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Part 1: Mind, Mantra, and Meditation Many blessings to everyone. We are here at the Yoga and Daily Life Ashram Center. This evening's program is also shared with our international brothers, sisters, devotees, and spiritual seekers around the world via webcast. You can also be with us when I am not here through what they call Swamijī TV—a beautiful name. Swamijī also has a television on the internet. Thank you to all our technicians who make it possible for over 85 or 105 countries to watch us now. So, I say hello and good evening from the beautiful city of Brisbane, Australia, from the Yoga and Daily Life Ashram, and welcome you all. This evening, our subject is mantra, meditation, and mind. Very good. This morning, I spoke about mantra and meditation, and the so-called mind. One great saint, Navaneja Kabīrdās, said very nicely in a beautiful poem about the mind. Someone asked him how to control the mind or how to stop the mind. He said: > "Man marā na mamatā marī, mar mar gayā śarīr, asā tṛṣṇā na marī," kah gaye dāś Kabīr. "Man marā na mamatā marī" means your mind cannot be controlled as long as you have mamatā. Mamata means attachment—attachment to desires. The cause of all troubles is attachment. One should detest it. This does not mean we neglect it or don't care. We do care; we have love, but we should not suffer and should not have those burning desires within us. Otherwise, they will cause troubles. Remember the word māmatā; it is a beautiful word. There are many girls named Mamta. "Man marā na mamatā marī, mar mar gayā śarīr." Many times you changed the body, meaning you died and were born. "Asatṛṣṇā na marī." Why is it that you have to be born again? There are two: Asa. Asa means hope. Hope is a walking stick from the cradle to the grave. Our whole life we have some kind of hope, and that kind of hope, which is impossible, is not fulfilled because attachment is there. Asat-tṛṣṇā: the word tṛṣṇā means burning in desires, longing—three kinds of fire, which we will talk about tomorrow. These three kinds of fire are known as Ādhibhautik, Ādhidaivik, and Ādhyātmik. On these three levels, we, all creatures on this planet including humans, are burning in these desires. Mind The principle of the mind is to bring the message from the conscious mind to the subconscious. We have three levels of consciousness, and in 24 hours we are traveling through these three levels, pendulating, called jāgṛt, suṣupti, and svapna. Jagṛt is awakened; now we are jagṛt. Śuṣupti is sleeping; svapna is dreaming. In the jāgr̥t avasthā, in this awakened, conscious state, our jñānendriyas are more active in the outer world. Whatever we experience and desire, this information is collected like a film in a video, taking all the moments, recording, and ever ready to get new ones. Similarly, the mind is ever ready to get any kind of impression, either through sound, vision, smell, taste, or touch. It has no time; it is also very busy. It puts things into the subconscious and again comes from the subconscious back, bringing past information to the present—again, our wish, our ambition, our impressions. For example, you would like to eat ice cream, and you go with your dear wife or husband to buy ice cream. You buy ice cream, and then your wife tells you, "But you should not eat ice cream. You are not allowed. The doctor told you, 'Two months, nothing cold and sweet.'" A good husband always follows the advice of his wife if he would like to live healthy and happy. If you don't follow the instruction or advice of your wife, you are in trouble, physical or otherwise. You come home without ice cream, but the picture of the ice cream and the ice cream shop went deep into your subconscious with the desire to enjoy it. Intellectually, you accept it because your doctor meant well for you. But it is an unfilled desire. What will happen to those unfulfilled desires? We go to sleep. This is another point of meditation. Within 24 hours, we sleep once or twice. Do you know how your consciousness is transmitting from the awakened state to the sleeping state? We don't know at which second the consciousness changed. We only know that we lie down, we would like to sleep, and suddenly we are asleep. But this minute's process is very interesting. If you have controlled the mind, if you have meditated and you have a mantra, by repeating the mantra you go to sleep—that is not anymore a sleep. That's called yoga nidrā. Mahāprabhujī said, "Yogī janā kī yog nidrā koī bīrla śānta janā jānī hai." Rare saints or yogīs know what is a yogic sleep. There is a beautiful bhajan in Mahāprabhujī’s book about Yog Nidrā. So, in meditation, you observe how you become from extroverted activities to introverted. How do you go from the conscious level to the sleeping level, or awaken to that? Very good. It doesn't matter; we are sleeping. In deep sleep, our jñānendriyas—the five senses of eyes, nose, ears, taste, and skin touch—are more or less very calm and relaxed. So the mind has a chance to become and purify some desires. There is a changing of the level of consciousness. From deep sleep, suddenly you go into the dream loka. How did you go from very deep sleep to the dream? That was your mind that took you there. And now, mostly we dream what we desire, maybe from childhood, or mostly we dream about someone whom we love very much—our grandmother, grandfather, maybe your house pet, or your horse, animals, or where you were born, a nice countryside, a beautiful lake and nature. That is registered in our subconscious. Or we dream something that we saw or heard about—horrible things, frightening. That is also in our subconscious level. Or we dream about what kind of desire we have. Dream is a reality. Dream is your reality. You cannot hide yourself from your dream. No one knows. Only there are two who know: you and God. God knows what you are dreaming. So now you are dreaming that you have passed two months' time successfully without eating cold ice cream or cold drinks and sweet sugars and so on. And your dear wife, she didn't forget that, invites you for ice cream. What a nice thing of her. And you go with her to eat ice cream. Two bowls full of ice cream come—some are pink, some are a little red, and some are cream colors. (I always give you this example because I like ice cream.) You are sitting with your wife, and you take a spoon, a full spoon of ice cream. It's a dream. You are dreaming. And you bring the ice cream near your lips. Some centimeters still distance, and the alarm is ringing. Oh, God. What happened? You wake up. You look at your hands. There is no spoon and ice cream. Now, the desire which you couldn't fulfill even in the dream—what will happen to that desire? It will come into the conscious mind, and again you will say, "No, I am not allowed," or, "It's not possible." There are many desires you would like to fulfill, but somehow you can't. The situations are different. Again it goes, and again sometimes you will dream. It will repeat in dream and in the conscious level when you are awakened. Then slowly, slowly that desire will go deep into the subconscious, and it will lose its form, meaning memory. You gave up; you were disappointed; you tried to forget it. Yes, we can forgive, but we will not forget. Evidence will never die, and that evidence is printed on the deep level of the subconscious. And that may go to the deeper, unconscious level. But the seed which is put in the earth, the mother earth will never lose the seed. Even after a few years of drought, when it rains, the seed will sprout. And so, after some time, that desire comes out, but you don't know what kind of desire you have. Whenever you see the ice cream shop, you become angry with your wife. Whenever there's some good eating, you see she's very nice to you, but psychologically you are angry with her. It created a conflict between both of you. You don't know why you are angry, because the form is lost. You become nervous, you lose confidence, begin sweating, and so on. Your wife advises you, "My dear, let's go to the psychologist." So you come to the psychologist, and the psychologist will ask you, "What's the problem?" He or she will ask, and you tell, "I don't know, that's why I came to you." But what's happening? So we'll tell this or that. Now there are many different problems. The psychologist will try to ask you questions to get the diagnosis, the reports, everything. But still, he or she is also human. The situation gets worse. Then you go to the psychiatrist. How should he know? Then they will give you some tablets to put you in such a level of consciousness that you are dull. You don't feel energy. You feel tired mentally and physically, and you try to forget something. All desires or fears, experiences in life which we couldn't master from the very beginning of our life—that is unanswered problems or situations have become a psychic problem, and there is no treatment for it. Only one treatment: meditation and mantra. So, do we want medication or meditation? Meditation is not only imagination. Meditation means you withdraw your jñānendriyas, the senses of knowledge, from the external world and you go to your inner world. That's what I call, in yoga and daily life, self-inquiry meditation. And the self-inquiry meditation, which has many levels, can give you the answer to your real problem. And when this answer comes—for example, through meditation you go into the past situations of your life, because everything is recorded in your subconscious—you realize the problem was the ice cream. After meditation, you come to your wife and say, "Oh, forget it, my God. You know, I found the answer." What? You remember that once you didn't let me eat ice cream, and I was very angry, and this and that. What stupidity. You didn't mean bad, but I was suffering. She says, "Then let's go to have ice cream." You go with her and enjoy the ice cream, and the problem is solved. In Rāja Yoga, in Yama and Niyama, the first two steps, there is a point called Svādhyāya. Svādhyāya means there are two different kinds. One, Svādhyāya means reading, studying—study some good scriptures. Mostly we call Svādhyāya either what you have to learn in school, college, university, and so on, or holy books, good books where there is a lot of information and knowledge which awakens love in our heart towards the entire creation, nature, to understand life. That's called svādhyāya. And the second svādhyāya means: sva means the self, yourself, and adhyāya means the chapter. Go deep into your inner self, into your subconscious, and find out how many chapters you have had in your life in the past. How many chapters of your life were completed or uncompleted? You will see in your inner mirror everything very clearly. Even what you are thinking now in this hall, there are only two who know what you are thinking: one is yourself, and the second is God. So when we go through meditation, deep in meditation, then the picture of your life, the chapters, appears. It opens one after another. Like an onion, you take the onion, layers of onions, one, two, three, and you go deeper and deeper. It's an inner journey. It is said, yathā brahmāṇḍe tathā piṇḍe: what exists in the universe exists in this body. You have a long, long astral traveling within your own phenomenon. The phenomenon: annamaya kośa, prāṇamaya kośa, manomaya kośa, vijñānamaya kośa, and ānandamaya kośa. These are the layers after other layers. Within is the jīvātmā, within that is the soul. Annamaya Kośa means this body of nourishment with these five elements, or what we call the physical body. After this physical body, there is a prāṇa body, an energy body, the prāṇamaya kośa. After the prāṇa-maya-kośa, then comes the mano-maya-kośa, the mind sheath. The whole world is created out of mind. And this world is of two kinds. One is the God-made world, and one is the man-made world. The God-made world is perfect, and the man-made world is imperfect. The divine will: "eko’haṁ bahu syām"—I am one, and now I will multiply myself within Anantabrahmānanda, the endless universe. Ananta Brahmananda, śāstra, sūryas, and the thousands of the sound systems declared by the yogīs. And all that, thousands of the sun systems, are the manifestation of the cosmic consciousness. All the suns, moons, stars, planets, including our planet, and all the elements. Similarly, the human mind—and animals also, but they are very limited. Human mind, human consciousness, human intellect need education. The education which awakens in humans the human qualities. Last year, I taught here in this hall to think about five points. You may remember, those who were here definitely remember, and they did practice. And those who are here for the first time can learn. I will again repeat. When you wake up, tell yourself, "I am a human." It means not discrimination towards other creatures, but to become aware of what a human should do and what a human should not do. We have what we call human weakness, but still we have the human intellect, buddhi. Second, what makes me human? This body. There are some creatures that have a similar body. Part 2: The Path of Human Qualities and the Mastery of Mind There are some qualities: guṇase dev or auguṇase dhanam. With good qualities, you are the god, and with bad qualities, you are the devil. So, which qualities belong to the human? Second. Third, how to awaken, realize, and preserve the human qualities? We will learn this tomorrow morning also in the Maṇipūra Chakra, and then come to the day after tomorrow to the Anāhata Chakra. It is day after tomorrow we are here. You see, I cannot drive where it is only 110 kilometers per hour speed allowed. I cannot drive 500 kilometers. But we will try to explain something. When we know which qualities make a human and how to awaken them—which you have in this beautiful book called Hidden Powers in Humans and Chakras, Kuṇḍalinī—then the fourth question awakes in you. What does it mean for me to be a human? Is it not beautiful? What does it mean for me to be a mother? Only a mother knows. Even the father of the child doesn’t know. And what does it mean to be a father? The mother doesn’t know. What does it mean for you to be a good brother and a good sister? And what does it mean for us to be a good friend? What does it mean for us to be a disciple, a master, or a devotee? These things cannot be explained with words. That is very subtle in the prāṇic body, the prāṇamaya kośa, and in the manomaya kośa. You eat something, and you may say it’s very tasty, sweet, and sour, but the real taste only you know. And sometimes, even when you eat, you can’t express the taste of that. You cannot express the taste of the ghee or the butter. You are eating butter, but you cannot explain. If you would like to know, then eat butter, then you will know. And so, prāṇamaya kośa, manomaya kośa, then comes the vijñānamaya kośa, the intellect. And then comes the fifth one, ānandamaya kośa. Actually, ānanda means bliss, but here ānandamaya kośa means the causal body, and the causal body means the body of the desires, the cause body of the desires. And so, the last question you should ask or realize is the fifth one: what is the mission or the duty of the human life? Why is a human on this planet? As a protector, one should not be a distractor. The duty of the human is to love, forgive, understand, give, protect, help, be there, and be spiritual. And Ātmā Jñāna, the final, the last mission of the human life, is to realize that this individual consciousness merges into the cosmic consciousness. That is the aim of human life. Otherwise, eating, drinking, sleeping, and having children—animals are also expert. So, I am human. What makes me human? These qualities—how to awaken that? What does it mean for me to be a human, and what is the human mission? So that, through the svādhyāya, the self-inquiry meditation, you withdraw from the external world and you dive within your inner self. And you study your chapters, what is written there. In this chapter, how much happiness was there, or how much pain, suffering, disappointment, or love, harmony, understanding, spirituality? And by this chapter, I stopped it and began a new one. Śraddhā, know thyself is the answer to all your questions and sufferings. Who am I? From where do I come? What is the purpose of my coming? What am I doing? And where will I go? Meditation. Now, when one who is meditating comes to a certain level, then they can’t proceed further or will get anxiety. Suddenly, you feel that you are fluttering, and you open your eyes, and you are frightened. You call Swamiji at 3 o’clock in the night, "I can’t sleep, Swamiji." Swamiji will say, "But I can sleep." So there we need help, and that’s called mantra. Mantra is a torchlight to walk through the darkness in the forest or anywhere. Mantra is the life in the body. Mantra is that which will guide us not only in four levels or five levels of consciousness, but it will lead us also in the astral world. A person who goes through without a mantra comes to the state of nothingness, but still there is a border. And a person who has a mantra breaks through all the different levels of the consciousness or the universe. You can see there’s a lightning in the darkness and coming through, and so that soul is escorted by the light of your energy of your mantra safely, where there’s a light, no darkness can come. There’s only one way to remove the darkness: that’s the light. So, the only way to come to that Brahman Supreme is your mantra. Otherwise, it is very, very hard, very difficult. Yes. If you don’t use mantra, you will come, but you will be lost. Then you will give the statement, you will give the statement: "There is nothing. There is no God. There is no form. There is nothing." Yes, there is nothing. But there is something who says there is nothing. And that one becomes one with that supreme. That’s called the highest level of consciousness, where the three merge into oneness: knowledge, knower, and object. Jñāna, jñāna, or jñāna, jñāna... Or jñāna, knower, knowledge, and object. Three merges into the oneness. That is the final state of the consciousness, liberated into the cosmic Self. And therefore, mantra. Mantra is that power which is steering your mind. Mind is that power which is steering your body and your life situations. So without mantra, meditation is not so useful. Yes, it will make you calm. It can help you to get rid of your stress. It’s better than nothing. But all spiritual audience, you are seekers. You would like to achieve something, and that’s the way to achieve. Don’t create too many chapters. In life, śraddhā, observe every step. Your life will be counted, and observe every step. It is said that Buddha, when he used to go somewhere walking, he was observing. It’s called udāśrī mauna, aware about everything. He has flowers, he has a stone, he has an ant. He’s going, "I should not step on this creature." Buddha was a great follower of Ahiṃsā. He was a vegetarian. He brought the message of love and Ahiṃsā. And I am often unhappy, so-called, that we are Buddhists and we are eating everything. Follow your master’s instructions. Don’t try to overtake your master. If you try to overtake, you will be in trouble. And that’s why, unfortunately, when some master passes away, then all the disciples begin to quarrel. And everyone says, "I am the successor, I am the guru. I am a disciple of that guru." So many gurus, but the master did not appoint them all as his successor. So those gurus are jumping here and there like kangaroos. Not guru, but kangaroo. Kangaroos are also very nice. The guru, Gaṇeśa, the elephant, has strength in his brain and in his trunk. Because that chakra, sahasrāra chakra. And the kangaroo has strength in its tail, the mūlādhāra cakra. Understand? If you do not understand, then take the, read this again once more, the book Hidden Powers in Humans. So meditation should control the mind in one direction. So there is one story. With that story, I will say to you this evening, good night. One farmer was working in his fields. He had many, many macadamia nut plants, mango plantations, and crops, and he was happily working there. One day at noon, a beautiful sunny day, and he was taking nuts from his tree or plucking the mango, and out of the tree came a ghost. The farmer was surprised, and he said, "Who are you?" He said, "You don’t know me?" He said, "No, sir, I don’t know. I’m a ghost." So the farmer said, "Welcome, eat a mango, or come with me, we will have lunch together." He said, "I’m a ghost, I don’t eat mangoes for lunch like you do." "What can I do, sir, that I can bring you something different to eat?" "I want to eat you. You are my lunch today." The farmer said, "That’s not possible." He said, "It is possible, and if it is not possible, I will make it possible." Oh, farmer said, forget it. If it is like this, then get out from here. He said, "It is not easy to get rid of me. I will kill you." Farmer said, "Well, then let’s come to some agreement." Ghost said, "We have no agreements." He said, "Yes, but today." "Okay, you will eat me. I am ready for you to eat me. But if I kill you, then if I’m a winner," he said, that’s impossible. He said, "Don’t be such an egoistic person. Come and fight with me." So both put their arms up. The farmer was a very strong man also. He was eating what we call organic food, you know. Organic milk, organic honey, organic fruits, organic grains, and vegetables, and working eight hours hard in his fields. Sweating from his blood, he made the sweat, so hard work. Even the bodybuilders will be afraid when they see that farmer. So Ghost said, "The loser has to do whatever the winner will do or say. And if the loser will not do what the winner will tell to do, then the loser has the right, or the winner has the right, to kill the loser." The farmer said, "Very good, all right. Now I have some sense. Doesn’t matter if I die or you, but at least we die for something." Come on. So fortunately, the farmer was successful. He pulled the ghost down and sat on his chest, holding his body down and his jaw. Many times the ghost was moving his legs like in sarvaitāsana, cycling exercises, you know. In yoga, in their life, he tried to hit the farmer with the knees, but he was sitting high up, and the ghost’s knees were not so far that he could do something. Anyhow, the ghost said, "Yes, Mr. Farmer, you are the winner and I am the loser. I will do anything, whatever you ask me for. But if you don’t give me any job, I will kill you." The farmer was very happy that he got one worker. The farmer said, "Okay, I will give you. I have enough job. Go and pluck all the Macadamia nuts." My God, within no time, the ghost was going like this, and all nuts were there. "Job, give me work. Open them." So, he made like this, all open nuts were there. "Job." Like the mangoes, he did everything so within no time. Ghost was thinking, "Within one hour, I will finish him completely and then go." "Go and clean the field, make a fence around my property, which is about a thousand hectares or more." Everything he is doing is like the wind. "Give me a job." The farmer was a great devotee of one master. And fortunately, the hut of the master was only a few hundred meters from his farm. So the farmer quickly went to the master. The master was sitting, meditating, and a ghost was running behind the farmer. The farmer went to the master, and the ghost couldn’t come; it had to remain 150 meters away from the master. No negative energy can reach the master, just as darkness cannot reach the light. Similarly, where the spirituality and the master consciousness are, any ghost or negative powers, any negative energy, cannot come near. Master was meditating, and the farmer was sitting and relaxing, looking there. A ghost was sitting there. Ghost said, "Come." Farmer said, "Wait, I need to work." After half an hour, Master chanted, "Oh," opened his eyes, and said, "Oh, my dear one, you are here at an unusual time. This is a time for you to work in the field." "Master, I have one problem." "What? There is sitting the problem? Who is that? The ghost?" "Oh, no problem." Say, sir, for the master it is no problem, but for me it is a problem. Why? He told the whole story. Master said, "Okay, go and tell your ghost. Go and bring us the largest tree in the world." So he went towards the ghost, and the ghost was happy. "Now I will finish him. Give me work." He said, "Go and bring the largest tree of the world." He disappeared, ghost. And within no time, he sees from the space large trees coming in front of the farmers, and the ghost again materializes and says, "Here is a tree. Go and do your job." The farmer says, "Wait, master, the trees are here." He’s asking for work. Say, "No problem. Tell him to put this tree in the earth again." What? The color? So he put the tree. "Give me the job again." Farmer, come, master. He does so quickly. There’s no end. Master said, "Relax. And have a cup of tea with me." "Yes, sir, but I have to go to work, and he needs work. I can’t go home. I can’t sleep." Master says, "Go and tell the ghost, ’Your duty, your work is this: climb on the tree. When you are on top, come down. When you’re down, go up.’ When you are up, come down. Don’t stop. And if he breaks the tree, tell him to bring a new tree and climb up and down, up and down, which has no end. And if you need some other work, tell him, ’Come clean my field. Bring the things in market.’" So he... He went and he said to the ghost, "Yes, now you have one work, yes. Which one? Climb on the top." He was there. "Come down." He’s here. "Now your duties: ascending and descending. Go and come down, up and down, up and down. Don’t stop, otherwise I have a very big stick." In my hand, he said, "My God, this clever guru destroyed my life. Now my whole life I have to do this." He said, "Yes, you will get blessing from the master, and you will be liberated also from this negative energy and life." So, dear brothers and sisters, this body is the field. Jīvātmā is the farmer, the soul, and mind is the ghost. Now, this mind doesn’t let us rest. Always, mind needs this and that and that. So, the master said, "The biggest tree in your this field is your spinal column, and let your mind go." Up and down with the breath through the spinal column, ascending and descending breath consciousness through the chakras, and you have your peace. So whenever you need work, keep your mind busy, but when you need peace, then tell your mind, "Go." And unite, joined with the mantra and the breath, up and down, so that will lead the farmer to the supreme consciousness. And that will also liberate that ghost from negative activities. That will also go with you. So mantra, mind, and meditation are the path, are the way for us, and we should do it. Rest tomorrow. Now I wish you good night, all the best, and God bless you. Om Śānti, Śānti,... Rabhavatu, Hari Om, Śrī Deep Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān Kī, Deveśvar Mahādev Kī, Dharma Samrāṭ Satguru Svāmī Madhavānandjī Bhagavān Satya Sanātana Dharma Kī, Hari Om.