0:00 Intro
0:07 What is the droplet and what is the ocean?
2:47 Everything that we think we are as an individual does not actually exist?
3:57 Would it have been a very long journey to reach the situation we are in now where it’s difficult to think in any other way?
9:07 A passage from the Viveka Choodamani – do we have to accept the world as it is and not go into a collision with it?
15:25 Is it because we hold on to the thoughts and imaginations that we remain as a droplet?
20:50 Can a Yogi have a thought and still remain as the ocean?
24:18 Nothing has happened to the ocean of the Self, it remains intact.
34:18 Does the quietness have to be more interesting than the world?
38:49 What are the efforts that need to be made to return to the ocean, the Self, in addition to meditation?
41:12 Is there no in-between state between being Self Realised and not being Self Realised?
41:32 Does the Self have intelligence?
42:49 Does silence have a sound or a texture? How to recognise it?
45:44 Should I sit in meditation more than doing japam?
46:44 How can we achieve through paths other than meditation like Karma Yoga and Bhakti Yoga?
48:33 The more I am silent and meditate, I am unable to connect with family members.
49:45 Are animals and plants droplets also?
50:43 Does the space or ocean have some divine law or rules which we have to adhere to?
55:58 Is it the patterns and habits of the mind that go on as a seed to the next birth – is that the individual soul?
57:43 Although many masters have appeared throughout human history to bring everlasting peace, why is work still in progress?

Discourse: In Quest of Truth – online Q&A no.224
The Droplet and the Ocean
You tube Link: https://youtu.be/UcDJOnSK_dw   
Recorded: 29 March 2025

Start of Questions and Answers

Question:   Babaji, You’ve used the analogy quite a few times before; the droplet and the ocean.  Can Babaji explain a bit about this analogy – what is the ocean; what is the droplet in terms of our existence?

Babaji Maharaj:   Actually, when we try to meditate, and eventually when one is able to do a tapas, if the aim is Self-Realization, Aatmasaakshatkaar, that is to be considered as the Ultimate Truth.  So, why the mind needs to be silenced?  The first question, when we are not giving any mantra or any other target or any other anchor, just to watch in between eyebrows. So, first aim is to silence the mind.  Because, as I have told, mind is made up of consciousness and energy.  But just now it has become mind because of its preoccupation with its own imaginations.  When millions and millions of thoughts and visuals are coming consistently, the mind has become a chatterbox.  And that’s why we call it as a mind. 

When one day, you are able to totally get rid of these acquired habits of the mind, achieve the total silence, quietness, that is when you achieve the samadhi.  Then, this mind called… another terminology I have used is also ‘individual imagined self,’ which it does not exist as ‘me,’ ‘I,’ that ego.  So, all this disappears and this merges with its Ultimate Truth. 

So, when we begin, I try to symbolically call – if this mind, what we recognize as mind is a droplet, its ocean, the Ultimate Truth is the Divinity or the Ultimate Truth of the Self.  When this mind merges with that Self, that is when the Self-Realization occurs.  So, that’s how I try to symbolically say.  So, what we learned from our Guru and experiences in our tapas; based on that, I have spoken these symbolically, examples. 

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  So, everything that we think that we are as individuals is an imagined idea or personality; it doesn’t actually exist.  Is that correct?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah.  That is what is known as ego.  Ego is you imagine about yourself in every way, which is not there in truth.  So, when you imagine about yourself, then your consciousness, you become narrow-minded and selfish.  So, you limit yourself to a small body.  When you limit yourself, that is to be considered as an ego.  And you nurture, and cultivate such a thing.  So, that is what you realize that it was only an imagination which never existed when you practice meditation; and when the mind clears, gives up all its thoughts and visions, it regains its purest form of consciousness.  So, that’s what one realizes. 

Question:   Babaji would it have been a very long journey for us to reach where we are now, where all these concepts and identities have built up within the consciousness, so that we are in a current situation where it’s very difficult for us to think in any other way?

Babaji Maharaj:   So, first thing, what our Guru said was, “Though it is very difficult, it is not impossible.”  This sentence from day one, I am trying to emphasize.  Because if a thing is impossible, then there is no point putting an effort.  It’s over.  The body is dead.  It’s impossible to come back to life.  It’s over.  Then we have to take leave with due honour.  So, like that, that finishes.  But if there is any chance, body is in a critical condition, so, till the last breath, the last moment, one keeps putting an effort – all medical experts and the kith and kin wanting them and prayers, so on, it goes on if it is possible to revive. 

Like here also, it appears to be very difficult, almost impossible, but not actually impossible.  But if we start, if we draw a line, if we start putting efforts, the first day we will be underdog and mind has an upper hand with its own imaginations; that could be torturesome. Millions and millions of thoughts are there.  But slowly, if you understand the technique of meditation that you have to watch…  When you are watching, mind has a tendency to recognize, analyze and make judgments.  It is judgmental always.  Whatever it comes across, “This is good, this is bad, this is mine, this is not mine.” 

About this world also, I have tried to tell – when you call mentally this world as very good, then also your mind, you get involved.  If you call mentally this world as very bad, then also you get involved mentally.  The idea is to rise about these dualities.  That is how you become a witness to this universe, whatever is happening.  You are neither here nor there and you have no comments and you just keep it to yourself, your mental attention to the awareness of the Self.  And that is when a liberation can happen when the body is dropped.  You are not reborn.  If you don’t have any desires, you have no problems with this world.  This is a vague dream.  “It’s okay, fine, no problem.” 

Like when we dream in the night, actually after all it was a dream, but people can get affected.  If it is a strong picturizing dream, then for a long time one may not be able to forget and that incident, whatever happens in the dream may affect the peace and the stability of the mind of a person.  So, that keeps playing in the mind of the person.  In the same way in this world also, if we are not spiritually thoroughly practiced people, then minds can get affected, whatever happens.  

Because always whatever is happening need not be to our liking.  The world is going on.  People are behaving in their own way.  Sometimes we may like it, sometimes we may not like it.  So, both if we take it seriously, then our stability gets disturbed, mental equilibrium.  We get dancing according to the things that happen.  So, then we are affected.  Our mental peace is affected.  Our consciousness of the Self-awareness is also affected.  So, to avoid this you practice meditation and eventual tapas and gain the Self-awareness. 

Like Swamiji said, Ramana Maharishi also said, as a yogi even if I am talking a lot also, my inner consciousness is totally silent and quiet.  It doesn’t picturize or dramatize, it doesn’t reverberate anything.  So, nothing registers in the mind actually.  So, it is a quiet and purified state.  So, that’s what one can achieve.  That’s what is recommended.  So, that’s what this ego that we are discussing happens.  That’s how the casualties happen.  Like remember, the six enemies of human mind; extreme greed, extreme anger, extreme stinginess, extreme attachment to this world and false pride and jealousy.  These are the six enemies of human mind.  So, whoever has got in their mind, their mind is their first casualty.  So, that’s how things happen. 

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  Baba, I found a paragraph in the Viveka Choodamani which talks along the same lines as how Babaji has replied.  I just now want to read it and ask Babaji about it. “But now you are only a micro speck, a droplet of the ocean and you want to command the ocean.  Ocean has its own commands and it is working.  If you like, if you don’t like, what to do? A director and a producer has produced the movie and they have directed.  Whether you like or you don’t like, it is up to you.  You watch or you don’t watch.  But the movie will go like that.  In the same way the world will go like that.  Whether you like or you don’t like, it cannot be changed like that.”  So, Babaji, we have to just accept that the world is happening as it is and not go into a collision with that?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, a higher consciousness is playing the universal game of the creation, galaxies, Milky Way, planets, stars and so on and on.  So, even if you try to read the articles by astronomers or scientists also, it can be so mind-boggling.  Black matters, black energies.  Earlier we heard about the black hole, then now they are talking about black matter, black energy.  They’re telling one supports the existence and it helps the expanding of the universe.  Another makes the galaxies to disappear.  So, finally, two almighty energies are just playing for sake of play.  That’s what Vasistha talking in his Upadesha to Sri Rama, “Just for sake of Divine play the creation has happened, and there is no use for the Creator.  There is no use for the one who imagines also.”  So, there is no use for the movie producer or director by making one actor act as a villain, another actor act as a hero.  He has nothing to do with both of them.  It is just a make-believe, a drama enacted. 

So, that type of thing is what is commented here for that.  So, if we go into a head-on collision, means if we don’t like a certain thing, but that is happening.  I would like to clarify here, say, in the world, things are going on – certain things may appear as very bad for us; certain things may be very good; fine.  If you consider anything that is happening as bad, you work for that, whatever is in your capacity.  Like two countries are into conflict.  You want to go and work out peace for them.  Ask both of them to live peacefully in their own countries.  So, you try to do that one.  That’s no harm.  It’s no problem also.  Whatever is in the capacity.  Try to be a diplomat, talk and try to make both see reason, “Unnecessarily, we don’t have to dig two graves.  Both of us can live peacefully and happily.”  But if they don’t understand, they want to go according to their temperament, you are helpless.  You cannot do anything.  You just have to accept the situation.  So, this is what happens. 

In the same way only, in spirituality also, there is no imposition.  One can live in this world any way of life, it is individual’s choice.  Even that is also not disturbed by the teachings.  Means, you can live in the world, you live any way of life, you be a householder, you be a businessman, job holder or anything.  While living, take care of your mind that you don’t lose mental equilibrium, you don’t lose the stability, you don’t lose your peace.  Because peace is your existence-right.  That’s what we always tell.  You are looking for peace and happiness only whatever you want to do.  If you are mentally disturbed, you are distressed, stressed out.  It’s terrible.  You don’t want that.  But this is the reason.  Like Buddha said, constant cravings of the mind is the basic reason of the unhappiness, He said. 

So, like that only when the mind goes into craving, “O, why is that this person is behaving like this?” Okay, we can try to make him understand not to behave like that.  But if he doesn’t listen, he wants to go on what he believes, then no point for us to lose our own peace.  If we keep worrying sitting in our home “O, that person behaved like this, O, that person behaved like this” then we also lose peace.  Our stability, everything gets disturbed.  So, that’s what is important.  That’s what we have tried to convey in this commentary also. 

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  So, it’s because we hold on to the thoughts and imaginations that we remain as this droplet, this insecure kind of droplet? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes, exactly.  To hold on these thoughts, first thing is, ‘me,’ ‘I,’ then ‘mine’; that is how the trouble starts actually.  So, we hold on to this body as ‘me,’ as the ‘I,’ ‘I am.’  Or even when we hold on the inside also, “I am an individual soul”; that is also wrong.  Eventually you will realize the oneness of the universal Self that exists.  But when we hold on to any individuality that forms the ego, with that, “Now, this belongs to me.  This doesn’t belong to me.  This has to be mine.  I don’t like this one.  I like this one.  I don’t like you.  I like you.”  These types of things; we get involved into dualities.  Not one, two, millions and millions.  We become habitual and we lose control of ourselves and we lose track of the things, where it started, why it is happening.  Like this, we have become habitual. 

We are unhappy because we are judgmental about people.  Actually, a yogi never makes any judgment about anybody in the world or those people who come in front of them, who is good, who is not bad.  He just wants to teach the spiritual truth and give counseling about psychological things, how the mind can play havoc to an individual, keeping that one sentence of six enemies of human mind from the ancient sages.  Everything comes under that heading only.  The mind taking shape, whatever happens is due to that only – energy, playing such thing.  If that can be controlled, then you have peace. 

For this, you have to achieve awareness of your real Self, that what you are.  This is possible when you meditate, silence your mind.  Then its attention turns to itself.  Now its attention is on to its imaginations of thoughts and visions.  If it becomes quiet, then its attention turns to itself.  That means your attention turns to your real Self.  Then you become aware of what you are.  And with that, that mind also can settle down there peacefully.  That Ultimate Truth of Self has the ability to take back this mind into its mother fold, like what we can call Self.  And thus keep it also at peace.  The actual Self is in peace in Mahasamadhi.  That’s why it is called as Divinity.  That is also another reason also in Gayatri Mantra, if we adopt the meditation of that truth in our mind, our mind also can achieve losing of sins and unhappiness once for all.  That is why that truth is Divine in nature.  So, that’s what we can achieve. 

Then always we are in that awareness, anything happens.  So, we all work; as a yogi, we also try to work.  We also always dreamt since childhood, “Why are humanity always against each other?  Why cannot they live for each other?”  And we were impressed by the scientist statement, “Earth always has had and will have enough resources to meet the need of humanity, but not its greed.”  Swamiji’s telling twelve bananas, “How many are you going to eat?  You give some to others and eat some.”  But you want to have it for your selfish thing.  Then you become unhappy, and you are tensed always and you lose your peace and mental stability; everything happens when you become selfish.  That’s what is ‘selfless’; becoming selfless is so important. 

So, then you can live happily.  Everything keeps happening.  You try.  Like Sri Krishna also tried all over the country, Bharatavarsha.  Wherever kings were not righteous, they were not of good noble nature, He tried to advise them to look after the subjects, to be noble, not to commit injustice.  “Be justified always, then the conflicts will not happen”, like that He tried to help Pandavas also to achieve.  Then finally, when He saw His own kith and kin were fighting, Yadavas, then Balarama says, “Krishna, You helped the Indian Subcontinent so much, why don’t You help our own people?  They are fighting, see.”  “They have wealth.”  Krishna says “They wanted wealth and the wealth has come.  Now, they don’t have anything to do.  Wars have ended.  It is peace.  But in peacetime, they don’t know what to do.” 

In peacetime, what is needed?  You just have to nourish your physical body with that much of food.  Then if you don’t have any greed, you have peace.  For that you don’t need any medicine, any alcohol, any drugs for your peace.  Without any of these things you can have peace if you have practiced spiritual exercises.  Then, daily as a way of life, get into that exercise of remembering God, try to create this awareness.  That’s what Krishna tried to create awareness by giving Bhagavad Gita also, by teaching Arjuna. 

So, this is what one can do.  We try to create awareness.  Whatever is there, we are happy.  For myself, I have achieved.  I could have simply sat.  But still, we just wanted to share what we have achieved; “This is the spiritual truth.  If you practice, you can also achieve.”  This is what we try to teach.  And that’s it. 

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  For a yogi, for Babaji, the brain is still reflecting, but the reflections are not recognized as being real by the consciousness.  So, can you have a thought without identifying it as a thought and simply stay as the ocean even as a physical form?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes.  Yeah, you see, this is the biggest challenge, particularly for humans.  My brain is alert and still alive.  That’s why I am able to be in this body and communicate with you all.  Otherwise, the body would have gone.  And a small amount of consciousness is in touch with the brain.  It is able to apply the brain when I have to teach.  I need a language to answer your question; that spontaneously comes.  So, this is the coordination of my consciousness with the brain that this is happening. But this is kept under a certain level of control, not allowing the consciousness to go into further cravings.  I am just telling “This is what it is, this is what it is”, the truth.  As a teacher I tell, “This is the answer.  If you practice, then you can also achieve.  If you listen to me…” That’s why Sri Krishna said, “Arjuna, before death shall claim thee, go to the knowers of truth.  Sitting at Their feet, seeking Their permission, ask intelligent questions.  When They teach, adopt such methods and you also achieve that truth to yourself.”  So, that’s how all great Masters achieved.  Sri Rama also achieved after listening to Vasistha’s discourse for seven days.  He was such a ripe soul, He achieved Self-Realization. 

So, this is what we do, but we remain unaffected.  The mind is under control.  Don’t allow it to become a mind and going to cravings.  We know what the truth is.  So, this is the thing.  First, while alive in this world, everybody can be peaceful and happy and eating, simply.  But everybody has to coordinate with each other.  If ten people are wicked and one is trying to be noble, that will not work.  The ten wicked will kill this one noble also. “Why are you noble?  You become wicked with us,” they will try to drag.  Because always, many noble people, they keep quiet.  They don’t want to work it out. 

Once Swamiji was telling, the world is like this because majority of the good people are not coming forward to work it out.  They are simply sitting, they are avoiding and all the wicked are having a field day.  They get into this one.  If everybody, all good people work, they will be in the majority.  The world will have to listen.  All the rulers will have to listen.  People in majority have brought down the rulers when they were wicked.  Like these things have happened.  So, that all can be worked out and keep the mind at peace. 

Question:   Baba, You’ve said before that nothing has actually happened to the Ocean or the Self.  The droplet has come out in illusion, in imagination.  But it hasn’t, nothing has really affected the Self at all.  That’s intact.  Can Babaji talk about this?  And also, is this world around us actually the ocean; it’s just we’ve identified it as different, something else?

Babaji Maharaj:   See, though this creation or universe, whatever you want to call, galaxies so and so, they are all finally a micro speck compared to the space which is simply all pervaded.  The space remains unaffected.  Nobody can make out openly that it is due to the space that these things are happening.  So, that is how we try to tell in spiritual language, the Divine is all pervaded, the Ultimate Truth is in Mahasamadhi, in total absolute stillness.  And the entire universe is happening due to the Divinity but not according to the Divine’s wishes.  This is important to understand, these two things. 

So, Swamiji used to tell or Ramana Maharishi also as an automatic Divine activity.  Because the presence of the sun has given light to other planets or whichever is nearer.  But the sun has no resolutions, no wishes that “Let my light go only to this planet and not to this planet.”  The location of the earth is in such a place, an angle and the rotation that it revolves around itself and going around the sun, and the atmosphere, that is why it is able to receive the sunlight.  So, whichever half portion comes in front of the sun, it is able to receive the sunlight.  It is daylight for them.  The other portion of the world, they experience the night.  We have named it as day and night, time, this, everything for our convenience.  And our body systems have become used to sleeping in the night, working in the day.  Now the lifestyle has changed; people can be working the whole night and they can be sleeping in the day.  Anything happens.  It is all different.  But as we adopted, the system also adjusts itself and it becomes like that, the body.  The body system changes otherwise. 

But the Divinity is intact.  It has not got affected.  Any small portion that imagines, comes out.  That is what we try to call as the droplet.  I have also told what Swamiji used to tell, the story of Brahma, Vishnu, Maheshwara coming out.  The first Divine personalities, that is how Swamiji used to call.  First Daiva Murthies, He used to tell.  Means, they created; that is a concept.  Means, we can say in other words, if you just want in the small scientific terminology, an enormous amount of consciousness arose from the Ultimate Truth to create.  So, these concepts came to be known as Brahma, which created; Vishnu, which protected and Shiva, which tried to withdraw it back to the Self.  When they did, they did not get involved with the creation.  Thus, they consciously remained in the Self only.  Thus, they came to be known as Divine personalities.  

And in the legendary stories also, the next generation are the angels and demons.  Then the consciousness became a little more corrupted – power, insecurity, conflict, everything happened for them.  And they got involved into this.  Then next generation, next generation, next generation.  So, like that as the generation went ahead, I have told the consciousness gets diluted also.  And its power of remaining focused into the Self gets diluted.  So thus, by the time it becomes a mind in the human, imagine how much corrupted it would become. 

For this corrupted mind to take back to the Self again, that is the effort of meditation and tapas.  That’s why tapas is not an ordinary thing.  As Sri Krishna tells, one in millions gets inspired to tread this path of spirituality, means finding the real truth of the Self.  And one in such millions actually treads the path.  Many people feel inspired, “We want to do, we want to do,” then they fall out.  They cannot continue.  It’s a very difficult task.  One day suddenly you get attracted to do meditation, you get excited, you want to learn, you want to do.  Then after a few days you drop out, you get attracted to the world and you lose your stability, mental stability of determination, patience.  These things are all very necessary.  Determined courage, “Must; till the last breath of life we are not going to give up.”  That attitude must be there.  Otherwise, you give up, so you fall out.  Then you lose that concerted, concentrated effort to achieve things; becomes difficult. 

So, that is how, in a human mind, to achieve back the Self-Realization, it becomes so difficult as you were mentioning in the beginning.  How difficult it is, it looks almost impossible.  But we must have the courage.  Though it is very difficult, it is not impossible.  Step by step.  I tell, “Don’t look at the top of Mount Everest.  Step by step, you go on climbing; practice.  Then one day you can be on top of the mountain.  It is possible.”  Like, you practice.  Then one day you can be a Self-Realized soul if you practice.  Since childhood we practiced, we had the inclination.  We did the chantings.  We loved the music, devotional music.  We got very little exposed to the outside world.  Then also there was education.  We studied then also whatever little books were there. 

Those people who studied in those days with a graduation or with an engineering graduation or one had to become a doctor, like this.  One or two or three things only we had heard.  There were no millions of courses and this, that, hundreds of things were not there.  They also earned, they also earned their livelihood.  They also lived in the world.  They also ate food.  Today also people are earning tenfold, twentyfold, hundredfold may be, but yet that earning also insufficient because they have adopted such habits that they want to do this, they want to do that.  All things which are really not necessary to sustain the body they have become habitual with everything.  So, whatever they earn… 

What a person would have been earning fifty years ago, a person today might be earning fifty times, hundred times much more.  Still, it is the same situation, same conflict in the mind.  “This is not enough for us.  We need to earn more.  We need to see if any other company can give a better salary.”  So, they are agitated, they are stressed out.  They are not happy, they are not peaceful.  Everything becoming expensive.  Humans are becoming greedy.  If as a simple common layman, if we think, it is the same rice or same wheat that was fifty years ago.  But what was the rate then and what is the rate today?  It is the same oil that was fifty years ago, same oil now also.  But somewhere somebody wanted to earn more and became greedy; they raised.  They raised the rate of one thing and everything gets affected.  Everybody has to raise theirs.  They have to cover the costs.  They pass on the buck to the other, pass on the buck to the other. 

Finally the common man, he cannot pass it on to anybody else.  Then he starts shouting, “Give me more salary, marketing has become very difficult.  The rates have become so high.”  What we could buy fifty years ago, forty years ago with twenty rupees, so much of vegetables would come.  But today, twenty rupees anybody will laugh, “You take it back and you keep it in your pocket.”  Even begging alms person also wouldn’t take.  You need to have a thousand rupees at least today.  That is the difference, to get that much of a little bit of vegetables.  Vegetables is the same, it has not changed.  But we human beings have become more and more greedy.  We need more.  We need more.  And we don’t know what to do then.  Still we are unhappy. 

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  So, as Baba says, the basic aim of the sadhana is to make the mind quieter and quieter, then you go back to the Ocean, your true Self.  So, Baba, the quietness has to be more interesting to us than the world really.  We have to want to go there. 

Babaji Maharaj:   One needs to experience, then they will understand.  Even a glimpse comes… Means, first, one thing is important.  As all the great masters like Buddha, Swamiji said, constant cravings of the mind is the basic reason for all unhappiness.  We think when we obtain a certain thing of this world, we become happy.  And we think this thing has given us happiness.  It has not.  Only when we got that, if our mind had become quiet even for a fraction of a moment, that was what gave us happiness.  The thing is the same.  I have given example of ice creams many times in my talks.  You think you can buy one scoop and you become happy.  You start thinking this ice cream is giving so much of happiness.  “Let me have one more scoop, let me have one more scoop,” and you lose control and your unable to stop.  You go on eating 10, 20, 30, 50 scoops.  How much you can eat?  

The same ice cream which you were thinking was giving you happiness will start giving you unhappiness, will make you ill, will start giving your body trouble.  You realize; “My God.”  The ice cream is the same, but our greed increasing the quantity.  The body is made to receive only a little bit, that is all.  So, everything is limited here.  But if our mind which is unlimited, without anything also, we will be able to keep our mind quiet, at peace.  Even if we are hungry, we will have peace until we get some food.  We can find out some way to get some food, so we don’t have to bark on somebody and try to kill somebody, like an animal attacking when it is hungry.  It will attack, that is all it knows.  But humans can negotiate, talk and try to understand the situation, work for it.  Something like that can be done.  Always we don’t have to be violent unnecessarily. 

These things can be understood if we practice spirituality.  We all need food, definitely.  One day I might keep quiet.  Two days I might keep quiet.  But third day it will be hungry.  Body is like that.  We need.  But we will have patience if we are a human being.  Like the animal may not have that patience, it will pounce upon.  Monkeys we get to see, it is so hungry, it comes.  The moment it gets to see the banana, they all fight with each other.  They pounce on it.  They cannot negotiate, “Let all of us have little, little.”  It’s not possible for them.  But at least human beings can think “I’ve got all bananas.  You all come.  You are all hungry.  We can share.” 

That is the mental stability, mental maturity and mental contentment that we can achieve through the practice of meditation; will be possible.  But everybody has to meditate.  That’s necessary.  If only one meditates and another hundred and thirty nine don’t want to really seriously meditate then things won’t work.  All hundred and forty participants will have to seriously, understanding the technology, meditate.  All people who live in the Ashram will have to meditate.  If they don’t meditate, they won’t be able to have peace or satisfaction. 

Question:   Namaste Babaji.  Droplets and the ocean is a metaphor.  As per the science, the reality is the sunlight brings the heat and oceans’ water evaporates in the form of droplets and with the help of cloud formation, and at a congenial situation, in the form of rain it reaches earth.  Later these droplets collectively make an attempt to reach the ocean from where that they have come, but in the process some droplets percolate to the soil.  Some are useful for crops, some quench the thirst of beings and of course, help the forests to grow.  Finally, some droplets together facing all odds reach the ocean.  In a similar way what are the efforts the beings have to make to reach the Ultimate Being, the eternal bliss, anantam, anandam, brahma in addition to the meditation?

Babaji Maharaj:   All the time two things.  Either your effort should be to silence your mind or at least try to keep it single pointed.  See, this meditation of silently watching is one of the highest methods practiced since ancient times in India.  And other than that one can try to practice other things like repeating a mantra, repeating the name of the Divine, or music can be a very good therapy.  So, like this type of chants of spirituality, reading some high spiritual scriptures or commentaries by great Masters which gives elaborate meaning.  Like this so many exercises can be followed so that you try to keep it single pointed and it should be helpful in meditation also that you achieve silence.  Finally, achieving silence is the only way to go back to the Self, that which I was mentioning as ocean symbolically. 

Same Questioner:   Thank You, Babaji. 

Question:   It seems like either a person’s Self-Realized or not Self-Realized.  I think there is no in-between state.  Is it correct?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes.

Same Questioner:   If the space as my ocean is God, so there has to be some intelligence, like creative intelligence?

Babaji Maharaj:   Intelligence is needed in this world.  Like when you want to ask a question you need the intelligence.  If you sit quietly you don’t require any intelligence.  Understand; this is a very significant point.  The Divine is in Mahasamadhi, in itself.  Then no question of any intelligence is required.  If you are going to produce a movie, you need intelligence.  To produce a movie then the intelligence also gets created.  But the Divine does not need any intelligence because He is totally absolute, doesn’t need anything else. 

Same Questioner:   So, there is nothing like Supreme intelligence?

Babaji Maharaj:   No need.  There the intelligence role finishes.  When you become Self-Realized, when you try to settle into the Self, all gets dropped, all ideas. 

Question:   Namaste Babaji.  Silence is our nature also.  Silence is always there.  Is it a matter of recognizing the silence?  Does it have a sound?  Does it have a texture?  How do I recognize?

Babaji Maharaj:   No.  If there is silence in the mind, there is peace, serenity, quietness.  If the mind is not silent, you know that one.  Your mind will be chattering with itself.  Then it is not silence. 

Same Questioner:   I had an experience when I felt like my consciousness went out of the body and it came back.  And it came back in five minutes.  It was not very long.  But when it came back, I started understanding the Bhagavad Gita, when I was reading it.  So, I knew there was some kind of a transformation in me.  But it was only post.  After I came back, then when I started thinking, my senses were all sharpened.  And I wanted to be in the presence of saints.  I wanted to be listening to God all the time.  And then I started learning about what my true Self is.  And I am still in the process of discovering it, I suppose.  But I was wondering if there is something of recognizing that you have progressed in some way?

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, that’s a glimpse that you got.  Actually, the entire consciousness doesn’t go out of the body, then the body would get dropped.  It needs to be in touch with the brain.  So, when the mind is getting detached from the brain, you feel very lightness.  You don’t feel the body as yourself at all.  That’s when this experience of out of body experience, many people feel it.  It’s a glimpse that has been given that your mind became quiet into the awareness. 

Now, sadhana needs to be continued so that it is always there.  Some transformation came because of this beautiful experience.  It is very worthwhile and very beautiful, appreciable.  So that has come.  Now you have been given some hundred thousand dollars to do your business.  Now you have to start doing business and increase that one.  Means try to do more sadhana spiritually so that it will start remaining in that state effortlessly at all times. 

Same Questioner:   So, do I sit in meditation more than doing japam or any other?

Babaji Maharaj:   That is recommended.  In my opinion japam is not bad thing.  Japam will be helpful to keep your mind single pointed.  Instead of having millions of thoughts in the mind, at least your mind is chanting one mantra.  It is there.  Finally, it has to abandon all ideas, all mantras, all concepts, has to become totally silent.  Then only it goes introvert towards Self-Realization.  So, for a while, if you have inclination, you can continue the japam also.  But it is recommended that  you try to do silent meditation for some time so that your mind can pick up totally, finally, easily. 

Same Questioner:   Thank You. 

Question:   Even though we know theoretically that droplet and ocean are the same, we as Atman and Brahman are the same, but practically we are not able to experience.  To experience the Brahman, we have to do the meditation, the dhyana yoga.  How can we achieve or try with other paths like karma yoga, bhakti yoga and jnana yoga?

Babaji Maharaj:   In all paths, first it is important to make the mind single pointed and achieve total silence.  Like in karma yoga, if there is acceptance, everyday actions are there, you work, you have a desire, that is no problem, but the results always will not come according to your expectations.  So, whatever results come, you just accept it, then the mind recedes.  It won’t go into a brooding or unhappiness.  So, this is like the karma yoga. 

Like other type of yogas, bhakti yoga is there; in bhakti yoga all the time your consciousness, mind needs to be in the awareness of the Divinity, that form that you love, that name that you love.  You want to take the name of the Divine in a form; all the time your mind has to be there.  In your consciousness, that has to be more preoccupied, more than anything else.  That’s how you can achieve finally the results of the meditation also, dhyana yoga; things will come through bhakti also.  Like for Mira Bhai, in Her consciousness only Krishna existed.  She Herself never existed; always remembering Krishna.  To that level when you rise, then you achieve. 

Question:   Babaji, please help to enlighten about family and bonding.  I have realized the more we try to remain silent, meditate, I am not able to sync with family members as they find I am not in their space. 

Babaji Maharaj:   First thing is that you can advise yourself best that you are in need and you need to meditate.  Others you can try to advise.  If they listen, they listen, if they don’t listen, you don’t lose your mental equilibrium for that phase.  You keep going on your path, you keep meditating.  When they understand their need, they will also come.  When they feel the hunger or yearning, then they will come.  Till then you tell them 100,000 times, they won’t realize.  If for some reason they don’t follow you, they don’t realize, but you don’t go into disappointment is the important recommendation.  You continue your meditation.  When it is the right time for them, they will come. 

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  If we are droplets, what about animals and plants?  Are they droplets also?  

Babaji Maharaj:   In them consciousness is there.  That’s what the droplet is there, but they all operate based on the instinct; they don’t have the well-developed brain, they are unable to discriminate what is right, what is not right, who are we, they cannot think.  But eventually, if their consciousness, if it can become non-violent due to the atmosphere, circumstances or surroundings, then they get elevated better birth, better birth.  One day, they get into a human birth, then they will be able to understand and get into meditation this type of thing.  So, that is why human life is considered as the rarest of rare gems by our Masters. 

Question:   Baba, I had been listening to this particular shloka from Rigveda from my childhood.  It’s in seventh mandala – we have become bubbles of the ocean and begging for power, we have come to the wrong shore of the ocean, and we are within the ocean, yet we are so thirsty, Hey Varuna, the Lord of the Ocean, kindly have mercy on us. 

So, Baba, in this context, my question is, in previous Rigvedic era Varuna was considered the lord of morality, righteousness.  So, when we have come to this world in this space, we are within the space like a bubble, should we recognize the need of being moral, respectful, to become a good person, to be on the right path of karma yoga, gnana yoga?  As Swami Vivekananda also said that we have come to a moral gymnasium; to go to attend the Divinity within, we have to go through this path. 

So, Baba, my question is this, has this space or ocean that in Rigveda they are talking about, got some Divine law, which we have faltered in some way, and we have to go back through all the paths; we have to take on some rules to adhere?

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, in those days, the sages, when they observed, whatever concepts or the matter or elements that were helping in sustaining the life, they recognized the beautiful energy behind that, they recognized that as the Divine energy.  So, they are adressed in their name, Agni, Varuna, whatever it is, and they used to pray through that concept only, finally to reach the Divinity that is all pervaded.  Finally, that’s how they used to use the word of Tattva.  Tattvamasi, finally, let our prayers reach the Tattva, and they may bless us to have all these things.  So, symbolically, the same thing has been told.  Today only I came to know, when you have told this shloka; I had never read this shloka before, but I was telling from my experience, but you have endorsed what I have been telling, so this is what has happened. 

So, you can call Divine either as Varuna or in any other name, Rama or Krishna or Parabrahman, Tattva, is no problem.  You can always pray that one Ultimate Truth is the real Divinity, for that only.  Then, when people were going into different, different… according to their cultures, wanted to recognize in different names, then Adi Shankara also tried to teach them this concept of Brahma, Vishnu, Maheshwara, Mother Goddess and Ganesha, Karthikeya, all these concepts.  So, you try to worship one commander-in-chief of all the angels, Deva Senapathi, Karthikeya, like that they taught.  So, these are all finally concepts.  You can worship in any name that you like, but your imagination should be the Divinity, final Ultimate Truth. 

Same Questioner:   Gurudev, what about the laws of Divinity?  What are the laws of Divinity that we should adhere to and conduct our lives?  Is there some kind of law or is it our imagination in this human life?

Babaji Maharaj:   You see, you have the human body, you have to learn the human values; that is the human laws.  The universal laws are going on.  They all behave according to their things.  If you meditate, you will be able to respect all the universal laws of the Divinity.  Like, if it is raining, your mind will accept, “Let it rain, it is the Divine.”  If it is sun, your mind will accept, “It is the sun.”  And you will try to bow to the Divine through that form.  You won’t have any complaints; you will have peace.  That is how you can respect all laws of the universal Divinity. 

Question:   Pranaams Babaji.  You mentioned that the individual soul is an imagination.  Previously, I have thought of the patterns and habits of the mind that go on as a seed to our next birth.  I thought of that as the individual soul.  Is that not the right thing?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, that is the thing which has given every person an imagination about the individual soul.  It is actually the mind.  When it is thinking, chatterbox, you call it as mind.  And then you call it as your mind.  You and your mind are not different.  You are the imagined individual self.  That same thing will go into next incarnation if there is imagination, if there is a desire.  So that is why spirituality is taught, so that you can stop that imagination.  You can achieve silence so that you merge with the Ultimate Truth instead of getting reincarnated again and again.  That is what is recommended so that you can come above the dualities of this world of happiness and unhappiness, good and bad.  You are in Supreme Peace. 

Same Questioner:   So, if the patterns and habits dissolve, then the imagination of an individual soul dissolves also? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes, the individuality will be gone; that individual soul will merge with the Ultimate Truth if all the habits drop. 

Same Questioner:   Thank You, Babaji. 

Question:   Babaji, “For one’s own liberation and for the welfare of the world.”   So, why not the Realized Masters can collectively or individually change this world which is originated by the Supreme Self into individual minds to bring the order and everlasting peace?  Though many Masters have come on the earth and disappeared, but still the work is in progress. 

Babaji Maharaj:   See, first the thing is, it’s very rare to find real Self-Realized Masters.  This is one thing.  There are not many.   All gurus need not be Self-Realized.  We don’t know.  We won’t comment on such things.  Number two, people of this world don’t listen easily, because their minds have become conditioned to a particular Rajasika Swabhava.  See, we tell, we initiate people, “You sit down, gently close your eyes, concentrate your mind and sight in between eyebrows, and do not repeat anything, do not imagine anything,” we instruct.  But everybody is unable to do it.  Because they are habitual.  The moment they close their eyes, thoughts come, and they start analyzing “This is good.  Why is this?”  Like this, it goes on and on.  The people of this world have not tried to listen. 

People from time to time have come, great Realized Masters have come.  They all have tried to advise, advocate in different parts of the world.  But humans have not listened to them, have not adopted the right path to achieve.  That is the reason it is getting delayed.  But, we will all continue to work.  We won’t lose hope.  We will try today.  We have social media, like Zoom, sitting in my Ashram I am able to talk to about 150 people in different parts of the world.  So, we will try to create awareness.  We are trying to do that one.  So, let us hope more people will come together.  So, if like eight, ten people as Swami Vivekananda said; “Give me 10, 20 youth, I will change the world and show you, society.”  That is needed, sacrifice, who take monkhood and become Self-Realized.  If they listen to me, then I can guide these ten people to spread this message further.  So, let’s hope.  We won’t give up hope. 

End of Questions and Answers

Babaji Maharaj now concludes:

   So, we had a very nice session.  Thank you Zen and others also for raising these beautiful questions.

End of Session