Oxford University 4th July 2010

Brahmanandam Paramasukadam
Kevalam Jnanamurtim
Dvandvaateetam Gaganasadrisham
Tattvamasyadi Lakshiyam
Ekam Nityam Vimalam Achalam
Sarvadhi Sakshi Bhutam
Bhava Teetam Triguna Rahitam
Satgurum Tvam Namami

Prostrating at the Lotus Feet of Beloved Master Shivabalayogi with deep love and reverence, I greet you all this evening with My love and blessings.

Brahmanandam – The One who is enjoying the Peace that is beyond all imaginations. Paramasukadam also is the Supreme Peace, the highest Peace. Kevalam jnana murtim is the One who is knowledge personified. He has discovered, become aware of that Self, That which is the All-Pervaded and That which is the nature of Supreme Peace for which everybody is looking. Dvandvaateetam Gaganasadrisham – He is above the dualities of this world. This world is made up of dualities like if there is good, there is always presence of the bad. If your mind thinks this world is very good and gets attracted, also it gets involved. If your mind thinks that this world is very bad, then also it gets attached and gets involved. The One who has risen above the level of these dualities, is only a witness and does not get mentally involved, is aware of the Self, is settled in the Self. Tattvamasyadi Lakshiyam – His attention is always on the Self. In very ancient times when the sages did deeper meditations called Tapas and realized that Ultimate Truth, it was such an amazing existence because you could have recognized it either as something or as nothing – that type of amazing thing. Just like, you can say this room is void with the space or is filled with the space. Always depending on your mental attitude, the habits of the mind’s thinking a certain thing appears to you in that way, that’s what it is. So that’s why basically they addressed It as THAT, that’s what precisely Tatva means. It is amazing and inexplicable. Ekam Nityam Vimalam Achalam – He is the composed One, in Himself, the Eternal Existence. It’s not the body which was here today and tomorrow it will not be there. This body came into existence once and it lives, and one day it will cease to exist when it dies. But the Self is not that. It is eternally always there. It never came into existence and it’s not going to cease in its existence. He is the composed One and ‘Unmoved’ – never gets confused. Unmoved because He has experienced the Truth as It is.

Always experience makes a lot of difference rather than listening to the truth or talking about the truth. Like My Guru always said, “It’s welcome if you want to listen to talks that can motivate you and inspire you. And also you can read scriptures or such books connected to this Truth that can also motivate and inspire you. But ultimately when you experience that makes a lot of difference.” Although the whole world might stand aside and might criticize and may not accept, He shall be unmoved, He shall never be confused because He has experienced the Truth. Just like you all are here, you listen to Babaji and you have seen Babaji. When you go out, if somebody makes fun of you that you did not meet Babaji, that no such person exists, you’ll be amused and you shall not feel confused because this is your first-hand experience of meeting a Saint called Babaji. That is what precisely I mean about experience.

Bhava Teetam Triguna Rahitam – He would have transcended the emotions of the mind. The mind keeps going into such shapes; generally six divisions have been explained in ancient times: extreme greed, extreme anger, extreme stinginess and extreme attachment to impermanent things, and false pride (the ego) and jealousy. These are considered as six enemies of the human mind. You can ponder over, whoever has got these things in their mind, their mind is the first casuality before it can even harm others. The trigunas – sattavic, rajasic and tamasic. It’s like the good, bad and ugly! A Self-Realized Master would have transcended all these things remaining in the Self all the time.

Composed, He sat quietly absorbed in Himself

This sloka is one of the Guru Gita Slokas which amongst so many other things had an impact on our childhood mind. We visualized as a child, “If there is a happiness it should be there at all times, twenty-four hours, twelve months. There should not be any fluctuation of agony, happiness, unhappiness. Why is it? Is there something wrong in me, in my mind, or something wrong is this world?” These are the things which led us towards spirituality and we got attracted to the beautiful teachings of Adi Shankara, Ramana Maharshi and Ramakrishna Paramahansa. We always dreamt of a Guru who would have Liberated Himself and who could lead us to Liberation. That’s what always the prayers were. We were looking for, we were dreaming of, we were watching for the day, and it just happened that we met Shivabalayogi one day and we got so much attracted, it was a love at first sight, such was the serenity on His face, the glow on His face and the aura that was there around Him. Composed, He sat quietly absorbed in Himself, as if He was totally unaware of the surroundings.

Mind is a mass that is made up of the inseparable consciousness and energy. From this worldly point of view, if you see the mind, it would simply appear like a bundle of thoughts and visual effects. But one day suppose you are able to clear all these and you are able to stop the mind, make it quiet – stopping means make it totally silent so that it doesn’t have any visual effects or the thought processes in it. So when one day, by the practice, you are able to get rid of these imaginations of the mind, what remains is the Pure Consciousness and Pure Energy.

Wherever you apply
this consciousness
you become aware
of its existence

Wherever you apply this consciousness you become aware of its existence. When the mind is into imaginations, extrovert, whenever it comes across any object matter and you apply your mind, the mind does not stop there, it analyzes. Apart from recognizing an existence, it analyzes and makes a judgment also in quick succession like, “This exists,” and it tries to analyze, “What is this? Is this some object? What is this? Is this a microphone? What is this?” And, “Is this mine or does this belong to someone else? Should I be owning this or should I not be? Is it interesting or not?” So it makes a judgment, “Yes, this is mine, I’m going to have this,” and this mind absorbs an imprint. So this is what sits in the subconscious state.

And this mind is constantly in touch with the brain’s reflections. So when I’m talking of the mind, this mind is your conscious energy. At the moment when I talk of you, means, It is the Self, the Real Self, beyond the existence of this body. The brain is a biological organ in the physical body. Because of the brain you have the consciousness of this world. This brain is in touch with this universe through the nervous system, sensory organs. It receives the message and it passes on the orders. It’s the one which decodifies everything. Meaning in a simple terminology which we understand, when you have some pain in the stomach, when it reaches the brain it is the brain which decodifies and reflects whether you have a pain in the stomach or whether you are hungry. That is the simple job of the brain; it’s so amazing, so wonderful. We might not have explored much of its capacities. Still, so many people in this world have achieved using this brain’s application.

So while doing this the brain reflects everything as a thought process and a visual effect. It’s like watching a cinema. This mind, your conscious energy, watching that reflection of the brain, it catches hold of it considering it to be the fundamental truth – just like if you are watching a movie your mind gets sucked into it and it starts believing that movie to be the fundamental reality though you are simply sitting and you are not involved physically in any way, but your consciousness has gone so much you would have forgotten that you are sitting and you are watching a movie. Everything that appears in the movie, it appears that it is happening to you. You would be watching yourself as a role, all the good and bad, right and wrong, everything appears to be happening to you. Suppose somebody comes and tries to wake you up, “Come on, you are perfectly alright, you are just sitting. Just withdraw it; your consciousness has gone too much into this movie.” That’s why a Yogi like us comes into your life and tries to advise to practice meditation, to pay attention to your Real Self. That is the literal meaning of meditation – ‘paying attention to’.

Suppose just now the mind is too attentive to this world, more than is necessary. To be attentive to this world is not a problem. But you are unable to withdraw this attention of your mind from this world. That is the thing which causes problems of craving, unhappiness, stress, fear and all such things. Everybody would like to live a stress-free life, peacefully. And also when you are working and want to achieve something, you would like to achieve the best. Sometimes it may be possible; to many it might not be possible – the lack of focus, lack of concentration. If you can control the mind by the practice of meditation in this world, then with the 100% best concentration of the mind, you would be able to apply the brain. This is why sometimes I have told the younger generation, “If you practice meditation you can live like a genius. Whatever you want to do, any way you want to live. The mind will become healthier in every way. Its thinking capabilities will be always of a larger cause, betterment of the entire universe, happiness to all, peace and harmony, it would be able to visualize and think. It will lose its selfishness and narrow-minded egoistic approach. It becomes more peaceful, more secure.”

Well, eventually one practices this meditation to its logical end, when this mind overcomes all its imaginations it would have become one with the Pure Consciousness. Through the technique of meditation – which in a short while later we are going to tell you – you would precisely be trying to do this, you would be trying to pay attention to your Real Self by trying to make this mind quiet and silent. You would be trying to take your own mind under control, not destroy it. You would be trying to get rid of the constant imaginations of thought processes and visual effects. So that’s what you would be practicing and eventually – if one proceeds for a longer time of practice – the same consciousness, meaning now it is no longer a bundle of thoughts, when it would have given up all its thoughts and visual effects, habits, it would be the Pure Consciousness of Existence. That’s how gradually this mind gets absorbed into the Self. This means, when it is going introvert that’s what happens, because the mind has no third way. Either it is in this universe, extrovert, always into imaginations, into the thought process and visual effects, or when it can give up and become quiet and silent it goes introvert to its origin, the Source, that’s what the Real Self is. When it gets absorbed means automatically the attention is introvert. But here that attention is simply Pure Consciousness, no thoughts, no visualization, no imagination. That is the experience of the Real. You can ponder over – as long as you want to know through the mind or intellect and the though processes, it would be impossible to know It as It is. Because whatever the mind gives it will always be based on its imaginations only. It’s like trying to measure the space with the measuring tape. Every time we try to measure and we tell that it is twenty-two feet, or twenty-two thousand feet, or twenty-two thousand light years space, we are trying to limit the space – it is All-Pervaded. If we have to measure the space we have to become space itself, nothing else can measure the space. The first time we heard a definition for the space, some imagination has to be used. That’s what precisely a Realized Master, when He tries to motivate others, influence others, inspire others, He has to use the nearest imagination possible to talk about the Truth because the Truth is inexplicable, it’s beyond all imaginations. As I told, you can refer to this room as void with space or this room is filled with space. Simply an attitude of the mind, the way that it recognizes, it starts appearing in the same way because the mind imagines in that way.

The first time we remember having heard this definition in childhood probably, in the primary school, our teachers said the void place in-between these two walls is known as space. Well as we grew up we became aware of the fact that the same space, one undivided space exists everywhere as all-pervaded, that’s what it should be if you keenly observe. Because if your attention is on the objects all the time, for a while the same space, the one undivided space would appear as if it has been divided into pieces, always in-between two objects. Suppose if I tell the space exists only in the classroom of My birth place where I went to the primary school you will all laugh at Me, it will be amusing. It is like that when people start fighting about God. The Self is All-Pervaded, the existence is Omnipresent.

When we overcome the mind’s imaginations, we see that between every thought there is a gap, which goes unnoticed. If you ever close the eyes and try to concentrate the mind and make it silent, it could be so awful. Hundreds and thousands of thoughts could be coming, visual effects could be coming, but in-between them there is a space, a gap also, and that gap is the Pure Consciousness. We are unable to experience the Pure Consciousness because that same consciousness is too preoccupied with its own imaginations. Like when you imagine, an image appears in your mind. Watching that image the mind forgets that, “This image is there because of my imagination.” Instead of that, considering that image to be the fundamental reality, the mind tries to analyze further, like, “This is good, this is bad, what is this, is this mine or not?” and makes a judgment and absorbs an imprint. By then it would have split into one more thought. The mind splits in a hallucination of its own imaginations, which appears to it to be millions and billions and billions of thought processes, thus one gets involved into one’s own thought processes and forgets about the Self. We are unable to pay attention to the Self. This is why one is recommended to go for the practice of meditation. This means precisely what you would be trying to do. You can pay attention to the Real Self, where it is or what it is, only when the mind gets rid of its imaginations. Then it will be amazing, the greatest wonder, the highest miracle of Supreme Peace. Because whenever anybody has asked Me a question about a miracle, I have simply thought, “If anybody can wave their hand and give peace to the world, that is the real miracle I would accept.” But it doesn’t happen like that. Every individual has to put in effort and try to find peace within, because if the mind becomes peaceful there is peace. Until then there is no peace. Otherwise the mind is always into brooding of the past or is anxious about the future. It’s getting involved into the brain’s reflection. One is fuel to the other. Because of the mind’s application to the brain, the brain always is active, and it reflects, reflects. Because the brain is reflecting all the time, the mind is constantly forced to watch that cinema and it always catches that cinema and is unable to become aware of anything else of the Truth. That is the peculiar relationship of the mind and brain.

Everybody is looking
for peace or happiness
in this world

I assure you, if you practice this meditation even for thirty minutes, or one hour, whatever that is possible, you would be able to live a normal life in this world. You are not going to lose anything; you are not going to lose the mind. In fact you will enhance the power of the mind, its application, its focus, its concentration. It will be able to think in a much healthier way, a much better way. That’s what I meant by ‘genius’. If a best concentrated mind gets applied onto the brain and uses that brain, then you can achieve best results in life, and you’ll be able to live a normal life. You should be able to think when you want to think, when you want to analyze and make judgments, and after that you should be able to keep the mind quiet. If that doesn’t happen, that is the problem. And always, in spite of that thinking and making judgments, you should be aware of your Real Self. Just like, you might be working in a workplace but at home you are a person of your own self. When you are working you can always work and pay attention to the work. Once the work is finished you need to be aware of where you belong to, of your personality, or your name or your house or any such thing. If that doesn’t happen it would be a little bit of a dangerous situation, awkward also, you would have forgotten, and when you want to go back you won’t know what it is and you are likely to become miserable. This is what happens to most human being. As I told, everybody is looking for peace or happiness in this world. But still when we look back, meaning when we talk to people, when they would have become sixty, seventy, eighty years old, any such thing, the whole life they would have been looking for this peace and happiness; sometimes when they look back it appears to be elusive. “We did the best things that we could have, we got the best things that we could have, but yet that peace appears to be elusive. Why is this?”

So that’s what happens because the mind has become so preoccupied. As I told if you become so preoccupied at the workplace and you forget about your home, in the same way, the mind has become so preoccupied in its workplace of this world, it has forgotten its Self, it has forgotten the path also. That’s what a Yogi means or a Self-Realized Teacher achieves. Suppose even if I am talking or gossiping, My mind remains quiet and at peace, in silence. It doesn’t go into cravings and does not picturize things. It’s like if you write on a blank paper instantly it gets erased; it doesn’t absorb imprints. Still in these ten years after we completed Tapas, we practiced some skills so that we can bring the consciousness upwards and try to talk to people of what I experienced. And well of course as I told, whenever we talk, a Master has to use the nearest imagination that is possible, without trying to dilute the actual Truth as It is.

The happiness and unhappiness is in the mind

Unless a person does not understand that there is a need for this and this is the path, one would not like to go for it. You all and everybody in this world understand the need of food to sustain the physical body, the need to earn a livelihood. Nobody in the world is going to postpone or not take out the time to earn a livelihood, some food for the body, because everybody knows if we do not earn it we cannot sustain the body, that is a need. That’s the first thing. So if everybody understands there is a need for peace and happiness, we cannot simply depend on the impermanent things. That’s what spirituality alerts. It does not prohibit any way of life, whatever you want to do in this world. Simply we should know the limitations of this world’s objects. It alerts – you are looking for peace and happiness, you cannot depend on this world which is impermanent, including your own physical body, for your total peace and happiness. You need to go back to THAT, which is Eternal, which is a permanent entity, Existence, which is your real Self. Then you can have a permanent peace. When you have that thing which is itself permanent, then only you can expect to have a Permanent Peace, a Supreme Peace. Like for example, you want to have a cup of ice cream and you enjoy eating it and you start thinking, “This ice cream is giving so much of happiness to me, it is so beautiful.” But try having that happiness forever. Go on eating that ice cream, don’t stop. One, two, three, four, how much can you eat? After some time it’s going to create trouble for you. You will feel miserable, you will reach a saturated point, you don’t like to have any more, you are unable to have it. The same ice cream which you thought was giving you happiness is now giving you unhappiness also. So that thing called the ice cream, one of the objects in this world, it has neither happiness nor unhappiness. The happiness and unhappiness is in the mind. When our mind accepted that ice cream as that it is giving happiness, it was giving happiness. When the mind stopped accepting it, when it felt miserable, it stopped giving happiness.

So that is how humanity has lost the peace and happiness, they are unable to live in harmony, always they keep going into conflict with an insecurity feeling. Insecurity is another important thing which has created so much conflict amongst the humanity. This is another important thing. As a child the thoughts that came to me, “Why is it that humanity is always against each other? Why can’t they live for each other? Why can’t they appreciate each other, love each other, honor each other?” That’s what when you practice meditation, your thinking capability enhances, as I told you, you will always think of a larger cause. If I am hungry it is quite natural that all of you will be hungry. If I want to be happy, it should be quite natural that all of you would like to be happy. This is what a larger cause always thinks. That’s why since Vedic eras in Indian spirituality, you were always taught to pray, “May there be happiness for all the beings in all the worlds.” Well, we do not know how many worlds have life species, but if at all there is, may there be happiness, may they live happily. Sometimes as a youngster I used to think, “Probably even if only two people are left on this earth they also would be fighting, they won’t be able to live peacefully.” That seems to be the nature of humans, always to keep fighting. Why does this happen? A feeling of insecurity is one of the basic reasons. When anybody’s security is threatened they feel like going into a conflict. Like an animal instinct, they are unaware. It can happen, an insecurity feeling can happen out of ignorance, out of stupidity also, if you don’t have proper visualization, proper awareness of the Truth. This is what happens and unfortunately this has happened with human beings also – so much mistrust amongst humanity, inability to live in peace and harmony.

If you are contented
you are like an emperor,
nobody can bend you,
nobody can make you
go on your knees

So all this can be overcome if one practices meditation. The mind becomes purified, it gains its beautiful ability of seeing a larger cause and eventually awareness of the Self is the secure, total security. That’s when contentment happens, because when the mind gets absorbed into the Self by giving up all its imagination and thoughts, it remains there effortlessly, totally contented. My Master used to say, “You become poor by your desires. If you are contented you are like an emperor, nobody can bend you, nobody can make you go on your knees.” So that is the contentment. It’s such a rare thing to achieve for humanity. If there is contentment everything appears to be surplus. Like for example thirty-six years ago when my Master sent me to Dehra Dun where He had established an Ashram, I hardly had any imagination of a big place or any such palace like things, because we were very less exposed to the world. A small hut, a peaceful, serene atmosphere, quietness and solitude, a little bit of water flowing, that was all. But when I saw, it was a big palacial building –  some people of a royal family had donated to my Master and it had become an Ashram – it was so surplus for me, “My God, I asked for only a little bit and so much has been given.” That is the feeling, when your mind is more contented everything in life appears more surplus. Years ago, I remember when I was a college student, it was in a science magazine, that I read one scientist commenting: “Earth always has had and will have enough resources to meet the need of humanity but not its greed.” So this is what one can overcome if you practice meditation thoroughly all the time, it would be so much beneficial.