Question: Swamiji, are you able to read our minds?

Swamiji: God forbid! Who would want to waste their time raking through the garbage in your minds?

Q: But there are times when we have a question in our minds and you do answer it, either in the satsang or the lectures, even before we have enough nerve to ask it.

S: Yes, that may happen. That’s the way the universe works. When a lesson is to be learned, the appropriate situation arrives.

A question is there, then the answer comes.

It’s not from an effort or some trick on my part; I’m an instrument. Sometimes the solution could come from a stranger on the bus. But because I’m a Swami, everyone thinks I’m using some special power. Because of a strong desire of some student, the answer spontaneously manifested through me. It just looked like reading of the mind.

Q: What about the times when you say something and it happens that way? It does appear as if you do know the future.

S: I mentioned something and because it happened to correspond to your desires you all got together and accomplished it. Think of how many times I have suggested projects that no one has carried through.

Q: But miracles can happen. What about those yogis who can levitate, be buried alive, all sorts of far-out things?

S: There was an incident between Sri Ramakrishna and one of his disciples. It seems the disciple came to him one day proclaiming: “Master, Master. I have learned to walk on water. It took me three years of constant concentration and work, but I have mastered it.” Of course, he was expecting some great complimentary words from the master.

“Fool,” replied Ramakrishna. “You can get across the river by paying only a nickel to the boatman. If you had spent that same time and concentration on investigating who you truly are, you would now know your divine birthright.”

For one who knows there is no creation—why would he or she bother to manipulate the creation?