The Master Answers

A selection of questions and answers with Maharaj Charan Singh

Q: Why does meditation get harder instead of easier? At first you can do two and a half hours when you start, but it seems more and more difficult. Initiates, when new, seem to do better than those who have struggled for a long time. Many satsangis find meditation increasingly difficult.
A: That is what they feel, that it is becoming increasingly difficult, because they become so anxious to achieve what they want to achieve, that when they don’t achieve it, they think their meditation is becoming difficult. Actually, it is becoming easier and easier. The very fact that they feel it is becoming difficult is because of their longing, the desire in their heart and their mind to go back to the Lord. And that is His love. More longing and love is coming in them, and they’re becoming more anxious and more desperate to go back to Him. They’re achieving the result of meditation without their even realizing it. For the devotion, the love, and the earnestness that is coming in us every day to go back to the Father paves our way ahead.
_{Die to Live}

Q: Besides getting more sleep, would you advise repeating these Names slower so that the mind would be forced to concentrate?
A: No, speed of repetition does not make any difference. Whether we do it fast or slow, does not make any difference. We should just do it at normal speed. It is concentration which matters here. That is the main thing. You should do your simran with the attention and while keeping it here, at the eye centre.
_{The Master Answers}

Q: Is not God’s grace the power to shape all that we are destined to become?
A: God’s grace is always there, but brother, we have to become receptive to His grace. If it is raining very heavily and your cup is upside down, not a drop of water will get into it. You haveto put that cup with the right side up, then it will be filled with rain water. So, God’s grace is always there, within every one of us, but we have to be receptive to that grace, and by receptive I mean that we have to withdraw our consciousness to that point where His grace is coming day and night. Unless we attach ourselves to that and unless we are filled with that love and devotion to the Lord, naturally these desires and attachments of the world will not go out of us. There is no limit to His grace, which is everywhere, but we have to be receptive.
_{The Master Answers}

Q: Should we resist or avoid someone who is not friendly or aggressive?*
A: You can save yourself from the situation. Christ said: “Be wise like a serpent and harmless like a dove.” The moment a serpent hears any noise, he at once leaves.“Be harmless like a dove.” Don’t harm anybody at all. But he says, be wise like a serpent, not harmful like a serpent. A serpent can harm or even kill you with his poison. So he says: learn from a serpent. Avoid the situation. Why meet trouble unnecessarily, if you can avoid that situation? Be wise. And having all the power with you, be harmless like a dove.
_{Thus Saith the Master}