1. CAN 83-9 Gururaj. Namaste. This morning we are going to start off with the Purification Technique. We call it the Purification Technique for lack of a better word. Let me pronounce it for you, to give you an idea of how it goes and then after that I’l l explain it to you. Aum Vaak Vaak Aum Prana Prana You follow me, just let me go through the sound of it, you can get the idea. Aum Vak Vak Aum Pranah Aum Chakshuh Chakshuh Aum Shrotram Shrotram Aum Nabhih Aum Hridhayam Aum Kunthahah Aum Shiraha Aum Bahubhyam Yashobalam Aum Karatalkara Prishthe Aum Buha Punatu Shirashi Aum Buvah Punatu Netrayam Aum Swah Punatu Kanthe Aum Mahah Punatu Hridaye Aum Janaha Punatu Nabhyam Aum Tapah Punatu Padyam Aum Satyam Punaha Shirashi Aum Khan Brahma Punatu Sarvatra Aum Bhuh Aum Bhuvah

2. CAN 83-9 Aum Swah Aum Mahah Aum Janah Aum Tapah Aum Satyam Many times people tell us that they can’t get deep enough into meditation. Now the main reason for this is that you come hurried home from a hard day’s work and you sit down to meditate or a housewife might be harassed the whole day through with the work or any such thing and you are not calm. The best way to sit down to meditation is to feel calm and you’ll find your meditations will go deeper. Fine. Now these various - you’ll find along side here what these words stand for. The only reason we are using Sanskrit is because Sanskrit was the mother of all languages and Sanskrit was conceived by the Sages that could really hear the sound. Say for example, light, they’d look at the light and going into deep meditation, the sound of the light would come to them and that formulated the Sanskrit language. For example if it’s a table, then they would meditate on the object and they would hear the word table, table, table, and that’s how it was called table. You see. And from the Sanskrit language, which being the mother of all languages, many of the other languages have come about. For example even in the English language, you’d find a lot of Sanskrit words. We were discussing semantics the other day and just to take a simple word like ‘man’, it comes from the Sanskrit word ‘Manoo’. You see. So now this Practice would be useless if it is just done in a parrot-like fashion. I’ll show you how you touch yourself an d normally what we do is have a little bowl of water and we dip these two middle fingers, which science proved that they are the purveyors or conveyors of the entire energy within ourselves. So for example even in healing, these two fingers, the middle ones are the ones that are used. It’s not like this chap who’s chatting to his friends in a drinking party and he says ‘Oh, I only take two fingers of Scotch, two fingers of Scotch’. So it’s not like that. So these two middle fingers convey the greatest amount of energy to you. Fine. Now when this Practice is done, you do it before meditation and it must be done with sincerity and you’d find yourself becoming calmer and calmer. Now this is done in all theologies, for example all religions. The Muslim would have the Menuhin standing up in a minaret and you know shouting out for people to come to prayers, ‘Allah akhbar, Allah akhbar, Lylahie - this is Arabic – Lylahee laha Mohammeduru sullullaam’ - a call to prayer. Now while you are walking to

3. CAN 83-9 the Mosque, naturally those words are heard and it creates a certain kind of mood within you that you are going to the Mosque. The same thing in Christian religion, you hear the bells pealing and as you’re going to the church, those sounds are penetrating your ears and you feel I am going to a holy place. The Hindus the same, when you enter the Temple, there are bells and you ring a bell and you allow that sound to penetrate you and you get that feeling, you get into that mood. But of course in meditation it’s not mood making. In meditation you rise above the mood. So this is a preparation towards meditation and then you go into a more deeper state of meditation. Now all these various organs of the body that we touch, we normally have a little bowl of water there, the five elements of the entire universe is water, air, fire, earth and ether. And water being most convenient, it also has a very calming affect. For example in the East, you are never allowed to sit down to prayers without having a bath first. It calms you down, it cools you down. You come from a funeral, the first thing before you enter the house, you are sprinkled with water. It has a cool, calming affect, so water is used. You can use fire also, if you wish to burn your fingers. I don't mind. So, you can repeat with me and do the actions. Another thing, it is something like the little statues of the three monkeys - you have seen that little statue - speak no evil, the other monkey has hear no evil and see no evil. Now, so one purifies one’s thoughts with these ideas and then when you sit down to meditation, you’ll find you’ll go to a far deeper and deeper level in your meditation. So this is how it goes. The Third Section, number three, is a Pranayama, so when we come to that, I’ll explain you that. Fine. Aum - now you can repeat with me and watch what I’m doing. Aum Vaa Vak (Gururaj leads the Purification Practice with everybody joining in) Aum Pranah Pranah Aum Chakshuh Chakshuh Aum Shrotram Shrotram Aum Nabhih Aum Hridhayam Aum Kunthah Aum Shirah Aum Bahubhyam Yashobalam Aum Karatalkar Pristhe

4. CAN 83-9 Let my speech - Aum Vaak Vaak, - let my speech be purified so that I don’t speak harsh words. It must be done with feeling. Let my breath breathe Prana, purity, the vital force, Let my eyes always see good things, Let my ears hear only good things, The navel you know contains the greatest complex, you know there’s a nerve bundle there. May that be purified. Right. The heart - let my heart be purified. Let my throat always utter good words in sweetness. And then top of head - may I always be thinking of good things. Now we have knees here but of course that symbolises all the limbs. May all my limbs be used for a good purpose. And then arms up to all. That may this not only be for me but also for everyone in the world. Good. Right. The second. Aum Buh Punatu Shirashi Aum Buvah Punatu Naytrayam - Punatu means again. Aum Swah Punatu Kanthe Aum Maha Punatu Hridaye Aum Janah Punatu Nabhyam Aum Tapah Punatu Padyam Aum Satyam Punaha Shirashi Aum Kham Brahma Punatu Sarvatra Again we repeat that, let my head be full of clear thoughts, good thoughts, let me be discriminative. Let my eyes see good things, Let my throat utter sweet words, Let my heart be purified, The nervous complex symbolised by the navel be purified so I could be healthy, because most of people’s troubles start from the nervous system. Then of course knees which also symbolises all the limbs, may they be used in a good way and

5. CAN 83-9 of course then again - Satyam means truth - again let truth always pervade my mind, we touch the top of the head - Aum Khan Brahma Punatu Sarvatra - May this be again I repeat - Punatu repeat - that may all else also benefit. For we don’t only pray for ourselves but we also pray for everyone around us. That’s the best form of prayer. So therefore we call it the Purification Practice. And you do this Section One about three times or even more if you like, it’s up to you. Section Two also three times, six times as much as you like and you’ll find the very sound of these words. Therefore we didn’t put it - we could say ‘Aum speech, speech’, ‘Aum breath, breath’. No. It would not have the same effect as the sound of the Sanskrit words. Because we are all vibration and these words were conceived you know as I said by the Sages hearing the vibrations of various objects and it’s based entirely on vibrations. It’s nice to deal at its primal fundamental level of vibration, so the sound itself - someone might be prejudiced why I used Sanskrit - but the sound itself also has an effect upon you. So, good. Fine. The third section is Pranayama which brings your body into rhythm. Now Section Three, it is done exhaling the whole lot and then the second time it is inhaling. Now in the beginning, to exhale while uttering or inhaling while uttering, might be a bit difficult, so you can do it mentally. But with a little practice, you will find that you can exhale and inhal e while still uttering words. I met a Swami here in America on my last trip, who - a great classical singer - and they made some tests on him and he was put into a glass case where there was no air at all and yet he sang the most intricate Ragas, music, songs without any air there at all. Because breathing, Pranayama is a wonderful thing. You’ve heard of some Yogis being buried for thirty days underground and they just take one breath and there’s so much vital force in one breath that you can live on that one breath for thirty days and even more. So the breath, it’s not only the breath but the vital energy. Breath is only the outward manifestation. But the vital energy that lies in that one breath can last you for a long time. See. So we’ll start with Section Three. Take a deep breath and breathe out while you’re uttering this. Aum Buha Aum Buvaha Aum Svaha Aum Mahah Aum Janah

6. CAN 83-9 Aum Tapah Aum Satyam You see how the entire emptying of the lungs takes place. And this is perfectly timed for the average person. So th e entire lungs - now the most important thing in breathing is not inhalation but exhalation. Like in eating, the most important thing is elimination rather than taking in the food. For if the elimination is not proper, you would not feel well . So we breathe out with the first and then repeating it, you are breathing in. Good, let’s do it again. Fine. (Section Three repeated again). In. (Repeated again) You see. Now if you do this, you can do this three times, six times and you’ll feel so calm and quiet, so when you start with your meditation, you won’t become impatient and things like that, and you’ll find your meditations will go deeper. So try it and you’ll find it very, very helpful but you have to be sincere, when you say ‘Aum Chakshu Chakshu’, inside you feel that, Lord let my eyes always see that which is good. ‘Aum Shotram Shotram’, let my ears only hear that which is good. Because there’s a lot of muck going around, we don’t even need to hear that. So if the mind is repatterned in seeing, thinking, feeling, smelling and all these things for goodness, then you will find that your life changes. You will only hear sweet words and utter sweet words and never a harsh word. And even if they’re harsh words spoken around you, your attention will not be in that at all. Do you see? If someone says to you, ‘You are a fool’. You’ll say ‘Ah, what beautiful, what a lovely word’. But fool, I’ll spell full. You are full. Do you see how we can take words and not get hurt and not be affected by anything? Someone tells me ‘Oh, that’s a wonderful idea’, immediately the thought will spring to my mind, ‘I am dear to him’. That’s the idea. You see. So in every situation in life, people do not need to feel hurt by anything at all. Nothing needs to affect you whatsoever. If a person can live in this way and do their Spiritual Practices regularly, you’d find their lives becoming, become transformed, they live richer lives, they enjoy everything to the fullest. For there is no one on this earth that has, that, that will have some good in them. Everyone has some good in them. But people always accentuate or take the attention to things which are not good and they forget the other side. Even the vilest person on earth has some good on him. I was taken to see a movie, I can’t remember the name because very seldom I go to movies, and here was a person who was a murderer and he was escaping from the Police, the Police were chasing him. But here in the scene as he was running away, he saw a little kitten, I suppose in some kind of trouble. And he got hold of the kitten and caressed

7. CAN 83-9 the kitten and - because it was a very well made film - you could see the expression in the man’s eyes, the love he felt for this little animal and yet he was supposed to have killed someone and the Police were chasing him. So look at the love and kindness he had also in him inspite of him being a murderer. So my attention was drawn to his kindness to the little kitten rather more than the police chase. So we can always find something good in everyone. Everyone is essentially good. Everyone is essentially Divine. It’s only the veil of nescience or ignorance that covers up the goodness that is within them. And then the whole trouble is that the attention is on that which is not good, rather than putting the attention on things that are good. You see. And that is how you appreciate the beauty of life. You see the clouded sky, overcast and say ‘Oh, what a miserable day this is’. Why think that way? Say, ‘Ah, we need these clouds for the rain so that flowers and fruit might grow that we could eat’. Because if it wasn’t for the rain, fruit won’t grow and you yourself won’t have any sustenance to keep up the body. So it is where we put the emphasis. It is how we look at things. So the Purificatory Practice done sincerely, honestly and with honesty, has a great affect upon the patternings of our minds. Talk of honesty, this lady opened up a Restaurant and she did wonderful business and became very popular. But after a while she thought that with one bag of tea I could make three cups instead of one cup. Now so she started doing that to make extra profits of course. And then later people started staying away from her Restaurant and didn’t patronise her. And she had a tea shop and she had become very famous, but now she started using one bag of tea for three cups of tea. So people stopped going there and she became bankrupt. So here too you can see that ‘honest tea’ is the best policy ! Good. What shall we speak about today? Nirmilla. Guruji, before we do that Gururaj. Yes. Any questions? Sorry, yes. Yes of course. Nirmilla. ......repeat........(Inaudible) Gururaj. No, that is just for you to understand and have those thoughts in mind that, ‘Lord you are the vital energy, you are the taken of my burden’. And it would become after a little practice, it would become so natural to you that when you touch yourself, you know with these two fingers, automatically those thoughts would arise. You breathe in and you say ‘You are the vital energy of myself’. It’s a total dedication and as I said before all religions practise that and you get into a

8. CAN 83-9 nice frame of mind. Let’s not call it mood - get into a nice frame of mind and then you sit down with your meditations and you’ll find your meditations will become more profounder, more deeper and much, much more enjoyable. And then with that cool calm mind you won’t feel intolerant or impatient or things like that. Even if there’s a big noise going on outside, it won’t disturb you, because the noise will fade away in the background. It is similar to you sitting down reading and you’re totally absorbed in the book and the doorbell rings and you don’t hear it. The ears were there but the organs of hearing which is beyond the ears, were absorbed in something else. So everything just fades away for you and you are totally absorbed in that beautiful, that beautitude of becoming closer and closer to that which is within you, Divinity. Questioner. ...Sanskrit, could you tell us about the Chant, those words that are used ....... ...................................... ................. (Inaudible). Gururaj. Oh the Chant. Yeah. Aim Hrim Krim Chumundi Yai Viche Che, Aim Hrim Krim Chumundi Yai Viche Che. (Gururaj continues chanting). Now these words have no meaning at all but they are, these words here have a meaning, but those words, these words have a meaning because they are to be meaningful. But in the Chant they have no meaning and they are scientifically worked out to have the proper amount of exhalation all the time. You’re clearing out all the toxins of your body and you have a feeling of well-being. There are a few ways of clearing out toxins, like the bathroom, number one and number two, you clear out toxins in the body. Perspiration clears out toxins and breathing clears out toxins from the body and you have a lighter feeling. But that’s not the only thing. It’s not only a cleansing process but it also provides a certain rhythm within you, where mind and body function together rhythmically and that’s very important. Mind and body not functioning rhythmically is another sign of fragmentation, because all our Practices are interlinked with each other. Now when you do the Chant, you must do at least seven rounds. For the Chant to take effect, it would take about three rounds. And the one hundred and eight beads, that is just a timing device. They mean nothing else. The Hindus would tell you, you know there are one hundred and eight names for God. Forget it, that’s their belief. People always try to add some kind of mystical quality to things when things are just purely scientific and systematic. So it is for timing that you use beads. Fine. Now the very important thing that happens is this, that after three rounds of chanting, for some it might be a bit longer, some even in one round. For me just a few times just saying ‘Aim Hrim Krim Chumundi Yai Viche Che, Aim Hrim Krim Chumundi Yai Viche Che, Aim Hrim Krim Chumundi Yai Viche Che’, three or four times and I’m gone. Now what

9. CAN 83-9 you’ll find is this, that you would be repeating it and you’d be observing your repetition of the Chant, you become the observer. So that is how you learn to separate the Big ‘I’ from the small ‘i’. That is how you start recognising the small ego self or the small ‘i’ and observe it from the level of the big ‘I’. For after three rounds of chanting, it becomes so automatic, it just goes on as if you’re not chanting, the Chant is there and you become the observer. Now this is a great lesson to learn in practical life where you can observe the workings of the small ‘i’, so you do not get affected and they do not leave impressions upon your mind, which in turn become Samskaras for which you would have to pay. So, whatever you sow, you will reap. So if no Samskaras are left in the mind then naturally there’s nothing to pay, the mind becomes clearer and clearer. So through this Practice, it also heightens the vibration in the atmosphere. I know for example in India when a new Temple is built and a statue of a God or Goddess is put in there as an object, and I explained I think during the Course that you don’t pray to the idol but you pray through the idol, the idol is only a focal point. It’s not idolatry really. Of course people use it as idolatry and everything gets turned and twisted and misinterpreted and wrongly done. I remember I was at the opening of various Temples and for three weeks we used to chant twenty four hours of the day. Well we used to take it in turns. A group of twenty or thirty or forty people would take over for two hours and then other group takes over two or three hours and then another group and we used to divide it up. So the Chant used to go on for three weeks, twenty four hours of the day and then only would the statue be placed on its pedestal. But during that three weeks of chanting, it enlivens and refines the entire atmosphere. So chanting has great, great value. I don’t know if I told you this joke, I’m sure I must have, about chanting. I was at a place - I don’t know if I told it here or elsewhere, - I was at a place, very well- to -do family, lovely home. I was giving a Course or a lecture in that town, I had to stay over night and early in the morning you know I heard the sound floating up of this lady chanting ‘Aim Hrim Krim Chumundi Yai Viche Che, Aim Hrim Krim Chumundi Yai Viche Che, Aim Hrim Krim Chumundi Yai Viche Che’’. So the sound was floating up, beautiful. I say ‘Oh, what a lovely way to start the day’. So when I came down, I commented to the hostess, I says ‘Oh, that was very beautiful. Do you start your chants everyday?’ So she says ‘Guruji, I have to be honest to you’ - people very seldom tell me lies or else they can’t benefit. It’s only by discussing the truth that the teacher could advise them, counsel them, heal them, whatever the case might be. So she says ‘I have to be very truthful. I do one round of chanting for a soft boiled egg and three rounds for a hard boiled egg’. Nevertheless another good thing about chanting is this, for example I’ve said this in many talks that I would challenge Norman Vincent Peel, an American who’s quite famous here I believe, I would challenge him on any public

10. CAN 83-9 platform. He says ‘Look, you take a negative thought and you replace it with a positive thought’. Now the position is this, that it is just impossible. You just can’t switch over. It’s not an electric switch where you turn on and off. The process should that if there’s a negative thought swirling in your mind, you’ve got to neutralise the mind first and then introduce a positive thought, a thought of beauty. Now how do one neutralise the mind? You can do it by doing Gurushakti. You can do it by repetition of your personal mantra in your mind and you can do it by doing the Chant. So here you’re thinking ‘Oh, that bloody Auntie Mary, this, that, the other and she did this and she did that’. And that’s how it comes up and you check it – ‘Oh what am I thinking about, you know Auntie Mary also has some good qualities in her. She knitted those lovely pair of booties for my baby’. Right. You can see it that way and you change the thought and you start chanting and get absorbed in the chanting, Aim Hrim Krim Chumundi Yai Viche Che, Aim Hrim Krim Chumundi Yai Viche Che. Keep on repeating it and you’ll find the negative thought just being dispersed, because the very sound of the Chant is uplifting. It takes you to a higher level of your mind and it has a neutralising, a calming effect and then you think of the positive things, Auntie Mary’s little booties for Rosemary or whatever. You see and that is how. When you have a negative thought going in the mind, you neutralise it and then you start with a pleasant good thought you see and that is what Norman Vincent Peel lacks. He says ‘You have a negative thought, you change it into a positive thought’. You can’t do it, it’s impossible, because then the mind would be angry. Negative thoughts are always associated with some form of hatred, with some form of anger, with some form of envy, malice, prejudice, bias, whatever you want to call it. So by neutralising it first and then you hear the positive thought. Someone was asking me the other day, seeing that we are talking of Practices, someone was asking me the other day why do we use a gong you know when we do meditations in a group. Now the reason of the gong is very simple. See, a mantra, when you start with your mantra meditation, it has to fade away. Now people have the erroneous idea that the mind must have no thoughts at all. Now that is erroneous because any Psychologist or Psychiatrist will tell you that the mind can never remain a vacuum, unless of course someone conks you with a five pound hammer and you become unconscious. Good. So in meditation thought and mantra, thought and mantra alternate, it alternates. Right. So now thought is like a story, it has a beginning, middle and end. And as the thought is ending, you very easily, without forcing yourself, the more effort you make the less successful you are in meditation. It has to be effortless and then very easily you pick up your mantra and start the repetition of it and then you’ll find the mantra fading away. Like for example striking the gong - is the striker there? Now as you strike the gong, you listen - Timmy - how does one get this off, or don’t you take it off?

11. CAN 83-9 Voice. Just slip it Gururaj. Oh you slip this, how do you do it? Oh, is that what it is? Right. Now, now just listen to this - (The gong is struck). Do it once more. (The gong is struck again). This is how a mantra must function in your mind, that you start off the mantra and you find the mantra fading away like the sound fades away in on the gong. It starts with a bang ‘hummmmmmm’ and that’s how your mantra fades away. And what happens is this, that with the mantra fading away, you go to the deeper and deeper levels of your mind. So this is a Practice to teach you how to use the mantra. You see. It becomes a natural thing. You don’t try to make it fade away. It will just become natural if you do it innocently and effortlessly. So the mantra fades away and another thought will come up and let the thought have its play. You watch the thought, let it play. After all a thought is a projection on the screen of the mind. It’s like being in a cinema and you watch what’s happening on the screen. You can’t go to interfere with what’s happening on the screen. If there’s a fight on the screen, you can’t go and stop it and you’re sitting in the audience, you’re watching it. That’s how you watch your thought and when the thought goes away, you very easily and without effort you pick up your mantra and like the gong your mantra fades away, and another thought comes. Like that. So during twenty minutes or half an hour of meditation, if you just dive down and the mantra fades away say three or four times only perhaps, that will bring about so much energy within you, so much clarity. Now when you dive deep with the mantra fading away, you can’t remain down there in the depths, so you come up again and you come up in the form of thought, any thought, good thought, bad thought, it doesn’t matter. Don’t make any effort at all what kind of thought it is. It could be a bad thought. It could be a thought ‘Oh, wha t am I going to cook for super tonight for the old man?’ or anything for that matter. Its not important. The thought is not important. The process is important. So when the thought fades away and you bring up the mantra, the mantra fades away, thought and you do that. And as I told someone the other day, meditation is also experimentation. So general rules are given that you meditate for thirty minutes, but if you find that twenty minutes is enough for you, by all means twenty. And if you find forty is enough for you then you do it for forty minutes or whatever. But always if you want to increase the time of meditation then you do it gradually. You don’t need eat more than what you could digest. So you judge your hunger. If you feel more hungrier one day, you eat a bit more, next day you’re not so hungry and you eat a bit less. Good. So that was mantra, that was chanting. Now let’s talk about Pranayama. Pranayama is a very, very great science and the primal technique given to you is four, sixteen, eight. Now that is the, if you can stand apart from the universe, that would be the beat of the entire universe. So you are attuning yourself to the universe around you because that is the beat

12. CAN 83-9 in which the universe functions, that ratio. So you inhale to the count of four. Perhaps in the beginning you’d have to count one, two, three, four in your mind but with a bit of practice, you stop counting. Then you know you automatically sense the time. It’s like anything else. When I go into meditation, I say to myself I’m going to meditate for two hours and I go into meditation exactly, I might be wrong but the clock would prove that I’m right. Like most of you might have experimented on time. If you repeat to yourself quite a few times before going to bed that ‘I’m going to wake up at four o’clock, I am going to wake up at four o’clock’ and repeat that a dozen times in your mind and then you go to sleep and you will definitely wake up at four o’clock. You will. It’s a very simple practice. So like that even in Pranayama then yo u stop counting and automatically you have the rhythm. Now to have a calmer mind, the body has to be calm and it works the other way round as well, vice versa. So by doing this rhythmic practice of breathing - they are many, many different kinds of Pranayama and some could be very, very dangerous - but this is the primal form and as times goes on and I see people are ready, I will teach them deeper and deeper forms of Pranayama. So by getting the body into certain rhythm, it rids you of a lot of illnesses, it rids you of so many mental turmoils because you are functioning in a rhythm. It’s like sitting down and listening to a nice piece of music, a rhythmic piece, a lovely melody and you do feel uplifted. But here it’s inbuilt within yourself, you do these Pranayamas. You do Pranayama four, sixteen, eight before meditation if you wish and you can do it after meditation also, because in meditation your metabolic rate drops and you don’t rush out of meditation, you sit quite for a few minutes and you open your eyes slowly and you come out of it. But some people that might have appointments and has to go out then they do say six rounds of Pranayama and it brings up the metabolic rate. But the whole idea is to create a rhythm within you, that could rid you of many of the illnesses that you suffer from, psychosomatic as well as others and you have a feeling of general well being. That’s important. Good. Now many of you have a Swirling Technique, where I find that a certain Chakra in your system and a Chakra apart from Kundalini Yoga which talks a lot of nonsense most of the time, the spine is a continuation of the brain and these are just vortexes of energy. With some people a certain energy level or Chakra, to use that word, is sluggish and to make it vibrate at its proper rate. All the other Chakras, there are seven hundred Chakras by the way in a person’s body, but only the seven, the major ones are talked about. So you take the mantra after meditation into your mind and if the Anhata is prescribed to you, you bring it down to the Anhata level and mentally you make it feel swirl there. And later after making, you know swirling, and later with practice, everything requires practice, with practice you’d actually, with closed eyes you’ ll feel and see a silvery blue light just rotating there. If it’s functioning too fast, it will slow it down. If it’s functioning too slow, it will step it up. And the Chakra that’s prescribed where you swirl your mantra, that might be the area of - everyone has a

13. CAN 83-9 different area that he has to work on to strengthen it by bringing it into a balance. And that is important. So all these practices are interlinked. For some people I prescribe what we call the Gap. Now between each in breath and out breath there is a definite gap. People breathe in and out and they are not conscious of the gap. So after each in breath and out breath, there is a gap and when you discover the gap, you are totally centred. That’s not for everyone. It’s for some people that really need it. So of course on the Forms these things are written down. So that is the idea and all our Practices the only thing you have to sit down for is the Mantra Meditation and the Tratak. If you find doing the Mantra more convenient for you in the morning, you do the Mantra in the morning and if you find the Tratak more convenient in the evening, you do the Tratak, the candle, flame in the evening or vice versa. It depends. It doesn’t matter which you do first. The Tratak is a very, very important practice. The secret between success and failure is to have concentration or lack of concentration. Now without concentrating, you are becoming concentrated. You watch the flame, we normally put down for three minutes or so but you time yourself. That’s only a guideline. You watch it and then you close your eyes and you visualise the flame. By visualising the flame, you’re focusing all your mental energies to one point. And people have some very beautiful experiences in the Tratak. Some see it as gold, some you know surrounded with green or yellow or all these various colours. It’s a very, very pleasant peace-giving experience, where the mind becomes concentrated. If your mind is concentrated, your Mantra meditation will become better. And when the Mantra meditation is better, the mind becomes more and more concentrated. So these general practices are all interlinked. Now science have proven one thing, that here we have the Ajna Chakra or call it the Third Eye, whatever and you’ll find Indian women wearing a red dot there. You have seen that, haven’t you? Well nowadays they wear it in all colours to match their Saris but normally it’s red because red is regarded to be an auspicious colour among the Hindu people. Nowadays if a woman wears a blue Sari, she’ll have a blue one and if she wears a brown sari, she’ll have a brown one. That is a sign of auspiciousness. A widow is not allowed to wear it according to the Hindu tradition but a young girl or a married woman wears that. And it signifies this that let me look at the world not only with these physical eyes but with the inner eye. So the practice of Tratak, the Ajna Chakra starts developing or unfolding. And when the Ajna Chakra unfolds, your awareness increases where you can look at an object in its totality rather than just sectionally.

14. CAN 83-9 Now they have found that the Ajna Chakra is the subtle counterpart of the Pineal Gland and of course science knows very little about the Pineal Gland, because as soon as the skull is opened when a person dies, the Pineal Gland becomes calcified immediately, so they cannot do any researches on it. But they have found the effects of it, that by doing this Practice, by stimulating the Ajna Chakra, it also at the same time stimulates its physiological counterpart, the Pineal Gland, and the Pineal Gland secretes a substance which is known as Melatonin, which regenerates the entire body of a person, the entire glandular system, digestive system and all the organs, the circulatory system and all the organs of the body. So it regenerates the body. Firstly it bring your mind to a togetherness, better concentration, it brings clarity to the mind, so it is helpful psychologically. It regenerates the body, so it’s helpful physiologically, and in all this put together, the unfoldment that takes place, the awareness that takes place helps you spiritually. So in every way a person is benefited. And also of course it provides that deep rest. As a matter of fact anyone that wants to become a clairvoyant, this would be the first Practice they would start off with or they should. But of course I don’t want people to go into the byways of this occultism. But for your own benefit, where the mind is more concentrated, your actions would be better, you’d become more dynamic in everything you do, you become more efficient. So all these Practices have a practical value in daily life. Now the Mantra, of course it is personally prescribed according to the evolutionary status, according to the emotional status, the physical status and when I give a Mantra to someone, I use the photograph, and some of you have been initiated yesterday into the Preparatory Practice. And I would spend an hour, sometimes more on each photograph using it as a focal point. And then going into a deep state of Samadhi, to the superconscious level and there the contact is made, the contact is made with the particular person and the entire person is evaluated, like a doctor would examine you with his stethoscope. I use the stethoscope of the superconscious. Right. And after that evaluation, after the diagnosis, I would hear a sound on the subtle level. Now if there was a machine that could bring the human being, the mind, body and spirit to its sound value, your mantra would be the sound that you would be hearing, because everything is nothing but vibration. For example the Bible says, ‘First was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word is God’. Now what do we mean by the word, we mean sound and what is sound? Vibration. Everything is vibration, it’s nothing else. This chair, this lamp, this flower, they’re all vibrations but being in a congealed state, they become perceptible to the five senses and that’s the only difference. So from that very subtle sound, what I have to do is bring it down to a speakable and an audible level so that you could have repetition. And as you go on meditating, in the process you would reach that stage of subtlety at which I picked up your vibration. Do you see? So from the grosser to the finer, until the Mantra only remains an impulse. The

15. CAN 83-9 Mantra given to me by my Guru has thirteen syllables but I experience all thirteen syllables simultaneously just as an impulse. And even as I’m speaking to you now, it is going on inside me. Do you see? And that is attunement. You are tuned to that which is within you, the Kingdom of Heaven within. When you feel the wholeness, you become whole. And when you are whole, all your actions are good actions. You live life, you act spontaneously, without pre-thought, pre- meditation, without pre-deliberation. Your whole life becomes this spontaneous living, this spontaneous act and then when it is spontaneous then every action becomes a joyful action. It is only when we think about things so many times before that we find work to be work. I said the other day you take the ‘erk’ out of work and only the w is left and w stands for wonderful. And that is how we can regard, that is how we can regard the world just to be a play. You act on the stage and you have your Director that has directed you, you just learn the lines, he directs you and the Producer plays his part in putting the whole thing together. Right. You have your Lighting Technicians. So on stage you act as a thief, but you are not the thief, it’s an act. So every action is regarded to be a play and you find yourself apart, separated from the action. You become the observer of your actions, so that it does not create any Samskaras in you, any impressions in you for which you have to pay later. There are many actors you find in this world are not at a very good emotional balance. That is why you find the highest divorce rate amongst actors and actresses because they are not emotionally balanced. What happens to them, that they actually live the part. They live the part. And they do so many plays or films and in one film is a good man, in another film is a bad man. In one film he saves lives, in another film he kills and things like that. So living those parts, a great conflict arises in their minds because thoughts are too eternal, they become embedded in the brain cells or in the mind and these conflicts arise. As a matter of fact I worked in Film Studios to pay my way through University. I started off as a sweeper - employment is very difficult in India. You have MA’s driving buses, no employment. So I went to the Studio and asked for the man in charge and I said ‘I want a job’. And mostly they shout ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry, no vacancy’. I looked him straight in the eye and I said ‘I want a job, never mind what it is. I’m prepared to sweep the Studios, anything, you don’t even need to pay me. Just give me a plate of food, one plate of food a day, that’s all I want’. And of course he looked at me and something came over him and he gave me the job. From there, knowing all the people, I started assisting the Director, assisting the Script Writer, assisting the Producers, assisting the person that does the sets, the Set Maker and al l various things. And then befriending all the actors and actresses because you work with them and I might have landed up becoming a Film Actor. That’s what they had in mind for me. I was still too young. They said ‘Wait a few years until you get a bit older’. But of course my Guru said ‘Ah hah. No. No. No. Your job is to be a Spiritual Teacher and you got to do

16. CAN 83-9 that. That’s set out for you, you’re born one. Only thing you need more experience. Oh go down there to the plains, you don’t need to become a monk’ - because that is what I really wanted to do, to become a monk. ‘Go down to the plains and become a householder, get married, go find a job or a business or whatever’. And that’s how I gained all the worldly experiences. So when anyone talks to be me about any problem, I know exactly what the person is talking about because I have gone through it all. Fine. So it’s a matter of experience. So with all these Practices, you gain things experientially, not just mentally which is not important because the mind could work out all kinds of problems. But to experience the problem and the solution, that’s a different thing. For every problem contains its solution because there can be no problem without a solution. Do you see? Good now let’s - don’t tell me I’ve been chatting away and it’s twelve o’clock. It just goes. We didn’t have a chance to answer any questions, have a chance to go into any philosophy or metaphysics or psychology today. But I think it was important really explaining you these Practices. Because I could write a book on every Practice and there are thousands of Practices and people are given Practices according to their particular needs. I’m just talking of the general Practices and I feel its important for people, especially our new meditators that are here now, it’s important for them to have some understanding of these Practices. And as a matter of fact this tape could be very valuable, Chetanji, for new meditators who start meditating that could have some understanding of what Meditation and Spiritual Practices are all about. So Pranayama, it reminds me when you spoke about Pranayama, this one old man turned one hundred and he was interviewed by the TV Station. And the Interviewer asked ‘Could you tell us the secret of your longevity?’ So he says, ‘Oh that’s very easy, I just keep on breathing’. (Laughter) So this other old man on the same Programme was interviewed, he also turned a hundred, it was his hundredth birthday. So the Announcer congratulated him you know on his turning a hundred, century. So in the end he said, ‘Well we hope to see you’, the Announcer says to the old man ‘We hope to see you next year again on this Programme’. So the old man replies I don’t see any reason why not, you look young enough’. (Laughter) See if we can find another one here? You know this Book-keeper that worked for a Firm, he had a habit of nipping out for a Scotch. Good. Now the bartender always had some cloves there and after he had his Scotch, he rushed back to his office and chewed on the clove, so the breath - . So one day he went there to the bar and there were no cloves. So he asked the bartender ‘Haven’t you got anything that could take the breath away?’ So the Bartender said ‘Look, the only thing I have got is onions, you know pickled onions’. So he said ‘Okay, well that’s better than nothing’. So he chewed on this onion and then he was in his office and then of course as was the daily routine, his Boss calls him in to go over some figures in the

17. CAN 83-9 books. This fellow was a Book-keeper. So the Boss asks him, ‘Well how many years are you working for me?’ So he says, ‘I’m working for you for twenty years, Sir. Twenty years’. So the Boss says, ‘Look for twenty years I’ve tolerated your breath of whiskey and cloves but whiskey and onions, that’s the limit’. (Laughter) You know talking of whiskey, this man got drunk, this man got drunk, he was out with friends. So his friends brought him home, put him to bed. He was nicely plastered, soaked. Good. So they put him to bed and the next morning when he woke up, he apologised to his wife. He said ‘I’m so sorry darling, last night I was with friends and you know how it went on, one shot led to another and another led to another and please forgive me and forget it all’. So the wife says ‘Yes, forgive and forget, that’s easy’. But as months went by, she used to mention it, you know. So he says ‘Look, you said you were going to forgive and forget and you still keep on mentioning it’. So she tells him, ‘I want you to remember that I have forgiven and forgotten’. (Laughter) Yes. And so this office Secretary normally went down to have a bite at a Restaurant nearby during lunch hour and she had a - she was eating a cottage cheese sandwich. So a friend of hers working in the same office came down and sat next to her. So she saw this girl eating a cottage cheese sandwich so she asks, ‘Are you on a calorie diet?’ So the girl replies ‘No, I’m not on a calorie diet, but I’m on a salary diet’. (Laughter) That’s how well they pay our Secretaries nowadays. Good. Fine. See you this evening. Do you want to hear another joke, do we have time? A lady goes to a hotel and she asks the Receptionist, ‘Can I have a room and bath?’ So the Receptionist says ‘Madam, we can give you a room but you have to take your own bath’. And this other lecturer, this other lecturer he stood up on stage and was giving a long talk, so he asks his audience. He says ‘If I should put a pail of beer and a pail of water and I bring a donkey on to the stage, what will the donkey drink?’ So one person got up and says ‘The donkey will drink the water’. So the lecturer asks ‘Why, not the beer, why the water?’ He says ‘Because he’s an ass’. (Laughter) Do enjoy your lunch. It’s past twelve, ten past actually. END