Questions and Answers

Questions and Answers

I often find that the quality of my meditation goes up and down. I always hope that I will not fall down again, but it happens constantly.

In the beginning everybody experiences ups and downs in the spiritual life. When a child is learning to walk, in the beginning he stumbles and falls again and again. But after a while he learns to walk properly, and finally to run. Eventually he can run as fast as his capacity will allow. But a small child cannot expect to run as fast as his father does, because his father has much more capacity.

You experience ups and downs in your meditation. When you are up, you have to feel that you are getting a glimpse of your eventual capacity. When you are down, you should simply feel that this is only a temporary incapacity. Just because you see that those who are more advanced than you in the spiritual life are running, you must not be discouraged. Once upon a time they also stumbled.

Right now the sky may be full of clouds, but a day will come when the sun will shine again with its full effulgence. When you experience low moments of fear, of doubt, of lack of aspiration, you should feel that these won't last forever. Like a child who has fallen, you must try to stand up again. Someday you will be able to walk, then run, and finally run the fastest without falling.

When you meditate and you cry for something, should you also make an effort to achieve it, or just let it take place naturally?

At the beginning you have to make a personal effort; later it becomes spontaneous. Unless and until it becomes spontaneous, you have to make the personal effort. When a sprinter starts a race, his hands make such a vigorous movement. In the beginning he consciously moves his arms and hands very fast. He is making strong personal effort. But after fifty or sixty metres, when he is going at top speed, everything becomes spontaneous. At that time he is not striving to move his arms. But at the start, he did.

It is like sailing a boat. Before you start you move this thing and adjust that thing. You have to do all kinds of things at the beginning. While you are getting ready, you are very dynamic. But that is only your preparation. Still the boat is near the shore. It is only when you are actually well on your way that the boat can sail without your constant personal effort. In your meditation this spontaneous movement is an act of Grace from above.

If you are sincere, then you will say that at the very beginning of your journey God's Grace also descended. Otherwise, you would not have been inspired even to enter into the boat. But when you start out, you feel that you are making a tremendous personal effort. But there comes a time when you realise that this personal effort is nothing other than Compassion from above. Why are you getting up early to pray and meditate, whereas your friends are still wallowing in the pleasures of lethargy? It is because God's Grace has descended into you. So the deeper you go, the clearer it becomes that God's Grace enables you to make progress through your personal effort. Either God is pleased with you, or out of His infinite Compassion He is helping you.

Personal effort is of paramount importance at the beginning, because at that time we don't feel that God is our unconditional friend. As human beings, we always say that if I give you something, then you will give me something in return. But if I don't give you anything, then you are under no obligation to give me anything. But God is not like that. God gives unconditionally, whether we claim Him as our own or not. This moment I may pray to God to fulfil my desire. But the next moment, after He fulfils my desire, immediately I will say, "Oh, I don't need You. I don't want to be Your child." But God cannot do that. God always claims us as His own no matter how bad we are, because He sees that in hundreds or thousands or millions of years, He will make us perfect. A child, at his sweet will, can leave his parents; but can the parents leave the child? Impossible! Similarly, I can disown God, my eternal Father, because I am angry with Him or because He has not fulfilled my desires. But He will never disown me, because I am His child.

Self-effort is necessary. God's Grace is indispensable.

So personal effort is necessary because we do not feel that God is constantly loving us and blessing us unconditionally. Once we can feel that He is doing everything for us unconditionally, then personal effort is not necessary. Just because we don't have that kind of feeling, so-called personal effort is of paramount importance. But when we become sincere, when we become humble, and especially when we become pure, at that time we will feel that it is God who has inspired us to exercise our personal effort. So credit goes to God from the beginning to the end. In the beginning we give 50 percent of the credit to ourselves, because we got up to pray and meditate, and 50 percent to God, because He responded to our prayers and inspired us during our meditation. But if we are sincere, devoted and absolutely pure, then we will say that 100 percent of the credit goes to God.

Sometimes during my morning meditation, I fall into a doze – not a sound sleep, but just a doze. Is this a bad thing?

Unfortunately, it is not a good thing. It is not sound sleep, but you are not fully awake either. When you meditate, you have to be absolutely dynamic. Do not allow sleepiness to enter into you. When you sit down to meditate, feel that you are entering into the battlefield where you have to fight against ignorance, imperfection and death.

Unfortunately, many seekers do not get enough inspiration to energise them for morning meditation. Some mornings you get inspiration all at once; other days you do not get any inspiration at all. If the fire is already burning inside, you do not have to do anything. But when there is no fire, what do you do? The best thing is to breathe in deeply a few times before you meditate and make your whole body energetic. This dynamic energy will help you enter into meditation. If possible, take a small quantity of hot juice or hot milk before you begin your meditation also.

How can I keep myself from falling asleep after about five minutes of meditation?

First of all, before you start meditating please breathe in deeply a few times. With each breath, try to feel that a stream of energy is entering into you. Then try to feel that you are breathing in through different parts of your body: your eyes, your ears, your forehead, your shoulders, the crown of your head and so on. Feel that each of these places is a door, and when you breathe in feel that you are opening this door. At that time, energy enters into you from the Universal Consciousness.

Then try to invoke the power aspect of the Supreme. Do not invoke peace or light; only try to bring forward divine power from within or bring it down from above. This divine power will make you feel that your body is burning with fever, although you are not actually running a temperature, and immediately you will feel energised. You can also imagine a blue-green forest or field, and feel that you are walking through it. Then, no matter how tired you are, you will feel energised. You can also pinch yourself as hard as possible, and try to feel that somebody else is pinching you. While you are pinching yourself, you have to know that it is your conscious self that is pinching your unconscious self. But you have to feel that another person is doing the pinching.

Another technique is to repeat the name of the Supreme as fast as possible. With tremendous concentration see how many times you can repeat "Supreme" with each breath. The power inside the repetition of this name will inundate your whole being and you are bound to feel a new flow of life-energy.

At meditation time always try to feel inside you a dynamic and progressive movement, but not an aggressive one. If there is a dynamic and progressive movement, then you cannot fall asleep. Inside you, feel that a train is speeding towards the destination. Feel that you yourself are an express train with only one destination. The driver of that train is constantly repeating God's name to derive energy, strength, stamina and all divine qualities. An express train stops only at the Final goal, the end of its journey; on the way it does not stop at all. Your goal will be to reach or achieve a profound meditation.

Sometimes it seems like I spend my whole time trying to keep myself awake and I don't really meditate.

Lethargy and sleep come during meditation because sincere interest is lacking. If sincere interest is there, there will be no tendency to sleep. When a student wants to be first in school, when he has a real, sincere interest, then he studies without being forced by his parents. But some students feel that if they just pass the examination, that is more than enough. If this is their reeling, then they do not have any energetic drive or enthusiasm for their school work.

You should always try to be eager and enthusiastic about meditation. If you feel that you cannot meditate for half an hour, then plan to meditate for ten minutes. Then you will feel, "Oh, only ten minutes. Easily I can do that." If your goal is very near, then you will give it all your energy. If it is quite far, you will say, "Oh God! To keep running at top speed for such a long time is impossible." But anybody can meditate for ten minutes. If you have to run twenty miles, you will be scared to we death. But if you see that the goal is within sight, then you will say, "Oh, I can easily reach it. Let me run as fast as possible."

If we feel tired when we sit down to meditate, how can we energise ourselves so that we don't fall asleep?

When you feel that you are tired, exhausted, please take several deep breaths quietly and try to feel that you are breathing in from various places in your body. Try to feel that you are breathing in through the eyes, the ears, the forehead, through the crown of the head, through the shoulders and so on. When you are breathing in, if you are conscious of your breath, then you will not feel sleepy. But being conscious of your breath does not mean that you will make a sound. You will just feel that a stream of energy is entering into you with every breath.

Feel that every place you are breathing in is a door. Each time you breathe in, you open a door here, there or somewhere else. Naturally, when you open the door, light also enters, and light is another form of energy.

When you are meditating very well, you may feel that you are spontaneously doing this—drawing energy not only through your nose, but through your head and other places. Energy is available everywhere, and that universal energy wants to enter into you by various doors. Naturally, the more energy you can draw inside you, the higher will be your meditation.

How to conquer fear? With oneness within and oneness without. In oneness-light there can be no fear.

When I try to meditate, there is something that holds me back.

The thing that holds you back is fear. If you want the wealth which is deep inside you, then you have to dive within bravely. Only if you have inner courage can you receive the inner wealth. Fear of the unknown and the unknowable prevents you from diving deep within. But what is unknowable today becomes merely unknown tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow it becomes known.

The vastness of truth will never harm you. It will only embrace and fulfil you. You feel afraid of something because you do not feel that that particular thing is part of you. But through meditation you establish your conscious oneness with the infinite Vast. At that time you see and feel that everything is part of you. So why should you be afraid?

I feel a pressure in my forehead when I meditate. What causes this and how can I stop it?

The reason you feel pressure in your forehead is because you are meditating in the wrong place; you are meditating in the mind rather than the heart, You want to play a game, but unfortunately you have gone to the wrong playing field. When you feel pressure in your head or your forehead during meditation, it means that your mind has pulled down light and power beyond its capacity. The door to your consciousness is closed, so you are trying to break through the ceiling and pull God into your room. At that time, poor God is entering into an unprepared, unreceptive and unillumined vessel. Naturally the vessel resists, and then you get a headache.

You may also feel pressure because your mind-vessel is filled with impure thoughts and ideas. By sheer will to you are trying to kill these undivine thoughts, and again the resistance of the mind causes you pain. The pressure can also mean that there is an obstruction such as fear inside you. When the mind-vessel is filled the with impure thoughts and you pull down peace, light and bliss, you unconsciously become frightened. You never expected these things to be so brilliant and divine. Your mind is filled with all kinds of obscure thoughts and impurities, and suddenly divine peace, light and bliss come. At that time they seem like strangers to you, so you resist them. You are driving at top speed and suddenly you feel fear, so you try to stop.

When you feel this kind of pressure, what you should do is immediately focus your attention on your heart. Feel that you do not have a head at all; you have only the heart's soft, sweet feeling of oneness with God, your Inner Pilot. In the heart there is no fear or resistance. No matter how intensely you meditate in the heart, no matter how much peace, light and bliss you draw into the heart, you will never feel tension or pressure. There will only be joy, love and a feeling of oneness.

The safest and best way to meditate is in the heart. But if you want to use the mind, then you have to try to make the mind very calm, quiet, pure and receptive, Always feel that inside the aspiring mind there is vessel that you can enlarge with your sincere aspiration. Try to make the vessel very large so that it can hold more purity and luminosity. But do not try to pull anything. Only let the divine Grace flow in and through you by praying and meditating most soulfully. Then you will not feel pressure or tension in your head.

I don't think that I am pulling, but still I get a headache when I meditate in the morning.

In your particular case, you are meditating on the wrong thing. You are meditating on divine power, but because your inner vessel is not pure enough, instead of power, an aggressive quality comes into you. This aggression you feel as a headache. So when you meditate in the morning, you should meditate on peace. Inundate your inner and outer being with peace; then you will not get a headache. Peace itself is power; it can solve all your problems.

Sometimes, even though I concentrate on my heart, my head pulls down energy and I can't seem to stop it, and I just end up with a headache. Is there any way I can get back to the heart?

The pain that you are feeling in your head is the result of resistance. What is happening is that your heart is receiving through the mind. Something is coming from above and is trying to enter into the heart, but the mind is not allowing the heart to receive fully. The mind allows the heart to receive to some extent; that is why the force is coming through the mind. But then the mind becomes jealous of the heart and it starts resisting.

At that time try to feel that inside the heart there is something which is infinitely more powerful than the mind. It is the soul, which has immense power. So bring forward your soul's inner strength and say to the mind, "You allowed me to remain quiet for a few minutes, and I am grateful. But I am still praying and meditating, I am still crying for peace, light and bliss, and now you are not allowing me to continue." Then just grab the mind and pull it into the flood of the heart.

The mind is like a naughty child. Previously it was asleep, so the mother was able to remain silent and pray to God. But now the child is awake and it wants to cause mischief. It does not want to allow the mother to aspire any longer. So what will the mother do? She will threaten the child and say, "I am still praying, I am still meditating. You must not disturb me, or I will punish you."

As long as the mind allows you to meditate, you do not have to worry. But when it starts bothering you and creating pain, that means that it does not want to allow you to receive more peace, light and bliss from above. So you have to use your soul's power and pull it into the heart.

When I was meditating I felt really tense. My head was hurting and I felt I was pulling. What should I do in a case like that?

If you get that kind of tense feeling, immediately breathe in and out very quickly. When the rhythm of your breathing increases, the tension goes away. Try to feel that you are climbing up a flight of stairs or a ladder that has many rungs. As you climb up you are breathing in. If you feel this ascent, then tension goes away. Tension comes when you are stuck at one place. But when you are climbing, you are like a bird flying up into the sky. When the bird is soaring, where is the tension? Similarly, if you are climbing up, there will be no tension.

I find your meditations very hard for me. I come in feeling beautiful. Then I feel all this pain coming into my heart and into my head. Why does this happen?

It is not any negative force that is entering into you. Your difficulty is that when you come to our meditations, you try to pull far beyond your capacity. When I am on stage, the whole stage is flooded with light. When you sit and look at me, you try to pull this light. It is as if you are in a shop and you see all sorts of most beautiful things. Like a greedy fellow you want to buy everything, but you have in your pocket only five cents. When you try to pull beyond the capacity of your receptivity, at that time you get pain in your head or your heart.

Very often when I am concentrating on my heart centre during meditation, I find that my breathing is very heavy and distracting.

In your case, you are straining your eyes while you are meditating. Your eyes are tight and stiff, and the pressure falls on your heart centre. This is very harmful to your aspiration. If you can keep your eyes normal and relaxed while you are meditating, this pressure will go away. You can keep your eyes open or closed; only don't make them unnaturally stiff.

I shall tolerate the world, I shall. Only by tolerating the world shall I be able to help my mind to ascend and my heart to transcend.

When I get upset with someone who does something to me, I can't meditate the way I want to. How can I overcome this?

When you are upset, naturally you cannot meditate. You cannot welcome a friend and an enemy into your house at the same time. Your enemy is your agitation and anger, and your friend is meditation. Suppose someone does something to you and you become angry with him. Even when several hours have elapsed and you have forgotten your anger, it can still pull you down. You have forgotten, but you have not forgiven. Unless you have forgiven, you have not illumined your anger. Sometimes you will quarrel with the members of your family and then go to sleep. The next morning you will find that you cannot meditate. You have totally forgotten the incident, but while you were sleeping the strength and velocity of your anger have increased. So it is always better to illumine the anger immediately.

When somebody does something wrong to you, try to feel that it is an extended part of your own consciousness that has made this deplorable mistake. Enlarge your heart and feel that it is you yourself who have done wrong. In that way you won't become upset. What you have to do is stop thinking of others and think only of perfecting yourself. That does not mean that you are ignoring the world's problems. No. Your own perfection will help others. When you achieve something, you will see that very thing in a small measure in others. Similarly, if you see something wrong in others, tomorrow you will see that very thing in yourself. And if you see something good in someone else but not in yourself, that particular thing will soon develop in you. If you see a person who is sincere and you are not sincere, just because you are conscious of his sincerity, your own inner sincerity will come to the fore. Your inner being will try to communicate with the sincerity of that particular person and, like a magnet, it will draw sincerity from that person or from the Supreme, who is the Source.

From now on, try to perfect your own nature instead of looking around to see whose imperfections are standing in your way. Pay all attention to your own self-discovery. When you have perfected yourself, you will see that everybody on earth will gain in perfection through you.

How can I tell if I am meditating too much?

If you are meditating too much—that is to say, beyond your capacity—then you will get a kind of tension or pain in the area of the third eye. Also, you may get a haughty attitude. You may feel, "I am so divine and perfect, whereas everyone else is undivine and imperfect." If you are trying to pull down peace, light and bliss from above beyond your capacity, then you may no longer get any joy or satisfaction from your earthly activities. You may come to feel that this earthly existence of yours is useless and meaningless. If you get this kind of disgust or depression which makes you want to withdraw from the world, then you may be trying to meditate beyond your capacity.


When I meditate I lose energy and get tired. Is it because I meditate too much?

No. If you are losing energy while meditating, it means that your meditation is incorrect. If you meditate well, you will gain energy. Meditation is the way to gain infinite energy, light and bliss. But if the particular method you are using is wrong, then you will lose energy instead of gaining it.

Is there anything I can do to always have a good meditation?

It is through gratitude, the gratitude that is inside the heart, not inside the mind, that you can make your meditation excellent. Just for a fleeting second, remember that once upon a time you were the same as your friends and neighbours. Now look at the difference between you. It is like day and night. They may be rich on the material plane, but on the spiritual plane they are totally bankrupt. When you see the difference, automatically a spring of gratitude will well up inside you.

If you can have a drop of gratitude, inside that gratitude you will find a world of new creation. Once the seed has been sown, it starts germinating and grows into a plant. So when you are not getting a good meditation, the best thing is to think of what you were and what you are going to become. Once upon a time you could not even crawl; now you are running in the spiritual life. Once you see the difference, you are bound to have gratitude to the Supreme, for He is the Doer. It is He who has inspired you and acted in and through you. He has inspired you and He has given you the fruit of your action, so naturally your gratitude will come to the fore and you will be able to have a good meditation.