One time when I was meditating I suddenly found myself thinking about some friends who needed some help. I could never describe the power I felt at this time, but I took these friends and lifted them. Two or three days later these friends were helped. Somebody needed a job and he got it, and somebody was ill and he got better. Is it related to my experience or was it mere coincidence?

It was not a coincidence; far from it. It was your own inner being that helped them. At that time you became the instrument of the Inner Pilot, the Supreme. The Supreme wanted to help those people, and He actually made you the instrument to help them. It was not a coincidence.

When you meditate and enter into your highest consciousness, your soul automatically tries to help your dear ones. When you enter into a very high, very deep realm of consciousness, automatically the power from within comes to the fore and you can help others. Sometimes your friends do not know who has helped them. But your soul knows and their souls know that the help has come from you. It is not your mental hallucination or ego.

If you can become a better listener. God's Compassion will immediately become a better adviser.

Is it really necessary to seek help when we are suffering from mental problems? Can't we just meditate by ourselves and find the answer?

Suppose you say, "I am suffering from certain mental difficulties, but I know the answer is inside. Now it is all night, but I feel that there is light inside my heart." This is what you feel, but you find it difficult to go deep within and discover the light. Then you have to go to someone who can bring to the fore the light that you have within you. It is as if you have misplaced the key to your own house and you don't know how to open the door. But a friend of yours comes with a light and helps you look for the key. After you find it with his help, you open the door and then he goes away. If you are ready to search in the dark for the key that you have lost, then you can try. But if you have a friend who has a light, then you can have more confidence in finding the key. So the teacher is a helper, an eternal friend who helps you in your search. When he helps you find the key, he won't keep it. He as won't say it is his key. No! It is your key, your house, your light. Then you will enter into the house and get everything that you needed and wanted.

If we are confused and nervous, how will meditation ever be able to help us?

In the physical world, when somebody has a headache or a stomach upset, he goes to a doctor and the doctor cures him. If somebody is sick, then how can we say that he will never be well again? If he takes medicine, then there is every possibility that he will be cured. For a sick person, medicine is the answer. If somebody is assailed by anxiety, worry and confusion, meditation is the remedy. Just because he is a victim, we can't say that there will be no saviour. The saviour is there, provided the individual wants to be cured.

Suppose somebody is assailed by confusion and negative forces that deplete all his energy and take all joy out of his life. He is depressed and has surrendered to frustration owing to countless problems in his life. Let us take him as a patient: he needs a doctor, he needs treatment. When an individual is suffering from a few ailments in the mental world, he has to go to someone who has some peace of mind, some light, some inner assurance for him. This is a spiritual teacher. The spiritual teacher is like a doctor who will advise the person as to how he can free himself from fear, doubt, confusion, tension and all the negative forces that are torturing him.