0:00 Introduction from Babaji
4:05 Is freedom the ability to do what we want to do?
8:13 How have we bound ourselves?
14:47 Is suffering there as a reminder that there is a problem?
16:30 Does separation give rise to the ego and is this what we need to be free of?
18:02 Is meditation practiced to remove the notion that anything is a reality?
20:12 Does every action of the Guru help us stop making analysations and judgments?
21:39 If we authorise the Guru fully to perform surgery on the ego, is it less painful?
24:09 As the student do we need to understand that the Guru is removing the ego?
25:41 So we can’t be a slave to this world and also be surrendered to the Guru?
28:01 Is it possible for a person to be free from painful memories and keep pleasurable relationships?
30:21 Some people think discipline is a bondage, why is discipline so necessary?
31:56 Is total freedom the freedom from the cycle of birth and death?
34:14 What is the individual consciousness that is in the body, is it the Self?
37:06 How does the Yogi know that the mind has settled down once and for all?
38:21 Helping others on their journey to the Self
42:22 Why have we lost our childlike innocence?

Discourse: Thus Spake Babaji – online Q and A No. 113
What is Real Freedom?
Recorded: 22 October 2022 with worldwide participants

Babaji Commences:

Om
Omkaara Naada Brahma Ardhanareeshwara
Sri Jagadguru Naatha Shivabalayogeshwaro Parabrahma Rishihi
Jnaana Bhakti Vairagya Sidhyartam
Bhikshandehi cha Sadguru Devam
Baandava Guru Bhaktascha Swadesho Guru Charana Kamalam

   Offering my unconditional surrender, prostrations with deep love and reverence at the lotus feet of our beloved Master Shivabalayogi, I greet you all with my love and blessings.  

Wonderful to see you all again.  We are back.  Quietening the mind is all your job.  That means you have to keep quiet.  It is as simple as that, but mentally know that.  Ah, you can smile no problem, but keep quiet.  Like that in the mind also, thoughts can come – but keep quiet.  Good children of God. 

Soon in a couple of days Indians all over the world will be celebrating Deepavali the garland of fire, or the candles, jyoti, that’s what it is.  The light is always compared to good, knowledge, peace, and also immortality.  Darkness is compared with ignorance, and stress, death, like this – that is the greatest prayer; Asatoma Sadgamaya, please my Lord, lead me from untruth towards the truth that is the Self. Tamasoma Jyotirgamaya – lead me from darkness to enlightenment, the knowledge, light. And lead me from death to immortality.  That is the prayer often we chant in the end of any program – Asatoma Sadgamaya, Tamasoma Jyotirgamaya, Mrityorma Amruthangamayam.   So also, Deepavali is the day celebrated that Lord Rama entered Ayodhya after His vanavasm, His forest life; and during which He killed demon king Ravana also.  When He came to Ayodhya, the people of Ayodhya were so overjoyed and celebrated by lighting candles, and cracking fire crackers, all those things.  Well, nowadays cracking fire crackers is being banned at many places for the reason of pollution and bad things that happen for the health.  But lighting a candle is no problem.  So that is the significance of Deepavali.  May you all be blessed with peace, happiness and be fortunate always to be able to sit with a yogi, to obtain the grace of the Divinity to know the truth of yourself.  You should be able to quieten your mind.  That is our prayers for you all.  Our love and blessings.

Start of Questions and Answers

Question:   The topic today is ‘What is real freedom.’  And so, the first question would be – There are people who think that freedom is being able to do whatever they want to do, but is that actual real freedom or is real freedom something else?

Babaji Maharaj:   So, if everybody keenly observes and try to think, very many times often they have to do certain things whether they like it or not.  That is particularly in this world when we are in this body.  Like one is hungry, so whether we like or not we will have to eat some food to sustain the body.  And we want to sleep.  Whether we like it or not we have to sleep.  Like this there are many things.  But primarily, for spirituality it is the mind which becomes significant.  This world is there, the body is there.  And our own peace and the knowing of truth.  A mind has assumed hundreds and millions of definitions; and consistently there are thoughts and visions coming which gives rise to craving in the mind.  So when these things are there, whether everybody is looking for peace and happiness, that is not there at all times due to these cravings.  There is unhappiness, there is stress, there is unknown fear, all these things are there.  So, these things are binding on them.  They are not totally free.  They are not totally free from fear, they are not totally free from stress, they are not totally free from assumptions – they don’t know what the truth is.  So, when all these things are there, how can there be a freedom?  We need to overcome all these things and try to know the truth. 

As the great Masters have put it – When your consciousness which is now the mind is not into any type of imaginations, only then you can know the truth.  Whatever is there, that is the truth.  And that can give you supreme peace once for all.  And then you realize yourself.  Then you are totally free. Means you realize that you don’t have to have any stress and you don’t have to have any assumptions about this world or anything.  Now you know the truth.  And also, you don’t have to feel any fear and nothing can slay you, no weapons, no fire can burn you, no water can soak you.  No more any trouble is there for you.  Your body can be troubled by somebody, but they cannot trouble you.  You are at peace.  This is what is known as liberation, apart from several other terminologies like enlightenment.  In Samskritam, in Indian philosophy it is atma sakshatkara.  That is the right terminology.   Though the nearest seems to be enlightenment, but nearest really is the Self-realization.  Enlightenment is a common word.  You can become enlightened about anything.  So, all these things can give you peace and take you out of this bondage. 

Question:   Thank You Babaji.  So Babaji talks about how we have bound ourselves, but how has this happened Babaji?  How have we bound ourselves?

Babaji Maharaj:   Since time immemorial, so many lives before perhaps, we happened to forget ourselves when we imagined.  Like for example, I have always told – when you imagine, a thought appears within your mind.  But watching that thought, mind forgets “This thought is there because of my imagination.”   Instead, it considers that thought to be a fundamental reality.  Thus, we are binding ourselves based on that thought.  We start thinking “This thought is the truth.”  This person appears to be a foe, though he may not be a foe; we assume he is the foe.  Thus, we have bound ourselves with one particular definition.  Though he might be a friend, though he might be our dear one, though he might be a guru, though he might be like a father, mother, but yet we assume that that person is my enemy.  And because my mind tells that one, so that person has binded.  

So, like this, long ago somewhere it has happened about the Self, me.  When this body has come, any body that has come, we tend to forget our previous actual existence or incarnation, and thus we made a mistake of forgetting ourselves.  Once we forget ourselves, then we don’t know what we have to do.  Then we assume about everything.  Imagination went on and on.  I have told about this world also – nobody really knows conclusively what this is.  However, we assume names, we try to define certain phenomena.  This is for sake of our understanding in this world, and our communication; that is how we can present.  I have also told, even a Self-realized Master like us, when want to teach, I have to use the nearest imagination, but which need not be conclusive.  

Like Vashista talks in His Yoga Vashista – after teaching all the whole week to Sri Rama, He tells “This is also false, need not be conclusive.  You practice meditation, you achieve the nirvikalpa samadhi, you achieve the total silence of the mind, make it regain the form of pure consciousness.  Then you will know the truth.”  So, that is how the binding has happened to us.  And we have, life after life, life after life, we have gone on with imaginations.  Like even when death happens, if that imagination continues, that takes the shape of desires.  “O, this has not happened.  Why this is happening?  Why this world is like that?  Why that person did that to me?  Why did that person scold me?  Why did that person accuse me?  I am not this, I am not that.”  Like that, it keeps on going and the brain dies.  So, based on these assumptions and the thoughts that have formed as the intensity of thoughts, next incarnation happens.  Then a basic nature is brought up.  As soon as we gain the consciousness of the surrounding and world, we start assuming.  Whatever is taught to us, we assume that one “This is our father, this is our mother, this is our relative, this is our world, this is what is me.”  And I am given a name also.  I assume, “O, this is my name.  I am this personality.”  We assume like that one.  But we do not know what the truth is.  But however, we believe firmly. We have faith and we take it granted.  Like this, since time immemorial, imaginations have come and these imaginations are not easy to remove.  These have binded us into a particular definition which may not be true.  But however, if we practice meditation, we can overcome all these imaginations.  It’s like when you go out of your home, you forget coming back.  So that is what has happened.  Because of this, you have binded yourself to keep wandering on the roads like a mad person.  That is a binding.  When the day you all become Self-realized, you will understand, you will feel as if you were in a mental asylum with your own assumptions and feedings and whatever has been told, but the truth is totally different.  That’s what happens. 

So, like this, we have binded ourselves since time immemorial.  Somewhere the thought has to come – “Something is wrong”.  See, that thing came to me as a child also, around the age of eight, ten, “O, death is inevitable.  So, who is it that is going to die?  And if there is happiness it should be there all twelve months and twenty-four hours.  Why is the happiness not there?  Why are these things happening to me?  Am I wrong or is this world wrong?  Which one is wrong?  What the truth is?  Like if I am that atma, that soul, why is that I’m not aware of it?”  So, like this the thought will come for everybody.  When the suffering happens in this world, continuously, consistently, whatever we wish, it may not happen all the time; it is not guaranteed.  Then we suffer.  We feel disappointed, we feel frustrated, we feel dejected.  Still, we try to look for the happiness in this world.  But in some life, somewhere it will come one day for everybody.  “What is the secret?  What is this fun?

Question:   Babaji was mentioning about suffering.  And that the world will always make you suffer, and we will be reminded therefore of going back to Divine.  Is that suffering really there as a reminder Babaji that there is a problem?

Babaji Maharaj:     I have also told the soul’s consciousness has jumped into the well called this world.  But the Divine has fitted springs called ‘agony,’ ‘suffering,’ which will throw us back to Divinity, because this world will never allow anybody to settle down peacefully.  You sort out one problem.  You thought, “O, let me relax now.”  Then another four comes.  Like the old saying is there, “We were relieved that the ghost has gone away, but it’s coming inside through the window again.”  Like that.  So, that is the reason we can never be happy if we depend on this world.  Only if we can achieve the Self-realization and abide in the Self, totally contented, when we realize this Self doesn’t need anything else for its existence, it is at peace. Then only the peace can be achieved, the truth can be achieved.  Till then we will be binding ourselves by so many desires, by wanting this, by wanting that; and those desires will again bind us into suffering and unknown unhappiness.  All these things keep happening.

Question:   So, Babaji, when there is a separation, there seems to be a problem like ‘me and mine’, making assumptions and making definitions.  Is that what the ego is, and is that what we need to be free of, the ego?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, that’s how the ego forms which will make us stubbornly believe “This is the truth. This is what I want. This is mine. I must have it,” and all these crop up.  In fact, in spirituality every imagination of the consciousness which turns it into a mind is considered an ego if we consider that thought to be a reality and try to depend on that thought for our peace and happiness.  This is important.  I will repeat.  Every thought that appears in the mind is considered as an ego in spirituality. The thought which will bind us into believing “This thought is a true reality, and this is what I want for my happiness.”  Thus, we bind ourselves.  So, we won’t have any freedom.  Because if we have freedom, we should be happy at all times.  When we cannot be happy, that means we are not free. 

Question:   So, the sadhana, the practice such as meditation is getting rid of that or removing the notion that anything is a reality, basically, that we should be believing such a thing. 

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, because in the mind we have assumed in dualities – “This can give me happiness.  And this is giving me unhappiness.”  Like this, thoughts, millions and millions, thought after thought come, “This is giving me unhappiness, and this will give me happiness about this world.”  Whereas, both are not needed for me.  If I am contented, I am at peace.  I don’t need that somebody needs to certify me I am a Self-realized.  I don’t need somebody to need to praise me.  I’m not bothered if somebody tells that I’m not Self-realized, somebody tells that I am not a right person, they criticize.  So, both ways I am free.  I’m not binding myself to any one particular person’s defining what I am, because I know what that ‘I’, that Self is.  

So, that is the effect of Self-realization which can make you totally free and remain at peace. You will not be perturbed for any such things of this world, any dualities of the world when you realize your Self.  That is why meditation, sadhana, spirituality is all recommended, so that you can get rid of all the thoughts through which you have assumed certain things, many things, either of this world; and in your own mind you would have created a world of your own about yourself, about so many things.  All this you can get rid of.  You can liberate yourself from these assumptions, from these imaginations.  That is what is known as liberation.  That is why it is also known as liberation apart from Self-realization.

Question:   Thank You Babaji.  And so, the Guru also – does the Master, the Guru, is everything that they do make us stop analyzing in making judgments? Is that what the Guru does?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, the Guru guides as a torch bearer.  Even if the Guru scolds it is so that the disciple does not acquire unnecessary karmas.  Let him get freed of such things.  Life after life he might have to undergo such karmas – need not be there, because the Guru knows.  That’s why the Guru scolds, so that’s what happens.  Mother scolds the child.  She knows “I don’t want my child to go on the wrong path.”  But the child is kicking the mother.  And it’s annoyed with the mother.  It is crying, it is shouting, all these things.  But mother is not compromising, “I want my child to go on the right path”,  the mother is scolding.  Others might be wondering “Why is mother scolding?  It is a wrong thing.  She should not be scolding the child.”  But the mother wants the child to be on the right path.  That’s what a Guru would be doing as a matter of fact for every devotee.  Like, “They know not what they are talking, they are doing.  Forgive them my Lord.” 

Question:   Thank You Babaji.  Babaji talks about authorizing the Guru to remove the ego like a surgeon.  Does this process of removing the ego become less painful if we authorize fully?

Babaji Maharaj:    Yeah, you see, Swamiji, my Guru used to talk about this.  “You may have to undergo such pains, life after life, life after life for so many times; little, little pain in every life.  So, if you are scared of surgery.  But if you authorize the Guru, surrender to the Guru, love the Guru, then the Guru can perform surgery.  It will be pain for a short while, and then it will be over.  All karmas will be over.”  If the Guru scolds, at that time it might appear painful. That’s what we all surrendered to our Master.  He scolded us, but it was painful for a while, but inside us we had understood.  “The Master is thinking me to be His own.  That is why He is scolding.”  He used to accuse about me with others also.  When others tell, “Why is Swamiji talking about you like this?”  O, I used to understand “O, Swamiji is considering me as His own.  He wants to remove all my karmas.  That’s why He is talking like that with others.  This is no problem for me.  After all He is my Guru.  After all He is like my parents, my mother, my father.  If He scolds, no problem”, like that. “If He accuses me, no problem”, like that – we felt so happy, at peace.  Like that Swamiji used to tell “If you can authorize the Guru means, you have to surrender.  If once the Guru scolds and then you kick the Guru and go away, that is not surrender.  Then you will lose.”  So, if you authorize – this is what Swamiji meant.  Then the Guru, when He is convinced “Now I can scold this disciple,” then He will scold, then perform the surgery.  Every now and then He will point out “This is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, you are not doing the right thing.  You should not be like this.  You should not behave like this.”  That could be painful for a while, but that is the surgery, and afterwards he will become perfect.  Remember, like Swamiji used to scold me and tell me “Take my scoldings, then the world cannot point out that you are wrong.” 

Question:   So we need to understand as the student, as the disciple, we need to understand that what the Guru is doing is removing our ego, really. 

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, we need to understand – everything that the Guru is doing to liberate us from the bindings, from the bondage that we have been into since time immemorial – so many lives have passed by for us to making us to go into dualities of good, bad, happiness, unhappiness, suffering in this world all the time.  The Guru is trying to remove all those sufferings on us.  So, that is what is important.  The Guru-disciple relationship is very, very important.  In our culture this has been recommended.  Like even to the extent, some saints have sung in their poems, they have composed, “Until you don’t become a slave to the Master, you cannot get liberated.”  This may appear strange for some cultures.  But this is what is recommended.  This what we all learned.  We never looked back, once we accepted Him as a Guru.  We surrendered to Him.  “Come what may be, let Him cut us into pieces,” we thought. “We are not going to give up my Guru.  My Guru is my pride, my self-respect, my love.”   

Question:   So, basically we can’t be a slave to this world and also be surrendered to a Guru.   It’s not possible to have both is it, Babaji?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, it is recommended that we understand this world is impermanent including our own physical body.  So, we cannot depend on these things which itself is impermanent for our permanent happiness.  For some time this can give us happiness.  Means, while I am answering these questions like this, or teaching, please, all participants and anybody else who will listen to these questions and answers, know that I am not directing these answers against anybody, against the world, against your life in the world in anyway. Simply for sake of education I am teaching what my Guru taught me.  You are most welcome to live in the world.  You can be a businessman, you can be a family person, anything you want, it is not harmful, it is not prohibited.  But simply try to liberate yourself mentally from depending permanently on any of these things.  Because nothing is permanent.  That is all awareness you have to gain, and then live happily in this world.  You won’t have any problem.  You are always ready.  Anything that happens, “No problem”.  Like we are there, students come; they learn, they love us, they worship us, they wash our feet.  Some students come.  They scold us, they accuse us, they go away.  No problem for both.  Like this, you are ready.  At all costs we are happy.  Because our happiness does not depend on a student coming or going, making me happy or not making me happy, all these things.  Like that, you also can live in this world without depending totally on this world.  You will live happily, be with the family, enjoy the family, no problem, but always just be ready with a “No problem.”

Question:   Thank You Babaji.  There is just one question that came in recently.   The question was – is it possible for a person to be free from painful and ugly memories, and keep pleasurable relationships?

Babaji Maharaj:     It is possible when you practice meditation, sadhana strongly for a long time.  Like a way of life, every day you practice, then your mind will not absorb imprints; it will not become habitual to any particular thoughts or attitudes, like that.  Then you are free.  When it is not bothering you in your mind, these thoughts, so you are totally free.  If these thoughts are bothering you, then you are binding yourself or you have already binded yourself.  When the thought comes, you are happy.  If some other thought comes, you are unhappy.  So, you do not depend on these thoughts.  These thoughts are simply imaginations that come and go.  The truth can be something else.  You don’t have to depend for your happiness and unhappiness on this world.  That’s what I’m telling.  You live in the world, let anything happen – we are ready because we know that it is impermanent.

Like Yudhisthira in the Yaksha questions, the angel, he came to test because his brothers, they were, during the forest life, all of them went to take water, but the angel stops, “You don’t take before answering my question.”  But they take the water and they all fall dead.  Then the eldest brother Yudhisthira, he comes.  Then he is also asked, then he answers to all the questions.  One of the questions is, “What is the greatest and highest wonder?”   He tells, “Everybody knows that they have to die one day yet they believe as if they are not going to die at all.  That is the greatest real wonder,” he tells.  So, this is what it is, the secret is, that is all.  If we are ready, we are free.  If we are not ready, we are bonded laborers, type.  We are binded by those things.  This is the freedom and binding things. 

Question:   Thank You Babaji.  Some people think that discipline itself is a kind of bondage.  But why is discipline so necessary Babaji?

Babaji Maharaj:   Discipline is not really bondage in my opinion, because when you are in bondage, you have to remain disciplined to keep yourself perfect so that you can liberate yourself.  Like for twenty years, I was remaining disciplined at the lotus feet of the Master.  Whatever He said only I did.  Even in His physical absence at this Ashram, sincerely I worked and looked after everything.  I did not tell any lies to my Master, and thus I got trained.  That was a discipline.  Then for five years, I remained in the room for so many hours meditating.  That was a discipline, that was not a binding.  It was not binding.  I could have got up and gone away anywhere else, but I did not.  I wanted to remain disciplined, so I can liberate myself finally, once for all.  So that no, nothing, no thought, no imagination, no definition, nothing of this word shall ever be binding on me, shall ever be making me binded to these things.  I am free, I am at peace all the time. 

Question:   Pranaam Babaji, thank You for being here with us.  Babaji, I have a question – normally in our prayers we always have a line or two to say about life cycles of birth and death.  I was wondering whether this is what is total freedom, and maybe You can speak a little bit in terms of that for us?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, you see, getting freed from these cycles of birth and death.  Because the body is born, then we get the consciousness of surroundings if we are stuck in the body.  Then we start imagining that we are born and then that fear also comes after sometime when we realize there is going to be a death for this body, “O, we are going to die.”  So, these both are the bondage, we are binding.  So then that process, whether we like or not it happens.  We are born.  Before that we didn’t know.  When we are born, we didn’t know why we were born.  We are born, whether we like to be born or not we are born.  Who is responsible?  We cannot hold anybody, not even parents, we cannot hold them responsible because they did not expect that we will be born.  So that is the fun of this amazing truth.  That is the bondage.  Once we are born in this body, this body will have to die one day.  So, that is another bondage.  To get rid of these two things –  is there a permanent existence that in which we can remain like that, in supreme peace, that we should not be needing anything else, means we should be totally contented.  That is the freedom.  That is what is liberation.  That comes with Self-realization.  The Self is actually never born, only the body is born and the body dies.  But in our imagination and consciousness, we experience as if we are born, as if we are going to die.  From this only we need to liberate ourselves. 

Question:   Pranaams Babaji.  I was wondering about a verse of Bhagavad Gita that ties in with what You were talking about.  So, I think in America where I am from, one of the more commonly known ones is the one about – the thirteenth verse of the second chapter where it says, the English translation that I have seen is “As the embodied soul continuously passes from childhood to youth to old age…”  But I was wondering about this because there is no atma in the Sanskrit.  So, the word is the ‘embodied’ (dehino’smin). So, what is it that is born?  Because You just said that the Self is not actually born. 

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, only the body that is born and the body that is going to die.  But the Self temporarily hidden, appears to be hidden in this body, it starts feeling as if it is going to die and it has been born.  Like you have a feeling that you are Nick, but just now you might be thinking this body as Nick, but instead when you meditate and try to concentrate on the feeling of the Self and that is what is ‘I’, that is what is great Masters taught, like Ramana Maharishi taught ‘Who am I.’  That ‘I,’ if you concentrate then you will realize this ‘I’ is not simply this body.  This is not the thing which has been born.  This is not the thing which is going to die.  Like Ramana Maharishi experienced as a small young boy, when He laid down, suddenly He doubted.  “What is it that is going to die?”  He controlled all His breath, everything, He became still.  Then He thought, “Now this body, this is dead.  Relatives will take this body for cremation.  Then what will happen to me?  Am I also going to be burned?”  Then He decided, “No, there is some other secret there.  The ‘I’ feeling, it is not going to die; it is there.  When I have made everything quiet, I have controlled the breath also, but this ‘I’ is there.  I am unable to make it disappear.”  Thus, He realized the Self is not going to die or be born.  That’s what they are trying to explain in Bhagavad Gita also. 

Question:   Babaji, may I ask just a quick question about Self-realization.  The mind settles down in Self-realization, but how does the yogi know that the mind is settled down once and for all?

Babaji Maharaj:   When it does not get into any type of agitation or imaginations.  When you talk also, just like a motor mechanic, he presses the accelerator and then presses the brake also, then he knows that it is stopping.  Like that, you talk, you talk and you talk.  When you talk, talk, talk like that, if the mind doesn’t get into spinning effect, it doesn’t go into an imagination, it doesn’t picturize, dramatize or build a story, it is silent, then you know that is the truth.  You are there because you are at peace.  If it doesn’t spin, you never lose peace and you never lose contentment.  You don’t need anything.  If anybody gives you, all right for this body; if anybody doesn’t give you, it’s okay, no problem.  Like that, you live in peace and happiness.  That’s how you will know. 

Question:   Hello Babaji.  Well, my mind is spinning a little bit, I have to be truthful.  So, I have a question about family and ancestry.  So, is there any freedom in… you know, we relate in life – I feel like I relate to my children, to my spouse, to my parents who even have passed, and I know You said they are in their own world.  But is there anything, any part… freedom is in a way transmuting something, even an experience, where you bring it to the heart, and in that way, something is being freed. You are allowing – I mean there is no allowing, because this is all mental, so I’m not being, obviously.  There’s nothing to allow, but there is a feeling that, “Okay, I am you.”  I’ve had that experience.  if I look at my child something is reflected, and it’s like, “Whoa, she’s doing really what I’ve done,” which is not so healthy perhaps, but for a moment it may be, “O, like a reflection,” that slaps me.  But I have to bring, I want to bring it to the heart.  I don’t want to be, like, part of my heart is closed off because it comes back, so there are these reflections.  Like, even in the meditation today, the thought, I am obviously identified in this being.  And I see that, so that’s the craziness, but yet I’m here.  And I can bring it to the heart, and love more deeply, and have compassion for all of us in it, so there’s a kind of a more horizontal plane even though I want to ascend, or see the truth.  So, I feel like sometimes like I’m very caught, and the heart wants to make it easier for everyone who’s going to come next, whether it’s incarnate.  So, I feel like there is something that wants to be transmuted.  What is that?  Or is this my imagination?

Babaji Maharaj:   Important is, like you are talking, bringing to the heart, bringing to the heart is no problem.  But that must not make you suffer mentally.  Either as a guilt or you could have done better, or you want to do better, like these things. Whatever is possible only you could do, you can do, this is what it is.  And just by worrying more, you cannot help anybody, any other soul, either in this world or the departed.  Or physically, if another, like your child or somebody is physically alive in this world you might be able to help something.  You help that one, it is no problem.  Spirituality does not prohibit you.  So, this is the thing.  This also happens due to imagination.  Finally, if at all this imagination is there, keep it for a while.  Simply don’t bind yourself to that imagination.  That is what we are trying to teach.  You have an imagination, you need to look after your child, you look after, then you look after.  So, it is the like, the old movie dialogues, “If you want to shoot you shoot, don’t keep thinking.”  Like that.  I don’t mean shooting anything; this is an example.  So, then you are not binding yourself finally. 

Question:   Pranaams Babaji.  You had described in the previous Zoom sessions the mind of a yogi and then You had given examples where Swamiji would be upset and He would be scolding You for several hours, but then suddenly He is talking to somebody or He would have forgotten, and He had that childlike mind.  So, when we were very little, we also had that childlike innocence, but somewhere as we have grown, we lost that.  Is it because we have got this body consciousness and we have lost that innocence and those childlike qualities?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, you see, as we were growing, we allowed the mind to spin on its own without trying to control that, without trying to train it, to be under our control.  As the last question I told, just to imagine a small thing is not a problem, but everybody allowed that imagination to remain as a reality in the subconscious state which made the mind to acquire that as a habit.  That is the reason one lost the innocence and started defining about this world, about people, about ourselves, whatever that was coming into the mind.  See, that is how the saying used to tell “A friend appears as a foe, foe appears as a friend.”  You might have judged somebody.  That could be a misjudgment also, you never know.  So, like this we lost our innocence.  Even we get annoyed a little bit, we should be able to talk, forget that.  If we were children, we would have forgotten.  The children forget.  They might be fighting, and two minutes later they would be forgetting and sitting with each other and eating and merrily forgetting.  So, that innocence was there, but that innocence was vulnerable.  Then when we grow up, now if you meditate, undertake all spiritual exercises, remember the Divine, you will again become innocent, but you will not be vulnerable anymore.  You would have realized the truth.  That’s what you have to achieve through meditation and spirituality.  That innocence must come back.  A yogi, is an innocent like that one, but now His innocence is not vulnerable.  Nobody can fool Him.  He is totally aware of the truth; even the brain cannot fool.  He is totally aware of the truth. 

End of Questions and Answers

Babaji Maharaj now concludes the session.

   Wonderful, we deeply appreciate all your participation. So wonderful questions have come up giving me an opportunity to share my experiences, whatever my Master taught.

End of Session