Dialogues with H C Khanna

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Tue, 26 Apr 2005 09:53:58 -0700 (PDT)

[NamoRamana] Dialogues with H C Khanna

Dialogues with H. C. Khanna

from 'Day by Day with Bhagavan'

1-6-46

In the afternoon Bhagavan explained in answer to Mr. H. C. Khanna of Kanpur:

"Why should your occupation or duties in life interfere with your

spiritual effort? For instance, there is a difference between your

activities at home and in the office. In your office activities you

are detached and so long as you do your duty you do not care what

happens or whether it results in gain or loss to the employer. But

your duties at home are performed with attachment and you are all the

time anxious as to whether they will bring advantage or disadvantage

to you and your family.

"But it is possible to perform all the activities of life with

detachment and regard only the Self as real. It is wrong to suppose

that if one is fixed in the Self one's duties in life will not be

properly performed. It is like an actor. He dresses and acts and even

feels the part he is playing, but he knows really that he is not that

character but someone else in real life. In the same way, why should

the body consciousness or the feeling `I-am-the-body' disturb you

once you know for certain that you are not the body but the Self?

Nothing that the body does should shake you from abidance in the

Self. Such abidance will never interfere with the proper and

effective discharge of whatever duties the body has, any more than

the actor's being aware of his real status in life interferes with

his acting a part on the stage.

"You ask whether you can tell yourself: `I am not the body but the

Self'. Of course, whenever you feel tempted to identify yourself with

the body (as you may often have to, owing to old vasanas) it may be a

help to remind yourself that you are not the body but the Self. But

you should not make such repetition a mantram, constantly saying: `I

am not the body but the Self'. By proper enquiry into the Self, the

notion `I am this body' will gradually vanish and in time the faith

that you are the Self will become unshakeable."

26-6-46

When the Mauni brought the mail today he was limping with a pain in

his right thigh. Bhagavan advised him to rub some liniment on it and

told the attendant to give him some. Bhagavan's small bottle for

constant use was empty, so Bhagavan told the attendant to take the

big bottle from the cupboard. Bhagavan told Vaikunta Vasar to take a

small bottle of it to Mauni and see that he used it. When the large

bottle was taken out of the cupboard Bhagavan noticed that it was not

full, so he turned to Khanna, who had bought it for him, and said: "It

looks as though you bought this for yourself or your children and then

gave it to me when you saw what a state I am in. And perhaps the

Chavanaprash you gave me was also bought for you or your children."

Khanna assured Bhagavan that the liniment was not needed for himself

or his family but had been bought specially for Bhagavan, and he

explained that the reason why the bottle was not full was that he had

bought it in several smaller bottles and transferred it to this large

one.

A little later he handed Bhagavan a piece of paper on which he had

written something. After reading it, Bhagavan said: "It is a

complaint. He says, `I have been coming to you and this time I have

remained nearly a month at your feet and I find no improvement at all

in my condition. My vasanas are as strong as ever. When I go back, my

friends will laugh at me and ask what good my stay here has done

me'."

Then, turning to Khanna, Bhagavan said: "Why distress your mind by

thinking that jnana has not come or that the vasanas have not

disappeared? Don't give room for thoughts. In the last stanza of

"Sukavari" in Thayumanavar, the Saint says much the same as is

written on this paper." And Bhagavan made me read the stanza and

translate it into English for the benefit of those who do not know

Tamil. It goes: "The mind mocks me and though I tell you ten thousand

times you are indifferent, so how am I to attain peace and bliss?"

Then I said to Khanna: "You are not the only one who complains to

Bhagavan like this. I have more than once complained in the same way,

and I still do, for I find no improvement in myself."

Khanna replied: "It is not only that I find no improvement, but I

think I have grown worse. The vasanas are stronger now. I can't

understand it."

Bhagavan again quoted the last three stanzas of "Mandalathin" of

Thayumanavar, where the mind is coaxed as the most generous and

disinterested of givers, to go back to its birthplace, or source, and

thus give the devotee peace and bliss, and he asked me to read out a

translation of it that I once made.

Khanna then asked: "The illumination plus mind is jivatma, and the

illumination alone is Paramatma; is that right?"

Bhagavan assented and then pointed to his towel and said: "We call

this a white cloth, but the cloth and its whiteness cannot be

separated, and it is the same with the illumination and the mind that

unite to form the ego." Then he added: "The following illustration

that is often given in books will also help you. The lamp in the

theatre is the Parabrahman or the illumination, as you put it. It

illumines itself and the stage and actors. We see the stage and the

actors by its light, but its light still continues when there is no

more play. Another illustration is an iron rod that is compared to

the mind. Fire joins it and it becomes red-hot. It glows and can burn

things, like fire, but still it has a definite shape, unlike fire. If

we hammer it, it is the rod that receives the blows, not the fire.

The rod is the jivatma and the fire the Self or Paramatma."

28-6-46

In the afternoon Khanna's wife appealed to Bhagavan in writing: "I am

not learned in the scriptures and I find the method of Self-enquiry

too hard for me. I am a woman with seven children and a lot of

household cares, and it leaves me little time for meditation. I

request Bhagavan to give me some simpler and easier method."

Bhagavan: "No learning or knowledge of scriptures is necessary to know

the Self, as no man requires a mirror to see himself. All knowledge is

required only to be given up eventually as not-Self. Nor is household

work or cares with children necessarily an obstacle. If you can do

nothing more, at least continue saying `I, I' to yourself mentally

all the time, as advised in Who am I? Whatever work you may be doing

and whether you are sitting, standing or walking. `I' is the name of

God. It is the first and greatest of all mantras. Even OM is second

to it."

Khanna: The jiva is said to be mind plus illumination. What is it that

desires Self-realization and what is it that obstructs our path to

Self-realization? It is said that the mind obstructs and the

illumination helps.

Bhagavan: "Although we describe the jiva as mind plus the reflected

light of the Self, in actual practice, in life, you cannot separate

the two, just as, in the illustrations we used yesterday, you can't

separate cloth and whiteness in a white cloth or fire and iron in a

red-hot rod. The mind can do nothing by itself. It emerges only with

the illumination and can do no action, good or bad, except with the

illumination. But while the illumination is always there, enabling

the mind to act well or ill, the pleasure or pain resulting from such

action is not felt by the illumination, just as when you hammer a

red-hot rod, it is not the fire but the iron that gets the

hammering."

Khanna: "Is there destiny? And if what is destined to happen will

happen is there any use in prayer or effort, or should we just remain

idle?"

Bhagavan: "There are only two ways to conquer destiny or be

independent of it. One is to enquire for whom is this destiny and

discover that only the ego is bound by destiny and not the Self, and

that the ego is non-existent. The other way is to kill the ego by

completely surrendering to the Lord, by realizing one's helplessness

and saying all the time, `Not I but Thou, oh Lord!', and giving up

all sense of `I' and `mine' and leaving it to the Lord to do what he

likes with you. Surrender can never be regarded as complete so long

as the devotee wants this or that from the Lord. True surrender is

love of God for the sake of love and nothing else, not even for the

sake of salvation. In other words, complete effacement of the ego is

necessary to conquer destiny, whether you achieve this effacement

through Self-enquiry or through bhakti-marga."

Khanna: "Are our prayers granted?"

Bhagavan: "Yes, they are granted. No thought will go in vain. Every

thought will produce its effect some time or other. Thought-force

will never go in vain.

THE MAHARSHI

January/February 2000 Vol. 10 - No. 1

Produced & Edited byDennis HartelDr. Anil K. Sharma

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