily, like eating or hearing or touching, walking, etc., such a one is free from any resolutions, efforts and non efforts. Their consciousness is totally established and remains in the Self, allowing the body to act mechanically, not with any mental resolutions or attachments. A Yogi is always a totally liberated One while alive, known as a Jeevan Muktha.”

Babaji
Yes, you see, somebody might try to stab the body of a Yogi, but by mechanical practice, a reaction might happen to save the body or to escape. That doesn’t mean that the mind has become attached to keeping this body, and the mind is thinking of this body as me. Mind is not there. The Self is there. That doesn’t get affected in the process if somebody stabs the body and it goes. The Consciousness is not affected. An effort might be done to save it. That’s what it is. An effort will be done to save this Ashram, but finally, when the results come, whatever happens, we remain unaffected. This is the prarabdha. That’s it.

Agastya
Yes. Is that just wired into nature? Every living thing tries to continue its existence, tries to survive. It’s just wired into manifest consciousness.

Babaji
Yes, that is the reason.

Agastya
Nobody, even if their life is miserable, wants to give it up, or even give up the things that are making it miserable.

Babaji
Because the first thing is me. I don’t want to give up me, me and mine. That is the problem that always comes.

Agastya
Did you have to deal with that during your tapas? Was it ever difficult to let go of the sense of I, I am?

Babaji
It was simple and easy, actually. Whenever the manifestations happened, because there was no attachment to that manifestation, very quickly it used to finish. Even astral travel type, also, it used to finish, and attachment would never occur. That’s all. This was simply an illusion, it never existed. It never happened at all.

Agastya
Like astral travel?

Babaji
All disappeared, we saw nothing. It was not any significance at all. It’s not a big thing that I have to be boasting all the time. “Oh, I traveled like this. I hit like this.” Nothing, it’s done, it’s over.

Agastya
Verse 13: “Neither blaming nor praising, neither pleased nor angry, uninterested in giving or taking, ever free of all attachment and expectations.”

Comments: “Sometimes people may see a Yogi pulling up a student, showing some annoyance for a cause, appreciating somebody or pointing out a mistake. In spite of all these actions, whether verbally or through bodily gestures, a Yogi is totally free from the dualities of either accusing or praising somebody, becoming neither excited and happy, nor annoyed. A Yogi is free from attachment to all objects and actions.

Babaji
Yeah, to put in a simple way in one sentence, we may keep quiet, but if some people are trying to take us for granted, and trying to cross the boundaries, a little bit of hissing noise and puss, puss you do and then become quiet again. That is all. Don’t get involved into long, escalated fights. Done. Just shoo away and you withdraw to your Self. That’s it. Nothing happens.

Agastya
No ruminating in the mind, playing things over and over and over.

Babaji
Nothing. The mind wouldn’t be keeping anything or brooding or worrying or sad or all these things. All disappeared. These words are not there at all.

Agastya
Baba, is that what you meant when you said it’s like writing on a piece of paper and then immediately it gets erased, it disappears?

Babaji
Yes, nothing stays. Either, somebody has to remind, keep reminding this has to happen, this has to happen, otherwise that goes.

Agastya
Baba, would you like to take some questions from the people?

Babaji
We have about 15 minutes, a few questions, we can take three or four. These four hands I can see, four or five hands. I’ll take quick questions if they have. So you can tell them to unmute. Sophia, you can unmute and ask your question please.

Agastya
Thank you. I feel very happy this week, it’s been very hard tapas for me for a long time, sitting, watching, getting rid of imaginations, getting into stories. It stopped. Also the bliss very intensively through the body, so I could maintain the focus. I find it very peaceful, more golden, Golden Sun kind of bliss. But it’s like way so, but it’s still, it’s peace. I’m very, very happy, very tough. Because, pushing, pushing.

Babaji
Good you practice more, that’s fine, wonderful, nice Keep it up.

Babaji
Usha, please unmute and come in

Usha

Namaste Babaji. I just wanted some validation, I guess. Talking about consciousness and awareness, is it okay to say that awareness is a sense of knowing.

Babaji
Yeah, you are aware of. You become aware of your Self. That is what it has to be, that is what it is ultimately. You are in that awareness of your Self.

Usha

So you’re essentially knowledge, like it says in the Guru Gita.

Babaji
More than knowledge. I would like to say you are in the awareness of your Self. Means in Consciousness you are settled there. This is the nearest I could find, the words and terminologies to tell.

Usha
Thank you.

Babaji
Okay, next, Rebecca, before that, somebody is there, Nikhil. Nikhil, please, Nikhil Marilda, please unmute and come in.

Rebecca

Purnams Babaji. Babaji, while I was meditating today or I mean trying to meditate today, I had a clear feeling that besides having to overcome the six enemies of the mind, working towards becoming a shakshi (witness), we actually need to overcome also the trigunas, because without that, we won’t go any further. I said, “Wow, that’s a big hoop to jump.” My question to you is, how does it go? As we keep going into just watching are we also going to get away from the three gunas or not? Because, the six enimies of the mind bring us, I guess, towards righteousness. Like the idea of fighting for what’s right, fighting for the common good, and keeping ourselves from becoming egoistic and all the other five enemies. The problem is, at some point, we start getting into meditation, and then we get closer to observing, and to just watching. It’s a big step from observing to actually not getting attached to all that is the duality.

Babaji
I understand what you are trying to tell. As you go on meditating, at least try to understand this point. Say the six enemies, if any one of them come into the mind, or the three gunas, any one of them come into the mind, how quickly can you overcome that. How quickly you can rid them from the mind is the effect of the meditation. That means your meditation is very effective, if quickly they can get erased or disappear. It shouldn’t trouble your mind too long. If simply, this much understanding is there. For that only, you have to watch and practice Meditation.

Rebecca

So forget worrying about the duality.

Babaji
Yes.

Hello. My question is, I’m a busy mother, and I do a one hour meditation, of course, but I would like to do more. I rock my daughter to sleep three times a day, 20 minutes at a time. When I’m just rocking her can I meditate while I rock? I’m a beginner, so I don’t think I would be in Samadhi and drop her. I have been in Samadhi a couple times, but it’s not a very common occurrence. Is that okay or no?

Babaji] Yeah, keeping a little bit of outside awareness that you don’t do any accident to your child. So you can try to do that one. No problem.

Okay. Thank you so much.

Babaji
Alex, come in.

Alex
Beautiful session today. Just wonderful. When you were talking about why many of us are here, actually, you said all of us are here because, from a past life, we were doing sadhana, and now we’re just continuing that Sadhana. What I’m sensing is that we are attracted to consciousness, and this is what we’re really seeking, this is what we’re trying to experience. And when we see you, we’re seeing a person, but what we’re really seeing is consciousness. We’re drawn to this consciousness, and it’s not so much a person, but that you are consciousness, and that’s what we’re really drawn to. Is that what is happening?

Babaji
You are right. Yes.

Alex
Okay, that’s good. Thank you.

Babaji
Vignesh, please come in.

Vignesh

Hi Babaji, I would like to thank you, as well as Agastya for asking the wonderful questions. It was really a fantastic session. I just have a quick question. Just now you mentioned about awareness. It came to my understanding that if you think about the past as well as the future, that is where the awareness of I and Am and everything is. But the moment you have your awareness in the present, I think the only way we can be is with the consciousness or the spirit or God, or whichever you say.

Babaji
Exactly. Actually meditation neutralizes the mind and brings it to the now, to the present always. Otherwise, the mind is brooding about the past or is anxious about the future. With this, imaginations keep arising. When it comes to the present, imaginations all recede and become quiet. In that quietness, the Consciousness of Existence is there. That is the awareness about which we are talking.

Vignesh
Thank you so much. So is that God or is that You?

Babaji
Yeah, that is what is recognized as Divinity. Thank you so much.

Babaji
Yeah, next, it’s only written as iPad. Please unmute and come in.

Question
Pranam Guruji. Sometime when I meditate, I can hear something like cricket sound in the middle of my brain. Do I have to worry?

Babaji
Nothing. It’s common. It will be all right. Simply, gently, just keep watching. It will disappear. It will be alright.

Babaji
Shekhar

Shekhar
Pranam Guruji. Can you please tell me, the first day when you met your guru, did you already have faith and then the faith of experience, the permanent faith? Also, when was the first experience of Guruji, when he realized, “Oh, this is the nature of the mind”. When you no longer just believed it the nature of mind but instead came to know it as the nature of mind. Can you please?

Babaji
You see, when I first saw the Master, I just fell in love. It means 100% of my mind went and sat on him. That’s what I experienced. That love happened naturally, without any expectations and was unconditional. It had transcended faith also, actually. So that’s what I told my mother. I don’t know what he is, whether he is a yogi or is bad or anything. What I know is I have fallen in love and I will not regret. Thus, I knew this is the Master I have been waiting for. My inner consciousness told me. It felt satisfied, contented that this is the Master.

Shekhar

And the second question, about the nature of mind. Faith came first, right. Then after the Master taught you how to meditate, right. When did you realize this is the nature of mind. When was the first experience?

Babaji
First experience, the mind receded. It surrendered. It understood, this Master has that thing which I needed, so he is my Ultimate Truth. This Master is the Ultimate Truth, the Para Brahman. Thus the mind started becoming quiet, quiet and quiet. That quietness is the experience, and there was peace. It (the mind) had surrendered thus.

Babaji
I think all questions are done.

Victoria
Baba, I have one question. Today you said so many amazing things, and I’m seeing so much more when you say, “just keep quiet, silence the mind.” I feel like that is just the tip of the iceberg. You also say, when you are quiet, when the mind’s quiet, it automatically turns inward and goes back to the Self. A couple of days ago, I was reading something by Nisargadatta. He was saying, of course, keep quiet, be silent. Then he said something like, if you were just quiet, you would get everything you need, but you keep getting in the way asking for other things, and it’s like what you said today. So my question, every single thought, we call it imagination, is it true that every single thought, past or present, this self-talk, is continuing our illusion, and that when we get quiet, like you say, just keep quiet, there is an automatic returning to the Self. But we’re not seeing it?

Babaji
Yes, then that “I” also gets dropped. The moment “I “gets dropped, everything else is dropped. As long as the “I” continues, the “I” wants, “I” looking for, “I” this and “I” that, it all keeps coming. That’s what Nisargadatta also is telling. The same thing we are telling. When that “I” stopped everything is there. Just become quiet.

Victoria
Even in my business world, I’m trying to just not plan so much. I’m trying to just respond to what is coming. Allow what is coming. Can I trust that what is coming is exactly what I need?

Babaji
Yes, definitely. Then you will see your mind starts remaining in the present. It will never be anxious about any future. It will not brood about the past. It will just attend to what is in the present, and thus give you that quietness.

Victoria
One more comparison, just because I have you to ask. Nisargadatta said something like, dwell in the I Am, but not the words “I am”. I think he’s saying the Beingness. What I’m seeing with “just watch”, is there a state, are we going to a state of just beingness when we watch? Or no?

Babaji
What Nisargadatta means, now I can understand—not in the words, but to dwell in that “I am”. That is what I tell as Consciousness of Existence. I’m telling Consciousness of Existence so that you can overcome that “I ness” and just be there. That’s what he also means.

Victoria
Thank you Baba.

Agastya
Baba, could I ask a quick question related to Shekhar’s question? When was it that you—your soul, mind and heart surrendered to Swamiji, to your guru. Was it right from the very beginning, or did it develop over time?

Babaji
No, I think right from the beginning, and afterwards, my mind never questioned anything about Swamiji—what He is and what He is not. I could only tell, I want Swamiji. More than that I could not explain anything else to anybody.

Agastya
Beautiful! Well, thank you, Baba, for being with us today.

Babaji
Bye, bye, to going into gallery. Right, wonderful. Some very lovely questions. Everything came, and it was so nice to be with you all. We’ll come back again. Thank you.

Time to disappear.