2016 March Dehradun

 Question:   Babaji, can you explain what happens when I am saying a mantra? What is going on between my mind and the universe?

Babaji:   When you are saying a mantra, your mind is trying to stick to one thought instead of millions of thoughts. That is what it is trying to do. Mantra is a thought, it’s an imagined thing, an imagination. When you are chanting that is a sound effect, it will be there as a sound effect. So you have to focus on this and then the mind will become powerful and we start thinking the mantra is powerful, but ninety percent of the people they want to do a mantra so that they can possess some sort of power in this world, for that purpose only. But for Realization just go on repeating the mantra, you become one with the mantra, finally only the mantra is there and the ‘I’ is not there at all. Then it merges, that’s what happens. So slowly the mind is becoming single-pointed, it knows only the mantra and nothing else.

   Same questioner:   Is it good then to know the meaning of a mantra or better not?   

Babaji:    No, you can know it. Knowing the meaning of a mantra can be beneficial in inspiring you or motivating you, giving you a thrill of what it is. Other than that, it is not useful for Self Realization. For Self Realization your mind has to simply focus on that. That’s why all the stories of Bhakti Marga are told, like Kanaka Dasa simply chanted ‘Buffalo, Buffalo, Buffalo.’ He didn’t bother what Buffalo means, why it was. Simply He thought that the Guru has initiated Him into the ‘Buffalo’ and He has to do ‘Buffalo’, that’s all. Mind became concentrated, purified. Perhaps He had imagined and resolved, “Now Lord Yama, God of death, will come sitting on the buffalo,” from the stories He had heard. So that manifested and in His resolutions that manifestation initiated Him again into Divine’s name Keshav, the mantra of Keshav, then a Self Realization happened when He went on doing that eventually.   When we see this story, for Him a buffalo means Lord Yama coming on the buffalo, riding on the buffalo and helping Him as a Guru. So the same thing He saw as a manifested thing. If He had seen buffalo itself as the Divine then and there itself Realization would have occurred, but it took some time. On the buffalo Lord Yama had to be manifested then Yama had to initiate Him into another mantra of the Divine’s name, Keshava. Then chanting that gave Him the Realization. So when you try to know the meaning, if the meaning is below the level of the Ultimate Truth then your mind gets stuck there, it will go through that and then it gets elevated again, so that’s what it is.   That is how, when I thought, “My Guru is everything,” I just got everything there. Otherwise if you think Guru as a separate entity, that Guru is initiating that mantra we have to do, then a god will come, then that will happen, so it takes that much of time.    

Question:   Babaji, when we are progressing in meditation. we somehow create our karma so we meet less people maybe or we avoid situations because our mind will be more peaceful, but are there some people we have to meet and some happenings that have to happen, even if we are doing the best sadhana and the best meditation?   

Babaji:   Not necessarily, but the mind gets involved. You see on one side your mind’s potency is ready to have that faith. You are progressing, you are doing meditation and clearing all karma, that’s it. Again why is this imagination coming, “Do we still have to meet such people?” Then this imagination comes, then the mind gets involved there. If you don’t imagine anything there is nothing, simply that’s all. That’s what I am trying to help everyone, to give up all imaginations.  

 Question:   Babaji, in daily life if there is an unpleasant thought that comes or a sort of an agitation in the mind, should we try and just simply ignore that?   

Babaji:   Simply ignore. “Impressions, I don’t recognise them.” The more we try to think or visualize, we are fueling – pouring ghee into the fire.   

Same questioner:   Is willpower only necessary because we have already recognized that thing as unpleasant?   

Babaji:   Willpower is necessary there to brush aside and to give it up. That willpower is needed so that we give up our ego.