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| How can we know what is the proper balance in our lives? |
| The more you meditate, the more balance you’ll have in life. A person who doesn’t meditate can’t understand that, but people who have done meditation understand that the more you meditate the more balance you get. You have worldly obligations, and you blend spirituality with them. You say, “I have to work this much for my living and this much action performed in the world will give me enough food and clothing, enough time for my spiritual practice.” I think that it is on the basis of the spiritual experience that you can balance yourself. It naturally happens. When you throw a log into the water it does not swim - it does not have the power to swim. It floats with the water. So in meditation you throw yourself into that stream of life, it picks you up and you can go with that. |
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| How can we actually see and know God for sure? |
| We have to break these three dimensions, because man is a three-dimensional being. If you go past these dimensions, then you can see. That is why the scriptures talk about being above, overcoming the sensory organs, mind and intellect. If you pass beyond them, if you overcome them, you can see God as God is. Otherwise, you’ll be perceiving God either with your intellect or with your mind, and trying to make God something which God is not. That is why the scriptures say that people have to go beyond mind and intellect, they have to transcend all the working organs and sensory organs (karmindriya and gyanindirya). Cross over them, jump over them and then experience God as God is. Otherwise, the experience of God will not be pure, it will be diluted. |
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| How does a person overcome weakness? |
| Any weakness which a person has basically comes from the weakness of his mind. For example, if your stomach is not functioning properly, your body will get sick. In the same way, if your mind is not concentrated, if your mind is not getting the proper spiritual food, there will be weaknesses. So, directly and indirectly, when a person meditates, the meditation itself will removes all the weaknesses that he sees through introspection. Through Knowledge, one is contented in himself. Through meditation, all the desired results are achieved.
For example, I am sitting in a car. Even though my vision, my power to see, is perfectly normal, if there is dust on the windscreen I cannot see properly. So what I do is, get out of the car, clean the windshield and then I can see properly. Likewise, right before a meditator are all his karmas on the windscreen. The karmas are simply there, clouding his vision. “Simply by shooting an arrow into the sky I can tie the sky into one bundle, but I cannot control this mind”, said Arjuna. His karmas were right there before him. That is why patience is necessary.
If you have perfect concentration, you’ll have a perfect experience. If your concentration is lacking, you’ll have a different experience. It depends on your efforts. One day your effort is there and you have complete concentration. You put all your efforts there and you can concentrate. Effort itself is karma.
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| Is your effort determined by previous karmas? |
| Yes, by previous karmas and karmas which are present now. Listening to satsang is a karma. Now, if you are encouraged spiritually, if you get satsang, if you get your doubts removed, and you sit in meditation, apply all your energy and your mind becomes concentrated, then you’ll have a good experience. But see, meditation should be for the sake of meditation alone. Good experience comes when you don’t want anything. When you go above your wants, then you can have a good experience. |
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| Isn’t having a family, living a good life and trying to be a good person what life is all about? |
| Having a family, having a social life, having a job, having an education, all that adds up to a human life. But what is human life for? Ultimately, the answer is that it is for achieving total satisfaction.
Take for example, the process of induction. Induction means, if we have a north pole, then automatically a south pole will be existing. If we have a south pole, then automatically we will have a north pole. That’s logic. In the same way, have a coil of wire, and if we pass electricity through that, then it becomes a transformer, it’s induced to a higher or a lower potential. In the same way, because we are south poles, we are automatically looking for a north pole. It has to be somewhere, and that north pole becomes the unknown factor, like a mysterious or mystical experience. So being in the physical world, we automatically project spirituality and recycle that, just as in a magnet the polarity, the magnetic force, oscillates from north pole to south pole and then back again. So we want to complete that cycle. That’s why we seek harmony between materialism and spirituality. Everyone wants mental peace and to be perfect in the world. You cannot say that a man is like a cog in a wheel or that man is like a robot - you cannot say that. Human beings are something more than that, because we have spirit, we have mind and that mind wants satisfaction.
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| Can you meditate while doing other things? |
| You can meditate 24 hours a day. You can actually go shopping and meditate at the same time. That’s feasible. Have you ever ridden a bicycle? Have you ever taken another person along with you? Now, you are pedalling, you are talking, you are balancing yourself, you ring the bell and look here and there. So many things are happening at the same time. But where’s your mind? It is on the road, your attention is on the road. In the same way, your organs could be doing what they are assigned to do - your eyes could be seeing, your mouth could be speaking, your ears could be listening - and at the same time, your mind could be in unison with God. Each organ has a different function, and the function of the mind is to meditate. You can think about your friend, your money, your business, and this thinking causes problems. So the best thing is to think about God, and be in the world, but not of the world. Jesus said, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” The problem is, that we all know that God is within us, but we are not in God. Only through meditation do we go in God, merge in God. This is the climax of human life.
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| Once I get Knowledge, that’s it, isn’t it? |
| You plant a seed in the ground, you don’t plant a huge tree. Automatically, that small seed grows and becomes a tree. Spirituality, or the path of Knowledge, is not like a trip that you get into for may be three or four years. It is a way of life. Once you are initiated, then actually you have to live that life and evolve spiritually and finally merge into the infinite, because merging into the infinite is salvation. It’s like a sugar cube - the cube has length, breadth and height. Now, if you put it into water, what happens? the length dissolves, the breadth dissolves and the height dissolve. In the same way, these dimensions totally dissolve in infinity. |
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| What do you mean by ‘mind’? |
| Mind cannot be defined as can a worldly object. Mind is very subtle matter. It is partly physical and partly paraphysical. That’s why the mind has the capacity to go through a wall. It’s like a magnet - the magnet has a physical limit, but the force of the magnet has a wider range. The magnet is a piece of metal, but you can move a pin with it, can’t you? That means that it has a dimension, but its force extends beyond that dimension. The mind is more like the force of matter. Mind is like a negative magnetism. It is like the magnetic power of the body - the body is like the magnet and the power of the body is the mind. The magnet is solid but the magnetism is not solid; it can go through things. I could be sitting in a closed room, but the mind will go out. You have to control the mind, because it can go and roam about, but it can be used if you control it.
Let me explain further. The mind is like a gate that stops everything, like the gates of a dam. When you open the gates, the water flows, and if the gate is closed, the water doesn’t flow. Water is the energy, but that energy is still be controlled by the gate, which is the mind. So without the mind, the energy simply flows and completely engulfs your life. But if the mind is there, the energy will be blocked. So if you actually want to have more experience, you won’t get more, you’ll get less, because of the mind.
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| How can one be selfless? |
| If you’re selfish for God, if God becomes the prime target in your life, then you will have no selfishness for the world or worldly things. How does one do that? All through meditation - meditation is the key. If you turn the key and open the lock, you have access to everything |
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| Is Knowledge some kind of evolved mental process? |
| It’s not a mental process, it is the process of concentration. Also, evolution means to be reborn, to come out. See, we are already spiritual beings, the spiritual entity is already inside us. We have to evolve in order to really taste it. It’s like having food ready, but you have to go inside the dining room in order to taste it. Then your understanding will be a balanced understanding. It is called the middle path. The will then has a spiritual inclination. Or you can call it a spiritual baptism. These are all different words, but they mean the same thing. |
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| Can you explain about the types of karmas? |
| Yes, there are basically three types. There are karmas, the seeds which you are creating, there are karmas which you are suffering now and there are karmas which you will suffer. It’s like past, present and future karmas. Now, the karmas which you have done in the past you are suffering or enjoying at present, but you will, through Knowledge, be eliminating the karmas which you will suffer in the future, or even at present. You can correct your present and completely change your future. What you are cannot be changed - that you have to suffer. You have not broken, you have not neutralized your karmas, you are still under the karmic law. You are not above that. Coming here is due to karma. but through satsang, through practising the path of Knowledge, one can actually break that cycle of karma. |
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