Light a Candle

Q. Maharaj Ji, sometimes in meditation ideas come, and I leave meditation to write them down. Is that wrong? That seems to be the most wonderful time for inspiration.

A. Well, either you can attend to meditation or you can attend to your problems and inspiration. You can’t have both. It’s because at the time of meditation, the mind is a little concentrated. So we can get a lot of inspiration, and we can think very clearly. The more the mind is concentrated, the more clearly you can think and solve a problem or analyze that issue.… You see, actually we waste too much of our time thinking about all these things at the time of meditation. We should attend to meditation. Meditation is nothing but seeking the solution to all these problems which are tying us down to this creation. Meditation helps us to detach from all the problems of this creation. That is a positive approach, rather than trying to find every little answer to every little problem. If you sit for a couple of hours, and for one and a half hours you are just talking to yourself, then the mind won’t become still. It rushes out with all the questions, all the worries, all the problems. Leave those to the Lord to deal with. Just attend to meditation. Because your thinking is not going to solve any problem at all – it will rather complicate it. If you brush the problems aside and attend to meditation, solutions automatically will be there.

Q. When we’re doing meditation and our mind wants to run out, should we reprimand it as we would a naughty child, or should we feel like we’re in battle?

A. Just try to bring it back to the eye centre. What is the sense of reprimanding it? Your mind will run out again. You will accuse the mind, the mind will accuse you – either way, you are projecting. Then you start talking to yourself. The mind projects in so many ways – it becomes the accused, it becomes the complainant. So bring it back into the simran, bring it back, bring it back.

Q. If during meditation a negative thought keeps coming up, should we use energy to suppress it? Or should we let it run through and just try to get back to meditation?

A. No, suppressing it is not the way to keep it out – it will just come back more vigorously. Keep out the thought by putting your mind in a positive direction. Keep your mind in simran. There is only one mind. If it is busy in simran, if it is absolutely absorbed in simran, other thoughts automatically will go. They’ll vanish, they’ll fade out. If, without doing simran, you try to eliminate them by thinking, “I’m not going to think; I’m not going to think,” you can never succeed. Put your mind in a positive direction; think about something positive. That is simran. When your mind is absorbed in that, other thoughts will automatically vanish. There’s no other way to keep them out.

Q. Master, when we have a strong thought about a situation, is there any way to eradicate that or to lessen its effect?

A. I can tell you a positive thing. Instead of worrying about eliminating that thought, attach yourself to the sound within and you will automatically rise above the thought. It’s very difficult to eliminate thoughts one by one. It’s impossible. But when we attach ourselvesto the Shabd and Nam within, all these thoughts are automatically eliminated. Instead of cursing the darkness, we should light a candle.

Q. I have two related questions about simran. How does mechanical simran get turned into simran with love and devotion? And does it help to try to repeat the words with love and devotion if you’re not feeling it?

A. Brother, first we have to start mechanically. Attending to simran with love and devotion means love and devotion for the Master. And his instruction is to attend to your simran. We try to do what pleases our beloved, and we try to abstain from what doesn’t please our beloved. Wherever there is love, there’s also a fear of offending. It’s not fear, it’s a fear of offending. That’s a part of love. We love them so much that we can’t afford to offend them. That is also an expression of love. So if you love the Master, you want to please him and you would not do anything which displeases him. He’s pleased with our meditation. So we attend to our meditation with love, we don’t abstain from our meditation. We don’t turn our back to meditation because that may displease him. And we can’t afford to displease him because we love him. So this meditation creates love. It strengthens love. Love grows by meditation and grows to the extent that we become one with the Father.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. II}