Purpose and Benefits of Meditation and Yoga

1. What is true dharma dhyan (righteous or true meditation)? Is it doing worship, prayer, penance, samayik (introspection), repentance and listening to religious talks? No. All those are overt and tangible acts of rituals; they are material practices. However, what is of importance and becomes recorded as one's karma is where one's dhyan i.e. one's attention or inner intent lies while one is conducting such rituals. While worshipping God, if one pictures God in his mind along with the picture of his shop or his business or the shoes he left outside the temple, how can that be called true meditation (dharma dhyan)?
2. The Lord does not take into consideration your external actions but rather your inner attentive intent during all your activities (kriya). The actions being carried out at present are the result of the meditation (dhyan) done in your past life.
3. When you tell a lie, the awareness about doing pratikraman, is the meditation that is considered dharma dhyana (positive meditation that takes one higher spiritually).
4. If you become angry with your son, your bhaav (intention) should be, 'This should not happen.' This means that you have changed negative meditation into positive meditation. Although you were angry, the result turns positive internally because you have changed your true inner intent.
5. If you want liberation, then remain as the Self (shukla dhyan) and if you want the worldly life, then maintain an attitude of helping others and avoid negative meditation (artadhyan and raudradhyan).
6. You do not know God so how will you meditate on him? Instead, you should meditate on the guru. At least you are able to see his face. In this case, it is better to do meditation of the satguru because you cannot 'see' God.
7. Whenever he practices his religious austerities (meditation, fasting and penance), he can never see his faults. The mistakes only become apparent when the Gnani Purush gives you the knowledge whereby you realize the Soul.  
8. What are the benefits of yoga? It helps prevent external garbage from setting in and will make the mind stronger, however, without atma-yoga there is no liberation.
9. To remain as the Self is atma-yoga. Realization of the Self is atma-yoga; it is your own abode. The rest are union with the body (deha-yoga) the non-self. Fasting, penance, renunciation etc., are all deha-yoga.

1) What is samadhi (sam-adhi = deep meditation and oneness with the Self)? Is it samadhi when one closes his nostrils and practices bodily exercises? No. That is called 'handle samadhi'. It will work as long as one cranks the 'handle' but its effect goes away later. Can moksha be attained with this kind of samadhi? Real samadhi is one that prevails in spite of all routine activities of walking, talking etc. Even when one is fighting, the samadhi that prevails is the real and exact samadhi. It is true samadhi when one is not affected by mental, physical or externally induced distress.

2) Here you will get to hear many new things. Elsewhere in the relative world, whatever you hear refers to the path which requires sadhan (tools- rituals, scriptures and guides) to attain the ultimate path. This is the sadhya path, which means that one already attains what he was seeking, namely the Self first. In this path one does not have to perform any rituals or undergo penance to realize the Self. The Self is realized first and then the rest. For endless lives one has protected the tools (sadhan) and have proceeded to meditate (dhyan) without even deciding upon the goal (dhyeya). One is able to do true dhyan only when he becomes the dhyata (the observer, the Self). If 'we' ask you, "Who are you?" you will reply, "I am a magistrate." Hey you! Were you not the meditator (dhyata) while you were meditating (in dhyan)? Were you the magistrate at that time? One can only become a dhyata, meditator, when the entire world is forgotten. Here his dhyan is, 'I am a magistrate,' so how can he ever decide on the goal (the Self)? Here one has the dhyeya of going to Vadodara, and then he decides to become the dhyata, the meditator. How can this help? This is all a sense oriented  (indriya pratyaksh) effort and he has absolutely no idea about the Self which is beyond the senses (atiindriya pratyaksh).

If you have hurt any animals in your childhood; if you have thrown a stone at a monkey, You will be able to 'see' all that within. You will be able to 'see' all the different phases, if you do many samayiks (introspective meditation). You may not be able to see all of a sudden in the first few samayiks. However, after you do more samayiks, You will be able to 'see' in great detail.

First, hold Dada in your meditation (dhyan), recall Him, read one or two pads (Dada's spiritual hymns), recite the Trimantra and repeat several times, 'I am pure Soul,' and come into the stillness of the Self. Then whatever You 'see,' starting from today going back to your younger years, whatever mistakes committed with reference to violence (himsa), lying, fraud, deceit, sexual mistakes, etc.; start doing pratikraman for whatever You 'see.' Go back in time starting from today. Recall all that You can from your childhood, or else recall with whomever you did atikraman yesterday and the day before, and so on; they will naturally come to you. If they do not come to You naturally, do not worry.

Questioner: Are religious books not written to free us from worldly entanglements?

Dadashri: Yes, but nowhere in the religious books do they show you a way to become free from worldly entanglements. They are there for you to do good deeds and be helpful to others; with them bad deeds and hurtful action will not overcome you. So they teach you something good. With them you get worldly happiness, you get food and sustenance; you will not encounter any obstacles. They keep teaching you to be good and to be helpful to others. Very rarely is there a Gnani Purush around. What I am saying, you will not find anywhere, not even in books, because it (knowledge of the Self) is indescribable. Only the Gnani Purush has all that. Whatever he explains, you will grasp through the intellect and if your Self accepts it; then only believe it.

Dadashri: You will have to shape up in front of the Gnani.

There obstinacy (aadayee) will not do at all and if your worries go away, if the divisiveness due to differences of opinions (matbhed) go away, then realize that it is something worth listening to. But ordinarily not a single matbhedhas gone, one's meditation (dhyan) has not improved at all, he continues to have artadhyan (that which hurts the self) and raudradhyan(that which hurts the self and others), which means that one has not attained even a word of dharma (religion) and yet he believes he has been practicing dharma for forty years. For forty years he has been going to the temples and he remains in upashrayas (place of worship). But it is all meaningless. He is wasting his time. One is full of mistakes and yet he cannot see a single mistake of his own.