Questions and Answers 17 January 2015 – Part Two

Question :
As human beings we all have problems that come and go in our lives and sometimes when you have a problem that’s all that the mind can focus on, it’s always thinking on that problem. Is it better, even if you have a problem, to try to meditate although your mind is not focusing on it, it’s being very difficult and just focusing on the problem, or is it better to wait until you have sorted out your problem then start your meditation?

Babaji :
You must try to meditate to sort out the problem. It’s like if I am ill is it better to overcome the illness or should I go for the medical advice and medicine? That type of thing. So you go for the medical advice so you can overcome the illness. So here also the problem being that the problem is bothering you mentally. To overcome that only you have to practice meditation as I told in the earlier question, so don’t imagine meditation as a very tough gymnasium type of exercise, lifting big dumbbells and all such things. Simply you sit anywhere in a corner, relax, forget everything. There is nothing that exists. Just close your eyes. Take a long inhale of breath and exhale slowly, skillfully and just feel yourself in such a way and imagine you want to go to sleep and nothing exists, like that also if you do, these are the basic first steps for meditation. And then meditation becomes so simple and easy. Meditation is relaxing, it’s not a gymnastics, just relax, be there. So you must practice meditation even when there is a problem so you are able to ignore the problem mentally, at least for a while when it is necessary.

Question :
I have been listening to you and practicing a lot for many years but I still don’t understand about the ‘one-pointedness’ that you speak of. Could you explain more please?

Babaji :
You see mind keeps thinking about ten items at one time, like for example you are sitting there, you are trying to listen to me also at the same time your mind is likely to be thinking something else on a problem, something else at the home, something else at the office, something else with friends all these things it likes to do, ten items at a time. So instead of all these things when your mind is able to concentrate on at least one thought or just no thought, so that is the single-pointedness.

Like, when I’m answering your question if you are able to apply one hundred percent of apt attention then your mind absorbs every point and every meaning will be clear to you and you won’t forget. So that is how, like I keep telling, whenever my Guru said one sentence or one word He just used to quickly say. He wouldn’t give a lecture or go on answering long, elaborate or anything. But all the time I used to be aptly attentive, ‘is there anything going to come out of His mouth?’ Like that. Though in one sentence He would have uttered, still even now it rings in my ears and I cannot forget and I adopted that instantly. So that is how single-pointed means, pay apt attention, be into one thought, be there. When I am talking it means only my talk should be heard by you and you don’t know anything else that is happening. Like if you are playing table tennis, ping-pong, so only that white ball is visible and nothing else is visible for you. So that is the single-pointedness that you can practice through meditation and for meditation also it is necessary – just simply keep watching in-between eyebrows means practice of that single-pointedness.

Question :
I have a question about how a Realized Yogi lives in the world. Babaji often talks about how a Yogi’s attention is always on the Divine but also when a Yogi is in the world the attention is one hundred percent on the thing that a Yogi is working on. So if Babaji is writing an email or doing some other things in the world so the mind is one hundred percent on that also. Can Babaji explain a bit on how that is the same as being a hundred percent on the Divine?

Babaji :
It’s like sleepwalking for me to be in this world. And when I am working like writing an email or answering a question I don’t have to bring all my hundred percent of my consciousness into that aspect of this world. As I have explained before also only a small, minimum amount of consciousness is necessary to be in touch with the brain, and with that smaller amount I am able to deal with this world, whereas the rest, the maximum consciousness is in the Self. So it doesn’t drip into a craving constantly, that never happens, so that is how I live in this world. Using only a small amount of consciousness is possible. Though consciousness has that much power, you don’t have to use all your consciousness. When your mind is totally distracted in this world then you need to practice single-pointedness and apt attention. So for me now even if I bring out a little bit of consciousness also so that much of consciousness stays into one-pointedness. It doesn’t break up into a thousand more or ten thousand more. Such type of thoughts doesn’t happen. So that is how I am better able to work in this world also and when I am working only that much of consciousness is in the world and that much of consciousness is put into that one work, so I don’t notice anything else happening at all. That’s how I work.

Question :
Sometimes during meditation, particularly at a time of troubling life I get answers while I am in meditation. I am not particularly looking for an answer, they just come to you. Is it one’s consciousness, emotional intelligence? Where does that answer or thought come from?

Babaji :
If your mind is better concentrated, more silent and introverted then it is able to tap the original source that is the Divinity or the Ultimate Truth. The answer comes from there because that thing is the source of all imaginations, ‘good, bad, ignorance and knowledge’, everything is from that source only. So depending on that the inspiration comes depending on your concentration and the silence of the mind. It comes from the depth of your own heart, your own real Self.

Question :
On the question of terminologies, we talk about God, Lord, Bhagavan or Krishna talks of being Ishwara and Brahman. Has Brahman projected Ishwara?

Babaji :
Everything is one. The Divinity is only one. From that only all projections have come out. And many times when you visualize the same Divinity in a particular form or a particular way that you have heard or you have come to know so then the thing appears in that same way, the same Brahman. Originally when the Sages realized that they called it TATTVA meaning simply THAT because it is such an amazing Supreme Consciousness of Existence. It is simply everywhere and to explain or present it to somebody else is such a difficult thing so that is why the terminologies were used as the concepts like Brahma, Vishnu or Shiva. The concepts are explained: Brahma means the Supreme Consciousness coming into existence to imagine a Universe, so that is the Brahma. The meaning is ‘the One who can create an illusion to His created thing but Itself shall remain above that illusion. It doesn’t get involved into that illusion. That is the Brahma. Vishnu is the same Divinity that sustains the imagined world for a long time. Like, for example, your own mind, your own mind imagines. When it imagines that your mind is Brahma and your own mind sustains that imagination into spreading it as a long story, that becomes Vishnu and whenever you feel tired and you withdraw all thoughts and you become quiet, that is the concept of Shiva. I have told that Shiva means your existence in total thoughtlessness state.

There are many other figures who were born in this world from time to time and became Self Realized Great Masters and followers of them would love them by looking into their great work. People have recognized, ‘Oh, this must be God Himself. This cannot be an ordinary person.’ So that is how they start recognizing them as incarnations. Like you spoke of Krishna. Krishna was a prince who was born in this world and became a Self Realized soul who gave that beautiful philosophy through Bhagavad Gita. His work in this world and the presentation of Sri Krishna by some Sages is such a great way. It is like a superhuman type of presentation. So people started recognizing Him as an incarnation and the stories have been built up. ‘He is non-other than Vishnu, He is God.’ He is not like that. We recognize our Guru Shivabalayogi as equivalent to God for me, ‘Oh, He is God incarnation.’ Though Shivabalayogi was one who was born in this world and did Tapas and became Self Realized. So that is how all these names of God have come, manifestations, projections and imaginations … all these things. But there is only one Ultimate Truth, that is recognized as the Divine that exists. The same thing comes in different ways, when you imagine.