"Lord,deliver us from destruction"

A big goal is a series of small goals combined.

Start meditating with your eyes open,focusing as a warm-up,then focus on a chakra,then just let go and merge.Don't sit there and think or move into sleepy states of awareness,but move into high-powered states of attention.

One doesn't actually meditate on the navel. The chakra is located about two or three inches below the navel, at that point there is an energy access sphere in the middle of the body.

It is not advisable for persons who are in the early stages of meditation to mediate on the two lower chakras. You will unleash powers and forces that will throw you into very powerful altered state of consciousness that might not be pleasant at all.

Focus your attention on the top of your neck. Take that energy and transmit it in two lines to your hands. Then from the hands, bounce that energy right back to the heart center and ground it.

Move the kundalini from the solar plexus region into the heart center, which purifies it and connects the two halves of you being. Bring the kundalini down again from the heart center to the navel center.

At the end of meditation period we always bow and we touch our head to the floor and say "Buddha's name be praised."

When you focus on the third chakra it has to pull the kundalini from the root center, through the second, up to the third chakra.

The navel center will bring the power of all three of the lower chakras into your being, but with safety.

My feeling is that drugs and alcohol take away from the pure experience of meditation. That does not mean that occasionally, a person couldn't have a glass of wine or a drink.

There are billions of people out there walking around and they don't meditate. You can tell. They are not having a good time with their lives. People are not happy.

I like extreme athletics, extreme meditation and extremely beautiful women. Perhaps I'm an extreme person, or it's simply my Karma. But I must tell you,there are extreme risks involved with all three.

There is a spirit that guides us, if we will listen. It speaks softly. In order to hear it we must still our thoughts and meditate.

Meditation gives you personal power. You will notice that people will treat you differently as you progress because they can feel that power. Use that power wisely. If you search your heart, I think you will.

I'm not suggesting that everyone should meditate, far from it. Meditation is for very few individuals. I'm speaking of something that is a powerful experience.

The place that you gain the most power is within your own mind. Stopping thought generates power. That is why people meditate. The longer you can stop thought, the more power you gain.

Some people meditate because they need more energy and when you meditate you get a tremendous amount of energy.

Some people are drawn to meditation without knowing why. Their inner being realizes that they've totally fouled up their life so far, and now it's just going to drag them to the local meditation hall.

A critical part of Tantric Buddhism is a process of turning of the activities and experiences in your daily life into meditation.

Everyone meditates in their own way. Some people sit and practice formal mediation techniques for many hours a day while others spontaneously meditate while watching a sunset, listening to music, or participating in athletics.

It’s a good idea to avoid eating for an hour or two before you meditate. If you try and meditate on a full stomach, you’ll find that it’s difficult to meditate because you’re just too heavy. You feel your body too much. Try to wear clean, comfortable clothing, and always be physically clean before you meditate. Try to take a shower or a bath. If you can’t, if it’s an evening meditation and you don’t have time, at least wash your hands and face. You need to bring a sense of purity and cleanliness to your meditative practice.

We have a body, but we also have a subtle body, a body of energy that looks like our physical body, if you could see it. The subtle physical body, which is approximately the same size as our physical body, is made up of energy, of light, a light that vibrates at a very, very high rate so that the human physical eyes can’t see it. When you develop your psychic vision after some meditation, you will be able to see the subtle physical of others, or perhaps of yourself. At first you’ll see it as an aura, a light that seems to appear around someone. But eventually you can see the whole subtle physical. Just as your physical body is composed of tissue, organs, bones and different parts, so your subtle physical body has many different parts. There are seven primary centers, junctions, within the subtle physical body. They run from the base of the spine to the crown of the head. These are called the seven chakras. When you meditate and focus your attention on any one of the chakras, it will open a doorway into a specific world, another dimensional plane. Each chakra leads to a different floor in the building. For the first few years, it’s most beneficial to meditate on the heart chakra. The heart chakra, called the anahata chakra in Sanskrit, is located in the center of the chest, dead center. It’s not in the exact location of the physical heart but rather more to the center. If you focus your attention on the center of your chest while you’re meditating for the first few minutes, you’ll feel a warm and tingling sensation. The heart chakra takes you into the plane of beauty, humility, purity and love. As you focus your attention on this area, you’ll begin to feel your thoughts slowing down. You’ll begin to feel your mind becoming calm and quiet. And even if there are lots of birds flying around, even if you have lots of thoughts, they’ll become distant. They won’t bother you. You’ll hear the birds flying above you, screaming and cawing in the distance; you’ll be down at the beach, sitting and meditating, but they won’t affect you. You’ll go so deep within yourself that you won’t even notice them.

In the world, very few people will understand meditation and the superconscious, let alone some of the miracles or the siddhas. They'll doubt you or fear you or whatever it may be. So it's very good to be quiet and still about what you do. Don't push it. Even if you're very enthused and very inspired and your life is changing―now you've become a vegetarian, and you've given up smoking and life is great—not everyone is going to understand. Don't try to give a detailed explanation of meditation to somebody who's working at the plant, unless they're really interested. Just say, "Hey, I meditate, it's relaxing, you know.” In other words, speak to people on the level that they're on. Because otherwise you don't do a service to them. When you speak to people in terms that they can understand, then they respond nicely.

Try not to spend too much time with anyone. Spend time with different people, otherwise you become too accessible. When you become accessible to other people, they hold you back. When you spend a lot of time with the same people, they tend to see you in the same way unless they're very advanced spiritual seekers. Every day they see you and they develop an idea of you and then when they see you they project that idea, they have a dream of you. And you without realizing it will conform to their projection. It's very hard to change, if you're around the same people all the time. Try to make new friends. See your friends when you want to, but you should always be making new friends. We've become so fixated in each other. It's not healthy spiritually at all. And you make yourself much too accessible.

Attachment creates pain and frustration. Attachment is the thing that we seek to overcome in self-discovery. Attachment creates pain, and if you don't like pain and suffering, frustration and misery, you must overcome attachment. Attachment on a basic level means not getting caught up in desires. Desires pass through us like the wind passes through the leaves on a tree. The wind moves the leaves to and fro. So desire passes through us and can create movement, a stirring, a rustling within the self. Desire is neither good nor bad. It just has a simple result. Some people feel in spiritual practice that in order to attain higher states of consciousness, to lead a happier life, they have to overcome desire. It's impossible to overcome desire. It's like trying to overcome the earth or the solar system or God. It's not necessary to overcome anything in order to attain liberation. Enlightenment and liberation have nothing to do with overcoming anything. Rather, they involve acceptance and dissolution. If you fight against your desires, you get ensnared in them. If you don't do anything about your desires, you get ensnared in them.

Attachment means that you want to hold onto an experience, a person, an idea, a way of being, a self―but there's a sense of fixation. You feel that you want to hold onto it because you enjoy it, and if you continue holding onto it and experiencing it again and again, your enjoyment will last.

The way you overcome attachment, which causes pain, is not by giving up relationships, giving up possessions, or all that sort of thing. You might want to pull back for a while if you've gotten so wrapped up in relationships and possessions and careers. Sometimes it's nice just to shut off the faucet for a while, to just give ourselves a little distance. It's easier that way, if we break contact for a while with things that we've been wrapped up in, so that we can breathe a little bit and gain our balance. But then you go back in. The world is fun. People are fun. Life is filled with beauty. Even in tragedy there's beauty, if you can see the eternal within. This is what meditation and yoga teaches us. Meditation and yoga teaches us not to try to change the world, because it's always changing. But to observe and to enjoy, to allow eternity to express itself through us freely as it will, and to allow eternity to enjoy itself as it will. Our job is simply not to hold on. You can't hold onto anyone. You don't own anyone. The idea of holding onto someone in a relationship is absurd. How can you hold on? Everyone is light. And you're light. Light can't hold light. You may think that you're a person who can retain something. But I assure you, death will take away from you all those things that you cling to, and then you will experience great suffering and loss. While now you are alive, you can realize the truth, and if you realize the truth, you will be free. Then you can play in the world and enjoy the world. You'll still suffer at times. You'll still feel heat and cold, pleasure and pain—unless you're completely absorbed in the superconscious, in the highest meditation—you'll feel these things, but you won't be that affected by them; you'll understand them. A great conductor who is leading a symphony orchestra, if suddenly a fly is buzzing around his head, he's not going to get all excited and mad and start swatting at the fly and upsetting his orchestra. He simply ignores it. He gets on with what he has to do, his concentration is strong enough. Eventually the fly will go away. So when you're absorbed in higher consciousness, when desires that could cause attachment pass through you, you simply ignore them. You say, "No, this isn't right. If I become wrapped up in this person or this experience, I won't be happy.” Because when you become wrapped up, you get pulled down from the superconscious awareness. Your attention fixes on a physical experience or mental experience. Now the big attachments in self-discovery have nothing to do with attachments to cars or people or love relationships. Those are the basics. And if you're still working on those, I suggest you work through them quickly because there are larger and more exciting challenges ahead of you. The big challenges, the big attachments, are states of being, are states of awareness. Universes. The big attachment is not to someone else or something else, but it's to ourselves. To the way we see life, to what we believe we are—our understandings, our ideas. And these are the best, the most fun, the most exciting attachments to destroy or to slay. You use discrimination, meaning you can see beyond the surface to eternity. Then you rid yourself of all attachments and then you're free. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Good luck! (Rama laughs.) You can do it. I did it. If I can attain liberation, anyone can attain liberation. That should give you great hope. It's not that difficult. If you really love light and you really want that and you simply give everything that you have and everything you are for what you believe, it's quite simple. If you don't do that, then how can it possibly happen? If you give 60 percent of your attention to self-discovery and to overcoming your attachments and suffusing yourself with light, then it will happen in 60 percent, and 40 percent it won't be. If you find a path and follow it and devote 100 percent of your attention to it, then you will become the path itself―in time. It just takes time to become timeless. And it's kind of fun. There's no rush to get there. Going there is a beautiful experience also. So, attachment. The less you deal with it the better. You'll suffer as long as you want to. When you get tired of it, you'll listen. Then you'll give up attachment, give up trying to hold onto people, places, possessions, your old selves. You'll meditate, devote your life entirely to self-discovery while living and working in the world and having a good time, helping as many people as you can without thinking too much of yourself, and everything will be delightful. Till then you'll burn. Such is life. (Rama laughs.) Sorry about that. But―it goes away after awhile. Life goes away after awhile, and death goes away after awhile, so don't feel too bad about it. There's something good waiting for you. If it hurts now, it won't hurt forever, I assure you. Life is light. Just be patient and work like mad.

Don't talk about the same things all the time, don't read the same books, don't go to the same places. You want to become inaccessible not only to other people, but also you need to be inaccessible to yourself, to the parts of yourself that you're trying to transform. In order to be inaccessible you must break up your routines. Human beings, like birds, are creatures of habit. It's very easy to stalk a person, once you learn their routines. So try not to be a person of routines. Don't be fixated on getting a certain amount of sleep every night, sleeping in the same room, living in the same place, wearing the same clothes, working at the same job, having the same friends, using the same toothpaste, driving the same type of car, feeling that you're human.

From age to age, spiritual groups and spiritual seekers are persecuted and very often killed for their belief in God. That's what history teaches us. So we learn to be inaccessible. We learn from history. We learn that it's good to veil the light, to a certain extent, in most cases. If there's someone who will understand and appreciate your spirituality, it's fine to be with them and discuss it. But in most cases, it's good to blend. Why do people stand out in the world? Well, usually two reasons. Reason one is they stand out because they're very fixated in their egos and they want people to notice them. They think that if people notice them, if they're famous, be it in a small circle of friends or in world terms, that will make them happy. This is illusion number 99 in a continuing series of illusions. Some people stand out without meaning to stand out. They stand out simply because they're different, because their views are different, their ways of living are different or because they're following or performing a task in this world—Lincoln stands out, Gandhi, Kennedy, many others. They stand out as great individuals. Now, the problem is, of course, when you stand out you draw attention to yourself. When you draw attention to yourself, it's very easy to get wrapped up in attention and wanting more attention, and you become attached to it and fixated and of course you lose your ability to discriminate, and your high consciousness becomes a low consciousness. The other problem is when people fixate upon you, they send vibrations. Whenever anyone thinks of you, a vibratory force is directed towards you on a subtle physical level, on the astral level. When people hate you, that hate touches you. The classic example is a woman who is scantily dressed and is walking down the street in front of the place where they're building the new building, and all the construction workers whistle at her and yell at her and wave at her and throw a lot of sexual energy at her. Now, she may enjoy the attention, but what she doesn't realize is that on a subtle physical level, the energy they're throwing at her is harming her subtle physical body. Also, maybe later, if she keeps walking down the street and it gets a little darker, someone will put a gun to her head and take her home and rape her and kill her. I mean this happens. This is the extreme, but it happens on many levels.

In a spiritual community, it's a good idea to blend. If you meditate very well, if you're doing very well spiritually, don't let anyone know. This is inaccessibility in terms of fairness. You have to realize that human nature goes through many changes, that each one of us has many sides. Let's say you went and saw the spiritual teacher and spent time together, and suddenly you decided to tell all your friends about it and you're very inspired, and suppose you're not even showing off but your enthusiasm is genuine. By doing this, what you'll do is probably not inspire anyone, but make people jealous. You have to realize, take into account, that everyone isn't perfect yet, that they all are working through different things. And as a favor to another human being, you don't put them in a situation whereby they can do harm to themselves. You anticipate their level and you watch out for them, you care about them. So while it might inspire you to tell somebody about your experience when you went and saw the teacher and you had lunch together or something, your friends might become jealous. They think, "Well, why did so and so go, why didn't I get to go?” Now, true, maybe they shouldn't feel that way, but they do. That's reality. And if you want to walk around on cloud nine thinking, "Well, it doesn't matter, they put themselves in that situation, I'm not to blame if they want to think those thoughts," then you're a very selfish human being. If you really care for others, you anticipate how they feel. And while you can't think their thoughts for them, nor should you, in any way that you can be of comfort to them or of service, you do so. If you're going to visit some poor relatives, you don't wear your most expensive clothing because they'll feel bad. That's humility. In order to be inaccessible, you need to be humble. If you're proud, you won't be inaccessible, you'll want to show off. But you'll be the loser, you'll be the victim. Inaccessibility is a very good quality. It's good not to tell everyone your life story. It's good not to feel that you need to expose yourself that much, because it's ego. It's good to listen and to learn. It's fun to inspire people, but don't make yourself the central attraction, the diamond in the tiara. It's really not necessary. You'll cause yourself and others more harm.

Inaccessibility is a very good quality. It's good not to tell everyone your life story. It's good not to feel that you need to expose yourself that much, because it's ego. It's good to listen and to learn. It's fun to inspire people, but don't make yourself the central attraction, the diamond in the tiara. It's really not necessary. You'll cause yourself and others more harm.