Perth, Australia, 17 October 2007: Q&A – Part Two

“You try to imagine a form, a personality trying to be everywhere.  That appearance is not real actually because as even Ramana told, “Whatever appears and disappears cannot be real, it is simply an imagined thing that happens.”  Real existence is the Divine’s Supreme Consciousness, it is All-Pervading, it is beyond form and formlessness.”

Question: 

Baba, is a Yogi aware of all parts of creation at all times?

Babaji: 

Once He becomes a Yogi, He is only aware of God, nothing else.  Everything gets dissolved, everything is simply an illusion, and mentally, the creation has happened due to imagination technology only.  All such things come to an end.  He is simply aware of God.  If He has to be aware of anything else, then He is also getting involved in the maya.  His attention always has to be with God and only God.  Only God, that is all.  Only one All-Pervading Divine.

Question: 

The Divine is omnipresent, is that just like an imagination?

Babaji: 

Just like the space, It is omnipresent. Meaning, you try to imagine a form, a personality trying to be everywhere.  That appearance is not real actually because as even Ramana told, “Whatever appears and disappears cannot be real, it is simply an imagined thing that happens.”  Real existence is the Divine’s Supreme Consciousness, it is All-Pervading, it is beyond form and formlessness.  Because every time a terminology is used, a separate imagination sits.  Even if I use the term of ‘formlessness’ a particular imagination might try to come, your mind will try to visualize.  Even if I talk of void also, you will try to visualize it, all such things will happen. 

Remember once I was telling the story in the Yoga Vasistha, it is a very funny story.  It is just to tell how everything is simply mind’s imagination and nothing really exists.  Vasistha talks of a simple story, and in that there were three princes who were never born. Once they decided to go to another city. On the way they saw a river which had no water and they had an earthen pot which was never built at all, and they filled it up with water from the river and later on they reached the city and built a big fortress that had no walls.  This type of story He tells.  This significance is to give the mind an idea that everything is simply mind’s imagination.  

You see, just the basic clue is in front of you.  Try to look at your own mind, what form does it have, what formlessness does it have?  Simply it is Consciousness of Existence, that is all.  Otherwise normally it is a bundle of thoughts.  Because of thoughts only, you recognize, “My mind wants to do this, my mind wants to go there and I want to do, I want to smell, I want to eat.”  All these things come, because of the thought processes and visions that happen in the mind.  But what is this mind actually, can you show it?  Nobody can show, “This is my mind, it is located here, or it is in this form, it is of this color,” it is not possible.  So that is the basic clue, if the mind itself is so subtle, imagine the Ultimate Truth of this mind, how infinite it is. 

Question: 

Baba, some siddhas like Muktananda, Nithyananda, they talk about the blue pearl, they see a blue pearl, it is supposed to be very significant, a blue light they see.  In meditation they see the blue pearl in the crown chakra.

Babaji: 

You see, these are all terminologies used by teachers trying to make people understand.  But because of these terminologies, separate imaginations have occurred.  People talk of chakras, what chakras? There are no such chakras in the physical body.  They are symbolic terminologies they have used.  It is the same consciousness.  Just like we were talking of the mind, mind has no shape, no form, you cannot catch it, you cannot tie it.  Still it exists as the consciousness.  The same mind, another portion has gone into the body giving body consciousness as yourself, that is known as the kundalini.  They use this terminology kundalini – the nearest English term is coiled energy.  Coiled also, you try to imagine the rope coiled, something like that.  It is nothing like that.  

Simply the consciousness is spread all over the body.  So when the sadhana is done, when you meditate, when your mind comes back, what a Yogi experiences is, this mind lifts this body consciousness also upward.  This is called kundalini.  So when it comes upward, every time you are trying to concentrate, it also tries to lift it.  The oscillation happens and then it gets dropped if the mind also runs away.  So that is what they have tried to use, symbolic terminologies such as muladhara, manipura, swadhisthana, ajna chakra – like this they have used the term ajna chakra, meaning commanding circle. 

Suppose if you can control all your mind here one hundred percent, then you become the commander of your own mind.  Until then, the mind commands you at all times, mind makes you to dance to its tunes, wherever it runs. If it comes here, then you become commander.  If you want to think, you can think, if you don’t want to think, you can keep quiet, this happens. And to my experience, in my opinion, what likely happens is, the mind, when it gathers here one hundred percent, then it gets delinked from the clutches of the brain’s reflections.  That is when you feel yourself as if you are here (crown of head) for a while.  Probably they tried to call this the Sahasra Kamala, a thousand-petalled lotus, but really no such petals are there.  It is a symbolic figure.  After that a Yogi loses location of the body and surroundings, consciousness, everything.  Simply becomes aware of the Self, when the mind merges with the Self.  

So that is what really happens, the rest are all symbolic terminologies.  But people try to visualize any such thing and kundalini also, many people misunderstand it to be some serpent power that is sitting.  They would have used this as a symbolic terminology.  For example, when I am teaching, “So when the mind comes one hundred percent, it lifts the kundalini and this kundalini rises like a serpent,” like this I would tell.  If twenty students are sitting, twenty minds would be working, they are likely to misunderstand.  “The Master said something rising like a serpent.” Another who would not have paid apt attention would tell, “No, no it was a serpent that the Master was talking about, it must be a coiled serpent.”  Like that misunderstanding happens.  Such a student who writes a book and gives it to the next generation, instead of kundalini, it becomes a serpent.  We used to think as a youngster when we used to hear about these things, “What is this serpent? If it was there, probably scientists would have removed and kept it in a museum.”  It doesn’t happen like this.  So this is how a lot of misunderstandings have happened in this yoga.

Question: 

But the chakras still exist?  When you meditate you feel energy here, is that good?

Babaji: 

Yes, because as you asked your basic question, mind is always used to sound and sight.  Based on these two technologies only, it exists.  It constantly visualizes some picture and sound effects, also it visualizes the thought processes.  So when you are doing your sadhana, the mind is likely to imagine because of its practices, a chakra might appear, a color might appear.  The significance is, if one particular thing is appearing for a long time constantly, that means it is a good thing that the mind is becoming more single pointed in meditation, that is much better.  That is what the bhakti marga’s basic aim is.  If you love the Master, if you love the God’s one form, if you love Master, and so at all times if your mind is visualizing your Master only within your heart, so your mind is becoming single pointed.

Question: 

You almost said that the chakras do not exist.  You have said a few things that have really revolutionized me in the last few days.  But this is another one.  There are a lot of things around Perth, Australia and probably the rest of the world, about chakra healing, chakra balancing, prana healing, removing of negative energies using water and salt and people pay a lot of money for these things too, and I would like to know how much money I have lost so far?

Babaji: 

Simply, new terminologies have been used to attract people, that is all.

Question: 

So that is all imagination, it doesn’t exist?

Babaji: 

One consciousness is there, that needs to be ‘lifted.’  You are the best healer for yourself.  When you practice meditation you can heal yourself, all your mental evils and illnesses that have been acquired.

Question: 

…and physical?

Babaji: 

Some physical also. 

Question: 

And what about distance healing because there are a lot of things going about distant healing?

Babaji: 

A receiver needs to have total faith, that is the devotional path.  Simply you cannot send the energy through telephones; such telegraphic transfers do not happen. 

Question: 

But are we allowed to try and heal somebody at a distance?

Babaji: 

So you can try.  If the other person also has that faith, you pray to God.  Through the God’s energy, such a healing can happen.  But you should not have the ego that “I am doing it.”  Unnecessarily you would be acquiring a lot of negative energies and you are losing that Divinity.  It is the Divine who can do all these things.

Question: 

But doesn’t the Divine know where healing needs to happen?

Babaji: 

He need not know it.  If anybody has a faith, it automatically happens.  The electric wire need not know that it is going to give you an electric current.  If you touch it, it gives you an electric current.  It is like that through your mind, if you can touch the Divine.  You see, look back in every religion, prayers are taught, why?  If you pray, if you concentrate your mind, you have to apply your mind, Saints have taught always.  If you apply your mind, then the mind becomes concentrated, introverted, it goes and touches the Divine, that is the Ultimate Truth of the mind, then the grace automatically flows.  If you read other scriptures, there are also these things.  If one does Tapas, God will have to come and give, bless and even give boons.  All these things, a lot of legendary stories are all there. 

What this means is that if the mind touches the Divine, it becomes one hundred percent concentrated, automatically the grace and blessings of the Divine can be obtained.  Like a Yogi sitting, His vibrations are everywhere always.  Anybody who has that faith and devotion will automatically receive it.  I need not think that my blessings have to go here, not to go there.  There is no such discrimination for a Yogi or for God or anybody.  Faith and devotion are taught, that is why these are very important points one needs to learn.  That is when one will be benefited really.  So that is why, if you have that faith and devotion, you will automatically receive it.  Even Ramakrishna Paramahansa tells, “It is the faith in the name of Lord which can work wonders.”  This is what is required.  I also tell a hundred times, if you buy a photo of mine, if you get annoyed with me, it is no problem, don’t get annoyed with the photo and throw it, because that is your faith.  You should not allow that faith to waiver.  It is your self confidence and mind’s concentration.

Question: 

What is the point of God creating creation if He cannot enjoy it?

Babaji: 

The real truth is, no conclusive answer has been obtained by anybody in any field about this.  There is no such conclusive answer because it is a very mind-boggling thing.  God exists in itself, that is called Mahasamadhi.  If He is in Himself, unaware of these things happening, it is a very peculiar situation. Just like the sun need not be aware that his light is going everywhere, but still the light is going.  Due to God this universe is happening, but not according to His wishes.  There are no mental resolutions in God.  If God had such mental resolutions then we could have asked God, “Why are you partial, why is it that some are happy, some are unhappy, some are suffering, some are luxurious, some are this, some are that, why have you discriminated?”  God has not done like that.  It is not God actually.

Question: 

Isn’t that due to past lives and merits?

Babaji: 

Yes, that is one’s own mind.  You must take responsibility for your mind’s acquired habits.  Let us not hold God as responsible for it.  God is very kind.  If we remember God, we can overcome all these mental illnesses.  Until I knew God, I used to think like that only.  Once I came to know, really God is not responsible. He simply exists, we are responsible for what we undergo.  So we must take care of our mind.  You must control your mind.  You must do sadhana.  This human life is such a rare gem that has come to you.  This physical body, you have the best developed brain to be able to think what is real, what is unreal, what is good for you, what is not good for you.  If your mind is into agitations, you lose peace.  That is why the sages said, “If your mind is into too much of greed, too much of anger, too much of jealousy, too much of false pride, too much of attachment to materialistic things, imagination, then your mind is the first casualty.”  That is why they called it as six enemies of human mind, Aristadwarga – kama, krodha, loba, moha, mada, matsarya.

Question: 

Am I right in saying, up until the time you do tapas you can do all the activities you like, but once you enter into tapas you put all of that aside?

Babaji: 

You see sitting here, I can recommend a particular thing but I should not be imposing on anybody.  It should be an individual’s choice what he or she is going to do, ultimately. I can recommend.  Spirituality does not impose anything, any way of life.  You have a choice to adopt any way of life.  If you practice this, it alerts you simply that you cannot depend on this world for your happiness permanently because this world is transitory, impermanent including your own physical body.  This is a fundamental truth, everybody agrees.  Is the body going to be there forever? It is not going to be.  A thing that cannot exist forever, how can it give a permanent happiness?  Impossible.  This is alerted.  What is recommended is that you go back to your Real Self that is Immortal and Eternal Existence, so there can be Supreme Peace once and for all.  Now the choice will be for the individual.

Question: 

You don’t get bored in your Peace? (laughs)

Babaji: 

I don’t get bored.  I am in Supreme Peace, nothing to get bored. (laughs)