THE MASTER ANSWERS PART 16, Mysticism, reading, forums, Numerology, Sun Signs, Divination

Posts: 5115 · Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 11:34 am

For example: If you say to a girl that, as you want to marry her to some person, she should forget her mother, her father, her sister. She may try hard, but she cannot succeed. However, when she falls in love with somebody, she forgets everybody else. That one attachment detaches her from all the other faces. She used to think that probably she could never live without her parents and it was impossible to forget them, but this one attachment makes her forget everything else. This is the nature of the mind. Unless we attach it to something better than the worldly pleasures it will never get detached from them.

Q We must be attached to Guru, the instrument to hold the mind, to direct this mind?

A That is what we are discussing. That can be done by Simran. It is a very long process to explain. Now our thoughts are scattered in the world, by thinking about things, and whomsoever we think about, those faces also appear before us. We are sitting here, and as you are thinking about your son, his face appears before you. So, it is always the habit of the mind to think about something, always to contemplate on the forms of people, places or things. That is the nature of the mind. In the same way, we have to withdraw from all this by thinking about the Lord, by contemplating on the Lord. We withdraw ourselves to the thinking center and attach yourselves to the Audible Life Stream inside. We have to withdraw up to this center, hold the attention here, and attach ourselves to the Shabd. In this way we have to detach ourselves from the senses. If you will read the books, you will find all this.

Q Does the mind have no virtue at all? Are all our intellectual pursuits worthless?

A No. I will tell you. The intellect is a faculty of the mind, but we have to use it in the right direction. I told you that as long as the tendency of the mind is downward, it is our enemy. When its tendency becomes upward, it is our friend. So, we are not to use this intellect to destroy the creation of the Lord or to hate each other or to destroy the creation of the Lord or to hate each other or to destroy each other, or to become the prisoner or the victim of the senses. We are not to use the intellect for that purpose. We have to use the intellect in the right perspective, to seek theLord, for which this intellect has been given to us. To love the Lord, to love His creation, that is the purpose of the intellect. Intellect is a friend when it leads us back to the Lord, and it is an enemywhen it keeps us away from Him.

Yesterday I gave an example of the difference between an intellectual and a simple man. I said both of them want to go from Washington to New York. The simple man just asks anybody standing on the road-side for directions to go to New York. As soon as he is told, without making further inquiries, he just starts driving. If anybody else meets him in the way and says, " You are wrong. The road leading to New York is to the right," he just takes that turn. Somebody else comes along and leads him in still another direction, and he just takes that turn. He is so simple that he follows whatever anybody tells him to follow. But the intellectual does not follow, does not pay attention to the first man, whatever he may say. He wants another ten corroborations. Then he will see a map, a guide, to determine whether the nine or ten men have told him the right way leading to New York. Once he is convinced, he drives a little and then he sees a milestone. He is convinced intellectually that this road leads to New York. He has not seen New York yet, but he drives on. His intellect does not lead him to New York, his driving leads him to New York. But the intellect becomes a help, once it is satisfied.

Intellect in itself is a great barrier in our way. We have to pierce the barrier of intellect with our intellect. That is why all this investigation, all this research. We should never just close our eyes and jump into anything. We must jump with eyes wide open as to what we are going to do. Even if we spend our whole life in trying to understand what we have to follow, I say the time is not lost, it is gained. In so doing, we are just boring down deep for our foundation. We are building on solid rock, and the deeper the foundation, the stronger will be the building. So, even if the whole life is spent in trying to understand the right path, we should not feel worried. We should give full time to investigation. We should never jump with eyes closed, never make our decision with emotion or to please our friends, or whatsoever comes our way we at once jump to follow it, for then we are deceived, then we are deluded, then we are unhappy. We must satisfy our intellect to the best of our ability. Whatever the Lord has given us, we must make full use of our intellect, but once we are convinced that this is the right path for us, this is the right guide for us, then we are not to worry with our intellect, but we should set it aside. What we need then is practice, faith and devotion. That alone will lead us back to Him, and not the intellect. So, intellect is a friend only if we know how to use it.

Q You have mentioned mind several times, but what can the mind do unless you have the emotional maturity to train the mind to do one thing or another? Are the emotions closer to us than our mind is?

A What is the mind and what is emotion, in your view?

Q The emotions are those actions which we perform in spite of the mind?

A No. In spite of the soul. Emotions are nothing but the expressions of the mind. All these instincts are nothing but the expressions of the mind. The intellect is with the mind. The emotions are with the mind. We do not know what soul is, in fact, because we are so much a slave of the mind. We begin to think probably that ourmind is the soul. Actually, the soul is something far superior to the mind.

Q What do you do then if you have a contradiction between your mind and your actions through your emotions?

A That is a contradiction between your higher mind and your lower mind. What we call conscience, is itself an attribute of the mind.

Q What is emotion?

A It is an instinct of the mind.

Q So, the label, emotion, is a part of the mind?

A Yes.

Q According to psychology and other teachings, this is not usually so.

A That is unfortunate. I do not know about the old psychologists, the old philosophers; but now especially in the East, philosophers think that the soul is an entity different from the mind. First, they always thought that soul from the mind. First, they always thought that soul and mind were one. They never differentiated their soul from the mind. But now, as a result of their research, they have begun to think that soul is something different from mind. Generally, they are mixed up, as in Freud and others, when they say that there is no soul and that mind is the soul, that the terms mind and soul mean the same thing. Actually, that is wrong. Eastern philosophers have always differentiated the soul from the mind. As Socrates said, "Know thyself." What is that self that we have to know? That is the soul, which is our real self. This concept is very, very old with the East. It was so also with the West, and with the Greek philosophers, but it has been forgotten absolutely.

We can only know our self when we get released from the from the mind. For example, you see the ocean. Some of the water evaporates, becomes a cloud, and goes up; it becomes rain and comes down again. It merges into the ground, becomes mud, and dirt.At that stage the water absolutely forgets its real intrinsic value, its pure qualities, and thinks itself to be nothing but the dirt. But again, with the heat of the sun it evaporates and leaves the dirt. Then it begins to realize, " That dirt is something else and I am something else. Unfortunately, having taken the company of the dirt, I lost my identity I thought I was part of this dirt."When it leaves the dirt, only then does it realize that its real 'self' is something different from the dirt. Similarly, it is when the soul gets released from the mind, that it really begins to "know itself." Then it realizes where its origin is, which is that Supreme Father, that cloud. Then it evaporates, leaves the dirt behind and merges back into the cloud.

Our soul is the essence of the Lord. It has taken to the company of the mind, and the mind is a slave of the senses. Whatever we do through the senses, the soul has to take part in that, because it is under the sway of the mind. So, we have just to reverse the process by bringing our mind under the control of the soul and bringing the senses under the control of the mind. The center between the eyes is the seat of our soul and mind knotted together in the body. From here, our mind is being pulled down. If you forget anything, automatically you will touch your forehead to remember what you have forgotten. We all know that this place, between the eyes, has something to do with our thinking, so we have to hold the attention of the mind here and not let it come down to the senses. But we cannot keep our mind blank here, we must have something to hold the mind. And that something must be superior to the pleasures of the senses, because our mind is fond of pleasure. That superior thing, as was elaborated in today's discourse, is that Word or logos, that Shabd, that light, which is here between the eyes. Therefore, we have to withdraw the mind up to this place, to be in touch with that Light, that Word. The pleasure of that Word or Light is so great, that the attention automatically stops going down to the senses.

Q When the senses enjoy something in spite of the mind, do we say that is contradictory?

A No. The senses never enjoy anything without the mind. It is the mind that enjoys through the senses, for the senses in themselves are nothing. Unless the attention of the mind is there in the senses, there is no sensation whatsoever.

Q Can the senses not enjoy it?

A No, no. It is the mind that enjoys it. Say, your daughter or your son is in your lap. He has a body, you have a body, but your feeling is pure. It is not the bodies, but it is the mind in each body which is a slave of the senses. Unless the mind works, the body does not work. So, it is the mind that has to be controlled. Christ said, "If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light" Where is that single eye which we have to open to see that light? Everything is within the body, and that 'eye' is just between these two eyes. You may call it a single eye, or third eye, or give it any name, but it has nothing to do with the physical eyes. It is at this eye center that we have to concentrate; it is this door which we have to open. There is no other door outside at which we have to 'knock' and open, in order to be in 'the church'. This, right from this center upward---the whole forehead---is the real church. And the 'single eye' is the 'door' of that church. And the 'single eye' is the 'door' of that church, which we have to open. Unless we open this door, we will not see the light, we will not find our path, we will not know our path, and we cannot seek the Lord.

When the door of a house is closed, you always knock at it from the outside, and it is always opened from the inside, before you can get in. Similarly, the Lord is inside, and we are outside. We have to 'knock' at this 'door', and when we knock at it by concentrating at this point, the door is opened and we get into the house of the Lord. Christ also referred to the human body as "The Temple of the Living God." He also said, "The kingdom of heaven is within you."We have to make a research in the Laboratory of our own body by concentrating our attention at this point, knocking at that door in other words, in order to travel on that path, in order to seek Him, in order to find Him.

Q How can we determine the difference between promptings from our mind and the real promptings from you?

A What you mean to say is whether it is the Master inside who wants us to do things or whether it is our own mind. It is always the mind which has cravings and desires. We have to lean on the Master within, to get rid of those cravings and desires. All lower tendencies are always of the mind. Even the devotion, the emotions we feel for the Lord, are also of the mind and soul knotted together. From here the mind is pulled down by the senses; and the soul, being knotted with the mind, is pulled down along with it, and has become a slave of the senses. This is the condition of the soul as long as it is knotted with the mind. So, we have to reverse the process in order to go back to the Lord. Our soul has to control the mind, and mind has to control the senses. Only then is the mind free to go back to its origin and the soul is released to go up to its original Home, beyond the home of the mind.

Whatever desires and cravings come within us, actually, are the play of the mind. But there are some good desires also. The mind also desires good things---good deeds to do in this world. Whether good or bad, all desires pertaining to this world bring us back into this world. Our karmas, whether good or bad, bring us back here. When we do so many things in charity, help people socially, economically and in some other ways, with the expectation of reward, we are building good karmas, but we will have to come back to this world to reap the fruit of those good deeds. Good actions and bad actions, both bring us back into this world. That is how we got this human form. If we had only good karmas, good actions to our credit, we would now be in heaven. If we had only bad karmas or actions to account or we would now be in hell. But if we have good and bad combined, we get a human form. That is why you find so many ups and downs in this world. Some people have more good karmas and less bad, karmas, so they are more happy and less unhappy; more rich and less poor. Others have more bad karmas than good karmas, so they have more unhappy days and fewer happy days in this world. It is the combination of good and bad karmas together which helps us in getting this human form.

So, while being in this human form, we have to rise above these good and bad karmas, and we can rise above them only by devotion to the Lord, by attaching the mind to the Sound or Audible Life Stream. The mind is flitting, wavering, always running after worldly objects because it is fond of pleasures. That is why it is a slave of the senses. Unless we give the mind something better than sensual pleasures, it will not leave those sensual pleasures, because detachment never creates attachment in us.

It is only the attachment to the Sound that creates detachment within us. That Sound, that Audible Life Stream, is here, at the eye center, and when we withdraw our attention up to this place with the help of concentration and contemplation on the form of the Master, we are able to hold our thoughts there. We attach our mind and soul knotted together to that Shabd or Word, that Sound or Logos. Its attachment automatically detaches us from the senses and pulls us up. That detaches us from all these desires and cravings. As long as the tendency of the mind is downward, these desires and cravings are always there. But when its tendency becomes upward, it automatically leaves these desires and cravings.

Q How can we determine if the impulse is coming from within or from the mind?

A Sister, practically speaking, you cannot know. By meditation we have to develop to such an extent that we will know whether it is good or bad. Practically, sometimes, we do not know whether what we are doing is good or bad. We may think we are doing good, but actually we may be doing good, but actually we may be doing bad, harming ourselves. So, it is difficult to discriminate which is good and which is bad. We can safely say that anything which is leading us to the Lord is good, and anything that keeps us away from Him is bad. That is the only way we can determine whether this is right or that is wrong.

Q Maharaj Ji, in our literature we read very often that where mind and matter are active there can be no peace. Would it be possible for you to tell us what are the contributing factors to this situation?

A This whole world, all these material things, are matter. And as long as mind as after this matter to achieve happiness, it can never find peace.

Q Our mind tries to find happiness in these outside material things, in this mater composed of five elements---earth, water, fire, air, and ether. That can never be achieved, because it cannot be satisfied with whatever it gets in this world. It shifts from place to place, from person to person, from thing to thing. It is always shifting, for nothing here is able to hold our mind permanently. When it is attached to Shabd, then only does it detach itself from matter. That detachment in itself gives peace to the mind. One who does not desire anything is the happiest. Rather, he would explain that he does not need anything. But one who desires and is always hankering after things is even more frustrated when the desires are achieved. Matter does not give the mind happiness at all. Only the Shabd gives lasting happiness. The spiritual path gives happiness to the mind and the soul. Matter is just another lure for the senses.