You've been talking about seeing clearly as well as relaxing. As I begin to relax things come up, and when I try to grab them to see clearly, they just slip away.

YOU'RE NOT ABLE TO SEE clearly only because you are in two moods now. Either follow the path to see clearly, or relax and do not try to see clearly. Do not try to join the two. I will not say that relaxing is better or seeing clearly is better. The conditions or disciplines differ from person to person and from time to time. If you try to see clearly that will also lead you to the goal. Then the Light will shine. That will make everything clear in the end.

So you are saying that as each thing comes up I should just keep relaxing?

ONCE YOU RELAX YOUR MIND successfully everything will be clear for you. As a matter of fact, haziness is born out of your non-relaxed attitude. When you are nicely relaxed you must have seen sometimes that, as you come out of it, even your eyesight is clearer. Relaxation cures many ills. When you are concentrating upon relaxation, anything else will be secondary. The question could arise: does this path of relaxation apply to all? I would say yes, because although relaxation is a path, it does not cancel or violate other paths; it supports them. Relaxation gives you much greater capacity to peacefully concentrate on your chosen path. Without a relaxed attitude you cannot concentrate. If you are trying to concentrate with a confused or disturbed mind you are fighting with yourself. If you are fighting with yourself you are disturbing yourself, troubling yourself and hurting yourself. How can you have peace by hurting yourself? Of course, that does not mean that you can just forget about your guilt or wrongs. While you relax, your wrongdoings will come to mind. They will trouble you but do not fight with them. By fighting with the blocks you have created, you are creating more blocks, as if you are fighting with your own shadow. And the more you go on fighting, the more you are hurting yourself.

Is it possible, when negativities come up in relaxation, to see them and at the same time maintain a feeling of peace?

AT THE SAME TIME you cannot. Your question amounts to, "Can the wave exist at the same time as still water?" As waves have to subside in order to come to stillness, you cannot be in peace unless your negativities subside. For the time being you may suppress your negativities but you will not be able to relax. When you relax more your mind will bring out your negativities anyway. Suppression or courtesy will not work. As long as you are trying to control negativities you are creating separation. There is a middle path: when negativities crop up, do not suppress them. Just relax and have patience. Let them come up in your mind and then subside, like waves coming to stillness. They may go on troubling you but simply be patient. Patience is not a technique. It just works. Why? It is an interesting phenomenon that the more we try to solve problems or negativities, the more we fail. Ninety-nine percent of problems in the world will solve if we simply allow them to subside. When you resist you create negativities, blocks and doubts. What are you resisting actually? You are resisting the laws of nature. When I tell you to relax, you are yielding to the laws of nature. We should abide by God's laws rather than experiment with whether they work or not. We have freedom to experiment, but ultimately we have to yield, which we call surrender. You have taken years, perhaps decades or births, to create habitual negativity. Now you have to take time to come out of it. There are therapies and systems but we have seen that they do not help beyond a point. They are limited, temporary. There is a potential healing power within you that you will discover when you truly relax. The power will emerge out of you to overcome physical illness, mental illness and vital imbalance. The consciousness of that power is revealed to you when you relax. Jalaluddin Rumi said that when a wave comes if you try to stop it with your hand it becomes two waves. Allow the wave to come and just keep aside. This is following natural law, which preserves harmony, oneness, love, joy and peace. It is the inner secret of relaxation.

What are the characteristics of real repentance?

WHEN YOU ACTUALLY REPENT, there and then you will relax and experience a kind of peace. True repentance makes your heart settle at its own place. Whatever was troubling you, if you have true repentance, will no longer trouble you. Until you come to true repentance—not just verbal or mental jargon or false politeness—your wrongdoings will not leave you. Why do we need to repent? Because something we have done is wrong and that wrong is hurting us. Now you do not want that hurt; you donÕt like it. When you confess inside or to your God, you feel that wrong sincerely, that you should not do it again, and simply relax. You will feel relaxation when it is forgiven.

When subconscious thoughts come up, they are very scrambled and donÕt tend to make sense.

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO make sense of it. That means you are not relaxing. Go on relaxing; things will come out. You may get fed up at times but that is why you need to practice. Patience is needed so that when you get fed up, disappointed, dejected, tired or hopeless, it will sustain you with faith that one day it will work out. You can do it just now if you sincerely will it. Relaxation will go on opening you to the bottom of your subconscious. It may take its own time but that is up to you. You have to solve your blocks or transcend your blocks. In other words: you have to face them. The very relaxation process will bring you face to face with your blocks, conscious as well as unconscious. You cannot avoid them. Solving does not mean calculating or analyzing. You have to accept what you have done and your acceptance has to be honest. This is called repentance. When you do this you will relax.

© 2015 by Truth Consciousness. Excerpted from the Satsang: Process of Relaxing (J-15). For further information on the audio Satsangs of Swami Amar Jyoti visit truthconsciousness.org.