Abhyasis should not try to interpret their experiences because they are imposing their own opinion on an experience, which may not be correct. What really happens is, I think, our own inner ideas surface to the mind and assume these symbolic representations. So the interpretation should always be left to the Master and we, as abhyasis, should only report our experience. This is a very important thing because I know most of the misery that abhyasis experience after meditation is because of their wrong interpretation which they give themselves. So please don't attempt it at all. It's a very interesting experiment, but you should not do it.

I remember one occasion when a preceptor gave me a sitting and he was a very advanced preceptor. And his finding was that I was hard as stone. Master was quite angry when this was reported to him. He said, "This is why I don't want even preceptors to interpret their own findings." Because sometimes they also impose an artificial interpretation. And this comes out of a need to always interpret everything that we see or hear or perceive. What is this? why is this? how is this? So this is not important to know all the time. And I know some instances when it took my Master several days to come to a correct understanding of an experience I have reported to him. So the abhyasi is least qualified in this direction. And if you want to avoid a miserable time subsequent to meditation, please avoid this totally. And to attempt to interpret dreams is even worse. Very often we don't even remember the dreams correctly. So in all these matters, please write it down and send it to the president, or whoever it is, and let him break his head.

I would add one more warning: don't refer these matters to psychologists. Very few of them are even marginally qualified to handle spiritual experiences or dreams with a spiritual content. It is no disrespect to that profession. But their curriculum does not include spiritual experiences. So-called experiences are only our own problems surfacing during meditation - who is the Master? what is the Master? where is the Master? things like this, and our struggle to answer these questions ourselves. In all such cases, if you would patiently refer the matter to your own heart and not attempt an intellectual answer or a solution to your problem, the answer comes by itself.

I will relate an experience, an abhyasi of 19 years of age had. She lives in the north of India and probably because the parents were abhyasis, had this problem of who is the Master; she also had this problem by a sort of inheritance from them. But instead of thinking about it and intellectualizing about it, she had the wisdom to meditate over it. She wrote to me that she did this for three or four meditations, praying before sitting for meditation, "Please, Master, reveal to me the answer to this problem." On the fourth occasion, she had a vision. She found that Babuji was walking up and down in his room and she was watching him. And there was a chair, like this, empty against one wall. She approached the Master and asked him, "Babuji, you have left us, now what are we to do?" Babuji smiled and pointed to the chair and said, "There he is, he will guide you." And she saw that empty chair was now filled by Parthasarathi. She said, "Yes, Babuji, but he is for the new abhyasis, what about us, old abhyasis?" Babuji said, "He is there and I am also there, you follow him." So this is the sort of answer that a prayerful question to your own heart brings. And therefore, that is the way we should adopt, Babuji's advice - always refer to the heart.

Very often we find that people have experiences, and because they tend to intellectualize, they begin to doubt their experiences. The question most often asked is, "Is it real, or is it a projection?" I always have to ask a question in return, "You believe all the pains and frustrations, and the negative things that you have. Why don't you think they are also projections?" So we should treat both on the same footing, you see. But the wisest is still to give up the intellect.

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