Question: What is the purpose of doing the tapas?
Babaji:
Tapas is the highest pitch of meditation. Meditation is for the sake of understanding. If you can keep the mind totally thoughtless and under control, under your own control, not others' control we mean, but totally thoughtless and concentrated at least for one hour, that is called meditation. You can turn your attention anywhere you want when you have all your mind's power. So when a person is able to do like this for eight to ten hours minimum, able to hold the mind totally concentrated, that is known as tapas. You do tapas so that you become totally enlightened about your self as the Immortal Soul, beyond the existence of this body. The Soul is neither born nor dies, and the mind merges with the Soul. As I said, the mind's ultimate truth is the Soul, just like the sun's ray going back to the sun, the droplet of the ocean going back to the ocean. This is what happens in tapas, why tapas is done.
