Questions and Answers 17 January 2015 – Part One

Question :
What is your guidance to try to change and become better people?

Babaji :
As you regularly go on practising meditation also try to ponder over the truth. Because when you are negative a part of your consciousness is negative. You are the first casualty you are hurting yourself often because all negative thoughts would be getting generated in the mind, unnecessarily giving you that emotional stress, all such things which are not going to help you in any way. You won’t be able to change the world or change things as you want, unnecessarily the mind is likely to become more and more corrupted. So if you think on these lines then you will be able to exercise some willpower that you have to change yourself, that is necessary. Your attitude is more important for yourself than anybody else first because, as I have always explained, when you have any of the negative things first casualty is your own mind, you yourself. So if you think on these lines and understand you will be able to change yourself. The practice of meditation will give you strength of willpower in the mind to change yourself to think more positively, to have a stronger thought, ‘I must change myself, this is my mind which is unnecessarily negative which need not be. I need not be a casualty of these things, let me see things positively.’ So thus you would be able to do it if you follow these things.

Question :
When one is trying to meditate some of the thoughts that come up, they’re rather painful, they’re like a thorn that keeps coming back and sticking in one. Now, if you are just trying to watch that thought how will it dissolve? How will it go because it is still a painful thought? Is it that you then decide ‘No I don’t want to think about it?’ Because that is making a judgment, so do you just look at it somehow, even though it is painful?

Babaji :
To overcome a negative thought once you can make a positive judgment and a positive thought, the help of a positive thought, ‘I need to overcome this, this is unnecessarily troubling me.’ So otherwise if you are simply watching that itself gets dissolved. The thought exists as long as your mind recognizes the thought by analysing and by getting agitated, by making a judgment, ‘Oh this is painful, why did this thing happen in my life?’ So instead if you think, ‘The past is over and it’s not going to come back under any circumstances there’s no point in simply brooding and feeling pain. Instead let me look for my future, let me become more positive.’ Like that you can take the help of a positive thought and a positive judgment to overcome a negativity always. So then you would be able to overcome. Or you just simply watch it. If you are really watching it will automatically disappear. If the thought is appearing there that means your mind is recognizing the thought. So that is the thin edge of difference we try to teach, ‘Just watch, just keep looking,’ then it will dissolve very quickly if the mind understands this point and picks up the habit just to watch.

Question :
If one is getting totally exhausted working and travelling, physically and mentally I tend to get a little bit agitated. I think that’s the negativity, I think it makes it worse. The only thing I can think of is to focus a little bit in the middle [of the brow] so that there are no thoughts and try and get rest. I would just ask you for your guidance on how to cope for the next few months.

Babaji :
When you’re tired physically just relax. Sit in any comfortable posture is no problem, on a sofa, on a bed, anywhere that’s comfortable for you. Just simply close the eyes, slowly close the eyes and just try to feel yourself in a relaxed way forgetting the whole world. Remember nothing exists except yourself. Relax and take a long breath also, inhale and exhale like that for a few minutes, you will relax you also you will feel a little bit refreshed. And like that if you can continue for some more time that gets converted as a meditation. The purpose of meditation is to relax yourself mentally. So we want to teach you meditation so that you can relax yourself mentally, that is an important point you need to understand. So if you just relax then meditation becomes more possible and you can continue, you will feel that peace once you are able to forget the past. Unless you forget the past it will always be troubling, that needs to be forgotten because it’s not going to come back under any circumstances, and the tiredness also you can overcome. You just relax, you don’t have to sit in a tough posture to give you more trouble unnecessarily. The very thought that meditation means ‘Oh, I’ll have to sit in a tough posture, that is so difficult, I am so tired, I’m feeling so sleepy.’ So instead of all this as I said just sit anywhere comfortably in any posture, in any way that is comfortable for your back, and close the eyes, relax, ‘Everything is over now’ and sleep and just like that, then that can become a good meditation also.

Question :
Are we responsible for the thoughts that appear by themselves within the mind or are we responsible only for the actions that we take in response to those thoughts?

Babaji :
You are responsible for your thoughts that arise in the mind. You have absorbed them as imprints and you have allowed them to be sitting there by encouraging those thoughts to be in your mind by recognizing, analyzing, brooding – all the time sticking to that. It’s like you go on kissing every thought unnecessarily instead of ignoring and rejecting. So that’s why I would say you are responsible. If you understand and if you just relax and try to observe the meditative postures then you can overcome those thoughts because mind is you, yourself. It is not a separate birth other than you.

The actions that you are doing, you are responsible for your actions and vice versa this happens. The mind and the thoughts that arise become the thinking habit of the mind which induces you to go into a certain type of action, the behavioral structure that I have taught. And when you behave in that way you again absorb that type of thought so that is how you are responsible for both and you must put in effort by taking guidance and truth spiritually and overcome these effects. Then once you are able to overcome the thoughts in your mind then you can exercise the positive thought that you need instead of allowing the mind to do whatever it wants. Then your actions also will be more positive and you will be able to restrain yourself wherever necessary and you can overcome all emotions.