Ragha Sudha Hall, Mylapore, Chennai, India, 3 March 2013

Confidence in yourself
is the real faith, that
you can do it.

Last year also we came, we spoke, we discussed, we answered questions but that day last year won’t come back. It is gone. One year is over. So that much of aging process to the physical body has happened. So every moment is precious. We should adopt, achieve, become determined, “I am going to do it.” Think positively always that I can do it.” If I have done it you can also do it. That is the Guru’s job is to give inspiration and confidence, induce faith. Faith means not a blind belief. Confidence in yourself is the real faith, that you can do it. So if you do it, it is yours. Peace is yours. As Buddha said when the kings of Kaninada came and said, “Now that you are going to give up your body soon, please give it to us, something.” Then Buddha said, “This is not a thing like I can take a fruit and give it to you. I can tell you the path, I can inspire you, I can guide you, but you must do the sadhana. You have to achieve it to yourself. I did that sadhana and I achieved that Peace. My mind stopped long ago.” So that is the reality everybody must understand. That is the yoga you have to adopt. Whatever appeals to you, you can adopt that way.

Remember watching and
thinking are two different
aspects of the mind.

So we can try to meditate for a short while. The same method, I will repeat the technology one more time. All of you have to close your eyes and try to concentrate your mind and sight in between eyebrows and keep watching there by focusing the attention. Remember watching and thinking are two different aspects of the mind. Mind has become habitual to thinking always so using this process you try to make the mind just watch. When thoughts or visions come do not try to analyze whether it is good or bad, right or wrong. During meditation it is not needed. Just allow it to happen. All the garbage of the mind is being thrown out, thoughts and visions, everything comes. Just watch them, keep looking. When you achieve the process of watching hundred per cent then your mind stops thinking, then it cannot think.

Your mind is trying
to watch itself.

Like, all of you are here. If I ask you to watch this [pointing to the microphone], just watch this, do not bother whether it is microphone or it is black or red or what it is. Just watch. Then you will realize eventually in this process your mind is trying to watch itself. Because mind is made up of consciousness and energy, they are inseparable. This is the Shiva-Shakti concept that has been talked about, the Supreme Truth. Mind’s Ultimate Truth is what is recognized as the Divinity that is all-pervaded. The mind is like a droplet of the ocean. Its ocean is the Divine to that droplet. By practicing meditation one day the droplet is going to become one with the ocean. That is what Realization means. As Ramakrishna put it, “When the droplet becomes one with the ocean the droplet doesn’t remain there at all to tell what happened.” The depth of the sea or the width of the sea, simply it has vanished. That is how the ego vanishes and the real surrender happens when you practice meditation. So if you remember this point just to watch and not to bother about anything during meditation that is very important.

Also, eyeballs move parallelly, try to bring it to one direction with all the patience and skill. If you steadily keep watching then in due course of time it will come. So that happens. So in this process you don’t have to repeat any mantra or name, no need. Mind, without any external anchor you are trying to give it a practice to watch fully, attentively on the one point and become single pointed. And after some time I will recite a sloka and ask you to open the eyes and until then be determined to not open your eyes, do not move your body. This is all very important.

Please, all of you close your eyes. Keeping the eyes closed concentrate your mind and sight in between eyebrows and just keep watching there by focusing the attention. Do not repeat any mantra or name and do not imagine anything. And do not open your eyes until I recite a sloka and will ask you to open the eyes.

May you all be blessed.

[Meditation then took place]

That interest,
that yearning is
what is important

This is the way my Master initiated. He was a very unique teacher, our Parampara. He gave this technique and initiated people into this meditation as a friend. Meaning He never tried to impose Himself as a Guru to everyone or claimed any such thing or tried to say any such thing was binding.

Remember in your life your own interest, your own understanding that you need that one. Like for example, you all know that you need food to sustain your physical body and to earn that food you will go out of your way to work you are not going to wait for any Guru like me to come and give upadesa [instruction] that you need food to sustain your physical body you need to work, because you know that you need it. You will go out of the way, you will set a priority and you have time for that, it is necessary. You cannot afford to tell that, “I don’t have time to earn my livelihood.” So that’s how things happen. So the day that you know that you really want Peace it is what you are looking for then you will take out time and you will be able to set a priority and you will do it – that interest, that yearning is what is important. That is the real quality that is tested by the Guru or God always, so once that is there then you can adopt the method, you can practice in this way.

In this meditation you would have seen how difficult it is to keep the body in one position and then to keep the mind itself. Like I repeat, last time also I had told, my Guru used to tell a real meditation is when you are able to keep your mind totally concentrated and thoughtless for at least one hour in a stretch, then you can tell that you are meditating. Until then you are trying to meditate. When one is able to meditate like this for more than ten hours then one is able to do Tapas. That is how the Yogi achieves, that’s what Tapas means. So thus when you are silently trying to watch initially it might appear you are using your eyes and you might wonder, “What is it that I am trying to watch?” There is no need to worry like that. It is not that you are trying to see anything through the eyes, simply you are using the eyes, which is one of the most powerful sensory organs, to make the mind concentrated. If both the eyeballs can come here [indicating between the eyebrows] then you can see that it can strongly hold the mind and holding on to it for a longer time will become possible. But eventually what you realize is that you are trying to watch through your mind of itself of what it is.

When the mind becomes quiet
automatically it goes introvert
and you will be able to become
aware of your real Self as the
immortal soul.

As I told the mind is made up of consciousness and energy, meaning wherever you apply your mind you can become aware of that existence. Whereas whenever you apply it to any object of this world from that imagination gets generated because of the application of intelligence when the mind wants to know through reasoning what it is. It ends up by imagining. But here it’s a reverse journey. You are trying to withdraw the mind from the extrovertness to go introvert. Gradually whenever it becomes quiet it goes introvert. That is the technology. When it is thinking it expands meaning it goes away from itself in consciousness. When it becomes quiet, it goes to itself only. That Ultimate Truth is Divinity as I told. Mind has no third way. Either it has to be into imaginations in this Universe, or it goes to its original Truth, the source, the Divine. That’s why when the mind becomes quiet automatically it goes introvert and you will be able to become aware of your real Self as the immortal soul. That is what will be possible one day. However, even if you practice for half an hour, one hour if you can raise it slowly, steadily with all the skill.

Dedication,
discipline
and patience

Three important mantras I repeatedly teach are dedication, discipline and patience. Dedication means if you are dedicated you will take out time and set a priority just like you have taken out your precious time and come here to listen to me and talk to me. Otherwise you could have given a hundred and one excuses “I need to go somewhere, I will go another day to see that old man.” So like that everyone can give excuses and keep postponing. If you don’t postpone, if you do it now that is dedication. Discipline, if you are disciplined without fail you will practice. Practice, practice, practice is the mantra that can make you perfect. Through a practice of habits only mind has gone out of control, has become habitual to imaginations. Through practice it can be brought back to its original state of yoga – reunion into its origin. That is what is discipline. Discipline – very often the younger generation try to think of it as a bondage. “We don’t want to do this, we want to be independent, we want to do whatever we want to do.” That is not the thing. Because I kept myself disciplined that is why I could achieve the independence mentally actually. And patience is very important and can pay rich dividends in life. The mind has gone out of control since time immemorial maybe so many lives. Every life it becomes diluted, keeps on, keeps on into imaginations. So thus, if you exercise these things – dedication, discipline and patience – then you can achieve, no matter if you are a householder no matter if you are a monk or anything, it’s no problem.

May you all be blessed.