Bhagavan - Know Thyself

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Bhagavan - Know Thyself

 

 

 

Sri Bhagavan: People always fall into this confusion. What you call your

self now is not the real Self which is neither born nor dies.

 

Questioner: Then you admit that what I call my self is the body or part of

the body.

 

Sri Bhagavan: But the body is matter, insentient; it never knows, it is

always the known.

 

Questioner: Then, if I am neither the Self nor the not-self...

 

Sri Bhagavan: I am coming to the rescue. Between spirit and matter, the

self and the body, there is born something which is called the Ahamkara, the

ego-self, or Jiva, the individual living being. Now what you call your self is

this ego-self, which is different from the ever-conscious Self and from

unconscious matter, but which at the same time partakes of the character of

both, the spirit and the matter, the sentient and the insentient.

 

Questioner: Then when you say "know thyself" you want me to know this

ego-self?

 

Sri Bhagavan: But the moment the ego-self tries to know itself, it changes

its character; it begins to partake less and less of the insentient, in which it

is absorbed, and more and more of the Consciousness of the Self.

 

 

 

 

 

Questioner: Then whom do you address when you say "know thyself?"

 

Sri Bhagavan: To whatever you are; to you is given the suggestion "know

thyself." The ego-self, when it feels the necessity to know its own origin or

feels impelled to rise above itself, takes the suggestion and goes deeper; and

there discovers the true source and reality of itself. So the ego-self,

beginning to know itself, ends in perceiving the Self, its true Self.