Part 2: Uncommon Answers to Common Questions🔗

He was filled with compassion, and could not tolerate that somebody had not taken food for three days. He could feel the man's suffering.

He could feel the man's emotion in totality. When you share your grief with ordinary people, when you share your suffering, they too get trapped in your pain. They 'fall in love' with your problems. They too fall to your level and just become part of your suffering. But evolved people, they just raise you with their love.

The sage could not tolerate that somebody was living without food, that he was hungry. He had with him nothing except a copy of the Tulsi Ramayana. Without thinking, he gave the beggar the book saying, 'Please take this book to the market, tell them that this book belongs to me, that this book was given by me. You will see that people will purchase this book paying a lot of money. With that money buy yourself something to eat.'

The book which he was worshipping every day, which he never even opened in front of others, which was like his very being for him, he just gave it away!

When the beggar left, the sage prayed to Rama, 'Oh Rama! I have given away your words to keep your words. I have given away your words to keep your words.'

What is the philosophy of Rama? What are his words? Nothing but giving. The ultimate sacrifice, tyaga. 'I have given away your words just to keep your words.' So when you give away the words, just to keep the words, no fight happens. Naturally the unity, the experience of bliss, the experience of peace, the experience of harmony happens, when you hold on to the spirit of the words, instead of clinging to the words themselves.

Instead of applying the words in your life, if you keep them in books, then the problem starts! So if you are ready to give away your words to keep the words, no problem can arise, no problem can exist. This is the only solution, the one and only solution. Put your energy into understanding and developing your life, than giving importance to the forms and the outer rituals.

Q: Dear master, could you throw some light on chakras and mantras?

You have asked about two things – chakras and mantras. Let me first explain the chakras. Chakras are the subtle yet vital energy centers which are in your being. Of course, they have no physical existence. By activating them, you can relieve a person of disease. There are seven such major energy centers that manage all your physical, mental, psychological, emotional and spiritual activities. Your attitude and activities are controlled and managed by these chakras.

For example, if your stomach is upset, even if you hear some good news, you will not be in a mood to relish it, cherish or enjoy it. If your stomach is relaxed, if your being is light, even bad news or mistakes, you would take in a lighter sense. You would forgive the other person.

That is why we say that these chakras play a major role in your physical, mental, psychological, emotional and spiritual attitude and activities. When they are disturbed, when they are not at ease with your system, the dis-ease occurs; when they are dis-eased with your being, the disease happens.

If the chakras can be activated by proper methods, by proper techniques, you can be freed from disease. Not only do you come out of the disease, you taste real well-being.

Even if we are not suffering from any disease, we rarely feel a true sense of well-being. What is the scale? How do you measure whether you are in a state of well-being or not? Early in the morning, as soon as you wake up from your bed, watch your steps from the bed to the bathroom. If they are a dance instead of mere steps, you are healthy; you are in a state of well-being. The steps from the bed to the bathroom should be more like a dance than mere steps. That is the way to measure whether your being is beautiful, whether you are joyful, whether you are healthy or not. That is the time you emerge from unconsciousness, out of your sleep. That is the time to measure who you are, how well you are.

Just watch the animals as they wake up from sleep each morning. You see birds chirping for no reason. The calf leaps at least two or three times around the rope with which it is tied. The cat does a few rounds for no reason. Man is the only animal that turns over and goes back to sleep! Early in the morning, as soon as the alarm rings, man is the only animal that turns over and goes back to sleep. He is the only animal that needs an alarm clock in the first place. He is the only one who has disconnected himself so completely from nature, from existence.

Once a middle aged man, for some reason, wanted to get rid of his wife.

His wife had a cat and the man thought he would get rid of both.

Thinking that he would start with the cat, he caught the cat, took it some ten miles away, dropped it in an unfamiliar place and came back.

When he left the cat and returned to his house, he saw the cat already standing there waiting for him at the doorstep!

The next day he took the cat to the other side of the town – 20 miles away. He dropped it and came back. Within one hour he saw the cat standing there at the doorway.

By the third day he was really disturbed and annoyed. He took the cat, put it in a gunny bag, took the bag and drove left, right, south, west, this way, that way and after two or three hours' drive he reached a place like a forest, a dead end.

He said to himself, 'I myself have not gone to this place, so the cat can never find the way back. Let me drop the cat here. This is the best place because I myself didn't know that there was a place like this; so the cat will never find the way back home.

He just dropped the gunny bag and drove back.

On the way back, he rang up his wife, 'Dear, is the cat in the house?'

She said, 'Yes, the cat is right here.'

The man asked, 'Can you please somehow find out the way back from him? I have lost my way.'

A small story

Man is the only animal that has lost connection with nature altogether, that has lost the way. So if you see that your steps early in the morning are more like a dance, you can be sure that you have not lost your way; you are living a life of well-being.

Awakening of the chakras not only cures you of disease, it also gives you a glimpse, a taste of real well-being. Most of us have never touched the state of well-being. We have never experienced the state of well-being. Just like a man who is blind from birth can never understand what he is missing, we too never understand what we are missing.

We would never understand what it is to feel a sense of well-being, because we lost it at a very young age. So only when you enter into these charkas, would you understand what you were really missing all these days. This is the basic explanation about chakras.

Now about mantras. Never think words are mere words. Be very clear: never think words are just words. They are embodiments of energy. For example, if I utter the word 'cow', immediately a figure appears in your mind, with four legs, a tail, two horns, two ears and so on. Am I right? Immediately, just by the sound, the form is created in your system. Just try to recollect the form without the sound. It may not be the cow but 'gau' - you might use the word in Hindi. Just try to visualize something without creating a sound, without creating a word. You can never do it, never. This visualization is what is called has ichcha shakti.

You have three energies in your system*: ichcha shakti*, kriya shakti and gnana shakti. For the other two energies, ichcha shakti is the base metal. From this base metal, gold is created. Ichcha shakti is the raw energy, raw material from which gnana shakti and kriya shakti are developed. When it is 22 carat gold, it is kriya shakti. When it is 24 carat, it is gnana shakti. When it is 18 carat, merely a raw material, it is ichcha shakti. Raw material is ichcha shakti, 22 carat gold is kriya shakti and 24 carat gold is gnana shakti. But the raw material is the basic thing. The capacity to visualize, the capacity to imagine, is what is raw material. So the visualization capacity and the words are closely associated.

Adding mantras to raw material is like processing the raw material and purifying it in to pure gold. The word mantra can mean two things: mantra: man means mankind, tra means that which shows the way. So mantra is that which shows the way to man.

Man-tra: Man also means mind, tra means that which shows the way, so mantra could also mean that which shows the way out of the mind, which brings you out of the mind. So the technique to bring man out of the mind is mantra.

You can say, the technique which brings man out of the world, which paves the way for man, is what mantra is. When mantras are added to your being continuously, like acid being added to raw material to cleanse it, it becomes 22 carat gold. If you continue the process, it will ultimately become 24 carat gold. So mantra is a powerful technique to enter into the spiritual zone or enlightenment or reality.

Even in day-to-day life, mantras are necessary. It is not necessary that the mantra should be in Sanskrit. You all use English mantras: I must succeed in my office; I must convince that person; I must flourish in my business. Even these words which you continuously repeat unconsciously are mantras. Don't think mantra means Om Namah Shivaya, or Hari Om Namo Narayana. These are ancient mantras, that's all. The modern mantras can be even what you think as soon as you wake up in the morning: Today I must talk to that man and get the business; today I must talk to her and settle things. Whatever you utter as a goal can become a mantra. That is the way to attain something.

Anything that becomes a reality in your life first appears only in the form of a mantra; then it becomes reality. If the mantra is unconscious, the result is also unconscious. If the mantra is conscious, then the result is also conscious. If you do it consciously, then you get conscious results and you will know how to enjoy it. If the mantra is repeated unconsciously, you will not know the cause and the result. When it is repeated consciously you will be very clear about the purpose and what you want to reach and what will happen.

If consciousness is flooded into your mind, into your mantra structure, then the path and the goal both become clear to you. You will achieve it safely and beautifully, by dancing and not by walking. If it is unconscious, you are unaware about your path and your goal, so naturally you just get dragged along. If you are conscious, you are traveling beautifully, or else you are dragged. If you know how to stop the car, how to apply the brakes, you are driving the car. If you don't know, then the car is driving you.

You are all chanting mantras continuously, whether you are religious or non-religious, spiritual or materialistic. You are chanting mantras continuously, either consciously or unconsciously, that's all. If you decide to chant the mantras consciously, you will know how to stop the car, and you will be driving the car. If you let the mantras chant you, if you let the unconscious process continue in you and control your actions, the car will be driving you. If you drive the car, you know where you are going. If the car drives you, you have no idea where you will end up!

Q: Dear master, you say we are part of the whole, but I experience myself as a separate individual. Can you explain?

You may think that you are separate from Existence, but you are not. Whether you like it or not, accept it or not, understand it or not, believe it or not, you are connected to God. It is like you are God's child. Suppose you have a small baby on your lap, even if he kicks you, you would still keep him on your lap. Just like that, even if you resist, you are in divinity. Whether you float with the current or swim against it, you are connected to the river. You are related to the cosmic consciousness.

All minds are very closely related to each other. If you look at the circle of cosmic consciousness, only on the periphery are there many points, but in the center all just converge. If you go towards the center, the distance between you and the other point becomes lesser and lesser. If you move out of the center, the distance between you and others becomes more and more. So whether you believe it or not, at the being level you are connected with all the beings on planet Earth.

So anything done consciously creates a ripple in the mind. It is like if you throw a small stone in the lake, it will create a ripple that reaches the boundary or the shore of the lake. A wave is created. If you drop the mantra like a stone in the conscious mind, a ripple is created. It travels all over the lake and reaches the shore. If the stone is big, the wave is big, if the stone is small, the wave is small. So whenever you chant anything, or whenever you pray for anybody, it surely creates an effect on your being and on other beings too. It enters just like the stone that is dropped into the lake; it is dropped into the mind and it creates ripples; it creates an effect in your system and in other systems. Whatever happens in the center of the lake, will happen to your being. Whatever happens on the periphery of the lake when you drop the stone, that much impact will be there on other beings. So when you pray for others, the effect is more on you than on others. Others do get the effect, but you get the result too. They are only affected. You get the result itself.

Q: Can the hyperactivation of chakras have any side-effects?

If the chakras are activated by proper methods and techniques, it only gives good health, never side-effects. The techniques which I have designed are fool-proof techniques, with no side-effects. Even if you commit mistakes you would only not have the full beneficial effect. There will be no side-effect. The techniques should be proper. If they are proper then these problems don't happen.

Secondly, there is no such thing as 'hyperactivation' of the chakras. If a chakra is hyperactive, you would only feel the expansion of your consciousness. It would only do more good. You can never die by falling into Amritasagara (the ocean of nectar)! By falling in Amritasagara you will never die. You will only become more and more joyful. As such the hyperactivity never creates any ill-effect in your system. If the chakra is hyperactivated, it creates only well-being, the joyful state, the spiritual experience, and ultimately enlightenment. It never disturbs you. It is only the laziness or non-activeness, the inertia, the tamas of the chakras, that creates trouble.

Q: Dear master, I am already following another master. Can I still practice these meditation techniques?

One thing: the practice does not involve a change of guru. Please be very clear: attending this two-day course does not involve change of guru. All great masters are embodiments of the same energy. So I never tell people to change their guru. It is the same energy through different channels.

People come and ask me, 'Can I attend others' discourses; can I follow another master as well?' Certainly! It's not like I am trying to get you away from someone else's shop and into my own shop. Spirituality cannot be reduced to business. Whomsoever is your guru, to whomsoever you are attracted to, with whomsoever you fall in tune, he is your guru. He is your master; perfectly alright. My techniques, my teachings, will only help you more, they will just inspire you. They will awaken you to follow your own master in a more effective way. What I am giving you is only energy and inspiration to flower in your own path, that's all. It does not involve change of guru or change of faith or change of religion or change of your spiritual system.

Of course, the Kundalini energy (the energy lying dormant at the base of the spine) can be awakened only by the grace of the master. When I say this, I don't mean the grace of the master Himself, it is the grace of His energy, the guru Shakti - that is the Existential energy. Guru Shakti as such is the same always. It may differ only in the forms that it takes.

Rama and Krishna never had any conflict. But Rama's monkeys and Krishna's cows would be fighting with each other till the very end! So it is only our ignorance that makes us think in terms of conflict. I tell you: nothing needs to be changed. Only the inspiration and the energy need to be awakened. So attending this two-day course does not involve any change of faith, change of belief system, change of guru or change of religion. It involves only the change of personality; nothing else.

Now I think it is time to finish. I will answer one last question, and then we will finish.

Q: Dear master, why are participants and volunteers required to wear white clothes?

The mind is deeply influenced by colours. Now they have discovered something new in the West called colour therapy. Did you know? If you put a red light in your bedroom, you will not be able to have good sleep. If you use a dim blue light, you will have dreamless sleep! If multicolours are used, the mind gets activated. Maybe that is why disco lights are in multicolour!

In Bharat, we have been practicing colour therapy for centuries without giving it a name.

We know that the white colour has the power to create peace in the mind, and an attitude of receptivity. When white is used, the unnecessary wavering, the unnecessary thoughts are brought down. White always creates a pleasant mood, a mood of relaxation, bliss and harmony. That is why white is emphasized. Of course, it is not compulsory. I don't compel anything. It is only a suggestion. If somebody comes without white clothes - but of course, wears some clothes - that is enough! It is not as if we say that if you don't wear white, you can't do the course. Nothing like that. Whatever rules are given are only as guidance. It is a guidance to have the maximum result for yourself. Everything else is your responsibility. It is just to give you a simple understanding.

I think it is time now for us to end this discussion!

Thank you.

Spirituality is relevant in every time and age. Meditation is not an esoteric art practiced by sages and yogis. It has practical benefits for each of us, no matter what our age, culture or religion.

UNCOMMON ANSWERS TO COMMON QUESTIONS

Meditation not only enhances our physical health and mental well-being, it helps us understand our interpersonal relationships better. Above all, it brings us in touch with our own divine nature, which we have forgotten.