To begin at the Beginning: Chpts. 1-12. I Am That by Sir Nis.

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1. The Sense of `I am'

Questioner: It is a matter of daily experience that on waking up the

world suddenly appears. Where does it come from?

 

Maharaj: Before anything can come into being there must be somebody

to whom it comes. All appearance and disappearance presupposes a

change against some changeless background.

 

Q: Before waking up I was unconscious.

 

M: In what sense? Having forgotten, or not having experienced? Don't

you experience even when unconscious? Can you exist without knowing?

A lapse in memory: is it a proof of non-existence? And can you

validly talk about your own non-existence as an actual experience?

You cannot even say that your mind did not exist. Did you not wake up

on being called? And on waking up, was it not the sense `I am' that

came first? Some seed consciousness must be existing even during

sleep, or swoon. On waking up the experience runs: `I am -- the body -

- in the world.' It may appear to arise in succession but in fact it

is all simultaneous, a single idea of having a body in a world. Can

there be the sense of `I am' without being somebody or other?

 

Q: I am always somebody with its memories and habits. I know no

other `I am'.

 

M: Maybe something prevents you from knowing? When you do not know

something which others know, what do you do?

 

Q: I seek the source of their knowledge under their instruction.

 

M: Is it not important to you to know whether you are a mere body,

or something else? Or, maybe nothing at all? Don't you see that all

your problems are your body's problems -- food, clothing, shelter,

family, friends, name, fame, security, survival -- all these lose

their meaning the moment you realise that you may not be a mere body.

 

Q: What benefit is there in knowing that I am not the body?

 

M: Even to say that you are not the body is not quite true. In a way

you are all the bodies, hearts and minds and much more. Go deep into

the sense of `I am' and you will find. How do you find a thing you

have mislaid or forgotten? You keep it in your mind until you recall

it. The sense of being, of 'I am' is the first to emerge. Ask

yourself whence it comes, or just watch it quietly. When the mind

stays in the 'I am' without moving, you enter a state which cannot be

verbalised but can be experienced. All you need to do is try and try

again. After all the sense `I am' is always with you, only you have

attached all kinds of things to it -- body, feelings, thoughts,

ideas, possessions etc. All these self-identifications are

misleading. Because of them you take yourself to be what you are not.

 

Q: Then what am I?

 

M: It is enough to know what you are not. You need not know what you

are. For as long as knowledge means description in terms of what is

already known, perceptual, or conceptual, there can be no such thing

as self-knowledge, for what you are cannot be described, except as

except as total negation. All you can say is: `I am not this, I am

not that'. You cannot meaningfully say `this is what I am'. It just

makes no sense. What you can point out as 'this' or 'that' cannot be

yourself. Surely, you can not be 'something' else. You are nothing

perceivable, or imaginable. Yet, without you there can be neither

perception nor imagination. You observe the heart feeling, the mind

thinking, the body acting; the very act of perceiving shows that you

are not what you perceive. Can there be perception, experience

without you? An experience must `belong'. Somebody must come and

declare it as his own. Without an experiencer the experience is not

real. It is the experiencer that imparts reality to experience. An

experience which you cannot have, of what value is it to you?

 

Q: The sense of being an experiencer, the sense of `I am', is it

not also an experience?

 

M: Obviously, every thing experienced is an experience. And in every

experience there arises the experiencer of it. Memory creates the

illusion of continuity. In reality each experience has its own

experiencer and the sense of identity is due to the common factor at

the root of all experiencer-experience relations. Identity and

continuity are not the same. Just as each flower has its own colour,

but all colours are caused by the same light, so do many experiences

appear in the undivided and indivisible awareness, each separate in

memory, identical in essence. This essence is the root, the

foundation, the timeless and spaceless 'possibility' of all

experience.

 

Q: How do I get at it?

 

M: You need not get at it, for you are it. It will get at you, if

you give it a chance. Let go your attachment to the unreal and the

real will swiftly and smoothly step into its own. Stop imagining

yourself being or doing this or that and the realisation that you are

the source and heart of all will dawn upon you. With this will come

great love which is not choice or predilection, nor attachment, but a

power which makes all things love-worthy and lovable.

 

2. Obsession with the body

Questioner: Maharaj, you are sitting in front of me and I am here at

your feet. What is the basic difference between us?

 

Maharaj: There is no basic difference.

 

Q: Still there must be some real difference, I come to you, you do

not come to me.

 

M: Because you imagine differences, you go here and there in search

of `superior' people.

 

Q: You too are a superior person. You claim to know the real, while

I do not.

 

M: Did I ever tell you that you do not know and, therefore, you are

inferior? Let those who invented such distinctions prove them. I do

not claim to know what you do not. In fact, I know much less than you

do.

 

Q: Your words are wise, your behaviour noble, your grace all-

powerful.

 

M: I know nothing about it all and see no difference between you and

me. My life is a succession of events, just like yours. Only I am

detached and see the passing show as a passing show, while you stick

to things and move along with them.

 

Q: What made you so dispassionate?

 

M: Nothing in particular. It so happened that I trusted my Guru. He

told me I am nothing but my self and I believed him. Trusting him, I

behaved accordingly and ceased caring for what was not me, nor mine.

 

Q: Why were you lucky to trust your teacher fully, while our trust

is nominal and verbal?

 

M: Who can say? It happened so. Things happen without cause and

reason and, after all, what does it matter, who is who? Your high

opinion of me is your opinion only. Any moment you may change it. Why

attach importance to opinions, even your own?

 

Q: Still, you are different. Your mind seems to be always quiet and

happy. And miracles happen round you.

 

M: I know nothing about miracles, and I wonder whether nature admits

exceptions to her laws, unless we agree that everything is a miracle.

As to my mind, there is no such thing. There is consciousness in

which everything happens. It is quite obvious and within the

experience of everybody. You just do not look carefully enough. Look

well, and see what I see.

 

Q: What do you see?

 

M: I see what you too could see, here and now, but for the wrong

focus of your attention. You give no attention to your self. Your

mind is all with things, people and ideas, never with your self.

Bring your self into focus, become aware of your own existence. See

how you function, watch the motives and the results of your actions.

Study the prison you have built around yourself by inadvertence. By

knowing what you are not, you come to know your self. The way back to

your self is through refusal and rejection. One thing is certain: the

real is not imaginary, it is not a product of the mind. Even the

sense `I am' is not continuous, though it is a useful pointer; it

shows where to seek, but not what to seek. Just have a good look at

it. Once you are convinced that you cannot say truthfully about your

self anything except `I am', and that nothing that can be pointed at,

can be your self, the need for the `I am' is over -- you are no

longer intent on verbalising what you are. All you need is to get rid

of the tendency to define your self. All definitions apply to your

body only and to its expressions. Once this obsession with the body

goes, you will revert to your natural state, spontaneously and

effortlessly. The only difference between us is that I am aware of my

natural state, while you are bemused. Just like gold made into

ornaments has no advantage over gold dust, except when the mind makes

it so, so are we one in being -- we differ only in appearance. We

discover it by being earnest, by searching, enquiring, questioning

daily and hourly, by giving one's life to this discovery.

 

3. The Living Present

Questioner: As I can see, there is nothing wrong with my body nor

with my real being. Both are not of my making and need not be

improved upon. What has gone wrong is the `inner body', call it mind,

consciousness, antahkarana, whatever the name.

 

Maharaj: What do you consider to be wrong with your mind?

 

Q: It is restless, greedy of the pleasant and afraid of the

unpleasant.

 

M: What is wrong with its seeking the pleasant and shirking the

unpleasant? Between the banks of pain and pleasure the river of life

flows. It is only when the mind refuses to flow with life, and gets

stuck at the banks, that it becomes a problem. By flowing with life I

mean acceptance -- letting come what comes and go what goes. Desire

not, fear not, observe the actual, as and when it happens, for you

are not what happens, you are to whom it happens. Ultimately even the

observer you are not. You are the ultimate potentiality of which the

all-embracing consciousness is the manifestation and expression.

 

Q: Yet, between the body and the self there lies a cloud of

thoughts and feelings, which neither server the body nor the self.

These thoughts and feelings are flimsy, transient and meaningless,

mere mental dust that blinds and chokes, yet they are there,

obscuring and destroying.

 

M: Surely, the memory of an event cannot pass for the event itself.

Nor can the anticipation. There is something exceptional, unique,

about the present event, which the previous, or the coming do not

have. There is a livingness about it, an actuality; it stands out as

if illuminated. There is the `stamp of reality' on the actual, which

the past and the future do not have.

 

Q: What gives the present that 'stamp of reality'?

 

M: There is nothing peculiar in the present event to make it

different from the past and future. For a moment the past was actual

and the future will become so. What makes the present so different?

Obviously, my presence. I am real for I am always now, in the

present, and what is with me now shares in my reality. The past is in

memory, the future -- in imagination. There is nothing in the present

event itself that makes it stand out as real. It may be some simple,

periodical occurrence, like the striking of the clock. In spite of

our knowing that the successive strokes are identical, the present

stroke is quite different from the previous one and the next -- as

remembered, or expected. A thing focussed in the now is with me, for

I am ever present; it is my own reality that I impart to the present

event.

 

Q: But we deal with things remembered as if they were real.

 

M: We consider memories, only when they come into the present The

forgotten is not counted until one is reminded -- which implies,

bringing into the now.

 

Q: Yes, I can see there is in the now some unknown factor that

gives momentary reality to the transient actuality.

 

M: You need not say it is unknown, for you see it in constant

operation. Since you were born, has it ever changed? Things and

thoughts have been changing all the time. But the feeling that what

is now is real has never changed, even in dream.

 

Q: In deep sleep there is no experience of the present reality.

 

M: The blankness of deep sleep is due entirely to the lack of

specific memories. But a general memory of well-being is there. There

is a difference in feeling when we say `I was deeply asleep' from `I

was absent'.

 

Q: We shall repeat the question we began with: between life's

source and life's expression (which is the body), there is the mind

and its ever-changeful states. The stream of mental states is

endless, meaningless and painful. Pain is the constant factor. What

we call pleasure is but a gap, an interval between two painful

states. Desire and fear are the weft and warp of living, and both are

made of pain. Our question is: can there be a happy mind?

 

M: Desire is the memory of pleasure and fear is the memory of pain.

Both make the mind restless. Moments of pleasure are merely gaps in

the stream of pain. How can the mind be happy?

 

Q: That is true when we desire pleasure or expect pain. But there

are moments of unexpected, unanticipated joy. Pure joy,

uncontaminated by desire -- unsought, undeserved, God-given.

 

M: Still, joy is joy only against a background of pain.

 

Q: Is pain a cosmic fact, or purely mental?

 

M: The universe is complete and where there is completeness, where

nothing lacks, what can give pain?

 

Q: The Universe may be complete as a whole, but incomplete in

details.

 

M: A part of the whole seen in relation to the whole is also

complete. Only when seen in isolation it becomes deficient and thus a

seat of pain. What makes for isolation?

 

Q: Limitations of the mind, of course. The mind cannot see the

whole for the part.

 

M: Good enough. The mind, by its very nature, divides and opposes.

Can there be some other mind, which unites and harmonises, which sees

the whole in the part and the part as totally related to the whole?

 

Q: The other mind -- where to look for it?

 

M: In the going beyond the limiting, dividing and opposing mind. In

ending the mental process as we know it. When this comes to an end,

that mind is born.

 

Q: In that mind, the problem of joy and sorrow exist no longer?

 

M: Not as we know them, as desirable or repugnant. It becomes rather

a question of love seeking expression and meeting with obstacles. The

inclusive mind is love in action, battling against circumstances,

initially frustrated, ultimately victorious.

 

Q: Between the spirit and the body, is it love that provides the

bridge?

 

M: What else? Mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it.

 

4. Real World is Beyond the Mind

Questioner: On several occasions the question was raised as to

whether the universe is subject to the law of causation, or does it

exist and function outside the law. You seem to hold the view that it

is uncaused, that everything, however small, is uncaused, arising and

disappearing for no known reason whatsoever.

 

Maharaj: Causation means succession in time of events in space, the

space being physical or mental. Time, space, causation are mental

categories, arising and subsiding with the mind.

 

Q: As long as the mind operates, causation is a valid law.

 

M: Like everything mental, the so-called law of causation

contradicts itself. No thing in existence has a particular cause; the

entire universe contributes to the existence of even the smallest

thing; nothing could be as it is without the universe being what it

is. When the source and ground of everything is the only cause of

everything, to speak of causality as a universal law is wrong. The

universe is not bound by its content, because its potentialities are

infinite; besides it is a manifestation, or expression of a principle

fundamentally and totally free.

 

Q: Yes, one can see that ultimately to speak of one thing being the

only cause of another thing is altogether wrong. Yet, in actual life

we invariably initiate action with a view to a result.

 

M: Yes, there is a lot of such activity going on, because of

ignorance. 'Would people know that nothing can happen unless the

entire universe makes it happen, they would achieve much more with

less expenditure of energy.

 

Q: If everything is an expression of the totality of causes, how

can we talk of a purposeful action towards an achievement?

 

M: The very urge to achieve is also an expression of the total

universe. It merely shows that the energy potential has risen at a

particular point. It is the illusion of time that makes you talk of

causality. When the past and the future are seen in the timeless now,

as parts of a common pattern, the idea of cause-effect loses its

validity and creative freedom takes its place.

 

Q: Yet, I cannot see how can anything come to be without a cause.

 

M: When I say a thing is without a cause, I mean it can be with­out a

particular cause. Your own mother was needed to give you birth; But

you could not have been born without the sun and the earth. Even

these could not have caused your birth without your own desire to be

born. It is desire that gives birth, that gives name and form. The

desirable is imagined and wanted and manifests itself as something

tangible or con­ceivable. Thus is created the world in which we live,

our per­sonal world. The real world is beyond the mind's ken; we see

it through the net of our desires, divided into pleasure and pain,

right and wrong, inner and outer. To see the universe as it is, you

must step beyond the net. It is not hard to do so, for the net is

full of holes.

 

Q: What do you mean by holes? And how to find them?

 

M: Look at the net and its many contradictions. You do and undo at

every step. You want peace, love, happiness and work hard to create

pain, hatred and war. You want longevity and overeat, you want

friendship and exploit. See your net as made of such contradictions

and remove them -- your very seeing them will make them go.

 

Q: Since my seeing the contradiction makes it go, is there no

causal link between my seeing and its going?

 

M: Causality, even as a concept, does not apply to chaos.

 

Q: To what extent is desire a causal factor?

 

M: One of the many. For everything there are innumerable causal

factors. But the source of all that is, is the Infinite Possibility,

the Supreme Reality, which is in you and which throws its power and

light and love on every experience. But, this source is not a cause

and no cause is a source. Because of that, I say everything is

uncaused. You may try to trace how a thing happens, but you cannot

find out why a thing is as it is. A thing is as it is, because the

universe is as it is.

 

5. What is Born must Die

Questioner: Is the witness-consciousness permanent or not?

 

Maharaj: It is not permanent. The knower rises and sets with the

known. That in which both the knower and the known arise and set, is

beyond time. The words permanent or eternal do not apply.

 

Q: In sleep there is neither the known, nor the knower. What keeps

the body sensitive and receptive?

 

M: Surely you cannot say the knower was absent. The experience of

things and thoughts was not there, that is all. But the absence of

experience too is experience. It is like entering a dark room and

saying: 'I see nothing'. A man blind from birth knows not what

darkness means. Similarly, only the knower knows that he does not

know. Sleep is merely a lapse in memory. Life goes on.

 

Q: And what is death?

 

M: It is the change in the living process of a particular body.

Integration ends and disintegration sets in.

 

Q: But what about the knower. With the disappearance of the body,

does the knower disappear?

 

M: Just as the knower of the body appears at birth, so he disappears

at death.

 

Q: And nothing remains?

 

M: Life remains. Consciousness needs a vehicle and an instrument for

its manifestation. When life produces another body, another knower

comes into being,

 

Q: Is there a causal link between the successive body­knowers, or

body-minds?

 

M: Yes, there is something that may be called the memory body, or

causal body, a record of all that was thought, wanted and done. It is

like a cloud of images held together

 

Q: What is this sense of a separate existence?

 

M: It is a reflection in a separate body of the one reality. In this

reflection the unlimited and the limited are confused and taken to be

the same. To undo this confusion is the purpose of Yoga.

 

Q: Does not death undo this confusion?

 

M: In death only the body dies. Life does not, consciousness does

not, reality does not. And the life is never so alive as after death.

 

Q: But does one get reborn?

 

M: What was born must die. Only the unborn is deathless. Find what

is it that never sleeps and never wakes, and whose pale reflection is

our sense of 'I'.

 

Q: How am I to go about this finding out?

 

M: How do you go about finding anything? By keeping your mind and

heart in it. Interest there must be and steady remembrance. To

remember what needs to be remembered is the secret of success. You

come to it through earnestness.

 

Q: Do you mean to say that mere wanting to find out is enough?

Surely, both qualifications and opportunities are needed.

 

M: These will come with earnestness. What is supremely important is

to be free from contradictions: the goal and the way must not be on

different levels; life and light must not quarrel; behaviour must not

betray belief. Call it honesty, integrity, wholeness; you must not go

back, undo, uproot, abandon the conquered ground. Tenacity of purpose

and honesty in pursuit will bring you to your goal.

 

Q: Tenacity and honesty are endowments, surely! Not a trace of them

I have.

 

M: All will come as you go on. Take the first step first. All

blessings come from within. Turn within. 'l am' you know. Be with it

all the time you can spare, until you revert to it spontaneously.

There is no simpler and easier way.

 

6. Meditation

Questioner: All teachers advise to meditate. What is the purpose of

meditation?

 

Maharaj: We know the outer world of sensations and actions, but of

our inner world of thoughts and feelings we know very little. The

primary purpose of meditation is to become conscious of, and familiar

with, our inner life. The ultimate purpose is to reach the source of

life and consciousness.

 

Incidentally practice of meditation affects deeply our character. We

are slaves to what we do not know; of what we know we are masters.

Whatever vice or weakness in ourselves we discover and understand its

causes and its workings, we over­come it by the very knowing; the

unconscious dissolves when brought into the conscious. The

dissolution of the unconscious releases energy; the mind feels

adequate and become quiet.

 

Q: What is the use of a quiet mind?

 

M: When the mind is quiet, we come to know ourselves as the pure

witness. We withdraw from the experience and its experiencer and

stand apart in pure awareness, which is between and beyond the two.

The personality, based on self-identification, on imagining oneself

to be something: 'I am this, I am that', continues, but only as a

part of the objective world. Its identification with the witness

snaps.

 

Q: As I can make out, I live on many levels and life on each level

requires energy. The self by its very nature delights in everything

and its energies flow outwards. Is it not the purpose of meditation

to dam up the energies on the higher levels, or to push them back and

up, so as to enable the higher levels to prosper also?

 

M: It is not so much the matter of levels as of gunas (qualities).

Meditation is a sattvic activity and aims at complete elimination of

tamas (inertia) and rajas (motivity). Pure sattva (harmony) is

perfect freedom from sloth and restlessness.

 

Q: How to strengthen and purify the sattva?

 

M: The sattva is pure and strong always. It is like the sun. It may

seem obscured by clouds and dust, but only from the point of view of

the perceiver. Deal with the causes of obscuration, not with the sun.

 

Q: What is the use of sattva?

 

M: What is the use of truth, goodness, harmony, beauty? They are

their own goal. They manifest spontaneously and effortlessly, when

things are left to themselves, are not interfered with, not shunned,

or wanted, or conceptualised, but just experienced in full awareness,

such awareness itself is sattva. It does not make use of things and

people -- it fulfils them.

 

Q: Since I cannot improve sattva, am I to deal with tamas and rajas

only? How can I deal with them?

 

M: By watching their influence in you and on you. Be aware of them

in operation, watch their expressions in your thoughts, words and

deeds, and gradually their grip on you will lessen and the clear

light of sattva will emerge. It is neither difficult, nor a

protracted process; earnestness is the only condition of success.

 

7. The Mind

Questioner: There are very interesting books written by apparently

very competent people, in which the illusoriness of the world is

denied (though not its transitoriness). According to them, there

exists a hierarchy of beings, from the lowest to the highest; on each

level the complexity of the organism enables and reflects the depth,

breadth and intensity of consciousness, without any visible or

knowable culmination. One law supreme rules throughout: evolution of

forms for the growth and enrichment of consciousness and

manifestation of its infinite potentialities.

 

Maharaj: This may or may not be so. Even if it is, it is only so from

the mind's point of view, but In fact the entire universe

(mahadakash) exists only in consciousness (chidakash), while I have

my stand in the Absolute (paramakash). In pure being consciousness

arises; in consciousness the world appears and disappears. All there

is is me, all there is is mine. Before all beginnings, after all

endings -- I am. All has its being in me, in the `I am', that shines

in every living being. Even not-being is unthinkable without me.

Whatever happens, I must be there to witness it.

 

Q: Why do you deny being to the world?

 

M: I do not negate the world. I see it as appearing in

consciousness, which is the totality of the known in the immensity of

the unknown.

 

What begins and ends is mere appearance. The world can be said to

appear, but not to be. The appearance may last very long on some

scale of time, and be very short on another, but ultimately it comes

to the same. Whatever is time bound is momentary and has no reality.

 

Q: Surely, you see the actual world as it surrounds you. You seem

to behave quite normally!

 

M: That is how it appears to you. What in your case occupies the

entire field of consciousness, is a mere speck in mine. The world

lasts, but for a moment. It is your memory that makes you think that

the world continues. Myself, I don't live by memory. I see the world

as it is, a momentary appearance in consciousness.

 

Q: In your consciousness?

 

M: All idea of `me' and `mine', even of `I am' is in consciousness.

 

Q: Is then your `absolute being' (paramakash) un-consciousness?

 

M: The idea of un-consciousness exists in consciousness only.

 

Q: Then, how do you know you are in the supreme state?

 

M: Because I am in it. It is the only natural state.

 

Q: Can you describe it?

 

M: Only by negation, as uncaused, independent, unrelated, undivided,

uncomposed, unshakable, unquestionable, unreachable by effort. Every

positive definition is from memory and, therefore, inapplicable. And

yet my state is supremely actual and, therefore, possible,

realisable, attainable.

 

Q: Are you not immersed timelessly in an abstraction?

 

M: Abstraction is mental and verbal and disappears in sleep, or

swoon; it reappears in time; I am in my own state (swarupa)

timelessly in the now. Past and future are in mind only -- I am now.

 

Q: The world too is now.

 

M: Which world?

 

Q: The world around us.

 

M: It is your world you have in mind, not mine. What do you know of

me, when even my talk with you is in your world only? You have no

reason to believe that my world is identical with yours. My world is

real, true, as it is perceived, while yours appears and disappears,

according to the state of your mind. Your world is something alien,

and you are afraid of it. My world is myself. I am at home.

 

Q: If you are the world, how can you be conscious of it? Is not the

subject of consciousness different from its object?

 

M: Consciousness and the world appear and disappear together, hence

they are two aspects of the same state.

 

Q: In sleep I am not, and the world continues.

 

M: How do you know?

 

Q: On waking up I come to know. My memory tells me.

 

M: Memory is in the mind. The mind continues in sleep.

 

Q: It is partly in abeyance.

 

M: But its world picture is not affected. As long as the mind is

there, your body and your world are there. Your world is mind-made,

subjective, enclosed within the mind, fragmentary, temporary,

personal, hanging on the thread of memory.

 

Q: So is yours?

 

M: Oh no. I live in a world of realities, while yours is of

imagination. Your world is personal, private, unshareable, intimately

your own. Nobody can enter it, see as you see, hear as you hear, feel

your emotions and think your thoughts. In your world you are truly

alone, enclosed in your ever-changing dream, which you take for life.

My world is an open world, common to all, accessible to all. In my

world there is community, insight, love, real quality; the individual

is the total, the totality -- in the individual. All are one and the

One is all.

 

Q: Is your world full of things and people as is mine?

 

M: No, it is full of myself.

 

Q: But do you see and hear as we do?

 

M: Yes, l appear to hear and see and talk and act, but to me it just

happens, as to you digestion or perspiration happens. The body-mind

machine looks after it, but leaves me out of it. Just as you do not

need to worry about growing hair, so I need not worry about words and

actions. They just happen and leave me unconcerned, for in my world

nothing ever goes wrong.

 

8. The Self Stands Beyond Mind

Questioner: As a child fairly often I experienced states of complete

happiness, verging on ecstasy: later, they ceased, but since I came

to India they reappeared, particularly after I met you. Yet these

states, however wonderful, are not lasting. They come and go and

there is no knowing when they will come back.

 

Maharaj: How can anything be steady in a mind which itself is not

steady?

 

Q: How can I make my mind steady?

 

M: How can an unsteady mind make itself steady? Of course it cannot.

It is the nature of the mind to roam about. All you can do is to

shift the focus of consciousness beyond the mind.

 

Q: How is it done?

 

M: Refuse all thoughts except one: the thought 'I am'. The mind will

rebel in the beginning, but with patience and perseverance it will

yield and keep quiet. Once you are quiet, things will begin to happen

spontaneously and quite naturally without any interference on your

part.

 

Q: Can I avoid this protracted battle with my mind?

 

M: Yes, you can. Just live your life as it comes, but alertly,

watchfully, allowing everything to happen as it happens, doing the

natural things the natural way, suffering, rejoicing -- as life

brings. This also is a way.

 

Q: Well, then I can as well marry, have children, run a business…

be happy.

 

M: Sure. You may or may not be happy, take it in your stride.

 

Q: Yet I want happiness.

 

M: True happiness cannot be found in things that change and pass

away. Pleasure and pain alternate inexorably. Happiness comes from

the self and can be found in the self only. Find your real self

(swarupa) and all else will come with it.

 

Q: If my real self is peace and love, why is it so restless?

 

M: It is not your real being that is restless, but its reflection in

the mind appears restless because the mind is restless. It is just

like the reflection of the moon in the water stirred by the wind. The

wind of desire stirs the mind and the 'me', which is but a reflection

of the Self in the mind, appears changeful. But these ideas of

movement, of restlessness, of pleasure and pain are all in the mind.

The Self stands beyond the mind, aware, but unconcerned.

 

Q: How to reach it?

 

M: You are the Self, here and now Leave the mind alone, stand aware

and unconcerned and you will realise that to stand alert but

detached, watching events come and go, is an aspect of your real

nature.

 

Q: What are the other aspects?

 

M: The aspects are infinite in number. Realise one, and you will

realise all.

 

Q: Tell me some thing that would help me.

 

M: You know best what you need!

 

Q: I am restless. How can I gain peace?

 

M: For what do you need peace?

 

Q: To be happy.

 

M: Are you not happy now?

 

Q: No, I am not.

 

M: What makes you unhappy?

 

Q: I have what I don't want, and want what I don't have.

 

M: Why don't you invert it: want what you have and care not for what

you don't have?

 

Q: I want what is pleasant and don't want what is painful.

 

M: How do you know what is pleasant and what is not?

 

Q: From past experience, of course.

 

M: Guided by memory you have been pursuing the pleasant and shunning

the unpleasant. Have you succeeded?

 

Q: No, I have not. The pleasant does not last. Pain sets in again.

 

M: Which pain?

 

Q: The desire for pleasure, the fear of pain, both are states of

distress. Is there a state of unalloyed pleasure?

 

M: Every pleasure, physical or mental, needs an instrument. Both the

physical and mental instruments are material, they get tired and worn

out. The pleasure they yield is necessarily limited in intensity and

duration. Pain is the background of all your pleasures. You want them

because you suffer. On the other hand, the very search for pleasure

is the cause of pain. It is a vicious circle.

 

Q: I can see the mechanism of my confusion, but I do not see my way

out of it.

 

M: The very examination of the mechanism shows the way. After all,

your confusion is only in your mind, which never rebelled so far

against confusion and never got to grips with it. It rebelled only

against pain.

 

Q: So, all I can do is to stay confused?

 

M: Be alert. Question, observe, investigate, learn all you can about

confusion, how it operates, what it does to you and others. By being

clear about confusion you become clear of confusion.

 

Q: When I look into myself, I find my strongest desire is to create

a monument, to build something which will outlast me. Even when I

think of a home, wife and child, it is because it is a lasting,

solid, testimony to myself.

 

M: Right, build yourself a monument. How do you propose to do it?

 

Q: It matters little what I build, as long as it is permanent.

 

M: Surely, you can see for yourself that nothing is permanent. All

wears out, breaks down, dissolves. The very ground on which you build

gives way. What can you build that will outlast all?

 

Q: Intellectually, verbally, I am aware that all is transient. Yet,

somehow my heart wants permanency. I want to create something that

lasts.

 

M: Then you must build it of something lasting. What have you that

is lasting? Neither your body nor mind will last. You must look

elsewhere.

 

Q: I long for permanency, but I find it nowhere.

 

M: Are you, yourself, not permanent?

 

Q: I was born, I shall die.

 

M: Can you truly say you were not before you were born and can you

possibly say when dead: `Now I am no more'? You cannot say from your

own experience that you are not. You can only say `I am'. Others too

cannot tell you `you are not'.

 

Q: There is no `I am' in sleep.

 

M: Before you make such sweeping statements, examine carefully your

waking state. You will soon discover that it is full of gaps, when

the min blanks out. Notice how little you remember even when fully

awake. You just don't remember. A gap in memory is not necessarily a

gap in consciousness.

 

Q: Can I make myself remember my state of deep sleep?

 

M: Of course! By eliminating the intervals of inadvertence during

your waking hours you will gradually eliminate the long interval of

absent-mindedness, which you call sleep. You will be aware that you

are asleep.

 

Q: Yet, the problem of permanency, of continuity of being, is not

solved.

 

M: Permanency is a mere idea, born of the action of time. Time again

depends of memory. By permanency you mean unfailing memory through

endless time. You want to eternalise the mind, which is not possible.

 

Q: Then what is eternal?

 

M: That which does not change with time. You cannot eternalise a

transient thing -- only the changeless is eternal.

 

Q: I am familiar with the general sense of what you say. I do not

crave for more knowledge. All I want is peace.

 

M: You can have for the asking all the peace you want.

 

Q: I am asking.

 

M: You must ask with an undivided heart and live an integrated life.

 

Q: How?

 

M: Detach yourself from all that makes your mind restless. Renounce

all that disturbs its peace. If you want peace, deserve it.

 

Q: Surely everybody deserves peace.

 

M: Those only deserve it, who don't disturb it.

 

Q: In what way do I disturb peace?

 

M: By being a slave to your desires and fears.

 

Q: Even when they are justified?

 

M: Emotional reactions, born of ignorance or inadvertence, are never

justified. Seek a clear mind and a clean heart. All you need is to

keep quietly alert, enquiring into the real nature of yourself. This

is the only way to peace.

 

9. Responses of Memory

Questioner: Some say the universe was created. Others say that it

always existed and is for ever undergoing transformation. Some say it

is subject to eternal laws. Others deny even causality. Some say the

world is real. Others -- that it has no being whatsoever.

 

Maharaj: Which world are you enquiring about?

 

Q: The world of my perceptions, of course.

 

M: The world you can perceive is a very small world indeed. And it

is entirely private. Take it to be a dream and be done with it.

 

Q: How can I take it to be a dream? A dream does not last.

 

M: How long will your own world last?

 

Q: After all, my little world is but a part of the total.

 

M: Is not the idea of a total world a part of your personal world?

The universe does not come to tell you that you are a part of it. It

is you who have invented a totality to contain you as a part. In fact

all you know is your own private world, however well you have

furnished it with your imaginations and expectations.

 

Q: Surely, perception is not imagination!

 

M: What else? Perception is recognition, is it not? Something

entirely unfamiliar can be sensed, but cannot be perceived.

Perception involves memory.

 

Q: Granted, but memory does not make it illusion.

 

M: Perception, imagination, expectation, anticipation, illusion --

all are based on memory. There are hardly any border lines between

them. They just merge into each other. All are responses of memory.

 

Q: Still, memory is there to prove the reality of my world.

 

M: How much do you remember? Try to write down from memory what you

were thinking, saying and doing on the 30th of the last month.

 

Q: Yes, there is a blank.

 

M: It is not so bad. You do remember a lot -- unconscious memory

makes the world in which you live so familiar.

 

Q: Admitted that the world in which I live is subjective and

partial. What about you? In what kind of world do you live?

 

M: My world is just like yours. I see, I hear, I feel, I think, I

speak and act in a world I perceive, just like you. But with you it

is all, with me it is nothing. Knowing the world to be a part of

myself, I pay it no more attention than you pay to the food you have

eaten. While being prepared and eaten, the food is separate from you

and your mind is on it; once swallowed, you become totally

unconscious of it. I have eaten up the world and I need not think of

it any more.

 

Q: Don't you become completely irresponsible?

 

M: How could I? How can I hurt something which is one with me. On

the contrary, without thinking of the world, whatever I do will be of

benefit to it. Just as the body sets itself right unconsciously, so

am I ceaselessly active in setting the world right.

 

Q: Nevertheless, you are aware of the immense suffering of the

world?

 

M: Of course I am, much more than you are.

 

Q: Then what do you do?

 

M: I look at it through the eyes of God and find that all is well.

 

Q: How can you say that all is well? Look at the wars, the

exploitation, the cruel strife between the citizen and the state.

 

M: All these sufferings are man-made and it is within man's power to

put an end to them. God helps by facing man with the results of his

actions and demanding that the balance should be restored. Karma is

the law that works for righteousness; it is the healing hand of God.

 

10. Witnessing

Questioner: I am full of desires and want them fulfilled. How am I to

get what I want?

 

Maharaj: Do you deserve what you desire? In some way or other you

have to work for the fulfilment of your desires. Put in energy and

wait for the results.

 

Q: Where am I to get the energy?

 

M: Desire itself is energy.

 

Q: Then why does not every desire get fulfilled?

 

M: Maybe it was not strong enough and lasting.

 

Q: Yes, that is my problem. I want things, but I am lazy when it

comes to action.

 

M: When your desire is not clear nor strong, it cannot take shape.

Besides, if your desires are personal, for your own enjoyment, the

energy you give them is necessarily limited; it can­not be more than

what you have.

 

Q: Yet, often ordinary persons do attain what they desire.

 

M: After desiring it very much and for a long time. Even then, their

achievements are limited.

 

Q: And what about unselfish desires?

 

M: When you desire the common good, the whole world de­sires with

you. Make humanity's desire your own and work for it. There you

cannot fail,

 

Q: Humanity is God's work, not mine. I am concerned with myself.

Have I not the right to see my legitimate desires fulfilled? They

will hurt no one. My desires are legitimate. They are right desires,

why don't they come true?

 

M: Desires are right or wrong according to circumstances; it depends

on how you look at them. It is only for the individual that a

distinction between right and wrong is valid.

 

Q: What are the guide-lines for such distinction? How am I to know

which of my desires are right and which are wrong?

 

M: In your case desires that lead to sorrow are wrong and those

which lead to happiness are right. But you must not forget others.

Their sorrow and happiness also count.

 

Q: Results are in the future. How can I know what they will be?

 

M: Use your mind. Remember. Observe. You are not different from

others. Most of their experiences are valid for you too. Think

clearly and deeply, go into the entire structure of your desires and

their ramifications. They are a most important part of your mental

and emotional make-up and powerfully affect your actions. Remember,

you cannot abandon what you do not know. To go beyond yourself, you

must know yourself.

 

Q: What does it mean to know myself? By knowing myself what exactly

do I come to know?

 

M: All that you are not.

 

Q: And not what I am?

 

M: What you are, you already are. By knowing what you are not, you

are free of it and remain in your own natural state. It all happens

quite spontaneously and effortlessly.

 

Q: And what do I discover?

 

M: You discover that there is nothing to discover. You are what you

are and that is all.

 

Q: I do not understand!

 

M: It is your fixed idea that you must be something or other, that

blinds you.

 

Q: How can I get rid of this idea?

 

M: If you trust me, believe when I tell you that you are the pure

awareness that illuminates consciousness and its infinite content.

Realise this and live accordingly. If you do not believe me, then go

within, enquiring `What an I'? or, focus your mind on `I am', which

is pure and simple being.

 

Q: On what my faith in you depends?

 

M: On your insight into other people's hearts. If you cannot look

into my heart, look into your own.

 

Q: I can do neither.

 

M: Purify yourself by a well-ordered and useful life. Watch over

your thoughts, feelings, words and actions. This will clear your

vision.

 

Q: Must I not renounce every thing first, and live a homeless life?

 

M: You cannot renounce. You may leave your home and give trouble to

your family, but attachments are in the mind and will not leave you

until you know your mind in and out. First thing first -- know

yourself, all else will come with it.

 

Q: But you already told me that I am the Supreme Reality. Is it not

self-knowledge?

 

M: Of course you are the Supreme Reality! But what of it? Every

grain of sand is God; to know it is important, but that is only the

beginning.

 

Q: Well, you told me that I am the Supreme Reality. I believe you.

What next is there for me to do?

 

M: I told you already. Discover all you are not. Body, feelings,

thoughts, ideas, time, space, being and not-being, this or that --

nothing concrete or abstract you can point out to is you. A mere

verbal statement will not do -- you may repeat a formula endlessly

without any result whatsoever. You must watch your­self continuously --

particularly your mind -- moment by moment, missing nothing. This

witnessing is essential for the separation of the self from the not-

self.

 

Q: The witnessing -- is it not my real nature?

 

M: For witnessing, there must be something else to witness. We are

still in duality!

 

Q: What about witnessing the witness? Awareness of awareness?

 

M: Putting words together will not take you far. Go within and

discover what you are not. Nothing else matters.

 

11. Awareness and Consciousness

Questioner: What do you do when asleep?

 

Maharaj: I am aware of being asleep.

 

Q: Is not sleep a state of unconsciousness?

 

M: Yes, I am aware of being unconscious.

 

Q: And when awake, or dreaming?

 

M: I am aware of being awake or dreaming.

 

Q: I do not catch you. What exactly do you mean? Let me make my

terms clear: by being asleep I mean unconscious, by being awake I

mean conscious, by dreaming I mean conscious of one's mind, but not

of the surroundings.

 

M: Well, it is about the same with me, Yet, there seems to be a

difference. In each state you forget the other two, while to me,

there is but one state of being, including and transcending the three

mental states of waking, dreaming and sleeping.

 

Q: Do you see in the world a direction and a purpose?

 

M: The world is but a reflection of my imagination. Whatever I want

to see, I can see. But why should I invent patterns of creation,

evolution and destruction? I do not need them and have no desire to

lock up the world in a mental picture.

 

Q: Coming back to sleep. Do you dream?

 

M: Of course.

 

Q: What are your dreams?

 

M: Echoes of the waking state.

 

Q: And your deep sleep?

 

M: The brain consciousness is suspended.

 

Q: Are you then unconscious?

 

M: Unconscious of my surroundings -- yes.

 

Q: Not quite unconscious?

 

M: I remain aware that I am unconscious.

 

Q: You use the words 'aware' and 'conscious'. Are they not the same?

 

M: Awareness is primordial; it is the original state, beginningless,

endless, uncaused, unsupported, without parts, without change.

Consciousness is on contact, a reflection against a surface, a state

of duality. There can be no consciousness without awareness, but

there can be awareness without consciousness, as in deep sleep.

Awareness is absolute, consciousness is relative to its content;

consciousness is always of something. Consciousness is partial and

changeful, awareness is total, changeless, calm and silent. And it is

the common matrix of every experience.

 

Q: How does one go beyond consciousness into awareness?

 

M: Since it is awareness that makes consciousness possible, there is

awareness in every state of consciousness. Therefore the very

consciousness of being conscious is already a movement in awareness.

Interest in your stream of consciousness takes you to awareness. It

is not a new state. It is at once recognised as the original, basic

existence, which is life itself, and also love and joy.

 

Q: Since reality is all the time with us, what does self-

realisation consist of?

 

M: Realisation is but the opposite of ignorance. To take the world

as real and one's self as unreal is ignorance. The cause of sorrow.

To know the self as the only reality and all else as temporal and

transient is freedom, peace and joy. It is all very simple. Instead

of seeing things as imagined, learn to see them as they are. It is

like cleansing a mirror. The same mirror that shows you the world as

it is, will also show you your own face. The thought 'I am' is the

polishing cloth. Use it.

 

12. The Person is not Reality

Questioner: Kindly tell us how you realised.

 

Maharaj: I met my Guru when I was 34 and realised by 37.

 

Q: What happened? What was the change?

 

M: Pleasure and pain lost their sway over me. I was free from desire

and fear. I found myself full, needing nothing. I saw that in the

ocean of pure awareness, on the surface of the universal

consciousness, the numberless waves of the phenomenal worlds arise

and subside beginninglessly and endlessly. As consciousness, they are

all me. As events they are all mine. There is a mysterious power that

looks after them. That power is awareness, Self, Life, God, whatever

name you give it. It is the foundation, the ultimate support of all

that is, just like gold is the basis for all gold jewellery. And it

is so intimately ours! Abstract the name and shape from the jewellery

and the gold becomes obvious. Be free of name and form and of the

desires and fears they create, then what remains?

 

Q: Nothingness.

 

M: Yes, the void remains. But the void is full to the brim. It is

the eternal potential as consciousness is the eternal actual.

 

Q: By potential you mean the future?

 

M: Past, present and future -- they are all there. And infinitely

more.

 

Q: But since the void is void, it is of little use to us.

 

M: How can you say so? Without breach in continuity how can there be

rebirth? Can there be renewal without death? Even the darkness of

sleep is refreshing and rejuvenating. Without death we would have

been bogged up for ever in eternal senility.

 

Q: Is there no such thing as immortality?

 

M: When life and death are seen as essential to each other, as two

aspects of one being, that is immortality. To see the end in the

beginning and beginning in the end is the intimation of eternity.

Definitely, immortality is not continuity. Only the process of change

continues. Nothing lasts.

 

Q: Awareness lasts?

 

M: Awareness is not of time. Time exists in consciousness only.

Beyond consciousness where are time and space?

 

Q: Within the field of your consciousness there is your body also.

 

M: Of course. But the idea 'my body', as different from other

bodies, is not there. To me it is 'a body', not 'my body', 'a mind',

not 'my mind'. The mind looks after the body all right, I need not

interfere. What needs be done is being done, in the normal and

natural way.

 

You may not be quite conscious of your physiological functions, but

when it comes to thoughts and feelings, desires and fears you become

acutely self-conscious. To me these too are largely unconscious. I

find myself talking to people, or doing things quite correctly and

appropriately, without being very much conscious of them. It looks as

if I live my physical, waking life automatically, reacting

spontaneously and accurately.

 

Q: Does this spontaneous response come as a result of realisation,

or by training?

 

M: Both. Devotion to you goal makes you live a clean and orderly

life, given to search for truth and to helping people, and

realisation makes noble virtue easy and spontaneous, by removing for

good the obstacles in the shape of desires and fears and wrong ideas.

 

Q: Don't you have desires and fears any more?

 

M: My destiny was to be born a simple man, a commoner, a humble

tradesman, with little of formal education. My life was the common

kind, with common desires and fears. When, through my faith in my

teacher and obedience to his words, I realised my true being, I left

behind my human nature to look after itself, until its destiny is

exhausted. Occasionally an old reaction, emotional or mental, happens

in the mind, but it is at once noticed and discarded. After all, as

long as one is bur­dened with a person, one is exposed to its

idiosyncrasies and habits.

 

Q: Are you not afraid of death?

 

M: I am dead already.

 

Q: In what sense?

 

M: I am double dead. Not only am I dead to my body, but to my mind

too.

 

Q: Well, you do not look dead at all!

 

M: That's what you say! You seem to know my state better than I do!

 

Q: Sorry. But I just do not understand. You say you are bodyless

and mindless, while I see you very much alive and articulate.

 

M: A tremendously complex work is going on all the time in your

brain and body, are you conscious of it? Not at all. Yet for an

outsider all seems to be going on intelligently and purposefully. Why

not admit that one's entire personal life may sink largely below the

threshold of consciousness and yet proceed sanely and smoothly?

 

Q: Is it normal?

 

M: What is normal? Is your life -- obsessed by desires and fears,

full of strife and struggle, meaningless and joyless -- normal? To be

acutely conscious of your body id it normal? To be torn by feelings,

tortured by thoughts: is it normal? A healthy body, a healthy mind

live largely unperceived by their owner; only occasionally, through

pain or suffering they call for attention and insight. Why not extend

the same to the entire personal life? One can function rightly,

responding well and fully to whatever happens, without having to

bring it into the focus of awareness. When self-control becomes

second nature, awareness shifts its focus to deeper levels of

existence and action.

 

Q: Don't you become a robot?

 

M: What harm is there in making automatic, what is habitual and

repetitive? It is automatic anyhow. But when it is also chaotic, it

causes pain and suffering and calls for attention. The entire purpose

of a clean and well-ordered life is to liberate man from the thraldom

of chaos and the burden of sorrow.

 

Q: You seem to be in favour of a computerised life.

 

M: What is wrong with a life which is free from problems?

Personality is merely a reflection of the real. Why should not the

reflection be true to the original as a matter of course,

automatically? Need the person have any designs of its own? The life

of which it is an expression will guide it. Once you realise that the

person is merely a shadow of the reality, but not reality itself, you

cease to fret and worry. You agree to be guided from within and life

becomes a journey into the unknown.