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example, I might push this cup of water over. (I hope I don't, but if I do, you'll understand.) If they push a cup of water over, some people will say in their minds, "Oh, I'm an idiot, there I go again." This is brain washing, this is a negative samskara that they are giving to themselves. We have to teach them to analyze and realize that thinking process and to disrupt it. You know, if I knock that glass of water over I won't think, "I am an idiot," I'll think, "Paramahamsa Niranjanananda knocked that glass of water over again!" That is the interruption of the thoughts.
What remains is meaning in life and this is the spiritual journey. If you open a psychiatric textbook and look for the word God, you will not find it. Some textbooks are inches thick. You look in the back, 'God' isn't there, the word 'spiritual' isn't there, the word 'grace' isn't there. As a matter of fact, all of the things that I hold dearest in my life are not there. Back in 1968, I had reached a crossroads in my life. I had spent many years studying psychiatry, thinking I would find the answers. I realized that they were not there. That was a dead end, depression, suicidal ideas in my mind, a crisis of major proportions in my life. At that one moment, I prayed. I had never done it before, I did not believe in it, but the prayer just came popping into my mind.
Two weeks later a yogi came to our country and my wife went along to see him. She came back and she said. "I've found him." I said, “Who did you find?" She said, “My guru," and I said, "Oh don't be silly." She said, "'You know, you must meet him, he is wonderful," and I said, “Look, I don't want to meet him, just forget about it." She said, “No, you must meet him, he is going back to India on Tuesday." I said, “He is Indian, is he? You watch out for those fellows." Anyway, I won't tell you who that was, but after I met him, my life took a completely different direction and it ultimately headed over here, so something must have been happening!
The people who come along to see me are looking for spiritual guidance. They are looking for relief of their symptoms too, but most of them come along when they are in that same crisis period of their life that I was in when Paramahamsaji came along. How do we give them the solution if we don't have it? It is not in psychiatry. There are very good things in psychiatry and I am not putting it down, but do not
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