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<span
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Some Questions</font><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<div class=Section1>

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mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Why am I unable to meditate?<o:p></o:p></i></p>

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mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
class=GramE>BECAUSE you have not learnt it.</span> A sudden fancy seizes you
and you say, &quot;Now I will sit down and meditate&quot;. But to sit down
cross-legged, cross-armed, eyes closed is not doing meditation. You have to
learn how to meditate, even as you learn to do mathematics or play on the
piano. There are regular courses of meditation given by all teachers in all
ages and countries. There are so many rules and regulations. There are all
kinds of instructions, such as, to keep the mind quiet, to be silent and not to
think, to gather all your thoughts and concentrate them, etc., etc. You have
been taught how to sit, stand, walk and eat: you do not remember the method and
the discipline, because you did that when you were very young. In the same way
if you were taught how to meditate in your childhood, you would not find it
difficult to do today. Unfortunately you were not taught. You are not taught
things of that kind. You are not taught even how to sleep. You think that going
to bed and lying down anyway is the way to sleep. <span class=GramE>Not at all.</span>
You are to learn to sleep exactly in the same way as you learn how to walk or
eat. You do not learn so many things, you are not taught. As you grow in years,
slowly, laboriously through unpleasant experiences, through suffering and
blundering, in the end you come to know of certain fundamental things. And when
you are old, and your hairs are grey, you see you are beginning to learn
something, when, that is to say, it is too late. Instead of that, if your
parents, the people who looked after you, took the trouble of teaching you what
you have to do, to do it well – to act well, to think well, to feel well, in
the correct manner – then you could avoid all the blunders</p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page – 361<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
class=GramE>you</span> have been making all your life. You are surprised when
you fall ill, when you feel tired and exhausted. For you know nothing. It
requires years to learn something, to learn even the most elementary things
such as to be clean.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:13.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>To
live as one should, in the right way, is a very difficult art. It requires
study, it requires practice. Try simply to keep the body healthy, the mind
quiet, and the heart full of good will-these are some of the indispensable
elements for the basis of decent living; you will see the thing is not easy.</p>

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11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:13.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Is some kind of work necessary for us to do,
over and above our studies?<o:p></o:p></i></p>

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11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></i></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:13.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>That
depends upon you, upon your aim. If you wish to do Sadhana, you should
naturally give at least some time to a work that is not selfish, that is not
done for the sake of yourself. Study is very good, very necessary, <span
class=GramE>even</span> indispensable; precisely because it is just one of the
things I referred to a little while ago, which you should learn when you are
young, it becomes difficult when you are grown up. There may come, of course,
an age when you have done the basic studies and when you have the urge to do
Sadhana. Then you must take up something which is not exclusively personal. You
must do something disinterested, not concerned with yourself. If you are concerned
with yourself only, you shut yourself within a kind of shell and you are not
open to the universal forces. An unselfish movement, an unselfish action,
however small, opens the door to something other than your little self. Normally
you are imprisoned in your shell and you know of the existence of other similar
shells only when you knock against them. But to be aware of the one Force that
pervades all, of the mutual dependence of things and beings is quite another
matter: it is the indispensable basis for Sadhana.</p>

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11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:13.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>But cannot one study for the sake of the
Divine, to prepare oneself for the divine work?<o:p></o:p></i></p>

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11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></i></p>

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11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>One
can. But that requires quite a different attitude. You have to study in an
altogether different spirit. First of all, there would be no subject that
pleases you, none that displeases<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page – 362<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
class=GramE>you</span>, neither a class that bores you, nor one that amuses
you. There would be <span class=GramE>no difficult lessons nor</span> easy
lessons, neither would there be a teacher who is unpleasant nor another who is
pleasant. All such likes and dislikes, prejudices and preferences disappear.
You are in a condition when you begin to learn from everything that you meet
with, everything is an occasion for an experience, <span class=GramE>a
knowledge</span>: everything prepares you for the divine work, everything is
interesting. If you study in that spirit, it is quite all right.</p>

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mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:13.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>How is it that so much money is allowed to
be wasted here? People entrusted with a work seem to spend lavishly according
to their whims!<o:p></o:p></i></p>

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11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></i></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:13.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Money
is not the only thing that is wasted. The Energy, the Consciousness is wasted a
thousand times more, infinitely more than money. There is not a second when
there is no wastage, sometimes worse things are there. There is a habit, I hope
it is unconscious, to take in as much energy, as much consciousness as one is
capable of and then use it for one's personal gratification. It is a thing
happening every minute. If all this energy, all this consciousness that is
being ceaselessly poured upon you, all were used for the right purpose, that is
to say, for the divine work, for preparing the divine work, we would have gone
by now far on the road, much farther than where we are at present. But
unfortunately everyone, if not consciously, at least instinctively, absorbs as
much as possible this divine gift and misuses it for selfish ends.</p>

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11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Who
thinks of <span class=GramE>it ?</span> – that this Force is there which is infinitely
greater, infinitely more precious than all money power, this force is there and
is being given consciously, constantly, with an endless patience and
perseverance, with a single end in view, that of accomplishing the divine work –
I say, who thinks of not wasting it? Who recollects that it is a sacred duty
for all to progress, to prepare <span class=GramE>themselves</span> so that
they may understand better and live better? It is because 'you live by the
divine energy and the divine consciousness that you are able to live upon them,
spend them for your own self's sake. People are shocked when they see a few
thousand rupees wasted, but they do not notice that a whole flood of
consciousness and knowledge is being turned aside from its true direction.<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page – 363<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>If one
wants to do a divine work upon earth, one must come there with tons of patience
and endurance, one must be able to live in eternity and wait till consciousness
awakes in every one, the consciousness of true honesty.<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page – 364<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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