Introduction to Pranahuti Aided Meditation

Something deep in you must have stirred why not we go and find out some method by which we can be happier. Happiness is the goal of life actually. Only misfortune is, our happiness seems to be disturbing other people's happiness and therefore the strife or the conflict. Unless we learn to adjust to each others' happiness there seems to be no way of living together and here again what we have got accustomed is the competitive world. We have come from competition to what we generally call cut throat competition. We have been deteriorating ourselves from one stage to another stage.

So how to be settled, how to keep up our balance and go about in life? This is exactly the problem which I see with most of us. It may be a school examination, it may be a job procurement or it may be a promotion or anything, any one of these problems that we have or a marriage of some body or the health of somebody else - these are all the various things that seem to disturb us beyond limit and our mind has come to a state of total restlessness. So happiness which can be approximately brought under the category of a settled mind or a peaceful state of mind is disturbed so badly that we are restless. The mind is wavering so much, flickering actually, that we would like to have it settled on something and whenever there is something that is happy that means something which you consider as a good thing that happens to you, your mind seem to get settled for sometime at least. Your son passes an examination or you get some promotion or you get a job, some such thing, some small reliefs whenever you get, you feel a bit settled for sometime may be an hour or so. Again you get further problems so you again are restless. So, even when we get some sort of a relief, we have found it is so very temporary or transient that it seems to be elusive. We seem to be having the knack of getting into a problem every few seconds. This is the life which we are leading, and from here we are trying to know what is it we can do. People said that if you worship this God you get that relief, if you do that mantra that will be good, all sorts of things have been told and all sorts of efforts have been made. If you have been satisfied with those efforts you won't have come here, the efforts were not commensurate to the task in hand perhaps, I do not know, or your efforts itself were half hearted. Whatever is the reason, if you have found some answer already in tradition and if you have liked some God or a Goddess and you are satisfied with it then you won't have come here. The mere fact that you have come here shows that there is still some restlessness behind it.

So finally what exactly is the thing that we can offer here? That's the question I would put to myself and I would also like you to put to yourself - so what is it that you are going to deliver to us?. You come, you stay for two days with us, you share with us certain ideas. Good talk, good people, is that all? Or are you going to find a way of life? Our intention is that you should be in a position to find a way of life which should be satisfying for you though will not give you the rest that you so eagerly hanker because that seems to be something far off. So long as we are living, there will be a certain amount of restlessness. If the heart comes to rest then you know what happens to you. The heart cannot come to rest, it must be active, it must be restless, it must be going on beating and in that there should be a rhythm, there should be a balance. If it is out of balance then we find there is something wrong. You are aware of the palpitation of the heart or you feel the heart beat then you know something wrong has happened. So long as the stomach is working alright you don't feel it. Suppose it starts aching then you know there is a some problem somewhere there, but that does not mean that the stomach is not working, it has been working it will continue to work, liver will continue to work, every internal organ will continue to work and you are not aware of it. So activity by itself does not mean restlessness but pure restlessness is possible only when you leave the body. That is not any way our goal. We would like to live, live happily in a balanced condition.

So this balanced condition is the goal to which we have to go. That exactly is the meaning of the messages of all the great saints including that of Bhagawan Krishna who says that you should take both the labha and dukha (labhalabho jayaa jayo) everything you must take with equanimity. With equanimity does not mean with the same attitude. When you are in a state of joy you will be in a state of joy, if you are in a state of sorrow you will be in a state of sorrow. It is ridiculous to expect a man who is supposed to be joyful to be sorrowful and who is supposed to be sorrowful joyful. Both these things are very bad interpretations that have happened, but you should not get unnecessarily too much excited about it, it is but natural for you to react. Suppose some thorn pricks you, to say that 'No,no I don't bother about it' doesn't make any sense because you will definitely bother about it, it will bleed and it will pain and it is natural for you to say all those things. Similarly when you have some good atmosphere you can say it's definitely beautiful place, beautiful setting etc there is nothing wrong about it, but getting unduly attached to it is the problem. Either to pain or to pleasure if you get unduly attached, you are in troubles. For everything there is a due time, proportionately, give importance to that extent that is required. If we understand these basics then you will understand the system of SriRamChandra's Rajayoga better. How it helps you, enables you to come to this particular state of mind where your mind will be in a balanced state and not unduly disturbed by things. Things will definitely happen to you both good and bad according to your karma or past actions. You cannot wish it away nor you can get something which is not there because that is against all fundamental principles of science. We expect something to happen for which you have not worked. The cause gives you the effect, according to your action so will be the result. To expect a result which is not proportional to your action is not proper nor is it permitted in scientific principles. They are equal, equal in proportion. I think this much of a broad introduction I thought was necessary before I talk about the system itself.

Keeping this point that goal is a balanced state of living, when do we get into this particular state of mind? When do we get it? Generally, the states of mind has been classified under -a disturbed condition called kshipta or it can be a dull condition of a moodha or it can be a state of vikshipta i.e. with reference to a particular goal or object in view your mind running after that or similar to that and then you have got the state of mind called ekagravritti and then that is concentrated at and then finally you have got a state of mind called samadhan-settledness. If you look into yourself you have got a problem, say for example, you have got to get a reservation to go to some station. There is lot of crowd and you are not very sure whether you get it or not. This is the problem let us say. I am taking a very very routine example. You can get agitated about it, just disturbed whether I will get it or not, I do not get it what exactly is happening and all - a kshipta state of mind. One thing is I am not bothered about it -moodha state of mind - I apply whether it comes, does not come, I don't bother. The next one is the vikshipta state i.e. you would like to know who would be the people who will be in a position to help you whether I should go for a emergency quota, should I go to the traffic superintendent ask for the circumstances which I have got to travel and all that so you go and try to do i.e. related thoughts, all related thoughts but still not settled thoughts. Ekagravritti would mean making definite attempts - yes, this is the way in which I shall go I will concentrate on that and I will get it done.

Say for example, your physiological state is hunger. I would like to eat something just that type of talk or its alright as and when it is served I will take it or you can get into a state of mind what are all the other foods I would like to have which would be more tastier for me or may be healthier. You can change the parameter - this type of state of mind or you can definitely say I want this I want today only this particular piece of food and you try to get it.

See in all these cases what you find is your mind is running between the goal and the goal orientedness is not that clear and when goal orientedness is there then I would say that you have reached the ekagravritti. Till you have not got the goal orientation, your mind is not having any ekagravritti. It will be just running around. Why not this, why not that. Peace of mind is what I seek. Ok, today I will go to this temple, tomorrow I will go to that baba, third day I will go to that river, fourth day I will go to that pilgrimage. You have got all sorts of ideas to run around. So, our state of mind is to be judged from the goal that you are seeking. So, if you have this clarity in your mind then you can say most of your states of mind are not ekagravritti but has got so many alternatives before it and therefore it is disturbed. When you come to a state of ekagravritti then it leads you to a state of achieving. Once you know, once your mind is definitely oriented towards it, you will definitely make attempts to get it. Main problem is this goal clarity.

What is our goal? If you put this question, what is your goal of your life and if you have got an answer for it then I think you can say that half the problem is solved. At present we do not know. The same thing is put by the youngsters in a different language when they say "we don't know what is the meaning of life sir", "I don't know why we are living", "why I am asked to do this particular course why I am asked to do that course", "why my father says that I should do this I really don't understand", and I see so many people in the streets in spite of all the best of qualifications "what is it that is going to happen to me" - this type of questions are there haunting the minds of the younger generation and it did to some of us earlier. All this is mainly because we didn't know what is the goal, what is it we should ask for.

So I would say that your goal of life is something that you have got to determine first and as I said the one goal that you cannot deny is you would like to be happy. This you can't deny and this you cannot get unless you see the others also are happy. If you are happy and the other man is not happy, he will definitely see that your happiness is disturbed, somehow he will ensure that. It may be due to strike, it may be just throwing stones or it may be some protest or dharna whatever it is he will definitely spoil it, because we are condemned to a social living. You cannot isolate yourself, you are condemned to that. By birth you are condemned to social life. There is a family, there are certain number of brothers, certain number of sisters, uncles, everybody with you have got to adjust. There is no alternative even if you are going to say I don't get into the world I will be in my own family. Even then you have to adjust with all these people. You can't say that I will try to be happy to the exclusion of all others.

So this is one thing that we are all interconnected is the fundamental point and we have got to understand. Modern life has unfortunately given a wrong picture that we are individual and that we can get ourselves isolated. My aspirations are different from the aspirations of other people, this is the general feeling that everybody has. He has been told so, as against the general truth that we all live together and interdependency is the truth. We are interdependent whether we like it or not. We are not independent, we can never become independent. We are interdependent, that is the truth but we have been made to swallow the illusion of the modern world namely that we can be individualistic, isolated and in the process we have been trying to insulate ourselves. Isolation we try to achieve by insulation by which I mean, I try to not to bother about what is happening elsewhere. I try to put an insulation tape around myself and thereby you are trying to get yourself excluded from others but it doesn't work and therefore this strife. So basic point that we have to learn is that we are interdependent which is an essential factor for getting at happiness. If we want happiness we should know the logic of interdependency. We should know the way of interdependency. Without knowing the value of interdependency, the question of happiness does not arise.

So this interdependency, we have been told that we are all brothers and sisters, I also accosted you as a brother. If you go to a rotary club he also calls you a brother, you go to some other communist also he says comrade which means nothing but brother. Everybody says he is a brother of somebody else but then the brotherhood seems to be something that has been quite elusive we have not been able to achieve that. It seems to be more in words than in action. We have not been able to achieve it with philosophy, with arguments. Though we know the necessity of feeling the brotherliness, none of us have been behaving as brothers to each other because that demands certain amount of sharing. Brotherhood demands certain amount of sharing so the insulation has to go. If brotherhood has to come, insulation has to go but that we are not prepared to. We have been told not to leave that individuality, we have been told that we have to come up to our optimum utilization or the best utilization or whatever it is.

This brotherhood is something that has not been working well is a fact that if you see straight from the period of Ramayan till today the same story is going on. The brothers were prepared to be brothers perhaps - perhaps, I don't know. Why I am saying perhaps also I will try to justify later if any one of you ask, but Dasaratha chose to perform the coronation ceremony for Rama when Bharat was not there. What made him think so I do not know. You and I in our family also, for small matters, we all want that all our family members should be together, for any small function. Why is it such a great emperor missed this point that he should invite Bharata first, after all he has gone to his grandmother's place or grandfather's place he should have been asked to come and then he could have fixed this. There was some apprehension on his mind I don't know what it was and obviously it's not an answer, there is no answer there but that is the concept of brotherhood only. Perceived problems of brotherhood by the parents led to Ramayana's problems, it is nothing else. The perceived problem by Dasaratha and an apprehension by Kaikeyi that led to the whole of Ramayan. You can't deny that. It's a problem of brotherhood. If they were such good brothers, this problem should not have been there and I think the husband and wife were trying to convince each other about the other man's logic. Whatever are the other stories behind it I am not interested.

When you come to the problem of Mahabharat, it is again the brothers -problem of brothers. If you take into Vali-Sugriva, again it's a problem of brothers. If you take Ravana versus Vibhishana it's a problem of brothers. If you take the Mogul brothers you know the Aurangazeb and company - they fought each other and they killed each other. Our own Hindu kings have been no better and you can see the history how each man tried to kill others including the great Krishnadevaraya. The whole story is the same - the story is of brotherhood.

Though everybody recognized brotherhood as a value, brotherhood as a reality has not come. It has been elusive, it has been evading us. The main reason for this as we understand, as our Master puts, it is because we try to feel brotherhood with each other individually instead of understanding the origins from which all of us have come together. We have all come from the same base and therefore we are brothers not because of any other reason not because of a commonness of ideology which is governing, communism or rotarian or any other system but the common bondage is because of the one source from which we have all come. Now, easy said but how do we feel this? How do we feel that we have come from the same base. You say so, sir what is the guarantee it is? I am questioning the existence of God Himself, where is the question of your saying to me that we are all coming from the same base? This is the question that is put to us. That is where we say if you look into yourself you will know from where you have come.

Every person has stated that unless you try to look into yourself, the antharmukha happens, unless you try to look into inside, you are not going to gain the truth but in the process everybody has been applying only external methods. You are asked to think about a God or a Rama or a Krishna but then you are presented an idol or a picture or some portrait given by somebody else which is outside again. Instead of enabling you to see inside, it only worsens the problem of making you see elsewhere and so my Rama is different from your Rama. A person has got a Kodanda Rama, another person has got Saranagata vatsala Rama - two different things. A Kodanda Rama fights, a Saranagata vatsala gives blessings so you can't fit them into the same place. You have got a Balakrishna, you have got a Parthasarathy right? This is the type of concepts that we get when we try to externalize. Though we are asked to think about the essence of God we are also given at the same time certain adjectives of God and these adjectives of God have become more important to us than God Himself. This is the fundamental point this system of yoga addresses. Therefore we say you meditate on the Divine light in the heart without luminosity and do not bother about any other form of God. They are wrong, they are right, they are true, they are false is not a matter of discussion here. The point to note is if you have got to internalize yourself, you cannot internalize with an external object. Some people ask us the question "why not we meditate on the bruhmadya?", "why not we meditate on the nasikagra?" Please note here also you are trying to externalize your vision. You are looking out here and ultimately what is it you are striving to get? To go inside, how do you do that? That is the reason why SriRamchandraji Maharaj says I am not going into merits or demerits of those systems but if you meditate on the Divine light in the heart without luminosity it is easier for you to achieve your goal. And why do we try to achieve this goal? So that we understand our origins. Once I understand the origin I will be in a better position to live with you. Till that time social manners alone shall help me, nothing else can help me, therefore, social customs, social manners, everything has to be followed till you get to know what is inside. In the beginning itself if you say I am going to get rid all of all those things, you will only be bringing disharmony. Therefore the samanvaya is made by RamChandraji who says do not bother about all those things continue to do but try to look into yourself. Try to look into yourself, into your heart thinking that there is a Divine light without luminosity because light again means invariably some brightness. Light unfortunately has been confused by us with luminosity, more lumious it is, more bright it is, more valid it is. Not true, because what happens is when it is bright you cannot see. When something is focused straight on you cannot see what is there behind, only this light will be seen, the source of light you will never know. If God is the source of light and if your concentration is on light you will never know the source you know only this. That it is a matter of a particular kind is further argument to which I am not going to now. As you do your sadhana you will know better but our purpose is to go to the source and not to the expression because we are searching the source not its expression because we ourselves are an expression of that. You and I are expressions of the same Divine and we have got the same right as any other expression but what we are searching is the source and in this process if we are going to go for manifestation, another manifestation, you have missed the point.

So the most important point that is stressed in this system is the meditation on the Divine light without luminosity in the heart. The purpose for this is that we should know the source. Why should I know the source? So that I understand my interdependency with all. Why should I understand the interdependency with all? Therefore I can be happy. If happiness is my goal, if settledness is my goal, I have to understand that I have to be interdependent. At present my energies are such that I would like to protest, I would like to win over, I will conquer you. No, there is no question of conquering each other. This process will continue. The Rayalaseema strife will start. You conquer now by annihilating somebody, that fellow conquers you after annihilating you. Somebody else comes, this process will continue, you will never live together. If you have to live together in harmony, the concept of conquering does not arise, the question of understanding arises. When can you understand? You can understand only when you know your source. So if this is the goal that you are keeping in mind and you start with the sadhana then there is some point otherwise there is no point

O Master! Thou art the real goal of human life. That's how the prayer starts and why is it I feel independent? "I am yet but a slave of my wishes". Because of my wishes I am independent. If my wishes are the same thing as your wishes are, there is no independence. If common good were to govern us than the individual good then the problem is not there. "I am yet but a slave of my wishes" is just another way of putting I am terribly individualistic, I am terribly feeling independent, and I would try to make every person to work for me. Rather than all of us working together for a common good I will ensure that all of you also serve me, serve my interest. These are our wishes. What are our wishes? Our wishes are always try to how to control others. I am yet but a slave of my wishes, which is what is happening, it is stopping my advancement. Where? to learn the interdependency. It leads me to independence whereas I have to learn the value of interdependency and who is to help me in this? Thou art the only God and power to help me, "Thou art the only God and power to bring me up to that stage". Why? Unless I know the common bond with You I will not be in a position to see this, unless I know that I am from You and I am not that independent, I will not be in a position to understand his problems. Once I know You, I will be in a position to know all. This is what from the beginning everybody has said it. Once you know Him you will have everything else but everybody thought of knowing Him for his own good for his own independent living that is the mistake of traditional thinking in sadhana. Each man wanted to become a realized soul exclusively for himself without any concern for others. I would like to realize so I go to Himalayas, I go to some other place, I try to live a solitary life. Solitary life - that means what? Independence has gone to the extreme, you would like to be totally independent of all others and just don't bother but then creation itself is interdependency, we have all come together to be interdependent. So the value of God, the value initiated by God, value initiated by life process - you don't want to use the word God, you use the life process if you want or you use the word prana if you want or you use the word elan vital if you want. The One for manifestation is just trying to make us understand the value of coexistence whereas sadhana till recently was meant to be something that is exclusively your own. You have nothing to do with others, I will realize, I will get into satchidananda swaroopa and there I am lost. I am not bothered about other peoples' existence. Such people do not live; they do not live the life that God wanted them to live. We have to live a life of interdependency; we have to tell the glory of God. Each one of us have been made so very delicately by God that each one of us have got a message to give to others. In our obsession to know about our own greatness we are misunderstanding our own nature and we don't understand that we have got a message to give to others. A thorn has got a message, a flower has got its own message. Everything has got a purpose. You and I are not meaningless creatures here. We have a meaning whereby we can show and express our love to others, our concern for others, concern for the welfare of others. So long as my orientation is towards you it is possible but I have been told all that time that I should bother about myself including sadhana. So the sadhana that we do is for the general good and not for our individual good and general good is not possible without individual good and individual good is not possible without a general good so it is something that goes together. That's why we have been asked to live the sahajeevana concept. It is a very tough concept. sahanaabhavathu sahanoubhunakthu. These are all the vedic statements. Why? Why should we live together? We have to live together then only we will be happy. If you are living on your own you will never be happy. That is one of the reasons perhaps why so many sanyasis after having gone elsewhere have also turned back again to the same society to come back to us and tell us they have got a message to give. They have got something to tell. If he had gone all alone, he should have gone all alone. Why should he come back again?

A real meaning of life comes to a person only when you live for others. This parahita and parasukha are the basic points. Now the question is we have been taught, we have been conditioned to think as if we are all independent, as if our individual good is something that can be achieved on its own, all these wrong notions have got into our head and yes individuation is a process of life. Life individuates no doubt about it, every cell goes on dissecting itself yes, but in that very process it tries to coexist and if it does not then it is called cancer. If it does not know how to coexist with others it is called cancer. It's also growth, deserting serves growth, but we should grow as healthy individuals. Interdependency you have to learn, if not we become useless and I think today we have got so many people who are suffering from that type of disease mainly because psychically we are already affected.

So, the sadhana that we do enables us to come to this core. It is not without any meaning we do this sadhana, not for the Ultimate realization. What is the Ultimate realization? You have to be a real man. A horse can be a real horse - a well trained horse, a donkey can be a good donkey, a man can be a real man. To become a real man is our goal. As on date we are not, we are animals. All people are born as animals only, animal passions govern us, animal thinking, animal needs and animal urges. Whole of civilization has gone into this process of how to make this animal behaviour more acceptable in society. Otherwise every one of us would be eating like dogs, fighting for food. Such behavior of certain people who grab the food - you must have seen yourself and you would have made your own remarks saying that see this funny fellow he behaves like that. Nothing new, it happens, the animality in man is such that it is observed by us more but then we take pleasure in pointing out others rather than looking at ourselves and how many times we have been animals ourselves. More so with reference to the greater urges. Apart from food, the other physiological needs are there where you became really animals. Yes, how to regulate it? How to regulate yourself? And that was the exercises of civilization for the past ten thousand years and the system of family, system of joint family are all based on these concepts. Today family groups are being questioned, where people are questioning the institution of marriage itself. Those of you who are aware of what is happening in the other part of the globe know the institution of marriage itself is threatened now because we don't want to regulate our urges, we don't want to behave in a civilized manner. We do not think of a common good. This is the problem today and unless you know your source you will never be in a position to, that was the greatness of our earlier seers. Family system was more prominent and joint family system is I think is the unique privilege of this country only where we have understood the value of sharing, the value of cooperation, the value of tolerance. These were all social values that we have developed, all these things are now questioned and that is the reason why you are restless, your restlessness is the direct result of trying to disturb the balance which has been achieved. Internally you know that is the balance that is required, the inputs today are different, you are not able to match these two so you should get back to your moors, you should know your common ground and that is the reason why we require a sadhana.

Now, so far, I said only one thing about the goal and also the means given by SriRamchandraji Maharaj as meditation on the Divine light in the heart, but that is not enough. The system of Sri RamChandra's Rajayoga goes far far above this. This is the beginning, second thing is how to control my urges? True sir, as you say I am an animal agreed but how to control this? True you say that I have been talking all sorts of things aggressively, selfishly etc all these agreed but then how to better myself? Is there a method by which I can do this? Is there a way or otherwise is it just one more lecture that you are giving and asking us to go? We have been hearing lectures, we can continue to be hearing lectures. Do good, be kind, do not steal, do not bluff, do not covet another man's property, do not fight. We have been hearing, but then how to achieve this? I am unfortunately victim of that, what am I to do? If you put these questions there is no answer, everybody says you struggle, you somehow try to control, you try to do this, you try to take certain exercises, be away from such things. Negativistic thinking starts but then it will not fit into the modern world. So two methods of meditation have been prescribed; there is a point located in our chest region which we call "A" and another point which is located in the same chest region called "B". If you meditate on point A you get certain advantages, if you meditate on point B you get certain other advantages. One is meant to control your urges and another one is essentially meant to develop the ekagravritti.

So if have you got to see the animality in you is reduced you have got to meditate on point A thinking what? All the people in this world are brothers and sisters and that they are developing true love and devotion towards God. It is not you who is object of attention here in this particular meditation. In that point you meditate thinking that all the people in this world are your brothers and sisters and that they are developing true love and devotion to God/Master, put it whatever you like. This when practiced develops into what we call, the love, universal love, if you try to put the other way first universal love and then I will come to this we will never be in a position to practice that. So we have to consciously develop our mind to think that all the people are improving spiritually, it's a great sacrifice, it is a great exercise of your mind, it is a bit of a yajna actually where you are using your mental power for the good of others. Thought has got its own capacity, so your thought will be in a position to influence others. Does it, does it not ? Whether it does in the others or not, first of all it develops you, this we have seen. We have experienced the changes in ourselves that we tend to develop certain spiritual characteristics of tolerance, of more and more of concern for other people. This is what we have seen in ourselves developing, but the argument mainly is that all of us will be in a position to move towards that direction. So this has been variously discussed by Buddha, by Jain, every saint has mentioned the importance of this universal brotherhood or universal peace, latest of course is even Aurobindonian's logic of universal love, unity, human unity, all these things are based on this, human unity is another point that we have got to understand. How to develop that they have not said, how to develop that is said in this system. You practice it, you will see the change; you don't practice it ,naturally you don't get it, there is no complaint afterwards. Whenever you follow a thing you must follow it fully, see whether the result is coming or not then you should continue. If the result is not coming, you can definitely stop. That is the type of challenge with which SriRamchandraji Maharaj comes forward so the same challenge is passed onto you, meditation on the points 'A' and 'B'.

This diversion of the flow of consciousness from the lower realms to the higher realms is again another significant practice that is done in the system, which you will see for yourself. How this is made possible? This is made possible by the influx of the Divine grace called Pranahuti, a very unique process. The influx of the Divine which you feel in your heart during the process of introduction continues, sometimes more consciously, sometimes less consciously but always there. It is this assistance from the Master that is the exclusive characteristic of the system of Sri RamChandra's Rajayoga about which we do not find elsewhere any talk. This naturally leads to two more concepts of having a satsang and also having what we call an individual sitting. Every abhyasi is asked to take individually sittings from a trainer, whoever is the trainer, at regular intervals so that your path is properly delineated and you progress in the desired lines. So this continuous monitoring and help is something that is exclusive to Sri RamChandra's Rajayoga and not had anywhere else. Satsangs many people have. Satsangs invariably meant bhajans, keerthans etc things and also certain amount of prayer for about 5 to 10 minutes of meditation. Some places it is 15 minutes, sometimes it is less or whatever it is, I am not going into other systems. Satsang here we always say is keeping company with the sat that is the Ultimate consciousness. Satsangis meeting together doesn't form a satsang as such. Only when you keep company with the Divine then it can be called satsang. This is achieved through of course a common effort also, all of us join together once in a week, may be more, there may be other occasions of the birthdays of the Masters when we meet, where we feel the grace of the Master flowing and all of us feeling in the same wave length. So this type of constant watch and monitoring is another uniqueness of the system as compared to other systems where you have got an introduction and afterwards you are on your own, may be a mantra is given to you and then you are asked to be with that mantra, proceed further and the mantra guides you further that is what they say. Bhajans and keerthans are generally not advocated here because as I told you in the beginning itself when you try to externalize your senses you cannot go to the internal. We started with the visual thing so when it comes to auditory thing it is your bhajan and keerthan, or your own mouth also, you can put it your voice also. So long as these are all sensory oriented Na Tatra Vak Gacchati Na Mano Na Vijno Na Vijanimo will not make any sense. When we say it is something beyond all the senses, if you are going to say that I will try to go through the senses you are not going to achieve that. The means and the ends must justify themselves. So that is the reason why we do not give importance to it, it does not mean thereby that I do not have my own ways of singing to my Master. They are all individual, your own sadhana, we do not try to propagate it to others for the simple reason it is my way of crying. Each one of us cry in our own way, we pray to God, another way of putting the word crying. Prayer to God has always been a matter of crying. Instead of prayer I think most of the time we will be justified in putting it as crying. We really cry, most of us, when we go to God or when we think about God, we have got some problem, we cry. If it is just like child, you simply cry you do not even express your ideas, when you are an adult you have got certain words to cry. So prayers for me always meant only crying but when you don't cry and still pray then that is prayer.

When you know that the mother is there by your side you don't cry - when you are a child, when you become simple, when you become innocent. The moment you are independent and think that you are intelligent then you would like to make noise. You will try to demand and prayers have always been questions that we have got or problems that we got along with the answer suggested to God to implement them. You have got both the question and answer given to God and then His job is to implement those answers, you simply don't give a question to Him. What the mother would like to give, you are not prepared to wait for it, you also suggest what should be the thing that should be given to you. I have a problem and this problem should be sorted out like this. So you have a question, you have an answer, no choices for Him and that He must implement, if He does not implement He is not God, if He implements He is God, this is the way in which our mind is going. So you have got all sorts of songs coming up and then you also say like Ramdas, great saint, several things. For everything you have got an answer, so the poor person here is not just given a question, an answer also is given. This is the unfortunate level to which prayers have come but true prayer is one like an innocent child who simply does not know anything about it and is fed by the mother as and when it is necessary and to the extent that is necessary. It is never over fed, it is never under fed, no mother does it but that innocence is what we have lost and if you keep the company of the Divine continuously as we try to do then such an innocence is possible then it is something you can see for yourself. By evaluating your own prayers you can see whether you have grown spiritually or not. You don't have to ask somebody else whether you have grown or not, you evaluate your own prayers then you will see whether you have grown or not. Whenever you have got a question and an answer given to Him that means you are not grown much, only thing you have learnt is you know that there is a God, to that extent you have grown. Later on as you grow, you try to give up this answer business, tell only the question and there were certain great saints who said that it is blasphemous to tell our problems to God, they called it blasphemous. The reason is, He is omniscient and He knows everything why do you tell Him. He knows, why do you tell Him, why do you insult Him. They took it as an insult to God to tell your problems. Now, our level is not only we tell our problems, we also tell our solutions lest He give some other solution for the problem. So this is the present level of degradation where the mind is in a vikshipta condition. As I told you, prayers are in vikshipta condition, then it goes on moving more and more towards God, then it develops ekagravritti oriented towards God and then even that you afterwards neither beg, you don't ask anything but you would like to be in the company of the Divine, that type of prayer develops.

Prayer is a very very interesting subject where I always say, the first attitude that we should develop is we should pray to God that we should pray. First of all we should pray to God, for what? That we should pray because most of the time we do not pray, we demand, and we have to continue to pray. The next prayer is, first of all we should be enabled to pray, but our ahankar is such that we do not ask. So this prayer, most of us would not like to pray. Given an opportunity I will solve the problem myself and we go to the extent of saying I would not like to trouble God about all these things because your competence makes you feel so. Your competence makes you feel that you can solve the problem yourself and you don't remember God at all. Only when the problem is beyond you then you start thinking in terms of seeking help in prayer, as against the original thinking in this country - for any action that you do first of all you seek the blessings of the God and then only proceed, that is the level at which we were, that is whatever you do it is only prayer. First we pray and then we do, perform anything, but that attitude we have lost, now we are very very competent people, we try to do, only when we know we are not competent then we start praying for help, or replacement of our efforts by His. First supporting your effort, then replacement of effort i.e. first time you try to study well for the examination, you don't remember certain things therefore you seek God's help that I may remember all these things in the examination hall. The other fellow who has got a perfect memory he doesn't seek that, this fellow seeks. Third category of persons are there who do not make any effort at reading but then go to the temple everyday asking God to enable this fellow to pass the examination, that is all the prayer. The prayer is, there is no effort there, totally replaced, your efforts are to be replaced by His. Stories are there, people must have got relief or perhaps did not get I do not know but that is the level to which the prayers have come.

Prayers have never been that yielding to the Divine and unless it comes to the level of yielding to the Divine as SriRamchandraji Maharaj puts it, you will not be in a position to proceed further. You are a slave of your wishes, this you should understand. my independence is a problem, my interdependency is reality. So we always sought the blessings of the Divine before we started with the work. All your sankalpas were also only meant for that. Now a days we don't do, only when it's in the critical stage we either go to the government hospital or go to God. In both the cases we fail. Last resort is the general hospital, last resort is God/temple, both the cases we fail, we do not succeed and we blame the hospital or the God, not our efforts. The prayer has come to a peculiar stage now when we really don't pray but we think we pray but prayer should be such that we should ask for an attitude of prayer itself to come. Unless it comes, you will not be in a position to say that you are stabilized in prayer. So this prayer helps us to develop that type of submissiveness to the Divine and we come to the conclusion that I am not all that very competent. I am competent, I will do but I am not all that very competent because there are certain instances where you find extraneous circumstances effecting it so we try to see that it is not there. So the sadhana aspect of it is so tough mainly because we do not want to leave our individuality.

So the system which enables us to come to a point A and meditate also says along with it that you should pray. Prayer gives you that submissiveness, makes you feel a bit less so that the influx of the Divine is possible, otherwise it does not work. Prayer never works unless you feel humble. Prayer in the sense of I will do this yantra, this mantra or this yaga and therefore the result should come have not been all that very successful. Yielding to the Divine has always helped us, prayer which yields to the Divine helps you. So when will you develop this yielding attitude? Only when we definitely know that there is something above us. This is a fundamental point and this you will never know unless you practice yourself and practice helps you.

One more very significant thing about the system of Sri RamChandra's Rajayoga is the cleaning process. We have developed our samskaras by will, by sankalpa. I wanted to do certain things, I have done those things and my mind is attached to it. You want to get rid of it, the same mind has to be used for it. You are the cause for that particular formation of the samskara. You should be, your own mind should be the one which enables you to get rid of it, so the cleaning aspect of it is also there. Once you do all these things what is it I get sir? What is it I get? You get to know in your own physical frame there are many other higher aspirations coming up immediately. The moment your heart is clean, automatically the call of the atman is there and then your mind moves towards that and from there once you know your self then you also develop the true bakthi behind it. In the beginning is there no bhakthi? Definitely not, in the beginning your bhakthi is terribly self centered. You develop the bakthi to go to a temple only because you wanted some relief. You like a Lalitha because she is supposed to give something, you like some other God because He gives. Oriented to ourselves, we have got certain petty prayers to give, petitions to give and those petitions when they are answered, we feel we are devoted and when we are not, that God is given up and we go to another God but that is not true love, that is loving yourself. True love to God develops only when your prayer is stabilized namely that all other people are developing true love and devotion towards God. When your prayer can come to that stage, instead of your saying that you are developing true love to God, if you can say that other people are developing true love towards God, if your mind can be settled on that idea, then you can say that you became a bhaktha because the basic purpose of bhakthi is to tell the greatness of God to others. Purpose of bhakthi is to enable other people to understand the greatness of God, not for yourself, but bhakthi as today understood or preached is something that is meant for you, it will give you this, it will give you that. So, here instead of using the word Shraddha we are using the word bhakthi. In the beginning we should use the word Shraddha not bhakthi. Shraddha enables you to do a particular thing with certain amount of seriousness, commitment. You should at least see that you solve your problem, that Sraddha takes you to some stage, but bhakthi is something that is meant for others. Once you come to that stage, you will be in a position to see how helpless you are to pass on that message. It's a cry of a devotee that enables you to understand the helplessness. In the beginning the helplessness that 'I am helpless sir', 'I am not able to help myself' etc things, seeking refuge as Vibhishana has done or Gaya. So all these people have also said it is saranagati but they are only seeking refuge for their problem but real saranya is one who finds it very difficult to pass on the message of God to others. Bhakthi when he is not able to tell to others then he becomes really helpless he does not know what to do. Aho janaha! vyasanabhimukhyam, aho janaha! vyasanabhimukhyam i.e, for these people the vyasanas have become important for them, they don't think about You. Vaktum samarto api he talks about names of God and he says , Vakthum samarto api na vakthi kaschi. Though people are capable of singing your praise they don't do. aho janaha vyasanabhimukhyam, that's the cry and that is the real surrender.

Real surrender is one when a man is unable to tell what he has got in his heart to tell others and that is the state in which most of us have been compelled to live in the present life. You have a message to pass on but nobody is prepared to hear you, they laugh at you or they scoff at you. It is against that background only in the beginning I said I am happy that you have all responded because it is difficult to find some people to whom you can talk about God today. I can talk about yourself, I can that when you go this particular temple sir you get such and such relief yes you immediately accept, I say that do this mantra so and so you will get this relief yes you will get it, you will get enough number of people, by doing this you get some physical advantages, some material advantages, yes they will but then if I am going to say that you try to love God, try to live in spirit of brotherhood, you try to live in a spirit of service or tolerance, it is very difficult to find people today to hear that. The reason is we have become so insulated and isolated. It's against this backdrop that I always analyze the amount of opportunity you give us to tell about this message because here we are not asking you to believe that we are going to give you some comfort, no surely not. You will get relieved of your problems, no, I don't suggest this, my Master never said it. You may, you may not, that is all the grace of God we don't bother but what you should learn is that we are all here to live together and then we have got to share the common interest, common interest of God that we all should be happy. God never wants us to be unhappy, we have made ourselves unhappy by our own exclusive concern for ourselves by our actions. So under this backdrop if you see, the real devotion leads us to this type of surrender, we really feel helpless. It is not showing our greatness to you, it is showing your greatness. Your greatness is to become one with the Master, you are capable of being Masters, you are Masters of your own destiny, by your own thinking you have become like this, so change your thinking you will be Masters in your own way and happiness can be the only goal to which you and I can aspire for. There is nothing more of the message from my Master that I can give you.