Dedicated to the lotus feet of the divine Guru Shivabalayogi Maharaj

“The Higher Knowledge” – Ashtavakra Gita, Chapter 6 – Q&A, No. 240

Recorded on 23 February 2025 with US participants

0:00 Intro
0:08 Chapter 6 “The Higher Knowledge”, verses 1-4 “I am all beings, and all beings are in Me.”
7:50 That “I” is not the body or the ideas in the mind. What is the distinction between thoughts and imaginations in the mind, the mind and pure consciousness?
11:59 So Baba, the mind is synonymous with the consciousness of existence, of our being conscious of existing?
12:29 So that’s the purpose of meditation. Meditation is to quiet the mind, shift our awareness from being on the thoughts and imaginations that are in the mind.
12:56 So Baba, that has to happen automatically, spontaneously, the turning to its Self, because at that point you can’t be thinking.
13:29 So you can’t really be thinking and be in that state. Is that correct?
14:09 In meditation people can have experiences, you’re really not in the Self at that time. You’re just caught up in a higher, better imagination?
15:17 So the yogi has to have the resolve to silence the mind and not get carried away with the imaginations as they can be more profound and more charming, and more alluring.
16:03 What’s the distinction between the Consciousness of Existence and the Self, or the mind and the Self?
16:58 “Very often, seekers give up worldly life and go to the forest caves and ashrams, and they just end up struggling for another world that they have in their imagination.”
19:15 Supreme Peace is beyond bliss.
20:05 “There is nothing to give up if you don’t hold on to anything in the mind.”
22:16 “Once you’ve acquired the awareness-knowledge, there is nothing that you have to absorb, and nothing is there that you have to give up.”
24:35 What does Babaji mean by ‘awareness-knowledge’?
25:30 So that awareness-knowledge is when you’ve managed to quiet the mind of all the extraneous thoughts, but you still have that awareness of your own existence?
26:10 So it’s that last state, where all thoughts have been withdrawn, except it’s conscious of its own existence, and then that merges into the Self.
29:00 The meaning of the terms tyaga and tapas.
32:39 How is body consciousness different from there mind?
34:37 How is karma related to the practice of quietening the mind? In the practice of meditation, how can karmas help you?
36:24 How do the karmas of everyday living also impact progressing in our spirituality?

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