Questions and Answers

Questions and Answers

Should a person shut himself away all alone and reject humanity in order to meditate?

Humanity is part and parcel of God. By rejecting humanity, how are we going to embrace divinity? We have to accept the world as it is now. If we don't accept a thing, how can we transform it? If a potter does not touch the lump of clay, how is he going to shape it into a pot? He who meditates has to act like a divine hero amidst humanity.

Humanity at present is far, far from perfection. But we are also members of that humanity. How can we discard our brothers and sisters, who are like the limbs our own body? If we do that we will only limit our own ability to act effectively in the world. We have to accept humanity as our very own. If we are in a position to inspire others, if we are one step ahead, then we have the opportunity to serve divinity in the ones who are following us.

We have to face the world and realise the Highest in the world. We do not want to lead the life of an escapist. Who escapes? He who is afraid, or he who feels that he has done something seriously wrong. We have not done anything wrong and we do not have to be afraid of the world around us. If we are afraid of the world, then we shall be afraid of everything.

Now we see a giant world of imperfection around us. We try to escape it in order to protect ourselves. But I wish to say that a far more formidable enemy than the present-day world is nothing other than our own mind. Even if we go and live in a cave, we cannot escape our mind. We carry that mind with us—a mind which is full of anxiety, jealousy, confusion, doubt, fear and other undivine qualities. This mind of ours forces us to remain in the battlefield of life. If we do not conquer our mind while living in the world, what good will it do us to merely remove our body from the everyday world?

We need not and must not enter into the Himalayan caves in order to meditate. We have to try to transform the face of the world on the strength of our dedication to the divinity in humanity. Meditation is not an escape. Meditation is the acceptance of life in its totality with a view to transforming it for the highest manifestation of the divine Truth here on earth.

Those people who only want to meditate for their own inner peace and progress, and who do not want to offer anything to the world, are selfish. Again, there are those who want to give to the world, but do not want to meditate in order to attain something worth giving. This is foolishness. If we do not possess something, then how are we going to give it? There are many people on earth who are ready to give, but what do they have? So we have to play our part. First we have to achieve, then we have to offer. In this way we ca please God and fulfil mankind.

Do you want to change the world? Then change yourself first. Do you want to change yourself? Then remain completely silent inside the silence-sea.

Is it possible to maintain the inner peace we feel during our morning meditation throughout the day, especially when our jobs are hectic and we sometimes find ourselves in irritating situations?

In the morning, when you pray and meditate, feel that you have gained real wealth in the form of peace, light and bliss. As you keep your money inside your wallet, so you can keep your peace, light and bliss inside your heart. With money-power, you can buy whatever you want. Similarly, the spiritual power that you get from prayer and meditation is a real power. When people are quarrelling, fighting or behaving undivinely, just bring forward the inner power which you have kept inside your heart. Peace is power, light is power, bliss is power, just as money is power. Just bring these qualities forward. The powder of inner peace is infinitely more solid and concrete than any outer disturbance anybody can create on earth. Your inner peace can easily devour the irritation caused by others.

If we meditate well in the morning and acquire some peace, light and bliss that we can keep with us during the day, will this be noticeable to others?

If you have achieved something in your meditation, your friends and colleagues are bound to see something pleasing, soothing, beautiful, enlightening and illumining in you. Peace, light and bliss have entered through your soul into your physical consciousness. The higher and deeper your meditation and the more you have received, the more your face and outer being will radiate and glow. After you have finished meditating, just go and look in a mirror and you will see the difference between what you are now and what you were an hour ago. This obvious physical difference is due to the fact that your physical consciousness is manifesting the light from your soul. Even as you walk along the street, you will be spreading this light. It is like a perfume that you have inside you. You are not actually using it; you are only keeping it, but it is offering its fragrance. At that time the world of aspiration and even the world of suffering, depression and despair will definitely see something in you. And it will try to follow you—sometimes with reluctance, sometimes with joy, sometimes with greed; but in some way or other it will try to follow you.

You do not have to tell others hundreds of times how meditation has changed your life. Only let them see you on one day when you have meditated well and on another day when you have not had a good meditation. The day that you have meditated well, they will see a tremendous change in you. Your very presence will inspire them.

How can I bridge the gap I feel between my spiritual life, which is full of joy, and my life in the office, which is totally unaspiring?

Spiritual life does not mean that you will always be sitting in meditation with your eyes closed. When you do something in the outer world, if you can feel that you are doing it for God, then everything you do will become a part of your spiritual life. Otherwise, when you are meditating in your room, you will feel that you are doing the right thing, and the rest of the time you will feel miserable. Dedicated work is also a form of meditation.

In the morning the Supreme wants you to enter into your highest and offer your love and devotion to Him and receive His peace, light and blessings. Then He wants you to go to your office and do your dedicated service. In both cases, if you can feel that you are doing something because you have been asked to do it from within, then you will have the greatest joy. You are not the doer; you are only a dedicated instrument serving a higher reality. If you can feel this, then you will get joy no matter what you do. Even if you are doing something mechanical, something intellectual or something which is absolutely uninspiring, you will get the greatest joy because you are serving a higher cause.

You have to know that you can feel God's presence in anything you do. If you can be conscious of God while you are doing something—whether it is cleaning or cooking or working—then you will feel that God has entered into what you are doing. If you can feel God's presence within your activity, then whatever you are doing is with God and for God. If you can keep your consciousness high and maintain peace of mind while working, then your work itself is a true form of meditation.

Each devoted moment prepares a beautiful sunrise and a fruitful sunset.

When people try to help humanity, isn't it partly because of ego?

For an ordinary person who is not consciously aspiring, trying to help humanity is a positive and progressive ideal, even if it is partly inspired by ego. But those who are consciously aspiring to reach God IS have a different goal. Their goal is not to help, but to serve humanity—of course, in God's own way.

As spiritual aspirants, we have to know why we are doing something. Were we inspired by God? Were we commissioned by God? If our actions were not inspired by God, if we are not fulfilling God's Will, then the service that we are offering to the world will be full of darkness and imperfection. If we try to help mankind in our own way, we may think that we are serving God, but really we are just aggrandising our own ego. That kind of dedication is no dedication at all for a true spiritual aspirant.

What can I do if sometimes I am angry or upset and don't feel like meditating? Is it okay to do selfless service instead?

Certainly. If your mental agitation has not affected your physical body, at that time, if you feel that you can work devotedly, you should. When you 1 work for the Supreme, at that time you are doing meditation in the physical. You have a body, vital, mind and heart. If you cannot meditate in all parts of your being, then try to meditate in at least one part. But if all the parts of your being—physical, vital, mental and psychic—work together devotedly, then that is the best form of meditation.

If we give up our desires and live all the time in the inner world, how will there be any progress in the outer world?

If you feel that we cannot live all the time in light, that we have to live in darkness for twelve hours and in light for twelve hours, that philosophy is perfectly all right, according to the standard of certain individuals. Someone meditates for one hour, and then goes out and enters into ordinary life. Someone else can meditate for several hours, while there are some people who can meditate all day and night. It is all a matter of necessity. Inner necessity compels one person to meditate for one hour and someone else to meditate for twelve hours or twenty-four hours.

When somebody meditates for an hour, he gets a kind of satisfaction. During that hour, he could have done something totally different, but he did not. He preferred to meditate. He felt that the satisfaction he would get from meditation was more worthwhile than the satisfaction he would get from working or sleeping or whatever else he would have done during that hour. After that hour, perhaps he may want to go back to the worldly life and its kind of satisfaction. It is a question of what kind of satisfaction a person wants and needs.

There are two rooms. One room is unlit and obscure right now; the other room is fully illumined. One person may say that he wants both rooms equally: "I want to remain in the unlit room for twelve hours and in the well-illumined room for twelve hours." So he is most welcome to do that. But somebody else may not feel the necessity of staying in the unlit room at all. He says, "I want to remain only in the room which is illumined."

Yesterday I was clever. That is why I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise. That is why I am changing myself.

Then there is another person who says, "I have remained in the illumined room for twenty-four hours and I have gotten illumination. Now let me go into the other room which is still dark and illumine it with my light." This person has a big heart, so he enters into the dark room to illumine his brothers and sisters who are still in darkness. He was getting satisfaction, abiding satisfaction, in the illumined room, but this was not enough. He will be fully satisfied only when he goes into the dark room and transforms it with his light. So there are some people on earth who have come back into the world of suffering even though they have the perfect capacity to remain eternally in the world of light and delight.

If we can bring the wealth of the inner world into the outer world, then easily we can illumine this world, and this illumination is nothing other than progress. But first we must enter the inner world—the world of light—and receive something ourselves before we can offer it to the outer world. When we can do this, the inner and outer worlds will become united, and the outer world will become fully ready for the inner message. Right now the outer world is not ready, but a day will come when the outer world and the inner world will progress perfectly together.


Do both activity and meditation form the essence of your teaching?

Our philosophy does not negate either the outer life or the inner life. Most human beings negate the inner life. They feel that the inner life is not important as long as their outer life is pleasant. Again, there are a few who think that the outer life is not necessary. They feel that the best thing is to enter into the Himalayan caves and lead a life of solitude, since the outer life is so painful and uninspiring.

We do not believe in living either a life of solitude or an ordinary human life—the so-called modern life that depends on machines and not on the inner reality, the soul. We try to synthesise and harmonise the outer life and the inner life. The outer life is like a beautiful flower and the inner life is its fragrance. If there is no fragrance, then we cannot appreciate the flower. Again, if there is no flower, how can there be any fragrance? So the inner life and the outer life must go together.