Exploring Tapas Beyond Meditation: Mastering the Mind in Daily Life

The Divine Mother: Exploring Meditation and the Journey to Self-Realization – Q&A with Babaji,
No.190 Recorded on 12 May 2024 with US participants

Question
A few weeks back, towards the end of our question and answers, there was a question asked, as a householder it seems so overwhelming to try to do tapas and try to deepen our practice sometimes. And I think at the end of that, I don’t really remember what your response was so much, but at the end of that, you said that tapas is much more than just meditation. Could you tell us a little more about that?

Baba
Yeah, to understand, when you are able to keep the mind totally quiet and just watching for one hour, that is real meditation. Until then you are trying to meditate. Thoughts are coming and you are trying to control (the mind by) keeping quiet, but the mind has a tendency, it goes into analyzation, judgment, like that. You keep trying, but when it becomes totally quiet for one hour in a stretch (you are in meditation). Like that, when you are able to keep the mind quie for eight to ten hours in a stretch, totally quiet, watching only and nothing else, then a person is able to do the tapas.

The same effect (can be achieved), if one is able to keep the mind under control under all circumstances while active in the world. That is so difficult. You will understand now, even if you are not sitting for meditation, but if you are active in the world, mingling with people, you have a family, you have responsibilities, you have this and that, these things  There could be somebody irritating you, somebody trying to humiliate you, or somebody not listening to you, something that is not happening according to your wishes. Hundreds of these things keep happening every now and then, irritating you, annoying you. All these things keep happening. So in the midst of all this, if you are able to keep the mind quiet for so many hours, that can serve as a tapas, that can give you the fruits of Realization. That’s what we could do for 20 years by the grace of our Master, by his training. And any humiliation or under anything (any circumstances), we just thought, “This is my master testing”. If others were behaving like that also, we used to keep quiet. Some of our friends even wondered, “Why do you keep quiet? Why don’t you react?”. They will sit you on your head, at least you should act that you are annoyed. If you are not getting annoyed, act that you are annoyed. Like that, my friends used to tell me. We kept quiet, because as a priority, Self was the need, Self Realization. So I used to pray to my Guru, “I don’t mind any humiliation, anything that is coming, but don’t make me to be reborn again. I must not see any scene. For that, I am ready to undergo any surgery you want to perform on me, no problem. I won’t have any complaint to you.” So like this, if one can adopt the patience to that extent that becomes tapas.