How can one know who is the right guru? How to find out the right or wrong one?
How to find a right husband or wrong husband? Chance. It is a chance. You see, it is a peculiar situation. Suppose he is my guru – for me he is everything but if you look at him you say, “Who’s that?” If you do not like a guru, he is the wrong guru.
If you like him he is a good guru. Our assessment of a guru is personal. Our assessment of a guru is not free from personal prejudice, and that is why most of us are making mistakes.
If you go to a shop to purchase meat, you do not look at the man’s nationality. You do not look at him whether he has divorced his wife. You want to purchase the meat and see the quality of the meat and get out. If you want to learn asanas you go to a guru who you are sure knows the ‘science’. If you want to learn kriya yoga you go to a guru who you think knows the science. If you want to take sannyasa, you go to a guru who you think you can live with.
In my opinion, it is time for us to stop seeing the difference with good guru and bad guru. If you are good, the whole world will be good for you. You cannot be cheated if you are pure and if you are innocent. It is only the cunning, crooked and over-cautious people who are cheated. The innocent, the pure and faithful can get the best out of the worst guru. This I have been telling for the last so many years to everybody wherever I go, ’Stop making judgements.’ You like me, so I am good for you. For him I might not be a good man.
Your assessment is relative and wherever we go we must take this philosophy with us. Go to all wise people, whether they are swamis or non-swamis and get the best out of them. You should be like a honey bee. Go to every flower, take the best out of it, the nectar. You should not be like a fly. It always goes to dirty things; not a good thing. We should be like the honey bee, we should not be like flies. A fly will always pick up the dirty thing first. A honey bee will take the nectar first. This is how every guru, every teacher, every master will bless you.
What about female gurus. You don’t see many?
Oh yes. There are female gurus but our social situations are such that they are not in the open like male gurus. In India we have many female gurus. In my ashram in India I think there should be at least thirty or forty swamis who are undergoing training. They are Indians, Australians, Americans, Danes, Germans.
There seems to be a similarity between telepathic contacts, transmissions and transmission of energy. How does one find out that it was true and not only imagination?
Telepathic communication is a reality. Just like telephonic communications are a reality. All the minds are interconnected and we can mentally speak to each other. Most men are not yet aware of that state of mind. Therefore, we are losing the sense for communication. If I have to tell you something, I have to speak. I can do it even by thinking, but you are not prepared to receive it, because you do not know how to receive it. Therefore, both the power of transmission and the power of reception must be developed. As you grow in spiritual life, these faculties will also grow. Although telepathy should not be used, it is good to have some experiments about it. If you are able to read anyone’s thought, you do not go and tell him what he is thinking. Telepathy and transmission work on the same principle. When your mind becomes quiet, automatic telepathy takes place.
Psychic Discovery Behind the Iron Curtain is a very famous book. There is an experiment; two persons tried telepathy on each other. First it was at a distance of about one or two metres. When they succeeded, they increased the distance. Finally, the distance was one thousand and six hundred miles. Then one of the individuals was put into the sea in a Faraday’s cage. Even there the telepathic transference became successful. Like this there are many experiments, which are recorded or have gone unrecorded. These things should be practised, should be accomplished, but they should be renounced. They should not be utilized for any purpose.
Is hypnosis similar to energy transmission and how do you use hypnosis as a means of influence?
In my early student’s life, I did practise hypnosis and even after I became a swami I practised it. Even now I can practise it, but I have no time for it. I think hypnosis is a completely different science altogether. In hypnosis, the mind undergoes a process of regression. In yoga, the mind, the chitta, undergoes a process of evolution. Of course, hypnosis and yoga both are links between the two poles of time. Hypnosis creates a system of what we call regress. During this period of regression, the person is amply or sufficiently influenced.
There are many diseases that can be managed by hypnosis and I have even tried to hypnotize animals. I trained my dog through hypnosis. It is a very time-taking job but then I had enough time those days. I succeeded in treating epilepsy through hypnosis. I had a chance to treat tuberculosis also, but I had to give up the practice in between. When I was a student I used to treat the children, the bed-wetting babies. In ten sessions, I used to stop their bed-wetting. Sometimes I used to make my little class fellows speechless, they were not able to speak. I used to say, ‘’You can’t speak. You can’t speak. You can’t speak,’’ and they stopped speaking.
I will give you one example. In my class there was one boy who was very brilliant. During the examination time, he was very close to me. I told him, ‘’Very difficult questions.’’ He could not reply to one of the questions. So hypnosis is to create a process of retrogression in the brain principles.
Another important experience I had, but it could be purely personal I don’t know. Whomsoever I hypnotized after say six or nine months, used to go against me. I created more people to hate me than to love me. The dog which I trained I had to shoot him. After about six or eight months, he was so angry with me that whenever he saw me he used to jump on me. I had to tie him with the chains and the moment he looked at me he wanted to tear me off. I did not know what to do and I did not know how to de-hypnotize him. Finally, I had to shoot him. A very cruel act, but I had to do it. With a dog whom you love, how can he know it? After killing him he used to come in my dreams for months. Hypnosis is a science or therapy and I know that many psychologists try this science.
8 May 1980, Frankfurt, Germany