0:00 Intro
0:11 What should we do when emotions come up in meditation?
1:14 When meditating in the morning, what should I do if thoughts about the work I have to do that day start stirring up?
2:29 How to stop continual analysis of thoughts during meditation?
4:36 Why do I feel some pain in the neck when trying to focus in meditation?
6:12 Is meditation like watching an object without thinking about what it is?
8:46 How is this body an illusion?
10:50 If no thoughts are there in meditation, do we still keep watching?
11:58 We teach our children to identify objects and make judgments about the things around us. Have we got this wrong?
13:22 So in order to survive in the world you have to be judgemental?
14:48 How is Babaji able to make judgements after Self-Realization?
16:46 What is the importance of initiation?
19:05 Swamiji appeared regularly throughout Babaji’s Tapas, how did that happen?
22:25 So faith is an important part of the sadhana?
22:50 Do we have to cane our mind in a polite way?
24:13 What do you do if you get lost into a sea of thought in meditation?
25:19 What is the state of a Yogi, once nirvikalpa samadhi is achieved?
29:09 Is space and time an imagination?
32:08 Is it true that the world exists and doesn’t exist at the same time?
33:45 Does the higher potency consciousness work together with the small mind to materialise the world in our next life?
36:19 What happens if you achieve a high level of spiritual practice but don’t achieve complete Self Realization?
39:32 Is this what happened with Lord Rama, that he may have meditated in his past life?
40:26 Do Yogi’s dream after Self-Realization?

Discourse: Thus Spake Babaji – DSM Meditation Retreat 2024
Day 1, Morning Q&A with Babaji Maharaj
Recorded: February 2024 at Shivabalayogi Devarayasamudram Ashram, South India

Start of Questions and Answers

Question:   What should we do when emotions come up in meditation?

Babaji Maharaj:   Just try to hold on to your concentration here, because when you try to meditate, it stirs, stirs up the mind; all it’s subconscious state, everything comes up.  Like visions and thoughts will come – along with that emotions also are likely to arise, it is all brought out.  Then slowly they all will evaporate or dissolve within itself, then you will be able to transcend all emotions eventually; this is what will happen.  You just continue holding on to that one.  Try to see that your vision is here and thus you are able to keep the mind also here.  If the vision is strongly held here, the mind also is able to steadily stay here.  Then all these emotions, every vision, they will all dissolve. 

Question:   When meditating in the morning what should I do if thoughts about the work I have to do that day start stirring up?

Babaji Maharaj:   When you sit for meditation, exclusively keep it for meditation.  Slowly pick up the habit, and in the beginning try to assure yourself, “Now I have to meditate.  Any other work in the world I can attend after meditation.”  Because the work in the world is never ending.  If you think that you will sort out everything of the world and then sit down, that will never happen – one after another keep coming, keep coming, keep coming.  So, you keep attending whatever necessary to that responsibility you have taken, and every day when you sit for meditation, at that time you just have to keep everything aside and, “We can attend to that later – first, meditation.”  Like that you resolve firmly, then try to sit down.  Try to avoid remembering anything that you have to do.  “We can do afterwards, not now” –  like that, and it will go away eventually. 

Question:   How to stop continual analysis of thoughts during meditation?

Babaji Maharaj:   Mind has become habitual since time immemorial to recognize a thing then analyze and then make a judgment.  These three things happen in quick succession, then that gets involved further.  Like one thought gets evaporated and you absorb another thought.  Hen out of the egg, egg out of the hen, you get into the whirlpool.  That is why this watching technology is taught.  Mind has these watching and thinking capabilities.  If you are able to achieve hundred percent just watching then gradually its thinking will slow down and stop eventually.  As its thinking slows down, this analyzation, judgment effect, recognizing a thought, all will disappear.

 Recognizing a thought is the first problem, then it analyzes; it cannot keep quiet.  Then it tries to make a judgment, like “This is good, this is bad”; that is what happens.  There is a thin edge of difference before a thought appears and your mind tries to analyze that one very quickly and you won’t even be able to notice that one.  So that is when you apply some willpower and just watch.  Once it analyzes it gets into a jerk and spins – mind. You just watch, try to watch.  So, this is like a duel battle – you are trying to analyze and you just watch, you try to analyze, you don’t analyze, just watch.  That is what we try to keep telling, “Do not bother; any visions, any thoughts appear, do not bother about it.”  First instance if you do not bother, then the thought loses its power of existence and dissolves.  So, here willpower is important, a practice; it will come one day.

Question:   Why do I feel some pain in the neck when trying to focus in meditation?

Babaji Maharaj:   You might be trying to force it upon, because as I told, eyeballs move parallelly, don’t come into one direction – it is a bit of a difficult job to practice that one.  But you just watch the front portion even if you are unable to locate here.  Because many times when we tell that you have to watch in between eyebrows, people struggle trying to find in-between eyebrows – one goes here, one goes here (pointing to the eyeballs); like that one.

 So, now in the beginning, even if you do not find the central location, just watch here also.  Anywhere that eyeballs are there, keeping the eyes closed watch in a gentle way, politely, no need to force it upon.  Then the nerves all will not get affected – they all get pushed, and that is when that can create a pain anywhere here (pointing to the neck region) – that is what happens.  So, gently you have to watch; this is important.  Be gentle to yourself is what we teach.  It is because the mind is the most infinite thing.  You cannot catch hold in a rush like this.  It takes time.  Skillfully, you have to practice.  The mind itself has to practice.  Slowly you will realize you have to keep quiet, then mind is quiet and there is no difference between you and the mind also. 

Question:   Is meditation like watching an object without thinking about what it is?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, many times I have told, if I was holding a mic. So if I ask you to watch this [holds a towel], just watch this but don’t think what it is and who is holding it, these two things.  Use it to remain focused.  This is an appearance, this is a scene; use it so that you are able to concentrate your eyes. Using the eyeballs, you are able to bring the mind also there -only that purpose. Then the mind gets withdrawn from it also, then this vision will disappear when it happens in the mind also.  So that is why you have to just watch. 

Watch means just watch, don’t analyze, don’t bother.  You have become habitual to analyze, everybody in the world, that is how the entire universe we recognize. Means we recognize and we analyze and we make a judgment – an apple is an apple because we have made a judgment.  As a coincidence, all of us might accept each other and have made a judgment “That is apple,” and that is why it is apple.  In science, in spirituality, nobody knows what the appearance is.  We all have named it, analyzed it, made a judgment, “This is it”, for sake of understanding and communication only.  Otherwise, we cannot hold (making gestures in air imitating an apple to be handed over to someone) like that; nobody will understand.  We have to tell “This is an apple; you have to eat this.”  So, these are all imaginations we have adopted, but what that is?  It is there in the nature, but we don’t know what it is. 

So, like that, that is what the ancient sages told “It is boundless”.  So, here, to go back to the Self, you have to try to pick up that habit of keeping quiet.  That’s what a yogi is said to be, a witness to the universe.  He neither judges anybody as good or a bad, nothing –  He just watches. And then He listens to the question, and answers.  He doesn’t make any judgment “Why this question is asked, why not this question?”  Like that, one day you will also be able to practice. So you just watch.

Question:   How is the body an illusion?

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, sitting within the imagination, it is not easy to understand that this is imagination.  When you are watching a movie, when you would have identified yourself inside the movie, a good or a bad, right or wrong, a panic or anything, everything appears to be happening to you.  As long as the movie is running, it is very difficult to make out or understand that’s only a movie; same way in the dream also.  As long as you are dreaming, it appears so solid and strong, reality; nobody can make out that in the dream “I am dreaming” –  only when you get up from the dream. So that’s what we try, to wake you up.  To wake you up from the dream, first the mind has to stop imagination.  That stopping imagination – in the beginning it is very awful because so many lives have passed by since time immemorial; mind has picked up this habit to keep imagining, keep imagining, keep thinking, keep thinking and thinking and thinking, analyzing, recognizing, making judgments.  That sits as an imprint in the mind.  That’s what we call acquired habits of the mind.  So to remove that, you have to practice just watching, watch in between eyebrows – either eyebrows or just watch.  It’s something like, two people are quarreling, and the father says to the son, “Why do you have to bother, let them keep quarreling, let’s go; we have to go somewhere else.”  Like that, we don’t have anything to do with these things.  That type of thing we have to think and just keep going. 

Question:   If no thoughts are there, do we still keep watching?

Babaji Maharaj:   Just continue ‘just watching’ until you don’t get that point that you are able to just feel yourself without thinking. Because amongst the millions of thoughts that there are in your mind, one thing is consciousness of existence, that you always have a feeling that you exist, but that is not a thought, that is a reality, that is not an imagined one.  So, your attention has to shift to that, so then you become quiet and you are just able to feel that you are there, but you don’t think anything about yourself also or anything also – that is what the ‘watching’ means.  You just become aware; from watching, when it shifts, you just become aware that you are there, but you don’t think even that ‘I am here’ – you don’t think ‘I’. So like that you continue watching. 

Question:   We teach our children to identify objects and make judgements about the things around us.  Have we got this wrong?

Babaji Maharaj:   In this world, that thing is necessary. And when you are teaching the child, it is actually not judgmental, it is picking up a particular type of judgment, because you have taught it and it has judged; that means the child doesn’t know what it is – “That is apple because my madam told me, and it is apple for me.”  So, then when it gets to see others are also calling it as apple, that assumes, “Yes, this is apple.”  Then one day if a person like me comes and tells “This is not apple.  This is Divine”, that child will laugh at me; “This old man is mad.  This is apple because everybody is telling.”  So, that’s what we are trying to tell.  Otherwise, in this world, we have to make a judgment, “This is apple”, but if we practice meditation, you will see one day, from outside I will also call it, “This is an apple,” but my mind will not reverberate.  It is fully aware that it is just an appearance within the Ultimate Truth of Divinity.  So that’s what one can achieve.

Question:   So in order to survive in this world you have to be judgmental?

Babaji Maharaj:   You have to be judgmental in this world. So, here what we are trying to teach – you separate the mental assumption and the worldly judgmental.  You remember that you are simply acting as a madam, but you are actually not a madam, you are aware.  Once the drama is over, you will go back home of what you are really.  So that’s what we are trying to teach.  In this world, judgment is necessary, recognizing is necessary, analyzation is necessary, everything is necessary – “Water in the toilet is different, water in the kitchen is different” as Ramakrishna said.  We will have to analyze and understand, so that is different, but finally if it doesn’t reverberate in the mind, then the mind gets liberated.  Otherwise, mind becomes a slave to that imagination, that assumption, so it holds on; holding that, it goes on being reborn again, again and again, punarapi jananam, punarapi maranam.  So, whatever it holds in the mind, it gets to see the same scenario and because of that it is reborn.  It is unable to attain total liberation.  So, that is the teaching of philosophy. 

Question:   How is Babaji able to make judgements after Self-realization?

Babaji Maharaj:   This might appear to everyone why this is [so].  In fact, I am not making any judgment.  From outside, mechanically in this body, I might appear to be making a judgment. Like when I call “This is a telephone”, so it might appear to you “Why Babaji is calling that as a telephone?”  Because you will understand only if I tell this as a telephone.  If I call it Divine, you will not understand, you will be confused.  So from outside, I am doing a drama so that I can be with you all – sitting with you all, I can teach that truth also, so that’s why I have come down to do this drama.  Otherwise, my drama inside is finished.  So, if I don’t keep this body, also it is done.  I am keeping this body to do this drama, so that slowly doing the drama, I take all of you also out of that drama – you are all tired; enough, this is only a drama.  We need to go out, “We need to go home, Shaolin, it’s enough.”  Enough is enough.  That’s what I’m trying to tell, but you are insisting, “No, we need to do some more drama, we need to do some more drama”, so I also try to do some drama.  That’s all. 

As long as the body is there, I am with you all in the drama. Once the body is gone, you cannot communicate with me, I cannot communicate with you. You cannot ask a question, I cannot answer.  Only through this body it is possible; that is what you understand.  Otherwise, I can communicate, you can also contact.  Only that will be possible only through the mind.  

Question:   What is the importance of initiation?

Babaji Maharaj:   Initiation is important to build up a relationship between a Guru and a disciple, because when the disciple needs to learn from somebody, they need to be serious; ‘you mean business’.  Very often the human mind is likely to become casual and not take things seriously.  That is the reason in spite of knowing the fact about this world or meditation, all of you are not yet Self-realized; simply that you are bit casual.  The day you become totally serious, “I mean business, I have to do this,” so then a Guru takes initiative to put you on to the path, thus He gives a command, “This is what you have to do, and I am telling you.  You do it.”  So, you take it seriously, you consider the Guru as a commander, “From here onwards, You are my commander and I am your soldier. You ask me to do it, I will do it.”  Thus, a relationship builds, then you feel the connection also.  

You might be sitting in America, a Guru’s body might be in India somewhere, but you will always feel the connection, that ringing – “The Guru is asking you to meditate, the Guru is asking you to meditate, I have to meditate.”  You may have some duties, some responsibilities in this world – you will do, but you will remember, “The Guru is asking me to do meditation, soI have to do, sit down.”  Like that, the connection builds up which makes you serious.  That is why initiation is called and it is recommended and the Guru transfers a little bit of powers.  Like a father gives ten dollars to you to do some business, then you have to do business and increase it to hundred dollars, thousand dollars; it’s your skills.  He teaches the skill, how to do that business.  So like that Guru initiates you, gives that skill, “This is the technique”, then you increase that.  So, these are all the points.  

Question:   Swamiji appeared regularly throughout Babaji’s tapas.  How did that happen?

Babaji Maharaj:   He came, and He did it.  How did that happen, what can I say? (Gurudeva laughs).  Well, it could be a lot of previous lives’ connections and my own resolutions. Know that all of you would have resolved in your previous lives that you want to go towards Self-realization, about the Ultimate Truth, and that you need to have a Guru, and thus a Guru has manifested, and is here as a Guru.  A relationship builds up.  So, like that we would have been wanting that one, and from childhood also I picked up that by certain experiences, by listening to Bhaja Govindam song of Adi Shankaracharya, and reading Adi Shankaracharya, Ramana Maharishi and Ramakrishna’s teaching.  Consistently I used to pray, “Please bless me to have such a Guru who would have liberated Himself and who can lead me to liberation.”  Probably these things one day materialized, and it came in such visions and guided me towards… within me got projected, the manifestation happened. 

Like Jangama Sage said, “Your own prarabdha has made me to manifest and You will do it for twelve years.”  Swamiji Himself would have resolved in the previous life; that’s when the Jangama Sage came and made Him to do for twelve years tapas; He wouldn’t allow Him to go away.  Means, another important thing – if you all have read in Bhagavad Gita, it talks, “Atma is the atma‘s friend, atma is the atma‘s enemy.”  Means, you can be your best friend and you can be your worst enemy.  How?  If you are more positive and resolve, keep thinking, keep thinking on the right path, “I need to have Self-realization, I need to have Self-realization, I must have a Guru, I must have proper guidance, I must do the meditation, I must do like that one”, so then it will materialize. More positively you keep thinking, thus you would have become a friend to yourself, because you are thinking in the right direction.  But if you think depressively like many people think; “O, I cannot do any meditation, not for me.  O, Swamiji did and Babaji did.  It’s not for me, it’s not possible”, then you are your worst enemy.  You won’t be able to do it.  All the time you keep thinking negatively and you keep complaining, “I am unable to do it, nothing is coming to me.  I cannot do it, my mind is becoming weak.  I cannot do.”  You expect somebody else to do it, but you are not doing it.  So, that is what can see you through. These types of experiences happen, and then you are connected to the Divinity and it comes as a torch bearer and takes it back to itself. 

Question:   So, faith is an important part of sadhana?

Babaji Maharaj:   Faith is definitely needed, it is recommended, it is a must!  That’s why Swamiji used to tell, “You can lose anything in the world, no problem, but do not lose faith.  The day you lose faith, no God can help you”, He would tell.  That’s very important – don’t lose faith.  

Question:   Do we have to cane our mind in a polite way?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, every one of you have to train your own mind in such a way that it’s disciplined, disciplined.  Sit down, how can you not.  Ancient Gurus would have been more harsh probably.  Like to Ramakrishna, Totapuri Maharaj, He wanted Ramakrishna to sit down and go into nirvikalpa samadhi.  He (Sri Ramakrishna) used to sit down and it was quite easy for Him because He was already doing tapas, but He was doing bhakti marga in the name of Mother Kaali.  He would close up His eyes and then after some time open His eyes. “I am able to withdraw my mind from all sensory organs, but Mother Kaali stands there and She doesn’t go away.  I tell Her to go away, but She doesn’t go away”. Then Totapuri gets annoyed.  He takes a sword and cuts the wooden idol of Mother Kaali.  “Your Mother Kaali is dead.  I have killed Her.  She no more exists, and how come you are unable to concentrate here?  Just watch and don’t do anything else.  No Mother Kaali will come.”  He takes a glass piece and pierces here (Gurudeva pointing to the point in-between eyebrows, bhirkuti), that’s what the story says.  Then Ramakrishna went into nirvikalpa samadhi; He just watched, and everything disappeared.  

Question:   What do you do if you get lost into a sea of thought in meditation?

Babaji Maharaj:   Just try to concentrate.  Don’t keep worrying that twenty minutes went away, wasted, because you will waste another twenty minutes worrying.  So, first thing – “It’s gone, it’s over”, just watch, try to watch. So don’t allow any thoughts to come; “Why the twenty minutes we were only in the sea of thoughts?”  “It’s okay”, watch.  Another thought comes, “It’s okay”, watch.  So, like that you stop worrying about anything that has happened.  Past is over, past is over. So then mind stabilizes slowly, it comes into the present, then it starts giving up.  Earlier it used to be hundred thoughts or hundred million thoughts, then it reduces.  Thoughts will reduce. It reduces.  Finally, one thought and then everything will go away.  Like that.  Don’t bother; whatever happens, don’t bother.   Simply go on watching.  

Question:   What is the state of a yogi once nirvikalpa samadhi is achieved?

Babaji Maharaj:   Nothing happens after that.  Once you have done that, nirvikalpa samadhi comes, it’s there; you are in yourself, mind settles into the Self.  Only one clue, though the question is very wonderful, but you all need to understand – when the mind ‘settles into itself’, means this language is spoken in Yoga Vasishta; while teaching yoga to Sri Rama Vasishta talks, “That truth exists in itself.”  Other terminology, ‘it is all-pervaded’, ‘omnipresent’ – commonly you all would have heard in Indian scriptures and other scriptures also, “It is omnipresent, omnipotent, these things,” but “It exists in itself” is the greatest wonder.  If you apply your wisdom, here in front of you all the matter is there, wall is there, door is there, fans are there, roofing is there, floor is here, carpet is here, people are here all on one side, and the space.  Which one of these has the ability to exist in itself?  Every object including our body, carpet, floor, house, wall, all Earth, everything exists in the space.  So, without space, these could not have existed at all. And this cannot go beyond space also, right?  

Now observe the space.  Space does not need anything else for its existence.  You remove this mic, space is there. You remove this whole building, space is there. You remove the earth and throw it somewhere else, the space is there in itself. You cannot remove.  Try to hold the space and throw it away, anywhere? It will never be possible.  The space is that one Ultimate Truth that exists in itself.  Only difference is, just now in naked eyes when you get to see, you are used to understand this as a void place, but from introvert, going introvert through the mind, you will realize this is the Supreme Consciousness of existence.  That is what one realizes in nirvikalpa samadhi that you asked that question about a yogi – then He remains consciously in that Self only.  Even after coming out of samadhi as a jivan mukta that awareness is there.  For this also Ramana Maharishi has told, “Even if a yogi is gossiping  – gossiping means I need not be talking only on philosophy, I can be talking anything or you can be talking any nonsense to me – but my consciousness does not reverberate or does not come out as a mind and jumps, it is the ever-silent one in the quietness, all the time in supreme peace it is still there.”  So, for now this much you understand is enough.  One day when you advance into it more, when you reduce your talking and try to keep quiet more, then you will be able to understand more. 

Question:   Is space and time an imagination?

Babaji Maharaj:   What we try to tell – space and time is imagination means when you have imagined this as space, the criteria that occurs to your mind is a void place; more than that nothing else comes – that is imagination.  This could be something else, much beyond that; we may not be knowing.  That much at least benefit of doubt needs to be given.  Like the example I tell, zero is absolute and absolute is zero [draws a circle in the air]. When the circle is done, it is never ending.  You go on and go on; there is no beginning, no end for that one.  

So, that is how with this space also; there is no beginning, there is no end and there cannot be any center also, because it is simply all pervaded.  This room is void with space or I can tell ‘This room is filled with space’.  If it is filled it’s absolute, if it is void it is zero.  Simply, the space has the specialty that it has allowed any matter to pass through its surface and exist in its surface.  This is the science, right?

  So, that is what we are trying to tell.  This is much more than what we are thinking, imagination means.  So, the truth will be revealed when you go introvert through the mind.  Because mind itself also is just like space, a void place inside.  As long as thoughts are there – based on thoughts and visions only you all recognize your mind, but none of you would have seen in the naked eyes what the mind itself is; you cannot show to anybody, “This is my mind, this is the color of my mind.”  Nothing, nobody can do that.  Only others will have to believe, “My mind is thinking like this.”  The rest will have to believe that one.  But if all thoughts are removed, what is there?  That is what… the nearest clue is, consciousness and energy combination.  It is energetic, that is why it is able to spin and become creative. Your mind is so creative.  It can create anything that it wants inside; that is because of the presence of energy.  The same thing, ancient sages explained this as Shiva and Shakti concepts.  Shiva is your existence in total thoughtlessness state, nishchestit and energy, Adi Parashakti, the first invisible energetic force that is beyond anybody’s comprehension.

Question:   Is it true that the world exists and doesn’t exist at the same time?

Babaji Maharaj:   Really no conclusive answer.  When you go to nirvikalpa samadhi, means when you reach a higher consciousness which would have created this, when you watch from that, then this dissolves.  Sitting as a human being with your mind, you cannot make this matter dissolve easily, it is not possible.  So, only a higher consciousness can handle a lower thing.  Always in this world also, scientifically, a higher matter can handle the smaller matter – smaller matter cannot handle the higher. One ant cannot handle the elephant, but a million ants, they can drag the elephant when they become one unity, unified energy.  That means that energetic force increases many folds than the elephant’s power and they are able to drag the elephant also; that is the science.  In the same way, this mind, human consciousness presently, if it is of just ten potency, imagine the power of its million thousand potencies.  If this mind can be so creative and achieve so many wonders of creations, inventions and discoveries, yet we all agree that we are not using the brain;  “Very small percentage is used”, that scientists say, right?  So, how can we make judgments about that consciousness?

Question:   Does the higher potency consciousness work together with the small mind to materialize the world in our next life?

Babaji Maharaj:   See, this consciousness is connected to that higher consciousness, so it keeps visualizing.  Now it means you all have picked up certain thinking habits, as it goes on analyzing, judgments, analyzing, judgments.  So, unless you are able to stop before death happens to the body, in the last final times when the brain is dying, then finally brain is dead, that’s when doctors declare, “It is passed away, dead, body is dead”.  But the mind does not die; mind simply gets detached from the brain’s reflections. So at that moment it gets in touch with the higher consciousness for a fraction of a moment, but because imaginations are there in this smaller consciousness, when it touches, that materializes; that assumes next birth, next incarnation and gets to see its own world.  

Like after you were born, you got to see your own world, but you would have forgotten all the previous lives; you don’t remember.  Fifty lives – who were your mothers, who were your wives or husbands or who were all there, if you remember you would have gone mad.  But luckily you don’t remember.  So, like that forgetfulness happens with the death of the brain.  So that consciousness, smaller droplet gets in touch for a while, but again it goes out because of the imaginations that are present.  If that imagination is lost, if you have become a yogi, then when the brain dies, then the mind becomes one with the truth.  This Ultimate, that higher consciousness sucks it into it.  That’s what scientists sometimes talk of black holes and so many things; it’s sucking.  So, this powerful thing sucks, and you become one with that Supreme Consciousness – you exist there peacefully without any other botherations.  Otherwise, you’ll be reincarnating again; that’s what, born again, die again, born again.  Liberation from those effects is what is Self-realization. 

Question:   What happens if you achieve a high level of spiritual practice but don’t achieve complete Self-realization?

Babaji Maharaj:   If you have practiced a lot of spiritual exercises, say you have been practicing meditation but not completely Self-realized, then death happens, you will get a better elevated birth. From small early age itself you will have the inclination for spiritual truths.  Like Adi Shankara himself, as a child when He saw the drama of Nachiketa, He became attracted to that one, that Ultimate Truth and He wanted to become a monk; that’s what it is.  We were also eight, ten-year old when we heard Bhaja Govindam.  The death thought, we became obsessed with that, wanted to know what the truth is.  Buddha also.   Like this one day they became Buddha – from childhood itself the inclination. So we got to see this world, we got exposed to this world very less compared to the present day children or present day youth.  So, that’s why meditation was quite easy for me to stop the mind, quieten the mind.  Once the mind becomes too much exposed with the technological things available… the child is born with the cell phone today.  So, all these things we didn’t know, cell phones and so many things, televisions, telephones, they were all luxuries. We didn’t know much, we were not exposed.  So, we used to chant.

 These chants I did in the morning, I have been chanting since my early childhood, learned from my mother, sitting next to her lap.  Just like that, practice. So that kept our minds non-violent. So, that is the benefit one can get. That’s why in religion these things are also taught. Music, chants; these can be very good therapy for mind control.  So, like that when you are able to do that, you will definitely be better elevated.  Elevated means, now, imagine – to be born to such parents. You are already born before you realize, but your parents are also pious, spiritual and able to impart such knowledge and such habits in you also, that you also become fond of Divinity, God, any chants, any music, you learn all these things, come as a habit, you pick up, and your tendency is also towards spiritual.  Always you want to know what the truth is.  Like as a child I used to think, “Am I born with this body, am I going to become extinct when the body dies?  If at all I am that atman, why is that I am not aware of it now?  If happiness is there it should be there twenty-four hours, twelve months, all the time.  Why the fluctuation?  Is something wrong in me, is something wrong in this world?”  So, this type of inclination comes from childhood.  It may not come for everybody.  If it doesn’t come, they go into a different direction, different path.  By the time they realize, they might be old.  So this is what happens. 

Question:   Is this what happened with Lord Rama that He may have meditated in His past life?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, definitely, that’s my opinion also.  That’s how He was a very ripe soul.  Just by listening to Vashista for seven days, He had achieved the nirvikalpa samadhi.  Means, as Ramakrishna used to talk, “If the firewood is quite dry and ready, a small spark of fire is enough to put fire, but if the firewood is wet totally, you go on putting fire, go on putting fire, it doesn’t catch fire at all.”  Like that if the soul is ripe, simply a little bit of touch that the Master gives, “This is it, this is the truth”… He got it and He understood “It is me who has to become quiet” in those seven days discourse and He became quiet.  He had achieved nirvikalpa samadhi and Self-realization. 

Question:   Do yogis dream after Self-realization?

Babaji Maharaj:   See, the dream happens because of the brain, but the yogi is fully aware during the dream also; He never gets carried away.  Like this dream is happening (Gurudeva pointing to all, His surroundings) because as long as this body is there, through the eyes my consciousness gets to see this, but we never get carried away with this as a reality.  All the time that awareness is there.  Only when the body goes, final videha mukti, then no more dream happens at all like that.  So, the food has to be taken to keep this body alive.  Because of that food, blood supplies the brain, and the brain needs to be active and alive.  Otherwise, I cannot create an awareness to you all, teach.  But then that also creates dreams.  But often those are very simple vague satvik dreams, very beautiful, connected to Divinity, connected to Self-realization, connected to my Guru. But my consciousness is no more mine.  It doesn’t get affected. 

End of Session