Miryalaguda is situated about two and a half hours away from Kanha Shanti Vanam in the Nalgonda district of Telangana. Daaji arrived at Shri Bikashapathi’s home in Miryalaguda around noon, where many practitioners [abhyasis] had gathered to welcome him. After offering prasad, Daaji conducted meditation.

12 September
Role of Consciousness
Q&A with Daaji

The evening program was arranged at a local convention hall where among the veteran and new abhyasis, there were many seekers who had come to experience Heartfulness meditation for the first time. After the meditation, Daaji answered two questions.

Q: What is the inner consciousness and how do we develop it? 
Daaji: Consciousness has always been there. Even when we will not be, it will always be there. For example, do we really see the actual sunlight? No. We see the objects when it falls on them. Consciousness is everywhere, like light. If you keep your doors and windows closed, then you will not be able to see the luminosity, the light that emanates. You will see only darkness, though the light is very much there. Consciousness is our ability to perceive, to become aware. And it changes from person to person. For example, your mother may be sick. Your sister might notice her sickness before you would or vice versa. This is one level of consciousness/awareness—who perceives it faster? The next level of consciousness is how one responds responsibly. You may say to your mother, “Let me go to work. I will get the medicine for you on my way back from work.” But then what will happen to her in those eight hours? And your sister might say, “Let me sit with my mother, massage her feet or head and have someone get the medicine for her.” So we have to understand the situation. And this ability to perceive and act according to the situation is the function of our consciousness.

This consciousness gets affected at multiple levels because of mainly three aspects: 

• First is our desires. One may say, I want to serve my mother, but my desire is to go to  work. So it depends which desire dominates in a particular circumstance.
• The second is your intellect. It will analyze, “I spend some time here [with my sick mother] versus if I go to my office and work.” You will look at the profitability of the situation.
• The third is our ego. Suppose you had a fight with your mother, who is sick at that moment. And because you fought with her, your ego is hurt, and you say, “Let me avoid her, let her suffer.” This is your ego talking.

So these three aspects change our ability to perceive. But through our own purification, we are able to perceive things better and act appropriately. That is why when we close our eyes, many times we get so many thoughts. And these thoughts are not just irrelevant ones—they are there to remind us what to do, what we have avoided, and what we could have done better. They remind us of our guilt, our defects, and all the things that we have not done properly. They attack us during meditation. They don't leave us, until we understand very clearly, “Let me do things properly, responsibly.” And that is the fundamental role of consciousness.

There are 18 chapters and 700 slokas in the Bhagavad Gita and they are divided into 3 major categories: Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga and Bhakti Yoga. Chapters 1 to 6 are all about karma, what you should be doing and what you should be avoiding. Chapters 7 to 12 are all about Jnana and Bhakti. Our life is also like that, existential, emotional and spiritual.

First is existential. Without karma you cannot exist: you have to work, work and work. It can be both karma as well as trauma. It falls in that category.

Second is emotional fulfillment. Everyone needs that. To be pampered, to receive affection and share affection. These are all human needs.

And the third, the highest, is spiritual fulfillment. You may have existential satisfaction, you may have emotional fulfillment, but without this spiritual fulfillment, your life will remain unfulfilled. It is like you have failed in the fifth class, and you have to repeat the fifth class. So if we fail in the spiritual realm, failing to fulfill our spiritual responsibility, Nature throws us back into the cycle of birth and rebirth. So, it is very important to become aware of our responsibilities towards the Self. The purpose for which we took this birth should take priority.

 We also must act on all levels of responsibilities—toward the family, community, country, and planet. But this acting on all levels cannot happen without becoming fully aware, fully conscious of the inside, and also of the outside. Only then will such a person not pollute the air; such a person will not pollute the water, or the earth, etc., because their mind is pure and unpolluted.

It is thought pollution that creates many levels of pollution. So meditation is the key. Keep doing it regularly and don't ever ignore the process of purification, Cleaning.  

Q: When I meditate every day, I feel a special energy around me, but when I don't meditate for 1 or 2 days, I feel that it is not there or that I have lost it, why is it so?

Daaji: The cause is that you are not careful about your daily meditation. Do it regularly. It only shows you that “when I don't meditate, I don't feel.” So meditate. Don't skip it. To me, meditation is the most important thing, a part of our existence. You may not eat for a few days and it's okay, but never skip meditation, even for one day. It’s like this: suppose I have to make a building, I make it with one brick at a time. I put one brick, then another brick, then the third one, and that's how we build the walls. My spiritual empire is built brick by brick, one meditation at a time, second meditation, third meditation, and so on. It's a daily thing. You skip one, one brick is gone. It will remain hollow. So, consistency, regularity, discipline, and more than anything, how you meditate is important.

Some masons will put the bricks haphazardly, then the finished wall looks ugly. When a professional mason lays the bricks, it looks so perfect that the wall does not even require plaster.  

Our worship, our bhakti [devotion] should take us to the highest. It should be the highest expression of our love. We should not worship because we need something. If you worship because you need something, then it becomes a business. And you can do business with others, but not with God. He knows your intentions, your thoughts, and your actions. You cannot cheat Him. And He's not a fool. In the process, you will only hurt yourself. And there is no point asking for anything from God. He may give you the whole world, but if he holds himself back, you're still a beggar.

13th September

Daaji met with some guests in the morning, and during breakfast they discussed how to spiritualize the youth, and how to sensitize them to the need for spirituality in their lives. Daaji then left for the convention hall to conduct the meditation session. After the meditation, he spoke to the audience, with an interpreter who simultaneously translated his talk into Telugu. Later, he also answered some questions. Here are some excerpts from his speech.

• The specialty of the Heartfulness way is balance—the integration of spiritual and material life. Babuji Maharaj used to say, “We should not go into spirituality so much that our material life suffers.”  Imagine a housewife who wakes up at 5 am and meditates till 12 noon. Imagine the condition of that house. And we should not get into material life so much that our spiritual life suffers. We have to integrate both without any specific importance to any. 
• This is about personal life; now think about the Mission. Let me give you a real-life example. I was in Baroda in September 2015 and I was spending my birthday with my mother, just being with her, nothing else. But I was already in the limelight of the Mission. People started coming from all over bringing lots of gifts. I asked one particular couple, “Why do you bring gifts, I am already a wealthy person; I don’t need them.” I was trying to discourage them. They said, “Please accept it; it will give us joy.” So I accepted it. Then I asked the girl, “How much did it cost you?”  “2700 rupees.” Then I asked the boy, who said it cost him 10,000 rupees. I asked them if their parents knew about their spending so much money. “No.” “How much money can you spend each day without your parents knowing about it?” “Around 1000 rupees.” So I told them that instead of burning these 1000 rupees a month, at least save 100 rupees a day. So each month you will save 3000 and thus 36,000 a year. Imagine 100,000 abhyasis saving money like that?!
• When the Ayodhya temple was to be built, I was approached for a donation. After giving the donation, I told them, “You are making a mistake. You go to one industrialist collecting 1 crore rupees, then another big person to collect another high amount and so on. Instead, make a pledge of getting a contribution of only 10 rupees from 100 crore Hindus, you will have 1000 crore rupees in 1 day. Even beggars can give 10 rupees. So I am encouraging abhyasis to save something and contribute to the Mission. Some can save 10 a day, some 100 a day, and some can save 1 lakh a day and nothing happens to them. The goal of the Hierarchy of Masters is to have a dhyaan mandir [meditation centre] in every major city of India. And for that our contribution as individuals will go a very long way. So I wish that, depending on your capacity, you start saving money, and contribute in such a way that having spent that much for donation does not hurt your family. 
• This morning we were discussing how to spiritualize the youth—how to sensitize them to the need for spirituality in their lives. No one gets convinced by talks, especially the youth. But when we offer them a yogic experience, they will say, “Yes there is something to it and I need to continue this practice.” So to fulfill such a need I think we have to intensify our efforts, and offer the youth our services by going to schools and colleges to train them. We offer them an opportunity to see how a mere human can become humane and then divine. Thank you for listening, and kindly accept my appeal. Take it to your heart.

 Q&A with Daaji

Q: Is there any connection between our dreams and our spiritual journey?
Daaji: Yes, it’s always there.

Q: I have repetitive dreams. Is there a remedy for it?
Daaji: Write it in your diary and forget about it. [After a pause] It would be nice if one day, you write to me about these dreams which keep repeating.

Q: In the present, with the samskaras [impressions] I have, with the problems I face and the people I meet, how do I lead my life as a witness to all this—without reacting or responding?

Daaji: Well, we begin with this practice of meditation. Whenever we try to be a witness to everything in our life, because of our likes and dislikes, we identify ourselves with those actions. Suppose you are looking at a perfume; you try it, but you don’t like it. You look at a person in the family and say, “Oh, I don’t like him or her.” So even when you are witnessing, you somehow identify yourself with either likes or dislikes. And in that way, you create impressions.

We have a very beautiful, simple solution—as a result of whenever we meditate, we arrive at a very special spiritual condition within us. Hold on to it. Having held on to it, we enter the world, do our worldly activities. For example, you are cooking, but at the same time that spiritual condition is tagging along with you. So now what happens is you are witnessing your inner condition with full attention, while giving just the minimal attention to your cooking, or other worldly activities. Sometimes, the opposite happens—full attention is given to external activities and very little attention to the inner spiritual state. But, it’s okay, as long as this thread of connection is there between your conscious mind and your subconscious act of holding on to that spiritual state.

Simply put, it is being absorbed in the remembrance of the Master and doing things.

This way is better than witnessing. This step, which Babuji Maharaj shared with us, is much better than Lord Krishna’s description in the Bhagavad Gita.

Meditation is the mother of creating spiritual states. Meditation done with more and more bhakti [devotion] and more and more love will create better and better spiritual states. Supreme love and devotion—not ordinary love. Meditation done as an ordinary religious ritual will not help you much. No ordinary attachment will help.