Q: “Guruji, are mana (mind), buddhi (intellect), viveka (discrimination) the same or different?”
Guruji: “In totality it’s the Mind. Just like hands, legs, head, etc are different organs of the same man, similarly buddhi, viveka, etc are different parts of the mind. Mind is basically one.”
Q: “Then why do we have conflict in the mind?”
Guruji: “It’s actually a mechanism induced by Nature inside us to gain knowledge. How will you draw a conclusion if you don’t think from different directions? Without friction there’s no energy, and every conflict is created by nature to generate energy. Without conflicts we’d all be leading a vegetable life.”
Q: “Does that mean conflicts are induced from outside?”
Guruji: “It just means that the mind is processing what you are experiencing. Those who don’t understand that get worried about the conflicting thoughts in their mind. See, as soon as you see or hear anything, you are mentally involved. The mind will store and process the information, and until it reaches some conclusion there will be conflicts appearing in the mind.
“Quiet mind doesn’t mean an inert position. Einstein said when an object travels at the speed of light, it is in the perfect rest condition. Those who appear quiet, may be the speed of their mind is way too high. This means that their mind is working or vibrating at a rate which is beyond our imagination, so we think it is inert, but it is too fast for us. When we say that someone has become inert in samādhi, it may mean that they have gone in the perfect rest condition, and their consciousness has gone beyond the light-speed and is vibrating in a very high realm. This is exactly what happens.
“It is like the story of the caterpillar and the butterfly. Caterpillar is not trained to see the butterfly who will fly away leaving the cocoon behind when the time comes, while the caterpillar mourns for the cocoon. Life is a deep thing.”
Q: “Sometimes there are conflicts between different actions as well, which has different results. For example, should I eat tasty food or do some exercise.”
Guruji: “Instead of hankering after the memory of food, it’s better to eat it and be done with it. You should also remember that taste doesn’t fill your stomach. So fill taste, but not stomach. Stomach will fill only with bread, not with chocolate. This is a proof of the advancement of human civilization that we invented chocolate: No bird has been able to make omelette even though eggs come them them only. Similarly no cow can make yogurt or ghee even though it produces the milk.”
Q: “It makes sense. But sometimes I wonder if such processing actually means we are going from natural to unnatural.”
Guruji: “In a way it is not, as I’ve already said that to make ghee is like going from mortality to immortality.”
Q: “How?”
Guruji: “Here’s how: People say that the soul is omnipresent, and everybody has a soul which is immortal. But even though we have an immortal substance inside us, we still die. What is immortality then? Somebody asked me that so I gave them this answer:
“Cow gives milk. Milk has ghee in it, but in the raw milk it is not visible. And despite the presence of that immortal substance, the milk goes bad or sour. The process to extract ghee from milk is like a yogic discipline: first you heat milk then cool it off, then turn it into yoghurt, then churn the yogurt, then take the butter out, then heat the butter, and then the substance which comes out, ghee, is immortal. Pure ghee doesn’t go bad even in hundreds of years. Similarly, soul is in everybody which is immortal. But those who don’t go through this process, through yogic austerities, they’ll never realize its immortality nor will they ever experience their soul.”
Q: “Wow!”
Guruji: “Mind blowing, isn’t it? The soul is omnipresent, but to reveal it or to manifest it we have to do tapasyā. Just like ghee comes out of milk after so many transformations, similarly, with yoga sādhanā after so many transformations a man reaches his immortal substance, which was always inside him. But to bring it forth, he has to go through through these transforming processes.
“Anybody could wag their tongue that the soul is omnipresent. Yes, we know it’s omnipresent; who doesn’t know that? (laughs) But how to catch it, how to realize it, how to make it appear? That will not be possible without tapasyā. Everybody has a body and a soul; every cow gives milk. But here a realized master, a man of knowledge, a guru is needed, who knows how to extract ghee out of the milk, who can tell you everything about the body and it’s potential and how to transform it. Those who mislead people into philosophy shouldn’t be considered as gurus.”
Q: “This also proves why tapasyā is necessary for everyone.”
Guruji: “Tapasyā is only necessary for those who want to do it, who have understood. For someone who is beginning to understand his divinity, who is beginning to realize, ‘how I look is not really everything I am. I could develop to a much more sublime height, I could even be immortal. All the necessary ingredients are within me. I should learn all the processes for this development, and I am ready for all the physical and mental transformations as a result of these processes.’
“It takes time to understand these things – took me years. In the beginning, everybody repeats the common words: self realization or god realization. That’s all! But ‘self realization’ describes this exactly. God realization is a vague thing, but self realization is closer to the reality.”
[20100711-2]