We have been asked to maintain diaries. Every abhyasi should maintain a diary, and record in it in two ways. The first one is to note immediately after every sitting what you felt during the sitting, what experiences you had. Own sittings, given sittings, both. The other one was to note general changes in yourself that you perceive. Less of temper, less quarrelsome with wife, things like that you see. Whatever you feel as relevant to your spiritual progress these are supposed to be noted down. And invariably the problem was either to start writing the diary, or to avoid writing a thesis after every sitting. Two extremes.

It's a very difficult thing to decide, what to write and what not to write. All the things that you could like to write about, some of them are unmentionable, I mean literally so. Who wants to bare his soul in a diary which somebody is likely to read? So I was very, very careful about my own diary. Just putting down things on paper which anyone could read, and therefore it was tame, innocuous stuff. Not even worth reading, or rereading, even by myself. So when the first volume of my diary is published you will find it's a record of conversations and discussions with the eminent personalities of the Mission of those days, Dr. Varadachari, and people like that. There is not much about my spiritual progress, my spiritual experiences, precisely because of this, shall we say vulnerability to the outside world.

But then, in the spiritual arena one has to be totally honest with oneself. Because who are we afraid of when we start writing a diary? We are afraid that we will be criticised, somebody will point his finger at us, or her finger, and say, "Aha, this is you." So, as long as we continue to be afraid of ourselves, or of the change in opinion that I am liable to have about myself, we are not going to be able to maintain a diary as it should be maintained. Honestly! Because we value the opinion of others as indicating what we think of ourselves. Ultimately it is what we think of ourselves that matters. Nobody cares a bit about what other people think of us. It hurts when what they say doesn't reinforce what we think of ourselves. Therefore, we avoid writing diaries. All these excuses about not finding time, not knowing what to write, they are very devious excuses to fool one's own self.

Now if you value your Master's opinion about you then there should be no problem of writing anything in the diary that you feel or experience, because whether you write it down or not, He knows about. And after all, you are supposed to show your diary only to your Master.

I asked Babuji, "what all should we put in the diary?" Of course, with his innocence and frankness he said, "Everything that you see." I said, "Everything I see about what?" (laughter) He said, "About yourself." So I said, "Babuji, that is the difficulty." He said, "You know, we should not hide anything from our own selves."

Therefore, the essential fact that we look for or we must have when we set out to write our diary is fearlessness. "Yes! I have done it. So what? See in the next page that I have risen a little superior to it. See on the third page that I am a little yet better than that." See, it is like the foundation of a house. We have to dig a foundation, expose a lot of dirty mud, stones, kankar (pebbles), lay a beautiful course of concrete and then build the house on it. Of course, the foundation is closed up later on. But in a moral life, it is precisely the exposure of one's mistakes, weaknesses, imbecilities which culminates in a spiritual quest of the highest order in that flash of Divine Effulgence which shows how you can begin and how you can end in the course of your spiritual quest.

Now if that was not chronicled, people would not understand that even sinners have a chance. Even the most despicable sinners have a chance, murderers have a chance, rapists have a chance. So it is not so much with a view to, shall we say, a self-aggrandising blandishment of one's failures that we write these things in our diaries, but to say, "Lo and behold! This I was, this I have become! You too can become. Don't worry about what you have been. Worry about what you have to be." Make a chronicle which is absolutely honest, so that not only you today will benefit from my autobiography, seeing that I have been very human, seeing that I have all the human foibles, had all the human foibles, but yet it was possible with the help of my Master to become what I have become. Surely you are no different from me. At the base of human beings, at the basic level of human existence, we are all the same. What is there if I can do differently from another person?

So, what a biographer cannot achieve, an autobiographer achieves for himself and for the posterity. He makes an absolutely impartial testament of his existence, and when we ask you all to maintain your diaries, it is with this essentially preliminary fearlessness, boldness that, "I have done. Yes! So have you and so will the posterity, the future generation, because the beginning is always in mud and slime." You see, when you plant a seed, it is in mud and slime. But when the tree comes up, it is in the air. When the flower blossoms, it is of such a fragrance that, as the Upanishad puts it, "How would you know a good man, a noble man, a divine soul? Yatha vrukshasya samput pushpatasya doorgyam teva -- as you know where the tree is, by just following your nose, sniffing your way to it from the fragrance, and there it is, the tree."

So we don't want any information. All that we want is a recording of what you feel during meditation and the changes that you perceive in yourself afterwards -- during the day, or during a period of time, you know, during the week -- any time. For guidance, please refer to Master's Autobiography Volume-I. Nothing is superfluous, because you will find Master has very often written, "No change perceived." I asked Him also, I wrote to Him and said, "Why are you asking me to print this -- 'Nothing perceived.' No change perceived.' day after day?" You see, it seemed a waste of paper. But He wrote back and said, "It shows that I have been observing myself." And it's a very correct thing. Because very often we know there are changes in ourselves and we don't observe them. So it is the need to observe ourselves that is most important in maintaining the diary.

One idea of writing your diary is to write what you have felt and forget it. Now, unfortunately, you don't write, but you remember all the time! So you see, when we write and forget, the record is there. I can compare after two years. Like a man who drives up a mountain, looking only forward. And when he is right at the top, he can look down and see all those horrible, dangerous curves, and canyons, and crevices, and cliffs over which he came. If you had looked there then, you would have probably driven your car off the road yourself. "Aaah!" That finishes it!

From the Mission's Diary ….
A diary is not merely a book in which we write our thoughts and the day's activities. It is no doubt this too, but it is also a progressive record of one's spiritual development and evolution. The progressive nature becomes evident and perceptible to one who maintains the diary only when it is reread after a year or so. When a person climbs up a mountain, one sees hardly anything of the road either above or below, because of the twists and turns that the road takes. But when one reaches a sufficient height one can look back and see the winding road on which one has come. In effect we gain perspective understanding and knowledge of our growth by maintaining the diary.

A diary must be to record authentic events and thoughts, undistorted by exaggeration and complete without suppression of valid material. In fact, it should be a candid and open record with nothing hidden and nothing omitted from the context. Such a record makes it easy for a person to look into himself with absolute candour, by which assessment of one's own condition becomes simple and easy, and one can also slowly begin to accept oneself as he is without feelings of shame and guilt. Simultaneously, one is able to take corrective action through the Grace of the Master and the method that is available to us.

A diary is therefore a very important personal document which can, if maintained properly and regularly, become a useful instrument in one's self-assessment, and therefore in one' evolution.

A further feature of the Diary is that the diary of abhyasis who progress well on the path can also become records for reference by other abhyasis, and thus help them on their path too. I, therefore, pray that all abhyasis gain the necessary wisdom to maintain the diary regularly and meticulously.