How much Japa?

• Keep doing japa; let the days and nights pass one after the other while you have refuge with Naam, let your seat of meditation be well established. ‘Asana jayaat prana jayah.’ When you conquer asana (stay firm in your prayers in a single spot), you will triumph over prana (vital breath) too. Just watch! God Himself will grant you vision thereafter.


• You have been blessed with this life with Guru’s grace. You have received the mantra. Put that mantra into practice through japa and make progress. Be scrupulous in doing japa in the morning, midday, evening and midnight. Mantra is no ordinary thing. Mantra is God.


• It is advisable to do japa constantly; it is for the bounden duty of a brahmachari to make a firm resolve in this matter. Let not the tongue rest without Naam even for a moment. Thereafter, the grace of compassionate Lord will descend on him.
  
  
• Many people take diksha (initiation) just for the sake of amusement. They give up the required practice in a month or two. What can even a Siddha Guru do for this kind of disciple? It is not fair to do this; if not a full course of a thousand counts; somehow one must do japa 108 times. Effort is a must. How can one expect fruit without any effort?
  
  
• Gurudeva hasn’t bestowed mantra alone; he has gifted God in the shape of a mantra. If you chant that mantra ten or twelve times or a hundred and eight times, how can you gain peace? At least for six months, try and do a japa count of 21,600 daily and then see whether you get peace or not.
  
  
• Virakta sadhus (renunciates) should carry out one lakh japa-count daily and the householders must achieve a count of 25,000 Naam Japa every day.
  
  
• The first duty of the spiritual aspirant is to perform minimum of one hour of japa thrice daily— at the dawn, noon and dusk. Thereafter, once there is growth of sattva guna, sleep will decrease, and it will be possible to get up in the morning after meditating in the midnight.

Writing Naam/ Likhita Japa:

• Those who can write must write (Ram Naam). Depending upon competence, adopt the practice of meditating upon the favourite deity, sushumna etc. This will bring you supreme bliss. Basically, only when the Naad is gained, dhyana is to be practiced.


• By writing Naam, it is possible to quickly get bindoo darshan. Utterance of Naam may not touch the mind, but writing ‘Sri Ram Ram Ram’ while saying it puts into action the ‘tongue’, 'eye' (which is superior organ among the senses), ‘mind’ (the lord of the senses), and also the ‘hand’. It is not possible to write Naam without involving the ‘body-speech-mind’ triad; as a result of this synthesis, abundant sattvik vibrations are attracted to the being. It removes the impurities of the body, frees one of disease and bestows Naad and Jyoti.

Ma Japa:

• Blow up the desires, more impenetrable than even the forts made of iron, with the cannon of ‘Ma’ Naam. Lust cannot come anywhere near person who chants ‘Ma’, ‘Ma’, ‘Ma’.


• Do not consider yourself happy or sad on account of false joy and sorrow arising from this mortal frame, home, wife and children etc. – call out ‘Ma!’… ‘Ma!’  … Enter the blissful world of Mother!

Dehatma Bhava:

• As long as there is ‘I’ (pride and ego) nothing can be achieved. The root cause of all sufferings pertaining to the outside world lies in the ignorance ‘I am the body.’


• Life after life, human being has gone astray out of sheer ignorance, mistaking the ‘physical body’ to be ‘the self’.


• You are not the body – you have heard this from the Shastras and holy men; but you have never tried to experience the truth underlying this. The awareness ‘I am the body’ –this is ignorance. As long as this body-consciousness is not dispelled, you can’t find your own self.


• The simple way is to chant Naam incessantly. The weakness lies in false identification— in the awareness 'I am the body'. Just as a fish lives in water, but the fish and the water are independent entities, an insect lives in a fig but the insect and fig are separate. Similarly, the body and the spirit (Atman) are distinct from each other– to consider body to be oneself, this is ignorance-sin-vice (call it what you like).


• Sin consists in deha-abhimana, in things like 'I am great' etc.


• ‘If all this is the body of God, then my body is also His.’ Reflecting thus, the devotee is filled with joy; he is not scared by the praise of the body, he takes the glory of the body to be glory of God and rejoices in it. As long as he maintains the body, he rejoices in it calling it sporting ground of God. Oh! How wonderful! How delightful!

Ego:

• Be free from ego– by no means let the feelings like “I am great” or “I am knowledgeable” or “I am virtuous” etc. find room in your heart.


• The purpose of human life is direct vision of God. So, keep making progress. Let trivial hatred, violence, the foolishness of “I am great”, “I am intelligent” etc. go away. Regarding everyone as just another manifestation of your favourite deity, learn to respect everyone in thought, deed and action.

Me & Mine:

• The root cause of the disease of samsara lies in ‘I’, ‘my self’, ‘me’ and ‘mine’. The degree to which ‘me’ and ‘mine’ is pronounced in a man, to the same degree is his misery enhanced.


• Whatever is happening in this world, whatever has happened, as also whatever will transpire, is the work of merciful Lord of this universe. He shines forth as the primordial cause, but reflects in the form of the doer. It is the foolish men devoid of philosophic knowledge who vainly entertain egoism.


• No matter who you are, if you develop pride, there is no release for you. Someday that pride is bound to get shattered; you are bound to weep saying, ‘Oh! I am nobody, I am helpless!’


• You will not have to renounce the worldly life; you won’t have to go into the forest; wherever you are, you still can progress on the spiritual path and be in the world of bliss! The suffering is only because of sense of ‘me’ and ‘mine’.


• The sorrow exists as long as one feels a sense of ‘mine’ with regard to samsara; the moment one feels ‘this samsara belongs to God and not me’, there can be no trace of sorrow. Life of a householder is in itself a service to Sri Gurudeva. Being fearless with this sentiment and serving Guru (latent in samsara) and chanting ‘Guru, ‘Guru’, ‘Guru’, one must reach fulfilment.


• There is as much suffering, torment and grief as there is ‘me-me’, ‘mine-mine’ and masquerading in the external world.


• The day no bubble or wave of ‘I’, ‘I’ rises in the heart, that day you can assume Gurudeva has truly assimilated you.


• What you refer to as ‘I,’ is the body of Sri Sri Gurudeva. He alone is performing Leela in this world assuming the form of ‘I.’ This body is His Leela Vigraha. That is the reason you won’t have to perform difficult austerities. Whatever mantra you have received, just hold on to it with determination– that will suffice.


• To look for good living quarters as soon as one reaches a new place, or to assign a good room, house or a spot on the riverbank is also among the ludicrous things of Kali Yuga. It increases the awareness of ‘I am this body.’ Our Ishta Devata (Favourite Deity) takes away this ignorance. ‘Everything is my Ishta’ – how can there be a better house or a better place for me?


• Now that you have adopted the path of renunciation, don’t leave a stamp of ‘me’ and ‘mine’ anymore. Listen brother, whichever thing you sign with ‘mine’, it is going to give you tremendous suffering.