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Sadhana
Sadhana is not pointing to perfection; it is pointing to imperfection. That is why it must be accomplished, that is, used to destroy imperfections.

Sadhana does not ultimately lead to God, it only leads away from the world. Sadhana deals with the mind. When the mind has been rendered nondual then the Nondual Reality will come to the fore and saturate everything.

Willpower is a noble position one takes. With it, one does not face off every little problem. That would take forever; for the mind is full of problems and positives. So assume the position of Divinity. This is called Manasana (Manas-asana), the posture of the mind. Master just one posture of the body so that the much more beneficial asanas of the mind can be attained.

Nobility of mind, also known as willpower, is something one affirms first. How do I detect a problem in my willpower? With willpower. This affirmation develops energy. It is like turning one's consciousness on. Blockages are superimposed by lack of willpower. This is a mental position — manas-asana — that one assumes.

Holy Mother said, "The truth is this: he who is really anxious to cross the ocean of this world will somehow break his bonds. No one can stop him."

Those beings who are based in the lower three chakras are like a hot air balloon with too many sandbags. If they throw a bag out — called coffee or alcohol or drugs — they still cannot lift off and soar. They might move a little in a strong wind, like the pleasant and harsh winds of karmas, for instance, but they are not going anywhere profound yet.

Buddha may have declared, "Gatam Gatam, Paragatam – go beyond all goals to the Supreme Goal. That is fine for him. But it is helpful for the sadhaka to think in terms of a preliminary goal. These are called avasthas, stages. Human beings attain Enlightenment by stages.

If one sees families where husbands and wives are always arguing, and their children are all disobedient, it can be concluded that there is no spiritual practice going on in these homes. Where dharma thrives in the householder realm, this karma, called "mortar and pestle" karma, does not crop up anymore.

Student: When we seek to control the mind, what is doing the controlling?
Babaji: You are. You exist at many different levels – gross (individual), subtle (collective), and causal (cosmic). The Atman is actionless, however. When one dissolves the mindstream, one becomes identified with one's True Nature.

Student: How is renunciation, deification?
Babaji: It is a very wonderful alchemy, that the thing you love transforms everything into itself. One loves God so much that the world goes away. One does not renounce things because they are evil, but because one sees them as only manifestations of Brahman. Soon thereafter one wants to behold Brahman Itself, beyond manifestation.

Study of scripture causes karmas to rise up in the mind, and this does not always feel good early on. So one goes to the teacher and complains, "I thought this path was going to be all bliss." But the teacher says, "Oh good, the practice is working; keep doing it." People wind all their karmas on themselves via pain and pleasure. Are we to then think that it can be unwound without some discomfort?

Vedantists go hand in hand to liberation. All is Brahman; all is One. And we all get in agreement about this, i.e., that you are God, and I am God – that God is at the very essence of our being. This is a statement from the standpoint of multiplicity looking at Truth. The "flight of the alone to the alone" is a precious expression from the nondual standpoint. Consciousness does not need to move to know itself; rather, It needs to stay still. Going “hand in hand” means we will agree on this when we get there. As Vivekananda said, we must secure our liberation now. We can compare notes later.

Truth is Eternal; the teachings are infinite. So we make the conclusion that we must dip our minds in these teachings – not just once a week, but every day. At a particular time, one's mind will be in just the right place to hear the Truth in just the right way, and ignorance will fall back and get destroyed.

Teachings are infinite. The point is not that you must learn it all, but that you must take it in so that it can do its salutary work on the mind. When the mind gets purified by teachings, the Atman will come forward of its own accord, in its own auspicious timing.

People who flit from experience to experience like a bird in a tree will tell you they are "living in the moment." But I ask, what have you extracted from those experiences? On the other hand, if beings gain knowledge from their experiences, then they will begin to live in the Eternal Moment. That is beyond the three phases of time – past, present, and future.

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