Questions & Answers – Early Guidance on the Inner Journey

These are some of the earliest questions seekers asked me when I first began sharing online. I keep them here as part of the living record of my journey, so others may benefit from the answers. The words reflect my devotion and understanding at that time, and may still offer guidance to those walking the path today.

Q: If you love God so much and you love him in the heart, then what would you to next to get close to the divine?

A: Very good question.

Once you already love God in the heart then you would probably already be feeling close to him( “him” or “her”  refers to God with form). Feeling so close to God changes your relationship and thinking and you no longer ask him for things. So you are already close. The love in your heart will lead you to be kind and compassionate which will lead you to do many good things for your family and society. So the result will be good karma for you and people around you. So this is great.

Perhaps in your question you wanted to know, what is next? What are the next step towards experiencing God or finding enlightenment?

This is where it gets tricky. Here are the different ways it happens.

According to your disposition if you find yourself thinking about God, like loving Krishna or loving Jesus with all your heart almost all day then the divine energy(evolutionary impulse, or spirit or our soul) awakens. It is there in everyone and has many different names. This has been a guarded secret in the monasteries and ashrams in the past. Now this knowledge is being brought to light because humanity has to grow and evolve. Then you need a Satguru( one whose body has been purified and this energy pervades their entire being) to help you understand this new biology or human perception. One will show up automatically in your life and then meditation will start happening in you automatically.

Another way, is to seek out the company of one and they will help you as much as possible to start this process going.  Some Gurus call it “inner engineering” or “inner awakening.” Shree Nandini Maa called it “internal development.” If you follow their advice then eventually you will start meditating automatically. It would not seem so hard. Start reading the autobiographies of saints. Walking with a saint, spiritual teacher or guru gives you inspiration, strength, wisdom and starts inner experiences. Some of your karma is burned just by sitting in their presence. Inner knowledge comes about as you begin to be in touch with the divine energy of your soul.

If we are to think of the earth as a school then meditation is the last class to graduate in. It clears out all your sins/impressions-seeds of karmas/sanskars or whatever name you want to call it. We have been repeating many of the same classes over and over again, lifetime after lifetime.

So according to your disposition or why you are going on this journey, go from there. If you are satisfied with just doing charity work , praying and offering the fruits of your action to God then do continue, for eventually you will develop the love for God and the interest in knowing him at a deeper level. A Satguru will show up in your life, but it will be all up to you to know this.

♥♥♥

Q: I would like to know is there a specific time to meditate? and why? can you expand upon that for me please. Thank you.

A: Wonderful question.

It depends on our personal situation of work or things that we do in our normal day.
If one is a beginner in meditation it is best to do it when you know you have a few minutes where don’t have to rush off to do something. In this case select a time that is best for you, but it has to be the same time each day. What happens is that the body has an intelligence and you will go into meditation faster every time. Do not pick the time when you have just eaten a meal or is hungry.
If one has been meditating for some time then some purification takes place and you start returning to your natural self and no longer in the conditioned mind. So you might find yourself waking up around 1 or 2 hours before sunrise. If you cannot sleep then this is the perfect time to meditate. The whole of nature in your community is asleep and become awake. At this time of the day it is special when you meditate. You have had a good night’s sleep and meditation becomes so easy and wonderful. There are other scientific reasons but it cannot be explained here. If you live where you are surrounded by nature then it is most likely you are always up with the sun. The sun is our energy giver.
There is a second time when this will also happen in the experienced meditator. It will be around dusk or sunset. Then nature is going to sleep. For who had babies you will remember they would always be crying when it is sunset and they would always be awake like around 4 or 5 am. Just like the birds. Also you have not eaten anything yet and not quite hungry.
This is why people who live in monasteries and ashrams will wake up very early and prayer and meditate. Some teachers still go by that. We do not live in those places.
So pick some your time. Pick your space. This is your sadhana. It’s ok sometimes if you are unable to but we must keep on the journey.
Thank you for your wonderful question and happy journeys.

♥♥♥

Q: What is sadhana?

A: It is your daily spiritual effort for spiritual enlightenment. It can be chanting a mantra or some form of meditation or “inner engineering” practice. Ultimately it is your personal endeavor to find truth. It can extend to reading spiritual books, scriptures. Sadhana is also about understanding the effort, understanding the changes within oneself and acting on the changes. It is not about doing one mantra forever. When you begin to see synchronicity in your life then you know that you are guided by the inner guru(guide) within you. The inner guru will sometimes lead you to an outer guru because you have to learn something new. Ultimately the the goal of sadhana is to illuminate you and the highest form of sadhana is meditation.

♥♥♥

Q: What is Darshan?

A: See video

♥♥♥

Q: Why do we use flowers in puja?

A: There are many reasons my child.

The most obvious is that it represents our love. We offer a flower to God as an offering of love. In the ancient days in India and other places they they made garlands to wear and wore flowers in their hair just because they looked so beautiful and smelled wonderful. Flowers are a universal expression of love since we use them at weddings, funerals, and send them to our loved ones just to send love or to celebrate an occasion or festival. We also send them to patch a quarrel. We wear flowers in our hair and decorate a place and we see how beautiful it is. It evokes a great feeling just looking at it and smelling it. So sometimes it is also medicinal in this way. We know that some flowers have actual medicinal properties. If someone brings or sends you flowers you know what it means.

The next reason we use flowers is because when you look at it you can see the mathematical precision. You can meditate on it and see the intelligence of it and wonder at the intelligence of the creator. The work that went into it. The shapes of some flowers also are like yantras or blueprints on how the energy in the universe runs. It looks simple because we see flowers everywhere but we are reminded of the energy of the universe.

The next reason is related to our light body. Flowers reflect light in a certain way. When we use different color flowers for different deities, we are invoking different energies. For example we use white or blue flowers for Lord Shiva because he represents meditation. Lord Shiva is seen sitting in meditation. Yogis would focus in the third eye area and various shades of the color blue, indigo and white may be seen. So, the color of the flowers, the different ingredients in the puja, and together with the other elements in the puja is a formula that brings about a meditative state. The white flowers keep the mind calm. Fascinating that the world’s color for peace is white and in the past during times of battle a white flag was the message of surrender. Red is the opposite of calm so it is the great color for celebration and dynamic energy and movement. Mother Durga and Lord Hanuman represents much energy and power so their color is red.

Modern psychology has studied the different colors and the effect on the human mind and now we have rooms built and painted a certain color to be more relaxing. So each flower, ingredient, etc. together with the elements of the fire, earth, water and wind present a formula to bring about energetic changes within the human body and mind. This is the wisdom of the ancient sages who created some of the rituals. It is for a higher purpose but the way it is set up then you don’t have to understand it to get benefits.

The last reason I will give is one of the most important one. It is part of the wisdom of the ancients. You see if we have flowers as part of the puja then we will cultivate them. This will keep the bees and insects around to pollinate our crops. Without crops we have no food. No food, no life on this planet.

There is science and wisdom in some of the ancient things in Hinduism. There are also things that can be changed or improved as humans continue to evolve.

♥♥♥

Q: Besides eating and exercising right, praying and being thankful for everyone and everything in our life, what else do we need?

A: Here are some tools for our Inner Journey

Tools for our Inner Journey:

• Courage
• Faith
• Love for God or Open Heart – Love is the key to unlock the doors of everything
• Patience
• Fearlessness
• Positivity – very important. Have a sense of humor too.
• Being able to adapt quickly to change
• Inspiration to move forward – books from others who have made the journey may help
• Quest for the truth – will lead you to visit a God Realized Guru. If you have not met one or is “awakened” then all this is a preparation for this event. As the saying goes – when the student is ready the teacher will appear.
• Dropping the ego- becoming humble; also never thinking- “I know everything there is to know about God or attaining God or becoming enlightened”.  The universe will never send you new information about anything if you “know” everything.
• Attention to the present moment
• Sitting in silence daily – Meditation
• Last – Surrender

On the outward societal level or things that make as happy and spreads good karma in society.

• Educate yourself and align your job with what you feel good inside about yourself.
• Incorporate daily acts of giving, sharing or serving.
• Be attentive to family and do some action with them every day. Have fun, play a game. Keep away from electronics for a few hours in the week.
• Have a few or even one good friend who is trying to grow spiritually also. So foster a good relationship/s with someone/others. Everyone’s energy vibrates at a certain frequency. Keep company of those who vibrate at your level or above until nothing or no one can pull you down.
• Continue attending a place of religious worship if you are currently doing so or feel good doing so. Those are great places to meditate.
• Refrain from harming people, animals or the earth
• Whatever else makes you happy and does not foster bad karma
• Group meditation if one is available nearby

 ♥♥♥

Q: So why did Lord Krishna revealed himself and shared the knowledge to Arjuna and to no one else?

A:  Here’s an Answer

 ♥♥♥

Q: What is the significance of Lord Ganesha? Why do we worship him first?

A: Yogic Aspect of Lord Ganesha

 ♥♥♥