Shri Babaji's 12th Anniversary Tapas Purti Message
Dhyana, Bhakti and Jnana
We surrender at the Lotus Feet of beloved Master SHIVABALAYOGI, seeking refuge at all times. Our prostrations with deep love and reverence.
Whereas in Bhaktimarga, the path of devotion, you have to raise your imagination to the highest, in Dhyanamarga, the path of meditation, from day one your efforts must be not to imagine anything at all. You can always set a target of the highest like the Self, Ultimate Truth or Divinity, but do not try to visualize any form or even formlessness in any way. All your efforts should be to overcome the imaginations and mind's habits to imagine.
In Dhyana, though you are trying not to imagine, still you are devoted to the target when you are putting in efforts relentlessly. Slowly you are directing the mind to become devoted to its Ultimate Truth. I have always told that the highest devotion and true worship is when the mind is concentrated and becomes quiet. If the mind is into imaginations, the consciousness is away from its original source, the Divinity. The more that the mind can remain quiet and in itself, the more it is closer to its original source, the Divinity. Automatically its attention is towards the Divinity. Thus by practicing meditation you gain true Bhakti and become devoted to that Divinity only.
Because the mind itself is the combination of consciousness and energy, wherever it is applied, it becomes aware of such an existence. However, when the mind is applied towards this world and its objects or entities, it jumps into imaginations with the idea of wanting to know and analyze through the application of intelligence. Though you would think that you have come to know the facts about a certain object, entity or this world through intelligence, you also forget the fact you have assumed such an existence's form through an imagination effect of your consciousness, that which you recognize as mind. Thus you do not gain the first hand knowledge of the truth of existence. When one day you are able to keep the mind quiet for long periods a real meditation and eventually Tapas happens. Finally mind becomes aware of Itself. It is no more the mind that you would have identified through your intelligence application and other imagined entities of 'me' and 'mine'.
Real knowledge (Jnana) occurs through long practice of keeping this mind quiet, when it gains the awareness of the true existence. You gain awareness of your own existence without trying to imagine anything about yourself. This was what the thing that Shri Guru Maharaj Swamiji always advocated through His upadesha (teaching) of 'Meditate and know yourself'. Through the long practise of Tapas you should be able to settle down peacefully, contented into that awareness of the real Self, once for all. By then you as the mind would have abandoned all imaginations, cravings and settled into You as the pure, supreme consciousness of existence. This awareness and being in It, is the real knowledge, Jnana.
As the devotees all over are celebrating Baba's Tapas Completion, it is very auspicious for us; this is the day Shri Swamiji's complete grace and blessings descended to eradicate the 'I' and humble us forever.
