"The intensity of devotion and concentration should be like Sita concentrating on Lord Rama while she was kidnapped and held prisoner."

Ans : I had spiritual inclinations right from childhood, and as a younger person I took to meditation and was also searching for a guru. My father was an especially pious person and was a disciple of a certain order, and as a result I was brought up in a very pure and harmonious environment. I was from a small village in Orissa (state in southerneastern India), and there were not many worldly influences you might say. Some people were drinking and smoking and such things, but I was not much interested in that. I found that when I was approached by kama and krodha (desire and anger), I could concentrate on my inner self and these things would vanish.
My practice is based on a sort of kundalini yoga practice that centers the concentration on the sound of OM in the naval. There are four ways to, in a sense, get to that sound by going from grosser to more subtle levels of practice. One can speak the sound aloud softly or murmur the sound, watch the sound in the breath, concentrate the mind totally on the sound, and finally to become the sound oneself so that it goes on without the feeling you are doing it. It is like going to school and progressing through the years of education from First Standard up to college; one learns more and more advanced things as one goes along.

I left home in 1982 and moved around to different places, staying in caves and so on. I was told by someone to go to the Divine Life Society branch in Orissa; up until that time I had not known there was such a place. When I left home I had told my father that I was leaving to lead a sannyas life, so that was always at the back of my mind. But before becoming a sannyas, there are many conditions, such as being in the spiritual life a certain number of years and that in most cases one must be over the age of 40 before one is granted permission. Even if I had not fully formally become a sannyas in the earlier years, I had done so in spirit.

My practice of concentrating and meditating on my breathing takes up to six hours each day. Sometimes the spirit comes on me to practice while I am doing my duties, but generally I do it three hours in the early morning and three hours in the evening. Meditation is with the eyes half-open, like Lord Buddha or Lord Siva; I concentrate on a point a foot or so ahead of me, but the mind stays inside, at the feet of the Lord. If you keep up this practice for six months, the Lord will speak to you. That can happen in a few ways, depending on the level of attainment. The intensity of devotion and concentration should be like Sita concentrating on Lord Rama while she was kidnapped and held prisoner by the demons, only then will one truly have success in one's practice.