Efficacy of Rajayoga

Dear friends,

Happy to meet you all. Happy also to note your concern for progress in the spiritual aspect of our life. There is the mundane aspect, which is overwhelmingly becoming important for us, so much so we tend to neglect the spiritual side. It is necessary that we should proceed on both the fronts equally well. Nobody flies with one wing, no bird can do that nor can we totally succeed with only materialistic approach. So, I should congratulate you for this much of viveka that you have got, namely that there is another side of our life, namely the spiritual aspect of our life. People tend to use yoga even today in many places for material benefit only. They will ask me whether it gives you breath control, blood pressure control, sugar control or many other diseases with which we suffer. These questions are better presented to doctors rather than to a spiritual person, though it has been a habit for some reason or the other, people tend to ask such questions. They belong to the physiological plane and better attended to by the doctors who know more about it. Incidentally many things can happen, when you control the mind, the body also gets some amount of control. Yoga also has been confused with lot of exercises, physical exercises. They do good, they are supposedly doing good to so many people about which I am personally not aware of, nor had I at any point of time any inclination to practice any one of them. So I will be the least competent person to talk about that, though at the schools, I was taught certain exercises and a good sports man myself and there the matter ends. I never took it to be a way of controlling diseases. This is enough as an introduction about other aspects of yoga.

We are talking today about the efficacy of Rajayoga. By now you have been introduced to the subject of Rajayoga as a means of utilizing the thought force in us for union with the Ultimate. Ultimate here means the cosmos, the entire life force, the entire energy. Some people prefer to call it Divinity, some people prefer to call it God, I don't mind any definition you give for it but there is a force above, we are not independent, we are interdependent - this is one fundamental truth that we have to learn in life. No person, however big he may be and however small he may be, can claim to be independent. We are dependent upon others, we are dependent upon the environment, and we are dependent upon the society. There are various relationships and the matrix is really very very complicated so if any person says that he is independent, we don't agree to it. The life force is there in all and in each one of us whether it is a plant or an animal or a friend or a foe, it doesn't matter much, the same life force is there. There is a fundamental unity amongst all of us. Saints called it God; some other people may call it by some other name, it does not matter much. God has neither a form nor a name, so call Him by whatever way you like. It is what He is. He is just what He is. THAT. That is That. That's all. Om Tat Sat. That's all. There is nothing more. All other things are our relationships which we feel, as we feel to so many people so many relationships, again go on changing our relationships with them, again re-changing them. Attitudes do change towards every person. A person who was a friend yesterday becomes all of a sudden somebody neutral tomorrow and day after tomorrow perhaps enimical to your interests. These things do happen, relationships vary, but the essence is always there. The essence of communication that is there between you and me is irrevocable.

We always move in the same wavelength of Divinity, there is one thing, superficially there are differences. Rajayoga aims at arriving at that thought, which is there at the base. This thought which is there which is not coloured with anything else. It is we who colour the thought, the thought by itself has no colour. Consciousness is always pure and simple, it is not tainted, it is not vitiated, it is in no way affected by anyone of our relations or emotions. So what happens during our meditations is, we try to meditate on the Divine light without luminosity, as the method is. Divine light without luminosity is an impossible idea. We can understand light with some luminosity. We can think about some intensity of the light, we can think of so many things, color of the light, we can see the smallness of it or the bigness of it but light by itself without luminosity if we can think of, you would have reached the highest stage of consciousness but it is an impossibility. Mind is not capable of comprehending that idea.

The very purpose of this system of yoga is to make you understand that Ultimate is something that you will never know. It is beyond your mind, your mind cannot reach that. That is what the Vedas have said 'Na tatra vak gacchati na mano na vijno na vijanimo'- you cannot go there,you cannot reach that. It is far beyond. Whatever you think it is something other than that. NETI NETI. Whatever you say it is not that. Something beyond, something beyond. So this beyond-ness of the Divinity is what we are trying to have access to, because you have that in your heart. The mysterious thing is, that which is far far beyond our comprehension, is so near to us in our heart. It is beyond our comprehension but it is easily comprehendible by our feeling. You can feel it but you can never know it. If you try to know through logic, you will never know. Nahi nahi rakshati dukrun karane. No vyakarana can help you, no grammar can help you, no logic can help you, you have to understand only through your feeling. God's language is feeling, God's language is in silence, not in words. So long as it's a word it is already distorted. Whether it is our Vedas or whether it is our Bible, it does not matter much, they are distorted. The original thing is the feeling, the feeling you have. That is why the call of God is Nistraygunyo Bhavarjuna; Vedha trigunya vishayaaha nistraigunyo bhavarjuna. You have got to go beyond, the point is God is beyond the Vedas - the word. The essence is something that defies any structure. Any structure you try to give for God is something that is limiting God and chaining God in bondage. That which is free can never be bound, God by definition is free, energy by definition is free. We can bind it in the form of electricity, in the form of magnetism, in the form of light, in any form that we like, but energy as such is something far beyond this. So this is the feeling that we have got to have.

So when you start meditation in this system, the first thing that happens to you is that you become aware of the vibrations of the Ultimate Consciousness. When you have your sitting, some of you will feel vibrations, some of you will feel calmness, some of you as usual feel enormous noise outside and inside. Noise outside you cannot help it because it is there in the road. Noise inside, it is your complication. You have got so many feelings, you have got so many attitudes, you have got so many thoughts, you have got so many responsibilities. All of them will come to you one after the other. You try to sit down in calmness you will find all these things coming together. You engage yourself in some task, all of them seem to disappear almost because you are task oriented. Since you are task oriented, your mind is only on that. When you try to empty yourself and then sit somewhere, all the thoughts will come to you, bombard you and that is the nature of vacuum, please note it. Vacuum is such when you try to have vacuum in some place, all the air around you tries to enter that. You must be knowing the famous experiment of trying to heat up a tin and then as it throws out the hot air goes out, put a cork and then the shape of the tin is lost for the only reason air wants to enter, it has no chance of entering into it and then the can becomes totally twisted and wrinkled totally out of shape. Similar is our mind when we try to keep your mind calm, what happens is all thoughts will come to you. It is not thoughts which come to you, they are thoughts which are there in you which are trying to go out, which want expression, which want attention. So many things which you forcibily put down and were attending to certain other things, they kept quiet. When you are calm, all of them will come to you and then they want precedence to be established 'Now I will try to come, no no I am more important'. So many thoughts, some exams may be there, some promotions may be there, some responsibilities of going to the shop may be there, may be you have got to get certain things for your children, may be you have to attend to your parents, may be you have got something connected with your house, so many things. Everything with which you are connected comes there at that time, you really get confused and then prefer it is much better to have one word by which I can go on reciting, that seems to be much more easier because then your mind is given an attention, an object - you have got some toy to play with. It can be Om Namahsivaya or Namo Narayanaya, it does not matter much. Or O' Ram or hey Ram, whatever you choose. Your mind is going to a word and then it is definitely absorbed in that because it is given a toy. In the other case of meditation where you are asked not to think of anything and think about a Divine light which you cannot think of and then you get confused, because the mind gets filled up with all thoughts, it just rushes in. Now we say to you at that time, try to be as indifferent to it as possible, don't give attention to it, treat them as uninvited guests. Easily spoken, easily said, it is very difficult when actually you practice. I won't say it is too easy, I won't say it is too complex but first you have to learn this, learn to ignore, learn to ignore many things because you know that is not what you are seeking for. For that you have to learn two attitudes -one is you have got to be attentive and secondly you have got to be alert. Alert to the moments of silence that comes to you, attentive to the moments of silence that comes to you. It is just like a person who waits in a bus stand for a particular friend. He is to pass by that place and so many people go in the road, so many cars go, so many buses go, so many taxis go, and you are not going to attend to any one of them. You are waiting only for your friend and your mind is only for him. It is attentive towards him and it is alert for his presence. You just don't bother about anybody else. Similarly here, when you are in meditation please develop this attitude. If you develop this attitude you will be in a better position to meditate for long.

Now I am asked to talk about the efficacy of this system. The efficacy of this system is, first two things have to be taken into consideration. One is your own effort and other is the help of the Master in your meditation. I can say with enormous confidence and practical knowledge about it, that this is the only system where we give the assistance of the Master throughout your progress. This does not start with a course and end with giving a mantra after some time nor by prescribing a method at a particular time but it is a continuous life long association that we seek with you, because you are seeking life long association with the Divine and the Divine must help you throughout. We ensure that you feel the presence of the Divine till the end. This is felt by the Pranahuti, which is an experience that you will go through and you will know the nearness of God. Everybody has told that God is in the heart, everybody has told that there is no exception to this but to make you feel that calmness even momentarily was something that was not there in the earlier periods. Here, because of the influx of Pranahuti, you do feel that and it is for you to feel and practice. So that aspect of it is to be taken into consideration while we discuss the efficacy of Rajayoga in this system.

If you take your heart into consideration, this is where most of our feelings are. Thoughts of course may be even at the buddhi level but at the manasic level all our feelings are there. Manas is at heart, buddhi is connected with the intellect. Actually we have got the intellect - the buddhi, manas - I think I will try and keep this feeling aspect, ahankar - ego feeling, ego I would replace it by 'I', I feeling, and chitta ­because there is no equivalent word in English for this so far as I know. These are all the four components of our mind. This buddhi is connected with our school subject such as (A+B)2- all such knowledge you can put it straight into that because there is no consequence, there is no feeling connected with it. It is something, some mathematics, 1234 - whatever it is you know that, you don't know that. People perhaps now a days recognize people only with this capacity ignoring other three. The self-respect aspect of it, this has come here actually self (ego). Then the manas is predominant feelings of yours that you have. This is what is guiding us. It is only for satisfying the parents' interest that we go for some course. My father wants me to become an engineer therefore I become an engineer. My father wants me to go to a doctor so I go to a doctor. Why do you do this? My wife wants me to do this. Why do you do this? My husband would like that. Most of our actions are governed by these. If you see these, our feelings are directed towards the lower portion. Lower portion means actually physiological drives of food, water, shelter. Our thoughts, our feelings are invariably connected with all these things, either one of these things. If you just can check up your present state of mind, your thoughts will be connected only with this. For getting food you do a job, you have to do. Everything is connected with these four.

As on date majority of us are governed by these and perhaps will ever be governed by it. There is no way out of these things because so long as life is there, principle of life is that of urges, there is no chance of getting out of these things. Animals are condemned once and all for that position. There is no way by which they can change their cycles. When it becomes hungry, it just finds its prey. It has to go and finds its food there is no alternative for it. When it is thirsty, it will go to the nearest possible source of water. When it is on season, it is on heat, it will definitely find its mate. There is no way out of these things. There is no chance for an animal to come out of it. Human beings are the only persons, only animals where we are given an option to control them. We know how to control hunger. You feel hungry but then you wait for the dinner, you wait for the lunch. Your mother says it takes some more time for your food please wait. We wait, we don't grab it. If you then note whether that is so in your case and if you are very honest about it, I am sure there must have been occasions when you must have pinched at something out of the kitchen - may be a fruit, may be something else, something edible stuff, if nothing else the pulses going straight into your mouth - the animal has not left us, please note this. It is that state of mind which you are trying to control, it is that impulsive state, impulsive nature. Animals are propelled, impelled, compelled - there is no alternative they have to behave like that. We need not behave like that, God has given us that much of liberty, that much of freedom, but we do not exercise that. Culture, education, social development, all these things you can see are the parameters by which we judge whether a person is advanced or not advanced. We apply these meters, what is his behavior? A tribal fellow how he behaves? A cannibal, how he behaves? A socially developed person, how he behaves? i.e. man has been persistently making efforts to control these urges and then arrived at certain ways of living, which he calls cultured ways. Don't behave like that they say, you are animal don't try to be like that. While that is so, in majority of the cases people have followed, now present day civilization seems to be moving in another direction of trying to have as much as what we want to satisfy these urges. I don't want to go into value systems because that is not the topic. The topic is how are we going to control these things? However much we try, there are occasions when you fall for these and of course these you just can't help it. Water is something that you will be forced to take and perhaps there is no difficulty in taking it and this one also, kama and krodha, you know you become slaves to it. That is why extraordinary attention has been given to it in tradition and they say you must know how to control these. Consequential feeling that you get is, when you are asking for some drive satisfaction, you find others also are striving towards the same thing and there is a conflict and it leads to rage, anger, confrontation. When more than one person tries for the same object then naturally confrontation and that is what we generally express as krodh. One is the kam, another is krodh

So these two things are the essential factors we have got to control and they seem to be inbuilt in our animal nature. All my previous discussion is only to point out that we seem to be conditioned by these two things almost. Animals are conditioned we know that, we also seem to be having no option over this. Other systems of yoga have tried to totally abolish these things by whatever means it is ­suppression, oppression, by way of privation or deprivation, you can use any method by which they try to see that you get away from the family, go away to forest, go and stay in some mountains, get far off from the man, don't get into the situations, try to be away as far away as possible but this system is meant for a grihastha, for a man living here, a family life and these two things are the most important drives that you have got to attend to and you will not be in a position to suppress it, you are not supposed to also. So we always ask here try to learn moderation. Let the impulsiveness go and let some sanity be there. The institutions of marriage were established only for this. Social solutions like the institutions of justice were maintained only for this, so that we won't come out. What are the individual solutions for this? To conform to the social institutions. You know better what our reaction to social institutions is today. We are trying to question every one of them. We don't want to stand by the judgment of some judge who says you are at fault, even when he says that it has been established this fellow has murdered Rajiv Gandhi, he would like still an appeal to the President. Nobody is prepared to accept it. Principles of justice is being questioned. I am not going to the minor details. I am talking about a major details of only one incident, you can add hundreds. Our individual positions are such that in our own house, for no reason we fight with our brother, for no reason we fight with our sisters, for the sake of some object, for the sake of something which you think you deserve more than he or she, all our fights are coming from this. Principles of education unfortunately are founded on this. We have got somebody who is first in the class and then somebody who is last in the class. Whoever has given us that right to distinguish them I do not know but that is what education is. Every one of us learn at our own pace. Incidentally that is the reason why we have got a school, which says that is the school for slow learners. We would like everybody to be treated on par. The grace of God is equal on all and there is no question of superiority or inferiority. The problem is connected with basic instincts. How best can I over take the other man in killing him is what we are trying to justify by saying 'yes he is the first man, he is the last man'. That is the reason why you have got the word in the marketing today 'he had a kill today'. What is that word? What disgraceful words we are using to say that we are cultured. So these two things are the fundamental points. On this there is no solution in the tradition as to how to do it. They told so many things. They said be in good company, be in good thoughts, trying to be with only good people, try to do only good things, try to learn some moral stories, try to live according to those expectations. All these things we have heard but then man has been more intelligent than those words which express some sanity. We have found every way by which we can deceive everyone one of the Panchatantras. All our Ithihasas have lost their value, all our Puranas have lost their value, nobody wants to follow anyone of them. We have become intelligent, our buddhi has gone far beyond. Agreed, there is no doubt about it but what is the solution, still the problem is there. The problem is sought to be solved by the principle of moderation and for that we have got to lift this mind which goes to the lower mind, the thought force which flows down generally goes steep, some effort has to be made to go up.

Tradition has made so many efforts of education and other things. In this system through Pranahuti, the first effort that is made is the flow of consciousness to the lower mind is sought to be diverted to the upper portion. This is the work of the Master which he does, which he does, you can be rest assured but you are given two things to do. You are asked to meditate on points A and B about which more details will be given by our brothers. They are two points located in the chest. There are two points A and B on which you are asked to meditate and if you meditate on these things as prescribed, it is our experience that our impulsive tendencies come down. This is the positive assurance that we give in the system namely that if you meditate on these two as prescribed with the help of the Pranahuti that is already done, in this system you get the advantage of control over the impulsive tendencies of your basal stuff, the drives. Once you control the drives or once you can put it under some reasonable control and get rid of the impulsive tendencies, you know you have won three-fourths the war, the war of control over ourselves because that is what exactly is our problem. If you look to yourself and see what type of thoughts that come, to you they are invariably connected to those four as I have already said but it is also true that you have thoughts of aspiration.

Fortunately God has given us a mind which aspires, aspiration is a word that is applicable only to the human level. No animal can aspire for anything, it has no capacity to think. Even in certain forms of thinking that is there in some animals like chimpanzee or a dog, they don't aspire for anything. We aspire, what is the first aspiration we have got? First aspiration we have got is sharing. This as an instinct is already available in the case of lions and similar prides. They don't eat the food alone, they share. There are animals which share food, there are animals which will not share food. Sharing is not a principle that we accepted as aspiration just like that, there are animals at the lower level but instinctively they will feel it. I am not talking about the mother's love which is common, mother's instinct is entirely different but this instinct of trying to share food with others is what we have learned from some animals. That is the reason lion is a king of animals, there are many more powerful animals than the lion which can kill the lion also but this is the reason. Here the first principle is sharing and this we have developed as an aspiration and what is it driving at? It drives at trying to view what you think you should have, the physiological drive of hunger is sought to be moderated. You first give your children then you take, then you give elders then you take. You don't take directly. A civilized society is one where the food is shared first with children then with elders then with oneself.

So the principle of sharing which we have learned from animal instinctual level, we got it as an aspiration and we said in this land when somebody comes to you, you treat that person as an athithi and give him food first and then only you take later. A value which we seem to have almost forgotten today for whatever reason it may be, that is what it is. Even relatives are not welcomed and thanks to certain amount of westernization, do not go to a house without information and we say if anybody comes to you without information treat him as a God. You can see the difference in value points of the two societies. One society does not want a person to come without intimation. Another society says if anybody comes to you without intimation treat him as a God. This is another important thing that you should be very very careful in meditation. In meditation what happens is you get certain thoughts totally uninvited, you have got all sorts of thoughts coming to you and all of a sudden some thought comes to you. That thought is God and Godly but we are the first persons to miss it, we always miss the athithi, uninvited guest is God always.

It is from the adhyathmika point of view, our people have brought in the tradition to the mundane level day to day life they brought in the concept of athithi because the athithi comes to you more in meditation than elsewhere. There are more sparks of the Divine during meditation than you can think of or you can dream of because God loves us so much that he is always yawning towards you. He would like to enter into you and the moment you create a vacuum He is prepared to fill it but then we are so attentive to the other things like our going to the market which takes precedence over our attentiveness to this. That is the reason why we say please be attentive and alert, athithi can be recognized only when you are attentive. There are umpteen number of stories of people when God has personally visited them and this man has said 'no no I have got something else to do' and he forgot, he never attended to them and it happened to be the wives of some saints. A lady received a guest, the God Himself who comes, she does not recognize Him as such because he came uninvited uninformed, he came and then it was left to the saint to recognize later and poor man he said 'you are more lucky than me you have seen the God and I have not'. The stories go, these are all common knowledge you should be knowing. My point is the sharing as a principle develops.

Unless this sharing develops, you will not be in a position to develop tolerance. This is another great virtue of this country which we are maintaining and we shall forever maintain, because this is consequent to that and this comes to you only when you learn to share and not behave impulsively towards certain things. This becomes natural once impulsive nature is reduced. A brother of mine was asking, some of us are prepared to share, some of us are not sir why is it so. I said yes, control has not come. Impulsive nature makes you hold it, you don't want to share, and you would like to save it. Impulsive nature alone is the principle for saving, you would like to have it tomorrow. Saving is a very very obnoxious idea in spirituality that is why Prophet Mohammed said please do not bother about the next day, God is there, He will give. He was wise, and that's why I think he also said don't try to lend money, he said give it if you got money, give it, don't lend. Lending was not permitted by him because who are you to lend. Whose is it? It is His. It belongs to the cosmos, nothing belongs to you. Everything belongs to the universe, nobody has got a right to say this is mine, because your existence itself is transient. Now, that we will come to later and naturally along with it comes service. So these two principles of spirituality will develop the moment you try to be attentive to the upper portion of your self, the aspiration portion of your self. This is the first thing that comes to you in this system.

Now when you sit in meditation thinking that there is Divine light in the heart, as I told you, you will get lot of thoughts, but then, when you learn to be attentive only to the Divine light and nothing else, everything else fades out into nothingness. They don't have any impelling nature to attract your attention. That leads us to understand what exactly I am, who am I. This who am I question is one of the toughest questions to answer. If any one of you can help me with the definition of what you are as you understand, I will be very happy. You can at best tell me your name, you can give your physical description, your status - financial, official, relationships as wife, husband, son, father, so on and so forth. Kindly exclude these adjectives for yourself and then tell me what you are. You are none of these things, right? I have at least three names, one name is Narayana, but the other two names are also given to me. Most of us among Hindus we get more than one name. Physical descriptions - I am not the same physical body from childhood. You can't give that, your weights vary, complexion varies. If you see all these things, can you think of yourself other than these? And all these things are transient, all these things are temporary. You are a son one day you are a father today, grandfather day after. What are you? What are you? In relation to somebody you are somebody. What are you? This is the first and the foremost question that a man faces in spiritual life. Who am I? And if by God's Grace you have already got into the principle of sharing and service then you will know that I am a person to share, that I am a person to serve. Other than these two things there is nothing else that is permanent with you. These two things are permanent with you from your childhood. You are somebody to share and you are somebody to serve. Who that somebody is, you can call yourself by Narayan or Adinarayan, or you can call purushotham, you can call Govinda, it does not matter much by what name you call yourself but your essential nature is one of sharing and serving and that leads us to a metaphysical concept about which I will not be in a position to talk much.

God in essence and God in manifestation. God in essence talked briefly earlier saying that there is no way of knowing Him, He is beyond all understanding. What is God in essence? We said we don't know, Divine light without luminosity we said we just don't know. Na Tatra Vak Gacchati Na Mano Na Vijno Na Vijanimo. This is what He is. God in manifestation it is you and me, it is this stream, it is this mountain, it is this river - we are the manifestation and we are Gods in expression. And what did God do first? He did first Purushamedha as we call it. The Purushasuktha of the Vedas is the most important one, the first one that is stated namely, God has sacrificed Himself to come into manifestation. It is God who sacrificed Himself to come into manifestation. He ceases to be His essence and He wanted to be His manifestation and we are all He and the principle here is He wanted to share, He wanted to serve.

Sacrifice is another aspiration we have got. We have got to sacrifice. Mother sacrifices, instinctively you know that mother sacrifices lot of her interests for the sake of the children. Imitating the mother the father also sacrifices, he learns the value from her. It is the mother who tells, you have got to attend to the child more, it is time to educate, it is time to give him food, it is time that you should go and do something for him. It is the mother who teaches the principles of sacrifice, which is reason why the Vedas always used the word Mathrudevo Bhava, please note it. For no other reason we use that word. This is the reason why she gets a precedence over the father. She participates in the Divine function of sacrifice first, and then she teaches that lesson to the husband. Now, here God in essence, God in manifestation having the principles of sharing, serving and the third principle we have got, sacrifice. If we learn these three things in life we have learnt almost everything of spirituality. If we can behave like this it's enough but then what stands in the way? What stands in the way of our doing it? Why is it we are not prepared to part with money, a few rupees that we have earned today with others? It is because we have not learned to serve, we have not learned to sacrifice, we have not learned to share. We think it is ours.

The possessiveness is one of the things that we have learned unnecessarily and that is the nature of a tiger and not a lion. Lion kills its prey and then throws it off and then goes after eating it while the tigers save it for the next day. Please note this fear of not getting food tomorrow is there more with the tigers than with the lions. I am comparing both the wild animals, there are few more satvic animals which I can bring into the picture but then I want you to understand even the noble animals are those which share, the ignoble animals are those which try to save it and then after all it may die then it goes waste. These values we have forgotten but they are spiritual values, they are not social values, they are entirely different. Social values, I have told you already marriage institutions, they are different, spiritual values are different.

So now what stands in your way is your self and once you know there is no such thing like self and you are only a relationship, a bundle of relationships, you will not try to own anything. The sat-asat viveka automatically dawns on you. This is the nature of the first knot. There are 13 knots in our system as depicted by SriRamchandraji Maharaj. The nature of the First knot is trying to distinguish between what is sat and what is asat, what is permanent what is not permanent. I try to come to this point through a non vedantic method, because vedantic methods are there to teach this but I don't believe in that because for practical people we want to know what exactly the problem is.

Everybody knows we are not going to live tomorrow, thereby we don't grant ourselves non-existence, we don't. Once you know your relationship, sit in meditation and then see what you are then you know there is only one friend for you and that is God. He is with you, the only friend. All other friendships, all other relationships are transient. He is the one with whom we are born, He is the one who will continue to be there even after our death, because energy doesn't go anywhere. There is only change in the form of energy but then nothing happens, the energy itself is there, you are going to continue. In what levels you will continue is a separate issue, but then we continue, because matter can never be destroyed, energy cannot be got rid off. You are energy, so you will continue to be there. So those people, present day, present morality which is governed by the thought that after our death nothing is going to be there and doesn't matter much whether I exploit the other person or kill him or do whatever I want with him; is wrong, because he is going to continue. You cannot help it; it is in the nature of energy to continue. Matter can never be destroyed, energy can never be destroyed, it is there, it is bound to be there, it will have its own effects. What it will be? On that there can be various ways of looking at things but it will be there is a fact; to this extent you cannot deny scientific approach. So what I am trying to say is, this person, this energy which has been there with me will continue to be there with me forever and this is the governing principle of sharing. If I don't develop the sharing principle I am not going to be in tune with it and why I am not able to share is because of my selfishness, self-centeredness, thinking that I am more real than the essence, the essence is more real than me. Once this satasat viveka comes, the first knot dawns and then your yatra starts. You start moving further; you start moving further as to what exactly it is.

All right I am not permanent, there is something that is going to be permanent, what exactly it is. Then you start tending to develop, once this sat-asat viveka comes then certain amount of detachment starts, till the time no detachment is possible. Detachment for us really means attachment to the Divine, you tend to know more and more the sat and you tend to know less and less this asat i.e. detachment. Detachment with the asat and attachment to the sat is the basic way of movement in spiritual life. We move towards what is true, what is permanent, what is impermanent we try to give as little importance as possible. In the language of SriRamchandraji Maharaj we do not develop undue attachment, due attachment is what we develop. Treat everything on its merits, not with any extra relationships. Relationships are what make your self as I told you. Because of those relationships, you have got this undue attachment. You forget your relationships and treat yourself as the one who is connected only with God and nobody else, the truth alone will stay and then you have due attachment. Many abhyasis have been asking me, Sir, please tell us what is due attachment and what is undue attachment. Any attachment that you have got with reference to any relationship that you have got is only undue attachment. The only due attachment that we have can have is with reference to sat, the truth, the principle of Divinity in us. This is a condition and no amount of my explaining this system will make you understand what it is. So this leads us to the first knot, first is sat-asat viveka and then you also understand that you have got to have only due attachment.

You know the transience of your self and various colors, various expansions are felt, in all these things you will find again certain things, you feel that you seem to be nearing it with that condition of sat-asat viveka, nearing it, you seem to know that there is something like sat and asat, nearness. This is the word in sanskrit we generally use the word samipyatha. We seem to be moving towards that feeling, it is not as though we have established there. We seem to know yes there seems to be something like this. Then we enter into that, we enter into that state, you are more established here. You definitely know that this is permanent, that is not permanent. Then that comes under salokyatha, then we live in that world, start moving. We become similar to that, that condition itself is yourself, you feel that you are that, nobody is attached to you, you are attached only to the Divine, you are entirely one. Then you have got the laya, mergence. In every feeling you have got these four states; If you are attentive to your sadhana, you will find in every state that is going to be this and later. You will be feeling nearness to it, you will be feeling and then you will be feeling you are entering into that; you start feeling the breeze of that, you start experiencing that, that is perhaps while you are that's the world. If you want to put the grossest of analogy; if you are getting into an A/C room, as you enter it, you know you are getting into a cool place, when you settle there, you really become cool, as you enter it you feel it the nearness to it - this is salokyatha and then you have got the sarupyatha where you become similar to that, your nature itself becomes that and then the mergence. This mergence is a mergence not to be lost here forever, but to move on, we should move on to the next condition. Each laya takes us to the next stage and that is the one of the toughest problems we have got here and that is why so many people who are viraktas, who have become sanyasis, who have gone to forests, who have taken to so many avadoot conditions are stuck up in laya. Laya is really interesting, you feel one with it, you don't like to leave it. Laya is the condition that we would like to hold but layas are at different levels. Different levels of laya and each one would like to hold on forever there. You are comfortable there but then here in this system through Pranahuti you are pushed out. This is one of the experience of majority of abhyasis who will say, Sir, yesterday I had a most absorbing condition, today I am again disturbed. Yes, you are bound to be disturbed, you are not allowed to have laya there. If you have got laya that means you got stuck up. If you get feeling of mergence and stay permanently in that state that means you got stuck up. Journey is infinite, the yatra shall go on, it is ananth, therefore Master pushes you out of that state.

So after the first two states of viveka and vairagya, the next thing is as I have told you, the problem of self gets solved. You now know it doesn't exist, you also know that none of it is yours then what happens next is you start knowing your interdependency, with which I started the talk. Interdependence with Divine, the essence cannot exist without the manifestation and manifestation cannot exist without the essence, is the knowledge that you get. You are Divine, because you are a part of manifestation and once this awareness develops inside, that is, swa­swaroopa gnana develops, the amount of purity that you would like to have will get established more and more, not that you did not earlier. You should have purity earlier, but then here you will not allow yourself to become impure under any circumstances, because you are afraid that you are making God impure. Your impurity is His impurity, your defect is His defect, your lapse is His lapse. Therefore there cannot be any such things with us. Perfection becomes our way, whether it is in office or in house whether it is in the street or in your prayer, perfection is yours. You feel the interdependency with the Divine. That is the reason why many people got stuck up when they went to the second knot because it is purity, simple purity and when you maintain it according to the tradition, this gives a reflection of the 5th knot. 5th knot itself is the reflection of something else above, so what happens is Aham Brahmasmi feeling becomes more and more predominant. This thought becomes very very predominant here. You feel that you are the Brahman, you are, but then you are not because that stage is far off. Because of the reflected thing, the purity here is such, the reflection also is such, the absolute reflection if you can maintain that. The swa-swaroopa gnana which means the interdependence with the Divine becomes established in your heart and you become more and more responsible to the manifestation than what you were earlier, because of detachment, because of the principle of knowing what is self and what is not self was there involved in the first knot, you were not all that careful about many minor details. You used to neglect certain things. You used to say that these things are bound to happen like this, now you will not allow such things, purity will not allow such things, it will tell you everything is to be perfect. That is why people who are established, even like Ramana Maharshi and others were able to say that everything is good. First he left the house, took the renunciation very early in life and then finally said when somebody asked is it necessary to renounce he said not necessary. He had to come to this conclusion because he knows that his condition compelled him to say something against what he himself practiced. What I am trying to tell you is the nature is such, the nature of the knot is such.

Secondly the self comes to know that though the eternal or the energy in itself is dependent upon it for expression, still it is secondary in nature and that is primary in nature. Energy is primary in nature than the places where it is expressed. The fan where the electricity is getting expressed is inferior in status to the very nature of electricity itself, it is very obvious. Similarly, we as individuals are fans, we are giving the breeze to others, we are capable of giving this because of that electricity. Electricity by itself cannot give breeze to anybody in this world, it cannot. Energy by itself cannot give anything, only when it is expressed it can give and it is expressed like this and this has no business to say that I will give breeze only selectively and that is what we do when we say when we are expressing the Divine and when we say 'we, our people and other things' we want to give breeze only to those people and nobody else and that is the extraordinary selfishness of this fan. It somehow develops an identity, somehow, maya, it is ignorance. Once you know that you are dependent upon That, interdependency develops into a feeling of dependency, from our point of view. God naturally feels dependent about us, otherwise He will not ask us to assemble here and talk. It is He who is talking amongst ourselves, He is asking us to know what he is trying to do because He cannot do anything, but dependency from our part is learnt only when we come to the second knot and this leads us to the straight path or rather a steep path towards devotion. Without knowing your dependency there can be no devotion. Your lowliness must be understood before you can think of getting devoted to somebody. I am devoted to my father, I am devoted to my wife, there is enormous difference between these two words. One is definitely far superior, another is only an equal, equal coparcener actually. I don't know why English got into that dirty position of saying that I am devoted to wife. You are devoted to parents, you are dependent upon the wife. So the dependency can give you two concepts whether devotion or coparcenership. can be equal to God or I am dependent upon God, these are the two feelings that you get. When you use the word Aham Brahmasmi, it is the coparcenership that we are talking about, I am equal to Him. My wife, dependent upon me. I am dependent upon him, he is dependent upon me. She is dependent upon me, I am dependent upon her. In devotion I am dependent only on Him, He is not dependent upon me, I am not even aware of that. To move into the realm of bhakthi, you must understand that you are low, lowliness of your being must be understood. Without knowing your lowliness, you will never be devoted. We would like to have barter with Him, equal. I pay this, you pay me, I will do this, you do that. Whole of Mimamsa suffers from this. Mimamsa, which is nothing but Vedas, yagnas, yagas, suffer from this. I do this, I offer this you better give me this. I do this aswamedha, you better give this, I will give this purushamedha, you give this, barter, business, that is the level at which Vedas ended. That is the reason why Krishna said Nistraigunyo Bhavaarjuna because these things are connected with a barter level, God is compelled to obey what you pray for, He has to grant. That's what the tradition says, I am not here to question it, I am only questioning the attitude towards God. So long as you have got that attitude, it is only an equal position. In equal positions, you will end up only with Aham Brahmasmi. Aham Brahmasmi is a state of mind where you would like to say I am equal to God. You are, none of us is less than that. It is God in expression alone who is here. There is nothing here which is not Divine, there is nothing here which is less than Divine. Yet, this divinity that is in expression that is in manifestation is dependent upon that divinity which is there above, far above, which is the essence. When I say above, I do not mean that you have to go to spatial level, above means something far beyond, far beyond. I am not looking at the sky, far beyond us. So once this dependency is understood then only your devotion starts. This devotion starts here first, first is I would like to have some wishes granted. You feel the dependency for granting of certain wishes. I would like somebody to get promoted therefore I pray for that, he is my son or he is my grandson doesn't matter much who he is or even for ourselves. I have undertaken this business, I would like to have profit of this, so I pray, pray to God. So dependency can be confused with a barter. Majority of our stotras, what our religion has given us are only prayers seeking some relief or the other from the Divine saying that we are dependent upon you. "O God you have got to grant me". As against it, you would have noted already, our prayer says, "we are yet but slaves of wishes putting bar to our advancement; thou art the only God and power to bring us up to that stage". We would like to go beyond the stage of wishes, we would not like to be confined to wishes. We know that our wishes are due to our relationships, we know that our wishes are due to our own actions, we know that, we come to know that and that is the reason why from knot 2 to knot 3 it is a steep position. Second knot to third knot you have to understand these things. You will understand that whatever you are going through, you are going through because of your own action because whatever you deserve that alone you get. You will not get more than what you deserve, you will not get less than what you deserve. God as a samavarthi comes to be understood. God as an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent being, everybody knows, there have been talks about it. God as justice, samavarthi, the person who gives balance, maintains the balance of this existence has to be understood to understand devotion. Till that time our prayers are only petitions asking for petty things. Real prayer is one which is like the one we have given namely Master has given that - we are yet but slaves of wishes putting bar to our advancement. We are not asking God here to satisfy those wishes. We are only saying that you are the goal of human life, we would like to come to that stage. We want oneness with God, laya, to be in tune with the energy, to be in tune with nature, that's what we are asking for. We are not asking for anything less than that. We are not asking for some petty things because those things are due to our own. The fifth commandment 'Be Truthful. Take miseries as Divine blessings for your own good and be thankful to God'. You read this commandment, the interpretation given by SriRamchandraji Maharaj, you will then understand your true nature is to be dependent upon the Divine and then whatever He gives you, you accept it and whatever He gives is according to our own actions. It is not an arbitrary God who gives us 'you take this, you are my man I give you more, he is not my man therefore I am going to deprive him'. God is not like that, God is justice; there is no partiality in the kingdom of God. No person is going to be treated with lenience simply because he says SriRamchandraji Maharaj is his Master. It will not happen, it shall not happen, if it happens that is not the truth. It is our sentiment, which makes us feel now and then because we are dependent upon him, several things that happen to us are good. It is our sentiment, it is not reality, it's not the truth. We will get what we should get, we will not get what we are not supposed to get. Karmaphala is total and this system totally believes in the unquestionable principle of karma, theory of karma as properly understood. It is not the karma, that it is God has given me this punishment. That karma is not what we are talking about, that karma is prerogative of other religions. In this land we believe that God will give what is just. If you have done something you will get accordingly, praptham, whatever we have done, equally we get. So this principle has to be understood, that will be understood only when you know that God is a samavarthi. So our petition-mongering mind is accustomed to asking all sorts of things from our bosses for nothing, the same thing will not apply here though we will try to apply it here. That we try to apply is a fact, every one of us tries to apply this. It's a pit fall in sadhana, we will ask for some relief. We will have some problem, some physical problem, you would like to go and then say 'Narayana you say that you are a person who have been practicing this, why is it you have got so many ailments?', because I must have deserved. When this question was put to Lalaji Maharaj, founder of our system, when he was suffering from enormous pain in stomach and his own disciple was working on him massaging him and he shed tears seeing the suffering of the Master and Lalaji Maharaj said 'if I want to I can get rid of it now but I will not because God knows what is best'. That is the state of dependency, that is the state of devotion, that we are supposed to maintain always. This is the one of the highest states that we will be moving towards. So bhakthi is not to be understood with praises and flattery. Flattery neither does good for the flatterer nor the flattered, it doesn't help anybody but we think so and we are happy with flattery because it is so musical to sing those lines. Several saints have sung, I have nothing against anyone of them, I like them also. Their songs are very popular today and it is the song that is popular and not the devotion, please note it. What is more popular is what is appealing to your ears, the music is more important to us, the raga, the tala, those are much more important than the content, leave alone the God. Thought content which refers to God is the third factor. What is engrossing us is this. 'He sang very well sir, a beautiful bhakthi song', but it is not bhakthi song, it's a song, it is a good song, put it that way it is fine. So this devotion comes very very difficult unless you know this principle you will never be devoted.

Next state to which we move on in our state of mind is total dependency on Divine. Somebody accuses you in the street for nothing, you do not know how to react to it; he accuses you for no fault of yours. What will you do? We will say something in return or you will say this is will of God. Would you say that it is what you deserve therefore you got it? See the difference in what I am asking. I may just ignore this. Put it the other way, you are going in the street somebody in the bus spits on you; as usual in Hyderabad now a days still old city that problem is there, you got to be more attentive to the fellow in the bus than yourself. What is your reaction? Would you take it to be something that God has given you? I will give a small story of a person who has lived up to that expectation. A great saint Ramanuja was there, he had a disciple who is far more intelligent than Ramanuja, who is much more well versed in scriptures than Ramanuja. Fact, agreed facts, there are no differences, both of them went to present saraswathi peetam which is there in Pakistan and then they permitted him to see one of the commentaries on Veda Vyasa's SriBhashyam. They gave and allowed him to see Vedanta sutras and then the commentary given by dravidas there and the king said 'I will not give a copy of this to you, you cannot obtain a copy, you have to go, you can read once no second time', that is the condition and Ramanuja was not ekasanthagrahi, his disciple was. So he said 'I will make good your defect so I will read this let us go'. So he was dependent upon his disciple to tell what is there in that commentary so that he can write his commentary. The concept of interdependency that we are taking about just now was the matter of issue. Is the self, dependent or independent, the issue is whether the self is dependent or independent. If you say it is independent it borders on Advaitha. If you say it is dependent it borders on Dvaitha. It is mutually interdependent is the philosophy of Ramanuja. The interpretation had to be given. He made it appear, Ramanuja interpreted, according to the anecdote, made it appear as if the self is independent and his disciple refused to write because he was under instructions earlier saying that if what I say is not in tune with my philosophy, you need not write. So he simply obeyed his Master, he said I will not write, and Ramanuja got wild and then kicked him, literally kicked him with the foot and this fellow fell and Ramanuja walked away and after about some time he comes back to find this gentleman still lying down and his disciples come and other disciples come and tell 'we told this fellow to get up saying that you are dependent upon him for the entire information, about the subject and you are more dependent upon him than anybody else and you kicked him out and we told him we will follow him rather than you' and he said 'who am I to say anything about it, my master knows what is best for me' and when Ramanuja says 'why you did not get up' he said 'you have thrown me down and it is for you to lift me up who am I to get up where is my existence'. This is the narration given in tradition you may accept it or you may disown it, but what I am trying to tell is the psychological aspect of it. What is the state of mind? come what may, the decision of the Divine is final, I will not make any effort absolutely saying that I have nothing to do with anything else, it is He who does everything. This is the state of surrender about which every alternative person talks now a days. State of surrender is one of the toughest we can ever think of, because that is the state of total negation of yourself.

Now coming back to our subject of meditation what is the state of mind there. This is philosophy, fine, I have explained the philosophical aspect of it. What is the state of mind? thoughts are bound to be there, thoughts of sat-asat viveka were there; thoughts of vairagya were there, thoughts of interdependency were there, thoughts of devotion were there. Now what is the type of thought here? What is the type of thought you are going to have? A state of mind when there will be no thoughts. A surrendered person has no thoughts. How is it possible? Is it not contradictory to my system of Sri Ramchandraji, who says that thoughts are bound to be there till the end? He says that thoughts are bound to be there till the end and I say that this is no thought condition, the reason for that is you must understand what is the nature of thought. When any idea, any concept, is not in tune with the Divine, it gets thrown out, that is the origin of thoughts, origin is when it is not in tune with Divine. When a thought is not in tune with Divine, you become aware of that. It can be disturbing, it can be enjoying but then you become aware of that. When the thought is something that is totally in tune with the Divine then you become totally unaware of the existence of the thought, not that the thought is not there, thought is there but you are not aware of its existence. The existence is the essence itself and when it is in tune with the essence then it merges into it and this is an experience that you will be having on first day onwards. You will be writing as no thought, it is not no thought that you have got, the thought that is there with you becomes in tune with the Divinity and therefore you are not aware of its existence. Non-awareness of the thought is entirely different from non-existence of thoughts; please appreciate the difference between non-awareness and non-existence. Thoughts do exist but then it becomes in tune with the Divine and therefore you are not aware of it and such moments are moments of silence. When you are meditating you will find that there are moments, some seconds, fractions of seconds or minutes while your mind goes almost blank which we generally tend to call absorbency. Absorbed, the thought got absorbed into the essence. The thought is there but it got absorbed that is why we use the word absorbency, we don't use the word concentration. So this thought, our thought which was devotion, when it matures, what happens is that God alone or the essence alone becomes most predominant and then you become one with it and when you become one with it that is the state of saranagati or state of surrender. That is how it is experienced in meditation, in action it has to be shown and that is possible only through manana. All these conditions, you must note you will not have it permanently and you will have it only during meditation unless you remember the nature of those thoughts during the other times during the day. That is the reason why people who have got high states of consciousness during meditation tend to lapse to the lowest levels perceivable and this lapse is unpardonable. What is granted you should own, you cannot squander. What is given to you during mediation is what is granted to you and we squander it and without any compunction and that is the worst part of it. As I told you, if you are established in second knot in purity, and through devotion you move on to the higher plane and always be dependent upon Him, you cannot help remembering constantly the Divine and when you remember the Divine constantly, purity you cannot avoid. Purity in body and mind and in every action of course. Purity and Divinity go together, they are alternative words. The questions of people who say that 'I sit and do prayer without taking a bath' or when 'I come without cleaning my feet I would like to sit', all these ideas will not work because they are all sloth, they all are matter, they are laziness, which will not be permitted, which is not permissible. If you remember the Divine constantly, you cannot have sleep, people who complain to me of sleep are people who are not aware of Divinity I would say, because how can you sleep before God, you cannot but then this great country has given us the notion that in sleep God is going to be with you because He is the essence. It is He, You are He; therefore He is there in your place. In one of the Upanishads they say what happens to you during sleep and then God as a watchman guards us. Who keeps you going?, who keeps you going during night when you are asleep? not you, not your wife, not your children, not your parents, who is keeping you? He is the one watchman who is there. If you note that, would you come to the level of a Banasura try to have a watchman of a Siva? You will not, you will not sleep. These are the conditions that you develop as you move on to the stages of surrender.

So from surrender you move on to the plane of ether where balance is there. Equality is maintained, you are balanced. The whole approach of Rajayoga sadhana is towards this balance. A balanced approach we can come only when we know that everything that happens to us happens because of our actions, we are protected by the Divine day in and day out, we are aware of it and we live according to that and these are all made possible by the constant pushes. Instead of getting lost, you require a push and then that push is given through Pranahuti by the Master, because surrender is another place where laya is capable of keeping you in state of surrender always, you will not go towards equality. Surrender by itself cannot be considered as the final state because we have to move towards equality, balance, samatva, then only you can say that you are representing the Divine, you are a manifestation of the Divine, the samavarthi. You have to become a samavarthi, balance in our approach, these are the two wings with which you are going to fly. These are two wings you have got, one is materialism, one is spirituality, both the wings you are going to go together, each according to our capacity, each according to our karma but according to our destiny, namely to satisfy the Divine crying for human transformation. Such is the human transformation that is possible in this system.

These are all the positions of the Pind desh here (ref. Path of Grace). This system talks about points which are above. Upto this even in tradition we have got. This is Atma sarira, then this is brahma sarira and beyond that nobody talks. In this system we talk about the conditions of sahasrar and beyond also. The sahasrar is reflected here ( top of the head). There are 5 points in between; there are 3 more behind which takes us to central region. Regions which are behind the sahasrara were not mentioned in tradition earlier. Nobody has mentioned it. The details with which the transition happens during this Pind desh was mentioned by Jnanadev in his own way in his commentary on the Gita. Jnanadev has written Jnaneswari, a very very popular book in the Maharastrian life. Jnaneswari mentions that. One or two saints of south have mentioned certain points up to sahasrara, the paths are a bit different but the conditions are same. Why they have chosen that I have no idea because I learn them only through literature, I have not practiced any one of them. This one I have practiced, this much I can tell you these are all the feelings we get. I have learnt by practice that unless you do the manana you don't own it. In the beginning I used to think that by thinking about that condition it will be enough, no. We should be doing the manana, constantly we have got to do the manana aspect of it, we have got to think about it, we can't just take it for granted because these are all the conditions that have been given to you and you have got to own it. It is just like a person who is taught SA RI GA MA PA DA NI SA, the octaves are taught. Then one has to go and practice, similarly manana one has to have it, develop it. Until he does, he will not be in a position to have it.

So in the presence of a Master you may feel certain things but on your own when you start feeling it then you will become confident to talk, yes I am what I am and you will see the change in yourself. How much of a less of a beast you are and how much more of a man you are and how much of a sharing that you do which is the principle of Divinity. Divinity is nothing but principle of sharing, please note it. Sharing is the principle of Divinity, it is with us, all of us, we want to share, many of us want to share but circumstances compel us not to share, because we fall victims to that, selfishness. And even then, when sharing you would like to share among your own people, that is another nasty habit we have got. We develop this habit. I was amazed in one funeral when the dana had to be given, they were only searching for the relatives to whom they can give the dana, they were other people who are eligible for it but they were not prepared to give, because why should we give so much of money for him sir, they asked me, I said so much is your sacrifice, so much is your service. I did not try to talk much because these are all points which one would not like to discuss, one has to grow, one has to grow to that level. It happens in some cases in this rites, in funeral rites, in sradha rites, you have got interesting problems, you have got to give some gold to some people you have got to, there is no alternative to it and when you give, you would like to give to your own people. That 's the misfortune, why this misfortune, because, our self has not grown beyond the relationship, about which I talked. You don't want to be your self, you want to be in relation to some body so and so, that is the unfortunate position. We don't want freedom we want bondage, we like bondage and so long as people like bondage, there is nothing wrong about it, I would like them to have it also, let them come to a state when they know there is no use in that.