Mind is your powerhouse
London 6 July 2008 – Part One
"Meditation is an ancient technique that they practiced in India, which enables you to face the challenges of life with total composure and keeping yourself at peace, without hurting yourself in anyway. You will be able to help others also in a better way and one day you will become aware of your self as the Immortal Soul."
Question:
I believe that spiritual development comes through challenges in life and that we are reborn in order to face these challenges, to challenge ourselves to get to a higher level. 
I have been taught this in the west but meditation never came into my teaching. How does meditation come in and is meditation a better way of achieving spiritual development than just facing life's challenges and being reborn and facing more difficulties?
Babaji:
You are never prohibited to face the challenges of life. When you have to face the challenges of life, mind is your powerhouse, through the mind only. If you can keep your mind without any confusion, with more focus, composed then you will be able to face the life in a much better way.
So this meditation is the ancient technique that they practiced in India, which enables you to face the challenges of life with total composure and keeping yourself at peace, not hurting yourself. You will be able to help others in a better way and also one day you will become aware of your self as the immortal soul. So that way if you have twenty-four hours even if you practice for one hour or thirty minutes the rest of the twenty-three hours you will be able to face the life in a much better way. This meditation will not be harmful for facing the challenges of life. In fact it will help you to face the things in a much better way, without losing your composure and peace, without losing your energies and strength. You shall be able to conserve all your energies to face life and that is how gradually you develop. Whenever you come across a problem to sort it out you try to put in efforts. In the same way those great sages when they thought the death as a problem and the life challenges as a problem. So that is how they tried to ponder and came across this meditation.
Like as a child I also used to think if I don't have peace what is the reason? Is something wrong in the world, something wrong in me? What needs to be rectified? So whatever it is we understood that to face the world we need the mind. It is through the mental challenge. So this meditation will always be helpful it will not be in conflict.
Question:
Babaji, what role can painful experiences in our life play in our spiritual progress?
Babaji:
To my experience if you come across painful experiences you can become more strong and overcoming them you will become more spiritual because you would like to know the truth, what it is - why this thing happens, how we can face such things and how we can be helpful to others; all such things. You will become more determined to know the things. You go for the food only when you really feel that hunger. When you are hungry, you won't give up. You would like to earn that food that is required. So in the same way when you lose that peace you understand the value of it.
Like this body - I always tell this is such a gem, such a wonderful opportunity. Suddenly if you lose any one organ, one part of the body, then we understand the value of it, how valuable, how much a great gift that we were given and we have lost. So when you lose it you are able to appreciate. If I am sitting here for one month you might take it casually and not come and practice with me. If I go away after one week then you will be missing for the whole year. So you will understand the value of sitting with us and learning these things, so that is what it is. Like this the painful things can be so helpful to enhance your strength of determination and courage. Thus I have always felt that obstacles should always be welcomed. That will make us stronger and more determined. In spirituality we tell agony is a universal law. The consciousness of the soul has jumped into this well called the world but the Divine has fitted springs called agony which will throw you back to the Divinity. It will never allow you to settle down peacefully into this world.
Question:
Through my spiritual development I have been interested in the traditional religions such as Christianity, Islam and Judaism. I found that all religions have a nugget of the truth and none of them alone is the whole truth. How do you view sticking to one religion and just staying with that truth?
Babaji:
You see, all religions are the same, equal and honorable. All religions have given the same truth. Simply if you do not get confused and try to follow, it shall be your individual choice. If you want to follow all religions whatever they have taught and try to find the truth, if you adopt the right technical methods, if you can come across the right teachers who can guide you properly then you will find that all religions are the same and equal.
Like in our scriptures we read the great Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was a great Yogi, one of the greatest spiritual giants India has produced. He practiced first according to the vedic tradition of Tapas and achieved Self Realization and wanted to know the truth of all religions. He went under a Christian teacher, a Muslim teacher and He practiced all paths He came across but He found out that the truth is the same, paths are different, and terminologies are different. So there is no such thing. So if you are sticking to one religion you might be concentrating. At the same time that need not mean that you have to be disrespectful to other religions. Like my Master used to tell, "You can believe God in any form or even as formless, just do not condemn other's beliefs." Learn to honor. So if you are really into that awakening, you will always honor all other religions as equal and great.
Question:
When I do meditations thoughts are flying everywhere like a serpent, in and out. How can we stop it?
Babaji:
Mind has become habitual since time immemorial to run all the time. Through its imaginations it goes into distractions and keeps running, that it is why technical methods are taught. In this meditation that we teach, you are asked not to imagine anything. You see, when you close the eyes thoughts and visions start appearing. They are all the chronic diseases of the mind, since time immemorial it has absorbed imprints into its subconscious state. They all come out and get evaporated. Meditation is a cleansing process. But due to the brain's nature it de-codifies everything and shows you as a vision or a thought process. Watching them your mind has a tendency to analyze again - what is this, why is this happening, why not that? So it keeps on making judgements and analysing. Whenever it analyzes and makes a judgement it absorbs further imprints. That is why you are taught just observe the thought, do not bother what it is. It is like the garbage is being thrown out. You are forced to watch but don't bother what the garbage is, just watch and it will go away on its own. This is one of the greatest secrets of meditation.
Question:
When we concentrate do we concentrate all the time in between the eyebrows?
Babaji:
Yes, that is one of the highest techniques. There are so many techniques that are taught. But it is difficult sometimes because the eyeballs do not come into one direction easily; they move parallelly always. So steadily if you just watch the front portion when you close the eyes, in due course of time both eyeballs come towards the centre. When they are capable of coming in-between the eyebrows it can strongly withdraw the mind and hold on to it. So if you can practice like that it will be much better.
Question:
When I am focussing here I feel a bodily sensation. Is it good to then focus on that?
Babaji:
Yes if there is a sweet pull type of sensation there you can focus on that, it will be helpful.
Question (same questioner):
It's not an image and it's not a thought.
Babaji:
There is no need of any image; just you focus your attention, because when you are watching with the eyes, mind also is there. That is the secret of the sensory organs. When you are watching me, if your mind is here then you will be able to listen to me perfectly, what I am trying to convey. Otherwise if the mind is running somewhere outside and you are sitting and watching, your concentration will not be perfect. So in the other way, if you try to apply the eyes' vision perfectly, then you will be able to achieve the mental concentration also. That is the technology behind it.
