Poojya Swamiji explains it thus :

“This Ashram is actually a Brahmavidya abode. Right from the beginning I did not have any idea of establishing an institution. If I were having an idea, I would have proceeded in a different manner. To establish an institution means to think constantly about the institution and to recruit or allow people to come and join us with a view to do institutional work. That would have been a little different. It is based primarily on man power, not seeking.

Whoever has got the aptitude to work in an institution and take the institution’s ideals to the people by way of a suitable propaganda, I think it will be different. Whereas I only had one thought in my mind. In the same manner I happened to see my Gurudev and I liked him, I sought deeksha from him. After getting the deeksha for me deeksha and my Guru were everything. I did not think of anything else. It is that deeksha and the sādhana I did very fervently that you can say made me the way I was and I am.

Naturally the thought process in me was, such seekers if they want, if nature wishes or God wishes they will come and they will seek deeksha, deeksha will be given and they will get naturally moulded by the deeksha. So it was more to help true seekers grow and become knowers. Accept seekers and make them knowers. This was the idea. I don’t think that can be an institutional work. That is why I used to say I would institute Brahmavidya in the heart and mind of the seeker and whatever comes will come.

Says Sankara. If a Guru has to be understood, you can understand him only through ‘sarva-vedānta-siddhānta-gocharam’. His personality, his life, the intricacies of his life, his character, his behavior, his interaction, how he looks at the world, looks at the disciples, how he accepts them. The people may have something wrong, something sinful, something great, many, many things maybe there. All these things have to be properly assimilated by the Guru and the manner in which he does it, it may not be worldly, it will be supra-worldly.

To understand all this, one has to know Vedanta as a science and as a practice himself. It is not going to be easy my dear souls. This is the type of Brahmavidya that this ashram has. We cherish it. We preserve it. We also impart it. So in our life and in this ashram Brahmavidya seeking, seekers and those people who come here, giving them deeksha is something very important.

This deeksha has got great meaning. What is this deeksha for? It is to generate and preserve a kind of a spirituo-philosophical supra-worldly vibration in the personality. Our breadth is a movement. Heart beat is a movement. Circulation of blood is a movement. It generates heat. Our mouth generates sound. Our eyes generate light. All these are generated by the soul within. So there is a very subtle vibration the soul can and will and does generate. To generate it is the sādhana and the deeksha for.

The person who takes deeksha, he has to, if he cannot understand it he must have faith in it and with this faith if he sits, we don’t even call it meditation. My Gurudev always says “Sit, sit, sitting, sitting, sitting”, this is how he used to describe it. Close the doors and windows, sit alone in your āsan and enter into your inner bosom and see what happens. Your whole personality has shaped and grown from inside and the whole universe also has grown from inside not outside. You are getting connected to the center or the source of the universe including yourself.

People are generally expecting that when you meditate you must have a flood of light or a great sound. Pleasantness and blissfulness certainly one will have in meditation. But what is it that we must have and aim at?

Our deeksha is one which makes you look for your own self. Your self is not the mind nor is it the thought nor is it the emotion nor is it the enquiry nor is it the doubt, knowledge, it is not the sleep, it is not the dream, it is not the wakefulness. It is something different from these. And always search for it, look for it, search for it, look for it. And the sādhana is given to you by the Guru. You should have no other interest, no other dependence, no other source. Only what he has told you. Preserve and cherish it in your mind.

So when you start delving, delving into your own mind, within, when that delving becomes excellent and exalted. All the latent influences and tendencies of your life will simply flee. The purpose of sādhana is to make the tendencies flee. It may not be a day’s, week’s, month’s or even a year’s job. But do this. Never ask any questions. Never doubt. Sit! Sit! Sit! Sit! Sit! And delve! Delve! Delve! Delve!

Then what will happen? All the thought process will stop. The entire enquiry will cease. You will have only the mantra. I don’t like to call it a mantra. The anusandhāna the Guru has given you, it will start churning your mind like a churning rod, the curd and the navanīta, the butter will come.

One day at one time, will arise, something, it is something like a non-inert sleep. Sleep you have. It is a biologically induced state. But this is a spiritually begotten state. We sleep because of a biological fatigue but we do not sleep here. So the entire thought process, even the anusandhāna will come to a stop and you will reach the very source of everything. The source of your mind, intelligence, ego, no reflection of the world in the mind, everything will come to a stop.

When that is present no thought, no reflection, no concern, no interaction with the so called world will ever be there. My dear souls, this is Brahmavidya. Brahmavidya aims at taking you to the fourth factor. You are sleeping, you are dreaming, you are wakeful, you leave one state and then go to the other. So there is something in you which exits from each and goes to another. That fourth factor called turiya, that turiya will be begotten by a process of eliminating and being free from wakefulness, sleep and dream. This is the entire secret. How fortunate a man will be if he is able to reach there!

Our Ashram is an abode for this kind of Brahmavidya, first of all its presence and prevalence, then its dissemination, and dissemination in the form of deeksha and deekshita sādhana which the people who are initiated do. This is the wealth, treasure, strength and inspiration for this ashram.”