Question: In our form of Yoga, which was given by Adi Guru Shankaracharya, we are related to this Guru, but not only this one, but also to a chain of other Gurus that are not on the earth. I just wonder if this is the case in all forms of Yoga, if it is your case for instance, are you related only to your Guru Sivananda or also to other Gurus?

Answer: One must have only one Guru because to have more Gurus is to create a confusion in awareness and it is the Guru that becomes the light when the state of meditation dawns. So each meaning of Guru is the dispeller of darkness and these are masters, not Gurus. 'Master' means 'whose medium I am'. There seems to be mediumship in us and we can become the medium of any power, higher or lower even. So they are called the higher. But, here Guru means the person who gives us the light. So, there is no confusion and no difference. Guru is the guide certainly.

Question: Our Guru died does that mean that he is not guiding us now? Or is he still doing something for us?

Answer: If he is very powerful, he can guide.

Question: Can you make the distinction more between the spiritual master and the Guru.

Answer: You see, the spiritual masters are astral powers who sometimes make the mind a medium and they enter into us in the atomic form, in the form of consciousness, and we become the mediums, we become the minds and we act as they compel us. The Guru is one who is living physically whose personality does not necessarily make you a medium, but he is just a guide.

You see, for years, I was working as a medium of a higher power, but there were several problems, especially with meditation and again I had to be in search of a living Guru. Sometimes there is a danger in invoking the astral masters, and the danger is that sometimes they do not come and we are under a state of self-hypnosis.

In many cases, I have seen, for instance, when Madam Blaskenski was sitting, the masters came and they provided her with the sign, people usually get under a spell of hypnosis and they think that they are the medium of the masters, but in fact, they have become the medium of their own self-hypnotized consciousness which is comparatively more powerful than the ordinary consciousness and they are able to speak sometimes clairvoyant things, being expressions of their own subconscious mind. That is the only danger.

If one avoids that danger, then they are all right. When one becomes the medium of the higher masters, hit spiritual life is also prohibited, but when one becomes the medium of his hypnotized consciousness, then His spiritual progress is retarded and he almost falls down. And when the masters from higher regions want to make you as their medium they come as a sigh. And when the master comes, you cannot say that you are hypnotizing yourself, because there is a difference between the master and hypnotized consciousness. But if you have a spiritual master, you must have a living Guru.

Yoga not only makes us free from fear but also makes us free from 'Prakriti.' Sometimes you feel that your astral master is helping you while some sort of malevolent spirit is forcing its way into you.

You believe that you are being guided by a Guru but actually, it is self-hypnotized and this spirit obsession is also a problem. I had a female disciple who before she came to me, was a medium of a higher master and it was all right and I believed that she was a medium because there were signs.

But somehow or the other, in her dreams, there was nothing but human dung, bad smell, and pieces of bone. She should have meditated to combat this, but instead of meditation, she went into social activities to keep the mind preoccupied. Again in the dream, she used to see some unseen ghost somewhere hiding in the room. In 1959, I met her and I asked her to get a Guru and everything would be all right, but she could not. During 1960 and 1961, she did not lead any spiritual life, except engaging in social activities.

One night I was taken to the house of a relative in Benaras who was suffering from some disease. In the morning I was taken to the temple where all Hindus have to go once in his life. And at night, she got a dream that she may get herself initiated from me and therefore she came to me. She has all the materialized objects in her house. She was the medium of master Erick.

Question: How do you cure people?

Answer: It is a secret trade. I have two or three mediums, they do it. I used to do that work for Swami Sivananda but now that I have become Guru, I have stopped doing that work for myself. Now I am not a medium but I have many medium disciples, and they have different methods.

Question: You never cure through your own forces?

Answer: It is one and the same. You see, medium of whom? The same power is inside. But my life is different and the whole thing has to be distributed. Everyone has to do his own duty. Because when I go to India, I stay in my Ashram and lock the doors from twenty sides, but if I go anywhere I am actually mobbed and so I do not go out anywhere. Now if there is a mob, how can I cure? In conventions and seminars, they come just for myself.