Common Questions

Individual Sittings
Introductory Sittings
- Distance or Remote Introductory Sittings
- Group Introductory Sittings
Satsangh
- Long-distance Satsangh
Conducting Heartfulness Workshops

Individual Sittings

Preparation

How should you prepare yourself before giving a sitting? [BGP: A Basic Guide for Preceptors, p 50-51]

When you begin any sitting, the most important thing is that you think that the Master is sitting in your place, and that he is giving the sitting. Then…

Make a suggestion at the very beginning of each sitting with the thought that the job is half done.
Make the suggestion that Master’s work is already complete.
Be drowned in Master so much that there is complete oneness. Then the sitting becomes a potent sitting, pregnant with so many possibilities.
Bring about joy in your heart. That will attract Grace…. one fraction of Grace can achieve what hundreds of transmissions cannot achieve. How to allow the Grace to descend…. That is possible only with a cheerful heart.
It is good to start the sitting by doing a two-minute cleaning on yourself first before you start the work. Say ‘Please start’, and you start cleaning yourself.

How do you give an individual sitting, face to face? [Preceptor Masterclass 1: Face to Face sittings]

Close your eyes and prepare yourself.
Think that in your presence the great Master is seated.
Go to the depth of your heart and connect with the Master.
Do personal cleaning for 2 to 3 minutes.
Pray for the person’s spiritual growth.
Once you connect yourself to the Master, connect your heart with that of the abhyasi.
Very gently, very softly transmit as if the Master himself is transmitting to this abhyasi.
Think that this transmission is spread across the entire system of the abhyasi.
Pause this transmission, taper it slowly.
With this pause, try to read the abhyasi’s condition.
This is the moment where we read whatever we need to read: position, approach, condition.
Whether you have read the condition or not, divide the chest area of the abhyasi into left and right halves, vertically.
Start cleaning the abhyasi’s left side, the abhyasi’s heart side.
If you think the abhyasi’s condition needs to be improved, make a prayerful suggestion that any unwanted tendencies, including impressions, are being removed from the left side.
As you clean the left side you will feel that, yes, the left side is now feeling lighter than before. And in comparison, on the right side, you will feel that there is an imbalance between left side and right side. The right side will be slightly heavier than the left side.
Slowly change the side.
You will get the hint from inside yourself that, “Okay, now this is the time I need to shift the attention from the right side to the left side,” or the left side to the right side, in a very gentle way, until you find both sides are equally balanced.
When sufficient cleaning is done, or when you are about to change the area of work, while you are doing the cleaning, a bit of transmission will not hurt. You can always transmit prayerfully in between now and then to study accurately where lightness is felt or where heaviness is felt.
When the sitting is close to an end, before that I wish you would transmit a lot of love, which descends from Master. From our heart we transmit that to the abhyasis for five minutes or so. And while this is happening ensure that no work is left out.
When the sitting is about to end, suggest that in the next two to three minutes this work will be completed. Pray to our Master, “My lord please help me finish this work during the remaining two minutes,
When that is done you say, “That’s all.”
Finally, and this is very important… before the sitting is over give the suggenstion that any excess transmission is going back to the source. [BGP p 65]
After the stting you can ask the abhyasi what he or she felt. But do not comment on the condition of the abhyasi. [BGP p 65]

Many times abhyasis are going through difficult times in their personal lives that affect their practice. What heartfulness tips can I give to help them with stressful situations, anger etc.?

For anger and stress, the Left Nostril Breathing [Nadi breathing] technique is helpful. [p 84 of Simple Heartfulness Practices].

Also, the Ocean of Peace Cleaning [P 76 of SHP].

Group Individual Sittings

How to give an individual sitting to three (or more) people? [BGP page 67]

It is exactly the same as when you give a sitting to one. Transmit to all at the same time. You can clean all at the same time also. When you want to study a case, do it one by one. It does not take long. The reading must come right away, otherwise you are fabricating the reading process.

How should we give group individual sittings?

Each time you want to give a sitting to twenty or thirty, what should you do? You gather the strength as if you are going to give twenty sittings, one-by-one. That strength you preserve and put it into one sitting. Can you imagine that scenario? How to sharpen your awareness, three-hundred-and-sixty degrees, on twenty people at the same time? It will be wonderful. How to give an individual sitting to thousands at the same time? It is the same process, with the suggestion that all are receiving an individual sitting. You will know some familiar faces, even though you may not know their names. Pick up those half-a-dozen, dozen, twenty or thirty people and focus on them, and then let that process expand to all of them.

Is there a maximum limit in numbers for individual sittings in a group?

There are no limits.

Does it replace individual, one-to-one sitting, or add to this?

It adds, not replaces.

What is the duration of the group individual sitting?

It depends on the work. It does not need to be longer than an individual sitting.

During our work on individual sittings; if it happens that the thought of another abhyasi comes - can we include that abhyasi in the sitting?

It is possible to include them in the sitting as long as you are still able to give the necessary attention to the abhyasi in front of you.

Remote Individual Sittings

Can I give a remote sitting to an abhyasi who is staying near my house if they ask?

No. That is what I call abusing the system. So be careful. The greater the freedom that has been given to us, the greater the responsibilities are on our shoulders. And for any law-breakers, there is no person going to punish you more than yourself.

Is it correct that an abhyasi from one centre should not ask for a remote sitting from a preceptor from another centre?

Abhyasis physically go out of their own cities and take sittings from another preceptor because they cannot get along with their local preceptor. Do you understand the problem? Let us say, you have two preceptors in your centre and for whatever reason you don't get along with them. You end up travelling to another centre and say, “I need a sitting”, and you badmouth those two preceptors. And the other preceptor starts feeling: “I am a better preceptor. I am better than those two, so that is why he is coming here to take sittings.” That is one problem.

“The person to whom I am giving sittings does not like so-and-so preceptor, so I myself have started giving sittings, so that she does not miss out.” You are fuelling that relationship. You are creating turbulence in another centre.

So when we start using this method, and someone comes from another centre and says, “I would like to have a sitting from you, brother”, or sister, you say, “I can't give you a sitting. You go to your preceptor for a sitting, not to me.” They are very smart, I tell you: “Oh, that person is not well, he is sick.” Ask them to write to Master or write to your zonal facilitators, or regional facilitators. Don't entertain such problems.