Recorded on 18 April 2025 with worldwide participants

Discourse: In Quest of Truth – online Q&A no.225
How Can We Change Ourselves?
You tube Link: https://youtu.be/O7hHOdxT5K4   
Recorded: 18 April 2025

Start of Questions and Answers

Question:   Babaji has mentioned that great people are those who can see their own faults and remedy themselves.  Could Babaji talk about this and why is it so difficult to see our own faults and put in efforts to change ourselves?

Babaji Maharaj:   Ego is such a stronghold sitting in any mind about ‘me and mine,’ so that always tends to think that “I am right.”  Thus, whatever we think in our mind, humans, we would have a tendency to justify our actions, our thinking, and keep going.  Thus, we hardly notice our own mistake, that there is something wrong.  Like whenever we come across some calamities, some unhappiness, we try to find somebody else as the reason, whether it is God, Guru or anybody else, this world; “what is that?”  Like that, we try to find this reason.  People seldom would think that “I might be wrong somewhere, I may need to remedy myself, properly correct.”  So, this thing that is why probably Swamiji always used to tell, “Those who can find their own faults can become great people.”  Finding one’s own faults helps us that we rectify ourselves and we become disciplined, determined, change ourselves.  If we are determined, we can change. 

I have seen both in my life of fifty years in this Ashram; rich people, high-status people, so many type of people, they did not want to change themselves.  In spite of years of meditation, people remained the same.  I used to wonder, because my experience is totally different.  If your mind becomes purified, you change, your attitude changes, your thinking changes.  You become more humble and the ego disappears.  The moment we realize the all-pervadedness of the Ultimate Truth, and we are just a micro speck, if at all we exist – that which we would discover, as that also we do not exist at all.  Like a droplet realizing in front of the ocean that “I am just a droplet in the ocean.” 

So, like that, if one can realize, if one can purify their mind, their thinking can get matured.  Otherwise, they tend to think in the same way, very narrow-mindedly, their likes and dislikes also, limited to a particular area, a particular identity, a particular thing; for hundreds of things like this these people become egoistic, but don’t want to change themselves.  They become stubborn also.  They feel if they change themselves, they may lose hold on themselves; many people misunderstand this, and they don’t want to lose that comfort in the life.  So, that’s why they don’t want to change also.  So, they don’t want to put in efforts.  Thus, they will simply with a casual approach also for meditation, sit down and just get up and years pass by.  The mind never gets purified.  When they behave, they behave in a very selfish way, narrow-minded way, they are unable to see a larger cause.  So, this is what really happens to our observation. 

But if one wants to change, determined, it is possible to change. We realize there was something wrong in us.  We realize our mistake.  So, then we change, we don’t repeat such things, we don’t have to.  Because there is another thing, life is one of the best teachers.  Every moment there will be something for you to learn if only we are ready to learn, about failures, about unsuccessfulness, about success, about happiness, unhappiness, anything that happens, our surroundings, things that are happening, other people that are behaving; from everything we can learn. “We should not behave like this.  One day, if we become a Guru, we should try not to behave like this, at least.  We should be more careful.”  Of course, we agree, we cannot please the whole world, impossible.  Even great saints like Purandaradasa says, “O Lord, how easy to praise You.  You are so sweet and innocent.  You simply love devotion from us.  That if we love You and You get so pleased, but it looks impossible to please these human beings.”  Like that He sings in a song.  So, this is general opinions that we observe. 

Question:   Babaji, if we don’t see change in our own character even though we are practicing sadhana, does that mean we’re not serious enough in the sadhana?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, right, technical methods are not being adopted.  Either our inner layers of the mind have not understood what we are supposed to do, that we have to become quiet.  See, the things go like this.  In the instructions of meditation, “Concentrate your mind and sight in between eyebrows and just keep watching there.”  We need to understand this point.  When we are watching means we should not be thinking, then only we will be able to thoroughly watch, successfully achieve hundred percent watching.  That’s what I have time and again told, mind has both capacities.  It can watch, it can think.  Usually it will watch, it will think, it will be thinking, it will be watching; a little bit watching, a little bit thinking.  Like if you want to read a book, you will be thinking and then reading the book, thinking.  But if you totally observe to just reading, that penetrates your inner layers of the mind. 

So, that is what is needed.  When the Guru is giving instructions, when the Guru is answering the question, when the Guru is giving teachings, your apt attention – then it can penetrate the inner layers of your mind, then it can understand.  This understanding that one day, “O, it’s me who has become a chatterbox and me who has to become quiet, me who has to practice remaining quiet.  It is me, unnecessarily thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking and worrying, thinking and worrying.”  And we go on telling, “I am stressed out, I am not good, I am this, I am depressed.”  We want sympathies from people.  Just for that sake, we keep doing this “stressed out, stressed out.”  But it is very simple to overcome the stress.  We should feel ashamed to tell that we are stressed out.  Why should we be stressed?  This world is not going to eat us up.  It is we who are going into a head-on collision with the world.  We don’t want to be touched from our comforts.  If anything else happens, then we are troubled.  Then we try to curse God, we try to hold the Guru responsible, we try to do this and that, but we fail to realize it is our own mistake.  That we are not doing enough sadhana.  We are not adopting the right technical methods that the Guru has issued, instructed, commanded. 

That’s what Swamiji used to tell, “Every day, I initiate people into meditation and give instructions what they are supposed to do.  If only they consider it as a command from the commander that a soldier considers.”  A soldier is trained in discipline, no questioning, mind must not question.  If a command is given, that’s executed; that’s how it is trained in the army.  That’s important.  Otherwise, if people become rebellious, then they won’t learn.  If people are stubborn, then they won’t learn.  Hundred thousand times I might try to help any such people so that they can rectify their mistakes and they can develop themselves.  They can blossom into a better personality.  But if they refuse, you cannot.  See, a doctor can prescribe the medicine.  He can advise how to take the medicine.  But if the patient doesn’t cooperate, the patient is stubborn, doesn’t want to take the medicine, doesn’t want to cooperate.  Simply, for sake of formality goes to doctor, brings the prescription and doesn’t follow.  So, then the illness doesn’t go. 

That’s how the mental illness of human beings is.  The mental illness can be hundreds and thousands of varieties.  A person is stubborn.  If they become stubborn not to rectify their own mistakes, they are gone.  They will be condemned to remain in that status only.  They will never become developed person.  They will never be matured.  They will keep behaving in the same way what they have learned, what we call it as a masala.  They use the same masala to behave in this world also.  Thus, they lose their reputation often.  Any such thing can happen for anybody.  I’m just talking for educational purposes only.  Not for any particular person or group of people that I talk.  But for educational purpose, general observations when we get to see the society, surroundings. 

See, twenty-five years I’ve been teaching, I’m talking to people, I’m advising, and since five, six years we are using this Zoom to answer questions.  Same type of questions, these type of topics, many times it would have come.  Now the data shows that 140 people are still participating in this question and answer.  There were 150 plus for meditation.  Some would have left for various reasons, 140 are still here.  So, we only hope that all the 140 are paying apt attention when I answer your question.  Because when I am answering a question, not just answering you, it is a teaching for everybody who wants to listen to me, who want to consider me as a teacher; it is a teaching for all of them.  These topics are meant for everyone, for anybody.  Even in the recordings also, afterwards whoever gets to see on YouTube or Facebook or anywhere, it is meant for them also.  They all have to study.  And they have to adopt to themselves, “O, this wrong thing is there in me.  This wrong habit is there in me.  I need to correct.  I want to become a better matured personality.  It is shame that I am in this status.  This is a wrong thing.” 

Like that if any individual can realise their fault and is ready to rectify the fault.  But often people become stubborn and try to use the tantrums and other things.  Don’t want to listen even to the Master at all.  So, then we are helpless.  Like Sri Krishna told Balarama, His brother.  Balarama tells “Krishna, You helped the entire Indian subcontinent.  You helped Pandavas so much to gain the kingdom and rule.  And you taught Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna.  Why don’t You help our own kith and kin who are fighting, who have become alcoholists and womanizers.  They are killing each other.”  Krishna says, “Brother, it is their prarabdha, their destiny.  Because they never took me seriously for my teachings.  They never considered me like a Guru.  They took me very lightly.  They were stubborn in their own habits.”  This is known as the swabhaava.  Swabhaava means one’s own habits that one develops, becomes habitual into that one.  So, that becomes that person’s attitude or temperament, whatever it is, any terminology you want to use.  And they don’t change.  “Like this, these people also never changed.  So, brother, before our own bodies are claimed by death…”  See, that is inevitable for anybody whether it’s a yogi, god personality or any ordinary person, the body will be taken away by death, consumed by death.  “So, before death shall claim our own bodies, it is time for us to retire.  Go for meditation deeply.  Just remain in ourselves, settle in ourselves.” 

So, that had such a wonderful impact on me when I read this in a book – “My God.  Sri Krishna, we worship Him as God and He wanted to do sadhana in the fag end of His life, also wanted to go and remain absorbed in solitude.”  That’s when Sri Krishna says, “Solitude is a boon.  Those who like solitude, it’s a boon.  But those who feel loneliness, it is a curse on them.”  Because loneliness happens when the mind is extrovert.  They are attracted to outside world.  Even in spirituality also, even after starting to go to a Master also, go to a place of worship, to temple, to ashram, to monastery anywhere, the mind can go around the world outside.  They look into such activities only for time-pass.  They cannot go introvert.  They cannot understand the depth of spiritual truths that we want to teach.  So, they will remain there only, they get affected emotionally.  So, all these things keep happening to them.  They don’t learn. 

So, that’s what happened to Sri Krishna’s kith and kin.  That’s what Sri Krishna said, “They never considered me.  They never took my teachings.”  That means, a teacher is ready to teach.  If the student is not ready to absorb, it’s not teacher’s fault.  I have done my duty.  I have always told, twenty-five years I have done my duty.  As long as the body is there, I will continue my duty to teach.  And remembering our teacher in the primary school, he used to tell, “I don’t know whether you will all learn or not, you will listen to me or not.  My practice will be intact by trying to teach you all.  So, I will do that one as a duty.”  I cannot forget even now after seventy years, those childhood things that we got from our teachers, one, one word.  It was like an upanishad, beautiful impact that created. 

So, we need to practice.  We need to adopt such techniques.  We need to learn; that yearning for learning, then one can change themselves, himself or herself or whoever.  It is not difficult to change.  If you want to change yourself, it is not at all difficult.  A Guru like me is with you, like a father, like a grandfather, to tell you, to teach you, to counsel you, to listen to your problems always.  But if you don’t listen… That’s why an old saying is there, “Don’t tell lies to a lawyer, to a doctor and to the Guru.”  Means, if you admit your weakness to the Guru, then the Guru can give counseling properly, give you the right teaching, “If you do like this, you will blossom in your life.  You will become more mature.  You will achieve more peace.  You will achieve Supreme Peace.  You can achieve God.  Instead of wasting time being extrovert in the mind, you try to be introvert.  If you are introvert, a solitude, you will never miss anything.  You will never feel any loneliness at all.  There will never be any stress or loss of peace.  You don’t have to cry at all, anytime.”  But if you have not learned the spiritual truths, adopted properly, you will be stressed out, you will be missing something, you can go into a depression. 

That’s because your mind is extrovert.  You want to do the extrovert things only, not really going into spirituality, but just try it to be as if you are a spiritual person.  You go to a monastery, you go to the Guru, you sit with.  But it’s only for a time-pass.  This happened for hundreds and millions.  That’s why Krishna said “Only one in millions feel inspired and only one in millions treads the path.”  And then they get distracted on the way again.  The thing doesn’t end.  Simply by feeling inspired to go on spiritual path, simply getting initiated by the Guru or simply going into a monastery, the thing doesn’t end; that’s when the journey begins actually.  Fifty years ago, we left home and came to monastery, our Guru’s Ashram, abode – that’s when my journey began.  To understand, to observe, to learn, to change myself, to remain flexible, to change quickly to the situation and never feel…  So, that result is, I never felt unhappy, whatever the situation was.  There was no definition that “This is comfort, this is not comfort,” nothing.  Everything was comfort for me because one thing that sustained me was Guru, Swamiji, my Guru, the love to Him.  In everything He is there, it is His abode, I am doing service to Him.  I am only a caretaker even today, for His Ashram.  I don’t have any ashram in this world.  My Guru‘s Ashram, I am there.  I cannot sustain in my own ashram.  I love to be in my Guru‘s Ashram.  Even in my native village, also it is my Guru‘s Ashram.  My Guru is the presiding deity there. 

So, like that, if we adopt, it’s so easy to change ourselves.  Why can’t we change?  It’s not at all a difficult thing, it’s not an uphill task.  You don’t have to break the mountains.  Simply your own habits you change, which will benefit you.  When there is an illness, doctors always advise, “Change your lifestyle, you have to be like this, you have to be like this.”  The Guru also tells, “Change your lifestyle, you have to be like this.”  Live in this world, be happy any way of life that you have adopted, you be a householder, you do business, anything, no problem.  But adopt these methods, change yourself, become more matured.  So many people think they have computer brains and they try to cheat the Guru also.  The Guru keeps quiet.  These are Swamiji’s words.  The Guru doesn’t tell anything, but the Guru watches.  The Guru observes.  Everything He knows, what is happening.  He tries to tell them, He tries to teach them.  So, that is the thing. 

Question:   Babaji, does this yearning come to everybody, eventually?  Babaji had that yearning from a young age, but as Babaji says, “One in millions even start to tread on this path itself,” but will there come a time for everybody?

Babaji Maharaj:   One important thing, often human beings want to remain tranquilized.  They don’t want to see the truth around.  So, they keep on postponing; they are scared, they are afraid to see what the truth is.  That one truth is, when this body is there, we are in this body, this is a once in a life cycle golden opportunity.  Anything that we have to achieve, it is in this body.  When this body goes, if we have not yet achieved, we will lose control again.  So, whatever habits that we absorb into our mind, that will only either sustain or belittle ourselves, positive or negative thinking, this, that.  So, that is what happens really.  That is what is needed.  We have to see the realities, ground realities, what is it there.  We couldn’t forget.  Okay, I agree; everybody need not be thinking so much like us about death and birth, no need.  You don’t have to become a yogi or a saint, we went very deeply, that is different thing.  But however, a little bit of reality, a certain thing – we have to stand on our feet; we have to learn everything.  We should know what to do.  We should not be depending on somebody else all the time.  If we depend on somebody else, we will lose. 

That’s what is the spirituality teaching.  For our happiness, we must not depend on this universe forever.  Because it is impermanent, including our own physical body, it is impermanent.  If this realization occurs for a person, then he would like to seriously think “It is time, I have to do this one.”  But yet, the illusion is so strong – their mind can get attracted again.  They are determined – like the old saying is that the alcoholist every day in the morning, he takes a strong vow, “Today, definitely I will not drink.”  But the moment he sees the bottle and sees the company of such people, he is gone.  He gets involved, he gets sucked into it, he gets carried away, he becomes emotional.  This world is like that.  We become emotional, which is not necessary.  Any emotion should be our strength.  We become emotional towards Divine, God.  We become emotional about our own Self-Realization. 

Living in this world is necessary.  And that is also a challenge.  See, what a big challenge is there.  We have to earn our livelihood, we have to live in this world.  When we are living, we have to attend 100,000 problems, emotional problems, this problem, that problem.  We have to face.  Instead of running away, we have to face the challenges, try to overcome whatever is possible.  Finally, train ourselves that we don’t take anything into the mind so seriously that our aatman, our mind, we as the mind does not get affected eventually.  If we become affected, we are gone.  We keep crying and we are stressed out, we are missing something.  So, this is what happens.  So, that’s how taking the challenge, we need to correct ourselves.  We need to train ourselves; every day is a challenge in this world.  Instead of going into a head-on collision, we become more mature to face the situation.  If a certain situation is troubling us, we should rise above that level. 

Question:   So, Babaji, in life, when all these tests come, a difficult situation or difficult people, whatever it may be, how do we overcome all such things, Babaji?  Do we need acceptance?

Babaji Maharaj:   First thing, we need to have courage to face the challenge, face it, put an effort to overcome any trouble, anything.  Never give up your efforts.  Sadhana is necessary.  Then when the result comes, acceptance.  Because the result is beyond our hands, we cannot do anything when it comes.  So, we put an effort to keep the body healthier, but when it loses its health due to aging process or anything, we accept it.  Anything like that in this world, anything; that’s what is needed.  Then only we will have peace of mind.  If you keep brooding, then that will force us to go into a crying mode, stress mode.  Like we use flight modes in our internet things.  Like that we go into a feverish mode, crying mode, stressful mode, all these things keep happening.  Instead of that, if we are intact, if you are mature, at all times we are at peace.  There’s nothing that should be disturbing us. 

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  Babaji’s already answered so many things already.  So, instead of trying to change this world, we should concentrate on ourselves.  Is that necessary, Baba?

Babaji Maharaj:   First it is important to change ourselves instead of blaming the whole world.  We may be able to influence some in this world.  We may not be able to influence everybody in this world.  Some people may listen to us, they may change themselves and they may become good and they may become spiritual, they may blossom, their personalities become mature.  Everybody may not listen, because in this entire world, no one concept is acceptable to all sections of the people.  Whether it is God or spirituality, anything, the happiness, the way of happiness also to everybody will not be acceptable.  We tell, if your mind becomes quiet, then you derive the real peace, real happiness; enjoyment comes.  When you try to get a materialistic thing, temporarily you derive happiness.  That’s because at that time, momentarily your mind stops on that, but that will not be permanent.  Because that thing itself is not permanent.  This is what we have to realize. 

So, this thing, everybody may not accept.  People will go after a worldly materialistic thing “This is giving me happiness, becoming an emperor, becoming a president.  I will do anything I want to become the president.”  So, they will go like that.  They won’t listen to us.  A saint, a yogi‘s teachings will be different.  Moderately we teach in today’s world.  We don’t teach that you have to retire.  You live in the world.  You be a president, you be a businessman, be in a job, anything, no problem, be a householder.  But if you adopt this method, one-hour of meditation, practical meditation, understanding the right technique that you have to just watch.  While watching, don’t bother for any experience.  Don’t bother, “This is happening.  This is happening;” you want to know, you want to get endorsed.  Forget about it.  Just watch.  Go on watching, watching, watching until you get a thorough peace, until you can experience the quietening of your mind; your mind has stopped becoming a chatterbox, it has stopped thinking, and effortlessly it is able to stay like that.  That’s when it settles to itself.  Don’t bother about Self-Realization or knowledge or wisdom or anything.  Just look after that mentally you become quiet effortlessly.  Then you are there.  At least this thing if you practice. 

So, that is important, to understand the right technique is important.  Then you practice.  Very quickly it can come, Self-Realization can come.  Then your attention will automatically go to the consciousness of existence that I keep talking.  Amongst the millions of thoughts, there is one thing that is the consciousness of your existence, which is not an imagination.  It is a reality.  That is where you experience that you exist.  Only in this duality, you can experience your eternal existence.  When the merger happens, you go beyond that.  Because there is no relative existence.  All duality ends.  So, thus, you experience about your eternal existence.  That is how the sages determined the Self is eternal.  So, like that, you practice. 

Question:   Babaji, when a yogi becomes Self-Realized, even if they don’t come out into the world to teach, are they changing the world in some way through that Self-Realization?  Or is it separate to the world?

Babaji Maharaj:   One thing, at least they are not bothering the world.  That is important.  Because Swamiji used to tell, “If you cannot help the world, at least don’t bother.”  This is the first thing.  Other thing, when they are connected to the Ultimate Truth, Divinity, their prayers, those vibrations definitely spread in all directions, that which will be beneficial.  It gives such vibrations to anybody.  So, this can happen if a person is Self-Realized. Even when He is sitting absorbed in the Self, that itself… His vibrations will be flowing.  It will help spiritual people, devotional people.  Definitely it will help.  That will sustain the world and universe. 

Question:   I am still seeking happiness through my job, my relationships and through money.  There is a growing understanding that there is no lasting joy in any of these things.  Yet the thought of letting go of these things makes me angry and fearful.  Can You suggest how I can change myself and my approach towards looking at these things?

Babaji Maharaj:   Reason and think out; when you are looking for happiness in these things and when you don’t get, it is giving rise to your anger and disappointment.  When anger and disappointment happens, you are the first casualty, your mind.  Your mind is nothing but you, your own energy, conscious energy.  So, it is almost like trying to commit suicide, which is not necessary.  Simply accept it.  “It is okay, if it happens, happens if it doesn’t happen, it is okay.”  Is somebody going to cut my head? You don’t have to die.  Nobody will cut your head.  Means, you will gain that inner strength for acceptance and face the challenge.  So, like that you reason out and continue the practice of meditation all this time that I explained the technique; adopting the right technique and just to watch during meditation is important.  Don’t bother what you get, what you don’t get.  You keep trying whatever you want to get.  That is no problem.  I have told, having a desire itself is no problem.  But if that desire can make you disappointed and stressed out, then that is not worth it.  So, that is when you need acceptance.  So, practice and think like this wisely, then you will be able to overcome. 

Question:    Namaste Gurudev, how to get rid of bad negative, ugly, repetitive thoughts and the guilt trip thereafter? 

Babaji Maharaj:   See, apart from practicing meditation by understanding the right technique, other times also try to think positively.  Just by worrying, you cannot help either you or anybody else.  Your own mind is becoming a casualty unnecessarily.  That thinking gets converted into worrying unnecessary.  That mind needs to be either kept quiet, or if it is not possible to keep quiet, divert its attention positively.  Listen to devotional music.  Chant any name of God continuously.  Practice in such a way that your mind becomes so busily absorbed in chanting the name of God that it cannot worry anymore.  It cannot feel guilty at all.  There is no time for the mind to feel guilty, because it is busy chanting the name of God.  Do like that one.  Then you will be able to overcome these guilt feelings and negative thoughts.  You will have more peace and happiness.

Question:   Thank You Babaji.  Sometimes we travel to different places.  The energy of those places may be positive or negative.  How to protect ourselves from the negative energy during meditation at unknown or different places? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Strongly have faith that the Divine is everywhere, all-pervading.  Your mind, if it becomes more positive, you will be able to experience the positive energy that is all-pervaded also, because it is the Divine.  So, if your mind becomes negative, it gets connected to the negativity of the energy.  So, you protect yourself.  You need to become positive first, and then practice meditation, then you will be alright. 

Question:   Thank You.  Some say knowledge alone leads to Self-Realization.  Others say each of the paths of bhakti yoga, karma yoga or gnana yoga leads to Self-Realization.  Still others say that Self-Realization can only be achieved through a combination of all the paths of yoga.  Babaji, which view is correct? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Any one method that appeals to you, you exercise your choice.  But then you have to adopt that technical method.  Like for example, bhakti yoga does not take it granted that simply if you worship God with some flowers or do some aarathi with a camphor and try to chant some things… but mentally, how much you can remain absorbed in the remembrance of your Divine deity, whichever is loving for you.  While you are active in this world, how much you can engage yourself mentally towards the Divinity is more important.  Like, example I have always given; for Mirabai, Mira never existed in Her consciousness, only Sri Krishna existed.  So, when you can take your consciousness to that level, that is bhakti yoga.  

Karma yoga happens, like you put in effort to achieve anything, your action is no problem.  But when the result comes, accept it.  Don’t feel guilty at all.  Simply accept it.  Your mind recedes, then eventually it will go to yoga.  Mind has to become quiet and merge with the Self.  That is Self-Realization.  Simply by reading a book, you get motivated, inspired; that is necessary, very helpful, but that is not a complete knowledge.  It’s like trying to measure the space with a measuring tape; you will realize the vastness and all-pervadedness of the space, that you cannot measure it in with a measuring tape.  That realization occurs.  That is the beautiful knowledge.  And then you have to become space itself if you want to know what the space is.  Once you become space, there is nothing to know.  This is also something like that. 

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  If one experiences somehow expanding beyond body and the body dissolving, should one still try to focus between the eyebrows?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, the focusing in between eyebrows will bring the mind into its infinity, slowly.  Because when you are watching, you are not doing anything, and you are not watching anything of the extrovert.  That is how the instructions are given, just to watch in between eyebrows.  But what you are supposed to watch is not told at all.  When taking the help of the eyes, which are the strongest sensory organ, your mind becomes more and more concentrated, it regains its infinite form of pure consciousness.  So, that’s when it will go beyond the body towards the Self eventually as you are able to do more and more meditation. 

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  Is the state of samadhi and deep sleep the same?

Babaji Maharaj:   In deep sleep, still the mind is not yet purified totally.  Only when it gets totally purified it will merge with the Self.  Until then, in deep sleep when the brain has gone into such a deep sleep, the mind is simply kicked off its reflections temporarily.  The moment the brain comes into activation, the mind is sucked back into it and it jumps again.  So, thus, deep sleep is only a clue for Self-Realization, but not the actual Self-Realization.  In Self-Realization, mind becomes totally purified.  It gives up all its habits of thoughts and visions, drops all ideas.  It becomes totally quiet.  Then it gets detached and slowly goes into samadhi and merges with the Self.  That is what, samadhi and deep sleep have a little bit of difference.  Deep sleep can be a little bit clue, glimpse of what the samadhi can be. 

Question:   Namaste, Babaji.  The question, how can we change ourselves? So, it raises the question, is the goal to become a better person?  So, if we’re not a person, if this is not about personhood, is there an error in thinking “I want to be a better person,” or what is a benefit of even entertaining this idea of how can I change myself?  Is that another ego game?

Babaji Maharaj:   No, you see, here, changing yourself is actually so that you can realize your real Self, what you are, that which you have forgotten now, you are not aware.  You are aware of yourself only as the physical body.  That is the final goal.  For that reason.  Like if you change yourself means, if your mind is totally preoccupied with thoughts, thinking and visions, then you should give up and change yourself.  That is the idea; it is only a common thing to change yourself, means.  For what purpose, what thing you have to change, is one’s own choice.  Like as a person, as long as you are alive in this world also, you can always better yourself.  You can always become a more mature person, more considerate to others and having a larger cause always, you overcome the selfishness, narrow-mindedness.  Like that, that will be beneficial in this world also. 

But when you change means, if you become stubborn, you don’t want to change means, you don’t want to meditate.  You don’t want to overcome the thoughts and the mind that is preoccupied with the thoughts and visions, then it will not take you anywhere.  So, that is the reason we are discussing this ‘changing yourself’.  If one wants to change, why is it not possible? That is that question. 

Same Questioner:   Thank You. 

Question:   Hello, Babaji.  Thank You for all the amazing advice.  You said how it is easy to change, but I have… in the West we call it a condition called ADHD.  Attention deficit disorder.  I’m so much better than what I was because of meditation, but when I have a challenging situation, for example, if someone attacks me aggressively in an argument, then it kicks in and my mind – I know it’s my mind and the condition in my mind – it goes like that.  And it wants to argue back in a logical and analytical way, and then I come away and feel angry with myself because I’ve let myself down instead of being Zen.  Someone said to me, “Just be Zen, let it flow like that.”  It’s frustrating for me.  I can laugh in a way, but when I’m in a situation, I’m so angry with myself when I come away because I’ve let myself down.  Do You have advice?

Babaji Maharaj:   You know, if you think the brain has some medical condition because of which this thing happened, a medical expert only can help and advise.  Otherwise, however, in my opinion you strongly meditate; when the mind becomes strong and focused and gives up all its imaginations, then that can definitely be helpful for you to determine what you want to do to defend yourself whenever it is necessary.  You will become strong.  These things can be helpful.  To a certain extent, it will definitely change you and be helpful.  And in addition, if needed, you can always take medical advice.  It’s no problem.  Thus, you can overcome eventually. 

Same Questioner:   Thank You. 

Question:   Namaskaar Babaji.  I’m having trouble achieving some of my desired goals about the ideal person I want to be.  So, this makes me feel demoralized, that  I should give up.  I was meditating earlier in the year for one hour, three weeks.  But during some of the sessions, I would get distracted twenty to thirty times during the session.  So, is there any connection between getting distracted so frequently?  Why I feel my mind doesn’t shut up at the end of my attempted meditation session?  And why I feel I’m not making progress on the type of ideal character I want to have?

Babaji Maharaj:   Instead of thinking negatively that you are helpless, that you are distracted, this thing happening, think positively that you can do it and you need to put an effort again.  Think that old saying, “The first failure is the beginning of success.”  If you fail, no problem, we will try again.  Assure yourself positively that you can do it.  We were all taught, trying till the last breath of life is worthy.  At least the day when you die when you become old, you will have satisfaction, “I tried throughout my life.  It may be helpful in the next life.”  Like that be positive, you will be able to do it. 

Same Questioner:   Thank You.

Question:   Pranaam Babaji.  Can we meditate on the floor?  It is said like electric current passes through your body, electric current passes through the floor?  Can we meditate bare on the floor or not?

Babaji Maharaj:   You can meditate.  If you are strongly, if you can hold on to the mental concentration, anywhere, anyway, you can meditate.  Simply you take care that worms or ants don’t bite you.  That’s why you just take a threshold and sit down;  that is advised always.  Otherwise, sitting on the ground and meditating is no problem.  You can. 

Same Questioner:   Medicines can’t help criminals.  So, can spirituality and meditation help criminals change?

Babaji Maharaj:   If they want to learn meditation, if they can learn, if they can understand, realize their mistakes that can be very helpful for anybody.  They can change themselves, it will be possible.

End of Session