第14章 Chapter 14

I am Ready, If You Are 5 August 1970 pm in Bombay, India Question 1 AT THE DWARKA MEDITATION CAMP YOU HAVE DISCUSSED THE PROCESS OF ENTERING INTO THE MEMORIES OF PAST LIVES. YOU SAID THEN THAT BY DISCONNECTING THE CONSCIOUSNESS COMPLETELY FROM THE FUTURE, THE POWER OF MEDITATION SHOULD BE FOCUSED TOWARD THE PAST.

EXPLAINING THE PROCESS FURTHER, YOU SAID THAT FIRST ONE REGRESSES TO THE AGE OF FIVE, THEN TO THE AGE OF THREE, FOLLOWED BY THE MEMORY OF BIRTH, THE POINT OF CONCEPTION, AND FINALLY INTO THE MEMORIES OF PAST LIFE. YOU SAID ADDITIONALLY THAT YOU DID NOT INTEND TO EXPLAIN THE WHOLE SUTRA, THE WHOLE TECHNIQUE FOR REMEMBERING PAST LIVES.

WHAT IS THE WHOLE TECHNIQUE? WOULD YOU KINDLY EXPLAIN THE SUTRA FURTHER. Memories of our past life have been prevented by nature. There is a reason for it. It is necessary that in the overall system of ones life one forgets most of the things that happen to him every day. Thats why we dont remember all the memories that we create during our lifetime.

However, that which you dont remember is not completely erased from your mind. Only the connection between your consciousness and the memory is severed. For example, if a person lives for fifty years, billions of memories will be formed in his mind. If he were to remember them all he would go mad.

So he remembers whatever is meaningful: whatsoever is worthless he slowly forgets. But your forgetting does not mean the memory is completely wiped out. It merely slips out of your center of consciousness and is stored in some corner of your mind. Buddha has given a very significant name to this storehouse.

He calls it alaya vigyan -- the storehouse of consciousness. It is just like having an attic or a basement where all the unwanted things are stored. Even though the objects are out of your sight, they still remain present within the house. Similarly, your memories go out of sight, but remain accumulated in some corners of your mind.

It would become difficult to live if you were to recall all the memories of even this life. In order that the mind stays free to handle the events of the future, the past has to be forgotten. Since you forget what happened yesterday, you become capable of living the tomorrow. This way the mind goes on becoming empty, it is able to look ahead.

In order to look ahead it is necessary to forget the past. Without forgetting what has already occurred you wont have the capability to see what is ahead of you. Every day a part of your mind must become blank so that it can receive new impressions, otherwise how can it work? As the future arrives, the past disappears every day.

And as soon as this future becomes the past, it disappears too so that we are free to receive what lies ahead. This is how the mind functions. We cannot carry the full memory of even one life. You wont be able to recall anything if I ask you what you did on January 1, 1960. You did exist on January 1, 1960, and you must have done something from dawn till dusk, yet you will be unable to remember anything.

A small technique of hypnosis can revive the memory of that day. If you are hypnotized, and a part of your consciousness is put to sleep, and then if you are asked to describe what you did on January 1, 1960, you will recount everything. For a long time I experimented on a young man. But my problem was how to be sure of the details he gave of January 1, 1960.

He was able to narrate that day only under hypnosis: in the waking state he would forget everything. So it was difficult for me to determine whether or not he really took a bath at nine oclock on the morning of January 1, 1960. There was only one way to do it. I wrote down everything he did on a certain day. After a few months when I asked him to describe his activities of the same day, he couldnt recall anything. When I put him under a deep state of hypnosis and asked him to narrate the particular day, he not only recounted all that I had noted down, but described many other things which had not been written. He did not miss anything from what I had written down; rather he added many more things. Obviously I could not have noted everything. I had written only what I saw or what had occurred to me. In hypnosis you can be taken as deeply inside your self as one would like to go. But it will be done by someone else; you will be unconscious. You wont know a thing. Under hypnosis you can be taken even into your past lives, but it would essentially be in a state of unconsciousness. The only difference between jati-smaran regression and the technique of hypnosis is that while regressing you go into your past lives with consciousness; in hypnosis you are taken into your previous lives by being made unconscious. The validity increases a great deal if both the techniques are applied. Suppose you hypnotize a man, ask him about his previous lives and write it down; then in his conscious state you lead him into meditation. If even under the meditative state he gives the same account of his previous lives, you gather additional evidence and the validity of the story is established. So the same memory can be revived by applying two methods. Although the process of regression is simple, it has its own hazards. Thats why I did not explain all the keys. All the keys can be told only to an individual who is ready to experiment. Otherwise, ordinarily, they cannot be explained to everyone. The whole technique can of course be explained saving one sutra -- this one cannot be practiced. As I said yesterday, our consciousness moves with the aid of will, determination. For example, when you sit for meditation and begin to go deep into it, make a resolve to go back when you were five years old and find out what happened to you then. In that deep state of meditation you will suddenly find you have indeed become five years old, and whatever happened to you at that age is coming back to you. At first, enter into the memory of this birth. As one gains clarity and depth in meditation, and as it becomes possible to go back into the past -- which is not difficult -- one can go as far back as the mothers womb and revive memories of that time. If your mother fell down when she was pregnant with you, her memory of that fall, that hurt, will become part of your memory too. Or, if she was unhappy at the time you were in her womb, her memory of that suffering will be your memory as well, because in the mothers womb the states of your being and hers were not separate -- they were combined. Hence, deep down the experience that your mother had becomes your experience too -- it is automatically transferred to you. During pregnancy, the mothers state of mind plays a vital role in the formation of the child. In the right sense of the meaning, one is not a mother just because she has carried a child in her womb; she is also a mother because she has given a special direction to the childs consciousness. Even a female animal is able to carry a baby in her stomach -- all animals do it. Sooner or later machines will do it as well. It is not too difficult to imagine babies growing in a machine. An artificial womb can certainly be created. The same system that exists in the mothers womb can be created in a machine run by electricity. A system with the same degree of heat, the same amount of water, can be produced. And sooner or later, instead of growing babies in a mothers womb, they will be placed and grown in a mechanical womb. But that will not be enough to meet the requirement of motherhood. Perhaps very few mothers on this earth have fulfilled the role of motherhood. Its a Herculean task to be a mother. And the task is, for nine months giving the childs consciousness a specific direction. During these nine months, if the mother stays angry And when she gives birth to an angry child, when he behaves angrily, she scolds him, rebukes him, and wonders who has spoiled him, what bad company he must have fallen into. Mothers come to me complaining about their sons and daughters having fallen into bad company. But they dont realize that they are the ones who have sown the seeds of their childrens wrongdoings. They alone are responsible for building their consciousness -- children are simply manifesting it. Of course, sowing the seed and its manifestation are two different phenomena. We dont see the connection between the two because an enormous gap exists in between. Emile Coue has written an anecdote in his biography. He says a friend of his, a major in the army, was once reading a book on hypnosis. Somewhere in the book it was mentioned that when a child is in the womb, whatever impressions the mother may receive are automatically transferred to the child. His wife was pregnant at that time. He told her, "The author of this book says, Whatsoever a mother thinks, whatever she feels, whatever she lives -- all of that is directly transferred to the child. " They both laughed and took no serious note of it. That evening they were invited to a party in honor of a general. By coincidence, the majors wife sat next to the general at the dining table. The generals thumb was squashed during the war. The majors wife suddenly remembered what her husband had read to her that afternoon. Afraid that her child may be born with a deformed thumb, she tried deliberately not to see the generals thumb. Throughout the party she avoided the generals thumb, but the more she tried not to look at it the more her eyes wandered toward that thumb. She forgot the general, she forgot the party, her whole attention remained focused on the thumb. Since she was sitting next to the general, she saw the thumb as he ate, as he shook hands with people. It got so bad that she even shut her eyes, but by shutting her eyes she saw the thumb even more clearly. It is easier to see things clearly with closed eyes. She completely freaked out. As long as the party lasted, the poor woman remained totally obsessed with the generals thumb. At night, she woke up with a start several times. In the morning she said to her husband, "I am in trouble. I am very much afraid my child will be born with a deformed thumb. " Consoling her, the husband said, "Are you crazy? Whats in a book? Do you believe something will happen just because it was written by somebody? Drop the whole thing from your mind!" But the wife couldnt drop it. The fact is, the very thing we are asked to drop becomes difficult to let go of. The more the husband tried to persuade her to drop the thing and forget about it, the more it became crystallized. You know very well -- that which you want to forget, you never can. In fact in the very attempt of forgetting you have to keep remembering it -- just to forget it. It keeps coming back to your mind. If you really want to forget something, you will at least have to remember it. And in order to forget, the more you will need to remember it the stronger that memory becomes. As the days passed and the time of the childs birth drew closer, the thumb began to weigh heavily on her mind. No matter how much she tried, she couldnt forget it. As she went through labor pains, as the child was taking birth, the thumb was in her thoughts -- not the child. And an incredible thing happened: the child was born with a deformed thumb. When the photographs of the childs and the generals thumbs were compared, they looked identical. It was the mother who gave this thumb to the child. Like this, all mothers give their own thumbs, their own disorders to their children. Everyone has different kinds of thumbs, disorders which have been given to them. So first, you will have to go back in your memory to the day you were born -- but that is not your real birthday. The actual birthday is the day a child is conceived. What we call the birthday is in fact the day which falls nine months after the birth has happened -- it is not the right birthday. The day the soul enters the mothers womb is indeed the correct birthday. It is neither difficult nor dangerous to go back in memory this far, because it pertains to this very life. And in order to do that, as I mentioned earlier, you need to turn the mind away from the future. Those who practice even a little bit of meditation will have no difficulty forgetting about the future. And what is there to remember in the future anyway? In fact, there is no future. So the direction has to be changed. Instead of looking at the future, look in the past, and go on making your resolve stronger and stronger in your mind. Turn one year back, two years back, ten, twenty years back; keep moving backward and you will have a strange experience. Ordinarily, if we go back into our past without meditation, even in a conscious state, the further we go back the hazier the memories will become. Someone may find it impossible to recall anything beyond the age of five, and even up to five the memories may be few and far between. As you draw closer and closer to your present age, your memories will become more and more clear. You will have a clear memory of yesterday; your memory of today will be even more clear. But your memory of the day before yesterday, that of a year back, or that of twenty-five or fifty years back will be increasingly hazier and hazier. But if you apply the same technique in the state of meditation, you will be greatly surprised. The situation will be totally the reverse. As you will draw closer to the childhood memories, the clearer they will be, because the minds slate is never so clear as it is during the childhood; the writing on it is never so clear after that. So you will have a big surprise reviving memories in meditation, because the situation will be reversed. The more you will move backward, drawing closer to childhood, the more transparent will be the memory. And as you will grow older in your memory, the more hazy everything will look. In meditation, today will look the foggiest, while the first day of birth, fifty years ago for example, will be the clearest day in memory. Returning to the past memories in meditation is not remembering. You must understand the difference. When we remember consciously, we are remembering. How is this different? When you remember your childhood -- and you are now fifty years old, for example -- you are fifty now, at this moment, and you revive the memory when you were five years old, or two years old, or one year old, what happens? Your fifty-year-old mind stands in between this moment and the memory of those years. The memories become hazy because you are looking through the layers of fifty years spread in between. When you remember the past following the technique of meditation, you no longer remain fifty years old; you become five years old. In meditation you remember as a five-year-old child. At that moment you are not a fifty-year-old man remembering the days when you were five years old. You go back to the fifth year of your life. So when we recall memories consciously we should call it remembering, whereas the same in meditation is reliving. And there is a difference between the two. In remembering you face great layers of memories which make everything fuzzy. In meditation, reliving the memory turns you into a five-year-old. Shobhana is here with us. She says in meditation, all of a sudden strange thoughts start coming to her. She thinks she is a child playing with dolls. That thought becomes so strong that it frightens her. She suspects someone may see her in that condition and feel strange about her, so she opens her eyes now and then to make sure no one is watching her. She is not aware, at that moment her present age disappears. In that state she is not even remembering her childhood; it is reliving. That means in meditation she turns into a five-year-old girl. There is a young man here: in meditation he begins to suck his thumb -- he becomes six months old. The moment he enters into meditation, his thumb goes right in his mouth. He returns to the age when he was six months old. It is necessary to understand the difference between remembering and reliving. It is not very difficult to relive one life. The only problem is we have become identified with our age. A man of fifty is not willing to step back even five years -- he wants to remain stuck at the age of fifty. Those who wish to relive their past, who want to remember their past, will have to give up their fixed identities; they will have to relax a little. For example, if a man wants to go back to his childhood it would do him good if he played with children for an hour or so every day. It would help him greatly if he dropped his fixation on being fifty years old, if he stopped being serious for a while. It would be good if he did jogging, swimming, dancing. It would be helpful if he consciously lived like a child for an hour; that would make it easier for him to return to his past in meditation as well. Otherwise he remains rigidly at the age of fifty. Remember, consciousness has no age; it only consists of conditionings. There is nothing like a five-year-old, a ten-year-old, or a fifty-year-old consciousness. It is just an idea. Close your eyes and try to find how old your consciousness is -- you wont be able to say anything. You might say, "I will have to check the diary, or look into a calendar, or consult the horoscope. " The fact is, no one knew what his age was until horoscopes, calendars, the counting of years, the numbers came into existence. Even today there are aboriginals who find it difficult to answer if you ask them how old they are, because for some of them the numerals stop at fifteen, for others at ten, and for some the number doesnt go beyond five. I know a man who is a house-cleaner. Once someone asked him how old he was. He replied, "Just about twenty-five. " In fact he was at least about sixty. The people who heard him were a little surprised. They asked, "How old is your son?" He said, "Maybe about twenty-five. " The people were puzzled. They said, "Your son is twenty-five, you are also twenty-five years old -- how can this be?" He had no problem with it, because for him twenty-five was the last number, there was no number beyond that. The difficulty arises for us because we have numbers beyond twenty-five. For him, beyond twenty-five was the infinite, the numberless. Age exists because of our calculations based on calendars, dates, days. Age is a byproduct of all these. If you look within there is no age. You wont know how old I am by looking inside me, because age is purely an external measure. But this outer measurement becomes fixed on the inner consciousness -- it sticks there like a nail. You go on driving nails in your consciousness, saying, "Now I am fifty, now I am fifty-one, now I am fifty-two " If these nails become too much set, it will be difficult to go back into the memories. One who is very serious cannot return to his childhood memories. The serious people are sick people. Actually, seriousness is a psychological disease. Those who are very serious always suffer from illness. Its very difficult for them to regress. Those who are simple and light-hearted, who can play and laugh with children, for them it will be easy to go back into the past memories. So try to break the fixations of your external life. Dont be conscious of your age all the time. Never say to your son, "I know, because my age is such and such. " Age has nothing to do with knowing. Dont behave with children as if there exists a gap of fifty years between you and them. Instead, be a friend to them. A seventy-year-old woman has written a book. Its a small book containing the story of her experiment of befriending a five-year-old child. Its a difficult thing to do, not a simple matter. It is easy to be a father, a mother, a brother, a guru of a five-year-old child; to be a friend is very difficult. No mother, no father is ever able to be friends with their children. We will have transformed the entire world the day parents become friends of their children. It will be altogether a different world, it will no longer be so hideous and ugly. But they dont extend that hand of friendship. So this woman of seventy really carried out an amazing experiment. She befriended the child when he was three. For the next two years she maintained her friendship with him in every possible way. It would be good to understand her attitude toward this friendship. It will be easy for such a woman to return to her past memories. This woman of seventy would go to the sea-shore with that child who happens to be her friend. The child would run, pick up stones and pebbles, and the woman would do the same. How else could she have broken the tremendous age barrier between her and the child? Her picking up the stones and pebbles along with the child was not just to advance her friendship with him. She really tried to see the stones and pebbles with the same joy and delight as the child. She would look into the childs eyes, and watch her own eyes too. She would look at his hands picking up a shining pebble, and she would look at her own hands doing the same act. She would watch how thrilled the child was, how he was looking at those pebbles with such wonder and excitement in his eyes. She tried to look the same way -- becoming a child too. She ran with him to catch the foam as the waves lapped on the shore. The child would run after butterflies, and she would run with him too. The child once came up to her in the middle of the night and said, "Lets go out. The crickets chirping sound so beautiful. " She did not say, "Go to sleep now. This is no time to go out. " She immediately went along with him. The child walked, step by step, softly so as not to disturb the crickets. The woman followed him exactly the same way. Two years of this friendship brought exceptional results. The woman writes, "I forgot I was seventy years old. What I did not know at the age of five, I came to know at the age of seventy by becoming a five-year-old child. The whole world turned into a wonderland, a fairyland for me. I indeed ran, picked up rocks, chased butterflies. All the differences of age between the child and me disappeared. He talked to me as he would talk to any other child. I also talked to him the same way a child talks to another child. " She has recounted all her experiences of these two years in a book called The Sense of Wonder. She says with great conviction that she once again found a sense of wonder, that even the greatest of all saints could never have achieved more than what she did. When Jesus was asked what kind of people will enter his kingdom of heaven, he replied, "Those who are like children. " Perhaps children do live in a kind of big heaven. We take their heaven away by schooling and tutoring them. But it is necessary that the paradise be taken away, because when it is found again the feeling is rare. Very few people are able to regain this paradise, however. People generally live in the state of "paradise lost"; the situation of "paradise regained" comes in the lives of very few. We all lose our paradise, of course, but we never find it again. If one can become again like a child before his death, the paradise returns to him. If an old man can see the world with a childs eye, the kind of peace, the kind of joy and bliss that will shower upon him is beyond comprehension. So those who wish to return to their past memories will have to break their fixation with age. Once in a while hold a childs hand and run along with him forgetting how old you are. And the funny thing is, that age exists just as a thought, a memory. Its merely an idea which has taken hold of us very strongly. Break your fixation with age in living the outer life; and in your inner life, when you sit in meditation, move back year by year. Let each birthday come alive one by one; go back slowly. Then it would not be difficult to reach to the point of your birth. The same technique works in returning to the past lives. However, I cant tell you the sutra for moving from one life to another. There is a reason for it: if one experiments with it just out of curiosity he can go mad, because in doing so, if the memories of the past life come crashing down unexpectedly, it will be difficult to bear them. Once a girl was brought to me. When I saw her, she was eleven years old. For no specific reason she had a memory of her three past lives. This was purely accidental -- just an error on the part of nature. Nature makes a great arrangement. It buries the layer of your past lives memories, and the layer of this lifes memory starts building over it. Deep down, this layer keeps you disconnected from your previous birth. Some countries -- such as Mohammedan or Christian countries -- do not believe in reincarnation. In such countries children are not born with the memory of any past life because the people in those countries are not attuned to that direction. It is as though we firmly believe there is nothing on the other side of this wall; by and by well stop looking beyond it. In India, no matter how much disagreement the Jainas, the Buddhists, the Hindus may have among themselves, they agree on one point -- the existence of past lives. There is no conflict in their belief in reincarnation. Therefore, for thousands of years the mind of this country has been filled with the belief in the possible existence of past lives. Often it unexpectedly happens that if a man dies with a deep feeling to remember that life in the next one, then without his going through any yogic practice or following any meditation technique, he will be able to retain the memory in his next birth. But that will put him in trouble. So when the girl was brought to me, she remembered three of her past lives. Her first birth happened in Assam, where she had died as a seven-year-old girl. Presently, she could speak as much of the Assamese language as a seven-year-old girl can. She could perform as much Assamese dance as a seven-year-old girl can. But in her current life she was born in Madhya Pradesh. She had never been to Assam: she had nothing to do with the Assamese language. Her second birth happened in Madhya Pradesh too, in Katni. And there she had died at the age of about sixty. So that adds up to sixty-seven, plus eleven years of this birth. When I saw that eleven-year-old girl her eyes, her face looked like that of a seventy-eight-year-old woman. Even at the age of eleven she looked so jaundiced and pale, so worried and troubled, as if she was close to death, because she carried within her an awareness of the sequence of memories spread over seventy-eight years. She was in great trouble. The relatives of her past life were my neighbors in Jabalpur; they brought her to me. The girl had recognized all the relatives of her past life from a crowd of thousands. In that crowd she spotted people from her previous life: her son, daughter-in-law, grandson, and so on -- she recognized all of them. The house where she lived in her previous life was situated in a village. Her relatives in that life had now moved to Jabalpur. She told them of a treasure buried in the old house -- it was indeed found there. In her past life she was the elder sister of my next door neighbor. The man has a scar on his head. The moment this girl recognized him, the first thing she said was, "Good Lord! The scar is still on your head!" The man asked with a surprise, "Can you tell me, when did I get this injury? I certainly dont remember. " The girl said, "On the day of your wedding you fell from the marriage horse: the horse reared and you fell down. " The man was about eight or nine years old at the time of his marriage; he couldnt recall. So inquiries were made in the old village to find out if anyone remembered this incident. Finally, an old woman of the village corroborated the story, although the man himself had no memory of it. I advised the girls father to do something for her to forget those memories. I asked him to bring the girl to me so that I could help her forget in a weeks time; otherwise, I said, the girl will be in a lot of trouble. Already she was facing great difficulties. She couldnt go to school. How can you enroll a seventy-eight-year-old woman in a school? She couldnt learn anything -- she already knew too much! She couldnt play. There was nothing like a childhood for her. How can a seventy-eight-year-old woman play? She looked serious. She was always nitpicking everyone in the house. At this age, she was filled with as much bitchiness as a seventy-eight-year-old man or woman is. So I said that unless that girl was made to forget the past memories, she would go mad. But the members of her family were enjoying the way she was. A whole crowd would gather to see her. People even began offering her coins, coconut, fruits and sweets. The president of India invited her to Delhi. An invitation came to bring her to America as well. Her family was very happy with all this. They stopped bringing her to me. They said, "We dont want to help her forget the memories -- its a good thing. " Seven years have gone by since I saw her last. Today the girl is mad. So they came and asked for my help. I told them, "Now it is a difficult situation. You did not agree when it was possible to do something about it. " The girl is totally out of her senses. She is in a confused state. She cant figure out which memory belongs to which birth. She is not sure whether this brother, or this father is from her present life or her past life -- everything is mixed up. Natures arrangement is such that it allows you to carry only as much memory as you can bear. Thats why it is necessary to go through a special discipline before reviving the memories of past lives. It makes you so capable that nothing ever confuses you. In fact, the primary condition for going into the memories of previous lives is that one should be able to see the world as nothing more than a dream, a leela, a play. Until this happens, it is not right to take a person into his past life. Once you begin to see this world as a play, a dream, then there is no problem. Then nothing will hurt you. The memories of a play are not the kind which can cause any harm. But if this world looks very real to you . if you have been taking your wife to be real and you come to remember that she was your mother in the previous life, you will be confused. You wont know whether to take her as a wife or a mother! I once helped a woman experiment in recalling her past life. First I kept restraining her from doing it because it was just out of curiosity. But she was very curious to know and went on insisting. Finally I consented, and she did as I explained to her. The experiment succeeded; the woman recalled that she was a prostitute in her past life. This was too much for an ethical and chaste woman like her to bear. She said, "I dont want to remember all this, I want to forget all about it. " But it wasnt so easy to forget it; a lot of effort was needed. It is easy to remember a thing but very difficult to forget it, because once a fact has become part of our knowledge it is very difficult to erase it. Thats why I purposely left out one key in my explanation, and that is how to enter from this life into your previous life. This key can be given only to one who has revived all the memories of this birth. But then it will be strictly an individual matter. It cannot be discussed publicly, nor is it right to do so. Our mind does innumerable things out of curiosity. Most people live by curiosity alone. They always pry into things out of curiosity, but such an attitude may sometimes prove dangerous. A particular memory may surface which cannot be restrained later on. Nevertheless, one can certainly experiment with reviving this lifes memories. When that becomes an enjoyable experience, and when the entire situation of this life As soon as you have relived your past memories, you will find it is all nothing more than a dream. You will come to realize that whatsoever you are taking so seriously today -- profit or loss in business, quarrels with the wife, a father showing his annoyance, the son leaving home, the daughter marrying an undesirable person -- all will end up tomorrow in the junkyard of your memory. When the memories will come back to you, you will be amazed to see the things you took so seriously many times in the past exist nowhere today. You will see how some moments had taken such control over you that for a second everything seemed like a matter of life and death. Those moments have become worthless today, they are lying like a heap of dust somewhere on the road, they are like trash lying in a pile of rubbish. They are totally useless today. So, reliving the past memories will cause two things to happen. First, it will become evident that whatsoever you had taken so seriously did not prove to be such a grave matter after all. It wasnt even important enough to remember. You will see that whatever you were ready to stake your life for doesnt even exist anywhere. Such an understanding will transform your life, because then you will come to see that the thing you are willing to kill or be killed for will someday be rotting in a heap of garbage. Just stop for a moment or two and everything will look absurd. Wait a moment or two and all will turn into memory. And if the total outcome of life is nothing but memories, then how is an ordinary mans life different from the life an actor lives on the screen? After all, whatever an actor does, the final outcome is the creation of a film which we see on the screen. Similarly, in an overall sense whatever we do, whatever we live through is recorded onto a film of memories which can be seen again. What we call life is not much different from focusing a camera. And the captured moments we once considered so significant are just like pictures projected on the screen. They are worth no more than a film. The only difference being that the film we normally use can be enclosed in a box, while the film recorded in life has to be stored in the container of your memory. Thats all the difference there is. And what is stored in the container of your memory is as much a film as the regular celluloid film. Sooner or later, it wont be too difficult for science to discover a way to draw this film out and project it on the screen. Its not much of a problem, because when we close our eyes, we see the same film being projected on our optical screen. In a dream, your eyeballs move in the same way as when you watch a movie. By placing ones fingers on a sleeping persons eyes and sensing the movement or non-movement of his eyeballs, one can determine whether he is dreaming or not. The movement of his eyes will indicate he is watching something. What do you suppose he is watching? He is, of course, watching a movie. In meditation, if one can relive his past lives as well, he will find that experience to be no more than watching a film. The experiment of jati-smaran, remembering past lives, was meant for this very purpose. In fact, Mahavira or Buddha never initiated anyone until he had gone through jati-smaran. Thats why the initiated monk of today is not really initiated nor is he a monk -- he is neither. He knows nothing. A few days ago a Jaina monk came to see me. He said, "Please teach me meditation. I am a monk from Acharya Tulsis order. He has initiated me. " I asked him, "You have received initiation from Acharya Tulsi and have not learned meditation? Then what have you learned? What did you take the initiation for? What does initiation mean really? If you have come to learn meditation from me, then why did you take the initiation? If not even meditation was taught to you there, then what else was taught? If Acharya Tulsi doesnt teach meditation, then what else does he do?" To initiate means to lead someone into meditation -- thats the only way initiation can happen, not otherwise. So Mahavira and Buddha gave initiation only after one had relived his past lives. Mahaviras teaching was that until you have relived your past lives, you cannot drop your serious attitude. If a man were to remember once, "I had made love to a woman in my previous birth and had told her, I cant live without you even for a moment . and the same I had done and said the life before that, and the same thing the life previous to that one. Even before I was born a human being I had repeated the same act, whether I was an animal or a bird: I have been doing and saying the same things all along. " And then if he were to say all this to a woman today, he will burst out laughing, because now he knows he can live very well without her -- in fact he has been living for lives without any problem. Someone had wanted to attain a high position in his past life and had become like an emperor. He had thought that once he attained the highest honor everything would be fine. But it was all in vain. The poor fellow died. It was the same story the life before that, and the one previous to that. And the same man is once again racing to Delhi in search of a position. If he were to remember his past lives just before reaching Delhi, he would turn back realizing the absurdity of the whole thing. He would laugh, seeing how many times he went to Delhi, and how each time ultimately the mad scramble ended up in death. Man wants to repeat all he has been doing in his previous lives, but he has no memory of it. If he could remember it even once, it would be impossible for him to do it again. No man can really become a sannyasin until he has realized the whole world as nothing but a dream. But how can this world look like a dream? The key to that lies in jati-smaran, remembering past lives. So, go back into the memories of this birth -- but not just out of curiosity. Only when you have seen this life as a dream and feel the burden lifted from your mind, and only after you have gained the capacity to see the previous lives as a dream too, can this key be given to you. However, it will be a one-to-one communication. The techniques I am working on with you collectively are such that they cant harm you. Whatsoever I am saying publicly are things which can lead only up to a point where it is safe for you. Beyond that, the communication of sutras will be strictly on an individual basis. Hence with those who will progress fast, I will start sharing things which otherwise cannot be told openly in public. As soon as such people become ready, those things can be imparted to them. But that will be absolutely in person, individually. There is no point talking about them before everyone. Question 2 WHAT ARE THE DISTINGUISHING FEATURES THAT MAKE A WOMB WORTHY ENOUGH TO RECEIVE A HIGHER SOUL, AND WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A WOMB IN WHICH AN INFERIOR SOUL MAY ENTER? WHAT PREPARATIONS ARE NECESSARY IN ORDER THAT A HIGHER SOUL MAY DESCEND? HOW ARE THE PREPARATIONS MADE? AS COMPARED TO ORDINARY WOMBS, HOW SPECIAL WERE THE WOMBS THAT CARRIED GREAT SOULS LIKE BUDDHA, MAHAVIRA, KRISHNA, AND JESUS? Many things will have to be considered. The first thing is: the purer the moment of lovemaking is, the purer the soul a womb can attract. But sex has been condemned so much that the moment of copulation hardly ever becomes a divine moment. Sex has already been branded as sacrilegious. It is already rooted in our consciousness as something impure. The sexual union between husband and wife takes place in the shadows of sin; it does not transpire in a worshipful moment of prayer and bliss. Naturally, it is not possible for a pure soul to be attracted toward a womb surrounded by a cloak of sin. So in order that a higher soul may enter a womb, the first condition is that it be a divine moment of lovemaking. In my view, the moment of sexual union is a moment of prayer. Only after prayer and meditation should the husband and wife enter into sex. The result will be twofold. One is that after meditation it wont be possible for them to enter into sex for years. The first thing that will happen after meditation is that you wont be able to enter sex. As you will go into meditation, the desire for sex will disappear -- meditation will become the way to celibacy. Years will go by without sex. The purity ensuing from these bygone years will not be the product of a suppressed sex. It wont be the result of any vow taken by the husband and wife both practicing celibacy by sleeping separately in locked rooms, or the husband sleeping in the temple all by himself. This celibacy will not be the consequence of a vow, rather it will be a spontaneous flowering. It is simply impossible to enter sex after meditation. Meditation gives so much joy, such bliss, that why would one care for the pleasures of sex? If husband and wife can meditate regularly for years, they wont be able to enter sex. That will have a twofold effect. One, the energy will become very dynamic and intense. A very potent sperm is needed in order to give birth to a pure soul. Weak sperms wont do. Only an intercourse which is preceded by years of celibacy can be effective in allowing a powerful soul to enter the womb. After years of meditation when someone goes into sex -- that is, when meditation makes him competent to enter into sex -- then naturally it will have to be a divine moment, because if there had been even a slight impurity left in that moment, meditation would not have given the go-ahead. When meditation gives the command -- that is, when the possibility to enter sex exists even after one has been in meditation -- then it means that even sex has taken on a sacredness. Now it has a divineness of its own. When two individuals make love in this divine moment, it would be better to say the union is not physical, it is very spiritual. The bodies are meeting, yet the meeting is not physical -- it is very profound and spiritual. So giving birth to a divine soul is not merely a biological phenomenon. The meeting of two bodies simply provides an opportunity for another body to take birth; but when two souls meet as well, a situation is created for a greater soul to descend. The births of Mahavira or Buddha are of this kind. The birth of Jesus is even more incredible. The births of Mahavira and Buddha had been prophesied. Their coming was awaited for years. Every detail was foretold -- so much so that Mahavira had even predicted in his previous life how many dreams the mother of his next life will have before his birth. The dreams were mentioned in a sequence with their contents. Mahaviras prophecy was, "When these many dreams occur, know that I have entered the womb. " He also pointed out the symbols that would appear in the dream -- a white elephant, a lotus, and so on. So people were waiting eagerly for a woman to declare she had seen all the dreams with these symbols. In Buddhas case too, symbols were mentioned. When he was due to be born, a monk from the faraway Himalayas arrived at the palace. He was old and had been waiting. He was very worried lest he should die before the advent of Buddha. So when he came to beg at the palace, he told Buddhas father,"I know a child is to be born here. I have come for his darshan, to see him and pay my respects. " The father was very astonished to hear this. The monk was a renowned figure, very famous, a divine person in his own right. He had thousands of devotees, and he was asking to pay his regards to the child! The father was simply amazed. But he felt very happy too, because his wife had already mentioned to him the special dreams she had. So the next day the monk arrived to see the newborn child. Seeing the child, the monk broke down and began crying bitterly. The father became very worried. He asked the monk, "Are you crying because you see a bad omen?" The monk said, "There is no bad omen for the child. I am crying for myself. The man at whose feet I could have attained a timeless bliss, is born. But alas, I am nearing death and this child will take time to grow and flower -- I cannot wait that long. The time for my departure has come. " The birth of Jesus was awaited by the whole world -- especially so in the Middle East. The prediction was that at the time of Jesus birth, four stars will appear in the sky. Those who knew the secret understood the symbolic meaning of the stars. A man from India journeyed to Bethlehem in order to offer his greetings on Jesus birth. One man went from Egypt, and two from other countries. All four of them knew that the appearance of the four stars would herald the birth of Jesus. So as soon as they saw the stars, they hurried in search of the child. The information was that those who recognized the stars would be guided by them to the place where the child was born. The stars kept moving ahead and the travelers followed them. The wise man from Egypt who had set out in search of the child first came to Herod -- the emperor at the time of Jesus. He said to the emperor, "Perhaps you dont know, but the king of kings has arrived at last. " Herod couldnt follow what the man meant by "king of kings. " He thought an enemy was born who would finish him someday, so he ordered all newly born children in Jerusalem to be killed. The news reached Mary in time and she escaped. Jesus was born in hiding in a dark and dingy stable. The story of Jesus birth is even more significant than that of Buddhas or Mahaviras. It illustrates the question you have asked: "What preparations are necessary in order to give birth to a higher soul?" Jesus soul was ready to take birth. A suitable mother was available, but not the father. Mariam was qualified to give birth to Jesus, but her husband was not. Thats why it has always been said Jesus was born of a virgin mother. There is a reason for saying this, because the father was irrelevant. Jesus was indeed born of a virgin mother. A bodiless soul, which the Christians call the Holy Ghost, had to enter the body of Jesus father. Through the medium of Jesus father, another soul remained present in his place. That means, Jesus father was not there, only his body was. I have mentioned before how Shankara entered another body. Similarly, a soul entered the body of Marys husband and Jesus was born. Thats why he could say he had nothing to do with Jesus birth. He had no knowledge of what happened. Insofar as he was concerned, Mariam was virgin; in his eyes, the son was born to a virgin Mary. He was unconscious all along. His body was simply used as a medium. But Christianity is not clear on this point. Hence the Christian priest somehow tries to prove Jesus was born of a virgin mother. But he doesnt know what it means to be born of a virgin -- he is unable to prove it. The biggest argument against Jesus in the West has been over how he could be born to a virgin girl. It is unscientific. This is true: a child cannot be born of a virgin girl. But Jesus was born of a virgin girl in the sense that his father was not consciously present at the time -- he was only a medium. He was not a conscious participant in the birth of Jesus. He was totally unaware. He was only made to function as an instrument for this phenomenon to occur. Often it happens that many superior souls wish to take birth but they dont find any appropriate situation for their conception. Today it has become even more difficult. It has been almost impossible to create superior conditions for the conception of higher souls, because the whole science pertaining to it has been lost. What we call conception today is absolutely animal-like -- there is no science behind it. Those who had given full consideration to the phenomenon of conception had worked out all the details. They had taken into account, for example, the minutest calculation of time in terms of finding the exact and the most characteristic moment to conceive. We cant imagine how much attention was paid to this phenomenon. You may not be aware of the fact that more people go mad on the full moon, and less on the new moon. Science is not yet fully clear why this is so. The fact remains that the full moon does affect our mental state. Just as it brings storms in the seas, it stirs our emotions and raises them to the heights of lunacy. The word lunatic means one who is affected by the moon. luna means the moon, and lunatic means one who is moonstruck. It means the man has gone mad because he has been attacked by the moon. There is a complete science that studies how the earth is affected by various forces every moment, every hour. If conception can take place during the time of these unique extraterrestrial influences, the results will be highly significant. And if the conception does not occur during these moments, the results can be to the contrary. The whole of astrology was developed for the very purpose of finding out the exact moment of conception, because the influences working in that particular moment alone can give some indication of the conceived soul. At least some rough data can be obtained of the possibilities hidden in that moment of conception. Each second, each hour has its own implication. So before entering sex, one needs the strength of meditation, years of celibacy behind it. Keep in mind, however, my understanding of brahmacharya, celibacy -- it is neither an outcome of suppression nor repression. By celibacy I mean that which comes on its own, which happens spontaneously. Then one may enter in sex with a prayerful heart, invoking pure souls to accept the invitation. Not only are many such souls available, but there is a continuous race among them for entering a womb. So in this situation, if you can invite certain souls, the subsequent results will become more clearly evident. Also, when such a soul is conceived, for nine months the baby needs to grow in the womb within a certain psychological and spiritual environment. For example, Mahaviras mother was kept under very special conditions. So was Buddhas mother. One prediction made before Buddhas birth was that he would be born when the mother is in a standing position; and that he will be born not inside, but outside the house. It was quite a strange thing: as Buddhas mother was traveling to her parents, on her way she stopped for a while and stood under the sal tree, and Buddha was born, under the open skies. Ordinarily, babies are born in the darkness of night. And normally, people make love in dark chambers, sneakily, with a sense of fear and guilt. People look at sex as if it is some kind of sin, a crime which has to be done surreptitiously, without anyone knowing about it. Obviously, sex of this kind is bound to produce grave consequences. In order to make love, freedom, openness, purity are essential. At the time of lovemaking, even small things bring distinct results, such as the color on the walls, the light in the room, the fragrance. A whole science exists around it. If we could make use of the science of child-conception, a complete transformation of the human race could be brought about. Even little things make a difference. Currently, a scientist is carrying on a small experiment which will bring about a fundamental change. He has devised a small belt which is to be tied around a pregnant womans abdomen. It so happened that once a woman had to wear a belt for some reason in her pregnancy -- she was ill -- but it created a strange effect on the child. It was found that the belt pressed against the babys head and the child was born with a very high IQ. This was purely accidental; a particular center of the childs brain was pressed. Following this incident, the scientist has carried out many more experiments. It may well be that the child was naturally endowed with such high intelligence, and the whole thing was just a coincidence. However, the subsequent experiments proved that if pressure is applied at a particular place on a pregnant womans abdomen, it causes a remarkable change In the childs Intelligence. There are many asanas, body postures, which are meant to bring about the required pressure at a particular point. There are many breathing techniques for the same purpose. There are many words which, when articulated properly, bring about a certain pressure. All of these become helpful in allowing the genius, the health, the capability, the potentiality of the child to manifest fully. Up to now man has discovered who knows how many ways to cause mischief, but he has not been putting enough energy into discovering ways which can build, enrich the future of mankind. But it is all possible. As soon as a woman conceives, she begins to reflect the possibilities the child is endowed with. It is in fact a dual process. In pregnancy, if the mother becomes irritable, angry, the child will be born with an angry temperament. Similarly, if the soul of an angry disposition has entered the womb, a woman wh