This previously unpublished question and answer session was given September 29, 1980 at Sant Bani Ashram, Village 77 RB, Rajasthan, India.

Now, if anyone wants to ask any question, you may ask it.

When we're in the darshan line and we are getting darshan, I was wondering about focusing on the eyes of the Master. Should we focus on one eye or should we just keep our eyes focused on both eyes at once? It seems it's kind of difficult to keep our eyes on both eyes.

You know that the eyes are the windows of the soul and we all have only one soul in our within. So as a matter of fact it doesn't make a lot of difference if you look in one eye or both eyes, but you should try to look into both eyes. It is not a difficult thing. In the beginning it may seem difficult, but later on when you practice it, it becomes routine and then it is not so difficult.

He Who has to purify you will look into both your eyes and only His looking into your eyes is successful. Your looking into His eyes is not as useful as His looking into your eyes.

The sight of the perfect Saints is full of nectar. Whenever They stand in front of us and whenever They cast Their eyes or sight upon us, it makes no difference whether a man is standing in front of Them or a woman is standing in front of Them because They are looking only at the souls.

Hazrat Bahu said that if the perfect Master gives even one glance then He can liberate millions and billions of souls. No matter if millions or billions of intellectual people look at the people they cannot take anyone across the ocean of life, but the Masters' eyes have something different than the eyes of other people. That is why even [with only one glance] They can liberate many.

Hazur Maharaj Ji used to say that only the eyes give to the eyes. He even used to say that in the eyes of the Saint there is light, there is radiance, and when They look into our eyes They give us light and radiance, and that light and radiance is the only thing which gives support to our life and which liberates us.

Bhai Nand Lal told his Beloved Master, Guru Gobind Singh, "O Master, [for You] it is the matter of Your one glance [but for me] it is the question of my whole life." By saying that he meant that even one glance or one [darshan] of his Master [could make] his life.

I requested my Beloved Master, "We are sitting on Your way and the cup of our eyes is empty and we are thirsty for Your nectarful darshan. When You come, when You pass this road on which we are sitting, fill up the cup of our eyes, for which You do not have to pay anything. We depend on You. You are our Beloved Kirpal. Why don't You come and fill our eyes?"

I would say that whenever we get the opportunity of having the darshan we should not remember ourselves. We should not even know whether we are looking into one eye or into both eyes. We should be absorbed in the love of the person whose darshan we are getting so much that we will see only Him and we will not remember our own self.

For as Master Swami Ji Maharaj also said, "When I have the darshan of my Master, I forget my body, I forget everything. I do not remain conscious of my own self."

Sant Ji, every day before meditation You tell us that we should still our mind and not have thoughts in our mind, and You tell us to do constant Simran to help us to do that. I find it discouraging. It seems that no matter how strongly I put out the Simran, my mind gets even stronger. The thoughts keep coming up and I do Simran faster, and before I know it, the Simran and the mind are both going at the same time and soon the thoughts start to pull me away. Do You have any advice that might help those of us who are having that kind of problem?

Many times I have said that it is worse to surrender than to be actually defeated. So don't surrender to your mind. Don't be disappointed. Don't be disheartened. Continue your struggle with the mind and keep attacking your mind with the Simran.

It is not a new thing that we are having this problem of the thoughts. For many ages before we came in this birth, in all our previous births, we had this problem of the thoughts. All the fantasies, all the thoughts which we are having, have brought us into this world again and again. This is one type of simran, and because we are in the habit of doing the worldly simran that is why the Masters have given us Their Simran which will cut the simran which we are doing right now - because only the Simran [of the Masters] will help us to remove the habit of doing the worldly simran, and only the contemplation of the Master will help us to remove the contemplation of the worldly things.

Mind is an agent of the Negative Power and he is doing his job honestly and he is very obedient to his Master, the Negative Power. As he is obedient and honest to his Master, in the same way it is our duty also to obey our Master and to be honest. We should do the work of our Master honestly, and that is: to do constant Simran.

What is the habit of the mind? It is the habit of the mind that whenever you start doing your meditation, at the same time mind also opens his ledger. He opens his book and he starts reading. If you pay attention to the mind and if you listen to him, then he may bring such a condition to you that only your body will be sitting here and you will be somewhere else. But if you don't pay any attention to the mind, if you don't listen to what the mind is saying, then you will not have any problem with him.

Many times I have told this story, and it is even published in the magazine, but again I would like to tell it to you. Once a group of people came to me and they were meditating in front of me, and one of the dear ones slept [during] the meditation. When we woke him up and we asked him what he was doing instead of meditating, he reported that while he was sitting here for meditation his mind took him forty miles away to his old village where he was loading a trolley, and that trolley was stuck in the bushes, and when we woke him up he came back. You see, he was sitting in Rajasthan but his mind took him forty miles away to Punjab where he used to live. So this is the habit of the mind. He may take you to a very far away place. Even if you are sitting in the presence of the Master, still, playing his tricks, he can take you very far away if you obey his dictates.

You know how the mother takes care of her infant, how she is always taking good care of her infant. In the same way, we should take good care of our mind. We should always go on watching our mind. We should always introspect our mind, and after meditation we should analyze how much time we were [actually] sitting here doing the Simran, and when our mind took us out of the meditation mentally, and where he took us, and by playing which trick he fooled us and took us away - we should analyze how to prevent those tricks of the mind. If you will carefully introspect the doings of your mind during the meditation then you can easily become successful in controlling him.

Before Sukhdev Muni went to King Janak to get Initiation, he used to think, "How can a worldly person become the Master of a renunciate?" - because you know that Sukhdev Muni was a renunciate right from his birth, and whenever he used to ask his father, Ved Vyas, about Initiation, Ved Vyas would tell him, "King Janak is the only perfect Saint nowadays, but He is a King. You may think that He is a worldly person, but He is not, and He is the only one who can connect you with the Naam [and give you the] Initiation." So whenever Sukhdev Muni would think about going to King Janak to get Initiation his mind would bring up this question, "How can a worldly person become the Master of a renunciate?" that is why, for many years, he did not go to see King Janak. But later on, when he realized that there was no other substitute for him, that he would have to go to the king to get Initiation, he finally went to see King Janak. On his way up to see Him he left his clothes and a metal cup in the courtyard of the king's palace.

When Sukhdev Muni and King Janak were talking with each other, at that time, King Janak, because He was a perfect Saint, created such a Will to teach a good lesson to Sukhdev Muni. What He did was this: after some time an attendant came to King Janak and told Him that the cantonment [the army barracks] of that city was on fire. When King Janak heard that He did not react sharply. He didn't do anything; He was not confused. He said, "It is the Will of God"; and that attendant went away.

Sukhdev Muni thought, "This person is not fit to be a king because the army is like the heart of the king. He should have gone to rescue the people who are in the fire; he should have done something to save them, but he doesn't care. So that is why he is not fit to be the king." After some time, when they were still talking, another person came and told King Janak, "Now the city is on fire." King Janak again remained calm and quiet; He only said, "It is the Will of God." Sukhdev Muni again had that negative thought. He thought, "He is the king and he must have a lot of things in his palace so that is why he thinks, `Why should I worry about the city and the people of my kingdom?' But it is very bad that he doesn't care for the other people. He is only bothered and concerned about his own self. That is why he is only saying, `It is God's Will,' and doing nothing to save the other people."

After some time another person came and said, "Your Highness, now even the palace is on fire. The courtyard of the palace is on fire." At once Sukhdev Muni jumped up to save his clothes and his metal cup. Then King Janak held him by his hand and said, "Now you tell me - who is the renunciate, you or me? You left some clothes and some trivial things in my courtyard, and you are afraid that you will lose them if you don't rush to take them. But you see that when the cantonment was on fire, when the city was on fire, I didn't go to save them because I am not attached to them. So now you can decide who is a renunciate and who is not."

Then Sukhdev Muni learned that in reality he was attached to the world and King Janak was not. Even though King Janak used to live like a worldly person, since He was a King and He had many obligations, many responsibilities, but in fact He was not attached to all those things. He was just performing His duty. So when he realized that King Janak was a perfect One, and that he should take Initiation from Him, he requested, "Master, now You should give me Initiation."

But King Janak was not going to give him Initiation so easily. He told Sukhdev, "Well, I will give you Initiation, but first I will put you to some tests, and if you pass those tests, only then you will get the Initiation."

King Janak gave Sukhdev Muni a cup full of oil and told him, "You take this oil, and holding this cup in your hand, go around the city. If you come back with the same amount of oil, without dropping even a single drop of this oil, only then will I understand that you can concentrate, and that you can do the meditation. And only then will I give you Initiation." He said, "Mind that, if you drop even a single drop of oil on the ground, you should know that a person with an open sword is behind you, and he will cut off your head, so you should be very careful."

When Sukhdev Muni took that cup of oil and went into the city, King Janak, at many places in the city, had arranged some distractions, such as dancers and other things. This was only to attract Sukhdev Muni's attention. But Sukhdev Muni had the desire of realizing God, and he wanted to get the Initiation from the perfect Master, and since he knew that if he dropped the oil he would be killed, he was afraid of death also. So his mind didn't tell him to look at all those things, all those distractions, and he was so concentrated in that cup of oil that even though he went all around the city he didn't look at any other thing except that cup of oil. When he came back to King Janak having passed that test King Janak asked him, "Tell me, what did you see in the city? Did you like the city?" He said, "Let me tell you that I didn't see anything in the city. I don't know what was happening there, because I was afraid that I would be killed if I removed my attention from this cup of oil, so I was fully concentrated on this cup."

Then King Janak said, "Now I see that you can concentrate in the meditation also. Later on, when you get Initiation, if you will have that much concentration in your meditation, only then will you become successful." Later, after Sukhdev Muni passed many other tests, and when he got the Initiation, he was so much concentrated in his meditation that he became successful, and he also became a perfect Saint.

So if we also remember that death is hanging over our head, and we are not supposed to look at this or that place, if we remember and we have real yearning for God, then there is no question of our mind taking us away from our Simran. We will be absorbed in the Simran just as the attention of Sukhdev Muni was absorbed in that cup of oil.

Our head is filled with the enjoyments and the distractions of the world, and we always remember them. But if we are afraid of our Master, if we are afraid of our death, and if we remember that our main purpose for coming into this world is to realize God, then it will not be very difficult to take our mind away from the enjoyments and distractions of the world. We can easily put all our concentration and all our attention in the Simran only.

When I was in the army they used to show the movies once a week free of charge. Because of the grace of Almighty I was not given any duty [connected with the movies] and that is why I was not responsible for doing any work there and I didn't have anything to do with them. So when they would show the movies, instead of going to see the movies, I would let someone else go to see the movies and I would take his duty instead of him. When some people asked me, and even the head of the army asked me why I did not go to see the movies, I told them, "The poison will work even if you don't have to pay for the poison, still it will work on you if you use it. And I know that by watching movies the waves of the world come into the mind more, the mind gets more spread in the world, and when I will sit for meditation, instead of doing the work which I am supposed to do in meditation, I would start seeing all the things which are shown [in the movies] and I would think about them. But I am trying to go in the within; I am trying to see that living movie which is going on in my within. That is why I do not want to see these movies."

In my whole life I have seen only my own movie, at Sant Bani Ashram. That was the first time I ever saw [anything] on the screen. Before that, I never saw any movie. The reason for watching that movie was that I was curious to know how they were making the movies,* because people bring their cameras and they stand in front of me, so I was curious to know what they were doing with all their work, and I just wanted to see how they were making the movies. That time in Sant Bani Ashram was the first that I saw a movie.

If anyone tried to inspire me to go to the movies, I would inspire him in return to go within and see the inner movie. I would tell him, "If you will go in the within and see the inner movie, then you will not like to see the outer movies."

If you go in the within even a little bit, if you start to fix your attention at the Third Eye - at the Eye Center - even a little bit, then also you can see all those beautiful things, all those happiness-giving things which are in your within. Then you will see how your within is full of beautiful things and the Form of the Master is so beautiful that you cannot find even a fraction of its beauty in any outside forms, in any outside faces.

The inner Form of the Master is so beautiful that it is worth seeing; it cannot be described. So when you start going in your within even a little bit, then you will also experience those flames of love which are burning within you. And when you have that experience, then you will never like to see the outer movies.

As now it is difficult for you to withdraw your attention from the outer movies and the outer things, if you go within and see all those things in your within, then it will become very difficult for you to even think about going to see the movies.

When you go to see the movies you have to spend a lot of strength. If you don't believe me, you can see the earlier pictures of Pappu in which you will see only the sketch of his face, because in those days he used to see many movies, even three shows a day. Now you can see the difference. [much laughter]

When we're looking in front of us and we're repeating the Names, should we concentrate on what we're looking at, or concentrate more in repeating the Names?

You can do both things at the same time.

Is it possible to meditate lying down? [much laughter]

You see, when we are sick and are unable to sit, then we can lie down and we can meditate in that condition. This is only in the case when our body is not working all right. But if we are healthy, and if we can sit and meditate, then we should never even think about lying down and meditating in that way, because this is the trick of the mind, and it shows that the mind wants [you] to become lazy.

Mind may advise you, "What is the harm in lying down and doing the meditation? - because our work is to do the Simran and we can do that even while lying down." But when you start doing that you may do Simran for a little bit of time, and afterwards your mind will bring sleep, and then you will be sleeping. In that way, playing his tricks, your mind would have snatched the time of meditation from you.

I will advise you that you should start doing your meditation as the wrestlers start doing their work when they go into the ring to fight or wrestle with another wrestler. At that time, neither of them is thinking about their defeat. They both have hope, and they both want to become successful. That is why they apply their full force, and with all their concentration they do their work. Success or defeat is something which comes later on, but in the beginning they both have the same enthusiasm, and they both are trying their best to defeat each other. In the same way, when you sit for meditation you should not be discouraged, you should never think that you will not become successful. Like the wrestlers, you should also have hope and you should also be enthusiastic. You should apply your full force in doing your meditation. At our Eye Center, which is our ring where we have to fight with our mind, we should apply our full force, and we should put all our concentration in fighting with him.

Our enemy is our mind, and we should never surrender to him.

Satsangis should never understand themselves as alone, and they should never feel that they are helpless and alone, because they are never alone; they are never helpless. The gracious hand of the perfect Master is on their head.

At the time of Initiation into Naam, the Satguru Power takes His residence within the disciple, and He is always giving us His grace and He is always helping us. But at least we should become the means, and we should become receptive to His grace.

Master does not want that His disciples should always remain the slave of the organs of the senses, and that always the five dacoits may go on plundering him. He does not want that. He always wants that His disciple will dominate all these five dacoits and that he may become successful in controlling them.