Video Description: Welcome friends to this monthly meeting in this Chicago land area. The idea of these monthly meetings is because on spiritual path mind takes control over us…its a constant reminder we need. Very often the effect of a meeting does not last more than a few days or even sometimes few hours! This life of ours is so short comparison to billions of years this world existed. Its not much time and way we look back at our life we feel time flies quickly…we regret what we could have done because we thought we had plenty of time. We have an immortal soul which is beyond time and space. We must not wait any time at all after all when you take care of this body you are doing so for a very short time as everyone leaves it. The importance is in order to escape from the cycle of birth and death, world of duality only opportunity we have is in the physical body that is why we make full use of our time in this body. Once we are out of this body we have no control over anything its all predetermined…here its the same but we EXPERIENCE freewill here. Soul is the life-force that creates metabolic actions in life in order for it to grow. It follows law of beginning, middle and end. All forms follow that law. Some forms we cannot see with our eyes such as angels, ghosts…those form also die. Even the mind that thinks has a life span it is born and dies…it may have a long life span but still have a life-span. When we have these meetings is let us remind ourselves this is a great opportunity to get out of this mess which we call a physical world as it is a world of duality of pain and pleasure. Only way we can do is to seek which is an option given to us with freewill. It is our seeking that leads to our liberation of this big trap. Definite proof we have is that we exist…we are the experiencer and we start from there. To explore yourself you just go within yourself. Of course once we start from there it becomes very easy if I am the self where do I exist? It does not take very long to find out that so long you are in the physical body you are operating from within this physical body because the body is covering and closing it. Where are we if we are just a unit of consciousness…we don’t operate from our hands, legs, or even heart…we are operating from our heads…right behind the eyes where we look. We can feel with our eyes closed that we have a body which is below where we are therefore if we know that much….that ourselves exist in the head.. a very good starting point to examine who are we….go right there where the SELF is sitting. How do we go somewhere? How did we go there by putting our attention there…we IMAGINED we are there. Putting our attention with imagination where we like can we do the same thing we can find out who the self is.

13min- If we can do that we get an answer to who we are and how the body is creating this experience of the material world. We are always in the center…it is the truth that’s where the self is. The difficulty is we have never tried to withdraw our attention to ourselves behind the eyes because we were taught to focus attention. Looking at something which is focusing does not work…to withdraw your attention to yourself you must use the imagination that you are sitting there. You can’t see your eyes or face but you can feel you are there the same thing is inside. If you can imagine you are there (not seeing yourself there) and looking around- looking around darkness there, both sides and that imaginative being is not this body. You can look up, or down and you are doing it!

Meditation is to imagine you are there…its not that difficult…don’t make it into a ritual but make it simple! The gift of imagination, attention (which is part of awareness that moves around). This power of attention which can move your awareness and then the concentration of attention you can put on anything you like. This will enable you to discover who you are …there is no religion involved in this! These are human qualities given to us to seek out the truth. You will slowly become unaware of what is around you, even your hands and own body and then you go into awareness as you are concentrating there…such is the possibility of using these 3 gifts via meditation. It does not require any label or title or privilege of any society etc. Its open to all human beings and we are good candidates to find knowledge of our own true self. What is the problem however? The main problem is the mind starts thinking of things that are not there…outside of the body…to things we are attached…our desires and draws the attention out and therefore we lose the awareness we are inside behind the yes. That is the only problem. These desires and attachments are holding us back. How we can avoid the mind of thinking of other things. How do you control the mind? That is now the practical side of meditation. One mystic Bulleh Shah said its not difficult to find God just pull your attention from there to here..and that’s the truth. We can start repeating words inside our head to squeeze out the word of thoughts. Mostly mind thinks in words. External words won’t help hence we chose words that has no association with world outside.

The art of withdrawing attention is the art of imagining you are there.

Ishwar Puri Ji

26min- This is why they invented use of mantra…holy words because we don’t use them outside but inside the temple where we can find God inside our head. They are charged/ empowered words…those words we can’t coin them out as all ideas are associated with outside things. But we can go to someone who can guide and tell us words which has no meaning inside but things that happen inside. We repeat those words (don’t distract us outside) they began to reveal to us why those words were there. They were made for this simple purpose…repeat with the thinking mind…therefore they must be repeated with the mind by the same thought stream so other thoughts can’t come. Whenever you think you are listening to words that mind is thinking. It changes in two channels where the mind is commenting up on it (you are repeating..) and is different. The mind can comment upon comments and so on. The further you examine the finer the sound becomes and ultimately you can’t notice it. I had the privilege of hosting Dalia Lama in India and we used to travel together. He said one in his meditation he can have 8 levels of meditation. You can find Mind has several channels. Good repetition of the mantra it should be done with every voice you can hear in your head. Allow the commentator to join…then the mind can play another trick…it can make a picture that you like or love…picture comes in front…then if you want to use good repetition of the mantra…don’t be distracted…ask the guest who arrived to join the mantra…when I advise…someone told me a large crowd came…they all sang that the entire attention was withdrawn and flew into the sky. It’s the quality of meditation that matters …6minutes of meditation is worth more than 3 hours without any concentration of attention to yourself. I met a friend of mine who invited me to stay in California. He invited Master Ji to meditate and to keep up my face…I said OK…so 3AM we got up and we sat. I was curious about what the body looks like when one is meditating..you have a certain smile on your face. I was opening the corner of my eye…somehow by coincidence every time I open my eyes he was looking at his watch. 2.5 hours went through this torture of meditation and after that, he said what a wonderful meditation we had…I said my dear friend but I want to mention that you meditated on your watch. The strange thing is subjective time flow so differently when we are having a good time. The truth is mind fights us…we have given so much power to our mind to an extent its like a separate entity…as it is running the show. Whereas the mind was given as a beautiful thinking machine.

36min- Mind by taking advantage keeps our attention on our desires and attachments outside. It’s hard to pull our attention back. Doing simran or repeating words of mantra is not allowing the mind to think on its own…with practice, you can make the mind think what you want. But who are you? How can we distinguish between what is mind and ourselves? The functions soul and mind are performing are very different. The mind’s function is only thinking, and speaking…the mind is ALWAYS the speaker…soul never speaks but listens… the soul is the consciousness that is picking up what the mind is saying… the soul is the experience. Therefore, when you listen it is soul in action. What takes time…thinking…sensing… rationalizing, and applying logic it’s all mind. What does not take time is the soul. 3 things- intuition (never takes time), love (instantaneous), appreciative beauty, and joy. The mind thinks but the soul is intuitive…we are continuously experiencing these things. Mind functions are in time and space but both soul and mind work together as the soul has attached itself to the mind and covered itself with the mind and is using it to communicate, to create…all this is being done by the mind by the power of the soul. All these covers get covered by the body and stay inside and gradually physically body disintegrates we shed it off…we take another one but the inner body remains intact. We see that sense perception, do not belong to this physical body only but also the inner body. The inner body has a longer life and it will be there after body dies. The soul never reincarnates but an astral body reincarnates and that body has a long life (1000-300 physical years lifetime). Mind itself is like a body..we call it a causal body. These things are verifiable by good effective meditation by going within. The mind that we think is only thinking is creating all experiences at all levels even now but no way to prove it while we sitting here…because this is our only reality and we have no comparison with another reality. When we go to sleep at night…the dream looks real…when we wake up dream becomes unreal. The dream is the only reality and we wake up this is the only reality. If we go to a higher level of consciousness that becomes our only reality. We went about to create levels of reality not illusions.

46min- In dream suppose you come to know you are dreaming…if I knew its a dream would I be telling those people you see in the dream. All though you are speaking the truth in the dream…you aren’t aware of it. Same thing here…we are talking of higher level of consciousness but are not aware of it and we only do so by moving into that reality but waking up. That is why these are series of awakenings and more so because when you awaken you find you never left. When you awaken to your own reality you discover we never left as we are in a part of dream-like experience. But the nature of law of this are different. The laws of this experience are different at every level. In a dream, when you go to sleep…you can instantly go from one place to another and looks normal. Secondly, things move so fast in dream you can be at one moment in this time and 10 hours later instantly you are there the next night…you can’t do it here. The rules govern our experience in the dream state than the laws of nature of the physical state. Similarly, law of nature of next level of reality are different than here. we have telepathic communication here..actually we all have that experience but we don’t believe it. There is so much we depend on belief. In higher state of awareness (astral stage) there are no secrets you can read everyone’s mind. Telepathy does not require spoken or written language. Telepathy conveys the meaning of what you are saying. Incidentally, people do telepathy communication even here they know the meaning of the words are understood. There is no gravity in the astral plane…no one is taking weight control pills…everybody has a wonderful time..they can fly and go about. Knowledge is picked up by volumes of book. Memory becomes so sharp..you can recall previous lives. These are all experiences that are available to us when we are human beings and when we meditate properly. Its not a fairy tale I am telling you…check it out…try it at least. You discover an important fact…what we know about time here is different there. Here we think time flows…actually, there you find time is static…its built instantaneously and all events were placed on it and we are time-traveling. Time does not move at all…in fact we discover in a casual plane that time doesn’t exist but is created by what we call memory. What is present? If present is now..we all living in now all the time and no way to get out of it. The surprising thing is now has no time at all. Now is a meeting point between past and future and does not exist as time so how are we experiencing it. We are calling that which is immediate past as present. Nobody can speak in the now, we are living in the past. What are we living in…we are living in the past…instant immediate past which we call the present and old past which we can past. Therefore, the past in the only reality. What about the future? Hope, Fear and Anticipation…if we could delete these 3 words…all are the same thing one is positive, negative and natural…we eliminate the future. Hope, fear, and anticipation take time…its in the past…everything is in the past and nobody can live in the past except via memory. Therefore, once you install a memory capsule all events become real for us and time began to flow. We experience time..how wonderful consciousness can create time when there is actually not time but via memory. Destiny is merely a memory capsule. One life is dependent on the past life.

1hr- Law of karma…karma is the experience embedded in that capsule we pick up at a casual stage. There must be the prior cause…probably from another life. We have never lived a prior life coming down first time…soul comes and takes one life and tags with it is previous life and so on… an infinite number of past lives are added. We remember as if we lived them. Karma becomes real activity its not real at all. Even past lives are not real but we have to create them to live a present life. Current life creates future lives therefore we get trapped. Its amazing how this whole creation has been made from consciousness. If you go above the mind…and discover your soul and separate it…the soul never had karma..its beyond karma…only mind carries karma. Its a matter of practise…I can keep on talking to you for days but practise go within and check it out. I recommend strongly true spiritual path does not allow blind faith at all…leap of faith is only for one step forward. Living faith grows with small coincidences whereas just believing someone has gone to church, temple and believe is blind faith. Make it a living faith. Thank you very much ❤