Recorded on 13 June 2026 with worldwide participants

0:00 Intro
0:31 How can this mind be the consciousness as it seems to be just a mixture of thoughts?
10:06 If mind is always in the duality, how can the mind be the Self?
15:31 Are thoughts the by-product of the mind?
16:26 How do we stop getting fooled by the reflections of the brain?
22:40 If you can use the brain’s capacity with the help of our conscious energy, anyone can be a champion or a genius?
24:45 The brain can take us away from the truth and also take us towards the truth.
31:35 How does Babaji identify Himself? How does Babaji’s mind operate?
34:54 Is Babaji’s mind ever in duality?
35:20 How does Babaji see god?
37:46 When the mind is silent, it is in the Divinity, when it is in duality it is in confusion.
39:29 Just watching and becoming silent in meditation
42:10 If the Atman is just a witness, where do I get my answer from?
44:09 In day to day life, when you don’t know what actions to take, where do you get the guidance?
45:03 In meditation you become better only through practice
46:12 What is the anchor when you concentrate in between the eyebrows in meditation?
47:07 What is the difference between awareness and consciousness?
47:40 In between the soul, Atma and supersoul, paramatma – the bridge is consciousness?
48:44 How to make sure the physical body does not go into sleep mode during meditation?
50:56 What is Tapas?
51:28 Can we reach Tapas by doing 1 hour of meditation?
51:47 When somebody abuses us, where does the abuse go?
53:03 When you sat for 6 hours meditation before your Tapas, did you split the sessions or sit continuously?
54:24 How to approach Jangama Dhyana in a devotional way?
56:27 How to deal with the experience of losing a loved one?
58:46 Is praying to Babaji mentally the same as messaging Babaji?
59:29 How does the ‘I’ turn its attention towards the source of it?
1:01:03 In meditation one day if I am able to quieten my mind, does the subtle body disappear, but you are left with the gross body?
1:02:12 I have been unable to surrender myself to any deity or guru – should I try to find the right guru or will the right guru find me?

Discourse: In Quest of Truth – online Q&A no.281
Freedom from False Identification
YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz-0k1cno7U&t=10s   
Recorded: 13 June 2026

Start of Questions and Answers

Mata Ambaji:   Thank You, Baba, for giving me today’s opportunity.  Today’s topic is the ‘False identification of yourself.’

Babaji Maharaj:   Wonderful, Ambaji.  I look forward to your questions always.  And thank you for helping me to hold this session from your side.  I can take your questions now.  I’m ready.

Mata Ambaji:   Baba, I want to start from a very basic question.  The basic question is that when You talk about the Self, generally when we read in the scriptures, we read that first is the gross body, which is like this sthula sharira, and then there is the subtle body, which is suksham sharira, and the causal body.  So, all three ultimately when You talk, You say they are just mind, mind and mind’s imagination.  So, Baba, when you say ‘mind’, in my understanding, mind is nothing but just a mixture of my thoughts.  It’s like constant thoughts going in my head, calls, or identification of different things, different objects, living, non-living, everything around me, I identify my mind.  When I think about them, I identify those things as their existence or my existence.  So, how do You say, Baba, means I don’t understand sometimes that this mind, how can it be the consciousness then?

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, now, important, thought itself is not the mind, and when the thoughts disappear, not that the mind disappears.  You must understand, everybody, whoever is listening and the generations, thoughts and visions are in the mind.  Then, what is that mind?  That’s what I keep talking.  Even, I tell everybody, all of you know that you have a mind.  But just now you recognize your mind only based on thoughts and visions, but you also tell, “My mind wants to do this, my mind wants to go there.”  If thoughts and visions go, what is that mind itself?  That mind going back then one step behind is the pure consciousness and energy combination.  That is the next terminology I have used to make it more clear.  If the thoughts and visions are there, that screen is known as mind.  ‘Screen’ I’m only using for sake of understanding; it’s not just a screen.  In the mind thoughts have appeared. 

So, when thoughts and visions disappear, same thing we will not call it ‘mind’ anymore, instead we will call it ‘pure consciousness’.  Also, it has the energy.  Now, the pure consciousness is like the thought of ‘I,’ ‘I am.’  This ‘I,’ I would like to tell, is an individual imagined self, which actually does not exist as the Self.  It’s only a droplet of the ocean, a micro speck of the Ultimate Truth.  So then, further the seeker goes on doing sadhana after achieving the silence from thoughts and visions; he has to achieve more silence to make this ‘I’ also disappear.  Then that terminology of consciousness and energy both disappear.  It goes towards the Self.  So, that is how, in a simple language, I have tried to explain.  Then, Self; Self has no definition, no appearance, no disappearance.  It is like it is there and it is not there.  There is no relative existence when you go to Self, means you yourself merge there. 

As there is no relative existence, only in relativity now we can tell that one single Self exists.  That is the Self.  But when you merge with the Self, there is nothing that you have to say.  You are not even aware of yourself, but you are there.  You would have gone so deeply merged with the Self.  So that is how I have tried to explain that the mind is nothing but you actually, while trying to tell people, seekers, meditators, “Know that this mind is you.”  You tell, “My mind wants to go there, I want to go there.”  Actually, there is no difference in these two things.  Simply, I want to go there, mind wants to go there.  Mind is not a separate entity from you which wants to go there itself.  Only in the thought an illusion happens as if you are going there.  This body goes there, but the mind doesn’t go anywhere.  So, these are the basic things that one needs to understand.  I have tried to use simple terminologies which people can understand whichever is in front of them. 

   Like, to begin, mind is like a screen.  On the screen of the mind, thoughts and visions appear.  So, mind registers and thinks.  With the help of the brain, a thing is decodified and it appears as a thought process or a visual effect.  But the thought and visual effect itself is not the Self or mind.  It is in the mind.  Just like, even Vedas talk, this universe is also nothing but the form of the Divinity, Ultimate Truth.  But this form itself is not the Ultimate Truth at all.  Because beyond this form it is there, space is there.  That means is the space not that Divinity?   If the Divinity is all pervaded, everything has to be.  So, this universe is in the Ultimate Truth.  When you are able to reach a higher stage, when this universe disappears, then you merge with that Ultimate Truth.  Before the merger, you are able to experience that Ultimate Truth as the omnipresent, all-pervaded Supreme Consciousness, which is eternal.  All these things you experience just before the merger.  Once merger happens, Self-realization, all experiences drop, all ideas drop, all terminologies drop, the ‘I’ also has gone.  So, that’s why either consciousness of existence, or the individual imagined self is what I have used beyond the mind as the pure consciousness and energy. 

   Like I have also told, in your meditation when you just go on watching, slowly your mind stops thinking when you achieve total watching; as the mind stops thinking, all thoughts and visions drop, means they all dissolve into the mind.  Then what remains, at that time we won’t call it as mind.  Once the thoughts or visions are dropped, for the same thing we call consciousness and energy combination.  Or in other words, I have told, ‘consciousness of existence’.  Also, I have told like this, you go on meditating, just watch, just watch, just watch, don’t think.  One day when you clear all the thoughts and visions, then you will see this consciousness of existence is there.  You become aware of that and that you cannot make disappear because that is you yourself.  But just now you would have imagined as an individual self, you would have the imagination of so many subtle bodies and causal bodies, all these things.  There is nothing actually.  All these are illusions simply.  We call it different things, kaarana sharia, sthula sharira, because this gross body is a part of this universal dream.  We are inside the dream, that’s why we cannot make out that this is a dream.  This appears to be real.  So thus, we call this as a gross body, whereas this is also an imagined body.  But just now nobody can demonstrate or understand.  That’s why a teacher doesn’t go much deeper into this thing.  Simply tells, “First deal with the world that is in your mind.”  Don’t bother about the outside universe.  Let it be there.  We don’t even have to argue whether it exists or not exists.  That is afterwards, when you reach a higher stage.  When you are in the lower school of learning, just now you have to learn that you have to stop thoughts and visions that are in the mind.  That is the first standard lesson that you have to practice.  When you reach that pure consciousness state, then you would be able to understand further if I explain more elaborately at that time.

Mata Ambaji:   Yes, Baba.  You just said that the mind, it is an imagined self.  The existence of the physical body also is because it has imagined.  But actually that imagination identifies with this ‘I am.’  That ‘I am,’ how do You say?  Is that ‘I am’ a thought, or that ‘I am’ is, as You say, a pure awareness?  Because ‘I’ also is an imagined identification and that identification is with everything around ‘I am’ and everything ‘I am’ belongs to.  So, You just said that there is an imagination of the Self.  Mind  is imagined of the Self.  So, mind is always in the duality.  So, how can imagination, how can mind be the Self?

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, here, body you have imagined as the ‘I’ first, because the consciousness has shifted to the body.  And you would have assumed a name, a status..  All these assumptions of name, status, etc.  are the things that form as subtle bodies.  Unknown to you, within you it forms.  But you are thinking this gross body as yourself.  That is what slowly as you meditate and slowly get rid of the thoughts and visions, your preoccupation with the thoughts and visions, preoccupation of analyzing and making judgments, then you will be able to reach that real consciousness of existence.  That is what other saints like great Ramana Maharishi has told us, “Who am I?”  The same thing I talk as ‘consciousness of existence,’ Ramana Maharishi said, “Observe from where the ‘I’ is coming,” right?  So, it is thus the same thing.  Different terminologies.  So, thus mind has purified itself and it has become that ‘I’ now.  Then very soon you will realize that ‘I’ also is really not the ‘I.’  So, that also disappears after.  As you go on doing sadhana, as the mind gets absorbed into that consciousness of existence, that idea of the ‘I’ also drops, the individuality drops at all. 

   So thus, that is how you asked the mind as the Self, you see?  Finally, just now the mind has come out of the Self only in illusion.  It is actually in the Self, but it has hypnotized itself as if it has come out.  Thus, it has forgotten itself as the Self and whatever it is imagining, it considers that as the truth.  So, everybody, whatever comes in their mind, they start thinking that as the truth, as a good, as a bad, as a friend, as a foe, whatever they think; they think because “My mind says this is the truth.”  “This man is very bad.  He is my enemy.  He is trying to harm me.”  Like that we start imagining.  All this stopping and going back to that consciousness of existence, slowly by then you would have realized, “O, mind is nothing but this.”  Now, from this it has to go further after dropping the idea of the ‘I’ for the Self.  Means you have to become more quiet, actually.  You don’t have to go anywhere.  The merger means you have to become further.  That is where the tapas happens. 

Means tapas burns all habits, acquired habits once for all where it will never absorb again, absorb.  No imprints are absorbed, nothing is registered.  It is totally aware that it has to remain quiet.  Thus, it proceeds.  That is when it merges with the actual Self, comes into picture.  All these are there only, but yet it doesn’t appear.  Because we have imagined, only that thing appears.  So thus, in illusion only.  Finally, that is why I try to tell mind is nothing but you, it is your conscious energy.  Like this I start with to begin with.  Further we can understand more and more as a student progresses in meditation in quietening the mind.  In silencing the mind when they are successful, they will be able to understand more, further.  Otherwise, the mind’s thoughts will not allow them to understand.  They might misunderstand, “How can Baba tell mind as the Self?  Mind is different.”  Just now it appears to be different, definitely.  But it is not totally gone out of Self at all.  It is connected to the Self.  Simply we have to become more quiet, so that this illusion is overcome and the merger happens; it gets absorbed, in other words.

Mata Ambaji:   So, Babaji, You always use this word ‘mind’, and mind is nothing but you as the Self.  So, when You say that consciousness of the awareness, You always use this word also, the ‘consciousness of awareness;’ that chetana which gives one this awareness that you exist.  Is that which You always refer to as the mind and the consciousness awareness the same, and the thoughts are the by-product of the mind?

Babaji Maharaj:   Thoughts are the by-product of the mind, yes.  But thoughts themselves are not the mind.  Mind was holding the thoughts; when mind gave up the thought, mind has become pure consciousness and from there only consciousness of existence is arising.  The ‘I’ is coming out.

Mata Ambaji:   With that Babaji, You said that consciousness of awareness comes when the mind is pure and without any thoughts.  So, You always tell us that brain can be your best friend and can be your worst enemy.  And you always tell us that this brain with the collision of the mind produces different thoughts and mind takes those thoughts, identifies those thoughts and makes a judgment.  And that judgment, we take it as a fundamental truth for every individual being, take it as a fundamental truth of that person’s truth.  And truth cannot be identified by the mind because truth exists in itself; it doesn’t get recognized by the mind.  So how Baba, how You explain further about this, that how we stop taking the reflections of the brain and getting into this whirlpool and fooling ourselves?

Babaji Maharaj:   What first we need to understand, this brain is definitely an amazing computer type of biological organ, or you can call it even AI, artificial intelligence that nowadays we get to hear all over the world.  But this AI, this brain is useful to the mind only to give a consciousness of this universe.  As in this body to be able to live in this world.  More than that, this brain cannot help us to go back to the Self, because mind has to become quiet.  For the mind to become quiet, it has to stop getting applied onto the brain.  That is what happens when we ask you, “Just watch in between eyebrows.”  ‘Just watch’ means you don’t get entangled with the brain or its reflections.  As it becomes quiet and quiet, brain’s activation also gets reduced very much.  It doesn’t reflect.  Otherwise, whenever it reflects as a thought process or a visual effect, vision, that the mind takes in good faith and registers in itself as a fundamental reality.  That is the problem.  Then that ignorance happens.  We take it as “This is the thing.”  So, that becomes the acquired habit.  So, imprints are absorbed; that becomes the attitude of the mind also.  Whereas there is nothing actually.  Mind has absorbed whatever the brain reflected. 

It should know, mind needs to know, “This is an amazing organ, definitely, brain, but I can use this only for the world, to deal with the world, to live in this world.  More than that, this brain cannot be helpful to me because it will always create a blockage to me by creating a thought or a vision.”  When the thought and vision is there, this mind which is actually the ‘I,’ which is the consciousness of existence, is unable to be aware of itself.  It becomes entangled with the thought and vision.  Based on thought and vision, it builds up a new world in itself like that, uncontrollably when it goes, life after life.  These thoughts can cause the next birth, assuming the next body.  In my opinion, actually, this can be the causal body, these thoughts and visions, which gives the mind an effect of existence of a world.  So, then this is the kaarana sharira actually for us to understand.  Otherwise, what happens if a Guru talks only the scriptural terminology, people will listen, but they won’t be able to grasp what is it that this Guru is mentioning about causal body, from where is this happening. 

See, because of the thoughts and visions that are in the mind, a next birth happens.  The birth happens only for the body, but yet the consciousness also in illusion experiences as if it was born.  You know, Maharishi Ramana also told only it is the body which is born and which dies; the Self is never born.  Yet it experiences as if it was born, as if it was going to die, as if it was ill, it was suffering.  Thus, in the mind it goes on suffering. 

So, all these things, effects happen.  To stop this only, first achieving the silence of the mind is essential.  To experience that truth; that whatever the brain reflects is its own imagination.  Means that is all it can.  It cannot advise you what to do with that thought.  It reflects a thought.  It shows.  Like a thermometer shows there is fever.  Further the thermometer doesn’t advise what you need, to take a paracetamol or you need to see a doctor, it won’t advise further.  It will simply tell there is fever.  Like that the brain also shows a thought, shows a vision, whatever it is able to grasp from the world.  Further it won’t advise, it won’t alert you also, “Careful, don’t get involved too much with these thoughts and visions, you will forget your real Self.”  Like that the brain never advises.  See?

Mata Ambaji:   Brain is an amazing object, and scientists are studying for so many years that brain has the capacity.  If a brain’s capacity of a hundred percent can be used and the genius of the genius get produced.  Because the human brain is an amazing mechanism.  It’s one of the most, I think, greatest thing in the human body.  And through this brain, we were able to have the discovery and we can sit and talk onto this Zoom class while You are on one floor and I’m on another.  In the same ashram, we are on two different floors, but we still see each other.  So, here my question is, I understand the brain is an amazing object, but to use the brain’s capacity, not to get carried away by illusory thoughts, instead, if we meditate and we can use the brain’s capacity to its hundred percent. 

So, what I’m trying to ask is instead of wasting brain’s energy and identifying so many things around us which have no meaning; this kind of gossip and kind of unnecessary things which doesn’t produce any benefit in our life – instead of that, if we use our brain’s capacity with the help of this conscious energy, anyone can be a champion or a genius.

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes, definitely.  In this world can be a champion.  But the same brain, one thing where it can be helpful, when we apply it, it can also tell this universe is impermanent; through that, wisdom comes. 

Mata Ambaji:   Baba, with this brain only, in our spiritual world also, the spirituality also says that with the help of the brain, with the intellect, a jnani understands the nature of the Self.  First, it comes into the intellect.  And through the intellect, it further realizes, that anubhav, first the buddhi understands the nature of the Self.  And then mumukshu, goes onto the path and puts an effort and realizes the Self and becomes Buddha.  So, my point is brain is equally important and brain is equally required.  But at the same time, the constant chattering of the mind, if that is controlled and unnecessary identification around us about the past, about the future; we are all the time entangled into the past and the future.  If mind learns to remain into the focus into the present with the help of the brain, it can produce amazing results even onto the path of the spiritual your life.  Am I understanding?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, right.  I’ll come to that point now where I tell the brain can be good friend or a worst enemy as also you said.  Also, brain can be a wonderful servant but a very bad master.  Now if we apply the brain, then the same brain can give us the wisdom, ‘viveka’, crest jewel of discrimination, that what we see as the world or universe is impermanent, including this physical body.  That was how in ancient times sages, that “Neti neti,” “This cannot be the truth, this cannot be the truth.”  So, simply this brain itself cannot be the truth, and this mind also cannot be the truth because it gives only imaginations.  It doesn’t give us anything.  Like that they went ahead, “What can be behind?”  They went behind, behind, purified the mind.  Then they went to the pure consciousness.  Then they said, “This also seems to be limited, but how can a limited thing be absolute, cannot be?  So, we have to cross this barrier also, this imagination of the ‘I’ also.”  Means they went on observing further.  That’s when the tapas came. 

When they did the tapas, the ‘I’ thought disappeared, individual imagination, self disappeared and the merger started happening.  That’s what they called it as samadhi.  Samadhi for the consciousness happened.  There is no other, no awareness, no thought, nothing to know, because relative existence is gone.  Like the witness or the witnessed, seer or the seen, all disappear.  That’s when can happen.  So, like this, if we utilize the services of the brain, in this world also it can be very helpful.  We don’t simply believe what it says.  We make it work for us and tell us what is what.  Now, once we understand this is impermanent, then not necessary that we have to give up the world and run away anywhere.  It is not possible.  We have to live in the world.  But now we are very well aware, whatever is happening, it is acceptable.  Whatever is in my capacity, I will work it out definitely.  If anything goes beyond my capacity, it’s fine, no problem.  I won’t go into a head-on collision.  ‘Niyati’ [nature]. 

Sri Krishna tells, “Certain things we have to leave it to the niyati, Balarama.  This is the prarabdha of the Yadavas.  Because I tried, but they wouldn’t listen to me.  They never considered me a Guru.  Now it is time, our own bodies will go away if we keep waiting like this, like this.  We have to go.”  Like that.  So, we live in this world, do everything, finally accept.  When it’s beyond our capacity, when it’s not happening, leave it to the nature.  It will take its own turn.  If needed, hundreds of such yogis will also come, or simply no yogis will come.  It plays; the nature goes on playing.  When it wants to produce, a yogi comes.  Suddenly a weaver’s boy becomes a yogi and we also didn’t know anything about it, about the truth.  But this truth is coming.  This is the Divine’s grace, that Ultimate Truth’s grace.  Like this it can produce hundreds of yogis, any number of yogis, it can teach, it can give liberation to everyone.  Like this the wisdom will be coming.  It won’t simply disappear.  Just like in this creation, whenever it started, like that the wisdom will come.  So, we don’t have to worry too much about a particular religion or religious beliefs or this thing, that thing only.  The truth will always be there and it will come up in some form or other.  Then the exercises that we perform, we try to name it and then we try to grab over that. 

   See, a yogi is there.  A yogi is there and a yogi establishes an ashram thinking that “Let people, others also come, meditate here, learn the truth.”  But once the yogi goes, whoever is wise, they meditate and get into the yoga.  Others will start fighting for the property control or the throne control.  Like this, example I am telling, for educational purpose.  I am not accusing anybody, I am not directing towards any groups or any such thing, just for an example.  Like this it happens.  See, a person going for the property, which is actually an ashram – like it is the pure consciousness, but it becomes mind.  It is an ashram, but it becomes property.  Fun, you see?  Funny, same thing.

Mata Ambaji:   How you identify…

Babaji Maharaj:   How you identify.  And the property creates greed, ashram gives you peace.

Mata Ambaji:   Yes.  It’s again, same identification, how you identify the things around you.  Baba, how do You identify yourself?  Because as long as the body is there, You physically are there, You have your relative things also around you.  Like suppose; very, very close, just now very close is a computer.  So, You relate also things, You relate with Your disciples, with Your devotees.  So, what is the activity of the mind in Your consciousness?  How does the mind operate?  Is it still a mind or it’s just a pure consciousness?  Whenever it needs, it identifies and then it goes back to the Self?

Babaji Maharaj:   Because it simply goes back to the Self, if at all it operates a little bit only, it tries to give the truth when the students are ready, when they are ready to take this truth and this question and answer, when they are able to, it gives.  But no further thoughts, it won’t get involved into another thought, another thought like that, it won’t go, it will settle back to the Self.  After the job is done, it is in the Self.  Only the Self is there.  No identification.  It is silent, ever silent is there.  Quietly, whatever I am talking, but the inside is the ever silent one for a yogi.  It doesn’t picturize, doesn’t consider anything as a truth.  All identification has been dropped, everything.  We direct, we direct students giving a clue, how to proceed towards that truth.  Quieten the mind first, silence the mind first.  That one has to understand.  If the first step itself people fail, they won’t progress further.  They will be holding on to the ego. 

Swamiji, my Guru used to tell, “You see, Seenu, on one side the Guru is there, another side their own ego.  They keep holding on to the ego.  That’s why they give up the Guru, and they don’t realize that they have given up the Guru.  Simply the body is sitting in front of them.  They can be gossiping with me.  It’s a different thing, but in the mind they have given up the Guru.  They are holding only the ego.”  This sentence Swamiji explained to me once.  Amazing truth.  At that time if we can give up the ego and hold on to the Guru, not simply to the physical body; it’s the Guru who we want. 

  In the beginning years of my tapas, I had told once, if you remember, to you all, I had a vision, one side Swamiji was sitting, another side all the properties, ashrams He had established.  He said, “Whatever you want, you take.”  Suddenly my wisdom came, “I want Swamiji,” because that was what from the beginning, not the ashram, not the property that I have to take.  But it’s another thing, destiny has made me to remain in the ashram, look after the ashram is a different thing.  But that is how you pick up the Guru and Guru‘s teachings, then go for the teachings, then you are able to achieve that same Truth to yourself.

Mata Ambaji:   So Baba, is Your mind ever in duality? You say that the mind goes back.

Babaji Maharaj:   No.  It doesn’t happen, no, it is fully convinced that no duality is there at all.  And it doesn’t go into a dual thing that “I am witnessing and there is a thing that I have to witness.”  There is no such imagination there at all.

Mata Ambaji:

Baba, how do You see God?  As an all-pervading thing, or You still identify with the different deities, different forms and pray to them in Your mind? Or it’s just like a vague kind of an image, but you know that the Self as the Divinity exists all the time, everywhere?   Means I want to convince myself that there is no imagination left…

Babaji Maharaj:   Important high-level question you have asked, all of you have to pay attention.  Do not try to misunderstand.  Precisely, in fact, there is no such idea of God at all, because the duality and separation is not there.  But for this world’s mannerisms, to teach the students of the beginners, all of them, you might see me doing an abhishekam on an idol, you might see me singing the name of the God…  We all came up through the bhakti marga definitely.  So, for that I have tried to explain, for others also; God is not a personality who is sitting in the space.  It’s simply an all-pervadedness.  What it is further, nobody knows.  Nobody knows really.  Anybody might try to give…  Like Ramakrishna said, “First son went on talking Vedanta, Vedanta, Vedanta.  He told, “You don’t know anything, my son.”  The second one came; he remained silent.  Then he said, “You know a little bit.””  So, like that, you cannot say what it is.  It’s all gone.  There is no such idea there.  All ideas have been dropped.  But yet, to inspire others, to give clue to the students, we do certain exercises; like a Guru is Guru, a disciple is disciple.  That is the worldly manners, we have to behave properly.  This idol has to behave as a disciple with another idol, like that.  But there is no such imagination there.

Mata Ambaji:   Yes.  So, Baba, here You said that silence is the biggest worship.  You just said when mind is silent, it’s into the Divinity.  When the mind is in the duality, it’s in confusion.

Babaji Maharaj:   Exactly.  That is the clue I have always told.  Know that even if you go to a place of worship or anywhere, whenever your mind can become silent, it goes to its Divinity only.  It has no third way.  If it imagines, it stays away.  If it stops imagining, it automatically goes to its Ultimate Truth.  Thus, when it is total silence always, the consciousness is silent, it is with its Divine, means it is one with It.  So, there is no identity of the relative ‘I’ at all.  So, there is no identifying a God at all as a separate entity.  And there is nobody else to claim that “I am God.”  If any separation is there, then I will claim, “O, I am God who has come.”  There is no other separation at all, no other entity at all.  So, to whom will I shout that “I am God, I am God?”  Only to the walls.  Nothing.  So, this is all funny things, actually.  It has no sense really if we go through the knowledge and wisdom.  That was what the Rig Vedic era sages gave that beautiful Truth.  Yoga Vasistha, Ashtavakra Samhita, all these things, the same experience in our consciousness also.

Mata Ambaji:   So, Baba, my last question is that You just very beautifully said that for each and every individual God is a different concept.  And that concept means the world goes crazy onto that.  Everybody thinks that the God exists in their own box.  Baba, when You said that this God for You exists in the total silence… and here is my last question, because You always say, “Watch, watch, watch in between eyebrows and keep the mind silent.”  You always say that the watching is the ultimate.  When you watch, the thinking automatically decreases.  When single pointedly you watch a statue, a deity, when a single pointed watch happens, automatically the eyeballs settle and the mind also comes to a point when it doesn’t go into the thinking. 

So, I understand that concept very well because it’s so beautiful.  I myself sometimes do this, just watch at the wall.  And the constant gazing at the wall, for a few seconds the mind stops and mind stops thinking.  So, it can be a deity or it can be just a wall, and you feel that you just exist.  And that is a beautiful feeling.  And that’s the feeling of, again, it’s just a feeling of existence, just existing.  So, am I understanding it correctly, Babaji?

Babaji Maharaj:   Exactly.  You just watch, become silent and you are in yourself and all ideas drops.  That is the Ultimate.

Mata Ambaji:   Even the glimpse of that few seconds of just in the existence, it’s just mesmerizing.  It just gives so much of joy.

Babaji Maharaj:   To make it permanent you practice, that is what is known as sadhana.

Mata Ambaji:   Yes, Baba.  So, when You say that Your mind is in that silence, so that means You are in just all the time in the Self?

Babaji Maharaj:   That is all.

Mata Ambaji:   That is all.

Babaji Maharaj:   There is nothing to claim in that.

Mata Ambaji:   Nothing to claim, yes.  Thank You, Babaji.  It was a very, very lovely question and answer, beautiful session.

Babaji Maharaj:   Thank you.  You gave some opportunity for me to express the inexplicable thing.

Question:   Namaste, Babaji.  You were saying that the thoughts in the mind, you just identify them.  But it doesn’t give you the solution; if you check the thermometer, it shows you your temperature, but it is not a paracetamol or whatever that will reduce the headache.  I understand that.  But who is it who is answering?  I mean, if I have a problem and instead of going here and there and asking for a solution and I sit in my meditation… And I was just thinking that the aatman is unreactive, right?  It is just a witness, and that is your true nature.  It is silence.  So where do I get my answer from?  Is it from the mind?  Because the mind also doesn’t think.

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, in between the pure consciousness of existence, that creates a problem for itself, then it answers for itself.  It is from there, a little before the merger, from that is where the imagination is coming.  If that imagination is allowed to grow, then it becomes mind.  So that is where it is happening.  Whereas either of them are not you.  But you are imagining, “I am having a problem and I am getting an answer.”  Both are imaginations.

Same Questioner:   That’s why I really can’t wrap around that. 

Babaji Maharaj:   So, for a while, do not bother about it.  Simply keep going.  The more you bother, you create more puzzle for yourself.

Same Questioner:   No, but in day-to-day life, there are decisions to be made, and you don’t know which action to take.  Then you go inside, and you silence the mind.

Babaji Maharaj:   For that what we teach is, like if you meditate more, when the mind is more composed, at peace, it is more focused – then it is able to apply the wisdom and get proper decisions and accept it also.  This will be possible.  That is all.  Further conclusively nothing can be said.  Nobody knows actually where it is coming, what is happening.  This definitely when you focus and make your mind more composed, then you can get better answers also.  You will be able to take better decisions.

Same Questioner:   The other point that Ambaji was making about the brain and utilizing it to its hundred percent capacity, but always when there is a champion at anything, they’ve already done the practice.  So different people are at different stages of skill sets, depending on their practice.  Like meditation also, you become better at it only through practice.

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, you see, a practice is needed for anything.  Due to habitual practice, mind has gone out of control.  You have to practice to make it one single pointed.  That is how the practice has to happen for anything.  You become a champion only when you practice.  Without a practice, nobody is a champion.

Same Questioner:   Right, so I don’t know what is meant by full development of the brain to its fullest capacity. 

Babaji Maharaj:   Impossible.

Same Questioner:   The other question I had is, when we say that you’re concentrating in the middle of the eyebrows, what is the anchoring there?

Babaji Maharaj:   No anchor is given.  So, actually the mind is trying to watch itself.

Same Questioner:   So, when we are watching in the center, the seeing turns inward and you’re looking at the place from where the seeing is taking place?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes, this is what has to happen, actually.  In the beginning you think that you are watching through eyes, then you start realizing the awareness comes only when the mind is able to watch.  This mind, if it becomes quiet, then it turns introverted.  That’s what is known as watching itself.  You become aware of yourself eventually.

Same Questioner:   So, what is the difference between awareness and consciousness?  Is there any difference?

Babaji Maharaj:   Consciousness is the existence; You become aware that you are that consciousness.

Same Questioner:   So, there’s a slight difference.  We cannot use it interchangeably.

Babaji Maharaj:   Exactly.

Same Questioner:   I would reserve awareness for the aatman and consciousness is for all-pervadingness.

Babaji Maharaj:   Okay, fine.

Same Questioner:   I don’t know.  I’m trying to figure it out.

Question:   Thank You very much, Babaji, and thank you, Ambaji, for your questions.  I really like this session.  My question, I’m trying to, after watching this session, my question is basically soul, which is aatma, and super soul, which is Paramatma.  And in between, the bridge is the consciousness.  I have a two-fold question, so is that correct?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes, for a while; that is what will take you back to the actual Self, that is Paramatma what you are talking.  Simply I try to avoid those ‘Paramatma, this, that’ – stick to one ‘mind, consciousness and the Self’.  So, what you are talking also is right, it’s the same bridge.  So, you find this consciousness, means the mind becomes purified as consciousness, then it starts merging with the Paramatma.  Then the identity of jivatma, Paramatma all disappears.

Same Questioner:   Okay, so in the same question, so basically if your brain is a physical layer, your mind and thought is the logical layer.  It’s just the thoughts which are coming, and the brain is processing it in our body, which is a physical layer.  And consciousness is basically like soul, which is watching these thoughts and all.  And when we do meditation, we have to just watch it and automatically the thoughts will disappear.  So, brain will stop functioning and the thoughts will also disappear and you will be in the conscious state. 

Now, your physical body also goes into the sleep mode, you know, like you duck or sometimes you go into that sleep mode.  And that’s basically physical layer.  So how do I tell my physical layer that you should not get into the sleep mode, we have to be in the conscious mode.  How do we do that?

Babaji Maharaj:   That’s necessary because if it goes to sleep mode means the brain has gone into sleep.  The brain needs to be alert.  Then keeping the brain alert only, you can purify your mind.  The acquired habits can be purified when the brain is also alert there.  So, a little bit of touch with the brain will be there.  And in the same way which the brain reflected and the mind registers, so thus it became involved into the thoughts, making it acquired habits; it is there.  To remove that, brain is required because all the thoughts are always in a symptomatic way in the mind.  That needs to be decodified as a thought and vision before it disappears.  That’s what is the garbage is being thrown out.  For that the brain’s help is needed, so brain needs to be alert.  So, you must avoid going into a sleepy mode.  If necessary, you can wash your face and sit down again.  See that you don’t disappear, you don’t become unconscious.  That is important.

Same Questioner:   And adding to that, meditation is the state which will take us to the consciousness.  And what is tapas?

Babaji Maharaj:   Further; to make this consciousness also, identity, what you have identified as the ‘I,’ disappear and merge with what you wanted to call as the super soul, or Paramatma.  It merges there.  For merging there you need tapas.  Tapas is it burns all acquired habits once for all.  It won’t absorb anything again.

Same Questioner:   So, can we reach tapas by doing one hour meditation or we have to do long sessions?

Babaji Maharaj:   If you can achieve one hour of remaining quiet, then also you can achieve a lot, definitely.

Same Questioner:   Thank You, Babaji.  Thank You very much.  You really opened my lots of thoughts.  Thank You.

Question:   Thank You, Baba.  Very happy to see You.  Actually, I’m speaking on behalf of my mother.  I have three questions, Baba.  I’ll be quick.  So, my mother has an abusive relationship with my father, like he will abuse her and all.  So, now, she wanted me to ask You this, that when somebody abuses us, where will that abuse go and sit because there is no physical place as such, right?  So, where will the abuse exactly go sit?

Babaji Maharaj:   It will go into sufferer’s mind if they simply suffer unnecessarily.  So, they should not take this.  Only meditation can remove.  So, that mind can become a casualty.  The mind absorbs that “I was abused.  My husband abused.”  Such thoughts will be absorbed by the mind.  It will sit in the subconscious state; on and off it can be troubling.  That is how it happens.  To remove that, meditation is the best remedy.

Same Questioner:   Okay, Baba.  So, Baba, second question is, I wanted to ask You this question since long.  So, You mentioned that before Your tapas, the five-year period, You used to work in the Ashram and also You used to do six hours of meditation each day.  So, did you split the sessions, Baba, or did You continuously sit for six hours?  Because in my practice also, if I advance a little bit more, I start with one hour, I want to split like Baba.  So, is splitting also considered tapas or did You do sit for six hours continuously?

Babaji Maharaj:   Sitting quietly, mentally, mentally when you are able to remain quiet, that is how the tapas.  Like that I could sit for six hours because from childhood I was very less exposed to the world.  I stayed in the Ashram, so nothing much was in the mind; it was quite simple for me to keep it quiet and keep observing only, not thinking.  So, there was not much ego.  We had surrendered to the Master, Guru.  Whatever He wanted me to work, we were working.  So, when the time was available, I could sit for six hours at that time, quietly.  That’s how the tapas picked up eventually.

Same Questioner:   Thank You, Baba.  Last question.  So, Baba, for me, to be honest with You, I was not meditating properly for quite some time due to many different issues.  Mainly because in my mind, sometimes, I feel like I need a deity or something.  But then again, I go to some deity.  My mind goes like a deity is all fine, but when you go around the world and environment, you don’t see any such deity who is really appearing in front of you.  So, God must be like formless.  So, how to approach the Jangama dhyana in a devotional way?  Watching between the eyebrows, can that spot we can look at it devotionally?  That also is the doubt.

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, devotionally; see, if you like any deity, become devoted means have faith.  Don’t keep deciding in one second that the deity is not appearing.  For a deity to appear, you have to become totally obsessed with that deity.  All the time the mind is thinking, thinking, then that formation happens.  Otherwise, even if it doesn’t appear also, not necessary.  Simply have a faith, the grace of the deity is on you and just go on meditating, the Jangama dhyana type.  Then you will see that grace also descending and your meditation improves like that one, without doubting – means this is self-confidence.  Doubting means you will be doubting yourself, then you lose that enthusiasm, you lose that grip over meditation.  So having faith, that is what it is.  The Divine deity is within you.  Firmly have that faith, “The deity is within me,” and you just go on doing, it will definitely come.

Same Questioner:   Thank You, Baba.  Hope with Your blessings I will be able to get better and continue my progress.

Babaji Maharaj:   Certainly.  We will pray and bless you.

Question:   Pranaam Babaji.  Babaji, so I’m in Gurgaon and I’m taking my dog to the vet every day and they found spots in his liver.  So it’s like ninety-eight percent chance it is cancer, and it’s like a tumor.  So, I dearly love him, Babaji and it’s been nine years of a very nice deep connection.  So, my question is, I realize soon I may lose somebody that I love.  So, as somebody in the spiritual path, what is the right way to deal with the experience of losing a loved one?  Can Babaji please inspire my wisdom?

Babaji Maharaj:   You must understand, the thing that you have been loving is the soul, actually.  That was in the form of a physical body as a dog which you identified as one of the animals.  You really thought you are loving that dog in that form.  Now that form might go away.  It has to go away one day.  But you must understand the thing that you are loving is the soul and it will not be destroyed.  It will always be there.  So, you pray.  All these years, like you looked after that soul in the form of a dog.  Thus, you served also; you need to have the satisfaction.  Now it is time for that dog’s soul to go further in its journey towards the Divine.  For that to facilitate, you pray, you pray to the Divine to look after that soul in its onward journey.  Instead of crying or feeling sad that you are losing something, you tell that you are praying for that soul and thus you will feel satisfied.  It is like sending on the onward journey, taking leave with due honors to the soul.  You owed something to the soul, it was with you, you looked after.  Now the soul’s time is to go to the next elevated things towards the Divinity.  That is what is going to happen.  Have faith, have confidence in yourself.  You are doing the best thing.  When you pray also, pray to Divine so that that soul is guided towards its Ultimate Truth finally.

Same Questioner:   Babaji, I pray to You.  Thank You so much.  Babaji, I actually have the smallest question related to this.  I just wanted to ask You, so a week ago I thought, if I pray to You mentally to get grace from my dog, is that the same as messaging You?  Or can I mentally get Your grace as well?

Babaji Maharaj:   Mentally also you need to be having the faith and then you will see whatever good for that soul, that will happen always.  That is important.  That’s how the final truth comes.  So, your praying is also the same as messaging also.  For some reason you are unable to message, then you can pray mentally also.  Your faith is what matters. 

Question:   Pranaams Baba.  Babaji, when we think about ‘who am I?’ and when we reach to that watching space and that witnessing space, from there, how does that ‘I’ take its attention towards the source of it?  How does that turning happen?  How can we do that?

Babaji Maharaj:   Just now you observe what you call as the mind is the pure consciousness.  Consciousness means wherever you apply, you become aware of that.  You apply to me when I am answering, you will become aware of what I am trying to convey.  Now, in the same way, if it is silenced, then its attention turns to itself automatically.  It becomes aware of itself automatically.  Just like when you press the accelerator, vehicle moves automatically.  But before that you need to press.  That’s what you are trying to do in meditation, silencing.  Otherwise, it will be preoccupied with its own imagination.  You are trying to stop that imagination and then the awareness automatically turns to itself.  When it has no awareness of any other thoughts there, it all would have disappeared, it becomes aware of itself.  Just like when you are watching the movie, when your awareness to the movie is stopped, then automatically you will become aware that you are sitting and watching a movie.  Like that it will happen.  We will bless. 

Question:   Pranaam Babaji, in today’s session Babaji what I understood is when I am working on my thoughts and vision and one day if I am able to quieten my mind, my sthula sharira is gone but I am still there with my gross body.  Is that the correct understanding?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes, this is what, the mind has to become silent.  When it becomes silent it realizes it is not the gross body.  The gross body is there as a chariot.  It is the inside whatever is the dweller as the consciousness of existence.  That is what the ‘I’ is.  It will realize that thing.  That is the understanding that needs to be; that you are not this physical body, you are that infinite consciousness of existence.

Same Questioner:   So, when the thoughts and the visions go away, the awareness would be that we are the consciousness of existence?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, exactly.

Question:   Namaste Babaji, this is my first session with You.  I am so lucky to have this session.  Thank You so much and giving me this opportunity.  My question is, You also mentioned in the previous answers about deities, and I had been lucky enough to do many courses around for the last ten, fifteen years from different gurus.  The problem with me is that I had been unable to surrender myself to any of the deity or guru till date.  So, should I find a Guru where I should completely surrender or the Guru will find me?

Babaji Maharaj:   You try to find a Guru which would be appealing to you to surrender.  It should come from within you, because nobody can impose it.  For this, if you pray to Divine, then the Divine will grace that the Guru will come to your life also.

Same Questioner:   Even for Divine, I am unable to surrender to any of the particular deity.

Babaji Maharaj:   You just pray, pray to any Divine without considering any one particular form or name or anything, “You are the all pervaded, my Divine.  Please bless me.  Please bless me with such a Guru who would have liberated Himself and who can lead me to liberation.”  Like that, you simply pray.  You don’t have to take any name, form at all.  That will help you, definitely. We will pray for you.

Same Questioner:   Thank You, thank You.

End of Questions and Answers

Babaji Maharaj now concludes:

   Wonderful to be with you all.  Now we’ll go for the aarati.

End of Session