0:00 Introduction from Babaji
2:20 What is it that is being purified in meditation?
6:30 How does the meditation practice work to purify the mind of its habits?
11:52 Is this silent practice without any external anchor the highest form of purification?
16:33 Should we not take anything of the world seriously in the mind?
20:27 How does a totally purified mind function in the world?
25:37 Is any action of a Yogi for the benefit of all?
29:02 Do we gradually purify the mind of the subtle bodies through meditation?
31:18 Why do more and more tests come as the mind becomes purified?
38:55 How to deal with problems with people
40:43 How to deal with visions in meditation
44:39 Can trials and tribulations lead us to purifying the mind?
47:07 How to manage family members who don’t understand your path
49:50 When we struggle in meditation, is this how the purification starts happening?
51:10 What to do when we feel a strain in-between eyebrows in meditation

Discourse: Thus Spake Babaji – online Q and A No. 107
Meditation: A Purification Process
Recorded: 10 September 2022 with worldwide participants

Start of short discourse

Babaji Commences:

   Remain relaxed.  The whole world is there, nothing is going to run away anywhere.  We don’t have to be in a rush, don’t have to do anything.  Just we have to make the mind to remain quiet.  That is the first step to achieve.  Then the rest of the things follow easily, like an automatic – once you press the accelerator, you have to start the engine, then you have to press the accelerator, then change the gear, remove the handbrake, like that.  Then automatically it moves.  Like that here, your job is learn to become quiet mentally; mind would have become habitual to keep thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking.  A thinking is needed to work in this world, a thinking is needed to plan your work in this world.  But you don’t have to allow the mind from thinking to jump into an anxiousness or brooding unnecessarily.  So you think, you plan, and you execute the work.  That’s all.  The rest of the time mind can remain quiet.  It has to remain quiet, but it has become a bit habitual, a little bit pampered by every soul.  And that’s why it keeps running like a monkey.  Just you have to stop that and then you can enjoy the amazing peace.  You can attend to any problem of the world is no problem.  Anything you can work is no problem.  Just you have to understand – all the time keep worrying and brooding is not necessary.  Sometimes when it is necessary, just you use; when it’s not necessary, you just remain quiet.

Start of Questions and Answers

Question:   So, today Babaji, the topic is “Meditation, A Purification Process.”  The first question – Babaji has mentioned that meditation is a purification process.  What is it that is being purified Babaji?

Babaji Maharaj:   First, we need to understand how the dirt of the mind has happened and why its purification is necessary.  The mind has the ability to imagine or be creative.  Just imagining one thing and then it’s like a planning; you need to plan for a thing to get executed, and then you have to execute it.  But what has happened to humanity particularly, once they have started imagining, trying to be creative, they have lost control over that imagination and continuously mind is into imagination like a chatterbox.  Not only simply that it can imagine what it wants to do.  Now, once it has become habitual, it has started imagining all unwanted things. Like in a duality; happiness and unhappiness, it is consistently into this.  So thus it has lost control over itself.  Simply it is unable to remain quiet, and that is the basic reason it has lost its peace or happiness, and also the contentment.  Constantly mind is looking for something, something, something; it is looking for that something basically for the reason that it wants to have happiness.  That’s how we tell knowingly or unknowingly, humanity’s looking for happiness, but because it has become habitual to imagine or keep thinking, keep worrying, be happy and be unhappy – like a constant craving has happened, which is the basic reason for unhappiness.  So this craving, we can call it as the mind getting corrupted. 

   So, due to this corruption habits of the mind, that mind has lost peace.  Now to achieve a permanent peace, at all times it should be there.  Like peace or happiness is your existence right – that’s what I would like to tell.  So for this you need to purify the mind of its habits.  Now, whatever it has been imagining since time immemorial perhaps, it has also acquired those as the habits and imprints, which could be sitting in the subconscious state.  So, once you have lost control over your mind, what is going to come up into the imagination is unpredictable, sometimes some happiness imagination comes, sometimes some unhappiness imagination comes.  So, this is what has happened, making you to lose your peace and happiness, and no matter of effort in this world can give you a permanent happiness or peace, because the mind is looking for the same peace that it had enjoyed by remaining quiet or in the Self.  So to achieve this, you need to purify those habits of the mind.  So that’s what we call as the purification, and also the meditation as a purification method.

Question:   Thank You Babaji.  So, Babaji how does the meditation itself work to purify those habits?  The instruction is to close the eyes, focus the mind in sight in between the eyebrows.  So, does the purification happened from that moment Babaji?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes, exactly.  Because here, as I told, mind has become habitual to go into craving consistently all the time, and it has also absorbed imprints.  These are all sitting in the mind, which gives an attitude or habits, acquired habits of the mind.  How to purify this?  So, mind has to become quiet. But humanity may not understand how to remain quiet – because it has become habitual, you try to be quiet, but the mind won’t remain quiet, it goes into chatterbox.  Thus, you use a technology.  Also, when you use this technology, you will be able to pay attention to the truth of existence.  So just now, as I tell, nobody has seen the mind in the naked eyes.  And nobody even tries to know or recognize or understand what the mind itself is.  Only some saints like Ramana have called, “Mind is a bundle of thoughts.”  It is true in a sense, because it is constantly into chatterbox, cravings; it has become habitual. 

So thus, this mind, it has forgotten about itself.  Mind has forgotten about itself.  It is unable to pay attention to itself, thus it is unable to see itself, become aware of itself.  For this, it has to give up all cravings, all habits, all attitudes, and become pure consciousness.  Consciousness I call when there are no thoughts or visions – totally it has given up all habits and it is quiet.  That is the pure consciousness. For sake of teaching, education, we try to call it as the consciousness because wherever you apply that consciousness, you become aware of itself.  So now if you can apply it to yourself, then you become aware of yourself.  That’s what is the meditation’s meaning – ‘you pay attention to’; you need to pay attention to what you are.  For that you have to silence the mind first, quieten the mind first, make the mind give up all such habits.  That’s why the technique of meditation is taught that you just watch in between eyebrows.  When you are watching you are not thinking.  Until you are thinking that means you are not watching perfectly – that you must know.  Using the eyeballs which is one of the strongest sensory organs, if you fix the eyeballs and just watch, it can bring the mind also and hold on to that there.  It can hold the mind there.  It won’t allow the mind to start thinking.  That is how if you steadily watch any scene or any wall, any dark, or any light, anything without thinking what it is.  That is what the condition is – you must not think what it is.  If you are watching a mountain, you must not think that mountain as a mountain, but just watch.  If you’re watching, like I have always told of the microphone – if you watch the microphone, you must not think the microphone as a microphone, whether it is a microphone or whatever it is; you just have to watch, then the mind gives up all its habits, then it becomes purified, then it regains the awareness of itself. Because its attention; it is able to pay attention, wherever you apply it becomes attentive.  But the problem is when it starts imagining about that.  Say, if you steadily watch me, then the mind might start imagining, “Oh, Baba has become very old now.  He has grown the white beard” – something like that it starts imagining and it gets carried away, never-ending like a chatterbox.  It starts thinking, “Will Baba be sleeping or he doesn’t sleep? Does he eat or he doesn’t eat? Is he really Self-realized or not Self-realized?”  It can think anything.  Like that the mind jumps.  That must not be allowed; just watch.  That’s what the idea of teaching meditation’s technique – you just watch.  So when you just watch, the mind gets purified, eventually giving the mind to pay attention, a chance to pay attention to itself and thus become aware of itself.  That’s what is eventually Self-awareness or Self-realization.

Question:   Thank You Babaji.  So, is this silent meditation, which doesn’t have any external anchor, is that the highest form of purification, the highest practice?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes, this is one of the highest forms of meditation practiced in ancient India since time immemorial, very ancient times.  Earlier times they used to practice this meditation and achieve what is known as total stability of the mind, stand-stillness, which is known as samadhi, and became Self-realized.  So this is the technique which our Master Shivabalayogi obtained by the manifestation of Divine Shiva who came as a Jangama Sage from a fruit and made Him to sit for tapas, and gave this technique.  So, our Guru Swamiji passed on this technique to us.  And thus, we achieved this quietness of the mind and Self-awareness.  Now, as the mind is quiet, it is totally aware of itself.  So that’s what anybody can achieve.  That’s what we try to teach, if the attention is paid. 

As I told there is no other external anchor in this.  You are trying to give the mind a habit to become quiet on its own, without depending on anything.  Like if you give any object, any name, any sound, any mantra, anything, first you have to concentrate on that.  Suppose you are chanting a mantra, your mind needs to get applied and concentrate on that mantra, on that effect of the mantra, whether you are chanting silently, or with sound effects from your mouth, whatever it is, but its attention must be on the mantra; that is when that mantra can become powerful to you.  Otherwise, your mind could simply run away anywhere, and you are simply mechanically chanting the mantra. So that will not be effective.  So we also tell, if you don’t apply the mind, your prayers will not reach God.  Only through the mind’s application. That’s why some saints have told, “Mind is God.  Mind is the form of God.”  We also tell mind is the basic clue for Divinity.  If the mind is a droplet, its ultimate truth is recognized as Divinity. Also I have jokingly told, “It’s like getting recruited as an officer directly.”  You don’t have to depend on any anchor.  You don’t need to chant any mantra, no need to repeat anything.  Don’t imagine anything.  These two points are important.  So, you just watch then.  When you are watching, you are not thinking, then the mind becomes quiet, and it gains awareness of itself.  Only in the beginning you use the eyeballs, but mind will not be watching the eyeballs.  Through the eyeballs, it will try to watch in the beginning in between eyebrows.  In the instructions nothing is told as to what you are supposed to watch; you are asked “Just watch”.  Just watch means, do not try to analyze what you are watching.  Don’t try to imagine what you’re supposed to watch.  There is nothing.  Simply watch in between eyebrows – that means anything comes, if nothing comes, just watch.  Then the mind becomes quiet.  Slowly, it gives up all its thought habits, all its visions.  So, we also advise – any thought or vision if it comes, use it to focus your mind; watch that thing.  But do not try to think about that.  Don’t try to analyze and don’t make a judgement.  Because all these things can happen simply based on the mind’s imaginations which need not be truth.  So, only the truth is revealed when your consciousness is not into any type of imagination.  That’s what Adi Shankara talks in Viveka Choodamani, “When you come face-to-face in your consciousness, and when your consciousness is not in to any type of imagination, know that existence as the truth.”  That’s when the atman, the Self is revealed.

Question:   Thank You Babaji.  Babaji has mentioned that not to get involved in either the good or the bad in this world to achieve that full purification of the mind.  Does that mean we shouldn’t take anything seriously, Babaji, I mean, mentally; is that what is recommended?

Babaji Maharaj:   Exactly.  In the beginning, this could be awful, or one might feel bewildered.  How is it possible that we don’t take this world seriously? It is here, all such things are happening.  So many things happen in our lives, surroundings, to our own people, or to the world.  What we tell – just by taking worries into the mind, you cannot help anybody.  You understand, no problem.  But don’t take it seriously as that is the only truth or don’t try to imagine anything.  You get to see something is happening;  you want to help and you help, you help anybody, it’s no problem.  But don’t take that thing seriously into the mind.  Just for example, say you are a doctor, every day you have to attend to patients in the clinic, in the hospital, you go.  If you take every patient very seriously and you become emotionally affected, struck, then you yourself might become a patient and you may not be able to attend the patient, trying to understand what the patient’s needs are, what the problem is, you may not be able to apply your brain at all; that can become like that.  So, that is the meaning when we tell “Don’t take seriously.”  Means, when I tell that example, you call this world as very good, mentally, then also you get involved mentally, you call this world as very bad, then also you get involved mentally.   As we tell you one man’s food is another man’s poison.  A certain thing might be very dear to somebody.  And that thing may not be dear to another person.  Like one person might feel very interested to sit with us and to try to know the spiritual truths; to somebody else, it may not be interesting, “Oh who is going to listen to this old man?  He is talking something nonsense.  Let us go and find something other enjoyable.”  So, it is their attitude.  So that’s how things happen.  If you have built an attitude, what do you call; this world is good or bad?  It will simply be depending on your attitude only the world will appear.  So, that is what is the advice.  If you practice meditation you can achieve this.  You will remain in the world; you will be working or behaving like a normal person in the world.  But you won’t take anything seriously and start worrying in the mind.  You know fully this is a temporary appearance.  For the illusion, if we cannot understand fully what it is, at least we all understand it is a temporary existence, impermanent.  Nothing is permanent.  Everything is going to lose its shape including our own physical body.  If we understand that, so just attend to this, whatever is needed, but don’t take so seriously that mentally you get affected.  If at all you have to die in the body, just be ready.  Don’t be serious that you don’t want to die at all, then you get affected.  So, that is the idea of this teaching.

Question:   Thank You Babaji.  So, Babaji, as one progresses towards Self-realization, if the mind gets totally purified, then does such a person not feel the need to go into any thoughts anymore.  And so how would such a person function properly in the world if the mind doesn’t feel like going into thoughts?

Babaji Maharaj:   For this, different saints have tried to explain.  Like Ramana Maharishi tells the ceiling fan is running, and you stop the electricity.  Then after that, the fan takes some time, it keeps revolving slowly, slowly, then it stops.  In the same way, when a person achieves Self-realization, total stability of the mind, stabilized one, stithapragnya is the word used by Krishna in Bhagavad Gita teaching.  That means, prarabhda it is known as, such a Self-realized one has stopped the future.  He won’t visualize anything about the future, there won’t be any future.  But whatever He would have resolved previously in the previous births, that will go on like an ordainment of the Divine.  And I have tried to explain in the same way, like having an attachment to the Master, and wanting to share your experiences, create an awareness about this truth of the Self and its existence.  So these are all the previous lives’ resolutions – probably we wanted it to do like this after Realization also.  So, this is recognized as if the Divine has ordained, you have a mission.  So, then you come into the midst of the society, and try to help people to know about the truth of themselves, Self. 

That’s what Swamiji tried to tell, “Meditate and know yourself.”  So, He helped us to know by doing tapas, and we are trying to continue the same legacy, but our mind doesn’t go into a craving.  If at all I need to imagine I can imagine, mind has not lost the power to imagine.  It can apply the brains, but it won’t go into further craving after planning or imagining.  So, like I have also told, even if a Self-realized Master like us wants to teach about that truth, we have to use the nearest imagination possible.  Because the ultimate truth cannot be imagined; it is beyond all imagination.  It can appear either this or that.  That’s why in ancient times, first word they have used is tattva.  Means ‘that’.  It was such an awesome experience when they realized that is not inert – as Gayatri Mantra tells, it is not an inert object, it is supremely conscious of itself, just like the sun, supreme energy is there, just like the sun is also so bright, in the same way that example has been given, to tell. 

So, though it appears to be inert, though it appears to be nothing, it is something.  Vashista tells in his yoga upadesha, “It is there and it is not there”.  Like I tell, this room is filled with space, or you can call it this room is void with space.  Both are same.  Depending on your attitude the zero appears as absolute, and the absolute can appear as zero.  Both are same which has no beginning and no end.  So that’s what it is, boundless.  So that’s why you cannot imagine exactly what it is.  However, that is the great skill of the great sages who gave us upanishads.  And teachers like Adi Shankara, Buddha, Ramana Maharshi – they all gave such wonderful teachings by using such wonderful great imaginations, and giving a clue to the student so that the student also finally tries and put an effort and go for the truth.  That’s what the first thing the teacher teaches; “Try to quieten your mind.”  That is the basic obstacle that you are unable to pay attention.  We tell, “You stop watching the movie.”  Until you keep watching the movie you have forgotten you are sitting and watching; you are thinking that movie is the reality.  You stop that one, then you will know that you are sitting, like that. You quieten the movie that is in the mind, then that truth is revealed.

Question:   Thank You Babaji.  Babaji, a yogi’s consciousness is totally pure.  And they are acting selflessly, for a larger cause at all times, so is anything that a yogi does, any action that a yogi does, is it for the benefit of a devotee?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, this is one experience when you really meditate using the right technique without misunderstanding and without going into unnecessary myths and all such things; you go for the truth. Then when your mind becomes purified, when with that mind when you apply the brains, you will be a matured person as a human being. You will always try to think of a larger cause, a welfare of the society, welfare of the world and all the worlds.  That’s how the sages taught in their prayers, “May all beings in all the worlds be happy” – lokah samasta sukhino bhavantu.   All worlds be happy.  So that’s how one would think in a matured way.  The selfishness and narrow-mindedness would have been lost, because you would have realized that ‘I’ is not just this body, it is simply spread all, in all directions, all- pervaded. When you know that, you are that ‘I.’ 

Like Swamiji also used to tell, “You do everything for yourself, for your happiness, whatever you do, or you don’t do.  Either way you are doing that, even when you are not doing anything, just for sake of your happiness.  First, try to know yourself.  And then you will know what your need is.  If you think that this is only me, then you will think that my need is food, my need is some comfort, my need is clothes, my need is somebody connected to this.  And thus you become narrow-minded and selfish, always behaving in this world.  That’s how conflicts arise.  We are ready to harm the other, we don’t want to consider each other.  So with small excuses we go into conflict, we feel insecure ourselves and go into conflict.  That’s how all these things happen.  That’s how we have forgotten spirituality, though we have tremendously advanced through science and technology, we must practice spirituality also, then we will know how to utilize all the things that we have discovered or invented in the right sense.  We should try to live for each other, not against each other.”  As in my childhood, I used to keep thinking, “Why is that always humanity is against each other?  Why this conflict?  Why do we have to kill each other?  Why can’t we live for each other?  All of us can, happily.”  Here, once again, though many times I have told, I would like to quote during my college days studying in a science magazine a scientist telling, “Earth always have had, and will have enough resources to meet the needs of humanity, but not its greed.”  If a greed comes, it’s a never-ending process.

Question:   Thank You Babaji.  And Babaji mentioned there about giving up the different identities of “I am this body, I’m this and that.”  So, as the mind becomes more purified in meditation are we removing those subtle bodies one after another?  Is that how it happens and eventually in tapas all those subtle bodies will be dissolved once and for all?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, definitely all those subtle ideas.  I’ll just give a clue for two or three examples.  Just like I always keep telling; I am an Indian,  I am an American,  I am a European, that would be sitting as an ego as a subtle body, giving us such an ego factor, whereas it doesn’t really exist, no such body exists, but in our imagination it is sitting.  And anything that we imagine, “I am a businessman, I am an officer, I am a yogi, I am a king,” anything like that.  That is another subtle body sitting.  I’m sitting as a king, whereas ‘I am,’ does not exist as a king at all, simply in the imagination.  So, all these, like that numerous subtle bodies would be there in our own consciousness from time to time that we would have imagined.  That’s why Swamiji used to tell, “When you come to me just come as a devotee, forget whether you are a general, whether you are a royal person, whether you are an officer, whether you are a businessman, anything.  If you come like that your ego will prevent you from learning the truth what I want to give you.  You will be thinking, ‘Oh, I am a VIP, I’m an officer, I must be given a VIP treatment, the Guru should give me special time.’”  They would gossip with Swamiji and simply go away, never learned anything.  That’s how Swamiji used to tell, “Give up these subtle bodies that are all in your imagination, which can form an unnecessary ego.”  So these are the subtle bodies that have been spoken.

Question:   Thank You very much Babaji.  Just to ask, why does it happen that more and more tests come as one progresses as one’s mind gets more purified, as the sadhana progresses?  It seems that looking at Babaji and Swamiji’s life, more and more tests came.  Is it to test that determination?  And where do those tests come from?

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, there are two types of things.  One is, sometimes we trap ourselves by committing mistakes by our inability to understand the situation properly, by losing patience.  Patience is such a virtue which enables us to understand the situation, whether should we get involved, should we go into this conflict, or not necessary unless it is imposed on us.  Thus we can think always.  And another thing, we are helpless often in this world.  Because we are living in the world, we may not have a choice.  If a conflict comes very close to us, we cannot keep quiet.  We may get involved.  Suppose, like in the Ashram I’m looking after the institution of my Guru.  If somebody tries to usurp this Ashram, and they create a conflict, we also get involved.  So here what happened?  I never wanted any conflict.  I wanted peace.  Just mind my business, teaching the meditation, wanted that anybody as my Guru dreamt should be able to come and sit here.  And the lady, the royal lady who donated this property to my Guru, she also dreamt that common people should be able to come, sit, learn spiritual truths, practice meditation with Swamiji and His legacies.  So, that’s what she also dreamt.  But if somebody tries to harm this situation, then we get involved though we don’t want, but we are forced.  This is, we call it sometimes Divine wishes; some people call it luck favors; some people call it the nature work sometimes, like that.  Because just like you are driving on the road, you are a very good driver, you drive slowly.  You don’t cross the limits of the speed prescribed on a highway, you don’t go very fast.  You go only in that. But yet you might get involved in some accident if another person who is driving is driving dangerously, has no control over the wheels.  It is very difficult to give a conclusive answer how you get involved into the accident, when another person is driving dangerously, in this world.  This world is like that. 

   So this either you can call the nature’s work or your own destiny or the Divine’s wishes, luck favoring – so many definitions have been given by different teachers.  So whatever it is, it just happens like that.  We are helpless.  So whatever is possible in our hand, we must try to work out for peace as much as possible.  If another person is a fool, or wicked, evil, dangerously trying, you must try to avoid getting involved as long as it is not imposed on us.  Suppose if another country invades our country, so our country has to defend itself. Though we never want any conflict, we don’t want wars, but if somebody else is imposing, so what do we tell with that situation?  It’s really inconclusive, and no conclusive answer is there, though different definitions can be told.  Maybe our own destiny or the Divine’s wishes or the destiny of the country, destiny of this institution, what to have to say? We never wanted any conflict, we just lived peacefully, we never wanted anybody else’s land, but somebody wanted to take this land.  So, this is a very peculiar situation in the world.  This is what is my personal opinion, which has no conclusive answer. 

One likely possible, as I have always tried to explain, when we keep visualizing in the mind a negativity, like in every life, every time the consciousness is born it splits, its power reduces, means the potency of the mind reduces.  Yet the mind of a human being can work such wonders.  So much genius people are there; discoveries, inventions have happened.  This is all because of the focus of the mind.  When they are focused, remain observed and thought,  the same thing can form as a destiny in the next life if you are visualizing a particular thing. In this life also it can materialize after some time.  Mind has such powers.  That’s why in our teachings we always tell, if you are positively visualizing, you can shape a positive destiny for yourself.  If you are negative in your visualization, you can be shaping a negative destiny for yourself.  That’s why the great sages found out that the mind takes six shapes, they divided – extreme greed, extreme anger, extreme attachment to impermanent world, and false pride and jealousy, like this.  Six enemies arishadwarga, they called, six enemies of human mind; whoever has got in their mind, they are the first casualty. 

   This is one likely possibility that when we face such tests, what you were talking in the beginning of the question, we face tests in this world, everything is not smooth; we want to live peacefully, but some problem comes. You try to sort out one problem, ten arise.  Because another point, everything is impermanent.  We try to achieve some peacefully, save some money and try to do something.  But by then the body ages, once it ages, it starts giving problems, then we keep wondering, “Myy God, so much we struggle to earn a little bit of saving.  And now I want to sit and eat, but I cannot eat anything now.   All sorts of problems have arisen in the body.”  No answer for this.  It is nature.  Because this world is impermanent, we have to accept it.  That’s was what written.  When we were young, when we could eat, we could not get peanuts, when peanuts are there, we don’t have teeth.  So, that is the old saying we all heard from our elders.  So, that’s what I’m trying to tell you.  It’s such a beautiful truth.  What to say?  No conclusive answer for this.  But that is one possibility.

Question:   Namaste Babaji.  Babaji, related to the previous question itself, I have one more question.  So, there are some people who did something wrong, and I was avoiding them, but now they are by themselves coming back and trying to speak or behave like nothing happened.  So how do you deal with such people?  I usually avoid them but they are coming back by themselves.

Babaji Maharaj:   You also talk as if nothing happened, but always be careful not to get involved in their bad habits, just smiling at them or talking to them.  So, this is what is called diplomatic way of behaving.   You just behave friendly, but you don’t have to get into their habits or their way of life, if it is not suitable for you.  Look after yourself.  Always beware not to become habitual, to any of their bad habits.  That’s what is important.

Same Questioner:   I am not able to trust them.

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, you don’t trust.  One sniper says in a movie, “I am alive because I don’t trust anybody.”  You trust yourself always, be careful.  The world has become like that.  So finally if you still don’t like them, they are totally negative and bad habit people, you can always avoid them; you don’t have to meet.  There is no imposition that you have to be friendly with such people.  Unless it is the job place, if they are your boss, you don’t have any choice, otherwise you will lose the job.  Then also skillfully – life is always like for the tongue living in midst of thirty-two wicked ready to bite it.  Skillfully you keep moving, mentally be alert.

Question:   Babaji You always instruct us that concentrate in between the eyebrows and watch whatever it is, like dark, light, or whatever it is.  Now, in my case at least, it comes up like a faint pattern, as light and dark that you’re changing, changing, transforming.  Now some time I feel like I can let myself be taken by these patterns and the visualizations, visions, what You were calling.  Like being absorbed in it, not analyzing, not thinking about it, just being absorbed and taken, like mesmerized by it.  Is that the right attitude or not?

Babaji Maharaj:   Take care of that once you become mesmerized by a vision, the mind is likely to jump into an analyzation, “Is it good or bad?  What it is, why is it there?”  Like that it can start.   Now you see, already your mind is doubting whether it is good or bad.  Now what our teaching is – if at all any such vision is coming, let it come, you just don’t think whether it is okay, whether it is good or not; you just focus on that, use that vision to remain focused.  That is what is necessary, then your mind will become quiet.  Let it come if it is coming on its own.  You don’t have to bother. It will go away, dissolve or evaporate on its own when you just keep watching that.

Same Questioner:   But what I mean is, it is not some particular vision that comes and goes; it’s just when I close my eyes, it’s in front like a stage, like a screen, movie screen that’s like moving, changing…and it’s always there.  So, what I can be absorbed by it, to not think about anything, not analyze it and be so absorbed and mesmerized by what I can kind of…

Babaji Maharaj:   You see now, remaining absorbed is okay.  What I was alerting is do not become mesmerized, then the mind can jump into further imagination like a poet, there is no need for that.  You remain absorbed.  That is what is just watching.  When you are absorbed, you are not thinking, but if you become mesmerized, so that will give rise to an awesome or awful, either of the two.  That’s what to take care.

Same Questioner:   But the problem is, if I do that, be aware that I shouldn’t be mesmerized or watching, then my mind has the awareness that I am watching.

Babaji Maharaj:   It will be there as long as the duality; you are watching and the watcher, they both have to disappear, the seen and the seer has to disappear. It will happen.  Just now if you are absorbed, let it be, you just remain absorbed. On its own once that vision disappears, this ‘I’ also disappears because both are imagined things that are there.  So remain absorbed for some time; you continue with that one, it will be alright.

Question:   Baba, very nice to see You.  So as I was listening to you, I started to wonder if the trials and tribulations that we go through in this life are kind of like a natural means of mind purifying itself because it took for me to get to the very lowest point – I was socially mentally, physically completely a wreck. It took for me to hit that very lowest point for my mind to finally snap into… It just completely changed one day; one morning I woke up and I had a completely different view on life.  And I started to meditate, I started to change my view, and I started to be happy again.  Was that kind of nature’s way of purifying the mind?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, yes.  That’s how the mind becomes purified and becomes mature. Simply our attitude has to change.  The world is okay in its place; whatever has to happen, it keeps happening.  Like in the movie, there is a hero, there is a villain, there is good, there is bad, happiness and happiness – both combined together only a story happens.  So that’s what happens.  Now, what is our attitude, how we are going to take the things – it depends on that.  Based on that only, our mind will become either happy or unhappy.  So if we learn this one, we can face this world. Like a soldier will face the battlefield, it is not an unhappy thing, it’s not a thing to be afraid of, there is neither panic nor pain, nothing.  It’s an opportunity for him to show his valor.  So, then he takes it and he goes with that enthusiasm.  He knows either “I will do it or die” – both are equally acceptable.  That’s what in our life, both success and failure, if they are acceptable to us. We put an effort; I’m going to teach everybody, whoever will come in front of me meditation, Self, Self-realization. If I’m going to be a failure that nobody is going to get realized finally, no problem.  But I’m not going to give up my teachings.  That’s what my Guru taught us.  So if you have this attitude, you’re always happy.

Question:   Babaji, actually this situation I’m facing is very personal to me.  Like I got married, and the kind of thing is happening in my life is I want to help my immediate family members, either financially or emotionally or whatever.  But my spouse is kind of not interested in all those things, actually.  But definitely I don’t want to come out… I know there is a problem in all these things,  I don’t want to get out of these things.  But still, I want to serve and help others.  How do I convince or how do I cope with the situation or should I give more time to make her understand, I don’t know what to do I mean?  This is a very conflicting…

Babaji Maharaj:    This is a very difficult situation. Finally, choice and decision will be yours. I can give an opinion.  Like if it is you who is earning, you have a right to utilize that money.  Once you spend a certain amount for the family as a duty, give substantial amount, do some savings for your spouse, and you have given, then take out some in the budget.  From that money you decide what you want to help, to whom you want to help.  And you have a right to do that one.  No power should be able to stop you from doing so.  Once you have given your wife’s share to look after the family, you have a right.  You try in your best way possible, diplomatically, peacefully, try to explain to her, talk to her.  If she accepts, it’s okay, if she doesn’t accept but you don’t have to stop you.  If she becomes adamant, you also have a right to become adamant.  “I am going to do this.  I have given you your things.  I have done my duty as a husband; I’m looking after you.  Little bit of money is there.  I want to help somebody and I’m going to do that.”  In the life we have to take some decision.  If the other doesn’t accept it.  As long if they accept there is harmony and peace.  I know one is always worried about peace and harmony at home.  But if the other doesn’t cooperate, you cannot help whether it is two countries negotiating for peace or two people negotiating for peace.  It all depends on both, others’ attitude also.  So you try your best and then you help others and be satisfied whatever happens.

Same questioner:   Yeah, I am following the same approach.  Thank You Babaji.

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, that’s how we learnt from our Guru.  Take a decision and do that one.

Question:   Pranaams Babaji.  When You give the instructions in the initial part when we sit for meditation, it’s very clear, the instructions stay in the mind and we are able to bring the attention in between the eyebrows.  But unknown to us, the mind slips gradually and then again we try to bring back the focus.  So, as You said, it’s a constant struggle, a tug of war.  Is this the process where the awareness is being built?  And the purification process starts during the process where the awareness comes?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes, definitely.  Gradually, if you become more positive, from the struggle you are putting an effort – it converts to effort.  Efforts are more positive; struggle means you are finding it very hard.  You might get defeated, that type of attitude comes.  So, you don’t have to struggle.  Put an effort just like you’re playing a tennis match; the opponent hits and you also hit. So, mind will have an upper hand in the beginning because of its time immemorial habits.  So once you achieve that one, it will go smoothly, but in the beginning, don’t give up, whatever happens, right?

Question:   Pranaams Babaji.  Babaji, when I do Your meditation, I have to put a lot of strain here in between the eyebrows, then I feel my eyes fixated.  But when I’m relaxed, I cannot really find the right spot.  So doubts started coming, if I need to take deeksha again, or maybe I need to ask Babaji to touch my third eye again.  So…

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, when you were here also, I explained to you the same thing.  Don’t keep doubting like that one, and you are always in a rush also.  So that’s when happens when you are in a rush, because mind is the most infinite, nothing else is there.  If you want to catch hold of your nose you can catch easily, but you cannot catch the mind.  It takes some time.  Be gentle to yourself, gently close the eyes and keep watching gently.  Don’t, “I want to achieve now itself Self-realization.”  It may take years.  From childhood we had been putting an effort, putting an effort; slowly one day it came. So don’t look back.  Don’t keep counting the time, “When will it happen..”  It will happen one day.  You just put in effort, be positive, don’t keep struggling.  Put an effort.  The effort is different, struggle is different.  If you become struggling you are becoming slowly negative unknown to you.  Be positive, put an effort.  Remember the technique.  Remember the instructions – just keep watching.  It will come one day. If not today, tomorrow it will come.

End of Questions and Answers

End of Session