**1) Why do good people suffer?**  As Master Patanjali says, “The pain that we are ridding ourselves of is future pain.”  We can think of the events in our lives as being like cement.  The things that are happening to us right now are like dried cement: once pain is actually occurring to us, the mental seed for that pain has already broken open, and there is very little that we can usually do.  We can though affect pain that will be coming to us in the future, even this evening, if we understand clearly how to work with mental seeds.  These coming events are like wet cement, and we can still affect them or even transform them completely.  This gives us an immediate insight into the age-old question of why good people suffer; and why people for example who cheat others get wealthy.  All suffering can only come from having hurt someone in the past; people who have lived well in this present life will still undergo the effects of deeds that have done before this life, especially if they have not been trained in managing seeds within the mind.  When people like this seem to suffer from doing good, this is only an illusion caused by the two events happening one after another: the events are not in any way thought actually connected.  The same is the case for bad people who seem to prosper.  This fact is very important for us to keep in mind, since otherwise we might become discouraged in our practice.  There is always a time lag between doing good karma and experiencing the effects of it: even mental seeds need time to ripen and mature. **2) In both English and Sanskrit, quote the verse in which Master Patanjali explains the “time gap” for karma.** The line goes: Heyam duhkham anagatam heym! Ê>om! Anagtm! .  “The pain that we are ridding ourselves of is all the pain that would have come to us in the future.” **3) Master Patanjali says that everything we see around us is “something to consume, or something to use for our liberation.”  Clarify this statement.** Everything we enjoy in this life—even just a single bite of food—is the result of thousands of karmic seeds cracking open within our mind: a result of thousands of kindnesses towards other people, in our previous lives.  In this sense, every minute of our present life is the culmination of thousands of kind and moral actions in our past lives.  As these seeds from our past lives ripen, we are faced with a choice of either squandering them, by simply consuming what they bring to us, or else making the best of the opportunity presented to us, by using all our resources to gain liberation for ourselves and others. **4) Describe how all objects in the universe can briefly be organized by whether they change or not.**  In a brief way, we can say that every object in the universe can be divided into one of two categories: things that change, and things that do not change.  In the first category are three types of things: mental, physical, and those changing things which are neither mental nor physical—such as “John.”  The second category has only a few things.  One would be empty space: the place in which things stand.  It is unchanging because, whether the thing taking up this space stays there or leaves, the space itself remains forever.  The second example of an unchanging thing is the most important: emptiness.  Emptiness refers to the simple absence of a self-existent thing: something which could never have existed anyway, like a purple, 15-foot, 2-headed elephant rampaging through your room at this moment.  The fact that this kind of elephant is simply not here, and never could have been, is an absence that will never change.  It’s important to realize that all things, whether they change or not, are still projected by the seeds in our mind. **5) Name and describe the two realities into which we can also divide the universe.** The first reality is called “deceptive reality.”  This is the one in which most of us spend our entire lives: ourselves and all the normal objects around us.  It is called “deceptive” reality because, to a normal person, it seems other than it really is.  That is to say, things in deceptive reality appear to come from their own side, rather than from the ripening of the seeds within our own minds.  The second, higher reality is called “ultimate reality.”  Very few people ever see this reality; in order to do so, we must first study and contemplate much about how things are not coming from their own side.  We learn how to put ourselves in a very deep meditation and in this state can later perceive ultimate reality directly.  This reality consists of the simple absence of things that could come from their own side: things that have never existed, don’t exist, and never could exist.  If a person experiences this higher reality directly, even for 20 minutes or so, then they quickly become a perfect being who can help all other, suffering beings, on all planets, all at the same time. **6) Name and describe briefly the first direct perception of ultimate reality that a person has, including the two separate parts of this experience.**  The first direct experience of ultimate reality is known as the Path of Seeing.  The first part of this experience lasts for perhaps 20 minutes, and is called “the wisdom of deep meditation.”  During this time the yogi is in direct communion with ultimate reality, like water poured into water, with no other perceptions at all of normal reality.  When they come down out of this experience, they again perceive normal or deceptive reality; that is, they see things again in an incorrect way, but they are now aware that they are doing so.  The rest of that particular day is the second part of the Path of Seeing, which is called “the wisdom that is attained afterwards.”  During this time, out of their direct meditational experience, the yogi gains many extraordinary realizations, such as ultimate love, and a direct insight into the four higher truths, and a direct perception of the day that they will become an enlightened angel.  The power of this 20-minute experience is that it inevitably stops all pain that the person themselves ever experiences, and enables them to fulfill the needs of every other living being. **7) The direct experience of ultimate reality is often said to be “indescribable.”  Clarify what this means.** The experience of the Path of Seeing—the direct perception of ultimate reality—is said by Master Patanjali to be “a thing that belongs only to the person who has seen.”  The experience thus is said, traditionally, to be “indescribable,” or “beyond all words.”  This only means that it is not possible for a person who has attained the Path of Seeing to describe the experience to another person in a way that would allow that other person to have this experience themselves immediately, at that time.  But if the power of the Path of Seeing is that it removes all our pain and allows us to truly serve all other beings, then of course a person who had attained the Path of Seeing would certainly spend every moment of the rest of their life trying to communicate this experience to others, trying to guide them and help them to have the experience themselves. **