Table of Contents
Part I — Insecurity
- Question: How can we rid ourselves of our self-consciousness and our worry about what other people think of us?
- Question: How can I learn to accept myself and how can I accept the world?
Part II — Meditation
- Question: When I meditate, I start off with a very good meditation, but then I lose it. How can I maintain my good meditation throughout?
- Question: I was given a mantra and I've been using it in my meditation for a number of years. Now, having become your disciple, I'm trying to put it aside, but I'm having difficulty. What do you suggest?
- Question: When I am meditating I have moments of doubt. When I want to stop meditating I feel pain. What is wrong?
- Question: Master, I never seem to be able to distribute enough.
- Question: Why is it that sometimes when I sit down to meditate it is very spontaneous, but other times it is so difficult to get into a meditation state?
- Question: When I have a high meditation, I get a restless feeling and feel heat in my head. Then I can't fall asleep at night.
- Question: Sometimes when I get into meditation I feel peace and light all around me. Then someone calls me from the kitchen or some other place and I have to stop my meditation. Then I feel frustrated.
- Mistakes
- Nervousness
Part III — Lack of progress
- Question: What advice do you have for a seeker who feels that he is not making progress?
- Question: Sometimes I feel that I'm not only making no progress, but actually going backwards in my spiritual life.
- Question: Since I started meditating, I feel that I have become more vulnerable to wrong forces. How can I protect myself?
- Restlessness
- Selfishness
Part IV — Sleep
- Question: I meditate at night from 10:00 to 10:30. I would like to know if it is a good idea to go to sleep right after my evening meditation?
- Question: Sometimes when I meditate I feel as though I am being drained of energy, and I go into a type of sleep that is hard to come out of.
- Question: When I go to sleep at night I feel a pressure to remain in meditation longer, and when I sleep my dreams tell me to wake up and meditate. If I ignore them, the next dream says that my higher self is very unhappy.
- Question: I always expect that the light will subside when I want to withdraw from meditation; but it doesn't, and that is why I want to continue meditating instead of going to sleep.
Part V — Negative thoughts
- Question: You have suggested that we think of people's divine qualities rather than their negative ones, but I haven't been able to do this successfully.
- Question: Is there ever a time when negative thoughts stop coming into one's mind?
- Question: You have said something to the effect that if we hate our unruly thoughts, it will get us nowhere. I don't understand that.
- Question: When I am trying to meditate, my mind is always thinking about my studies. How can I stop this?
