November 16, 1979


Maharaj: From birth what has made the body grow? It is no power in the world; it is the power of beingness, the atom, the Self, the consciousness, call it what you will. 

Various religions have given various ways of trying to please God, but the original pure form of worship is the worship of the Self. 

Rulers and kings used to fall at the feet of people who in appearance were very ordinary. What is it that such seemingly ordinary people had that impelled powerful rulers to fall at their feet? T his knowledge of the Self. 

Many people earn a lot of money and attain worldly power, and then use them so that ultimately they lose both and live in poverty. Others, like beggars, offer their prayers for something that is only temporary, and they remain beggars. 

Every person has the strength of the Self, but what happens? All that power is employed for useless things in life. That power is not retained and used for the knowledge of the Self. If this power of the Self is conserved and enlarged in obtaining the knowledge of the Self, the whole world is at your feet. Here is the advice given by the Sage Vashista to King Ramachandra: “This Self gets pleased by the strength of meditation and enjoys extreme happiness because in the ultimate happiness all other pleasures get absorbed. Even those who have not completely realized the Self, even they enjoy moments of extreme ecstasy by meditation.” 

Q: In what way do we waste that power? 

M: You waste it in worldly affairs, in embracing each other, in gossip. Even here you sit in meditation and get a certain amount of potential power, and all that is wasted. So what is the use of doing all this? That is to be conserved and not wasted in various worldly pleasures. 

Hundreds of people go to Ananda Mai, and she feeds them all sumptuously. Where does she obtain the power to get all that money? It is that Ananda Mai herself has such power that people go to her and donate money. What does Ananda Mai herself do? Nothing. She only sits there in her own happiness. 

Will you keep this in mind? This is the power of Jnana Yoga; otherwise one person is like any other person. It is the power of the Self which distinguishes one from another. 

Q: My energy goes up and down, up and down, in meditation. I don't have any control of it. 

M: You will develop the power to control that energy in due course. 

Q: I have never believed that I should force meditation. If I force it I become very dejected and tired. When it's not there of itself I can't meditate. 

M: If you are not able to meditate, recite nama. If you can’t meditate, recite the sacred words continuously. There was a dacoit named Vali who committed many murders and piled up a lot of sins, seven earthen pots of blood, so sinful was he. He met the Sage Narada, who told him to recite the name of Rama. Rama was not yet born. So Vali started reciting the name continuously, and because he recited it, the Absolute incarnated in the form of Rama, for the sake of Vali. So that is the power of recitation. By the power of recitation Vali exterminated all his sins and acquired many merits; because of the power of the merits Rama was born. None of us is such a sinner as Vali was. The highest worship is the worship of the Self. You are gaining a lot of merit by your meditation, but you dissipate it in worldly affairs. 

Q: It is very noisy in my room, and I find my mind is noisy as well. Is it enough to come here and meditate? 

M: Anywhere you like, whenever you get the opportunity to meditate, do it. You need not come here. By your deep meditation the Self is pleased and you need not go anywhere else to acquire knowledge. Your own Self will give the knowledge. The point of my talking is only this: you should know the Self, stabilize in the Self. 

Q: But what is this knowing, is it a perception? 

M: Start meditation and the Self will direct you. The Self is the immanent manifest spirit; don't give it a form, don't condition it in the body form. Once the Self gives up the body, what is the significance of the body? It will start decaying and decompose. 

Q: When one is in meditation and there are no thoughts, can one say that the mind is dissolved in the Self? 

M: Yes. What the condition of the Self is without the body will be revealed to you in meditation. The identity of the Self, or that blissfully happy state of the Self, in the absence of the body, should be revealed to you when you have the body. In spite of the body you have to reach that state. 

Q: When I meditate and the mind is focused, but not on anything, there seems to be a borderline state between “I- ness” and the Self. You can watch thoughts happen; then sometimes you have a feeling there is some presence, as if someone has come into the room, even though you don't see him. That kind of feeling. 

M: You might feel that but your attention should be on the Self, the meditator. 

Q: But your mind is not focused on the feeling; it comes without warning. 

M: In the process you will acquire much knowledge also, but your attention, your interest, must be the Self, not whatever you get. The Self will become manifest, infinite, boundless. Presently that which is now conditioned in a personality will be broken up and it will become manifest, unbounded. 

Q: When I am in the thought-free state I have this feeling of total balance, no happiness, no misery, just balance. Is this correct? 

M: Yes; the state of the Self, no pleasure, no misery. This is called identity with the Highest, when you don't know that you are. So long as the vital breath is present mind will be also; be in the Self, don't get involved with the vital breath and the mind. Ignore the mind. 

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