Table of Contents
Part I
- Concentration, meditation and contemplation
- Consciousness
- Ego and freedom
- Ego and the Transcendental Self
- Evil
- Now
Part II
- Question: When I am asleep, who is it that sees my dreams?
- Question: Can you say something about the overcoming of fear?
- Question: What does the soul do when it goes up to God's plane of existence?
- Question: At what time should we focus on the heart and at what time should we focus on the third eye?
- Question: Is there any difference between meditation and self-hypnosis?
Part III
Part IV
- Question: I think that some of us might be interested to know what your view is of the thinking of Dr. Radhakrishnan, who was probably the best known philosopher of Hinduism in the rest of the world. Has his thinking made an impact on your religious philosophy?
- Question: Your practice of Yoga seems to be distinct in some way from the practices of other teachers. When people come to you to be disciples, on what basis do you accept them? What do they have to do in terms of Yoga? In what way is your path distinct from the paths of others?
- Question: If you were to accept a seeker who was meant for you, would he be practising or following certain specific exercises?
- Question: I was going to ask what part Hatha Yoga had in your discipline, but you have already answered my question.
- Question: You mentioned two paths, the mind and the heart. I was wondering if they were mutually exclusive or is a combination possible?
- Question: I find that search and doubt are part of the same thing, that part of searching is doubting. I am not sure of your meaning of doubt.
- Question: I think one of the reasons I, as well as other people, experience this doubt is because there are so many bad teachers in the world.
- Question: I am not sure how truthful it is to say that we are all doing the same thing, that we all have the same goals. You are saying we shall convert the individual and there will be a better United Nations, a better America, a better India. I think we say that we convert the individual, but also we must convert groups of individuals; we must change institutions and change society. And I don't perceive that you are in the same boat about personal religion and social religion.
- Question: I think people would say that the way in which you choose to discover yourself is not good for people because it tends to turn them inward, so their attention is more exclusively on themselves rather than on making the kinds of changes that have a significant impact on large numbers of people. And by concentrating on one's own fulfilment and self-discovery a lot of other things that are of greater need to the world are neglected, in a sense.
- Question: Once they have looked within, then what do your people do socially for the world?
- Question: Is there another kind of Yoga that is specifically for service?
- Question: Is there any difference between prayer and meditation?
- Editor's preface to the first edition
