From 1946 to 1952, perhaps, over a six-year range, I used to go up high, very high, during my meditation. When I came down, I could not remember my name. It took me a long time to remember my name. For at least ten or fifteen minutes I could not remember. There was only one way for me to know: by looking at my notebook. I was a student, and we had to write down our name for the teacher to see. This happened many, many times.
Sometimes in my room I was meditating and one of my dearest friends or admirers would be there. He was not meditating; he was only watching me and seeing how high I was going. When I came back down, I asked him my name, and he told me. Many times this happened.
Sri Ramakrishna used to go up very high during his meditation. In two ways he would come down. One way was to touch his disciple Brahmananda, either his leg or some other limb. Then he became perfectly normal. Before that, he did not remember anything after he came down. He did not know where he was or what he was. This happened again and again. On other occasions, his disciples who were near him when he came down from his meditation used to give him a hookah to smoke. When he smoked, he remembered everybody’s name, because he had completely touched the earth-consciousness.
Quite a few times after meditating I used to go out of our house to the dining room, which was about four hundred or five hundred metres away, with only one sandal. One foot had a sandal and one foot had no sandal. I continued walking, and people would say, “What are you doing? Why are you wearing only one sandal?" Then I would go back and get the other sandal.
At times something else happened. There was a place where we would drop our plates after eating. A few times it happened that after eating I did not go there. I went straight out of the building and into the garden with my plate. People asked me, “What are you doing here?” There was a small park where I used to have very high meditations, and I walked there at least two or three times with my dish.
Impossibility does not exist! The term “impossibility” exists only when we use our mind.
One may have a big palace, but he may prefer to live in a small, cosy cottage. Sometimes even a king or an emperor may wish to live in a cottage. The mind will say, “How can a king live in a tiny cottage? Is it not beneath his dignity?” No! The king can choose to live in a cottage; it is quite possible. Man uses the term "impossibility,” but God says that it does not exist.
The mind will see in the ocean countless drops. To the mind, these drops are inside the ocean, so the ocean is infinite and the little drops are finite. The finite is inside the Infinite. How can we see or feel that inside one drop is the ocean itself? For the mind, it is impossible! But the soul sees the reality on another plane of consciousness. If we can enter into that consciousness, immediately we see the entire ocean inside one drop.
A seed grows, and gradually, gradually it becomes a banyan tree. We see the banyan tree; it is exposed. The seed was under the ground. We were not able to see it; now we see only the vast tree. But if we have access to another plane of consciousness, there we will see inside the seed the entire banyan tree. It is not a mental hallucination! Right now, we cannot go to that plane. That is why our mind has fixed ideas about the banyan tree and the ocean. How can it be that inside a seed is the tree? How can it be that inside a drop is the ocean, when it takes countless, countless drops to form the ocean?
There is a plane of consciousness which we cannot see and we cannot enter into with our present human consciousness. That is why we immediately say that something is impossible. But if we can raise our physical, earth-bound consciousness to a very high level where the mind cannot interfere, we shall see that what we call impossibility is more than possibility. The mind cannot even imagine that that plane exists. On that plane we see that inside the drop is the ocean; inside the seed is the tree. As long as we use the mind, we will never, never have this experience and we will never, never be able to believe it.
Impossibility is in the physical world, the earth-bound world. In this world, it is all limit, limit, limit, limit! The mind is limiting everything. It can go a little, and then it stops. It can come a little closer, and then it stops. But the soul does not limit anything. The soul starts with Eternity and Infinity. For the soul, nothing can be called impossible. We see that a three-year-old boy has run a marathon in India. He is three or four years old, and he runs, runs, runs. Here is the proof that some of the realities of the higher worlds have descended to this world. Otherwise, how can a three-year-old boy in Bihar run a marathon?
So many things are happening! These feats the mind will never, never, never believe. Even if they are performed right in front of someone’s eyes, his mind will not believe it. Some reporters say, “Even if we see you perform these feats, we will not believe it." This is the supremacy of the mind and the limitation of the mind. Even if we achieve something right in front of some people, they will not believe it, because their mind has formulated the idea that it is impossible.
In this Creation of God’s, so many things are considered impossible, but they are quite possible. If we enter into the higher worlds, we will see that these things are more than possible. They are happening every day, every day, every day. If we can go a little beyond the mind, then we are ready to believe everything.
If I cannot do something, but I hear that somebody else has done it, I will never say it is impossible, because I know that it is possible! I have done many things in my own life. If I can perform a so-called impossible feat, you can also do it. God is not my sole monopoly, so how can I say that others cannot do the impossible? If I cannot do it, that does not mean that somebody else cannot do it.
If some villagers hear something remarkable, the first thing they say is, "No, it cannot be, it cannot be, it cannot be!” Science is making such progress in the West and everywhere, but if you tell these villagers that something extraordinary has happened, they will say, “Impossible!” Their consciousness and their awareness are so limited, but they judge the entire world as if they had such a high degree of knowledge or wisdom! If you ask them about America, their ignorance will say, “No, no, America does not exist.” What does exist for them? Only their little village — beyond that, nothing. Only if some of their relatives go to America and come back will they believe in America. They do not even go to the next village, but with supreme authority they declare about anything, “It does not exist, it does not exist!”
In the spiritual world, there is a Sanskrit saying: Neti, neti, neti. It means, “Not this, not this, not this.” People repeat this saying. Then, finally, they surrender, and they go beyond their limited awareness.
