That the things that we need in this world are included in that which we are aspiring for, is also a conviction that has to be driven into our mind: "The thing that I want in this world is not removed from my realm of aspiration." We don't lose the world when we go to God. We lose nothing, practically. That which is our need or a requirement externally, so-called, is included in that which is totally pervasive. The external thing or the internal thing, both are included in the total.  So when you seek the total, it is futile to go on thinking of another thing which is outside. That which is the total operational conviction in the mind includes that which you are considering as that which is external or internal. The thing that you need is neither inside nor outside. To repeat, it is everywhere; and, therefore, the greed for grabbing things - running after that which the senses actually want - we are told that generally these things have to be restricted. But there is no need for restraining anything. You are not putting a pressure on the sense organs not to do what they want; you are only enlightening them to see that what they see is not in that place where they are looking at. It is a situation which is larger, where even the seeing of a thing is included in the larger situation of your being included in that situation. The obtaining of it, for the matter of that, also is a total situation. Whole thing is a total thing. No particularity is allowed here. This is an exercise which is deeply psychological, subliminal. The sub-conscious mind does not permit such things, really speaking.

We have done many good deeds in the previous birth. All of you have done great meritorious deeds in the previous birth. Otherwise, you would not have had the chance of coming and sitting here, and listening to this balming message of your glorious ideal. The prarabdha, as it is called, the karma that has come with us when we take a physical birth, has various phases of operation. We have committed some errors in the previous birth. We have done great good deeds, and we have also done mixed deeds - partially virtuous, partially not. All these will constitute the mode of our operation in this life. Where it is a very good, virtuous, pure white act, there we will find an occasion to live a comfortable life, happy life and listen to messages of glory and high achievements. But, at the same time, there are impediments.

There are sattvica, or pure karmas, which are allowing us to think like this and be sitting here and listen. There are also rajasic karmas - distracting actions - and tamasic karmas. We are many a time stupid and lethargic and unable to think. That is due to a tamasic aspect of prarabdha working in us. At other times we are very much excited, want to run here and there, do this or that. That is the rajasic karma that is operating. Now you are here in a sattvic mood. You are not disturbed. You are not sleeping. You are awake, in a sattvic mood, and able to understand and absorb into your mind that which is actually beyond the ordinary capacity of the mind. You have to adopt such means of performance by which the rajasic and the tamasic potentials of prarabdha are effectively mitigated.

It is said that the prarabdha karma cannot be destroyed. What you have done in the previous birth will have to be experienced in this birth, whether you want it or not. You cannot destroy the result of an action that you have performed earlier. Na bhuktam ksheeyate karma kalp kotistairapi (Bramhavaivarta Purana, Prikriti 37.16): Inexpereinced result of an action will last forever, until it is experienced. You will get what you have given.

But the sattvica meditational effort has a very imposing effect on the other karmas - rajasic and tamasic. They are put down for the time being. You have got so many desires in your mind, but you put down all of that just now when you are listening to me. That is how the sattvica karma acts in subjugating the impulses of that which is contrary to the actual spiritual practice. You are not agitated here and you do not want to run away immediately. That is, you have subjugated even the rajasic karma. That is the power of sattva. You are poised. The state of being in poise for the time being puts down the effects of rajasic and tamasic karma. Inwardly the other karmas also will be acting, little by little, causing some inconvenience physically, mentally etc., but the power of this pressure exerted upon them by the sattva activity will make them harmless - like toothless snakes. The snake will be there, but it has no teeth; the teeth have gone. The teeth have been pulled out by the sattva. Though the distracting tamasic karmas are still there as cobras moving about, they cannot harm, because you have pulled the teeth out.

Sitting for meditation should be a daily practice. If you miss a meal one day and take your meal next day, it will disturb your stomach and your appetite. Like the intake of medicine is continuous, and the intake of diet also is continuous, the intake of the exercise of meditation should be continuous - though it need not be for a long time. That you have no time to sit is an irrelevant matter. You can sit for five minutes at least. The quantity or the duration of sitting is not what is important. The quality of your thinking is important. One minute of intense thinking is superior to an hour of dull thinking.

As the sattva predominates, the capacity to think becomes more and more intense. The love for contact with Reality is such a flaming passion in the minds of spiritual seekers that it will burn up all obstacles if the practice continues every day. The strength of the sattva forces will go on getting accentuated and increased more and more so that the potential of distraction and lethargic quality may substantially get mitigated. This is one thing that you have to keep in mind.

There are many other aspects of our life that you have to look into also - the food that you eat, what you drink, the company that you keep, the books that you read, and your general activity. They have to be streamlined in such a manner that they do not harm your basic purpose. It is up to each person to keep a diary of this kind.

Today evening, assess yourself: "What have I done since morning? What is the first thought that occurred in my mind when I woke up?" It is very important to make note of what is the first thought that arose in your mind when you woke up. Similar is the case with the thought with which you are going to sleep in the night. Keep a note of this. "Now I am going to sleep, but what I am thinking at this moment." That thought will influence the condition into which you are entering in sleep. And the thought of the early morning, which is the first thought that arises after you wake up, will influence the whole day. It is commonly said, in a humorous way: Start the day with God, end the day with God, and live with God.

A diary of self-check about one's own personality - which is hidden inside, mostly unknown to even one's own self - is to be ransacked in order that the submerged potentials of difficulty, lying in ambush to pounce upon you one day or the other, have to be taken note of. What we are thinking now is practically an operation of the conscious mind. What is inside in the subconscious mind is not coming up at this moment.

Psychologists tell us that there are layers of psyche, deeply buried unconscious potentials, which carry us forward to repeated births and deaths in future, which lie sleeping as if they are not existing at all. They seek an atmosphere of operation in order that they may rise into the subconscious level and, finally, to the conscious. Our experiences are not only outside in the conscious mind. The conscious experiences are actually conditioned by the subconscious instinct and the potentials of the unconscious. So it is not that we are exactly as we appear in the conscious mind. There is a determining faculty within our own selves which conditions even our decisions and our performances.

Psychoanalysts say that there is no free will. What we call free will is only an illusion created by the potential of the unconscious and subconscious which presses us to work in a particular direction, and because of the connection of this pressure with the conscious mind, it looks that we are deliberately doing something, like hypnotized persons who think the work is done deliberately but actually it is done by the mind of the person who hypnotizes. So our operations are not entirely free in a literal sense. We should not be foolhardy in imagining that we are masters of everything. To the extent we are deeper than the three layers of the mind, to that extent we may say we are masters. But we are working on a particular level which is illusionally projecting itself as an independent medium, not knowing it is a puppet that is pulled by the strings of the submerged instincts of the subconscious and the unconscious.  In a puppet show, the operator is not seen. We see only the dancing of the puppets. "Oh Wonderful!" we say. But why is it wonderful? There is something else inside which we cannot see and we are not supposed to see.

Yoga is not merely chitta-vritti-nirodha in the sense of a restraint of the conscious mind. The word chitta that is used in yoga does not mean only conscious operations. It is the total psychical energy that is called chit. The entire psychic power in all its levels is chitta. Restraint of a total operation of all the three layers of the psyche is what is referred to as chitta-vritti-nirodha. When you are thinking something and you stop thinking, it does not mean that chitta-vritta-nirodha has been attained, because you may be stopping the process of thinking a particular thing due to a pressure from another side which is also calling your attention.

The necessity to be subject to impulses which are beyond our control, that necessity is the thing that is handled in yoga. Are we free in ourselves, or we are forced to do things and think in a particular manner? A cow that is tied with a rope - a rope that is sufficiently long - may not know that it is tied like that. It will be moving freely and grazing in the field, and will never know that it has been limited to the distance of the rope with which it is tied. It will know that it has been limited only if it moves a little further, to the full lenth of the rope. Then it will see that it is conditioned. So we have a kind of freedom which is granted by the distance of the rope with which we have been tied to our personality, and we may not know that the rope is there behind us. What is the rope? It is the impulse to be present in one particular body only, and concern oneself with one particular object only, and the incapacity to think that we are ubiquitously connected with ubiquitous things in the world and that no operation is localized. That object of achievement which brings a right-about turn of our operation so that situations are perceived as total, that they arise from everywhere, everything is there in a particular situation - as it is wisely said, everything is everywhere at all times - is the fundamental psychological approach which should form the practice of yoga

But, mostly, many of us have got some fear inside that yoga is something which we are doing out of connection with the daily duties of life. Here is the snag in the very way of thinking: "My basic operational duty is something, whereas yoga is another thing, the tail-end of something." Yoga is a pervasive controlling influence on even the duties that you are performing in life. That is dharma, or the cohesive force operating behind everything that you think and act, and yoga is nothing but a cohesive power that you are exercising in a total fashion, which includes your activity. So don't say, "Yoga is outside my duties in life. I have got my family, I have got office, I have got lot of things; yoga is somewhere else." No. Yoga is a pervasive attitude of consciousness, without which you cannot do anything, even in your office. A yogi can be a good executive, a good manager, a good office worker, a good sweeper, a good carpenter. Anything will done expertly if a yogi does it. Even washing vessels - the yogi will wash the vessels more cleanly than the ordinary servant, because of the comprehensiveness and the total approach that he has got in everything. Nothing is insignificant for him.

This is a basic psychological total transformation that you are attempting in your mind. Unless you have changed a little bit, the yoga that you do will be outside your purview and will not touch you. Again to repeat: Yoga is not doing something, it is a change in the being inside; and the being is not only your personal, physical being, it is a Total Being in which you are involved in every circumstance. This is a refurbishing of psychological thinking, washing your brain completely, cleaning it thoroughly from dirt accumulated in the form of erroneous thinking whose impressions are embedded in the very brain, in the mind setup, in the unconscious and subconscious levels, even in your social life.

These are some of the preparatory steps that you can take before jumping into the heights of topmost meditation on the Absolute, which of course is very obvious before you. But all these problems that I have stated will become naught in one second if the consciousness is having such a concentration of the greatness of the Absolute. These difficulties that I have placed before you - psychological, social - will be set at naught in one second, just as all the troubles of your dream world are set at naught by waking because in waking you are in a different state of consciousness. Your meditation on the Absolute is an enhancement of the type of consciousness which is required; that abolishes all the problems in one second. All the ills of dream have gone, you have paid all the debts; nobody troubles you any more because you have woken up. All troubles are consciousness operations. Waking into the consciousness of the Absolute is an awakening which is beyond the ordinary way of thinking in terms of checks and balances, profits and loss, statistics, etc. There are no statistics before the Absolute. It is a total inclusiveness which merges, absorbs into Himself all your problems also. When you reach the Absolute, your problems also go with you. They don't exist any more. They become nectar.

If that concentration, the power of affiliation to the Absolute consciousness, is deep in you, that one act of intense love for this Great Being is sufficient to save you for ever and ever, and every other thing that you have to do is included in that one act because it is the supreme total act which removes the necessity to have any kind of individualized action. When God comes, everything comes.  If the Absolute is with you, the whole universe is with you. Your problems are gone in one moment when you awake to this consciousness. This is mumukshutva, longing for liberation, which is the final solution for your psychological problems, etc. The desire for the Absolute is the one thing that is necessary. You don't want anything else. You need not do anything else. Love God. Love the Absolute and be free. All sadhana is concentrated in this longing deeply within us for entry into this great, wonderful, immortal, magnificent, glorious Being, which is our own higher self. Love for God, love for the Absolute is the panacea for every kind of suffering, which wholly goes away. You are blessed!

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