2. U S 77 - 15 letting it or allowing it to take root. And that is how one liberates the mind from not only ourselves but from the environment. And in this liberation it does not mean that you're separating yourself from the world or the environment, you are in the environment, as the Bible would say, you are in the world yet not of it. And that is what is meant by liberation. Where everything in the relative is fully enjoyed and appreciated, yet it becomes non binding. Now, the practice of japa trains the mind to achieve that. Good. Here is one thing you c an try. Sometimes when your mind is so filled with a thought...now thoughts are normally an association of ideas, and thoughts sometimes are just repetitive. The same thought recurs over and over and over again, they whirl around in the mind all the time, and the more you try and push them away, like the monkeys of last night, the more troublesome they become and they keep on repeating themselves. So even during daily life when a thought is very troublesome, just mentally do this japa aim hrim krim chamu nda ye ve che che and it'll go on through the mind, and you'll see that those thoughts that are bothering you will slowly be pushed out. It will slowly be pushed out and it won't bother you, because the mind cannot remain a vacuum. So you take away the troublesome thought and fill it with this vibration. Now, this vibration is the vibration of all manifestation. You have the unmanifest, or let us call it the manifestor, that manifests itself in relativity. When relativity is taken to its finest level, or near its finest level, these are the sounds that would be heard aim hrim krim chamunda ye ve che che. If you can bring your mind to a very subtle level, this would be the pulsation of the entire universe. And this is the celestial music of the unive rse the celestial symphony. Good. So all that is unmanifest is expressed in manifestation through this sound value. Right. That is not the only benefit, but at the same time it is also a pranayama exercise. It is also a pranayama exercise. Now, I'm su re most of you know what pranayama is. The outward expression of pranayama is breathing, but in reality prana is the vital life force in a human being. And yama means to control that life force. Now, the sounds and the timing and the syllables are so we ll worked out, you can call it systematically or scientifically worked out, that when you are doing the repetition there is a complete exhalation. You do not...you cannot breathe while you are repeating that phrase. You are exhaling all the time. Now, i n breathing the most important thing is not inhalation. The most important thing is exhalation, because if your exhalation is proper then automatically your inhalation would be proper too. Now, in exhaling it is done with a control. And the control is in volved in the syllables that is used where you are exhaling at a certain rhythm and at a certain speed. So to look at it on an entirely physiological point of view, it is a good cleanser. It gets rid of toxins in the body. And one can, by proper breathi ng, take within one's system the subtle life force, the prana, which is everywhere. And that, in turn, invigorates and regenerates the body. So this practice of japa benefits a person physiologically, biologically, psychologically, it creates this beauti ful psychic rhythm, and it brings about the spiritual, physical and mental integration. So you'd find it so simple but so far reaching in its affect.

1. U S 77 - 15 [ALL OF SIDE ONE IS THE CHANT] [SIDE TWO BEGINS WELL INTO TAPE] GURURAJ: ...form of Tibetan meditation. And if you go to some of the monasteries in Tibet, you'd even find that at mealtime a gong is being struck. So that even while eating that sound i s forever permeating one's mind. Good. Now, it has been scientifically worked out by the yogis for the precise moment when the gong is to be struck. They have worked out how thoughts operate in a person's mind. Now, I think I discussed it at the last co urse where we think a thought is a continuum. But, really speaking, it is not a continuum but a series of little thoughts that combine up to make it seem as one thought. It's like on a film, a movie film, where it is just a series of a frame of pictures, and which, run through the projector, seems a continuous picture. Fine. Now, at the times when the gong is struck you'll find that if you are involved in a thought, the sound of the gong very gently brings you back onto the mantra. And sometimes with t he sound of the gong your mantra recedes away. And then a thought would come up. The other things that do happen with the gong meditation is this, that the sound reverberates all the time, even if there's a thought or even if there's a mantra. Now, how m any have found that during the meditation the gong went faster? Alright. How many have found that the sound of the gong went slower? Fine. How many have found that in the last five or six minutes the gong went very fast? Okay. Fine. How many found that the gong went very slow in the last few minutes? Good. Now, to tell you that in the past seven, eight minutes there was no gong. Fine. Now, that is a very valid experience that although there being no gong this reverberation of that sound continued . Fine. Now, when that sound continues in the mind, or it stimulates the mantra, then all thoughts that pass through the mind have no lasting effect on the mind. They would be like clouds just floating away. Now, the gong meditation is an extension of the chanting. The chant in Sanskrit, as you would know, is called japa. Now, the purpose of japa is to distinguish the big I from the small I. How many have found that after a few rounds the chanting just went on automatically? Good. Beautiful. Now, t hat means that the big I within one had been observing the small I performing. The big I had been observing the small I performing, and at the same time while the chant was going on, there were thoughts going through the mind. But the thoughts that went through the mind never had a deep emotional quality. How many experienced that, hm? Many. Good. Now. That is the whole purpose, where the mind is trained so that the thoughts do not create a lasting impression upon the mind. All problems, or all samska ras, are because the thoughts get deeply planted into the mind, and when thoughts are deeply planted into the mind the plant has to grow. So here we could live thinking thoughts, all kinds of thoughts, and yet not

3. U S 77 - 15 And as a matter of fact, all spiritual practices are very simple. It is only the mind that is complex. So we bring the mind down to its primal simplicity where we become one with the sounds of all manifestation, which is nature. We become one with nature. So we're going to have a break? [BREAK. THEN TAPE RESUMES WITH US 77115, KARMA AND REINCARNATION] ***END***