Mind Your Mind🔗

Thoughts rise and fall chaotically; nothing is logical; they rise, live and fall. It is not thinking; it is just association. That's why there's so much confusion. Association causes dilemmas.

When you bring your thinking process into consciousness our desires too become conscious. As of now they are mostly unconscious. You realize only after a while that what ever led into a problem is just association, not your desires. It's like sitting in a car moving by itself which you do not control. Moving with a mind that is moving by association related to unconscious desires is dangerous.

We try to suppress desires or fulfill them. Suppression does not work. Fulfillment does not remove desires, it creates more desires. Bring your desires to consciousness from unconsciousness. If the desire is really worth fulfilling, the desire itself will have its energy for fulfillment. If not it will disappear. Either way you are in relaxation. Without consciousness, either suppression or fulfillment leads to suffering, guilt and tension.

Psychologists say that if you take a wrong choice your unconscious mind is your first and worst enemy which tries to ensure that you fail, e.g. you want to be a doctor instead of an engineer etc. Whenever your unconsciousness does not recognize your desire it works against the desire. Unconscious is 90% of your mind, which itself only 10% of your total being or consciousness of which 90% is energy. They say mind's safety mechanism works against fulfillment of wrong desires, which will lead to deep disappointment. Once the desire enters your consciousness it energizes you.

Fear: Psychologists talk about fear stroke. You are walking in the garden in the dark, see a coil of rope and you start shivering imagining it to be a snake. The jolt, the shock that you get is a fear stroke. It is like shaking a rose plant. If you keep shaking it will die. We are told that we undergo 6 to 12 fear strokes every day, day and night, in dreams and wakefulness. Imagine what can happen to us. Fear strokes originate from the unconsciousness. When the fear stroke is viewed through awareness and consciousness fear strokes are substantially reduced.

Fearlessness is not absence of fear; it is the courage to face fear. Fear can be absent only when you die. The safest place for any one is the grave yard, no one, nothing can harm you. Similarly desirelessness is not the absence of desire; it is the energy, awareness and courage to fulfill desire. Fear and desire are energy, and can guide is if we are aware. What we need to do is flood our desire and fear with consciousness.

In Eastern mysticism three words are used for this: Mind your Mind: Contemplation, concentration and meditation. Guiding you mind is contemplation; centering on one subject is concentration; when mind disappears into that subject and no mind remains it is meditation. When you become aware of this table it is contemplation; when you center yourself on the wood it is concentration; when your mind become the wood it is meditation.

Q: Do deities exist or are they from our mind?

A: As long as you believe you and deities are different, they are projections of your mind. Ultimately everything is from your mind; therefore Gods are projections of your mind. When your mind is tuned to physical level, you see material objects; when you are tuned to subconscious level you see dreams; when you are tuned to higher spiritual levels you see God.

Q:

A: You need to meditate only if your mind is restless. Meditation techniques make focusing the mind easy.

Q:

A: We are disturbed by our surroundings out of choice, not because of surroundings. You forget that you are making these choices, because you take them for granted, and they become a subconscious process. You can choose to be happy or angry when some one criticizes you. Decide that the next 5 times some one criticizes me I shall be happy instead of being upset. Your mindset will change. You will not be disturbed. Nothing external will disturb you.

Q: can I stop my heart my heart when I am conscious

A: A beautiful question. Yes, Swami Rama proved that in LA. When I switched off my mind in a PET scan study done at Oklahoma U, my entire neurological system went into silence. I has explained to them how my mind, consciousness and Being worked, they wanted me to demonstrate. They tested my mind with radio isotopes. Only the portion of intelligence was alive. The brain was equally grown in left and right, masculine and feminine. In the EEG pictures they found that the color changes were rainbow instead of gradual change. Each step was in awareness. Each was a conscious choice.

Q: Are your words a conscious choice?

A: Yes. I never keep nay notes for my discourses, nor do I prepare. My thinking is my speaking.

Q: How does one know whether one’s desire is right or wrong?

A: Start with small things like walking, eating, talking, and flood them with consciousness. Make each step when you wake up a conscious step. Let them not be automatic, robotic. Make the present movement aware, conscious. Gradually your entire being will be flooded with consciousness. Maslow calls this Peak Experience or Self Actualization. When you actualize your Self you will be in bliss.

Q: what is the source of desire?

A: energy is the source of desire. The same energy that converts food into muscles, blood circulate, moves your body. Between body and energy desires happen; they are closer to energy than body; they are more powerful than body. If you change your desires your whole body can change. Physiologists have shown that once in 80 days all your cells change; once in a year liver changes; once in several months everything in your body changes. Yoga says you can create your body with your thoughts. A meditator acquires grace.

Q: How to make desires aware?

A: Writing is the best way to raise desires to awareness. Once a week give an appointment to yourself for 30 minutes and ask your Being what it wants. The primal desire is Sex which we suppress immediately, relationship disconnects. Four levels of desires: I is the ego that creates pleasures, sex, taste etc. Mine is status, fame etc. Physical and Psychological desires are the other two layers. Don't label your desires as bad or good. Just listen to your mind and note down. Whatever is necessary will stand, whatever is not will disappear. Many of you desires we never verbalize, we never bring to light; many are not your own deep desires; they are of others which are not relevant to you. You have life and energy to live only your own desires.

Q: How can we balance our life?

A: Only by balancing your desires. Iccha, Kriya and Gnana are the 3 energies: to desire, to work, to be. Difficult to understand the last which happens when you meditate. 80% is spent on Iccha only in desiring, only 20% in working towards the desires. When you bring Gnana or wisdom into it, the proportion reverses, 20% to desire and 80% to create. Balancing you Iccha and Kriya shaktis will balance your life. Handle the energy not the activities. Automatically all your desire levels will be handled effectively.

Q: What is your objective?

A: To spread the joy that I received through meditation. This also helps in economic growth. Unless you work at the inner level you can not achieve at the external level.

Q: How do you distinguish between conscious and unconscious activities?

A: In unconscious activities you have discomfort; you wish to do be doing something else. You can be sure that when you are here you are not HERE. There is no pull or push; you are relaxed; you are home. You feel homely you are Home; you are lonely you are in your House.

Q: International politics and corporations are corrupt and only benefit the rich. What hope is there for the world?

A: People with these thoughts are revolutionaries. In 10 years revolution becomes tradition. The spirit is lost. Whoever comes to power, power corrupts. No revolution or war helps others, only those who come to power. In 3000 years there have been 5000 wars all with the intent of equality. All our atomic weapons can destroy planet Earth 700 times. All these were created only with this inspiration. Every country says it's army is for defending; who then is offending if every one is only defending? When you are an insider in any revolution you turn corrupt. We are jealous of the rich and powerful, and so say they are corrupt. Not that we can do any better. Social revolution can happen only through internal evolution. We can change our Being. We can change our thinking and behavior. You and I can decide to be not a part of the collective negativity. Let us try the techniques of the enlightened souls; either that or global suicide. The next war will not be the Third world war but the last world war.

Q: Does Life end in a graveyard?

A: Life does not end in a grave yard; it is just the climax of one episode. You are born again and again. Read Sigmund Freud and you will understand empirical proof.

Q:

A: If your desire is conscious there is no need to suppress. It will die if not real, or be fulfilled by generating its own energy. It will guide itself if flooded with awareness. Just Mind your Mind.

meditation. Medtation is not sitting in a corner, alone, in a cross legged position, with back pain, knee pain, neck pain, complaints, saying - i am not able to control my mind - all these things! Meditation is all about making a shift in your Consciousness. The moment you bring yourself to the present, you feel enthusiastic, alive, joyful and blissful. So the cognitive shift or shift in your Energy is what i call meditation. That is why I tell people, AG meditation is the ultimate technique which can put you in enlightenment. It will show you that you exist in higher frequency. What you think as you never dies. It exists always in higher frequency. What can die never existed. In you if you think that something can die, it never existed. Even now it does not exist. To you it may exist, but it never exists. In you, something that never dies can never be killed. That which cant die, can never be killed; that which dies never existed. So naturally, there is no need for fear. AG meditation will prove that you exist in higher frequency. In which there is no death.

When I awaken, sometimes I feel I am paralysed. It is as if I am in between two layers, it is quite scary. It is like I am not quite conscious but out of sleep, what is this?

See, understand: you have two things: Hardware, software. Software is mind, hardware is brain. In the mind, there are two parts – Conscious mind and unconscious zone. Unconscious zone is virus. Conscious zone is the actual software. The Conscious zone can be cleansed by the teaching. Unconscious zone can be cleansed by meditation. The hardware, the brain itself, will be tuned to hold this experience by energy darshan and Master’s blessing – the dhiksha. When you clean the conscious and unconscious and create an effect, the hardware may not be able to hold and sustain that effect from day 1. If the Master’s energy darshan happens, the hardware also changes to hold that effect. If you don’t get that dhiksha, constant meditation and teaching will change the hardware. Hardware is more like grooves created, samskaras created; the grooves created in that. If the hardware is not proper, once the new software happens, the hardware will slowly get changed. Immediately if you want a change in the hardware, energy darshan is the right thing. Straight away it will change the hardware. Sometimes, without even changing the software the hardware can be changed and the person will straightaway start radiating the software’s quality. That can happen when a disciple is completely open to Master. If he is in love with the Master for no reason… sometimes a disciple falls in love with the Master for no reason. They may not be attracted to teachings, they may not be attracted to meditation techniques, just they fall in love. Straightaway, you can change the hardware. Only those kind of disciples will be simply radiating the quality of the teachings and meditation without even going through all of them. They would not have gone through all those things but straightaway the result is seen.

See, as on now. both hardware and software are outgoing. If you do the ASP, suddenly the software becomes ingoing; gong in, towards spirituality, towards cleansing process. Conscious portion by teaching and unconscious portion by meditation – it starts going inside. Then naturally what happens? You see: even if software turns inside, hardware will not be able to handle it. Then naturally hardware will try its best. If the software is too strong and stays in the same tune, then hardware will change. But immediately, if after the teaching and meditation is given, the dhiksha and blessing is also given, the hardware will also change and it will start holding. It will be prepared to hold on to the same experience.

Mind and meditation are like the Indian mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Whatever they might try, they cannot live together. They are both trying to possess the same person, which is not possible. Similarly, you can be possessed by ether mind or meditation, you can’t be possessed by both. It is now your choice. You lived according to your mind all these years. Just these 36 hrs, try to live and work with meditation. Give yourself a chance.

If you bring all the old knowledge, you will either agree or disagree with me. Disagreeing will not allow you to do the meditation is lost. Agreeing will create a thought that you already know. The moment you create that mentality, you stop following the meditation, the enthusiasm is lost. Just be here like an innocent child so that you will have the curiosity to explore every inch. Enjoy yourself completely. There is a statement – even if you miss the joke, don't miss the laughter. Even if you miss a couple of statements, don't miss the meditation. Try to put in your whole effort to experience it. Now, we will have a sankalpa to make an effort to commit to this course for the next 36 hrs. Close your eyes and make a commitment to yourself -- physically, mentally and emotionally, I will put my complete effort to experience meditation, to channelize all my efforts to experience the meditation. Make a strong decision (sthira sankalpa) to yourself.

Does there need to be any physical change in your body while switching from functioning as a bullock cart to as a tractor to as an aircraft? No. It can be the same body. What then is the difference? The technique of handling it is different at each stage that's all. When the right technique is known, you are able to function as an aircraft. This technique is what we call meditation. The mechanism inside us or the boundless energy inside us needs to be brought out. The technique for this is meditation.

True experience will happen when you start meditating. Our heart which is as hard as a stone will flower and become as soft and sensitive as cotton and we will feel the need to help others. At present, we either read in some magazine or have been told by elders that is good to give our seat to elderly people in the bus. Instead, that feeling should flower within us and we should offer help. For this, meditation should have happened in us at some point in time of our lives. Sensitivity will become a way of life only if meditation has happened in you, else it will remain just skin deep. To push the preaching received through the mind to the heart requires a drilling machine that is meditation. Then, justice, honesty and similar virtues taught to us will become a way of life and there will be a certain juice that you feel when following it. Else, all these virtues will remain as intellectual knowledge without turning into experiential knowledge. In Sanskrit you call the former paroksham and the latter aparoksham.

What operations do at the physical level, meditation does at the energy level.

After taking this dheeksha, every breath that you take should be with this goal. Else, you will forget that you have taken this dheeksha. This will seem as just an entertainment, that's all. You may all have taken many type of dheeksha from other Gurus prior to this. Just to remind yourself that you need to meditate and live with a goal, this title is given. Take this as a new birth. Next, in the evening, either everyday or weekly once, wear white clothes and take part in the satsangs in the ashram. It will help bring about a change in you. In your worldly affairs, you are so caught up in your worries and depression. To help re-charge yourself as an Energy body, this will help. In the ashram, there are no rules. You can eat non-vegetarian, live a married life etc. The rule is - there are no rules!

If you meditate, these conditions will be automatically taken care of in you. Any such rule should not be imposed upon a person. It should happen from within the person. Meditation will make it happen. All virtues should flower from inside a person. You can wear this mala at all times, to any function – happy or sad. It will protect you and guide you in life towards happiness.

With the right attitude, anything can be converted to meditation, to worship. With the wrong attitude, even meditation will be converted to work. Going intensely into anything with absolutely no attachment to the results is the way to convert work to meditation. One more thing that has to happen here is a deep awareness about the core in you that is lying undisturbed inside although you are continuously working outside.

When the British were trying to establish their supremacy over India, they were very keen on taking control of a small village in Central India for strategic reasons. There were only about a hundred tribal people living there (This village does not exist anymore). The villagers were highly esoteric and mystical. They practiced meditation and it is said that they never fell sick. They were such highly evolved people that even if they hurt someone in their dreams, they would go and apologize to the person the next morning. They did not even want to harbour unconscious vengeance or hatred. They were a mature and spiritual group that had nothing of the outer world but everything of the inner world. When the British tried to force their culture on them, they would not give in. They resisted. Even when they were threatened to give up or face dire consequences, they refused to do so. They gathered in the center of the village and right in front of the British soldiers, they chanted a mantra (chant) and dropped dead. Every single one of them dropped dead. The soldiers could not believe their eyes. They had not anticipated that the villagers would commit suicide. This incident has been recorded by British soldiers. They also said that for the first time, they felt guilty for being responsible for the death of such innocent, simple, yet great people. These people knew the art of dying. They could just drop their body and leave the world.

When we leave the body, we cross seven different layers of our body: the physical, pranic, mental, subtle, causal, spiritual and finally nirvanic. As soon as we leave the body, as the spirit leaves the physical layer, we undergo a tremendous, unmanageable pain. A small cut in your hand gives you so much pain. Can you imagine what the pain will be when your whole body, your consciousness from head to toe is torn? The pain will be similar to the pain that one will undergo when stung by ten thousand scorpions at once! A little meditation while we are living, will help us have a painless transition. It can heal and guide us at the time of passing away.

As long as we are in this body, we see the whole world in four dimensions. We have seen movies in three dimensions where we feel that we are a part of the scene. But in 4D movies, they also make us experience it by rocking our chairs and causing some special effects at the physical level! For example, if we are sitting and there is an earthquake being shown, we will not just be watching it but we will also experience it! When we are in this body, the outer world is exciting and colorful; meditation and spirituality take the back-seat. They don't seem important or necessary. We feel that these can wait. But the moment we leave the body and start travelling inside, the outwardly trip becomes inconsequential and meditation and other spiritual interests become more important and enjoyable. As long as we are in this physical body, we continuously chase material things to make our lives comfortable.

People come and tell me that they don't have time for meditation. I tell them to take back their words. Be honest and accept that you don't have the interest. At least be clear to yourself that your priority is not meditation. Our aim is to make more money, and make our life comfortable. Be honest to yourself about it. Our money and status, our social life, will not contribute to anything when we leave the body. Remember that.

The karma theory is a very poor substitute for meditation. I always tell people it is time for us to drop our toys and become mature.

Devotion helps but devotional activities which are the outwardly activities like pouring milk or water on the deity, done without awareness are not going to help. If we feel that God is residing in us and we can relate to Him deeply, it is going to definitely help. Physical activities are not going to help. Working in the line of awareness and working for improving one’s consciousness through meditation is the only solution.

If a person has taken birth with the intention of living a hundred years, but commits suicide before that, for the remaining years of his destined life, he will be without a body. This is what we call ghosts. In the case of accidents, if the person has had a glimpse of meditation, or lived consciously till until the accident, the person will be given the next body immediately. If before the accident, he has lived unconsciously and has not had a glimpse of meditation, he has to wait for his body just like people who have committed suicide. The suffering in those remaining years is great. They will feel the whole world but they cannot enjoy it. It is like placing a variety of sweets before a man who cannot use his hands to reach the sweets!

Suicide is the worst crime. These people who are without a body try to take over the bodies of people with low awareness and try to possess them. This is what happens when a person is possessed by a ghost. A meditator can never be possessed or troubled by a ghost because his awareness and consciousness is high.

So never postpone meditation, since accidents cannot be predicted!

In this life, meditation will help the whole family because the house will be filled with positive energy and vibrations. Our well-being and joyous mood will be felt by other family members and they will also benefit. At the time of death, meditation will help only you and not the others in your family.

Having the right master and practicing meditation is essential. Even a glimpse of joy or deep feeling while meditating is enough.

A continuous practice of meditation will be a path-finder and will definitely help you at the time of death.

Even without meditation if we feel the truth consciously, we will feel liberated. But when emotions start erupting unconsciously, our conscious will not be under our control. For that we need meditation. As long as we are balanced, all the logic and reasoning will work. But when we are confronted directly by these imbalances, we see a problem. If we are balanced even at that time, we are truly liberated. When we are imbalanced, only meditation will give us the power and energy to shift the balance.

If we have a glimpse of consciousness, we will have an understanding of the samatva, the sameness, the non-differentiation between these emotions. All our understanding of samatva right now is wrong. Our idea of samatva is based only on the dictionary meaning. After the glimpse, it will be experiential.

Forget vaastu (ancient Indian science relating to house-building), gemology, astrology, numerology; just do meditation. The experience will stand by you at the time of death. It will help you have a painless transition. Understand the truth of dying and you can start living better.

Raise your awareness through meditation, by looking inwards and opening up your consciousness. There is no other way for you to understand and accept the way of nature. There is no absolute right or wrong in nature. Nature just flows. With meditation, you too learn to flow. That is why meditation is such a powerful tool of personal transformation, in fact the only tool of personal transformation. No one can meditate on your behalf; you need to do it yourself. Meditation immediately brings you into the present moment. So, you can be transfotmed, liberated, and enlightened.

Bhagavad Gita is meditation. Each verse is a sutra that you can meditate upon. Thes everses,nthese profound truth will take you deeper into inner awareness in meditation as you contemplate upon them and ytransform you as nothing else can. That is why Sankara says even a little reading of the Bhagavad Gita will liberate you.

Krishna says that our senses are turbulent and, however much we try to control them, they stay out of control. Some of the greatest sages, the rishi, have been known to have succumbed to sensual pleasures. There is the legendary story of Viswamitra, a great sage, who was seduced by the nubile celestial maiden Menaka, in the midst of his intense penance. Do you think the Gods above have no other business than sending young women down to people who meditate? In that case, I am willing to bet that all you men here will start meditating from tonight without any compulsion from my side!

Nothing of that sort will happen and don’t start meditation for this reason. It was the suppressed fantasies of Viswamitra’s mind that created the celestial nymph. His senses were out of control. Hindu scriptures have referred to Brahmacharya as a prerequisite to spiritual evolution and many misinterpret this to be celibacy. Brahmacharya is not celibacy; it is living in reality without fantasies. There are many out there in the robes of monks, trying to control their minds and trying to be celibate, and most of them fail because they cannot control their senses. Suppression does not work on senses. Suppressed emotions explode when they get the chance. They just wait for the opportunity.

When you settle into the present moment, you are out of the clutches of your senses and mind. You will still hear and see but none of what you hear or see will divert you from what you are focused on. You will be aware of only what you are doing in that present moment. This is what we call meditation. Meditation is nothing but being focused completely on what you are doing at a particular moment. This is what Buddha calls mindfulness.

This is what Krishna says will lead you into peace. When you are aware, your senses are in your control instead of you being under their control. You become peaceful, you are in bliss.

Be very clear, the moment you understand that life is purposeless, the moment you understand the purposelessness of life, you start experiencing the meaning of living, the bliss. The moment you drop the goal, the very path itself will become beautiful; your whole life will become beautiful. Your whole life will become ecstasy. There is nothing to achieve separately; the whole thing is purposeless.

The moment you experience in your inner space that nothing is going to be with you permanently, or nothing is permanent, the moment you understand that, a deep healing, a deep cooling breeze enters into your consciousness. Your whole inner space will be healed.

You have so many thousands of wounds in your inner space; wounds created by your own desires, wounds created by your failures and by others, wounds created by your near and dear ones. All these wounds will be healed with this one single medicine.

This one meditation of understanding that life is purposeless, one meditation of realizing that whatever you achieve is just nothing, and that nothing is going to be with you, is enough.

: Master, is it possible that meditation takes into inaction? Even though my intention is to energize myself through meditation, I find I lose interest in things after meditation. Why?

When you go into meditation, and practice seriously, and this happens especially when you are in an ashram kind of environment, you realize the futility of these goal based actions. All these, all the triggers that activate you, seem to be negativities of some sort. You tend to drop these negativities.

When you drop these negativities and do not want to do anything with them, the state that you move into is tamas, or lazy inaction. Suddenly you find that you are disinterested in everything. You may just want to sleep, that is all. It is not quite depression, but a disinclination to cat, because all actions seem negative.

This may last a while, a few days, but not for long. Let it happen. Let yourself go through this process. Let all the negativities work themselves out of you.

Then, gradually, you will move back into action with awareness, satva. You will act, since you cannot but act, as Krishna says, but now you cat without a purpose. The results of your action are no longer of relevance to you. Success and failure no longer bother you.

So, do not worry if you slip into what you think is laziness while practicing meditation. It is likely to happen. It is a normal process. Just continue and you will move into purposeless action.

When you are with me, the mind is no more in control - you simply flow into meditation. You become a loving, serene silence. In this state, only a question that is truly your question, one that is completely relevant to you, will still remain with you.

Studies conducted using meditation techniques related to truths expressed in the verses of Bhagavad Gita have shown that Quality of Life is significantly improved through meditation. A greater sense of peace resulting in reduced tendency towards conflict has been found.

Meditators gain greater respect for others and appreciate others better. Their own inner fulfillment, without external inputs, increases resulting in self respect and reliance leading to Self Actualization.

Ability to focus enhances and brain function integration has been demonstrated. These have resulted in greater comprehension, creativity, faster response time in decision making as well as superior psychomotor coordination.

Stress levels have been shown to decrease with enhanced sensory perception and overall health. Tendency to depression has been clearly shown to decrease.

There is enough evidence to show that as a result of meditation, individuals gain a better ethical lifestyle which in turn improves their interaction with others in the community, resulting in less conflict and crime. Group meditation of 7000 people (square root of 1% of World population) was significantly correlated to reduced conflict worldwide.

Meditation leads to higher levels of Consciousness. There is supporting evidence to show from the work of Dr David Hawkins and others through the tools of Kinesiology that Human Consciousness has moved up in the last few decades, crossing a critical milestone for the first time in human history. Dr. Hawkins also rates the Bhagavad Gita at the very highest levels of Truth conveyed to Humanity.

Only through meditation that one becomes well-born. It has nothing to do with the family, it as nothing to do with the blood. You cannot find any difference between the blood of an aristocrat and that of a beggar. There is no aristocratic blood as such; that is all a myth.

A man certainly becomes an aristocrat when he moves into the world of meditation because now he is no more of the crowd. He is no more part of the mob and the mob psychology: he has gone beyond. And that is really becoming noble.

Bliss and peace have to be attained together. It is very easy to attain one, separate from the other -- very cheap, simple, but not of any significance. Peace without bliss is dead, and bliss without peace is mad. When both are attained together -- the synthesis, the symphony of the two when one is as mad as one should be and as peaceful as it is possible to be, that is the point where sanity and insanity are transcended, where ignorance and wisdom, both, are transcended, where life and death, both, are transcended. But it is an arduous task.

Remember: meditation gives you a new birth, you become twice born, and it gives you a new being -- very individual, unique. It gives you the quality of the chosen few: a Buddha, a Jesus, a Pythagoras. These people are noble, these people are well-born; these people are real aristocrats. Become a real aristocrat.

The way of transformation is meditation.

Life is a river. It does not something static; it is not a thing at all, but a process. Existence does not consist of things but of events. To understand it is of tremendous value because then you stop clinging. When everything is changing what is the point of clinging? By clinging we can only create frustration. When everything is bound to change one accepts it joyously, and one moves with life because not to move is to be dead. Then remains is a kind of let-go.

That is really the way of becoming free of all attachment, all greed, all possessiveness. And the man who is free of these poisons is ready to become enlightened! He becomes pure!

Purity is not something that you have to practice, it is something that is already at the very core of your being. But we have never allowed it to surface; on the contrary, we have been repressing it. Our society teaches us repression. And when you repress you become divided, you become two, you become split; then your whole life is going to be just a conflict, an inner war, a civil war. And the whole war is absolutely absurd because you are fighting with yourself. It is self-destructive.

By purity I mean innocence -- not the purity of the moralists, not the purity of the puritans, but just the simplicity, the innocence, of a child. The child remains pure till we force him, till we initiate him into our so-called society, culture, education.

Either Arjuna has become mature or Krishna realizes, ‘If I don’t give him a technique, I cannot escape from him.’ Masters give meditation techniques in two situations: one is when they see the person is mature enough. The other is when it is better to give some technique, otherwise the person would eat the Master’s head, he would continue to question, he would not keep quiet.

Meditation is actually a quality that needs to be added to your life. It should permeate the very way in which you view life, the attitude with which you perceive everything. When you infuse awareness into every action, you are in meditation.

How can you be in complete awareness? You can be aware only when you can distance yourself from what is happening. When you can witness the scene without getting involved in it yourself, only then you can watch the scene clearly.

Otherwise, you assume some role yourself in the scene. Now, you have some vested interest in it, you have some expectation that things should happen in a certain way that you think is beneficial to you. The moment you get involved, the distance between the scene and you has dropped and you can no longer be the witness. Then, you can never see things as they are.

It is just like when you are in a dream. When you are in the dream, you don’t realize it is a dream, you think everything that is happening is reality. The moment you wake up from the dream, you realize in a flash that it was just a dream; it has not basis, no significance whatsoever.

Understand, the way you are living life now is exactly the same. It is in exactly the same way. You are living life in the dream of the future and the past. And you think that dream is reality. You are caught up in the dream thinking it is reality.

The reality is actually in the present. When you realize this, you simply wake up to reality from the dream of maya. Then, you understand that the senses, the body, the mind are not you. You are something much beyond these. With this awareness you become blissful.

Meditation takes you beyond the body-mind-heart complex, because meditation is nothing but not identifying with all that which you have become identified: I am not the body nor the mind nor the heart. When this understanding arises in you meditation has flowered. In that flowering is bliss.

The master replied, ‘This is meditation. If you can eat totally when you eat, if you can sleep completely when you sleep, you are in meditation.’

You see, they had listed, say fifty, desires but after the meditation they can remember only a few of them, less than ten. Why is it like that?

It is because, what they remember are their true desires. These are the desires that they truly want. The rest of the forty desires are borrowed desires. These borrowed desires are the play of the mind. You can see how dangerous it can be to run behind desires that build due to outside pleasures.

I tell them: To learn mediation, two minutes are enough. To learn what is not meditation, you need ten days.

In life, we do many things which are not meditation. To unlearn, it takes time. When we express the truth logically, our mind always goes to the other end of the logic. We need to understand the truth from both ends.

Meditation is the key to imbibe the etheric energy of the Cosmos, which is the largest and subtlest energy source. Vedic fire rituals are mass meditation processes; meditation for the dummies, if you will. You just have to be there to partake the energy, even if you do not have the capability to meditate.

The Cosmic intelligence reflects in the human as the mind. Mind in turn uses the senses, the indriya, to access the external world. Each of the senses, sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch are related to the natural elements.

Man made of light? They must be talking metaphorically, not literally. But mystics were really talking literally. Now science not only says that man is made of light but that everything is made of light, all is made of electrons, electricity. Science has come to this understanding from a very long route. The objective route is a very long route; the subjective route is very easy, the shortest possible, because you have only to look within. Nothing else is required: no lab, no instruments, no sophisticated devices, nothing else is required -- just the art of closing your eyes and looking in.

And that's what meditation is: the art of looking in. The moment thoughts disappear and the mind is utterly quiet and silent, the inner light is seen. That is a revelation.

And once you have seen your light, you will be surprised: you can see it now in everybody else. Then the whole existence is nothing but an ocean of light. It is not matter, it is pure energy. It is bliss.

Ordinarily love is unconscious, it is instinctive; hence it is not love but lust. Unless we transform our love into a conscious phenomenon it is not really love. and to make love conscious takes great effort. That effort is meditation: meditation is the process of changing love into a conscious phenomenon.

Hence the first step of true knowledge is to know ‘I know nothing’; that is exposing your ignorance. And from that moment a turning happens, a great change happens: one starts looking inwards. True knowledge has to happen within you. It can't come through thoughts, it has to come through a thoughtless space within you. It cannot come through studying, it comes through meditation. It comes only when the mind becomes absolutely empty and pure, uncontaminated, unpolluted, that your own inner sources start flowing because all the hindrances have been removed.

One is almost in prison and a great fight is needed to get out of it. The prison consists of our mind. Consciousness is the prisoner; the mind is the prison. The whole process of meditation is to dissolve the mind, to dissolve the walls of the prison, to help you to become no-mind. and the moment you know that even for a single moment you can become a no-mind, you have known your potential, you have recognized your possibility, your future has dawned.

Now you can move with the absolute guarantee that the morning is not far away, because the first ray has been experienced. The first ray is difficult. The whole difficulty consists in the first glimpse. We have lived in the mind for centuries, we have become so accustomed to it. Day in, day out, we are surrounded by thoughts, desires, memories, imagination.

I say, ‘In prayer, you pray to God; in meditation, you become God!’ See, prayers give you immediate results and as we all know, anything which gives immediate results will have their own side-effects. This is with respect to prayers. Praying to that higher principle or to the Divine is not wrong, but not enough. Whereas in meditation, we ourselves realize that higher principle or the Divine to which we are constantly pouring our prayers. And, this is very much permanent.

Human beings are given intelligence so that they can rise above intuition and operate out of intuition. This intuition comes out of awareness. It comes through meditation. With awareness, one can understand that there is truly nothing that one can be attached to, since everything is impermanent. As I said earlier, every moment of your life, is only a psychodrama.

That exactly, precisely the case with bliss: one has to experience it. One has to prepare oneself for the great experience. Meditation simply prepares the ground, it helps you to open your eyes, it is medicinal. And once your eyes are cured you know what it is.

We just have to look in, we just have to turn in and it is discovered. It is a discovery not an achievment.

This is the whole foundation of meditation. Meditation means that all that is worth achieving need not be achieved because it is already inside you, and all that can be achieved is not worth achieving. Money can be achieved, prestige can be achieved, but they are not worth achieving because all will be left behind; death will come and snatch you away.

So that which can be achieved is not worth achieving, and that which is worth achieving need not be achieved at all because it is already there; you are made of it. Love, bliss, God, these are our intrinsic ingredients. They are given; nothing is to be done about them.

Meditation is the art of listening to existence. The wind is passing through the trees; listen to it and listen obediently, as if God has called you. God has really called you because the wind belongs to him and the trees belong to him and the sound of the passing wind though the pines is his sound. Listen to the water, the running water, and the sound of it; listen to the clouds and listen to the silence of the night. And in the same way listen to the noise of the marketplace, the train passing by.

Listen to everything with such deep silence that you become capable of not distorting the messages that are arriving every moment. God goes on pouring his messages from everywhere.

The definition of meditation is also the definition of the disciple: the art of listening to the master.

Now we start living the life of meditation, and meditation means the life of no-mind. Don't allow thoughts to interfere. Be in direct contact with existence: with trees, with rocks, rivers, people. Become a child again; then the circle is complete.

Meditation is the way to cure your eyes, to help you to open your eyes. Maybe they don't need any treatment, you have just forgotten how to open them. Maybe for centuries and lives you have kept them closed. Or maybe you are going to see; it is better to remain in your closed world, it is cozy.

Systemized service often leads to such a situation. So, don’t plan anything. Just do any service anywhere. This service will infuse enormous power in your being. For at least half an hour a day, do something selfless. I tell my devotees to contribute some service to the mission in some form at least half an hour a day. This service is meditation. It inculcates in you the spirit of Collective Consciousness and lays the path to realizing the divinity underlying the service.

Meditation simply means effacing all the memories, not getting involved with the past, becoming detached from the past, so much so that you don't think of it as your past. One slips out of it like a snake slips out of its old skin.

That is the whole art of seeking with awareness; to slip out of the past and to avoid entering the future. Then you are just here and now. And that absolute newness brings great ecstasy.

It is not meditation. Constant repetition of a name simply creates a state of deep sleep in the head: you fall asleep. It is good, nothing is wrong in good sleep -- but it is not meditation and it is not going to transform you. The real transformation happens when your energy moves from the head to the heart. The heart is always peaceful. It is like the ocean: on the surface all is turmoil -- waves, great waves arising -- but in the depth there is not a single wave; all is utterly silent. The head is our circumference and the heart is our centre.

My whole effort here is to help you to move towards the heart. Hence so much emphasis on singing, music, dance, love; these are the ways in which you can be persuaded back to the heart. Once you are there, once you have tasted the peace of the heart you will be surprised: the head is left far behind, it is none of your concern. It is as if it no longer belongs to you, it may be somebody else's head. It is so far away, so distant that you don't even hear the noise. The heart is so deep that the head becomes infinitely distant. Those are the moments when you feel for the first time what bliss is; otherwise it is only a word.

Very rarely have people felt the real taste of bliss. People use the word and they think they understand it too. They don't understand, they can't understand; it needs some existential experience to understand, because bliss is synonymous with god. Bliss is the ultimate meaning of life.

Many people have reported that after that meditation, they began respecting their spouse; they do not take them for granted any more. When you think of the possibility of death, you will never take life for granted, or your spouse for granted. You start living.

The only way to know truth is to be meditative: to be able to sit absolutely silently, without any thoughts, and yet remain conscious and not fall asleep. That's what meditation is: consciousness without thoughts. The moment the clouds of thoughts are gone and the mirror of consciousness is absolutely empty, truth is revealed, truth is reflected in you. And truth liberates. To realize truth you need courage and faith.

Meditation is the one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn from objectivity to subjectivity. You stop looking at man from the outside. First you start looking at yourself from your innermost core; you stand there and you look at yourself from there, and you become as big as the universe. In that moment great freedom descends. That moment is the moment of nirvana, enlightenment, unbounded.

Meditation can be taught, love cannot be taught. Meditation is a science, it is a methodology, but love is just a feeling, and you cannot make a science out of feelings. At the most it is an art, or even better: it is just a knack.

I always tell people, meditation and gambling both need courage. For gambling you need courage, for meditation you also need courage. We have all doubts - meditation is the ultimate gambling, with ordinary gambling, you gamble with only money, in meditation you gamble with your ego. You gamble with your whole being. But one thing for sure in this meditation gambling, if you lose you will win. Only losers win in this game. In ordinary gambling, the more you get, the more you win. In meditation gambling, when you put the ego at stake, you win the whole game. You put your whole ego at stake. Spiritual life needs courage; that is why Swami Vivekananda says spiritual people, he calls his disciples 'dheera'. Dheera means the person is courageous, who is courage personified.

You might think, why do spiritual people need courage - for spiritual life you need to be silent? No! Spiritual life needs courage. To experiment with these truths, you need courage. In these past fifteen days we have heard about so many different teachings, so many different understandings, so many different techniques, you have heard everything, only if you have the courage to experiment with them, it can help your life, you can transform your life; otherwise it will add more weight to your head, that's all.

Meditation prepares the way because it helps you to dismantle the false ego. Love helps because love also makes you aware of the falsity of the ego. Love gives you a few glimpses of egolessness; meditation gives you a solid ground on which to stand without the ego.

Meditation helps you to be blissful; bliss helps the rose of the heart to open; and then love comes of its own accord, just as the fragrance comes to the rose.

Meditation is going to become more and more important in the future. It has never been so important in the past as it's going to be in the future. Renunciation is going to be the only way for the future humanity because it will teach you how to be playful, how to be restful, how to be without any goals and yet happy.

Through techniques like meditation you can bring down your TPS to zero; you are completely in the present moment; you touch eternity. Past, present and future put together is eternity. You can't touch it in the past since it's already gone, you can't touch it in the future since it's yet to happen. You can touch it only in the present moment. If you can totally relax in the 'here and now', be totally aware and totally conscious, you can touch the eternity and become aware of the whole past and whole future.

If meditation is not the channel for spiritual enlightenment, then why should we meditate, what exactly are we supposed to do? Meditation Is a channel for enlightenment. I don't say meditation Is not the channel, but when I say the word meditation, being unclutched, not getting caught with one more shaft. If the meditation creates one more shaft, be very clear you will not be getting enlightenment.