Meditation Techniques | Ishwar Puri

We are going to do some practical things now because I believe it's not good enough to talk the talk; once you do, walk the walk. Also, we want to demystify this whole thing about spirituality and meditation. It's not as mysterious as we want to make it. We make it mysterious because we don't try to find out. If you want to find out, the path is particularly easy and simple.

The simple method is to use our attention—the power of attention—the only available power out of consciousness that we can use here. We can direct it wherever we like. We cannot direct the whole of awareness; we cannot direct consciousness as a whole; we cannot direct the world; we cannot directly creation—but we can direct where we put our attention. Individual attention can be placed wherever you like.

Therefore, before we try a little bit of actual meditation, I would like to do a couple of experiments. One would be to see that attention is a movable thing—that we can move attention wherever we like. That is why, if we want, we can put the attention behind the eyes. If we cannot move attention, then there is no sense in saying, "Put the attention there." Attention is very movable, and I will do a very short experiment to show how attention is movable.

The second experiment I want to do before we meditate is that the sense perceptions are not totally embedded in the physical body; they operate without it. We will do a little short experiment for that. I normally do these for beginners, but I notice there are a few people who have not attended this before. So I am going to do those experiments. Those who have already done it don't mind a repeat; it's always good to know what we did before.

So the first experiment is on the use of attention—how we can place our attention where we like. This experiment I call the orange juice experiment. Here in Florida, it's good to use some orange juice—not brought out from outside, but through our imagination. You can always imagine the color and consistency of orange juice.

What we have to imagine now is that our bodies are really hollow empty shells made of glass, and we have to fill them up with orange juice. It's an imaginary exercise. It does not mean that you have to bring orange juice nor that the body is really glass. But for some time—only for 10 minutes—imagine that your body is made of glass, brittle glass. That means if you move, it'll crack. So, you don't move. Be very still. As still as you can be, with your imagination.

You fill up this hollow body, which is full of glass and keep on seeing that you filled it up with orange juice from the soles of your feet right up to your head, in the arms, right up to your hands, and right up to your tiny toenails and hand nails—it's all full of orange juice. Once you have done that, then I will tell you that in your fingers, you have got valves. When you press them, the orange juice goes out, and when you don't press them, it remains inside. Similarly, in the toes of your feet, there are valves; when you press your toes, orange juice will go out. Then you don't press them; relax, and it will not go out.

So, you close your eyes and sit in a still position where you will not have to move during this experiment. After closing your eyes, imagine that you are made of glass and you are filling up with orange juice. Check it out—make sure that all of your body from the feet right up to the head is filled up with orange juice.

How many of you were able to successfully do this experiment? Raise your hands. How many of you liked it? Oh, very good! Did you taste the orange juice? Oh, very good! Some of you did. How many of you tasted it? Oh good! How many of you never tasted it? It was just that liquid? Thank you.

But you saw the purpose of this exercise was that your attention moved from point to point as I directed. When I said stop at the eyes, it stopped at the eyes; when I said stop at the throat, it stopped at the throat. This means attention can move wherever you want it to move, and that's a very important part of meditation—to be able to use your attention to be where we want it to be.

We will proceed in a little while, and I'll tell you where it should be and how to get it there. Now, the second experiment I want to do is also a very simple one about sense perceptions. In this experiment, we will again close our eyes now. Sit more comfortably; that glass jar is over now. Sit more comfortably, relaxed, and in a very relaxed atmosphere.

Close your eyes, and you'll find there is a darkness in front, but there is a place behind the eyes which is like a chamber on top of the head. This is your meditation chamber—behind the eyes and all the way to the back. That's like a little platform you can make behind the eyes, going all the way back. On that, you place a very comfortable chair—you don't have to run for Black Friday or something to buy it; it's free today! It's free because it's imaginary. You can imagine a good chair.

Place it behind the eyes. Sit on it comfortably, very relaxed. On the side of that table, have a small table. On the side table, place a vase or whatever you like to call it, or flowers. It should be your favorite flowers. Next to the flowers should be a cup, like this, a glass, like this, in which you have your favorite drink, and a plate next to it, which has your favorite snack. Place these three things next to you by imagination.

Imagine that you are sitting on the chair behind the eyes—not outside, inside—sitting behind the eyes. On your side is a table with flowers, and there is a glass with your favorite drink there, and there is a plate with your favorite snack sitting there. When you have done that, I will give you directions on what to do next.

Okay, close your eyes and imagine the scene inside your head. How many of you could successfully do this sense perception test? How many of you still have the taste of the drink in your mouth? Still have it? How many of you still have the snack? Still remember? How many of you had new flowers that you never saw before? Very good! How many of you had a new drink that you never had before? Very good!

How many of you saw the change of colors of the flowers? Change their colors? So they were not ordinary flowers. Somebody told me once that those flowers had light in them, or illumination, or they were radiant. Some people see colors they'd never seen before in this experiment.

What I am trying to show in this experiment is that the sense perceptions which were used in this experiment are not based upon the physical sense perceptions at all; they function independently. People make such a mystery of there being an astral body; you just experienced the astral body. You just used it. You use it all the time. You use it even when you do these perceptions with your physical body. You're still using the same perceptions.

Therefore, one must understand there is no mystery about it; it's a natural phenomenon—it's a natural thing—that the astral body is fixed inside our body and functional from there and makes these perceptions take place. So those of you who were able to have this experience just had an experience of your astral body.

Later, after another round of meditation, I will ask if some of you would like to fly up in the sky. Would anybody like to fly without airplanes? Okay, all right! We'll try to do that too; we will try today.

Now, the purpose of meditation is to make sure that your attention is placed behind the eyes. That's the secret! If you can do that, you have done 50% of good meditation. If you are thinking of that place and all other thoughts are taking you out, at the same time you think, "What's happening there? What's happening there?" Then you haven't been able to sit inside.

That's the main part; that takes a lot of time. Sometimes, people take a lot of time just to put your attention behind the eyes. If you do not think of anything else except what's going on inside and say, "I am inside the head. I am sitting in the center. What's happening here? I am NOT interested outside at this time. I want to see what's going on here. Is it all dark? Are there any images? Where are they coming from? I don't want to move; I just want to see from the center."

If you can do that, you've achieved a big achievement in meditation. Then we do it routinely and take meditation just to be like worship. You sit there and worship and the mind scatters all over—that doesn't help you at all.

Therefore, when you meditate behind the eyes, there should be no thought except of what's going on there. If you can achieve that, you'll see light, and you'd see music inside, which you may not have heard before. It's possible. Let's try!

Let's play now, and the best way is to again think that this body of yours is merely a house. You are sitting on the 6th floor of the building already. You don't have to go down; you stay on the 6th floor of the building. Make a strong concrete floor; put steel into it, because unless you go down from there, you won't go to sleep. You only go higher.

I can tell you this: when you go to sleep during meditation, the mind sinks down and no other thoughts make it travel out. So if you can put your attention to sit behind the eyes on the platform that you built and not let it go down, you will have successfully started meditation.

We will go to the next step after you try this first. So, close your eyes, imagine you are sitting in a house on the 6th floor, and stay there. Think of nothing else except being there.

How many of you are able to do this? Very good! You all qualified! How many of you had difficulty? How many of you had difficulty because the mind kept on thinking of other things? That should be common. Now, the mind thinks of things outside; the mind thinks of associations outside, attachments outside, and doesn't let you stay there.

In order to solve that problem in meditation, we have devised a very simple method, and the method is to direct your mind to repeat certain words. We give it a very nice name by calling it a mantra. We call it the repetition of holy words so that the mind is forced to repeat those words, and those words then squeeze out the words of thought and do not allow the mind to run out. That's the basic purpose of a mantra.

Secondly, if the mantra consists of words that have a meaning outside, that won't help. For example, "I like pizza." Supposing I adopt a mantra, "Ye Olde Shakey's Pizza," and I keep on repeating that—I will never be here! These words don't matter because they have an association outside.

Sometimes, people think, "Why do these gurus, why do these masters give strange or odd words as a mantra to repeat?" It's simple: those words are not odd; those words have meanings of experiences inside. Therefore, if you repeat those words, you will not know at that time what they mean. When experiences start, you know they meant something already inside, and that's why they don't draw you outside.

So that is why they say that the guru mantra, or the repetition of words given by a master, helps you. That's the real reason: their association of ideas of those words is with experiences inside and not outside.

Secondly, if a perfect living master initiates you, that means he accepts responsibility for your journey back home. If you accept that responsibility, then the words he gives you—which are also like a mantra—are words to repeat and they have association inside, but they carry a second power because of the power charged into those words by that perfect living master. They also become a shield against negativity.

So, the negative thoughts that come are also prevented, and negative influences that come in this world, which is full of negative influences, are shielded. You are not attacked by them. So initiation has many advantages, and these are some of the very fundamental advantages that the master can give you. Ordinary words are charged to become a shield because when you repeat them, it's the master’s shield that comes up and prevents negative things from coming to you. Life changes in a very big way just by that shield.

So, in the case of initiates who are initiated by a perfect living master, the words that he gives have double power, double meaning. But in this case, what we are trying to do now is to use—if you have a mantra, if you have been initiated, use the words given to you for repetition. These have been given to you for symbol, and use those words to block the mind from thinking of anything else.

Let's see if it works, and if you have any more distractions, we'll handle them again. So go back again to the Third Eye Center—go back to the place where you were trying to go the last exercise—and now repeat the mantra.

The secret of the repetition of the mantra is it should not be repeated like a habit with the tongue, because if you repeat the words and your mind keeps on thinking of something else, which is capable of doing, it doesn't work. It's not a mechanical repetition. To make sure that the repetition is effective, you must listen to what you are repeating. Mere repetition is not enough; you must listen to it carefully.

What you are repeating means that you must repeat every word very clearly, enunciated, so you understand exactly every syllable of it and hear it. Now, if you want to hear your own repetition, that means you have to make your mind repeat it, and you hear it.

Now, I'm going to give you a little secret: it's always the mind that speaks. The soul never speaks; the soul only listens. You are born a listener, and you are given a device to speak. So in meditation, you allow the mind to repeat the words, and you, as the soul, listen to it. If you listen to it, you will grab the attention and withdraw it behind the eyes much faster than if you merely keep on repeating and thinking of other things.

So, try this experiment also: when you repeat these words, listen to them carefully. Another mistake is merely doing it mechanically—that doesn't work. Now, those who do not have a mantra yet can coin a mantra. That means you can coin a few words.

What kind of words will you coin? Because eventually, we are going to go on the path of love and devotion. Therefore, coin words which express your love for somebody you love. Use those words as if you are telling some lover of yours how much you love them. Just short phrases, and keep on repeating that while listening to it just like the other mantra.

So shall we try? Okay, close your eyes, and go back. Try the repetition of words as a means of controlling the mind behind the eyes.

How many of you were able to repeat the words and listen to them attentively? Very good! During the course of these meditation experiences, some of you may see lights, colors, or forms that come up. Some of you can see very bright lights also.

But the secret is not to move towards them; hold back to the center, and you'll see more. Some of you might hear sounds coming up through the ears, and they're different sounds. It's natural with meditation—more and more of these lights and sounds come up, which is natural to our inner states.

I am giving you just a few samplings—very brief samplings—because we have limited time to go through this today, but these have to be practiced for some time to get the results. So don't think this is all that we can do.

When you go, you must practice these things more. Now, I am glad that you understand that the repetition of words is effective only when you listen to them, and the more attentively you listen to them, the more your attention gets picked up right where the mind is repeating it, which is behind the eyes.

You don't have to really look at the center of your third eye or something because you are there in the wakeful state. If you can be where you think of where you are speaking from, you are at the Third Eye Center. So these exercises that we are doing help us to go there.

The power of imagination, which we think is very imaginative, we will find is not that imaginary because imagination is coming from the same area, from the astral plane. We use the power of imagination here, where our reality is the physical reality, in order to station ourselves there.

People have difficulty in imagining that they are behind the eyes, so how do we imagine behind the eyes? They try to focus a picture of themselves; they put strain on the eyes, at times, trying to do that. That's not the intention at all. If I were to say to you, "Imagine you are standing on the other side of these flowers," how many of you can imagine you are standing on that side of the flowers? Any strain on your head? Any strain anywhere? No, it was imagination.

The idea of imagining you are in the head is exactly like that—no more than that. It's not that you put any physical pressure on the head or on the eyes or anywhere. You just have to close your eyes and say, "Is this a building?" or something there in the same way like we just saw the flowers.

So that’s why there should be no effort put in physically to do that; there's no physical effort involved at all. It's only pure imagination, which is arising purely from your astral self; it has nothing to do with the physical body at all.

And that makes you feel you are there. If you feel like that, and then you repeat the words with the kind of repetition you can do, which you did with the mind and not with the tongue, don't involve the physical body in it. It's just a housing.

For those who can understand Hindi, I will give you a quotation from Kabir, one of the mystics of India, a very well-known mystic and poet. He says, "Mula to karme ke agna, bhook mai mono mith. O childish pyar, ye o simran." I—the beads are moving in my hand and the tongue is repeating the words, but the mind is thinking of everything else. Don't call it repetition at all; that's not simple at all! There are many of us who do so.

That's why it cautions us against using the physical body or the physical elements around. It's an imaginary exercise because imagination pulls your attention where you want it. You don't have to pull anywhere particular; you have to pull to yourself, and you are there.

When you are awake and you start meditating, you already are there. So that's where you have to nearly go.

It's a very serious talk; it looks like heavy stuff. Okay, I will tell you a light joke then, just to break the monotony—hey, it's a gum to the mind, just remember it after telling the last quote from Kabir.

The man used to go to church and he found that his pastor, the minister of the church, had two parrots who were trained to read from the Bible. They had learned the Bible by heart, so the parrots would be always speaking different verses from the Bible. It was a very good atmosphere in the house to have spiritual and religious verses being spoken by the two parrots.

So this great believer in the church said, "I want to buy these parrots too." So, he went to the parrot shop, and he bought two parrots. As it happened, he bought two female parrots, and these female parrots had been trained very differently.

When he brought the parrots home and opened the cage, the two female parrots said, "We are hookers; you want to have a good time?" He was shocked. "What have we done?"

He went to his minister and said, "I made a big mistake! I thought I would have two good parrots, religious parrots like yours. Look what my parrots are saying!"

He said, "Don't worry! After all, the company can make a big difference. What we can do is that I can send my two parrots, and in their company, your two parrots may learn how to speak good verses. So it will be a good idea; company makes a difference."

So he brought the minister's parrots home, and when he opened the cage of the two female parrots, the female parrot said, "We are hookers; you want to have a good time?" One of the minister's parrots said to the other parrot, "Throw away your beads; our prayers have been answered!"

This reminded me of the beads!

Anyway, that was a little break. Now I want to tell you the next most important thing in meditation. The most important thing, without which meditation is empty, is that when you sit there and meditate, it must be done with love and devotion. If there is no love and devotion, meditation is empty. People have been doing meditation for 40 years, 50 years, and got nothing, because nothing was there to pull them.

It's love that pulls beyond the mind. Those who have been initiated by a perfect living master have a great advantage; there is a physical being that they have seen—a physical being they can remember, whose movements they can recall, how he talked, how he did. Those memories come back and create an image, and they can express their love and think of the good old days when they had that meeting, and that makes a very big difference to their meditation.

Meditation must be done with love and devotion. Those who have no master are still trying to practice something; if they love somebody, they can make that image as a practice. It's just a practice.

Therefore, to think of the master inside, to visualize the image of the master—not a photograph, not an imaginary picture—but a live picture from your live experience, helps a lot in meditation.

People say that we must have a living master—not only a perfect master but a perfect living master. There are two reasons for that. One is that only a living master can say no to us; dead masters always say yes. Our mind says, "Master, isn't that right?" They say yes.

It's not the master speaking; it's the mind speaking. People who say, "Let's worship a bird; let's worship nature," they go and ask questions from nature and nature answers them exactly what the mind says.

The mind is a tricky thing. People say we have masters—ascended masters—sitting in the Himalayas; they come to us and speak to us. Who is speaking? Your own mind! The mind makes up all these things, and we are trying to go beyond the mind. We are trying to find our own self, and we get clobbered by the mind doing various tricks of this kind. That's not good meditation.

Meditation from a perfect living master enables us that while the master is alive in a physical body and with us—we are with the master. The master can say no. A dead master never says no; he can guide us. He has been on the same path we are trying to go. He has seen all the obstructions that we are finding in our own meditation and can guide us personally.

The living master is very important.

Secondly, a living master manifests himself inside. Once you have seen him in the reality of the physical world, he remains real for you at every other level right up to your true home that you go inside.

It's a very, very important thing, therefore, to have a living master. It’s said about a mystic in India, Sheikh Farid, who was a Muslim mystic but was a perfect living master. His son, who was running around like most young people, and he told him, "Look, my master, Sheikh Mubeen, has initiated me and given me so much."

He said, "Dad, you know, I'm too young. I have to run around the world. I still have to see the world; I can't follow your restrictions and so on."

He said, "No, no. One day you will miss it."

Then one day the son heard that Guru Budin, who was Farid's master, had passed away. He ran to the body—the dead body of Budin was lying there, and as was the custom, he immediately shaved his head. He put his feet on the dead person's feet and said, "Bless me now."

His father was standing there and said, "It is the body of the man I respected most in my life, loved most, and devoted myself to, but today he is giving you nothing because he is dead. He is gone. You are too late. You must find a master. You must find a sheikh whose hand you can hold and who will hold your hand forever."

That's only a living person!

Our only reality at this time is the physical reality. If we were living somewhere else—another reality—you could do other things. Our only reality at this time is a physical reality, therefore the physical master becomes the most important thing on the spiritual path.

Even in another reality, you will find there are masters, and you can find them, including your own. But here, unfortunately, we only have one reality at one time.

We don't create all realities together. When we go to sleep, we cut off this reality and create a dream reality. In the dream, it looks real. While the dream is going on, it doesn't feel unreal until we wake up. The dream is only a dream when we wake up.

It's not a dream while we are dreaming! Even if you find out in a dream, what do you do when you find out that maybe you are dreaming? You run around, telling people, "No! It's a dream!" And when you wake up, there are no people at all. Who are you running around telling you were speaking the truth without knowing the truth?

The same thing is happening here. When you awake from here, you discover that the physical experience was merely one created experience, like a dream experience. You get awake again and again until you discover that all these costumes we were wearing created different kinds of dream experiences or perceptions of a different kind.

So that is why a perfect living master, who can hold your hand and say, "Yes, I take responsibility for you." That's important!

But then he becomes a focal point for meditation also, because then you can express your love and devotion to a master like that. Of course, if you don't have a master, it's better to think of a person for practice where you can do meditation with love rather than doing it mechanically. It's not a mechanical exercise.

I would like you to join me in doing a little meditation with love and devotion. The place for meditation is still the same—behind the eyes, in the 6th floor of this house. Imagine, without putting any strain on your head or the eyes, that you are sitting behind the eyes and your master is in front of you.

Your beloved is in front of you expressing—you are saying "master"—and he obliges and repeats the words with you. You can hear the bass play; you can hear yourself, and you listen attentively and express your love.

How many of you enjoyed this session? How many of you wish I had encountered five? Thank you!

I promise to have a little experiment—flying with the astral body. We can try that. Some of you who have been doing meditation earlier will find it easier. Others may not find it so easy, but still, we attempt. Some of you will succeed.

Okay, for this, close your eyes and go back to the Third Eye.

How many of you had a trip? Wow! A lot of people! Very good! Did you enjoy it? How many enjoyed it? Good!

Now, how did we fly? With our imagination! We didn't use anything else but what was flying! What was that which actually flew? We could actually see a sky that is ourselves in the astral form.

The astral body is not that strange, like you might think. That was it! And you can reach that point. But since you are connected with the body with your attention more than 50%, therefore that looked imaginary, this looked real.

Well, your attention will move more than 50% there—that will become real; this will become imaginary. There is a matter of experiment!

We take this physical reality so seriously because we don't have any other access to any other reality. So when we move from one reality to another, we will always have one reality. Even the causal plane, even the spiritual planes, till you reach the top, where the totality of consciousness holds all levels together.

That is why, if you reach the top, you can experience all these levels at the same time. You could know you have a physical body, you know the other body, you know every functioning of everything at the same time.

That's why these perfect living masters, who come here, are sitting in their physical bodies but are operating at all levels and taking care of many of their souls in other levels, who have been their initiates way before we were born.

Because they could be taking care of souls interested in astral planes for a thousand years, the same master continues to be there for them. The master doesn't give up. Once a perfect living master initiates us, he never leaves us until we reach home and become like him.

There is no half bargain in this. Perfect living masters' bargain is a full one—a complete guarantee that you have to go back home, and he takes his full responsibility.

Actually, he takes so much responsibility; he sometimes wonders, "Why am I making these people meditate so much?" It's not really necessary! If you love somebody, you'll go where that person goes automatically.

In Punjabi, they say, "Yah-ha-ha-ha-ha basa," which means wherever your love is, there you will go. If you love somebody, you will go where that person is going—there's no way you can go anywhere else.

Therefore, the real spirituality is love and devotion. Why do we meditate then? To satisfy our mind. Meditation effort? Try hard? Do more—all these things are not meant for the soul; they are meant for the mind.

The mind has been trained. We can't get anything unless we try for it. We can't get anything unless we struggle for it. The mind likes to struggle.

Once a friend of mine wrote a letter to me. He says, "I have found out in that letter… it’s not effort at all that counts in meditation; it has to be completely effortless, that the master takes you when you are totally out of effort."

In the last plane, I am trying very hard to be effortless. It's the mind! Our mind doesn't think in any other context. We think in other ways. The mind’s format is you can't achieve anything; you can't be an achiever unless you struggle for it, work for it, and put in an effort.

We have been trained for that in everything we do in this life. So we apply the same things to spirituality, and that's why masters come and give us homework to do—"Okay, do this meditation, do these things, and put in your best effort." And later on, we find the effort doesn't work.

Then we say, "Master, it's all your grace," and we know it’s grace only that counts. "Why didn't you tell us in the beginning?" He would have found out we always like to try it out ourselves.

There's no harm in that; I myself say that we should experience everything ourselves, including effort, and then we find out that effort was not possible without grace. The feeling to make an effort only comes with grace.

When we get grace, we feel like making a bigger effort, and we think we are making the effort. Later on, we find the whole thing with grace—effort and grace were the same.

It's a very interesting thing we discover as we go along. The physical life is like that, and perfect living masters come in physical bodies and work with us at this stage, at the physical level. They proceed according to where we are.

They come down to where we are and they take us from there. They are our best friends. Their friendship is amazing! The real reason for their friendship being amazing is that their love is unconditional. They do not lay any conditions for their love.

They love us whether we love them or not. They love us if we love them; they love us even if we hate them. They love us even if we kill them. Their love is completely unconditional, and this makes them unique people even in the physical world, because in the physical world, this kind of unconditional love is very rare to find.

But you will find a perfect living master always having this particular characteristic. The name—that is love—will be unconditional. So that's why they turn out to be our best friends. They turn out to be friends at all times, no matter what the situation.

To be initiated by a perfect living master is, in my view, the greatest event that can ever happen to anybody in this physical life. I am very happy that you all came and joined me in this.

We will have some questions and answers, and before we do that, I'd like to present you with some gifts—imaginary gifts, for a change—astral gifts! How many of you wish to have those?

They are not my gifts; they're my master's gifts. When we go on a program like this, he places those gifts at a short distance from you, so you have to make an effort to get there. Those gifts have been backed up and placed on top of this building.

They are imaginary gifts, but when you see them, you’ll find out they're not so imaginary as you think.

Okay, now the method of getting the gifts is again to close your eyes, and you will operate from here. While you are sitting here, you will imagine that you’ve gone up to the top of this building.

You go to the top of the building anyway—from outside, climb up, fly—whatever you like to do. Reach the top and look if there's a package waiting for you. If you see a package in front of you, pick it up. You can open the package there, or you can bring it down and open it here—with your eyes closed all the time.

Close your eyes and go up to the top of the roof and see if you can find something.

How many of you could find packages? Very good, lucky people! Did anybody find something extraordinary that they didn't expect? Very good!

Now you know you got an astral experience; there's an astral gift, not a physical gift at all, but you still keep it with you!

Yes, does anybody want to share? Yes, you got it today! Congratulations! Very good! That's a rare gift! Yes, yes, very good! Very good! I am happy you got the gift from the top! Yes, right, very good! Beautiful!

Now, yes, very good! I am very happy. Yes, yes, very beautiful gift. I think very few people have got those gifts. I've seen them before; keep it close to your heart.

Over time, don't lose it! People have had these gifts for the last 30-40 years, and they haven't given them up—they are precious for them.

Because as you grow in meditation and spirituality, the gifts become more and more important for you; you realize the significance as time goes on.

Now, how many of you thought that the gifts were not at all what you expected? Obviously. Yes, that's what happened, because it's not something that the mind in the human frame makes it up like that; it's actually picked up from the astral plane.

These are things which exist in the astral plane. When you go in meditation to that level and withdraw your attention to go to that world, you will see a lot of that stuff there; it’s common there.

So I am happy that you all came and experienced very brief spells of different kinds of experiments in meditation. This only was to show you a sample box—the sample box that spirituality and the spiritual path hold so much for us.

Now we'll have some little time for questions and answers. If you have any general questions you can ask here; if you have any personal questions to ask, you have given your name for that. If you have given your name, then you can ask me.

If somebody has not given their name and you still have a personal question to ask one-on-one, you can tell me now.

You didn't give your name? Okay!

If you have done meditation and go up and down regularly, just like you go to sleep, you can do it anytime. Yes, this is the advantage that meditation develops a route for you and a way to go up and down, just like sleep develops a route for you to go down, and it becomes very easy.

You don’t sleep down; you sleep up! Then you’ve done practiced meditation, which is a great, great experience. People celebrate Thanksgiving, celebrate Christmas, celebrate other holidays; here in India, they celebrate Diwali.

And those who do meditation celebrate all these things every night—that’s where they take their attention!

Yes, in his own time, he was a living master. But now, when we believe in a master who is gone, then we believe in our mind. And they believe in their mind.

Religion has sprung from spirituality—almost all religions, if you look back, their founders were masters. But today we have converted them into rituals and rites and external things. This happens!

Spirituality has converted itself into religion by forgetting the real message. The real meaning—they don't even now go really to go ever, then they think some rituals are good enough to do it.

If you don't mind, I’ll tell another story—just your question—and you come from Greece!

I have just come from Athens myself, and I saw the Greek monks there and also monasteries. But I've seen more monasteries in the border of Tibet, where I worked once. The government had put me there.

So I have seen in the monasteries how the prayers are done, especially by Buddhist monks. Now they are so much filled up with the rituals that they think that the reading of that or the repeating of that is going to give them the results.

Of course, you can read books; you can read external things for all your life, and nothing happens. It can give you a false sense of feeling that you have got elevated or you go on somewhere. It doesn't really take you to any of the real experiences which are the old experiences.

So the monks who were chanting in the Indian and the Tibetan Buddhist langa had a very beautiful sonorous voice in chanting. I love that! I sat with them and I found that their mantra, which is very simple— "Om Mani Padme Hum"—they chant in such a way that the first person starts saying "Om" and it goes to the next word, "Mani," and the second person starts with “Padme” so on.

So each person adds up and when all of them—100 people—are chanting, it’s a very sonorous voice and a beautiful voice, and the chanting sounds so good! They feel really good! You feel great, of course! That's what great things!

But that still gives you an enlightenment, which means they make you feel light, but they don't enlighten you into who you really are. They don't take you to your soul; they don't take you to your home.

So, some is the limitation of what they can do, and the Orthodox Church—Greek Orthodox Church—also has its own limitations for that reason.

But I was going to tell you a joke. If you don't mind, another joke—one for the road! Okay, an American investigator wanted to see how these Buddhist monks in the monasteries perform their usual functions.

He went to one of the Tibetan monasteries, and there he found that they were young monks and they were old monks. Most of them young monks were asked to keep on writing scriptures because the original scriptures were written on the bark of a tree—they're very fragile, so from there, they copied old paper, and the paper becomes fragile.

So they copy from there, and so it's going from copy to copy to copy, and their scriptures are being held up like that.

So this American investigator, with his American mind, said to the head abbot of the monastery, "Suppose one of these guys makes a mistake in transcribing—that mistake will go on forever! How do you correct it?"

He says, "No, I have the originals in the basement; I can check from time to time."

"Let's try! Now, here is this parchment here, and I'll go and check downstairs if it's the same as what is in the parchment."

So the abbot went into the basement; he didn't come up! Everybody was worried! The head monk then followed him, and he didn't come up.

The American investigator went down to the basement—"What has happened to them?"—and the abbot was hitting his head. "Oh my God, we made a mistake! Oh my God, even a mistake! He made a mistake of our mistake!"

He said, "What do you mean?"

He says, "The word was 'celebrate,' and we admitted 'they are; we all become elevated!'"

Okay! We’ll have one-on-one interviews.

Yes, one question?

Yes, seven generations are benefited by one initiate! It's a very powerful thing! Initiation by a perfect living master is so powerful, it affects seven generations!

One disciple asked the great master, "Master, when you mean seven generations, you mean the old seven generations or the new ones that would come?"

The master said, "What’s the difference? The same ones come over and over again!"

Thank you very much! Blessings to all of you, and I’ll meet you one by one now; those who have given their name.