At the Samadhi Yoga, Colorado, 6^th June 2009

Prostrations to Him who imparted, who told, who donated, who gave, that amazing knowledge of the Self and destroyed the karmas acquired by the mind since time immemorial. Prostrations to the Master whose Existence is the main target of meditation. Prostrations to the Master whose Lotus Feet is the refuge for us. Prostrations to the Master whose words have always been like great mantras, like great commandments. And prostrations to such a Master whose Grace has Liberated us.

This evening I greet you all with my love and blessings, and a prayer to my Master that may you all be blessed and be fortunate at all times. Before initiating and helping people to practice the meditation, I have always tried to talk a little bit about meditation, its essence, or anything that is connected to it, so that the people, devotees like you all could get enlightened as to what to do when you sit for meditation. The Master said, “You get up and I will take you across”.

The Master said, “You knock the door, I’ll be there to open it”. So getting up and knocking, these are the efforts that are very necessary. Even to receive the Grace and Blessings, even to achieve. Once you are able to make yourself committed to the cause then achievement becomes very easy. That is the mantra that He always taught us. And He said, “Beware on the path of spirituality. You are the most feared enemy of yourself. If you are positive you are your best friend. If you are negative, if you are casual, if you are going to be lazy, if you are going to give excuses, if you don’t want to do it, then you can be your worst enemy”. That’s what can put you into a miserable condition of unhappiness, stress and fear, an unknown insecurity of one’s own self.

Always it is essential to know what you are trying to achieve when you are trying to do something. Like suddenly, wheat flour or rye flour is handed over to you and you would be wondering, “What am I supposed to do with this?” You need to be enlightened how you have to mix it and then bake it as a bread in the oven. So in the same way you need to know what are you trying to achieve, what are you trying to do when you are trying to meditate. Otherwise a funny situation like just holding the wheat flour in the hand, not knowing what to do, would happen. If suddenly you were asked to do this one, one could be wondering, “What am I trying to do by closing the eyes, by trying to focus the attention? What am I going to achieve?” So that is what we always try to tell people. It is about the mind.

If this mind can lose all sorts of forms, all thought processes, all identities, if it comes to cease, then Samadhi occurs. Then this mind—which is constantly wavering, running and has gone out since time immemorial into billions and billions of layers, spread widely in the universe with imaginations — becomes totally focused and concentrated into one mass and goes introvert, getting absorbed into that origin called the Self, the Ultimate Truth of the mind. That is when Samadhi occurs. What happens when Samadhi happens: a Supreme Peace descends that will be there once for all and at all times; an awareness of the Existence of the Self, the Real Existence, which is how we all exist. More than that, Yogi’s have tried not to define the existence of the Self, because the Existence is such a wondrous amazing thing. It is neither something nor nothing. Because whenever a teacher tries to explain using one of the terminologies — because in this world, through this mind, if we have to teach, if we have to imagine and tell — either of the one of the dualities is chosen. When one is used the other seems to be an ‘opponent’, whereas it is not so in this case. Because it can be that ‘opponent’ also. It can be this, or it can be that, or it is neither this, nor that. Like this space, it can be considered void or it can be filling up this room. This room is void, or this room is filled with space. In the same way, depending on the attitude, it appears to us.

So that is why it is always better to personally experience. That’s what the Master recommended always: “You practice and you will know the Truth”. Until then, many of us Teachers could simply confuse you by trying to tell so many things, like several blind people trying to talk about the elephant. Sometimes that is how Gurus keep talking if they have not totally experienced the Truth, what It is. The one who would have touched the leg would be telling, “Elephant is like a pillar.” The one who would have touched the tail would tell, “The elephant is like a rope.”  Another who would have touched the ears of an elephant would be trying to explain, “Elephant is like a big hand fan.” And the one who would have touched the belly of the elephant would tell, “Elephant is like a wall.” But what is the elephant? Only when the eyes are open will you know. So in the same way, the experience is, some people might tell, “It has form.” Some might tell, “It is formless.” My Master said, “It can be both form and formless, and beyond it also – beyond the form and formlessness.” That is the Truth. This is possible to know when your mind, which is just now so preoccupied with its own imaginations and judgments, becomes still.

So when you close the eyes, when you are trying to focus the eyes and mind in-between eyebrows, this is what precisely you are trying to do — all the thoughts, all the visions; let it go. Because the mind has absorbed since time immemorial all imprints of whatever it has judged, whatever it has analyzed, of certain forms, of thought processes. And in that process it has also picked up the habit to be constantly visualizing and chattering like a chatterbox. So it is unable to keep quiet. When it is unable to keep quiet, the Samadhi is not there. When it is able to keep quiet, there is the Samadhi. That is what a Yogi achieves in deeper meditations called the Tapas, when He would have let everything go, no identity, not even the ‘I’ would be left.

During my Tapas, every time my Master appeared in the physical form, this was one particular question He asked: “What do you see?” Always I went on telling, “I see you my Master”. Then He rejected, “It is not yet complete because you see yourself as a separate entity, and that is why you are seeing Me also”. The seer must cease. The false identity must cease. Then you experience the Ultimate Truth in deeper Samadhi.

Finally, when it really happens, when the Divine appears in front of you, you cannot cheat the Divine. You cannot keep something in the heart and talk something else from the mouth. Whatever is in the heart, whatever is inside, spontaneously comes out. That’s the amazing technology of the Divinity. That is the Self Consciousness. You would have heard, ‘we might try to cheat others but we cannot cheat our own Consciousness’. The Divine is our own Consciousness actually. Finally when it happened, the ‘I’ has ceased to exist, that imagination had gone. The seer has gone, the seen was also not there; simply an awareness of Existence in Supreme Peace. So that is what one achieves. After coming out of the Samadhi also, one shall remain in that state, at all times in Supreme Peace.

So when we talk of these points, often the question that is asked is, “Then how to live in this world if we are not going to think about anything, if we are not going to use our mind or any such thing? If we totally become quiet are we supposed to sit in a corner and do nothing?” Not like that. You are going to live a normal life even after practicing meditation and one day when you achieve, as long as you want, as long as this body is available for you, you can live a beautiful life, you would be able to think when you want. The difference between these things is, I have always told: imagining or thinking itself is not a problem, but if the mind makes a judgment and absorbs it and then gets preoccupied with that imprint, that is the problem. So that is what it is. If you are watching a movie, that itself is not at all a problem. You just enjoy, it’s an entertainment type thing. But if you get sucked into it, you start thinking that is the reality, if it appears that it is happening to you, then the problem arises because you are going to lose your peace; you can become panicked, you can become excited, you can become fearful; anything can happen. It can be agonizing for you. That is the problem.

That is the problem in this world for everyone. When that Supreme Consciousness becomes mind. When does it become mind? When it becomes a bundle of thoughts. Then it becomes the mind. It is unable to keep quiet, constantly it keeps thinking, thinking. This is what one is trying to overcome by the practice of meditation. This is a reverse gear, a return journey back to the Origin. That is the yoga.

The mind itself which has to understand that it is into an illness. But the mind refuses. It doesn’t want to understand that it is into illness, it keeps troubling itself all the time. It has picked up such habits. That was what my Master said, “An ego problem happens. Ego is the biggest hurdle. When we are unable to find our own mistakes, our own faults, if we are unable to identify them; then we cannot grow.” What He said was, “All those who can identify their faults and rectify them, they become great people – ‘Mahapurushas’” He said. So that is how one tries to achieve the things. One tries to rectify the mistakes that the mind had done since time immemorial, trying to think that, “Enough is enough. Now I am going to put this mind into rest. You have troubled me enough. You have created a separate self, and while you and me are not separated, again and again you show this separatedness. And you have troubled me; you have given me so much of stress, life after life. You have given me so much of fear, so much of agony, so much of insecure feeling. How do we exist? Are we immortal really, or have we simply come into existence for some time?”

So when you are watching means, you’re trying to give the mind a habit to remain quiet, keep quiet for some time. You are telling your mind, “Enough. Day in and day out, the whole year and the whole life, you have become a chatterbox. Constantly you keep picturizing, those thought processes are coming, visualizing, good, bad, right, wrong; all troubles, all stress”. You want to stop it, you want to enjoy peace. Why do you want to stop it? Because you want to enjoy peace and happiness, you want to relax. All these are so much connected to each other. If your mind can relax then only you can have that happiness and peace and enjoyable moments, otherwise it doesn’t happen. If the mind can stop on a flower, “Oh, how beautiful it is”, temporarily for a while, you enjoy. How does that happen? The mind tries to stop there, even for a fraction of a second, for a moment, for the shortest period possible. When it stops there we start thinking, “This flower has given me that enjoyment and beauty”. But when this flower is being taken away by somebody else we again are going to lose that happiness and peace: “Oh God, that is gone. How nice if it would have been for me at all times.” Then the struggle happens—survival of the fittest, struggle for existence, struggle to posses the things. But this world is impermanent. That is what the sages alerted in spirituality.

You try to posses the things, you try to visualize things to enjoy, to be happy. But instead of this, if you practice meditation, when you are trying to give the mind itself to become quiet, then that peace and happiness is always there. Because the mind’s very nature is to be at peace. So this mind has to be like: whenever you want, you should be able to think and work in this world in whatever way that you want, in any way that you have adopted your life, and when you don’t want to think, you should be able to relax mentally. But it doesn’t happen if you have not practiced. Mind starts thinking, it takes off. But it refuses to land. Then that is disastrous. That’s what is happening in the world—the mind going into conflict, loosing its non-violent nature of peace and happiness. So that’s what preciously you are practicing when you try to meditate, when you try to keep quiet. That is the important thing.

How does this happen—keeping quiet? It is a technological matter. If you adopt a technology then it becomes possible. Like if you have an oven, if you mix the wheat flour and put it into the oven to bake, then the bread gets baked. Otherwise it doesn’t happen, if we are keeping it in the hand, it doesn’t get baked just like that. So when you close the eyes, when the thoughts and visions are coming, know that those thoughts and visions are getting evaporated, getting cleansed from the mind which had acquired it since time immemorial as imprints. So when it keeps playing, watching them, the mind again starts thinking. It tries to judge, “This is good, this is bad, why is this happening?” The technique is, apply a little bit of will power. When those thoughts and visions are coming, just watch them; just observe them, don’t think what it is. These two techniques are important. When you are watching you are just watching, but along with that your mind has picked up a habit: whenever you watch, anything that you watch, it starts thinking about that thing. It wants to analyze, it wants to understand through its own intelligence. But it fails to understand. Just like whenever we try to measure the space, we fail. How can we measure that? If you want to know the space, if you want to measure the space, you have to become space itself. So that is how the Divinity is, which is all-pervaded, everywhere.

Why do we have to remember the Divine at all times? Then only we can be happy and at peace. All our mind’s ‘sins’ will get washed away – all such emotions and thoughts which keeps troubling. Then we can be supremely peaceful and gain a supremely secure existence, we’ll be protected at all times. Eternal, Immortal Existence, that’s all that it is. That’s what we are. If we identify with something else that which we are not, so we will be in trouble unnecessarily. That’s what the technique is. So if you keep quiet, don’t think what it is. Never mind whether it is bad or good. At that time of meditation that’s not the job that you have to think, whether it is good or bad, because it is simply going away; let it go. Then the mind becomes Supreme Consciousness, slowly going introverted. Then that peace is there, that taste comes. That’s what my Master said: “A taste will come if you go on regularly meditating. Then you would not like to give up. Once that peace, even a little bit of peace happens, then you would like to be sitting like that as much as possible”. So that is the beauty of meditation. That is how you eventually become One with the Divinity. That is the yoga. That is when the Samadhi will happen, when the mind gives up all its imaginations of all forms and all identities, when it ceases, then the Divinity—what remains is recognized as the Divinity. Still that ‘I’ is there, but not as the ‘I’ that we had imagined earlier. It remains as the Ultimate Truth. This is the recommended goal.

To begin with, even if we can do 20 minutes of meditation, 30 minutes of meditation – my Master insisted for one hour. Every time I do tell this. Because the first 30, 40 minutes, the mind refuses. It is running, running like anything and you are trying to withdraw that one. So if you understand this is what has to happen, then meditation becomes smooth and easy. That is what is the dhyana yoga. He wanted to call it Jangama Dhyana Yoga. Jangama means ‘External Existence’. That is how the Divine, Shiva, appeared before Him – as a Jangama sage. That’s what the young boy, Sathyaraju thought, “This must be some Jangama sage”. That’s what, when sages used to move in that area of His village who were worshippers of Lord Shiva, the children, they all used to recognize them as Jangama sages. He made the boy to sit down into lotus posture, asking him to close the eyes, touched in-between eyebrows and blessed him by initiating him: “Keep looking here“. That’s what Swamiji used to recall: “When the Sage, the Divine, made Me to sit for Tapas, He touched in-between eyebrows, and all I heard was, ‘Just keep watching there by focusing the attention and do not imagine anything’. So then I stopped imagining”.

He was a mighty Soul. Immediately He took the command and was able to start doing in the same way, like an obedient student. He took the commandment. He used to say, “All I did was I just went on watching and I did not think anything, because I was asked not to think, not to imagine”. Then eventually Samadhi happened and He became aware of it Himself as that Supreme Self, Self Realization happened. He understood everything. That is why He always said, “You practice the meditation then you will know who you are, what you really want, what are your requirements, what Peace and what Happiness that you are, what a Wondrous Existence that you are, and that you are One with the Divine.  You pray to God when you want to meditate because God’s Grace will be helpful always. Pray to the Divine”. He used to tell, “Don’t imagine the form of happiness and ask God to give you that because you are simply limiting yourself; when God wants to give everything you are just asking for a small thing”. Like if God wants to give you the supermarket itself, you are going to ask simply a small chocolate for happiness.

In the same way we surrendered to the Master. Whatever He wanted me to do, we did. We never felt agitated. That became a karma yoga for us. We were working in the Ashram, we were cleaning we were doing everything as an all-rounder, but the mind did not go into agitation. So that became a beautiful meditation. Years later when He made me to sit for Tapas, He said, “Twenty years you worked selflessly”. Selflessly means, without getting worried in the mind, without getting that doership, “I am doing; why should I do this one, why not that, what can come to me?” – such expectations, all this we had left. Quietly we went on working and enjoyed. That became so tasteful, every service. So He said, “Seven years of Tapas fruits has happened to you, your mind has receded. Just do another five years of Tapas, you’ll be able to achieve the Nirvikalpa Samadhi”. That was the Grace. So that is how we can achieve things, if we know what to do, if we know how to adopt the technology. That’s what it is.

Years ago, one small story I had told which we heard as children: Once a person was praying and the Divine appeared. He said, “What do you want?” “I want you to be holding my hands on my journey on this earth, and take me across so that I do not stumble or get stuck anywhere”. The Divine said, “OK I will take care of you, don’t worry”. But that man was clever so he said, “How will I know that You are taking me across? How will I know that You are always with me?” So, “What do you want?” the Divine asked. “When I am walking on the path, I can see my footprints. I must see Your footprints also then I will know that You are walking with me and You are taking me across”. God said, “OK; fine, no problem.” and disappeared. He was walking for some distance, God’s footprints also were appearing with him. After some time suddenly those footprints stopped appearing, it vanished. Then the man thought, “Oh God is cheating me. He said He’s going to walk with me but now His footprints are not there. He simply cheated me and now He has disappeared, He has gone. Now I will have to be on my own” He thought. After a long time, walking, walking, he saw everywhere there was no other footprints only one set of footprints were there. As he was thinking like that, God appeared: “You see, you have that human nature of mistrusting. You don’t have faith in your Self. All the footprints that you are seeing are not yours, they are Mine. Whenever you were in trouble I was carrying you in My lap, that’s why your footprints are not on the ground”. So that is the Divine’s Grace. It is always flowing. Only we will have to become receptive with total faith and devotion. That is what is important.