0:00 Intro
0:16 What is the real Self? Is it separate from the individual self?
6:20 What are the benefits of knowing ourselves?
11:35 What is this power that the topic ‘the power of the Self ‘ is referring to?
20:30 How best should we use this power in this life?
23:44 How do we maintain and grow this power within us?
29:51 Why do some people who have achieved great spiritual accomplishments later drift away form the spiritual path? How can we avoid this?
35:11 Is it right to invoke deities for abundance and prosperity?

The Power of the Self, Thus Spake Babaji, online Q&A #104

15 September 2022, Malaysian Participants

Questioner:

The first question, Babaji, as far I know my sense of self is my physical body and my personality. What is the Real Self? Is this Real Self separate from the individual self, Babaji?

Babaji:

Yeah. First thing, I would say that your claim that this body as ‘I am’ and a personality itself is false. Because that is simply based on an imagination. Actual Self gets revealed when you are able to pay attention to yourself. 

Now the question is, when you don’t know about yourself, how to pay attention to that Self? 

You have a mind. And that mind is made up of consciousness and energy which is infinite. You cannot identify the mind. Simply based on thoughts and visions you recognize that you have a mind. Though you claim you have a mind, ‘My mind wants to do this, my mind wants to think,’ but you cannot identify that mind. Means, you cannot demonstrate or show it to anybody, ‘This is the mind, I have a mind like this,’ it is not possible. Simply based on an imagination of thoughts and visions, you tell, ‘My mind wants to do this.’ Your mind wants to do this, but what is that mind itself? Like that. 

So now, this is what the great ancient sages understood. If you need to understand something, you need to become aware of something, you need to keenly observe. That’s what they understood and thought. 

Like you want to know about your Real Self – so you have to keenly observe. But how to go to that Self before observing? Once you know that Self, then you might be able to observe, you might try to observe. Now to try also, how? For that also they thought, ‘As long as there is imagination in the mind, the clear ‘I’ will not be visible.’ Because the mind is preoccupied with imaginations. We have to stop this mind. Means stop these thoughts and visions, that’s what the great sages visualized and thought about it. 

So then, they tried to became quiet in the mind, they practiced to remain quiet in the mind. Because as you all know, mind is constantly a chatterbox, it cannot keep quiet, you close the eyes it keeps talking, talking, story making, characters, this thought, that thought, keeps coming, millions and millions, it could be torturing, it could be stressful, it could be anything. 

But they applied their mind and became quiet, by closing the eyes. When they become quiet – it was awesome, wonderstruck! They themselves did not disappear. Means, the ‘consciousness of existence’ is noticed here. When your mind becomes totally quiet, then you notice that ‘I’ is there. That ‘I’, what is that ‘I’? That is awesome! Simply inexplicable! You cannot tell ‘This is the body,’ or you cannot tell that Self as, ‘This is the mind.’ That also it is beyond all these things. It is  in the quietness, in the silence of the consciousness, the Existence is there. 

So that’s how they first called it as ‘Tattva’. Tattva means, ‘That.’ That awesome thing! When they discussed after they came out of meditation, this is what they addressed; ‘Tattva, it is only Tattva, it is an awesome Existence!’ 

So like that they recognized the Self. So that is the Self, that is where you have to pay attention. Then you will know, ‘this is the Self’. 

And that Self you will also be able to notice or pay attention that it is simply All-Pervaded. In deeper meditation when you reach the stage of Samadhi. Samadhi means total stillness of the mind. Mind no more wavers, no more spinning, no more round happens, no more imagination, no thoughts, no visions, no colors, no sounds, no nadham, no Brahman, nothing, everything stops. Yet that ‘I’ is there. That you experience that you are beyond this body. You are in the body and beyond the body.

For example, inside you also is the space, and outside you also is space. This much everybody knows. Imagine that space understands, becomes aware, ‘I am in this body, I am out of this body, I am simply All-Pervaded.’ That is how you recognize, you become aware, the secret of the ‘I’ is revealed, when you practice deeper, deeper meditation. If you are really interested to know this Self, if you pursue on the path of meditation, then that Self is revealed. That is the most powerful, wondrous, greatest thing.

Same Questioner:

Thank you Babaji. 

Babaji, why do we need to know the Real Self? What are the benefits of knowing ourself? 

Babaji:

One important thing that Swamiji our Guru always spoke, you all notice, everybody, everything you do is for yourself. Means for your own happiness. You will do anything if you gain happiness. Or if you think that you can gain happiness, at least. 

Like when you all come to participate in the Zoom, when you see that, ‘There is something wondrous thing Babaji is going to teach and reveal to us. It is going to give us happiness, it can give us a thrill,’ then only you would like to participate. Otherwise you will give an excuse, and you write an email, ‘Sorry Babaji, today I cannot participate in the Zoom class, I have to attend a wedding ceremony, I have to go with friends,’ like that some excuse comes. Otherwise you are there. You are there because you have an expectation that you can gain that Supreme Peace, you can overcome all stress, or at least you get happiness. Maybe by looking at Babaji you get some happiness, that is possible. That is when you do this one. 

So now Swamiji said, ‘Because you want to do everything for yourself, know that yourself first. And then you will know what you need, what you need to do for that, all these things you will know.’ You want to do it for yourself, but you must know yourself first. If you don’t know about yourself, you will end up doing it for a wrong identity.

Like, we spoke about the body as ‘me’. You start thinking body as me, and then you identify, end-up everything – ‘this body if it is given, all the things that can give happiness that we imagine, then I might get happiness’, but that never happens. You might be twenty year old, you might be forty year old, you might be sixty year old, seventy or eighty year old. If you look back throughout your life from childhood, you would have tried to give so much to the body. So much of comforts. All clothings, all fashionable things, oil moisturizers, all oils, everything. And comforts, cars, bungalows, properties, everything. But did it give you happiness permanently? Did it ever give you total contentment? That is elusive. Ask yourself, is it not? 

That is because you identified yourself with a wrong thing, which never gets satisfied. The more you feed this body, more thirst, more hunger happens. It never says, ‘I am full now, I won’t have anything for the rest of my life.’ Not possible. ‘Only for today I won’t have anything, but tomorrow morning I need something to eat.’ So like that the life goes on and on and on, misidentification. Hitherto we were thinking this body to be me and we are giving everything. 

It’s another thing, we need to sustain this body, this body is helpful. If we look in a different angle, this body has given me consciousness of this world. Like Babaji, through this body only, I am able to talk to you, communicate with you, teach you all, create an awareness. Once this body is gone, I will disappear. Nobody will be able to recognize me. Who can recognize Swamiji now? Swamiji has dropped His physical body. As long as He was in the body, He could communicate through that body. He played, He laughed, He made merry, He fed us, He gave us teachings, He made us do meditation. But now that body is gone.

It’s a different thing everybody claims, ‘Oh, Swamiji is everywhere. I saw Swamiji in this form, I saw Swamiji in this form,’ but who really knows? Where is Swamiji, how is Swamiji? It becomes so difficult. In the true sense, if everybody is sincere, they will tell that, ‘How to know Swamiji, it’s so difficult, we can see only the space.’ It’s a different thing, human beings are liars always, they will claim, ‘Oh, we saw Swamiji like this, we saw in the form of light.’ But nobody has seen. Where is Swamiji? 

Thus this body is also very helpful, as long as it is there it is a bonus. To look after this body is no problem, we have to look after. Only to look after this body, servicing of this body is needed, that much purpose. But not this body, it is not me – I want happiness. So that is why you have to know yourself.

Same Questioner:

Thank you Babaji. The next question, the topic for today Babaji – ‘The Power of the Self’. What is this power referring to, Babaji?

Babaji:

You see, power is – when you don’t need anything – that is the highest power. Because Swamiji used to tell, if you don’t need anything you are like an emperor. But if you need, you get reduced to a beggar. Because, for philosophy He used to talk like this. Because of desires we get reduced to a beggar, we want alms from God. We go to temple, we beg God, ‘Please give me some lottery ticket, give me few bungalows, give me a Benz, a Bentley car I need. I need to travel in the aeroplane’, we become beggars in front of God. Wherever we go we become beggars. We need.

That’s because we have desires. We think that we can have peace, or happiness in that. If we don’t need – ‘If you want to give you give, otherwise you keep it to you. You need that, I don’t need. I am happy. Always I am happy, you give or not. You take this Ashram, or you give me this Ashram – I am happy, either way, all the time’.

So like that – when you are contented – that is the real power of the Self. That’s why Swamiji always told, ‘Meditate and know yourself. Meditate and know yourself.’ It is like telling, ‘Meditate and know that you are an emperor. You are not the watch man. You are not a beggar. You are an emperor. Meditate and know – you are one with Divine. Meditate and know that you are one with Divine. That is the power of the Self. 

Because the power is totally concentrated. It is in itself. For its existence also, it doesn’t need anything, anybody else. Every object, every universe, every galaxy, Milky Way, everything, you watch and observe, they all depend on something, one depends on the other. Ultimately, they all depend on the space. So they are all dependent, they cannot be the most powerful, impossible. Nobody is the most powerful. An emperor always depends on his army, his servants, his this, his that. So how can he be powerful, Swamiji used to tell. He is not powerful. Any day the army can catch hold of the emperor, and make him to sit and stand, for its dictatorship. Only a Yogi when He settles in Himself. 

The Self is in itself, like the space exists in itself. Space does not exist with the help of anything else. It doesn’t depend on anything else. If you hold an earthen pot, it temporarily appears as if the space inside the pot depends on the pot – no, not really. You break the earthen pot, the space is there; it doesn’t need that pot for its existence, without the pot also it can exist. 

In the same way when we meditate and become Self Realized, we realize the same thing as Atman – inside the body, outside the body – even if this body perishes, if this dies, we are going to be there. Though we depend now, we want this body to communicate with the world, but we don’t depend on this body totally. Once we Realize ourself – that is the power. If this body goes, no problem, I am there. Without the body also I am there. 

Swamiji is there without the body. Not that now He has gone, He has disappeared anywhere, He is simply everywhere because He doesn’t need the body. Without the body also He is able to exist because He is the Atman, He is one with the Divine. That He realized by twelve years Tapas. 

We have realized that. If this body goes tomorrow, it’s okay, no problem. For my existence it is no problem, only I won’t be able to communicate. So that’s why I have communicated enough for you all, I have left the material of teachings for you all. You depend on that one, read that. You yourself do sadhana, you yourself try to know yourself. That is the power of the Self. Independent existence, totally contented existence. 

This contentment is the most elusive thing for human beings. They struggle, they struggle every day, they want to achieve supreme satisfaction. But not. Temporarily things come to us, and then somebody else snatches it away. God gives money, then somebody comes, ‘Sir, you have not made my payment,’ so we give him back that money, that payment, that money is gone, finished. That’s over, we don’t have anything with us. If we depend on any of these things, we will be crying all the time, ‘Oh, somebody gave me money, I was unable to keep it because I had to give it to some payment.’ So it comes here and it goes here. 

But the Self is not dependent on anybody. You don’t give food, you don’t give money, the Self exists. This body may not exist. So that is why knowing yourself is so important, then you can be the most powerful. Nobody can make you bend. I might keep quiet. People might misunderstand that I am helpless. But I’m really not helpless, because I am totally contented. Anybody might be behaving anything, anybody might be snatching anything, anybody might be taking away. 

Sometimes people, ‘Why Babaji keep quiet? He’s so helpless.’ I am not helpless. I keep quiet because I am totally contented. I know the Truth of myself. That myself – who can snatch it from me? Who can dictate terms on that myself? Because nobody knows who I am, where I am, how can they dictate any terms? How can they order anything for me? I remain in myself and at peace. Anybody can order anything for this body. 

So that is the power of the Self. One need to understand, and pursue on the path. There is one beautiful, once in a lifecycle opportunity, that you all have the human body through which you can meditate and know this Self. You will be the most powerful. You don’t need anything. You are at peace, and you exist in yourself.

Same Questioner:

Thank you, Babaji. So is it correct to say that the source of the power of the Self is to know the Self and be contented with the Self?

Babaji:

Yes, that’s what, but you have to become aware in your consciousness – important. Otherwise it won’t remain in your mind, mind will jump again. Because it is looking for that contentment and happiness. So if it doesn’t become totally aware of itself, then it keeps jumping, wanting this, wanting that, wanting the world, wanting the emperorship, everything it keeps jumping, and it becomes stressful. And it is anxious, ‘Somebody must not snatch this thing from me, what if someone comes and snatches my vest, what will I do to wear now? Oh God.’ That becomes if I am not aware of myself.

So for that you have to achieve the Awareness of the Self. That is the realization, Self Realization. Then you can remain contented, will be possible. That is the power. That is the source of power. The Self itself is the source of power.

Same Questioner:

Thank you, Babaji. With this power, Babaji, how best should we use this power in our life?

Babaji:

To help others, consider about others, try to create an awareness. Because I have achieved, I’m at peace. You also achieve, you will gain peace. 

People are so restless in the world. They are stressful, they are confused, they misbehave, they behave very wrongly. Unnecessarily they go into conflict, they become insecure. All these things are there if you see the society. Surrounding us, surrounding the Ashram, surrounding the society, wherever we travel, this is what we get to see. We feel sad. 

If only these people can know about themselves. Not simply by theory, not simply by listening to Babaji. By practicing Samadhi, by practicing meditation – if only they can become aware of themselves, they can also be contented, at peace, and they will not misbehave with anybody. They will be secure. 

Because insecurity is the problem for every human being. Because of insecurity they go into conflict quickly. One person – means generally, human beings – if he feels threatened, ‘Oh, this fault might fall on me, somebody might accuse me. Before that I must put this fault on somebody else and accuse, and prove that I am okay. I have not done anything wrong.’ That’s how people behave. Even if somebody else has not done anything wrong, they put that blame on them so that they can escape, and they will not be blamed. 

This type of behavior we have seen with human beings. I was surprised, I always laughed within me, ‘My God, what these human beings are’. They feel so threatened, whereas nobody is threatening them, and they put that blame on somebody else so that they don’t want to be blamed. Why? Why this insecurity? They don’t know about themselves, human beings have forgotten. 

That’s what Swamiji said, ‘You have forgotten.’ That’s what Lord Shiva told Swamiji, ‘Human beings of this world have forgotten about themselves, that is why they are miserable. They are going into conflict. They attack each other. Teach them meditation, initiate them into meditation, ask them to become quiet, then they will know about themselves.’ That’s what Lord Shiva told Swamiji, and disappeared. 

Swamiji tried to tell everybody for thirty-three years, as long as He was in the body. That is His message, His silence was His message. But people tried to do so many hundreds of things, whatever He did not tell all they do or whatever He told they don’t want to do. Nobody wants to meditate, the rest of all the things they want to do. So meditate and know yourself. This is what it means.

Same Questioner:

Babaji, how do we maintain and grow this power within us?

Babaji:

That’s what you have to remain concentrated – you must not split yourself into millions of layers – then you become diluted. Why and how this happens?

When you are consistently into imagination, these imaginations always goes into dualities – good and bad, right and wrong, happiness and unhappiness. With that further it splits, and gets created into millions of thoughts by going into an anger, a frustration. When it is frustrated it is anger that comes, and then it shows the anger on somebody else. Where it cannot show the anger… wherever it can show the anger it shows the anger. Sometimes human beings you have seen, the anger will be on somebody else. There they cannot show that anger on that somebody else, so that anger they show on some other helpless creature. This is how human beings make mistakes. 

So like that they dilute themselves, they dilute themselves, they become powerless, they become powerless, they lose their power. The power to remain composed. The power to remain quiet, at peace. That is the real power. 

Humans can talk. If somebody attacks, they tease you – you can also tease them. If they criticize you one, you can criticize them in ten points. That is a small power. But much more bigger power is – when you are able to keep quiet. When somebody criticized the Buddha, Buddha kept quiet, totally in silence. 

Then he said, ‘I’m scolding you so much but you are not reacting, you don’t mind anything.’ 

‘If somebody gives you a gift,’ Buddha asked, ‘and you don’t want that gift, what will you do?’ 

‘I will give it back to them.’

‘In the same way,’ Buddha said, ‘I don’t need your scoldings, it is not helpful to me. You take it back to yourself. I am at peace. I am contented.’ He kept quiet. So that person became so helpless. 

That is the power, that composure, that keeping quiet. Keeping quiet is the real power, always not reacting. 

Of course, somebody should not misunderstand me. In this world if somebody is attacking you physically, then you have to react physically so that you don’t get damaged physically. But mentally – if you remain quiet – that is the real defense. Nobody can harm you if you can keep quiet, nobody can disturb your peace. Let 100,000 times they tease you, they criticize you, they blame you, they do anything – you keep quiet. They get defeated. 

It is like, somebody trying to give you blood pressure what we call it, and they try to give you blood pressure by scolding you, by teasing you, by finding your fault, and you want to react, you want to bang your head, you want to kill them. No – just keep quiet. That person will shout, shout, shout, and then start thinking, ‘My God, nothing is happening to this person, I am getting into blood pressure instead of giving blood pressure to them.’ That is the power. 

That is how you can conserve your energies, instead of allowing it to get consumed. Drainage, all energy gets drained when we lose our temper, when we become jealous, we become so restless. That is why all these six – extreme anger and extreme greed, extreme attachment to impermanent world and false pride, jealousy – all these things are the enemies of human mind. Whoever has got in their mind, they are the casualties. 

They get into blood pressure, they become restless. Inside they are so jealous, ‘Oh, why this person is improving, why this person has achieved Self Realization? He was washing utensils, now today why is he sitting like a Guru? How dare.’ They are helpless. We have nothing to lose, we are quiet. That is how you conserve your power. 

And this power, you use it only when absolutely necessary. We have told in the same way, like mind. When you need to think and execute something in this world, you plan for a while and then become quiet. You don’t have to be thinking all the twenty-four hours, it’s not needed. Just plan with one thought, plan with two thoughts, three thoughts, enough. And then you have to do it, that’s all. 

You think in the night, ‘Oh, tomorrow morning I have to get up and start preparing to go to the airport.’ Enough. You don’t have to be thinking the whole night, ‘I have to go to airport, I have to go to airport,’ and you don’t sleep, you don’t rest, you become restless, what is the use? Now you sleep peacefully, morning you get up, get ready, and go to airport. Like that. 

You remain conserved, conservation is important. That is the mental conservation, is what is the practice of meditation. Meditation helps you to conserve your energies. Keep yourself gathered, concentrated, that is when you can remain composed.

Same Questioner:

Thank you, Babaji. I have one last question Babaji. 

Babaji:

Yeah. 

Same Questioner:

Babaji, there are many stories and even real-life examples of people who have achieved great spiritual accomplishments, through their efforts and their sadhana. However later they become arrogant, and they drift away from the spiritual path. Why does this happen repeatedly Babaji, and how do we protect ourself from falling into this pattern?

Babaji:

That means they did not achieve absolute, or the complete Self Realization. 

As you progress… like, you wanted to achieve ten thousand dollars, but as you progress you achieve up to five thousand dollars, six thousand dollars, but by the time you come to five, six thousand you become arrogant, ‘Now I have six thousand dollars with me, I can do anything I want,’ like that. And you deviate, you stop earning money, you try to spend them, you go to all bad habits, and you keep spending and you lose everything, you don’t have anything. 

Like that, this mental energy also. You meditate, you get some glimpses. And sometimes whatever you resolve in the mind, that starts happening. Then you become egoistic and arrogant, ‘Whatever I think, that will happen. That means now God will listen to me, God is my servant. I ask God, and God has to give me.’ Such a person becomes arrogant and egoistic, they are unable to consider about others. They lose that thing, and they lose their composure also. They have not achieved Self Realization. That is why they become arrogant and egoistic. 

A totally Self Realized person will never harm anybody. Only if it is a dearest disciple or a devotee, sometimes they might show an anger. That is to protect that devotee or disciple from getting into bad karmas. That’s why if a Guru pulls up, it’s like a mother pulling up the child to protect the child so that the child does not take a wrong path. That is very important. The child must learn good character, good samskaras, good thinkings, that is why the mother puts an effort. That’s why such a Yogi being a Master, wants to pull up the disciple, so that that disciple doesn’t pick up wrong habits. 

So this is what a fully Realized Soul behaves. If the person is not fully Realized, complete, has given up sadhana in the middle way, and has read only books and tries to boast based on the books, so they become arrogant and egoistic, and they become selfish. They feel threatened about themselves. 

If anybody comes and challenges, ‘Are you really Self Realized?’ Why should I feel challenged? If I am Self Realized, I don’t need another certificate. I don’t depend on anybody for my Self Realization. I will remain in composure, at peace. So that is the difference. 

Why people become arrogant and egoistic? That means they are not complete. They have not yet achieved full degree course. Halfway through they become arrogant, as if they have done the degree course, ‘Oh now I have done everything, I don’t have to learn anything more,’ and they have not learned anything. Whatever they have learned also, they will give up, and they simply go into boasting, arrogance, all these things. So whenever you see across these type of people, that is all, they don’t know anything. 

Like, Ramakrishna Paramahansa said this story, I have told in my talks also. A person was Self Realized. He sent his two children also to another Guru to learn the spiritual truths so that they can become Self Realized. After long time they both return. 

The Father asked the first one, ‘Tell me, what have you learned about the spiritual truths and Self?’ He started reciting mantras, chants, this, that, everything. He went on telling about the Vedas, ‘This is what it is, this is what it is.’ The Father said, ‘You don’t know anything, come and sit here.’ 

He asked the second son, ‘You tell me what do you know?’ He remained quiet. Then the Father smiled, ‘you know a little bit about the Truth.’ 

So that is the final Truth, and Absoluteness, and the quietness, at peace. When you achieve that – complete, when you are complete, when you are like an absolute – you don’t have to boast, you remain composed, you will be very simple, quiet. Because you don’t need somebody’s certificate. What do you gain by the certificate? You have already gained by Self. So that’s what the Real Truth is.

Same Questioner:

Thank you very much for the satsang today Babaji. It was very interesting, and beneficial to all of us.

Questioner:

Pranams Babaji. Babaji, You talked about today power and contentment, that people are begging God for this and that. So whenever scriptures, like there are certain deities for abundance, prosperity, and people do religious sadhana for invoking those deities’ blessings, for example Goddess Lakshmi. So is it right or wrong, because there are certain mantras to invoke certain powers…

Babaji:

It’s all wrong, totally senseless thing! 

Self Realization is the Ultimate Truth! That is all for greedy people who want money, who want this world’s power. So they reduce God also into a small deity. That is what it is. God wants to give you supermarket, but you are greedy of a small chocolate. You go to God to ask this small chocolate – when the Divine gives you total contentment! That is the real power. Total Self Realization. That is the real power. 

Money can be earned. It comes and goes. You work in this world, then you will earn. Not by propitiating, worshipping Goddess that ‘You give me a lottery note so that I don’t have to work, and I have the money.’ That is not the power. Baby, that’s not the power, meditate and know yourself. Ha, My blessings to you.

Today we had a very wonderful chapter, I hope you all paid attention to listen to my answers. Always know that my teachings, my answers, are not directed against any individual or any group of individuals, only for sake of education. Either I might have uttered jokingly, or a little tough also in my answers, but it is for the welfare of the Universe, for all of your sake, so that you all can learn, you all also can achieve that self-contentment, Self Realization. 

You, yourself is the greatest wonder – you are that Awesome – for which you are looking to worship so that you can gain some money, so that you can gain some horses, some cars, some bungalows. You are that wonder. 

May you all be blessed. We had very good questions. Appreciate your participation. And thank you for your greetings of Happy Birthday to me, very soon it’s going to be. Some of you might be coming, some of you may not be able to come, but know that all of you are going to be with me, I wish you all could be here one day. Our love and much blessings. Take care. God bless you all. May Swamiji bless you all.

Same Questioner:

Thank you Babaji.

End of Session