Questions and Answers

Questions and Answers

Can we answer our own questions through our daily meditations? And if so, how can we tell if the answer really comes from the heart or the soul, as opposed to the mind?

Any question you have can be answered during your meditation or at the end of your meditation. If you go deep within, you are bound to get an answer. But when you get an answer, you have to determine whether it is coming from the soul or from the mind. If it comes from the heart or the soul, then you will feel a sense of relief and peace. At that time no contradictory thought will come to negate the answer. But if the answer does not come from the heart or the soul, then the mind will come to the fore and contradict the idea you have received.

Messages that come from the mind will have no certainty in them. This moment the mind tells you one thing; the next moment the mind tells you something else. '1'his moment your mind will tell you that I am a very good man; the next moment your mind will say, "No, he is very bad." But the heart always offers the same message. When you sit down to meditate in the morning, it gives one message. In the evening when you meditate, you will get the same message from the heart.

If you get an inner message to see somebody—let us say your boss—you will simply go and sec that person. But if the message comes from the mind, before you see him there will be many questions in your mind. Then, if you finally do sec him and the result does not come out according to your satisfaction, you will curse yourself and say, "No, it was not the right thing to do. I got the wrong message."

But if the message comes from the soul, you will have tremendous conviction, and you will take both success and failure with equal satisfaction. While you are executing the message, you will not expect anything in your own way; you will not expect that your boss will be pleased with you or will do something for you. You will just do it, and whether the result comes in the form of success or failure, you will feel that you have done the right thing.

How can we tell if an inner message is coming from the emotional vital rather than the soul?

You can take the vital as one runner and the soul as another runner. The vital-runner goes very fast at the beginning, with excessive excitement and enthusiasm, but he does not reach the goal. He runs about thirty metres out of a hundred, and then he cannot run anymore. The soul-runner also runs very fast at the beginning. But once the starter fires the gun, he does not stop until he reaches his goal. The soul knows its capacity and will go to the goal with utmost confidence.

When you get a message, immediately try to see which type of runner is represented. Is this the runner who will stop only when the goal is reached, or is this the runner who will run thirty metres and then lose all his energy? If the message comes from the emotional vital, you will feel that the answer you get will not take you to your goal. But if it comes from the soul, you will feel confident that it will take you to the goal.

Here is another way. When you hear a voice which is offering you a solution to a problem, imagine that a vessel is being filled. If you get the feeling of a vessel being filled slowly and steadily, drop by drop, with utmost inner security, then you will know that it is the soul's voice. Otherwise, you will feel that the vessel is being filled with a tumbler or a glass in a hurried manner. It will fill up quickly, but very soon it will begin to spill over the top. The soul will fill the vessel with utmost confidence and inner poise. If you have that kind of patient feeling, then you can know that it is the soul's voice.

A third way is to imagine a flame inside your heart. There are two types of flames. One is steady; the other is flickering. The steady flame inside your heart is not disturbed by any inner wind. But the flickering flame is disturbed by fear, doubt, anxiety and worry. If you feel that your answer is a flickering flame, then it is the voice of the emotional vital. But if it is a very steady flame rising towards the highest, then you will know that it is the soul's voice. Once you know that it is the soul's voice, you can have utmost confidence in that message.

Can one learn to overcome one's fears through meditation?

Through meditation, outer fear and inner fear are bound to leave us. Now you are a victim to fear because you do not know how to expand your consciousness. But when you take refuge in your divinity, with the help of meditation, then fear has to leave you, for it feels that it is knocking at the wrong door. Now you are helpless, but fear will be helpless the moment it sees that through meditation you are in touch with something most powerful.

The very purpose of meditation is to unite, expand, enlighten and immortalise our consciousness. When we meditate, we enter into our own divinity. Divinity is not afraid of humanity, because divinity has infinite power. When we have free access to divinity, when our entire existence, inner and outer, is surcharged with divinity's boundless and infinite power, then how can we be afraid of humanity? It is impossible!

Can meditation protect us from all the injustice we experience in life?

When you have to defend yourself or protect yourself, always try to use a higher weapon. If people say something and you retaliate on the same level, there will be no end to it. Again, if you simply swallow your anger, they will continue to take advantage of you. But when they see and feel tremendous inner peace in you, which you can get from your meditation, they will see something in you which can never be conquered. They will see a change in you, and this change will not only puzzle them but also threaten and frighten them. They will feel that their weapons are useless.

Peace is the most effective weapon with which to conquer injustice. When you pray and meditate, your whole being becomes flooded with peace. This is not something imaginary. You can feel peace; you can swim in the sea of peace. Then, no matter what other people do, you will feel that they are just children playing in front of you. You will say, "These are all children. What more can I expect from them?" But right now, because they are grown up in terms of years, you become angry and upset instead. If you pray and meditate regularly, you will soon feel that your peace is infinitely stronger, more fulfilling and more energising than the unfortunate situations that others create.

Have no fear. Nobody has any power of his own. Only God has power, and His power is another name for His sleepless Love.

Is there a spiritual way to break bad habits?

Certainly there is. Before you do anything, always meditate for a minute or at least for a few seconds. The power of that meditation will enter into the bad habit like an arrow. Meditation, the soldier, will use his divine arrows against bad habits. This is absolutely the best way.

Can meditation help cure physical ailments such as high blood pressure?

Meditation means conscious awareness of our source. When we meditate, we consciously try to go to the source, which is all perfection. Our source is God, our source is truth, our source is light. Meditation takes us to our source, where there is no imperfection, no ailment. And where is the source? It is within us. When we meditate, what result do we get in the outer life? We make our mind calm and quiet. It is almost impossible for most human beings to have peace of mind. He who does not have peace of mind is a veritable beggar; he is like a monkey in a human body. He has no satisfaction. But if we get peace of mind for one fleeting second, we feel we have accomplished a lot in life. When we have peace of mind, our vital and our body become peaceful; and where there is peace there is no disharmony. It is only in the world of anxiety, dissatisfaction, tension and confusion that there is disharmony. Otherwise, there would be no ailments.

High blood pressure, heart failure and all the diseases that we notice in God's creation are due to the presence of negative forces. These negative forces can be overcome only when we surrender to the positive force. When we meditate, we try to become a perfect channel for the positive force. The positive force is light, and the negative force is darkness. The positive force is love, not hatred. The positive force is belief, not disbelief. At each moment in our life the positive force helps us because it takes us consciously to our destination, which is perfection.

If our mind is calm and quiet, if our vital is dynamic, if our body is conscious of what it is doing, then we are inside the palace of satisfaction, where there can be no disease, no suffering, no imperfection, no obstruction to our abiding peace, abiding light, abiding satisfaction. Meditation is a means; it is a way; it is a path. If we walk along this path, then we reach our destination, which is all perfection.

If we are confused and nervous, how will meditation ever be able to help us?

In the physical world, when somebody has a headache or a stomach upset, he goes to a doctor and the doctor cures him. If somebody is sick, then how can we say that he will never be well again? If he takes medicine, then there is every possibility that he will be cured. For a sick person, medicine is the answer. If somebody is assailed by anxiety, worry and confusion, meditation is the remedy. Just because he is a victim, we can't say that there will be no saviour. The saviour is there, provided the individual wants to be cured.

Suppose somebody is assailed by confusion and negative forces that deplete all his energy and take all joy out of his life. He is depressed and has surrendered to frustration owing to countless problems in his life. Let us take him as a patient: he needs a doctor, he needs treatment. When an individual is suffering from a few ailments in the mental world, he has to go to someone who has some peace of mind, some light, some inner assurance for him. This is a spiritual teacher. The spiritual teacher is like a doctor who will advise the person as to how he can free himself from fear, doubt, confusion, tension and all the negative forces that are torturing him.

Is it really necessary to seek help when we are suffering from mental problems? Can't we just meditate by ourselves and find the answer?

Suppose you say, "I am suffering from certain mental difficulties, but I know the answer is inside. Now it is all night, but I feel that there is light inside my heart." This is what you feel, but you find it difficult to go deep within and discover the light. Then you have to go to someone who can bring to the fore the light that you have within you. It is as if you have misplaced the key to your own house and you don't all: know how to open the door. But a friend of yours comes with a light and helps you look for the key. After you find it with his help, you open the door and then he goes away. If you are ready to search in the dark for the key that you have lost, then you can try. But if you have a friend who has a light, then you can have more confidence in finding the key. So the teacher is a helper, an eternal friend who helps you in your search. When he helps you find the key, he won't keep it. He as won't say it is his key. No! It is your key, your house, your light. Then you will enter into the house and get everything that you needed and wanted.

If we feel nervous or upset, how can we bring down peace?

There are two ways. One way is to breathe in quietly and say "Supreme" three times very slowly. But if you find this difficult, you can invoke the Supreme as fast as possible. Fear or anxiety has a speed of its own. If you are about to be attacked by your enemy, then try to utter the name of the Supreme much faster than the speed of the attack you are getting from anger or fear. If you can do this, the Supreme will immediately conquer your anger, frustration or fear.

Look at your heart-flower and smile. You will be able to solve your most pressing problems.

How can one remain calm in the mind when one has so many things to do in so little time?

First of all, if you are not peaceful, do you think that the things you have to accomplish will be accomplished sooner? No! When you are restless and agitated, when you are full of anxiety and worries, you just add to your problems and difficulties. Suppose you have a destination which you want to reach as soon as possible. If you carry inside you undivine elements like fear, doubt, anxiety, insecurity and so forth, that means you are carrying an extra weight and diminishing your ass capacity. So how will you reach your goal at the earliest possible hour? Your appointed hour will be delayed. A runner knows that if he carries extra weight, his opponents will defeat him. You have to feel the necessity of emptying your mind all the time. When doubt, fear, insecurity or any other negative forces enter into your mind, just empty them out, cast them aside so that you can run the fastest. Worries and anxieties will never help us. On the contrary, they will delay us. But if we have peace of mind, then we can run the fastest toward the goal.

How can we use meditation to get rid of pain?

You should try to invoke light in order to cure pain. Pain is, after all, a kind of darkness within us. When the inner light or the light from above starts functioning in the pain itself, then the pain is removed or transformed into joy. Really advanced seekers can actually feel joy in the pain itself. But for that, one has to be very highly advanced. In your case, during your prayer or meditation you should try to bring down light from above and feel that the pain is a darkness within you. If you bring down light, then the pain will cither be illumined and transformed or removed from your system.

One time when I was meditating I suddenly found myself thinking about some friends who needed some help. I could never describe the power I felt at this time, but I took these friends and lifted them. Two or three days later these friends were helped. Somebody needed a job and he got it, and somebody was ill and he got better. Is it related to my experience or was it mere coincidence?

It was not a coincidence; far from it. It was your own inner being that helped them. At that time you became the instrument of the Inner Pilot, the Supreme. The Supreme wanted to help those people, and He actually made you the instrument to help them. It was not a coincidence.

When you meditate and enter into your highest consciousness, your soul automatically tries to help your dear ones. When you enter into a very high, very deep realm of consciousness, automatically the power from within comes to the fore and you can help others. Sometimes your friends do not know who has helped them. But your soul knows and their souls know that the help has come from you. It is not your mental hallucination or ego.

If you can become a better listener. God's Compassion will immediately become a better adviser.