Perth – 3 December 2013
Offering my unconditional surrender and Shastanga, prostrations, at the Lotus Feet of our Beloved Master Shivabalayogi, I greet you all with my love and blessings this auspicious evening that we have gathered here to remember the Divinity.
As you would have heard a short while ago that our Guru Shivabalayogi performed a twelve years rigorous Tapas. He always used to tell Tapas as the highest pitch of meditation, means when you would have been able to reach its height. Meditation means when you are able to keep the mind quiet, totally silent at least for one hour into one-pointedness that is meditation, means you are able to meditate. Until then you are trying to meditate, that’s how He used to put it. Any day if any one of you or whoever is able to keep that mind quiet and silent, totally attentive to itself for more than ten hours, then one is able to do Tapas.
In this meditation the mind is trying to watch itself
Tapas word is used, means it’s like burning, burning out of all imagined individual habits of the mind that is the consciousness and energy combination. The meditation He practiced, the technique which He had got by the manifestation of the Divine Shiva as a Jangama Sage and He taught to this world also was in total silence. There is no mantra, no name to be repeated and just you have to keep watching in-between eyebrows. So that when you keep watching, here in this meditation the mind is trying to watch itself, pay attention to itself. Eventually you shall realize that you are trying to watch yourself.
If you all can be aware just now your mind would be preoccupied or paying attention to its own imaginations. Like in many ways in spiritual terminologies teasingly they tell that mind is like a monkey wondering in the world. It’s like a chatterbox. Not even for a moment it can keep quiet. Constantly it is into imaginations always thinking and very often worrying also, thus falling into an anxiousness probably about the future of, “What will happen tomorrow? What if it doesn’t happen?” And brooding of the past, if anything was pleasant we would be missing, “How nice it was, how nice ten years ago, twenty years ago.” Thus the mind is constantly into brooding; hardly it is able to enjoy a peace.
This peace and happiness and enjoyment is what everybody is looking for. In today’s world mind-related problems are increasing − tension, fear, insecurity, conflicts. Today humanity seems to be the most untrustworthy; it’s so difficult to believe anybody. Very often devotees ask questions, “How to believe a Guru, that he is sincere?” I have told it’s important that you need to be sincere first because you will search only for such things that you want. If you want simple magic you will search for that. If you want a Truth of Existence, that Eternal Existence, the Real Divinity, a Real Yourself, how you exist as the Immortal Soul, then you will search for such things. You shall not compromise with any other teacher who is trying to teach something else. So it is as simple.
That was how we wanted this, the Existence of the Self. Like as a child I used to wonder, “If I am that Immortal Soul as the scriptures talk, why is it that I am not aware of it consciously?” So I always prayed and looked for such a Master. I prayed to God, “May the Master be the Liberated One and who could lead me to Liberation.” Thus we got attracted to great Teachers, Great Sages like Ramana Maharshi, Ramakrishna and Adi Shankara’s teachings. Adi Shankara’s Bhaja Govindam created such a wonderful impact on our mind about the impermanence of this world and that death to this body is inevitable. “Before that, what is it that we have to achieve? What is this opportunity called the life on this Earth as a human that we have got?” So this type of thought arose and we always looked for such Gurus only. And on the path we never compromised with any other type of teachings. It was not rings or chains or powders that were produced. We wanted knowledge and wisdom, a Supreme Peace, “How do we exist? Are we born with this physical body? Are we going to become extinct when this body dies? What is it that dies?” So that was how we finally got attracted to Master Shivabalayogi who had done twelve years great Tapas. For twelve years He could keep His mind totally into silence like for twenty-two hours at a stretch and just keep watching.
This watching is a technology through which the silence of the mind can be achieved
This watching is a technology through which the silence of the mind can be achieved because when you are watching you are really unable to think; if you are thinking you are not really watching hundred percent. Like when I am talking here, mentally if you are able to watch, you all understand to become aware of any truth, to learn about a truth observation capabilities are very, very important. Through the mind when you are able to observe strongly, perfectly, to the best of your ability then you will know the truth of such an existence. So that is what the ancient Sages recommended to go for a Self Realization. Like my Master also said, “Practice meditation and know your Real Self.” He always used to say, “You want to do things for yourself. Everybody in this world, we would like to do a certain thing only if we are going to be happy. If we are not going to be happy we wouldn’t like to do it.” Sometimes He even said, “There is really no such thing called charity. We want to be happy then we want to help someone.” So the primary thing is always we want happiness for ourselves, we want peace for ourselves. So then know yourself, what you are, how you exist as the Immortal Soul. That’s what a Yogi experiences in deeper Samadhi because when the mind totally becomes still – means in silence, total silence – then the mind doesn’t get destroyed, it is there. Simply its real form, its real existence you become aware of.
In the beginning as I told, mind is a combination of consciousness and energy. From this worldly point of view it could be totally different. As Maharshi Ramana put, “The mind is a bundle of thoughts.” Only through thoughts and visions that come we recognize the mind, “My mind wants to do this, my mind wants to go there.” I have always asked, “Can you show your mind to anybody?” Nobody has seen the mind with the naked eyes, its color or its form but now it has become talkative, it cannot keep quiet. This gets converted into cravings often, which gives rise to unhappiness, tension and fear. This is the basic problem for every human being, if at all other creatures also might face a problem, mental problem, mental tension − there is no peace. We go to places of worship looking for enjoyment, peace, happiness. We always try to look, “Is there some power, is there somebody who can give it to us?”
That Existence is definitely beyond the birth and death of the body
It is always within us. We always have heard God or the Divinity is All-Pervaded, Omnipresent, is everywhere in everything as everything, within us also. How does that exist? When we practice paying attention to the mind by the mind then slowly one day when we achieve that silence of the mind that is what is required. I told mind is combination of consciousness and energy – consciousness means wherever you apply your mind, your consciousness, you become aware of it. When I am talking if all of you can apply your minds, your consciousness, here then you are really able to pay attention to what I am talking. When you are able to pay attention means, with total watchful eyes, then it would be easy to understand also, to become aware of what I am talking. Like when I am talking, if you are unable to pay attention at all then you will not know. So that is why the meditation practice is taught in silence. When you keep watching then one day when you are able to watch the mind, the mind is able to watch the mind, then you become aware of what it is. It is such an amazing Existence and eventually you shall realize that is nothing but you. That Existence is definitely beyond the birth and death of the body.
Through observation only in science and technology, everything discovered or invented, great astronomers of the world observed the celestial bodies and came out with some theories of truth of existence of the Earth, Sun, Moon, Stars, planets and so on. So in the same way here because the mind is introverted, our own mind, for everybody their mind is introverted, nobody really knows the location. It is not staying outside somewhere, it is introverted. Though we have not seen it with the naked eyes but you can feel, you can understand that you have a mind based on the thoughts. It is spread through the sensory organs. So using the eyes which are one of the strongest sensory organs you try to concentrate the mind and watch the mind by the mind in silence when you try to practice, like when we tell, “Watch in-between eyebrows.”
