The Permanent and the Impermanent

The Permanent and the Impermanent | Online Q&A, No.140
Recorded on 2 July 2023 with US participants

Introduction from Babaji on putting in efforts one at a time

Always remember, when you want to achieve something, when you are putting efforts one at a time, when you are practicing meditation, for a while do not bother about self-realization or enlightenment anything, though the target needs to be set. You just set the target, but all the time don’t have to be worrying; “When will it happen? Why is it not happening?” No need. Like first, achieve total silence of the mind that you can keep your mind in silence for one hour at least. That itself will be a big achievement in your life. When you are able to keep the mind quiet, no imagination, no reverberations – outside world, whatever sound or scene that happens, your mind shall not reverberate. That is important. When you achieve this one hour, then plan for the next one hour. Like that, one day when you are able to do that eight to ten hours you are able to keep it quiet. Then eventually one time will come like me, you will also be able to keep the mind totally quiet for 24 hours. Come what may be anything that happens. Like that you plan step after step, one after another, so that is the important thing. Note this point in your mind. First bother for this one hour. Don’t bother for the next 23 hours or any other things. Sitting body, many of you have achieved, during this travel of my U.S. I was so happy to see all of you that you all could sit for one hour unmoved physically. That is very good. That is also very important, first to achieve physical stationary. Then now, adopting the technique bother for the mental stationary. That is why I told it’s so important to listen when I am instructing. Keeping your back and neck straight and sitting in any comfortable posture. And then gently close your eyes and then watch in between eyebrows. That is all you have to do. Don’t yourself ask, “Why I should watch, why not anything else?” Don’t ask me also or anybody else also. Follow it as a command. That is your devotion. This is what is known as devotion and faith. That’s when you can achieve like that. You just watch and see the wonder that will happen. Do not move your eyeballs. So, these are the things first you set right for one hour, then there is so much that you can achieve.

The difference between the permanent and the impermanent

Agastya:

So Babaji, first question. One of our deepest beliefs and convictions is that we are each a separate self, an independent existence. And you said that the source of suffering is misidentifying ourselves as a body and mind. And consequently, most of us are seeking a permanent peace in a temporary always changing existence. So, would you elaborate a little bit on this? That you’ve talked about the terms temporary existence value and permanent existence value. Could you just talk about that?

Babaji:

Yeah. So now if you all look back in your life, probably since childhood hundreds and millions of belief systems would have entered your mind. Just by listening to somebody, reading somewhere, “This is the truth, this is the truth, this is how it happens”. So, your mind would have absorbed and have kept it as an acquired habit thinking that to be the right thing. But think for a while. You really don’t know whether all things that you have absorbed is the right thing, is the truth or not the truth. Because you simply heard somebody telling, somewhere it had written, like this you absorbed everything. But did you ever bother to experience the truth to yourself. That’s what Baba is trying to teach you. To overcome, first it is essential that you overcome all such systems which you have absorbed just by a belief. They are all the secondary knowledges because you have not experienced. Now I am inviting you. You experience about yourself. You experience about a permanent and impermanent by your own thinking, observations, watch. Like I have told this entire universe has the appearance value but does not have the existence value. Why? It changes. Consistently it keeps changing. There was yesterday, there was a day before yesterday, there was fifty years ago, there was hundred years ago. Things are not the same now after hundred years, after fifty years, after twenty four hours it could be changing. So, this change – that’s why it is impermanent. See, if somebody had told “You can live as long as today’s evening is there, sunset doesn’t happen”, you are gone. Your tension builds up. “My God, the evening will come in no time, and I will be no more. I won’t exist.” So that’s what is impermanent. If you depend on just the today for your existence you are no more by evening or by dark. But that is not the truth. A truth is there about yourself whether it is day or night or today or thousand years later or thousand years ago, whatever it is. Eternally you are going to be there. That’s what we try to talk about permanent and impermanent.

The same thing peace or  happiness…

There is no electricity, I hope the internet will go for some time. [pause] Sorry for all, the electricity went off.  These things keep happening. So luckily, we had a backup of a hotspot here from a mobile phone. So we are back online. The electricity can keep coming. I might appear a little bit dark, that is all.

So that’s what we were answering about permanent and impermanent. In the same way happiness and peace. If somebody tells, “For the next one hour you have peace and happiness.” So, what happens after that one hour? You lose peace. That should not be acceptable to you. You must look, “No, no, I want peace and happiness – whether you are a god or anybody else, can you give me my happiness all 24 hours throughout the year? Whatever it is, this year, next year, previous year, I must have that.” So that is how you look for permanent things, not the impermanent things. So, these are all the important things, that is why we invite you to practice meditation, so that first you give up all the belief systems. That it should not bother, otherwise I tell one thing and your belief system will tell something and then you get confused, you don’t watch, you get disturbed, you are unable to watch in meditation. So that’s why the meditation does not progress. That is why either in the system if you have that total faith. Like I have always told, first time when you went to school if the teacher told, “This is A”, you accepted it. You did not question, your mind also did not question. So that’s when you could learn. If you had kept questioning and your mind did not accept it, you would not have learnt the ABCD of the English language at all. That is how everything. Faith is important, self-confidence. When I tell; that is why we try to teach you, first you remove all the belief systems that is in the mind. That is what you are doing when you are just watching. This what precisely is needed. Then the truth will be revealed automatically about your eternal existence. There is no impermanence there. When you exist eternally, also you will realize you don’t need anything else for your existence and you are at peace. Because you don’t need anything. As long as you depend on something that you need, you become stressful,  “What if it doesn’t happen”. So that’s what is the important thing. If we depend on electricity, if the electricity goes our peace also goes. We are stressful, “Oh, how to conduct this zoom again”. Why we need to have some backup. So like that, permanent impermanent things and meditation. So, these are the things we keep telling. So that’s why first achieve one hour of silence and then we can achieve the next one hour. That is how we practiced since childhood. So, we never allowed any other belief systems to enter unnecessarily. “This happens, that happens, this thing”. About Self-Realization also hundreds of myths are there. About meditation itself thousands and millions of myths are there. All that is important, you have to clear your mind and then you become known of yourselves.

The Self is neither thought or silence, motions or stillness, something or nothing”

Question:

Baba, so basically you are saying that Self-Realization is all that’s going to bring lasting peace and contentment to the mind.

Babaji:

Yeah.

Question:

Okay, so you said the Self is neither thought or silence, motion or stillness, something or nothing.  Could you please elaborate on that?

Babaji:

Yeah. The day when you are able to realize or become aware of that, it is such an awesome. The real word of English, ‘awesome’, I have learned from you all. It’s awesome. Amazingly awesome. Inexplicably awesome, that is the thing. You will wonder, you will not be able to explain what it is. You will not be able to use any terminology for it.  It is beyond that. Hitherto known languages, this world, dimensions, everything fails there, including time and space. That existence is beyond time and space also. Means it is not binded by a particular time. It is eternal. It is not binded to one small space. It is simply all pervaded. And it is there. But it appears not to be there. So that’s what the truth is. But then what would you call? The sages, ancient, the spiritual giants, when they experienced this, they simply used the word ‘That’. While addressing, “That thing is like this, that thing is like this. It is all pervaded.” They did not name. They said “Whatever we name you will end up in imagining and people might imagine something else.” That’s why I stopped using the word God long ago. I use the word ‘divinity’ in my talks or answers, if you have observed. Divinity is something that is all pervaded we can make you understand. God means you will imagine a person with a trident or with a chakra or with something. What happens, what doesn’t happen, all that imaginations come. There is a divine. This ultimate truth which we call ‘That’ – such an awesome thing is what is known as divinity. Because from That only everything has come out. That appears to be something, that appears to be nothing. If everything has come out, everything that which has come out from the source, that must be something. It cannot be simply nothing. We will talk about science, but when you try to see that one it is just nothing. You cannot see in naked eyes, you cannot touch it, you cannot show to anybody. You cannot prove, demonstrate; you cannot present any papers on this. So that is what it is. It is something or nothing, it appears to be there. This will be revealed one day when you practice yourself. That’s why just now your mind is seeing all such things which need not be seen unnecessarily. It has imagined and it is seen. Then it gets confused with the truth also, “What happens this, what happens that.” Just see – one day let your mind become quiet and then see that wonder. There is a wonder. There is something for you there when you become silent. That is the eternal. You will realize that also. I’m not joking. Just have a faith for now and then you experience it when you practice.

Do you have be ‘That’ to know ‘That’?

Question:

So Baba, would it be fair to say you have to be ‘That’ to know ‘That’?

Babaji:

Yeah. So when you be ‘That’, there is nothing to know. You are yourself. You are aware that it is you.  Simply you become aware you are unnecessarily watching the cinema and considering that cinema as a truth. Forgotten about yourself, whereas you are that truth, that cinema is not the truth. You become aware of yourself. So, you might wonder, “When it is nothing, something, when I cannot see it, when I cannot understand it, how will I become aware of it?” It is you. There is one consciousness of existence. That clue is there. You try to remove, you can remove all thoughts, you can just watch. But I assure you, you cannot remove this consciousness of existence. When you become aware of yourself also this will be there. Then you will wonder, “I am there but what is it that I am?” Just like, can you show your mind to somebody? But you have a mind – you only know that based on the thoughts and visions. But with the consciousness of existence, the day when you come to know, that is the wonder. You will be Realized. You will be a yogi, if you can keep it forever in that level all the time. That’s what you have to practice and this life on this earth will not be disturbed. You can be a normal life; you marry four times, ten times, no problem. But you will have your peace, you know how to handle all the four and ten, everything in this world. That is the fun and wonderful thing.

Question:

So Baba, you can’t know it with the mind because it’s before the mind, and mind is arisen from ‘That’, pure consciousness?

Babaji:

Yeah, from that though mind has come, but the same thing which is the nearest word I could use is the consciousness, or consciousness of existence. That has the capacity to be creative, to imagine. That technology is there in that one. So that’s why it is able to imagine. But when it imagines, it realizes its all imaginations are simply limited. It cannot imagine beyond itself. Itself is beyond all its imaginations. That is the wonder if you try to understand. You imagine but you are beyond your imagination, but your imagination cannot go beyond you. Means whatever you imagine you imagine it within your mind. But the imagined that thing cannot go out of your mind.

Is pure consciousness beyond the sense of ‘I am’?

Question:

So Baba, a pure consciousness then is devoid of the sense of ‘I’. It is beyond the sense of ‘I’ or ‘I am’?

Babaji:

Yes, that is when the pure consciousness. It is there, you are there, but you don’t think that this is ‘I am’. Because to think always you will imagine this is ‘I am’, means “What is this ‘I am’?” You are beyond that. You are there. But you don’t imagine. You don’t even think that this is ‘I’.

Question:

So then the ‘I am’ sense is just the first kind of manifestation of consciousness when consciousness begins to limit itself?

Babaji:

Yeah. It is the beginning of duality. The moment you imagine ‘I’, you are there and also together you imagine yourself with a limitation and you stand aside from yourself as a duality. Because when you imagine, that is the ‘I’. So you want a definition for ‘I’. At the most you can tell, ‘all pervaded’, but you won’t know what that all pervaded means until you yourself doesn’t become all pervaded.

Question:

So where does that ‘I am’ consciousness arise from? What’s its source? For example, the silent ocean, what’s the wind that forms the waves of individual existence?

Babaji:

That’s what is simply known as source only. More than that, there is no attribution for that. It is beyond all attributions. Yet it is there. From that only everything is coming. So here, important, you know about that ultimate truth also when a duality comes out of that truth. You also have come out in your imagination and then now you are trying to know about yourself. Ultimately what you do is you try to get rid of all imaginations and you just settle into yourself. There is nothing to know. Because it is only you there. There is not duality that you have to know.

Question:

That’s great.

What is the proper way to use the mind to aid us in liberation?

Question:

Okay. Baba so what’s the proper way to use our mind to aid us in liberation or to free us from the ignorance.  We have the meditation course which is the tools to silence our mind. But these chats with you, these Q&A sessions, this knowledge, knowledge can either bind us or it can liberate us. Especially as we get along further in our life we realize the futility of so many things because they have come and gone and they haven’t brought fulfillment. So knowledge of the how and the why is really important or we wouldn’t be having these meetings with you. So what is the proper way to use our mind to gain fulfillment?

Babaji:

First we need to understand, it is mind when it is imagining something. Mind’s only job is that it can imagine. When it imagines it limits. It cannot imagine beyond itself. So that’s why it is unable to imagine about itself. It ends up imagining several or millions or so many other things about itself also. First it imagines about itself as something other than itself. That’s what it gets involved. So to get rid of this, using your mind… Again, use the same mind because the mind has gone out of control due to imagination. Now imagine, so that you can bring it back to single pointed. That imagination is what the guru is giving you. Watch in between eyebrows. That is also an imagination. But when you watch in between eyebrows you are trying to become quiet. That is the first step through the mind you have to achieve. That means concentration. Focus point is very, very important for you. Concentration. Learn to remain concentrated. When you concentrate in this method of meditation you are not concentrating on something else, you are concentrating so that you can remain concentrated. That is important for you to understand. If you can remain concentrated, your imaginations all decrease. Those habits all decrease and one day it will vanish. Then you have the power to be aware also. Just like whatever you imagine you are aware of that. In the same way if you become quiet you become aware of yourself. When you don’t have to be aware of anything else, you are not imagining, that awareness is automatically into itself. So that is how you have to practice. That is the secret.

Ancient sages realized we need to observe to know that truth. Everything that has come out through their own mind only they also visualized. Things that the mind has imagined. They thought that thing that which I have imagined through my mind, it always remains within the mind. It doesn’t go out. So, if it could go out of the mind others could have seen, “Oh, this this gadget has come out of his mind.” Things don’t happen like that one. Whatever is in your mind, it is your mind only which knows that is only within the mind – that cannot come out. Then they realized. So with the imagination of another thing you cannot know yourself. You get carried away. That’s what I told, since childhood millions of belief systems have entered your mind. You have got carried away simply. Scaring you. Stressful to you. Trying to become happy. Trying to achieve excitement. So many things making you emotional – you have to give up that one. So, concentration. You use your mind to remain concentrated. Do not allow it to get distracted into millions of things. Only very important to sustain your life, your body, your life that is needed, try to use that one. You will realize many other hundred things are not at all necessary for you – still you want to get involved. There are so many things, you will realize. This is not needed, this is not needed, you don’t need it. You go to market. You will try to buy only what you need it. Otherwise you cannot come out of the market. You can keep going around round, round, round; “What should we buy, I have only one dollar. In this one dollar should I buy this? Should I buy that? Should I buy that one?” – you will be confused. But if you know what you have to buy. So that’s what, you know what you need. From the mind you have to learn to go beyond the mind. That’s why first you have to become quiet mentally. So that’s how you have to use the mind, intelligence application also.

That is through the mind only you can understand permanent and impermanent things. Anything that appears and disappears cannot be permanent, you all agree? Anything that keeps changing also is not permanent. If a person today is your friend and tomorrow is becoming an enemy, he’s not a permanent friend, he cannot be a good friend at all. So that’s how you have to think, use your mind. That means using the mind you apply your brains. So anything that is changing, he cannot be the faithful friend at all if he changes. Today he’s here, tomorrow he’s there. So like you all want to be faithful and devotees to me and disciples to me – if that is your interest, I’m telling. You have a choice not to be but you see me for ten years, twenty years. After that suddenly one day if you change, you are not a faithful disciple, you are not a real friend of mine. You are never ready to listen to my teachings. Like that, that is how permanent impermanent. Who is a permanent? Swamiji used to tell, “Even if I cut you into pieces, you get joined and come back to me.” That is the permanent disciple. These things might appear very tough and unbelievable. Just an example, to that extent your faith, then you win. That’s how you have to use your mind.

Can the mind only be aware of itself in duality?

Question:

Thank you Baba, just one last question then we have several people’s hands up. So as long as there is any sense of duality, the truth’s not there and that duality, even if it’s “I am”, you know, “I am unbounded” such as in savikalpa samadhi or something like that where ‘I’ feels like it’s the only one existence, but it’s experiencing itself as that one existence, there’s really a duality going on and not until that completely settles down is the truth, is the Self really able to know itself, be itself.

Babaji:

Exactly. It can experience about itself only in its duality. As long as it is in duality, even when it has gone closer, just one more step to merger, it has to settle down. That’s when the blissfulness comes. You need to be careful when it is blissful. Don’t stop there. Don’t think that you have become realized. Keep going, you experience that duality. That thing is permanent. Beyond even this blissfulness you will realize. Because when there is peace then it is settled peacefully. So nothing can disturb. So once you experience that and then merge with it. Once you merge you are the one. That is nothing to experience.

Question:

All right Sally, you have a question?

What is our obligation to share the teachings and heal other people in the world?

Question:

Yes, I’m trying to figure out how to best formulate it.  But I was wondering Baba, if you could speak to our true calling in life and I don’t know if I should use the word obligation, but you know we do all this work meditating and it’s beautiful and how important is it to share that and where does healing other people in the world fit into this please? Thank you.

Babaji:

See, first thing important is that it is through the mind that one suffers really. This suffering can come to an end if we can control this mind and keep it quiet and realize the truth of this world as impermanent.  This is what the practice of meditation can be so healing when you come across the truths. A while ago as we were talking, you would have observed thousands and millions of belief systems. Through that you could be suffering unnecessarily. “Oh, this is ‘I am’, this is it, this is mine”, and you might be suffering because of that. When nothing is me or mine, ‘I am that truth’, there is no suffering at all. That is what is known as liberation. You get released from that binding of that imagination. That’s what you all call as healing. This meditation can be so healing. So provided first in the beginning one needs to accept the technology and adopt the technology. Just watch means watch. Don’t even bother what you are supposed to watch. Because that is not told at all. If I tell “Oh, you have to watch this person’s figure like this”, then you would be wondering, “Where is that picture?” No. You just watch. So thus it can be so healing if you accept it and if everybody can practice. So we all – this time while doing the retreats I told everybody, all of you when you achieve work in the society, try to create an awareness. Don’t feel shy. Even if you get four friends, whoever it is, you talk about this thing. A few points; “This is so important, this can happen”. And if you think that you can teach, you can help somebody to learn, I am happy. I don’t have the ego that I only have to be the master and nobody else should teach. If you think that you are perfect, you have achieved something then you can teach, help somebody to learn.

Like this, if all of you fifty people participated, eighty people participated in my class. So I am one person traveling around, traveling around, trying to do. If all the eighty percent of people heal, gets that healing touch by practicing sincerely the meditation and then they can teach to eighty, eighty others. 80 into 80, imagine. That’s how one day we can heal this world. It is possible. If we all come together, practice and create the awareness.

Question:

We don’t have to be perfect, right, because then that’s an ego thing. So we can teach others as a student as a student.

Babaji:

I understand this point. No need to be perfectly perfect that you have to become a yogi. One reason why we try to tell, at least when you are teaching, if the student comes out with questions you must not get confused about your own learning. As long as you do not get confused, you are okay to teach even if you are not very perfect. Never get confused. You must have faith in yourself, then it’s perfectly all right.

How to stop internal conversations in meditation

Question:

Baba, during meditation I keep hearing myself talking. So you say watch. So it’s not a vision but I hear myself talking sentences and so on. So, what do you suggest?

Babaji:

Yeah exactly. Mind has picked up this habit since time immemorial. Life after life would have come. That’s how it becomes a chatter box. Actually, when it is imagining it is talking to itself. It is talking all the stories. So when that happens, you don’t get involved further. Because here a thin edge of duality, difference has happened. You are that quiet one, but you have become thinking also. You have started talking to yourself. When the talking appears to you in meditation, you as the quiet one, just watch it. Don’t try to further analyze why this is happening. It will stop on its own. It will become tired. Mind also will become tired. It cannot go on forever like that one. One time have that assurance to yourself. As the quiet one you just watch it. Don’t try to analyze why this talking is happening? What is this trying to talk? You understand it is just nonsense. We don’t have to bother. Let me be quiet. Then it will be all right.

Intensity of thoughts, impressions, karma, are these all different terminologies of the same thing?

Question:

Pranams Babaji. You have said on several occasions, based on our intensity of thoughts the next birth happens and in this birth we are constantly acquiring impressions which in other words is essentially Karma – are they all synonymous? Are the mind’s impressions, Karma, are they all used as different terminologies?

Babaji:

Same. Different terminologies are used. You see, you might have hundreds of impressions. Amongst them there could be several or many which are dearer to the mind. Means the mind was impressed more about these nonsense impressions. There are hundreds of nonsense impressions. Amongst those nonsense impressions, the mind would have been impressed by super nonsense impressions. It would be holding that very dear. So that thing it keeps playing often. It doesn’t give up that one. Though many impressions are there in the subconscious, it always plays the most important thing. If a certain personality is very troublesome to you, so your mind would be holding that as the dearest to keep thinking of that personality. So that’s what happens when death happens. Intensity of those thoughts turns into spinning. So, when it is spinning it holds dearer of all those. It need not undergo in the next life all the impressions that it was holding. Amongst them whichever is dearer to it, whichever it is holding hundred percent, that becomes the reason for the next birth. That is how it goes on.

And that is also the same thing which gives you the Karma. Means Karma, what is Karma? The results that you have to undergo of your own actions. That’s what our general understanding about Karma. Here in this life you have done an action and after that action you have taken seriously into your mind as an impression. That is sitting and when it is sitting it keeps playing on the mind. It doesn’t allow you to sit peacefully. Then slowly, slowly it can engulf you to such an extent that wherever you are sitting you might be start talking about it only, you are helpless. You don’t want to keep quiet. You don’t want to talk about it but you end up talking about it. That is one of our mission that we allow people, that many things, see, you may not be able to confide to others. But as a guru, as a friend I am available for such people if they want to confide. So that they can take it out and feel peaceful, is necessary.  We protect the privacy if such a terminology is. So that is how when the mind has absorbed it will get to see in its next life also, in the future also. That is how the Karma picks up. So that is one reason we also try to teach, if you are more positive in your mind you can shape a positive destiny for yourself. If you are negative in your mind you are shaping a negative destiny for yourself. When we were a child if some book came into our hand like a ghost story or any such nonsense story, our mother used to pull us up, “Don’t read this ghost story and nonsense. You don’t need this one. Unnecessarily you will be absorbing in the mind, it will become a chatter box. Your mind also will become a ghost, remember”, my mother used to tell. We used to wonder. “If I read the ghost story how can my mind become a ghost?” But now we all understand. When I keep thinking, this is what happens. So that is how the Karma also comes.

There’s one question that has come. What happens if a person dies in sleep? The sleep also depends, whether it was a sound sleep, whether there was no thought, no dream, nothing was there. If such a death happens, if not liberation at least definitely a very highly elevated birth happens in the next. If the mind was non-violent while sleeping. For this question only I’m answering – that came on the chat box. Otherwise if the mind was dreaming, so many thoughts were there, depending on that only its next birth will happen. A violent or a non-violent. The mind needs to be cool and clear. That is important.

Pure love as a function of pure consciousness

Question:

Baba, there’s a question in the chat. They’re asking for you to speak about pure love as a function of pure consciousness.

Babaji:

A pure love, you need to understand, it should be unconditional. You love just for sake of love. There should not be any condition about it. Then only the mind becomes pure consciousness. Otherwise mind will entertain some expectations. You consider the other person as friendly and love. Then you expect that person also to love you and be friendly with you. That is not pure love. That is the beginning of lust and greed. You want something, that’s why you want to love. You love – “Just like that I love. That’s it. I didn’t ask you anything, my god. I just want to love you. That’s it.” Like that when you love then your mind becomes purified and becomes pure consciousness. Gradually you can gain awareness of yourself. It becomes possible. Simple. We can keep talking hours together. But this is the simple basic definition for a pure love.

On the use of prescription drugs

Question:

Thank you so much. I don’t mean to bring the vibe down, but I work in news and I see all the time all these things about Xanax and this prescription and that thing and you know, there’s a mental health epidemic that we’re all dealing with. don’t know if you know but how does it kind of work for the individual when they’re… I’m just curious since I see it so much, like does it kind of fade out eventually? They won’t need it and you kind of go back to source? What are your thoughts on the prescription?

Babaji:

One simple thing we all learned is these medicines, use it only to the necessary. Too much is not necessary and once – I remember my father was a physician, he told us when a doctor prescribes a medicine to you, if you take less than that prescribed medicine, will not be that harmful. But never try to take more than what the doctor has prescribed. This gave an understanding about the over prescriptions. So, we should try to use these things only to the need because the body should not become addicted to any such thing. So, this is my opinion.

Question:

Thank you.

Baba, you know it’s a real problem. People are taking prescription drugs because they’re in pain either physical pain or mental pain or fear and it destroys their mental health. It destroys their relationships, their finances. It’s a very destructive thing. Like you said, if it’s in excess, if it’s being abused and if you get addicted to it. But I guess it points to the fact that there’s just a lot of people suffering.

Babaji:

I understand. So that is why there are several things, many things – please use this medicine only under medical supervision. We expect a doctor or a medical expert to be an expert in the field and know the limits, limitations of using such medicines that he will not allow us to become addicted, he will advise always. So that is important. That’s when the word addiction comes. So you become addicted and you cannot live without that one, and you increase, increase, increase. Like alcohol – there are many people who might be using a small pack, what they call it. But there can be some people who go on having pack after pack, pack after pack and they lose balance on themselves and they can start doing nonsense things. Finally they might faint. Anything that becomes excess, whether it is an eatable item or any such medicine; many things. Certain eatable items are considered tamasic. Why? They have medicinal quality, like garlic things. Otherwise they might create heat in the body. If you take excessively that can be harmful. If you use it as a small amount of medicine, that can be helpful to heal something in the body. That’s what is important. Unfortunate – we all understand, it’s not easy to make everybody understand. Repeatedly you have to be telling; if they are habitual they go back to that one. Even if the worldly things also, generally worldly things when we talk. We try to buy – nothing is prohibited in spirituality to be in the world.  You marry, you have a business, you have a job, you earn your money. You try to live comfortably, set a target, you want to have a home. All these things are all okay. Just limit it to the need. Don’t become so greedy that you go on with these things and you don’t have any other priority to set. That is what is important. First you have to set a priority that you have to achieve a highest peace and happiness. Before death happens to the body, you need to know or realize about yourself. That’s one opportunity, so that you achieve supreme peace once for all. So that you can get rid of this good and bad, happiness and unhappiness of this world. So like that you have to set. But then you start living. Otherwise, it comes to be known as over prescription or addiction, like this. So, you have no target how much you want to earn money. You go on earning, you go on earning. One day your wife comes to call you to have some bread and you don’t have time. No, no, I have to earn some money. I cannot have bread now. So, like that you will die. That’s what these things, people are suffering all over the world. Many places. Many societies. That’s why we are sorry that we have forgotten spirituality. We try to create awareness. Spirituality practice, that can be such a healing touch. Only use it very much necessary. If it is very much painful to the body, things like anesthesia, morphine are given in war times when they are hurt. We can understand – that pain, that can be unbearable when physically for anybody it happens. But for small, small also people become addicted. Over prescription what you are talking. Really unfortunate. Let us hope that people will learn. All of us. You all learn this meditation and healing. You all can try to create awareness to others also. Whenever you come across your friends, try to do this one.

Is it possible that impressions can be removed outside meditation?

Question:

Thank you so much Babaji. Happy Guru-Purnima Baba. Just wanted to say that and also just following up on Arun’s question around impressions. I was just curious, is it possible that some impressions can be lessened or even removed without meditation such as just letting go, forgiveness, those types of things or is meditation the only way to truly purify?

Babaji:

No, if certain impressions the mind has not taken too seriously, that can be simply by a thinking which is known as vichara, means discrimination. So you can get rid of that. When you think that “Oh, this is simply nonsense. Why I am thinking? I don’t have to bother about this thing. It is no more use for me – like that when you strongly think. You get rid of one thought with the help of another strong thought. Always this is the science – one thing can be moved by much more stronger than that. So, you can get rid of one thing that is troublesome by another stronger thing. So, if one thought is troubling you, you can take help of the other strongest thing, thought and get rid of that is possible.

Question:

Thank you, Baba.

The importance of the Guru

Question:

Baba, I know the time is pretty much up.

Could you just comment before we end the meeting – tomorrow is Guru Purnima. It’s a celebration of the Guru. Could you talk to us a little bit about the importance of the Guru, what Guru meant to you?

Babaji:

Yeah. Many things in books also are available, but certain important points that we learned from our Guru. Swamiji said the Guru-disciple just like a mother and a newborn baby. He used to tell, you can walk on the road, you can tell arrogantly “I know this road, wherever it goes I’ll be going. I know I will go this. I don’t need anybody else to guide me.” But suddenly you come to a circle. One road is going to the west, another to east, another to north. You are coming from the south. You are confused. You don’t know, “Should I go west or should I go east?” That is where you need some guide who can remove that ignorance that you don’t know where to go. That is what is known as Guru. The one who removes that ignorance of darkness in you. Tells that one. We tell, forget about hundreds of beliefs that you had. Remove them. They are all simply imaginations in your mind. You try to stop this imagination. When you would have stopped the imagination, you would have gone beyond. Then you will realize what the truth is. This thing only a Self-Realized Guru can tell, insist. Like that the Guru and disciple relationship; like a mother and a baby. The baby feels so secure on the laps of mother. Throughout our life even if we become seventy year and go to our mother, we are like a two-year-old baby secure at our mother. Like when Swamiji was there, whatever He scolded, whatever He did, whatever He pulled us up – but one thing important, we were so secure living in this ashram. “He won’t do any harm”; that was hundred percent guaranteed. That faith was there in us. “Swamiji is pulling up. He will do something good to me only. He is lifting his hand to beat me, He will definitely do good.” That faith was there. That is the Guru-disciple relationship. Never look back. After you remain ten years, twenty years, thirty years I have seen people in Swamiji’s time also, after thirty years they could not sustain that devotion or faith in the Guru. Just for one time if Swamiji had pulled them up, they left and went away. Then they used to tell, “Oh, it was very humiliating for me, I couldn’t take it. “That humiliation is what He is removing your Karma.” “No”; some people couldn’t take. They went away from Swamiji. I used to wonder, is this is all the love they had? They used to sit so close. They used to be gossiping for hours together with Swamiji and they used to express, “We love you Swamiji, we love you Swamiji”, and they used to ready to spend anything for Swamiji. But one time Swamiji scolded. That’s what Swamiji also used to feel. “You are my disciple. Don’t I have the right to scold you, pull you up this much?” If husband, wife, if they try to pull up each other, they will because they love each other. They have that right to do that one. And it’s acceptable to both. They will love more each other. That’s what a Guru-disciple’s love and care should be – like a mother and a child. That’s what Swamiji used to tell.

Well, Guru is such an important in our culture that we were taught. I wrote in Guru Gita’s foreword also. First time I heard about Guru was when my mother said, “Look, even if God is annoyed, your Guru can protect you. But never try to annoy your Guru, no God can protect you.” As a child for me, mother used to tell simply. So that created such an impact on the point of Guru. Then I read some books about the Guru, how the Guru protects – if you have the faith and devotion. Then Swamiji also used to tell, when we were massaging, suddenly He used to tell, “Hey look, if you have faith in the name of Swamiji, you repeat Swamiji’s name, Swamiji will have to bless you. Swamiji will be helpless. He will have to bless you.” Twice He repeated this. Means, that is what it is. Jesus said it is your faith which protected you, not me. So that faith needs to be there with the Guru. Never look back. It will never be a shame to love a Guru. If you give up the Guru and go away, that is the shame actually. That’s what I felt personally. So some of these my opinions. Finally a Guru, Kabir has sang this beautiful song. So wonderful. Nothing is equivalent to that. “If Guru and God both come and stand in front of me, the mind starts thinking, my God whom should I prostrate first now? God is supreme, absolute, we all understand. But it’s the Guru who told me about God. Otherwise, I would not have known about God in this world. I would have been simply wandering like a monkey”, he thinks and he said, “Oh my Guru! My prostrations to you first my Lord. Because it is you who told me about Govinda.”

Govinda diyo battaye

Balehari Guru aapano

Guru Govinda dono khade

Kinike lagou paye

Guru and Govinda both are standing, to whom should I prostrate? That is the essence of Guru we all learned. Then only you can go to liberation, that is necessary. Guru is not a product that today you take this product, and you don’t like, and you return this product and go away somewhere else product. We were taught that the Guru is like a mother. Not that today you are born to the mother and tomorrow you want to change your mother to somebody else. That thing doesn’t happen, right? You all love your mother. So, like that we were taught about the Guru and disciple. So here is our dearest Ambaji with her hand risen. Come on Ambaji. Now it’s your question.

Ambaji:

Baba, what you said about the Guru, tomorrow is being  Guru Purnima, of course I’ll say my pranams to you. But at the same time, I’ll say in this story in the Skanda Puraan when Ma Parvati is asking to Lord Shiva to tell the glory of the Guru and He says, in one verse only He said,

Gurur Brahma Gurur Vishnu Gurur Devo Maheshwara

Gurur Sakshat Param Brahma Tasmai Shri Guruve Namaha ||

Gurur means all the trinities are Guru and the Para Brahma the absolute is also Guru. It depends on to the disciple what you see in your Guru. You see your Guru as a body, or you see your Guru as an absolute. It depends totally you know, it’s the receiver and the broadcast you say always say. So, it’s Guru has nothing to do. It’s all my business what I have to do towards Guru.

Babaji:

Wonderful. Wonderful. Definitely, you are very true Ambaji, thank you. And that’s why the slokas composed on Swamiji, He is the Omkara Nadha Brahma, He is the first monotonous Om humming sound that came in a monotonously, peacefully, beautifully, not like a restaurant humming sound. It came like that one, the sages decodified it as Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva; creation, sustenance, and withdrawal back. Swamiji, you are my that. Ardhanareswara. You are the male and female Supreme Consciousness, Supreme Energy, Supreme Being. Finally I told “Bandhava Guru bhaktasche” –  those who are devoted to their Guru, not necessary that everybody has to be devoted to my Guru only. Whoever is devoted to their Guru they are all my relatives; today I’m declaring as Shiva Rudra Bala Yogi. And I prostrate to my Guru with all my love and reverence. So this is the essence of Guru Purnima for us. So, love your Guru. Never give up your Guru. Don’t forget your Guru. Don’t ever doubt your Guru, that is your death, your destruction. Don’t press the button of your own destruction. Be with your Guru. You don’t have to consider me a Guru, I am a friend. My Guru also told, “You don’t have to consider me a Guru, I am giving this technique as a friend. But on your own if you want to consider me a Guru, I’m ready to help, be the torch bearer. I will guide you to liberation. That’s what we prayed as a child; “Oh, my lord please grant me a Guru who would have liberated himself and who can lead me to liberation.” Yeah, He led me to liberation.