Recorded on 25 October 2025 with worldwide participants

0:00 Intro
0:14 When a thought pops up in the mind, what is it that has created that thought?
1:42 Has the mind created that thought within itself?
4:02 Everything we perceive of as the world, that is entirely within our own mind. Does the world exist outside of our own mind?
10:09 Is the creation in the mind the same technology for which this world has been created by a higher potency mind?
12:58 Can we say that a higher potency consciousness has a thought and within that thought a consciousness has arisen?
14:58 In the universe was the creation a single event, or is it continuously creating within that universe?
28:55 Is the practice to ‘just watch’ the practice to stop the creation of thoughts?
30:27 Why do I feel God created me to perform certain karmic duties in this world, but as I grow older I feel I want to abandon my worldly desires and society to follow in Babaji’s footsteps?
38:37 What is the difference between consciousness and attention? Who directs attention to the Self?
40:03 Do circulating thoughts come from our memory?
42:49 Is our ability to think of something in the mind simply due to the brain?
44:18 In the great beginning, was there a visualization before the first concepts came into universe?
44:40 Some people have aphantasia, where they have no ability to have a picture in the mind’s eye – is this just an effect of the brain?
45:11 For Ramakrishna, Kali the Cosmic Mother was so real, but when He reached Nirvikalpa Samadhi did She disappear, was She an imagination?
46:20 Are places like Vaikuntha where they say Vishnu resides real places or imaginations?
46:43 When sitting in meditation there is no experience, so how do I know if I am in samadhi, or sleep, or trance, what is the difference between them?
49:22 How do I know when I get out of meditation whether or not I was in a trance or sleeping?
51:35 How does the higher consciousness help us deal with the everyday life that is in the dream?
53:02 If the consciousness is not applied, does the imaginative world get reduced?
54:44 Though Babaji’s mind is completely silent, is the appearance of this world still strong?
55:31 So after Nirvikalpa Samadhi, the Yogi doesn’t pay attention to the universe, but it is just there?
56:20 Are vasanas the acquired habits of the mind?
56:50 Babaji’s closing words

Discourse: In Quest of Truth – online Q&A no.250
Creation
You tube Link: https://youtu.be/3kiWUn5g6Ac   
Recorded: 25 October 2025

Start of Questions and Answers

Question:   Today’s topic is entitled ‘Creation’.  So, if I could start with the first question.  Wanted to look at creation in the mind; when a thought pops up suddenly into the mind, what is it that’s created that thought?  How does that creation happen?

Babaji Maharaj:   Mind has this capability to be creative.  For mind itself the nearest words I can use is the combination of consciousness and energy.  So, with the help of energy, consciousness is capable of creating; creativity is there.  So, that’s what the technology is, imagination.  This imagination should not be considered as an ordinary thing.  That’s what is creativity, we call in this world.  So, an automatic activity of this happens; a thought appears.  The thing is that watching that thought, mind can forget that “This thought is there because of my imagination.”  Such is the power of that creativity, that imagination, that mind itself also can forget that it is its own creation, let alone others trying to know or understand. 

Question:   So, Babaji, the thought has been created within itself; the mind has created that thought within itself.

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah.  In other words, if we want to know scientifically, the raw material for the production of that thought is nothing but the mind itself.  But now you need to understand the mind.  Mind is infinite.  It is not a matter, it is beyond time and space also, beyond identifications.  However, for sake of giving a clue, we try to identify with the nearest terminology possible for us.  Infinite means it is not seen by naked eyes.  Like, you all know that you have a mind but you recognize the mind only based on thoughts and visions; other than that nobody knows what it is.  And nobody has seen it with naked eyes, and you cannot show it to anybody else also.  But clue and the proof for its existence is within you; amongst the millions of thoughts, the consciousness of existence that is there is the source of this mind. 

Well, now we call it mind as long as there are thoughts and visions.  Once the thoughts and visions dissolve then we call it as pure consciousness.  Consciousness is, wherever you apply your consciousness, you become aware of it.  You think, a thought appears, and how you think is inconclusive, amazing.  It is beyond anybody’s comprehension, actually.  How it works – simply a thought appears.  So, in such quick succession, the mind forgets “That thought is there because of my own imagination.”  It cannot even understand that it had imagined about that thought.  Such is the power and speed of this action that happens. 

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  Babaji, you’ve also mentioned before that the mind cannot touch anything else.  It cannot touch the matter.  So, everything that we perceive of as the world, that’s entirely within our own consciousness, our own mind.  So, does the world exist outside of our own mind?

Babaji Maharaj:   For sake of understanding so that I do not confuse all participants, here I would like to tell, mind is a micro speck of the Supreme Consciousness, or the higher consciousness which has created the world.  So, for now, the world would appear as if it is outside the mind; that is no problem, but we understand whatever is in the mind, the mind also holds a big world.  You all have your own world.  You are thinking, your own stories, characters, everything is there.  That which the mind visualizes is within the mind; it cannot come out of the mind.  That means you cannot show anybody what is in your mind.  In reality, nobody can see what is in another’s mind; only every individual will know themselves what is in their mind.  Others cannot know, and they cannot show it to the other also because of limitation of the mind’s potency.  If this is a clue, like a micro speck action, its Ultimate Truth, the highest consciousness or the Supreme is what is all pervaded, which we just now recognize it as space.  But space is not just the space that we have presumed it to be or we have defined or we have understood with a criteria in our mind.  We do not know conclusively, in fact; it may be anything, it may be supreme.  The great sages in Upanishads, they taught that this is Supreme Consciousness of existence, the Ultimate Truth which is to be recognized as Divinity, because if we adopt its remembrance in our mind, our mind will become one with it and achieves supreme peace and happiness.  All our unhappiness and sins will be washed away.  Sins are the ignorance here, ignorance about one’s own Self; all this will be washed away.  So, you will regain the consciousness, awareness of your real Self.  

So, all these things are possible.  So, that is the clue I can give.  This world is held by that higher consciousness, but just now it is not possible to demonstrate or prove either way, and nobody can understand also. Because you are seeing the world through the physical body’s sensory organs which itself is a part of the body, and that body is part of this dream, this world only.  That’s why you cannot make out.  Just like when you are dreaming, you are watching the dream, yet you have lost the awareness that you are watching a dream. Because most of your consciousness potency has gone into all characters that you have created within your mind, you.  You, as the mind I am talking.  So, thus, as long as you are dreaming, for you also, even when you are watching also, you as the watcher, and of course all the consciousness has gone into different characters that is in the dream, for them also, that dream appears to be a reality; nobody can make out that it is just a dream.  ‘Just a dream’ means here, just an imagined, created, temporary with an appearance value, impermanent.  So, these things cannot be made out. 

So, in the same way, now you, as the watcher also, but you are watching through this body, that is why you are unable to understand this has been created by the higher consciousness.  Even for a yogi also, as long as the body exists, this world will be visible, but yogi is only a witness to the world, he will not get involved into this world.  He is very well aware through the experience of nirvikalpa samadhi that this is a creation of the higher consciousness, created by the technology of creativity, imagining.  Imagination is the technology that is in the mind or in the consciousness.  Such is the power of creation.  So, the power of creation.  That is where we try to recognize it as the power of illusion also.  An illusion means, generally, though it is a wide thing, very difficult to say conclusively what to be an illusion means, here for our understanding, a certain thing which really does not exist but so solidly appears to be existing is the illusion.

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  So, just to emphasize this, Babaji is saying the creation of what’s in the mind is the same technology, the same process really for which this world has been created, but by a higher potency mind.

Babaji Maharaj:   Exactly.  Simply, the potency is higher.  So, this is a short time, like the dream is a shorter dream, a shorter imagination;  within that one night of sleep you get up and quickly you are awake.  But this world is a longer dream, longer dream, very long it goes, so it is difficult for you to make out.  Sometimes,  jokingly I have told, just like in the dream you would have forgotten where you have been sleeping in the body; you don’t even remember your bedroom, your bed or anything else.   Whether you are under the tree or on a bed, you won’t remember.  In the same way just now also, what if you are sleeping somewhere in some other [place], and you have forgotten.  You cannot make out because this dream is so real, so solid; people would refuse to believe it, “How can that be?  It is so real.”  Only some logical examples can be given, like this body is also part of the dream, so that’s why everything appears to be real, and the relative explanation is the dream.  As long as the dream is there, when consciously you are stuck in the dream, your own creation, then that dream appears to be so solid.  You will realize  that it was a dream only when you get up. 

Sometimes, that dream can be creating such an influence on your mind, means on your consciousness, on yourself that you would wonder what is this dream, whether it is real, whether it has any meaning, “Did somebody come to my dream or did I create them?”  These things can be a very big puzzle for anybody, for those thinkers also, for a while.  So, only when you experience merging with the higher consciousness, during that time only you can experience this world as unreal.  So just now, for teaching sake we try to tell seekers, just now if you understand this world as impermanent is good enough.  When you reach that stage, then you will be able to realize. 

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  I hope it is not too mind-boggling, but Babaji said that we are a thought of that higher potency consciousness.  This universe can be thought of as the dream of that higher potency consciousness.  Within that dream, we have become conscious of ourselves within that dream.  So, the higher potency consciousness has a thought and within that thought a consciousness has arisen.  Can we say like that, Babaji?

Babaji Maharaj:   That’s how somehow you can tell that one.  Like you are dreaming; in the dream, a Guru comes and tries to wake you up.  How difficult it will be for you to get up.  He is telling, “This dream is unreal.”  You would not like to believe it.  “Ha, this dream, this is so real.  Then is this Guru coming and waking me up also real or unreal?”  So here, the Guru is in your life by destiny.  And the Guru is trying to wake you up, is trying to talk about the truth, trying to give you that knowledge and wisdom.  And giving you the clue how to experience this, how to go for that truth, is telling all the things.  So here, a dream within the dream, that dream which has made you to forget about yourself, but this dream of Guru coming, He is helping you to get up from the dream and realize your real Self.  That is the wonder.  That is the science. 

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  Baba, in our mind, thoughts are continuously coming up and being created.  In the universe, was the creation a single event, or is it continuously creating within that universe? Is that higher potency consciousness continually creating?

Babaji Maharaj:   Compared to the Ultimate Truth, this higher consciousness is continuously creating.  Like for example, when we astronomically, scientifically read, galaxies are appearing, planets are appearing, anything that is appearing, appearing, a new sun has appeared.  Like this, that’s continuous.  This higher consciousness is also a micro speck of that original Ultimate Truth, which is intact in itself, which is not actually creating.  That is where the merger has to happen for Self-Realization so that you get liberated from this action and reactions of creation and destruction, or birth and death, of happening, unhappening; all these things you overcome once for all and settle supremely peaceful – that is that Ultimate Truth, which is much more higher than the higher consciousness also. 

For us, as a micro speck ant on this earth, through telescopes when we see the galaxies and Milky Way, we will be wonder struck.  The distance nobody can calculate.  Though thousands and thousands and thousands of light-year distance is being calculated, they are all micro speck, only a small distance.  In the space, compared to the space; if anybody can guess what the space is, or try to understand – try to understand, I am repeating, try to understand the space also, they will be wonder struck.  Awesome.  Such a thing; that is what is the word, ‘ananta’, boundless, used.  See, means this creation also is happening so boundlessly for us; we are somewhere.  Many times, we try to see in the astronomical maps, then with so many stars, a small arrow is given; ‘our solar system is somewhere here’.  It appears so funny for us, you see?  

On this earth, if we are small ants with this 5 to 6 feet body standing, then this earth is so big.  Then imagine solar system is so big, and this solar system can be a small micro speck somewhere here.  In the space it is there, which cannot be pointed out also when you try to picturize the entire Milky Way or entire galaxies like that.  Such is the mind-boggling wonder that is happening.  So, that is the power of illusion, power of creativity of that thing is happening.  It is appearing and disappearing.  

So, watching this, we actually need not lose our happiness.  That is the important question in front of us now.  As human beings, when we are on this earth, one of the primary or the fundamental searches is for peace and happiness.  Knowingly or unknowingly, that is where everybody is struggling, hitting their head, banging their head, whatever they are trying to do.  “Where is that peace?  Is there anybody who can give me peace?”  And in that process, if they are not properly knowledgeable and wise, they can get fooled easily.  Somebody comes and tells, “Give me five thousand dollars, I will give you peace,” and they are ready to give five thousand dollars whether they get peace or not.  So, that is what the struggle is happening. 

So, in the midst of all this, imagine those great sages, how great scientists they were when they thought about the Self.  And they started inquiring, “Can this body be me?  When this body is going to die, inevitable, we all know, then how can we be?  Then let me observe where from this ‘I’ feeling is coming to me.”  As they tried to do it, tried to do it, they understood, “We need to keenly observe that consciousness of existence from wherever it is coming.”  But initially it was a puzzle, “Where is it?  How to find that one?”  

   Even today, the other day, last week somebody was asking a question, “After reading so many scriptures of Upanishads and Vedanta, everything, person asking, talk of the, “Who am I, who am I?”  When we close the eyes, that ‘I’ is not visible.”  That is not visible, because that ‘I’ is searching for something else as ‘I’, which does not exist.  I repeat this.  When you close the eyes, if the ‘I’ is not visible, that ‘I’ for which you are searching is searching outside itself, which does not exist at all.  It itself is that ‘I’ for which that ‘I’ is searching.  Means you are searching for yourself.  So, the moment you close the eyes, you should recognize you are there.  Simply, your attention has to go.  If you have millions and millions, like a fish market, ‘kachakachakachakacha’ sound with millions of characters there, and your mind is making so much of sound, thoughts and visions, thoughts and visions, story after story, it doesn’t notice itself.  It starts thinking, “Where is this I?  Who am I?”  

   Just now, we will take up this “Who am I?”  I am the ‘I.’  It cannot be different from the ‘I.’  I have to be the ‘I.’  I cannot be different from ‘I.’  Like this, the intelligence has to work.  Then observe, observe.  That means that ‘I’ is coming when you close the eyes.  I am searching, but I am that.  So, then you observe.  So, then your mind gets absorbed into that one.  Like that, the ancient sages worked out.  In the midst of all this mind-boggling creation, Milky ways and ways and ways and ways, higher consciousness.  So difficult for astronomers and scientists to understand.  So mind-boggling, they can get attracted to one exoplanet and start studying, their life ends.  Such is the amazing thing that is happening.  But those sages tried to go to the root cause – from where is this happening?   

It is one thing, all these astronomical wonders, celestial bodies, they are wonders, anybody can get attracted to see; “What is this?  From where has this come?”  You take a ball, a planet and try to study, your life goes.  It is a puzzle.  But those great sages tried to see, “Which can be the source of all this?  There must be something which is the source, which is not binded by these appearances.”  That other wisdom, intelligence worked.  “It must be such a thing which is not blinded by all the things that has appeared, matter.  Is there anything that the matter cannot catch hold?”  In the matter world, one matter which is more powerful can destroy or hit or do anything to a matter that which is less powerful.  Like that. 

Like if one animal carnivorous in the forest is more powerful, it can kill the less powerful animal easily.  That is what I am using, one terminology of matter for that purpose, for sake of understanding.  We create railway engine.  But if we stand in front of the railway engine, that railway engine can smash our body like chutney, or aircraft, any such thing.  Massive dams we are building.  If we go and stand in front of the dam, if the dam bursts, it can destroy us, simply gone.  Such is the power of matter.  One is more powerful than the other.  It is very difficult to make out which one of this is the most powerful above which there is no other power.  Impossible.  In the matter, there cannot be any one matter which can be more powerful than all other matters; will never happen.  People will invent, people will discover. 

See, just take up the nuclear capabilities, nuclear weapon capabilities.  The nuclear weapons that were dropped during world war, since then, people have advanced, increasing the capacity of the nuclear bomb.  If one country declares it has become this powerful, it has achieved this potency power of the nuclear bomb, then another country becomes insecure.  They try to do research.  They come out with more powerful [ones].  Like this, the world competition keeps going, keeps going, never ending.  That’s when the sages thought, “Which can be that where the matter has no reach, no say?”  That is the space.  Can anybody build anything more powerful than space, which can grow bigger than the space and capture the space in its womb? Impossible.  Is that possible?  As a scientist also you think, science students also, everybody think – is there anything that can be more powerful than the space itself, which can capture the space and hold the space in its womb? 

That’s what Lord Vishwanatha told Adi Shankara and His disciple, “If there is anything beyond the Brahmanda, then I will go away there.  You have your Brahmanda to yourself.”  That is not there.  So, such wondrous things, they thought wisely.  And then they evolved the meditation.  First, we need to get rid of the imaginations that we have made in the mind, that which is attracting our attention whenever we close the eyes.  See, everybody complains, “Thousands of thoughts are coming, Babaji.  For some time, I am able to make.”  But some try to tell something else; “For a while, sometimes I clear the thoughts.  But again, the thoughts come.”  Some are sincere.  Some may not be sincerely talking.  They want me to endorse that they are Realized.  But Realization doesn’t happen like that.  The mind is working. 

So, that’s how they got down to meditation.  We need to get rid of the thing that which has been spoiled, that we need to rectify this mind’s habits first.  Mind is habitual to its thoughts and imagination.  Then they came across this consciousness of existence.  They noticed that does not disappear.  When they went on watching that – through mind only they could watch, they could not watch through physical sensory eyes – that mind went on watching.  As it went on watching, that mind got absorbed and mind also became quiet.  So, that’s what they called it as samadhi and the Self-Realization words all came into existence, perhaps.  When did this come?  Nobody knows.  Time immemorial.  I’m just giving an idea what would have happened in the midst of such a wonder…  If you go on thinking or talking about these astronomical things and the creations that is happening in the midst of this creation, one trying to know what the truth is.  That is the greatness of Indians, ancient sages who became Self-Realized who have given us through Upanishads, Vedanta about the knowledge of the Self that we could do that and achieve this Self-knowledge and understand this. 

Question:   Amazing.  Thank You very much Babaji.  So, Baba, the practice that Babaji teaches, to watch, this is the practice to stop the creation of thoughts?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes.  Yes.  That is the first thing you need to achieve.  That is the first hurdle.  That is the biggest hurdle also.  Once that is gone, rest will start happening automatically.  A smooth movement will happen.  Starting the engine is the problem.  Once that is done, then the accelerator you press becomes easy.  But that’s what takes time.  So, for that, one needs to be sincere, must not be in a rush because it is infinite.  Mind is infinite.  And mind has become habitual.  You cannot take care of the mind through any other instrument, impossible.  Simply, the mind itself has to understand, “I have to become quiet.  I am unnecessarily imagining.  Let me become quiet.”  When it becomes quiet and quiet and quiet and quiet, totally quiet, it comes to that one thing, consciousness of existence for which it cannot quieten; it will always be there.  That’s how they determined the Self is eternal.  The soul is eternal. 

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  We all are born as humans and we all have certain responsibilities and duties.  As a human creation, I have certain obligations to perform in this world; fulfill my family duties, perform my tasks as a teacher to my autistic students, perform my role as a daughter, sister, teacher, friend in this world that feels like an illusion.  But what happens to my human creation when I am getting drawn into the spiritual world?  It feels like a battle between this world and the spiritual world.  Why was I created to be born in a particular family, country or society to a certain age?  And then as I grow older, I feel I have to leave everything to pursue my desire to be part of the spiritual creation.  Why do I feel God created me as a human in my first half of my life to perform certain karmic related duties in this world, but as I grow older, I feel I want to abandon my worldly desires and the society to follow in Babaji’s footsteps?

Babaji Maharaj:   Question is sensible, but it will be really a puzzle.  I will try to tell; see if you can understand.  Based on my experience, I give my opinion.  But you can understand only when you achieve that samadhi.  This is how.  Means, first thing we need to understand, God is not a separate personality whom we try to hold responsible or blame or any such thing.  Perhaps things have not happened like that one.  The Divine is in itself, in supreme peace.  As we are talking of the higher consciousness which is creating,  perhaps… that is what I have always tried to give, the example of the mythological Puranas or the Indian philosophical stories.  When the Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva – these are the concepts, not personalities who came to existence, concepts, higher consciousness which created, but did not get involved with the creation mentally; there was no mind.  Just simply created, consciousness, and just like that they kept quiet.  They remained in the Self, in the Ultimate Truth.  That is how they are recognized as Divine, Divine personalities, Trimurthies or Divinities, whatever it is.  We worship. 

But the next generation you see, devatas and demons; like stories have been told.  They became insecure.  They needed power for their survival.  They needed position, status.  They wanted to rule.  Otherwise, other than that they did not know what to do.  They thought they are going to lose everything.  Whereas Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva concepts did not bother about this thing.  They had nothing to lose or nothing to gain because they remained in the Self.  So, like that, generation after generation, generation after generation, this consciousness went on, becoming diluted.  When it went on becoming insecure, desires, visualization, positively, negatively, positively, negatively, went on imagining – when it has become a mind in the human being, the power of potency that it has lost.  

It became habitual as it went on creating, imagining itself.  So, it started losing its potency concentration.  Every time it incarnated, it became diluted.  Thus, when it has become human being… Now, whatever you talk of destiny that you are undergoing, you have adopted.  One side you have to understand it is your choice and on the other side, whatever you visualized in the previous lives, it has become the destiny.  It has come in front of you, which you think as your responsibilities.  Well, that is no problem.  You can adopt this way of life.  Simply, do not feel bad about it or do not brood about it.  Just go on doing whatever you are doing.  Simply, if your mind stops, that is good enough.  Your mind, until you are able to get rid of all other desires, have one desire that you want to get liberated, go back to the Self.  That realization – while you execute the responsibility that you have mentioned in this world, because overnight, you cannot give up all this thing. 

Well, as a yogi or Master, we also do not recommend that you have to give up your home, your responsibility, you are looking after any such children who need…  If you are finding satisfaction, that is important.  You carry on with all those things.  But in addition, simply meditate so that you can practice to achieve to quieten the mind.  Because mind is thinking more than what it is executing as a responsibility in this world.  The responsibility that you are executing will not be that stressful if you start thinking.  It becomes stressful when you try to imagine it as too much.  You start imagining stressfully, then it becomes stressful.  To look after autistic children itself is not at all stressful.  If you silently simply go on looking after, it will never be stressful.  Because, my experience, I tell, I looked after mentally challenged boy that my Guru assigned to me.  I never complained to myself or anybody.  I just did it as a service to the Master, “Let this service reach the lotus feet of my Master.”  So, my mind remained quiet, desireless.  So, doing that service was not any heavy or was not any difficult for me, was not stressful at all. 

Like this, whatever has already adopted, try to finish this.  You keep doing.  Simply try to silence your mind.  Then you will know the truth about yourself.  One day you will be able to achieve Self-Realization.  Just now, do not give rise to brooding, frustration or any such stressful thinking at all.  Think that you have been given a boon by God that you are useful to somebody in this world.  You are useful to those autistic children.  Your life is so precious.  Your life has become a mission because of that.  Just look after like that; everything, think positively.  You will overcome the stressfulness.  And one day when you achieve that Self-Realization, you will liberate yourself from the birth and death, positive and negative things.  Always try to visualize positively.  Think that God has given you good opportunities in this world to overcome your own karmas, to clear your accounts by looking after other children, autistic children.  Your life is so useful to them.  So, your life is worthy.  Like that, you think positively.  There will be somebody who will definitely appreciate your life when you work like that. 

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  What is the difference between consciousness and attention?  Who directs the attention to the Self?

Babaji Maharaj:   Attention is you paying attention to yourself.  Attention is a common word, paying attention.  You all understand, right?  Here, when you are trying to meditate means, mind is trying to pay attention to itself.  You are watching a movie.  All your attention is on the movie.  In that process, your consciousness is so sucked into the movie, you are seeing yourself as a character in the movie.  You have forgotten that you are sitting.  Now, the Master teaches, “Pay attention, you are sitting on the sofa and you are watching the movie.”  So, that’s what is attention here.  The same thing is trying to pay attention to the same thing, which is trying to search about that same thing.  It is all the one thing.  You are trying to pay attention to yourself when you try to meditate. 

Question:   Hello, Babaji.  Thank You for giving Your time to us once again.  My question is, going on from circulating thoughts, do they come from our memory?  I was thinking, like, we don’t have memory when we’re babies.  We seem to remember things around about two or three years old.  And it seems like there’s useful memory, like, “I live in this house, in this street.  So, I know how to get home.”  But then there’s these un-useful memories. 

Babaji Maharaj:   When I talk of memory, you are right, I’m talking of the memory that is in the brain.  That’s the brain that helps to keep all the memory.  But the mind also is holding acquired habits, we call it.  Instead of memory, I try to call it as acquired habits.  Means, when the mind recognizes a thing, analyzes and makes a judgment, it absorbs imprints.  That becomes the attitude pattern of that mind.  Well, now based on this, when the brain dies, the mind, which is holding these acquired habits, in the last moment, spins.  And the intensity of thought forms through which it assumes its next birth, next incarnation.  Thus, the mind is carrying acquired habits, but memory will not be there.  For you, about your previous life, you will not have any memory when the previous brain died. 

So, this is the thing, but mind is holding certain habits.  So, based on that, it starts behaving; its behavioral pattern happens.  Its thinking, its observation power, its understanding capabilities, all happens based on such things.  So, that is what the difference is between memory and acquired habits of the mind.  When this mind applies on the brain, then those symptoms become decodified, and the brain shows it as a visual effect or a thought process.  But this brain of this life cannot show the memory of the previous life.  It simply shows whatever it is.  It cannot connect it properly.  It is not possible.  It simply prepares in its own way.  So, then the mind, it mixes up, it becomes its habits, and it starts thinking, it behaves in such a way.  That’s what happens.

Question:   Pranaams Babaji.  So, my question is in relationship to the last question a bit.  So, scientists would have us believe that our ability to visualize, to think of something in the mind, “I want to think of an apple – I see an apple right now in my mind.”  They would have us believe that this is attached simply to the brain, that this is a power of the brain.  But what I’m thinking of is in order for anything to have come into existence, going all the way back to even the first thought, the concept of mother…

Babaji Maharaj:   At this point, let me try to clarify this.  The apple picture definitely comes because of the brain.  It is the brain which decodifies.  But the mind also wants to think.  It is the mind.  The mind wants to think or wants to know, and with the help of the brain, it is able to visualize the apple, apple’s picture.  Otherwise, without a picture, mind will not be able to make out what is apple.  So, like that, a strange combination of collusion between mind and brain happens.  Half of that, what scientists talk is true, half is the mind, also is there, definitely. 

Same Questioner:   So, in the great beginning, wherever, whenever that was, was there a visualization before the first concepts came into universe or did they just come?  

Babaji Maharaj:   It must have happened as a visualization.  It’s an opinion.

Same Questioner:   And they’re even saying that some people today, they’re finding an issue – it’s called aphantasia where people have no ability to have a picture in the mind’s eye.  This must just be an affect of the brain then. 

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah.  If the brain is affected, the exact picture may not be coming. 

Same Questioner:   Okay.  This clarifies much.  Thank You, Babaji. 

Question:   Babaji, You touched on Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva concepts.  So, to the Self-Realized yogi, do these deities like Vishnu or Brahma, do they actually then disappear as imaginations?  And some people talk about the cosmic mother creating the universe, Shakti.  I’m thinking of the great sage Ramakrishna, for Him, Kali the Cosmic Mother was so real.  But when He reached nirivikalpa samadhi, did She disappear?  Was She an imagination?  This is what I’m trying to understand.  Thank You. 

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, so that was how Totapuri and Ramakrishna’s conversations, when He experienced the nirvikalpa samadhi.  Means these are the form.  As Ramakrishna Himself said, definitely we agree, “God is both form and formless.”  But that form finally disappears.  When the nirvikalpa samadhi happens, you go beyond the form and formlessness and merge with the Ultimate Truth that is the Parabrahman.  Everything merges there. 

Same Questioner:   So, these places like Vaikunta, where they say Vishnu resides, are they real places or are they just imaginations?

Babaji Maharaj:   They are imaginations, visualizations of people.  As they go on talking of a concept, they try to give, picturizing, picturizing, picturizing.  So, these things, that’s how it happens. 

Same Questioner:   Thank You. 

Question:   Hello, Babaji.  I have a question on you talking about the dream state and the waking state this morning.  And so, I had an experience in meditation.  And the words are really difficult, but I experienced a silence that was absolutely full.  That’s the best way I can describe it.  But then it wasn’t that I ever experienced it.  It only felt like I experienced it as I was coming out of it.  While I was in it, there was no experience of anything, there was nothing to be experienced.  But as I was transitioning out, it felt like there was this space.  It was almost like a memory of the experience.  And so, then I started thinking about the transition.  So, I had another experience yesterday morning.  When I woke up, immediately, the first thought that came to mind was, “O, look at how this dream state…”  It wasn’t there.  All the things that happened in the dream just vanished like that.  And here I am in this new state.  Then I had another thought.  Sometimes when I’m sitting, there will be nothing.  And how do I know if I’m sleeping?  Am I in a nirvikalpa samadhi, am I in a trance?  What is the difference between all of these things? And sometimes going from one to another, it’s hard to discriminate.

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, you see, when you first experienced going into the silence, that means the mind tries to be quiet and experience its real Self.  When it experiences, there is no experience actually.  Simply except for the existence, nothing else is there.  Not even the identification of the ‘I’ would have gone.  But as the transition came, then the ‘I’ crops up, then the ‘I’ tries to see a dream.  Then it starts thinking, “I dreamt,” all these things come up.  So then in the morning as today, in the waking state, this dream, another dream you get to see.  So, when it gets to think, the way it thinks, things start appearing.  When all the thoughts disappear, you are with the truth.  First experience was the truth that you experienced for a glimpse.  That was the real truth in silence.  The rest all as the ‘I’ came, then that ‘I’ imagining, so different experiences start coming. 

Same Questioner:   Okay, one more quick doubt, maybe You can resolve.  I read recently in Ramana Maharishi’s ashram, that there was always a strong discipline to rouse people that were in trances.  So, that created a fear in me.  What if I’m meditating and I come out of the meditation into my normal waking state, how do I know I wasn’t in a trance that should be avoided according to the Masters?  Or how do I know that I was sleeping, which should be avoided?  How do I know what I was doing?

Babaji Maharaj:   Just for sake of understanding I will tell.  ‘Bhaava samadhi’ is the Sanskrit word for this trance used.  ‘Bhaava’ is mind’s feelings.  In the feelings, in one particular feeling if a person becomes obsessed, that is known as ‘bhaava samadhi’.  Long time devotional practices only, if you are emotional, and you are following the devotional path, such an experience will happen.  This is before you go into actual meditation.  So, then you realize there is a higher consciousness than you, which is controlling you.  So, this is why, very often in rural areas, people cannot understand knowledge or wisdom, they need to understand the power only, they need to know that God has power to protect us, He has weapons, then only they worship.  For these type of emotional people, it is like a lollipop is given.  They get so that they can go to the spiritual school.  After that, they have to come to meditation.  When they meditate, they overcome and transcend all these bhaavas, you transcend all emotions.  So, if you are meditating, you do not have to worry.  You will not go into such trances.  You will go into the reality, actually.  You can assure yourself. 

Same Questioner:   Thank You.  That’s comforting. 

Question:   Thank You, Baba, for being here for us today.  Always wonderful to see You, amazing.  So, my question is, as we are living in this dream state, which is everyday life; it seems so real, but it’s not, it’s a dream.  And then there’s the above that, which is this consciousness.  And I feel like I’m in touch with that.  I hope I’m not dreaming, but it seems like I can feel that also.  So, my question is, how does this higher consciousness help me and all of us to deal with the everyday life that’s in the dream?  This thing that isn’t the dream that I can perceive, how does that help me with all my little problems in the dream?

Babaji Maharaj:   You have to meditate for that purpose so that when your mind becomes quiet, then it touches the higher consciousness and merges there.  Then all these dream sequences, everything will be over.  You will be woken up.  You will realize what the truth is.  That is how the higher consciousness can help you. 

Same Questioner:   Okay, I’ll work on it. 

Question:   Pranaams, Babaji.  Babaji, on today’s topic of creation and how vast the imagination is and how it all happened, my conclusion is, that’s why I’m asking Babaji about it, is if we apply consciousness, then the imagination starts increasing on the thoughts and visions we have.  So, for instance, when somebody built a telescope and started looking on the further objects, that’s when the reality or the imagination of external planets and space and universe started becoming more strong.  So, if the consciousness is not applied, then our imaginative world is also reduced?

Babaji Maharaj:   At least in your mind, it gets reduced for now.  Until you reach the samadhi and nirvikalpa samadhi, this is what it is.  Whatever is bothering your mind, that gets reduced when you don’t apply that one.  So, that way, you have peace.  Outside world, let it be in its own way.  You don’t have to bother to handle it just now.  Whatever is possible within your reach, you try to handle, the rest leave it to the nature, like that.  But you can attend to the stress that is happening in your mind by practicing meditation and quietening the mind.  Then you achieve peace within you.  Outside situation is same, but you will not lose your peace, then you will be more mature and you will be able to handle the situation better.  That is what is the benefit you will get. 

Same Questioner:   So, Babaji, in Your mind, when there is complete silence, but still the appearance of this world is strong? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Appearance of the world is there.  It is not strong.  It’s like a vague dream, simply.  It doesn’t register in my mind.  It becomes strong when it registers in the mind; that registration doesn’t happen.  I keep telling, just like you write on a white paper and instantly it gets erased.  So, it doesn’t stay.  Simply because of the brain, the memory is there.  If somebody reminds me, I can remember, but I remain unaffected by any such things. 

Same Questioner:   Okay, so Babaji, just last conclusion.  That means even after nirvikalpa samadhi, the appearance of this whole universe and galaxies, a yogi doesn’t pay attention, but it just is there?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, you see as long as this body is there, because the consciousness, a little bit of consciousness is still stuck to the brain.  That is the sattvic ego, my Master.  So, because of that, in these eyes, this will be visible.  Until this body itself doesn’t go, it will be there. But finally, one day when time comes, this body will go, and everything disappears. 

Same Questioner:   Got it.  Thank You, Babaji. 

Question:   Namaste Babaji.  So, when You said that when the brain dies, we still carry our acquired habits, when we use the word vasanas, does that mean acquired habits?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes, exactly. 

Same Questioner:   And in meditation, are we working on our vasanas itself to get rid of our vasanas, then become one with the Self?  Is that so?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes.  For vasanas only I use the terminology of ‘acquired habits of the mind’. 

Same Questioner:   OK, yes.  Thank You.      

End of Questions and Answers

Babaji Maharaj now concludes:

   Okay.  Wonderful.  Some very wonderful questions came.  Thanks to Zen for taking up this beautiful topic, whatever was my opinion based on my experience, whatever my Guru taught me, and I wish you all the best.

End of Session