More and More Niz: chpts 26-35 I are That and more to come!

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26. Personality, an Obstacle

Questioner: As I can see, the world is a school of Yoga and life

itself is Yoga practice. Everybody strives for perfection and what is

Yoga but striving. There is nothing contemptible about the so-

called 'common' people and their 'common' lives. They strive as hard

and suffer as much as the Yogi, only they are not conscious of their

true purpose.

 

Maharaj: In what way are your common people -- Yogis?

 

Q: Their ultimate goal is the same. What the Yogi secures by

renunciation (tyaga) the common man realises through experience

(bhoga). The way of Bhoga is unconscious and, therefore, repetitive

and protracted, while the way of Yoga is deliberate and intense and,

therefore, can be more rapid.

 

M: Maybe the periods of Yoga and Bhoga alternate. First Bhogi, then

Yogi, then again Bhogi, then again Yogi.

 

Q: What may be the purpose?

 

M: Weak desires can be removed by introspection and meditation, but

strong, deep-rooted ones must be fulfilled and their fruits, sweet or

bitter, tasted.

 

Q: Why then should we pay tribute to Yogis and speak slightingly of

Bhogis? All are Yogis, in a way.

 

M: On the human scale of values deliberate effort is considered

praiseworthy. In reality both the Yogi and Bhogi follow their own

nature, according to circumstances and opportunities. The Yogi's life

is governed by a single desire -- to find the Truth; the Bhogi serves

many masters. But the Bhogi becomes a Yogi and the Yogi may get a

rounding up in a bout of Bhoga. The final result is the same.

 

Q: Buddha is reported to have said that it is tremendously

important to have heard that there is enlightenment, a complete

reversal and transformation in consciousness. The good news is

compared to a spark in a shipload of cotton; slowly but relentlessly

the whole of it will turn to ashes. Similarly the good news of

enlightenment will, sooner or later, bring about a transformation.

 

M: Yes, first hearing (shravana), then remembering (smarana),

pondering (manana) and so on. We are on familiar ground. The man who

heard the news becomes a Yogi; while the rest continue in their Bhoga.

 

Q: But you agree that living a life -- just living the humdrum life

of the world, being born to die and dying to be born -- advances man

by its sheer volume, just like the river finds its way to the sea by

the sheer mass of the water it gathers.

 

M: Before the world was, consciousness was. In consciousness it

comes into being, in consciousness it lasts and into pure

consciousness it dissolves. At the root of everything, is the

feeling 'I am'. The state of mind: 'there is a world' is secondary,

for to be, I do not need the world, the world needs me.

 

Q: The desire to live is a tremendous thing.

 

M: Still greater is the freedom from the urge to live.

 

Q: The freedom of the stone?

 

M: Yes, the freedom of the stone, and much more besides. Freedom

unlimited and conscious.

 

Q: Is not personality required for gathering experience?

 

M: As you are now, the personality is only an obstacle. Self­

identification with the body may be good for an infant, but true

growing up depends on getting the body out of the way. Normally, one

should outgrow body-based desires early in life. Even the Bhogi, who

does not refuse enjoyments, need not hanker after the ones he has

tasted. Habit, desire for repetition frustrates both the Yogi and the

Bhogi.

 

Q: Why do you keep on dismissing the person (vyakti) as of no

importance? Personality is the primary fact of our existence. It

occupies the entire stage.

 

M: As long as you do not see that it is mere habit, built on memory,

prompted by desire, you will think yourself to be a person -- living,

feeling, thinking, active, passive, pleased or pained. Question

yourself, ask yourself. 'Is it so?' 'Who am l'? 'What is behind and

beyond all this?' And soon you will see your mistake. And it is in

the very nature of a mistake to cease to be, when seen.

 

Q: The Yoga of living, of life itself, we may call the Natural Yoga

(nisarga yoga). It reminds me of the Primal Yoga (adhi yoga),

mentioned in the Rig-Veda which was described as the marrying of life

with mind.

 

M: A life lived thoughtfully, in full awareness, is by itself

Nisarga Yoga.

 

Q: What does the marriage of life and mind mean?

 

M: Living in spontaneous awareness, consciousness of effortless

living, being fully interested in one's life -- all this is implied.

 

Q: Sharada Devi, wife of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, used to scold

his disciples for too much effort. She compared them to mangoes on

the tree which are being plucked before they are ripe. 'Why hurry?'

she used to say. 'Wait till you are fully ripe, mellow and sweet.'

 

M: How right she was! There are so many who take the dawn for the

noon, a momentary experience for full realisation and destroy even

the little they gain by excess of pride. Humility and silence are

essential for a sadhaka, however advanced. Only a fully ripened jnani

can allow himself complete spontaneity.

 

Q: It seems there are schools of Yoga where the student, after

illumination, is obliged to keep silent for 7 or 12 or 15 or even 25

years. Even Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi imposed on himself 20 years

of silence before he began to teach.

 

M: Yes, the inner fruit must ripen. Until then the discipline, the

living in awareness, must go on. Gradually the practice becomes more

and more subtle, until it becomes altogether formless.

 

Q: Krishnamurti too speaks of living in awareness.

 

M: He always aims directly at the 'ultimate'. Yes, ultimately all

Yogas end in your adhi yoga, the marriage of consciousness (the

bride) to life (the bridegroom). Consciousness and being (sad-chit)

meet in bliss (ananda). For bliss to arise there must be meeting,

contact, the assertion of unity in duality.

 

Q: Buddha too has said that for the attainment of nirvana one must

go to living beings. Consciousness needs life to grow.

 

M: The world itself is contact -- the totality of all contacts

actualised in consciousness. The spirit touches matter and

consciousness results. Such consciousness. when tainted with memory

and expectation, becomes bondage. Pure experience does not bind;

experience caught between desire and fear is impure and creates karma.

 

Q: Can there be happiness in unity? Does not all happiness imply

necessarily contact, hence duality?

 

M: There is nothing wrong with duality as long as it does not create

conflict. Multiplicity and variety without strife is joy. In pure

consciousness there is light. For warmth, contact is needed. Above

the unity of being is the union of love. Love is the meaning and

purpose of duality.

 

Q: I am an adopted child. My own father I do not know. My mother

died when I was born. My foster father, to please my foster mother,

who was childless, adopted me -- almost by accident. He is a simple

man -- a truck owner and driver. My mother keeps the house. I am 24

years now. For the last two and a half years I am travelling,

restless, seeking. I want to live a good life, a holy life. What am I

to do?

 

M: Go home, take charge of your father's business, look after your

parents in their old age. Marry the girl who is waiting for you, be

loyal, be simple, be humble. Hide your virtue, live silently. The

five senses and the three qualities (gunas) are your eight steps in

Yoga. And 'I am' is the Great Reminder (mahamantra). You can learn

from them all you need to know. Be attentive, enquire ceaselessly.

That is all.

 

Q: If just living one's life liberates, why are not all liberated?

 

M: All are being liberated. It is not what you live, but how you

live that matters. The idea of enlightenment is of utmost importance.

Just to know that there is such possibility, changes one's entire

outlook. It acts like a burning match in a heap of saw dust. All the

great teachers did nothing else. A spark of truth can burn up a

mountain of lies. The opposite is also true; The sun of truth remains

hidden behind the cloud of self-identification with the body.

 

Q: This spreading the good news of enlightenment seems very

important.

 

M: The very hearing of it, is a promise of enlightenment. The very

meeting a Guru is the assurance of liberation. Perfection is life-

giving and creative.

 

Q: Does a realised man ever think: 'I am realised?' Is he not

astonished when people make much of him? Does he not take himself to

be an ordinary human being?

 

M: Neither ordinary, nor extra-ordinary. Just being aware and

affectionate -- intensely. He looks at himself without indulging in

self-definitions and self-identifications. He does not know himself

as anything apart from the world. He is the world. He is completely

rid of himself, like a man who is very rich, but continually gives

away his riches. He is not rich, for he has nothing; he is not poor,

for he gives abundantly. He is just propertyless. Similarly, the

realised man is egoless; he has lost the capacity of identifying

himself with anything. He is without location, placeless, beyond

space and time, beyond the world. Beyond words and thoughts is he.

 

Q: Well, it is deep mystery to me. I am a simple man.

 

M: It is you who are deeply complex, mysterious, hard to understand.

I am simplicity itself, compared to you: I am what is -- without any

distinction whatsoever into inner and outer, mine and yours, good and

bad. What the world is, I am; what I am the world is.

 

Q: How does it happen that each man creates his own world?

 

M: When a number of people are asleep, each dreams his own dream.

Only on awakening the question of many different dreams arises and

dissolves when they are all seen as dreams, as something imagined.

 

Q: Even dreams have a foundation.

 

M: In memory. Even then, what is remembered, is but another dream.

The memory of the false cannot but give rise to the false. There is

nothing wrong with memory as such. What is false is its content.

Remember facts, forget opinions.

 

Q: What is a fact?

 

M: What is perceived in pure awareness, unaffected by desire.

 

27. The Beginningless Begins Forever

Questioner: The other day I was asking you about the two ways of

growth -- renunciation and enjoyment (yoga and bhoga). The difference

is not so great as it looks -- the Yogi renounces to enjoy; the Bhogi

enjoys to renounce. The Yogi renounces first.

 

Maharaj: So what? Leave the Yogi to his Yoga and the Bhogi to Bhoga.

 

Q: The way of Bhoga seems to me the better one. The Yogi is like a

green mango, separated from the tree prematurely and kept to open in

a basket of straw. Airless and overheated, it does get ripe, but the

true flavour and fragrance are lost. The mango left on the tree grows

to full size, colour and sweetness. A joy in every way. Yet somehow

Yoga gets all the praises, and Bhoga -- all the curses. As I see it,

Bhoga is the better of the two.

 

M: What makes you say so?

 

Q: I watched the Yogis and their enormous efforts. Even when they

realise, there is something bitter or astringent about it. They seem

to spend much of their time in trances and when they speak, they

merely voice their scriptures. At their best such jnanis are like

flowers -- perfect, but just little flowers, shedding their fragrance

within a short radius. There are some others, who are like forests --

rich, varied, immense, full of surprises, a world in themselves.

There must be a reason for this difference.

 

M: Well, you said it. According to you one got stunted in his Yoga,

while the other flourished in Bhoga.

 

Q: Is it not so? The Yogi is afraid of life and seeks peace, while

the Bhogi is adventurous, full of spirits, forward going. The Yogi is

bound by an ideal, while the Bhogi is ever ready to explore.

 

M: It is a matter of wanting much or being satisfied with little.

The Yogi is ambitious while the Bhogi is merely adventurous. Your

Bhogi seems to be richer and more interesting, but it is not so in

reality. The Yogi is narrow as the sharp edge of the knife. He has to

be -- to cut deep and smoothly, to penetrate unerringly the many

layers of the false. The Bhogi worships at many altars; the Yogi

serves none but his own true Self.

 

There is no purpose in opposing the Yogi to the Bhogi. The way of

outgoing (pravritti) necessarily precedes the way of returning

(nivritti). To sit in judgement and allot marks is ridiculous.

Everything contributes to the ultimate perfection. Some say there are

three aspects of reality -- Truth-Wisdom-Bliss; He who seeks Truth

becomes a Yogi, he who seeks wisdom becomes a jnani; he who seeks

happiness becomes the man of action.

 

Q: We are told of the bliss of non-duality.

 

M: Such bliss is more of the nature of a great peace. Pleasure and

pain are the fruits of actions -- righteous and unrighteous.

 

Q: What makes the difference?

 

M: The difference is between giving and grasping. Whatever the way

of approach, in the end all becomes one.

 

Q: If there be no difference in the goal, why discriminate between

various approaches?

 

M: Let each act according to his nature. The ultimate purpose will

be served in any case. All your discriminations and classifications

are quite all right, but they do not exist in my case. As the

description of a dream may be detailed and accurate, though without

having any foundation, so does your pattern fit nothing but your own

assumptions. You begin with an idea and you end with the same idea

under a different garb.

 

Q: How do you see things?

 

M: One and all are the same to me. The same consciousness (chit)

appears as being (sat) and as bliss (ananda): Chit in movement is

Ananda; Chit motionless is being.

 

Q: Still you are making a distinction between motion and

motionlessness.

 

M: Non-distinction speaks in silence. Words carry distinctions. The

unmanifested (nirguna) has no name, all names refer to the manifested

(saguna). It is useless to struggle with words to express what is

beyond words. Consciousness (chidananda) is spirit (purusha),

consciousness is matter (prakriti). Imperfect spirit is matter,

perfect matter is spirit. In the beginning as in the end, all is one.

 

All division is in the mind (chitta); there is none in reality

(chit). Movement and rest are states of mind and cannot be without

their opposites. By itself nothing moves, nothing rests. It is a

grievous mistake to attribute to mental constructs absolute

existence. Nothing exists by itself.

 

Q: You seem to identify rest with the Supreme State?

 

M: There is rest as a state of mind (chidaram) and there is rest as

a state of being (atmaram). The former comes and goes, while the true

rest is the very heart of action. Unfortunately, language is a mental

tool and works only in opposites.

 

Q: As a witness, you are working or at rest?

 

M: Witnessing is an experience and rest is freedom from experience.

 

Q: Can't they co-exist, as the tumult of the waves and the quiet of

the deep co-exist in the ocean.

 

M: Beyond the mind there is no such thing as experience. Experience

is a dual state. You cannot talk of reality as an experience. Once

this is understood, you will no longer look for being and becoming as

separate and opposite. In reality they are one and inseparable, like

roots and branches of the same tree. Both can exist only in the light

of consciousness, which again, arises in the wake of the sense 'I

am'. This is the primary fact. If you miss it, you miss all.

 

Q: Is the sense of being a product of experience only? The great

saying (Mahavakya) tat-sat is it a mere mode of mentation?

 

M: Whatever is spoken is speech only. Whatever is thought is thought

only. The real meaning is unexplainable, though experienceable. The

Mahavakya is true, but your ideas are false, for all ideas (kalpana)

are false.

 

Q: Is the conviction: 'I am That' false?

 

M: Of course. Conviction is a mental state. In 'That' there is no 'I

am'. With the sense 'I am' emerging, 'That' is obscured, as with the

sun rising the stars are wiped out. But as with the sun comes light,

so with the sense of self comes bliss (chidananda). The cause of

bliss is sought in the 'not--I' and thus the bondage begins.

 

Q: In your daily life are you always conscious of your real state?

 

M: Neither conscious, nor unconscious. I do not need convictions. I

live on courage. Courage is my essence, which is love of life. I am

free of memories and anticipations, unconcerned with what I am and

what I am not. I am not addicted to self­descriptions, soham and

brahmasmi ('I am He', 'I am the Supreme') are of no use to me, I have

the courage to be as nothing and to see the world as it is: nothing.

It sounds simple, just try it!

 

Q: But what gives you courage?

 

M: How perverted are your views! Need courage be given? Your

question implies that anxiety is the normal state and courage is

abnormal. It is the other way round. Anxiety and hope are born of

imagination -- I am free of both. I am simple being and I need

nothing to rest on.

 

Q: Unless you know yourself, of what use is your being to you? To

be happy with what you are, you must know what you are.

 

M: Being shines as knowing, knowing is warm in love. It is all one.

You imagine separations and trouble yourself with questions. Don't

concern yourself overmuch with formulations. Pure being cannot be

described.

 

Q: Unless a thing is knowable and enjoyable, it is of no use to me.

It must become a part of my experience, first of all.

 

M: You are dragging down reality to the level of experience. How can

reality depend on experience, when it is the very ground (adhar) of

experience. Reality is in the very fact of experience, not in its

nature. Experience is, after all, a state of mind, while being is

definitely not a state of mind.

 

Q: Again I am confused! Is being separate from knowing?

 

M: The separation is an appearance. Just as the dream is not apart

from the dreamer, so is knowing not apart from being. The dream is

the dreamer, the knowledge is the knower, the distinction is merely

verbal.

 

Q: I can see now that sat and chit are one. But what about bliss

(ananda)? Being and consciousness are always present together, but

bliss flashes only occasionally.

 

M: The undisturbed state of being is bliss; the disturbed state is

what appears as the world. In non-duality there is bliss; in duality -

- experience. What comes and goes is experience with its duality of

pain and pleasure. Bliss is not to be known. One is always bliss, but

never blissful. Bliss is not an attribute.

 

Q: I have another question to ask: Some Yogis attain their goal,

but it is of no use to others. They do not know, or are not able to

share. Those who can share out what they have, initiate others. Where

lies the difference?

 

M: There is no difference. Your approach is wrong. There are no

others to help. A rich man, when he hands over his entire fortune to

his family, has not a coin left to give a beggar. So is the wise man

(jnani) stripped of all his powers and possessions. Nothing,

literally nothing, can be said about him. He cannot help anybody for

he is everybody. He is the poor and also his poverty, the thief and

also his thievery. How can he be said to help, when he is not apart?

Who thinks of himself as separate from the world, let him help the

world.

 

Q: Still, there is duality, there is sorrow, there is need of help.

By denouncing it as mere dream nothing is achieved.

 

M: The only thing that can help is to wake up from the dream.

 

Q: An awakener is needed.

 

M: Who again is in the dream. The awakener signifies the beginning

of the end. There are no eternal dreams.

 

Q: Even when it is beginningless?

 

M: Everything begins with you. What else is beginningless?

 

Q: I began at birth.

 

M: That is what you are told. Is it so? Did you see yourself

beginning?

 

Q: I began just now. All else is memory.

 

M: Quite right. The beginningless begins forever. In the same way, I

give eternally, because I have nothing. To be nothing, to have

nothing, to keep nothing for oneself is the greatest gift, the

highest generosity.

 

Q: Is there no self-concern left?

 

M: Of course I am self-concerned, but the self is all. In practice

it takes the shape of goodwill, unfailing and universal. You may call

it love, all-pervading, all-redeeming. Such love is supremely active -

- without the sense of doing.

 

28. All Suffering is Born of Desire

Questioner: I come from a far off country. I had some inner

experiences on my own and I would like to compare notes. Maharaj: By

all means. Do you know yourself?

 

Q: I know that I am not the body. Nor am I the mind.

 

M: What makes you say so?

 

Q: I do not feel I am in the body. I seem to be all over the place

everywhere. As to the mind, I can switch it on and off, so to say.

This makes me feel I am not the mind.

 

M: When you feel yourself everywhere in the world, do you remain

separate from the world? Or, are you the world?

 

Q: Both. Sometimes I feel myself to be neither mind nor body, but

one single all-seeing eye. When I go deeper into it, I find myself to

be all I see and the world and myself become one.

 

M: Very well. What about desires? Do you have any?

 

Q: Yes, they come, short and superficial.

 

M: And what do you do about them?

 

Q: What can I do? They come, they go. l look at them. Sometimes I

see my body and my mind engaged in fulfilling them.

 

M: Whose desires are being fulfilled?

 

Q: They are a part of the world in which I live. They are just as

trees and clouds are there.

 

M: Are they not a sign of some imperfection?

 

Q: Why should they be? They are as they are, and I am as I am. How

can the appearance and disappearance of desires affect me? Of course,

they affect the shape and content of the mind.

 

M: Very well. What is your work?

 

Q: I am a probation officer.

 

M: What does it mean?

 

Q: Juvenile offenders are let off on probation and there are

special officers to watch their behaviour and to help them get

training and find work.

 

M: Must you work?

 

Q: Who works? Work happens to take place.

 

M: Do you need to work?

 

Q: I need it for the sake of money. I like it, because it puts me

in touch with living beings.

 

M: What do you need them for?

 

Q: They may need me and it is their destinies that made me take up

this work. It is one life, after all.

 

M: How did you come to your present state?

 

Q: Sri Ramana Maharshi's teachings have put me on my way. Then I

met one Douglas Harding who helped me by showing me how to work on

the 'Who am I ?'

 

M: Was it sudden or gradual?

 

Q: It was quite sudden. Like something quite forgotten, coming back

into one's mind. Or, like a sudden flash of understanding. 'How

simple', I said, 'How simple; I'm not what I thought I am! I'm

neither the perceived nor the perceiver; I'm the perceiving only'.

 

M: Not even the perceiving, but that which makes all this possible.

 

Q: What is love?

 

M: When the sense of distinction and separation is absent, you may

call it love.

 

Q: Why so much stress on love between man and woman?

 

M: Because the element of happiness in it is so prominent.

 

Q: Is it not so in all love?

 

M: Not necessarily. Love may cause pain. You call it then compassion.

 

Q: What is happiness?

 

M: Harmony between the inner and the outer is happiness. On the

other hand, self-identification with the outer causes is suffering.

 

Q. How does self-identification happen?

 

M: The self by its nature knows itself only. For lack of experience

whatever it perceives it takes to be itself. Battered, it learns to

look out (viveka) and to live alone (vairagya). When right behaviour

(uparati), becomes normal, a powerful inner urge (mukmukshutva) makes

it seek its source. The candle of the body is lighted and all becomes

clear and bright.

 

Q: What is the real cause of suffering?

 

M: Self-identification with the limited (vyaktitva). Sensations as

such, however strong, do not cause suffering. It is the mind

bewildered by wrong ideas, addicted to thinking: 'I am this' 'I am

that', that fears loss and craves gain and suffers when frustrated.

 

Q: A friend of mine used to have horrible dreams night after night.

Going to sleep would terrorise him. Nothing could help him.

 

M: Company of the truly good (satsang) would help him.

 

Q: Life itself is a nightmare.

 

M: Noble friendship (satsang) is the supreme remedy for all ills,

physical and mental.

 

Q: Generally one cannot find such friendship.

 

M: Seek within. Your own self is your best friend.

 

Q: Why is life so full of contradictions?

 

M: It serves to break down mental pride. We must realise how poor

and powerless we are. As long as we delude ourselves by what we

imagine ourselves to be, to know, to have, to do, we are in a sad

plight indeed. Only in complete self-negation there is a chance to

discover our real being.

 

Q: Why so much stress on self-negation?

 

M: As much as on self-realisation. The false self must be abandoned

before the real self can be found.

 

Q: The self you choose to call false is to me most distressingly

real. It is the only self I know. What you call the real self is a

mere concept, a way of speaking, a creature of the mind, an

attractive ghost. My daily self is not a beauty, I admit, but it is

my own and only self. You say I am, or have, another self. Do you see

it -- is it a reality to you, or do you want me to believe what you

yourself don't see?

 

M: Don't jump to conclusions rashly. The concrete need not be the

real, the conceived need not be false. Perceptions based on

sensations and shaped by memory imply a perceiver, whose nature you

never cared to examine. Give it your full attention, examine it with

loving care and you will discover heights and depths of being which

you did not dream of, engrossed as you are in your puny image of

yourself.

 

Q: I must be in the right mood to examine myself fruitfully.

 

M: You must be serious, intent, truly interested. You must be full

of goodwill for yourself.

 

Q: I am selfish all right.

 

M. You are not. You are all the time destroying yourself, and your

own, by serving strange gods, inimical and false. By all means be

selfish -- the right way. Wish yourself well, labour at what is good

for you. Destroy all that stands between you and happiness. Be all --

love all -- be happy -- make happy. No happiness is greater.

 

Q: Why is there so much suffering in love?

 

M: All suffering is born of desire. True love is never frustrated.

How can the sense of unity be frustrated? What can be frustrated is

the desire for expression. Such desire is of the mind. As with all

things mental, frustration is inevitable.

 

Q: What is the place of sex in love?

 

M: Love is a state of being. Sex is energy. Love is wise, sex is

blind. Once the true nature of love and sex is understood there will

be no conflict or confusion.

 

Q: There is so much sex without love.

 

M: Without love all is evil. Life itself without love is evil.

 

Q: What can make me love?

 

M: You are love itself -- when you are not afraid.

 

29. Living is Life's only Purpose

Questioner: What does it mean to fail in Yoga? Who is a failure in

Yoga (yoga bhrashta)?

 

Maharaj: It is only a question of incompletion. He who could not

complete his Yoga for some reason is called failed in Yoga. Such

failure is only temporary, for there can be no defeat in Yoga. This

battle is always won, for it is a battle between the true and the

false. The false has no chance.

 

Q: Who fails? The person (vyakti) or the self (vyakta)?

 

M: The question is wrongly put. There is no question of failure,

neither in the short run nor in the long. It is like travelling a

long and arduous road in an unknown country. Of all the innumerable

steps there is only the last which brings you to your destination.

Yet you will not consider all previous steps as failures. Each

brought you nearer to your goal, even when you had to turn back to by-

pass an obstacle. In reality each step brings you to your goal,

because to be always on the move, learning, discovering, unfolding,

is your eternal destiny. Living is life's only purpose. The self does

not identify itself with success or failure -- the very idea of

becoming this or that is unthinkable. The self understands that

success and failure are relative and related, that they are the very

warp and weft of life. Learn from both and go beyond. If you have not

learnt, repeat.

 

Q: What am I to learn?

 

M: To live without self-concern. For this you must know your own

true being (swarupa) as indomitable, fearless, ever victorious. Once

you know with absolute certainty that nothing can trouble you but

your own imagination, you come to disregard your desires and fears,

concepts and ideas and live by truth alone.

 

Q: What may be the reason that some people succeed and others fail

in Yoga? Is it destiny or character, or just accident?

 

M: Nobody ever fails in Yoga. It is all a matter of the rate of

progress. It is slow in the beginning and rapid in the end. When one

is fully matured, realisation is explosive. It takes place

spontaneously, or at the slightest hint. The quick is not better than

the slow. Slow ripening and rapid flowering alternate. Both are

natural and right.

 

Yet, all this is so in the mind only. As I see it, there is really

nothing of the kind. In the great mirror of consciousness images

arise and disappear and only memory gives them continuity. And memory

is material -- destructible, perishable, transient. On such flimsy

foundations we build a sense of personal existence -- vague,

intermittent, dreamlike. This vague persuasion: 'I-am-so-and-so'

obscures the changeless state of pure awareness and makes us believe

that we are born to suffer and to die.

 

Q: Just as a child cannot help growing, so does a man, compelled by

nature, make progress. Why exert oneself? Where is the need of Yoga?

 

M: There is progress all the time. Everything contributes to

progress. But this is the progress of ignorance. The circles of

ignorance may be ever widening, yet it remains a bondage all the

same. In due course a Guru appears to teach and inspire us to

practise Yoga and a ripening takes place as a result of which the

immemorial night of ignorance dissolves before the rising sun of

wisdom. But in reality nothing happened. The sun is always there,

there is no night to it; the mind blinded by the 'I am the body' idea

spins out endlessly its thread of illusion.

 

Q: If all is a part of a natural process, where is the need of

effort?

 

M: Even effort is a part of it. When ignorance becomes obstinate and

hard and the character gets perverted, effort and the pain of it

become inevitable. In complete obedience to nature there is no

effort. The seed of spiritual life grows in silence and in darkness

until its appointed hour.

 

Q: We come across some great people, who, in their old age, become

childish, petty, quarrelsome and spiteful. How could they deteriorate

so much?

 

M: They were not perfect Yogis, having their bodies under complete

control. Or, they might not have cared to protect their bodies from

the natural decay. One must not draw conclusions without

understanding all the factors. Above all, one must not make

judgements of inferiority or superiority. Youthfulness is more a

matter of vitality (prana) than of wisdom (jnana) .

 

Q: One may get old, but why should one lose all alertness and

discrimination?

 

M: Consciousness and unconsciousness, while in the body depend on

the condition of the brain. But the self is beyond both, beyond the

brain, beyond the mind. The fault of the instrument is no reflection

on its user.

 

Q: I was told that a realised man will never do anything unseemly.

He will always behave in an exemplary way.

 

M: Who sets the example? Why should a liberated man necessarily

follow conventions? The moment he becomes predictable, he cannot be

free. His freedom lies in his being free to fulfil the need of the

moment, to obey the necessity of the situation. Freedom to do what

one likes is really bondage, while being free to do what one must,

what is right, is real freedom.

 

Q: Still there must be some way of making out who has realised and

who has not. If one is indistinguishable from the other, of what use

is he?

 

M: He who knows himself has no doubts about it. Nor does he care

whether others recognise his state or not. Rare is the realised man

who discloses his realisation and fortunate are those who have met

him, for he does it for their abiding welfare.

 

Q: When one looks round, one is appalled by the volume of

unnecessary suffering that is going on. People who should be helped

are not getting help. Imagine a big hospital ward full of incurables,

tossing and moaning. Were you given the authority to kill them all

and end their torture, would you not do so?

 

M: I would leave it to them to decide.

 

Q: But if their destiny is to suffer? How can you interfere with

destiny?

 

M: Their destiny is what happens. There is no thwarting of destiny.

You mean to say everybody's life is totally determined at his birth?

What a strange idea! Were it so, the power that determines would see

to it that nobody should suffer.

 

Q: What about cause and effect?

 

M: Each moment contains the whole of the past and creates the whole

of the future.

 

Q: But past and future exist?

 

M: In the mind only. Time is in the mind, space is in the mind. The

law of cause and effect is also a way of thinking. In reality all is

here and now and all is one. Multiplicity and diversity are in the

mind only.

 

Q: Still, you are in favour of relieving suffering, even through

destruction of the incurably diseased body.

 

M: Again, you look from outside while I look from within. I do not

see a sufferer, I am the sufferer. I know him from within and do what

is right spontaneously and effortlessly. I follow no rules nor lay

down rules. I flow with life -- faithfully and irresistibly.

 

Q: Still you seem to be a very practical man in full control of

your immediate surroundings.

 

M: What else do you expect me to be? A misfit?

 

Q: Yet you cannot help another much.

 

M: Surely, I can help. You too can help. Everybody can help. But the

suffering is all the time recreated. Man alone can destroy in himself

the roots of pain. Others can only help with the pain, but not with

its cause, which is the abysmal stupidity of mankind.

 

Q: Will this stupidity ever come to an end?

 

M: In man -- of course. Any moment. In humanity -- as we know it --

after very many years. In creation -- never, for creation itself is

rooted in ignorance; matter itself is ignorance. Not to know, and not

to know that one does not know, is the cause of endless suffering.

 

Q: We are told of the great avatars, the saviours of the world.

 

M: Did they save? They have come and gone -- and the world plods on.

Of course, they did a lot and opened new dimensions in the human

mind. But to talk of saving the world is an exaggeration.

 

Q: Is there no salvation for the world?

 

M: Which world do you want to save? The world of your own

projection? Save it yourself. My world? Show me my world and I shall

deal with it. I am not aware of any world separate from myself, which

I am free to save or not to save. What business have you with saving

the world, when all the world needs is to be saved from you? Get out

of the picture and see whether there is anything left to save.

 

Q: You seem to stress the point that without you your world would

not have existed and therefore the only thing you can do for it is to

wind up the show. This is not a way out. Even if the world were of my

own creation, this knowledge does not save it. It only explains it.

The question remains: why did I create such a wretched world and what

can I do to change it? You seem to say: forget it all and admire your

own glory. Surely, you don't mean it. The description of a disease

and its causes does not cure it. What we need is the right medicine.

 

M: The description and causation are the remedy for a disease caused

by obtuseness and stupidity. Just like a deficiency disease is cured

through the supply of the missing factor, so are the diseases of

living cured by a good dose of intelligent detachment. (viveka-

vairagya).

 

Q: You cannot save the world by preaching counsels of perfection.

People are as they are. Must they suffer?

 

M: As long as they are as they are, there is no escape from

suffering. Remove the sense of separateness and there will be no

conflict.

 

Q: A message in print may be paper and ink only. It is the text

that matters. By analysing the world into elements and qualities we

miss the most important -- its meaning. Your reduction of everything

to dream disregards the difference between the dream of an insect and

the dream of a poet. All is dream, granted. But not all are equal.

 

M: The dreams are not equal, but the dreamer is one. I am the

insect. I am the poet -- in dream. But in reality I am neither. I am

beyond all dreams. I am the light in which all dreams appear and

disappear. I am both inside and outside the dream. Just as a man

having headache knows the ache and also knows that he is not the

ache, so do I know the dream, myself dreaming and myself not

dreaming -- all at the same time. I am what I am before, during and

after the dream. But what I see in dream, l am not.

 

Q: It is all a matter of imagination. One imagines that one is

dreaming, another imagines one is not dreaming. Are not both the same?

 

M: The same and not the same. Not dreaming, as an interval between

two dreams, is of course, a Part of dreaming. Not dreaming as a

steady hold on, and timeless abidance in reality has nothing to do

with dreaming. In that sense I never dream, nor ever shall.

 

Q: If both dream and escape from dream are imaginings, what is the

way out?

 

M: There is no need of a way out! Don't you see that a way out is

also a part of the dream? All you have to do is to see the dream as

dream.

 

Q: If I start the practice of dismissing everything as a dream

where will it lead me?

 

M: Wherever it leads you, it will be a dream. The very idea of going

beyond the dream is illusory. Why go anywhere? Just realise that you

are dreaming a dream you call the world, and stop looking for ways

out. The dream is not your problem. Your problem is that you like one

part of your dream and not another. Love all, or none of it, and stop

complaining. When you have seen the dream as a dream, you have done

all that needs be done.

 

Q: Is dreaming caused by thinking?

 

M: Everything is a play of ideas. In the state free from ideation

(nirvikalpa samadhi) nothing is perceived. The root idea is: 'I am'.

It shatters the state of pure consciousness and is followed by the

innumerable sensations and perceptions, feeling and ideas which in

their totality constitute God and His world. The 'I am' remains as

the witness, but it is by the will of God that everything happens.

 

Q: Why not by my will?

 

M: Again you have split yourself -- into God and witness. Both are

one.

 

30. You are Free NOW

Questioner: There are so many theories about the nature of man and

universe. The creation theory, the illusion theory, the dream theory -

- any number of them. Which is true?

 

Maharaj: All are true, all are false. You can pick up whichever you

like best.

 

Q: You seem to favour the dream theory.

 

M: These are all ways of putting words together. Some favour one

way, some favour another. Theories are neither right nor wrong. They

are attempts at explaining the inexplicable. It is not the theory

that matters, but the way it is being tested. It is the testing of

the theory that makes it fruitful. Experiment with any theory you

like -- if you are truly earnest and honest, the attainment of

reality will be yours. As a living being you are caught in an

untenable and painful situation and you are seeking a way out. You

are being offered several plans of your prison, none quite true. But

they all are of some value, only if you are in dead earnest. It is

the earnestness that liberates and not the theory.

 

Q: Theory may be misleading and earnestness -- blind.

 

M: Your sincerity will guide you. Devotion to the goal of freedom

and perfection will make you abandon all theories and systems and

live by wisdom, intelligence and active love. Theories may be good as

starting points, but must be abandoned, the sooner -- the better.

 

Q: There is a Yogi who says that for realisation the eightfold Yoga

is not necessary; that will-power alone will do. It is enough to

concentrate on the goal with full confidence in the power of pure

will to obtain effortlessly and quickly what others take decades to

achieve.

 

M: Concentration, full confidence, pure will! With such assets no

wonder one attains in no time. This Yoga of will is all right for the

mature seeker, who has shed all desires but one. After all, what is

will but steadiness of heart and mind. Given such steadfastness all

can be achieved.

 

Q: I feel the Yogi did not mean mere steadiness of purpose,

resulting in ceaseless pursuit and application. He meant that with

will fixed on the goal no pursuit or application are needed. The mere

fact of willing attracts its object.

 

M: Whatever name you give it: will, or steady purpose, or one­

pointedness of the mind, you come back to earnestness, sincerity,

honesty. When you are in dead earnest, you bend every incident, every

second of your life to your purpose. You do not waste time and energy

on other things. You are totally dedicated, call it will, or love, or

plain honesty. We are complex beings, at war within and without. We

contradict ourselves all the time, undoing today the work of

yesterday. No wonder we are stuck. A little of integrity would make a

lot of difference.

 

Q: What is more powerful, desire or destiny?

 

M: Desire shapes destiny.

 

Q: And destiny shapes desire. My desires are conditioned by

heredity and circumstances, by opportunities and accidents, by what

we call destiny.

 

M: Yes, you may say so.

 

Q: At what point am I free to desire what I want to desire?

 

M: You are free now. What is it that you want to desire? Desire it.

 

Q: Of course I am free to desire, but I am not free to act on my

desire. Other urges will lead me astray. My desire is not strong

enough, even if it has my approval. Other desires, which I disapprove

of are stronger.

 

M: Maybe you are deceiving yourself. Maybe you are giving expression

to your real desires and the ones you approve of are kept on the

surface for the sake of respectability.

 

Q: It may be as you say, but this is another theory. The fact is

that I do not feel free to desire what I think I should, and when I

seem to desire rightly, I do not act accordingly.

 

M: It is all due to weakness of the mind and disintegration of the

brain. Collect and strengthen your mind and you will find that your

thoughts and feelings, words and actions will align themselves in the

direction of your will.

 

Q: Again a counsel of perfection! To integrate and strengthen the

mind is not an easy task! How does one begin?

 

M: You can start only from where you are. You are here and now, you

cannot get out of here and now.

 

Q: But what can I do here and now?

 

M: You can be aware of your being -- here and now.

 

Q: That is all?

 

M: That is all. There is nothing more to it.

 

Q: All my waking and dreaming I am conscious of myself. It does not

help me much.

 

M: You were aware of thinking, feeling, doing. You were not aware of

your being.

 

Q: What is the new factor you want me to bring in?

 

M: The attitude of pure witnessing, of watching the events without

taking part in them.

 

Q: What will it do to me?

 

M: Weak-mindedness is due to lack of intelligence, of understanding,

which again is the result of non-awareness. By striving for awareness

you bring your mind together and strengthen it.

 

Q: I may be fully aware of what is going on, and yet quite unable

to influence it in any way.

 

M: You are mistaken. What is going on is a projection of your mind.

A weak mind cannot control its own projections. Be aware, therefore,

of your mind and its projections. You cannot control what you do not

know. On the other hand, knowledge gives power. In practice it is

very simple. To control yourself -- know yourself.

 

Q: Maybe, I can come to control myself, but shall I be able to deal

with the chaos in the world?

 

M: There is no chaos in the world, except the chaos which your mind

creates. It is self-created in the sense that at its very centre is

the false idea of oneself as a thing different and separate from

other things. In reality you are not a thing, nor separate. You are

the infinite potentiality; the inexhaustible possibility. Because you

are, all can be. The universe is but a partial manifestation of your

limitless capacity to become.

 

Q: I find that I am totally motivated by desire for pleasure and

fear of pain. However noble my desire and justified my fear, pleasure

and pain are the two poles between which my life oscillates.

 

M: Go to the source of both pain and pleasure, of desire and fear.

Observe, investigate, try to understand.

 

Q: Desire and fear both are feelings caused by physical or mental

factors. They are there, easily observable. But why are they there?

Why do l desire pleasure and fear pain?

 

M: Pleasure and pain are states of mind. As long as you think you

are the mind, or rather, the body-mind, you are bound to raise such

questions.

 

Q: And when I realise that I am not the body, shall I be free from

desire and fear?

 

M: As long as there is a body and a mind to protect the body,

attractions and repulsions will operate. They will be there, out in

the field of events, but will not concern you. The focus of your

attention will be elsewhere. You will not be distracted.

 

Q: Still they will be there. Will one never be completely free?

 

M: You are completely free even now. What you call destiny (karma)

is but the result of your own will to live. How strong is this will

you can judge by the universal horror of death.

 

Q: People die willingly quite often.

 

M: Only when the alternative is worse than death. But such readiness

to die flows from the same source as the will to live, a source

deeper even than life itself. To be a living being is not the

ultimate state; there is something beyond, much more wonderful, which

is neither being nor non-being, neither living nor not­living. It is a

state of pure awareness, beyond the limitations of space and time.

Once the illusion that the body-mind is oneself is abandoned, death

loses its terror, it becomes a part of living.

 

31. Do not Undervalue Attention

Questioner: As I look at you, you seem to be a poor man with very

limited means, facing all the problems of poverty and old age, like

everybody else.

 

Maharaj: Were I very rich, what difference would it make? I am what I

am. What else can I be? I am neither rich nor poor, I am myself.

 

Q: Yet, you are experiencing pleasure and pain.

 

M: I am experiencing these in consciousness, but I am neither

consciousness, nor its content.

 

Q: You say that in our real being we are all equal. How is it that

your experience is so different from ours.

 

M: My actual experience is not different. It is my evaluation and

attitude that differ. I see the same world as you do, but not the

same way. There is nothing mysterious about it. Everybody sees the

world through the idea he has of himself. As you think yourself to

be, so you think the world to be. If you imagine yourself as separate

from the world, the world will appear as separate from you and you

will experience desire and fear. I do not see the world as separate

from me and so there is nothing for me to desire, or fear.

 

Q: You are a point of light in the world. Not everybody is.

 

M: There is absolutely no difference between me and others, except

in my knowing myself as I am. I am all. I know it for certain and you

do not.

 

Q: So we differ all the same.

 

M: No, we do not. The difference is only in the mind and temporary.

I was like you, you will be like me.

 

Q: God made a most diversified world.

 

M: The diversity is in you only. See yourself as you are and you

will see the world as it is -- a single block of reality,

indivisible, indescribable. Your own creative power projects upon it

a picture and all your questions refer to the picture.

 

Q: A Tibetan Yogi wrote that God creates the world for a purpose

and runs it according to a plan. The purpose is good and the plan is

most wise.

 

M: All this is temporary, while I am dealing with the eternal. Gods

and their universes come and go, avatars follow each other in endless

succession, and in the end we are back at the source. I talk only of

the timeless source of all the gods with all their universes, past,

present and future.

 

Q: Do you know them all? Do you remember them?

 

M: When a few boys stage a play for fun, what is there to see and to

remember?

 

Q: Why is half humanity male and half female?

 

M: For their happiness. The impersonal (avyakta) becomes the

personal (vyakta) for the sake of happiness in relationship. By the

grace of my Guru I can look with equal eye on the impersonal as well

as the personal. Both are one to me. In life the personal merges in

the impersonal.

 

Q: How does the personal emerge from the impersonal?

 

M: The two are but aspects of one Reality. It is not correct to talk

of one preceding the other. All these ideas belong to the waking

state.

 

Q: What brings in the waking state?

 

M: At the root of all creation lies desire. Desire and imagination

foster and reinforce each other. The fourth state (turiya) is a state

of pure witnessing, detached awareness, passionless and wordless. It

is like space, unaffected by whatever it contains. Bodily and mental

troubles do not reach it -- they are outside, 'there', while the

witness is always 'here'.

 

Q: What is real, the subjective or the objective? I am inclined to

believe that the objective universe is the real one and my subjective

psyche is changeful and transient. You seem to claim reality for your

inner, subjective states and deny all reality to the concrete,

external world.

 

M: Both the subjective and the objective are changeful and

transient. There is nothing real about them. Find the permanent in

the fleeting, the one constant factor in every experience.

 

Q: What is this constant factor?

 

M: My giving it various names and pointing it out in many ways will

not help you much, unless you have the capacity to see. A dim-sighted

man will not see the parrot on the branch of a tree, however much you

may prompt him to look. At best he will see your pointed finger.

First purify your vision, learn to see instead of staring, and you

will perceive the parrot. Also you must be eager to see. You need

both clarity and earnestness for self-knowledge. You need maturity of

heart and mind, which comes through earnest application in daily life

of whatever little you have understood. There is no such thing as

compromise in Yoga.

 

If you want to sin, sin wholeheartedly and openly. Sins too have

their lessons to teach the earnest sinner, as virtues -- the earnest

saint. It is the mixing up the two that is so disastrous. Nothing can

block you so effectively as compromise, for it shows lack of

earnestness, without which nothing can be done.

 

Q: I approve of austerity, but in practice I am all for luxury. The

habit of chasing pleasure and shunning pain is so ingrained in me,

that all my good intentions, quite alive on the level of theory, find

no roots in my day-to-day life. To tell me that I am not honest does

not help me, for I just do not know how to make myself honest.

 

M: You are neither honest nor dishonest -- giving names to mental

states is good only for expressing your approval or disapproval. The

problem is not yours -- it is your mind's only. Begin by

disassociating yourself from your mind. Resolutely remind yourself

that you are not the mind and that its problems are not yours.

 

Q: I may go on telling myself: 'I am not the mind, I am not

concerned with its problems,' but the mind remains and its problems

remain just as they were. Now, please do not tell me that it is

because I am not earnest enough and I should be more earnest! I know

it and admit it and only ask you -- how is it done?

 

M: At least you are asking! Good enough, for a start. Go on

pondering, wondering, being anxious to find a way. Be conscious of

yourself, watch your mind, give it your full attention. Don't look

for quick results; there may be none within your noticing. Unknown to

you, your psyche will undergo a change, there will be more clarity in

your thinking, charity in your feeling, purity in your behaviour. You

need not aim at these -- you will witness the change all the same.

For, what you are now is the result of inattention and what you

become will be the fruit of attention.

 

Q: Why should mere attention make all the difference?

 

M: So far your life was dark and restless (tamas and rajas).

Attention, alertness, awareness, clarity, liveliness, vitality, are

all manifestations of integrity, oneness with your true nature

(sattva). It is in the nature of sattva to reconcile and neutralise

tamas and rajas and rebuild the personality in accordance with the

true nature of the self. Sattva is the faithful servant of the self;

ever attentive and obedient.

 

Q: And I shall come to it through mere attention?

 

M: Do not undervalue attention. It means interest and also love. To

know, to do, to discover, or to create you must give your heart to

it -- which means attention. All the blessings flow from it.

 

Q: You advise us to concentrate on 'I am'. Is this too a form of

attention?

 

M: What else? Give your undivided attention to the most important in

your life -- yourself. Of your personal universe you are the centre --

without knowing the centre what else can you know?

 

Q: But how can I know myself? To know myself I must be away from

myself. But what is away from myself cannot be myself. So, it looks

that I cannot know myself, only what I take to be myself.

 

M: Quite right. As you cannot see your face, but only its reflection

in the mirror, so you can know only your image reflected in the

stainless mirror of pure awareness.

 

Q: How am I to get such stainless mirror?

 

M: Obviously, by removing stains. See the stains and remove them.

The ancient teaching is fully valid.

 

Q: What is seeing and what is removing?

 

M: The nature of the perfect mirror is such that you cannot see it.

Whatever you can see is bound to be a stain. Turn away from it, give

it up, know it as unwanted.

 

Q: All perceivables, are they stains?

 

M: All are stains.

 

Q: The entire world is a stain.

 

M: Yes, it is.

 

Q: How awful! So, the universe is of no value?

 

M: It is of tremendous value. By going beyond it you realise

yourself.

 

Q: But why did it come into being in the first instance?

 

M: You will know it when it ends.

 

Q: Will it ever end?

 

M: Yes, for you.

 

Q: When did it begin?

 

M: Now.

 

Q: When will it end?

 

M: Now.

 

Q: It does not end now?

 

M: You don't let it.

 

Q: I want to let it.

 

M: You don't. All your life is connected with it. Your past and

future, your desires and fears, all have their roots in the world.

Without the world where are you, who are you?

 

Q: But that is exactly what I came to find out.

 

M: . And I am telling you exactly this: find a foothold beyond and

all will be clear and easy.

 

32. Life is the Supreme Guru

Questioner: We two came from far off countries; one of us is British,

the other American. The world in which we were born is falling apart

and, being young, we are concerned. The old people hope they will die

their own death, but the young have no such hope. Some of us may

refuse to kill, but none can refuse to be killed. Can we hope to set

the world right within our lifetime?

 

Maharaj: What makes you think that the world is going to perish?

 

Q: The instruments of destruction have become unbelievably potent.

Also, our very productivity has become destructive of nature and of

our cultural and social values.

 

M: You are talking of the present times. It has been so everywhere

and always. But the distressing situation may be temporary and local.

Once over, it will be forgotten.

 

Q: The scale of the impending catastrophe is unbelievably big. We

live in the midst of an explosion.

 

M: Each man suffers alone and dies alone. Numbers are irrelevant.

There is as much death when a million die as when one perishes.

 

Q: Nature kills by the millions, but this does not frighten me.

There may be tragedy or mystery in it, but no cruelty. What horrifies

me is man-made suffering, destruction and desolation. Nature is

magnificent in its doings and undoings. But there is meanness and

madness in the acts of man.

 

M: Right. So, it is not suffering and death that are your problem,

but the meanness and madness at their root. Is not meanness also a

form of madness? And is not madness the misuse of the mind?

Humanity's problem lies in this misuse of the mind only. All the

treasures of nature and spirit are open to man who will use his mind

rightly.

 

Q: What is the right use of mind?

 

M: Fear and greed cause the misuse of the mind. The right use of

mind is in the service of love, of life, of truth, of beauty.

 

Q: Easier said than done. Love of truth, of man, goodwill -- what

luxury! We need plenty of it to set the world right, but who will

provide?

 

M: You can spend an eternity looking elsewhere for truth and love,

intelligence and goodwill, imploring God and man -- all in vain. You

must begin in yourself, with yourself -- this is the inexorable law.

You cannot change the image without changing the face. First realise

that your world is only a reflection of yourself and stop finding

fault with the reflection. Attend to yourself, set yourself right --

mentally and emotionally. The physical will follow automatically. You

talk so much of reforms: economic, social, political. Leave alone the

reforms and mind the reformer. What kind of world can a man create

who is stupid, greedy, heartless?

 

Q: If we have to wait for a change of heart, we shall have to wait

indefinitely. Yours is a counsel of perfection, which is also a

counsel of despair. When all are perfect, the world will be perfect.

What useless truism!

 

M: I did not say it. I only said: You cannot change the world before

changing yourself. I did not say -- before changing everybody. It is

neither necessary, nor possible to change others. But if you can

change yourself you will find that no other change is needed. To

change the picture you merely change the film, you do not attack the

cinema screen!

 

Q: How can you be so sure of yourself? How do you know that what

you say is true?

 

M: It is not of myself that I am sure, I am sure of you. All you

need is to stop searching outside what can be found only within. Set

your vision right before you operate. You are suffering from acute

misapprehension. Clarify your mind, purify your heart, sanctify your

life -- this is the quickest way to a change of your world.

 

Q: So many saints and mystics lived and died. They did not change

my world.

 

M: How could they? Your world is not theirs, nor is their yours.

 

Q: Surely there is a factual world common to all.

 

M: The world of things, of energy and matter? Even if there were

such a common world of things and forces, it is not the world in

which we live. Ours is a world of feelings and ideas, of attractions

and repulsions, of scales of values, of motives and incentives, a

mental world altogether. Biologically we need very little, our

problems are of a different order. Problems created by desires and

fears and wrong ideas can be solved only on the level of the mind.

You must conquer your own mind and for this you must go beyond it.

 

Q: What does it mean to go beyond the mind.

 

M: You have gone beyond the body, haven't you? You do not closely

follow your digestion, circulation or elimination. These have become

automatic. In the same way the mind should work automatically,

without calling for attention. This will not happen unless the mind

works faultlessly. We are, most of our time mind and body-conscious,

because they constantly call for help. Pain and suffering are only

the body and the mind screaming for attention. To go beyond the body

you must be healthy: To go beyond the mind, you must have your mind

in perfect order. You cannot leave a mess behind and go beyond. The

mess will bog you up. 'Pick up your rubbish' seems to be the

universal law. And a just law too.

 

Q: Am I permitted to ask you how did you go beyond the mind?

 

M: By the grace of my Guru.

 

Q: What shape his grace took?

 

M: He told me what is true.

 

Q: What did he tell you?

 

M: He told me I am the Supreme Reality.

 

Q: What did you do about it?

 

M: I trusted him and remembered it.

 

Q: Is that all?

 

M: Yes, I remembered him; I remembered what he said.

 

Q: You mean to say that this was enough?

 

M: What more needs be done? It was quite a lot to remember the Guru

and his words. My advice to you is even less difficult than this --

just remember yourself. 'I am', is enough to heal your mind and take

you beyond. Just have some trust. I don't mislead you. Why should l?

Do I want anything from you. I wish you well -- such is my nature.

Why should I mislead you?

 

Commonsense too will tell you that to fulfil a desire you must keep

your mind on it. If you want to know your true nature, you must have

yourself in mind all the time, until the secret of your being stands

revealed.

 

Q: Why should self-remembrance bring one to self-realisation?

 

M: Because they are but two aspects of the same state. Self­

remembrance is in the mind, self-realisation is beyond the mind. The

image in the mirror is of the face beyond the mirror.

 

Q: Fair enough. But what is the purpose?

 

M: To help others, one must be beyond the need of help.

 

Q: All I want is to be happy.

 

M: Be happy to make happy.

 

Q: Let others take care of themselves.

 

M: Sir, you are not separate. The happiness you cannot share is

spurious. Only the shareable is truly desirable.

 

Q: Right. But do I need a Guru? What you tell me is simple and

convincing. I shall remember it. This does not make you my Guru.

 

M: it is not the worship of a person that is crucial, but the

steadiness and depth of your devotion to the task. Life itself is the

Supreme Guru; be attentive to its lessons and obedient to its

commands. When you personalise their source, you have an outer Guru;

when you take them from life directly, the Guru is within. Remember,

wonder, ponder, live with it, love it, grow into it, grow with it,

make it your own -- the word of your Guru, outer or inner. Put in all

and you will get all. I was doing it. All my time I was giving to my

Guru and to what he told me.

 

Q: I am a writer by profession. Can you give me some advice, for me

specifically?

 

M: Writing is both a talent and a skill. Grow in talent and develop

in skill. Desire what is worth desiring and desire it well. Just like

you pick your way in a crowd, passing between people, so you find

your way between events, without missing your general direction. It

is easy, if you are earnest.

 

Q: So many times you mention the need of being earnest. But we are

not men of single will. We are congeries of desires and needs,

instincts and promptings. They crawl over each other, sometimes one,

sometimes another dominating, but never for long.

 

M: There are no needs, desires only.

 

Q: To eat, to drink, to shelter one's body; to live?

 

M: The desire to live is the one fundamental desire. All else

depends on it.

 

Q: We live, because we must.

 

M: We live, because we crave sensory existence.

 

Q: A thing so universal cannot be wrong.

 

M: Not wrong, of course. In its own place and time nothing is wrong.

But when you are concerned with truth, with reality, you must

question every thing, your very life. By asserting the necessity of

sensory and intellectual experience you narrow down your enquiry to

search for comfort.

 

Q: I seek happiness, not comfort.

 

M: Beyond comfort of mind and body what happiness do you know?

 

Q: Is there any other?

 

M: Find out for yourself. Question every urge, hold no desire

legitimate. Empty of possession, physical and mental, free of all

self-concern, be open for discovery.

 

Q: It is a part of Indian spiritual tradition that mere living in

the proximity of a saint or sage is conducive to liberation and no

other means are needed. Why don't you organise an Ashram so that

people could live near you?

 

M: The moment I create an institution I become its prisoner. As a

matter of fact I am available to all. Common roof and food will not

make people more welcome. 'Living near' does not mean breathing the

same air. It means trusting and obeying, not letting the good

intentions of the teacher go to waste. Have your Guru always in your

heart and remember his instructions -- this is real abidance with the

true. Physical proximity is least important. Make your entire life an

expression of your faith and love for your teacher -- this is real

dwelling with the Guru.

 

33. Everything Happens by Itself

Questioner: Does a jnani die?

 

Maharaj: He is beyond life and death. What we take to be inevitable --

to be born and to die -- appears to him but a way of expressing

movement in the Immovable, change in the changeless, end in the

endless. To the jnani it is obvious that nothing is born and nothing

dies, nothing lasts and nothing changes, all is as it is --

timelessly.

 

Q: You say the jnani is beyond. Beyond what? Beyond knowledge?

 

M: Knowledge has its rising and setting. Consciousness comes into

being and goes out of being. It is a matter of daily occurrence and

observation. We all know that sometimes we are conscious and

sometimes not. When we are not conscious, it appears to us as a

darkness or a blank. But a jnani is aware of himself as neither

conscious nor unconscious, but purely aware, a witness to the three

states of the mind and their contents.

 

Q: When does this witnessing begin?

 

M: To a jnani nothing has beginning or ending. As salt dissolves in

water, so does everything dissolve into pure being. Wisdom is

eternally negating the unreal. To see the unreal is wisdom. Beyond

this lies the inexpressible.

 

Q: There is in me the conviction: 'I am the body' Granted, I am

talking from unwisdom. But the state of feeling oneself the body, the

body-mind, the mind-body, or even pure mind -- when did it begin?

 

M: You cannot speak of a beginning of consciousness. The very ideas

of beginning and time are within consciousness. To talk meaningfully

of the beginning of anything, you must step out of it. And the moment

you step out, you realise that there is no such thing and never was.

There is only reality, in which no `thing' has any being on its own.

Like waves are inseparable from the ocean, so is all existence rooted

in being.

 

Q: The fact is that here and now I am asking you: when did the

feeling 'I am the body' arise? At my birth? or this morning?

 

M: Now.

 

Q: But I remember having it yesterday too!

 

M: The memory of yesterday is now only.

 

Q: But surely I exist in time. I have a past and a future.

 

M: That is how you imagine -- now.

 

Q: There must have been a beginning.

 

M: Now.

 

Q: And what about ending?

 

M: What has no beginning cannot end.

 

Q: But I am conscious of my question.

 

M: A false question cannot be answered. It can only be seen as false.

 

Q: To me it is real.

 

M: When did it appear real to you? Now.

 

Q: Yes, it is quite real to me -- now.

 

M: What is real about your question? It is a state of mind. No state

of mind can be more real than the mind itself. Is the mind real? It

is but a collection of states, each of them transitory. How can a

succession of transitory states be considered real?

 

Q: Like beads on a string, events follow events -- for ever.

 

M: They are all strung on the basic idea: 'I am the body'. But even

this is a mental state and does not last. It comes and goes like all

other states. The illusion of being the body-mind is there, only

because it is not investigated. Non-investigation is the thread on

which all the states of mind are strung. It is like darkness in a

closed room. It is there -- apparently. But when the room is opened,

where does it go? It goes nowhere, because it was not there. All

states of mind, all names and forms of existence are rooted in non-

enquiry, non-investigation, in imagination and credulity. It is right

to say 'I am', but to say 'I am this', 'I am that' is a sign of not

enquiring, not examining, of mental weakness or lethargy.

 

Q: If all is light, how did darkness arise? How can there be

darkness in the midst of light?

 

M: There is no darkness in the midst of light. Self-forgetfulness is

the darkness. When we are absorbed in other things, in the not-self,

we forget the self. There is nothing unnatural about it. But, why

forget the self through excess of attachment? Wisdom lies in never

forgetting the self as the ever-present source of both the

experiencer and his experience.

 

Q: In my present state the 'I am the body' idea comes

spontaneously, while the 'I am pure being' idea must be imposed on

the mind as something true but not experienced.

 

M: Yes, sadhana (practice) consists in reminding oneself forcibly of

one's pure 'being-ness', of not being anything in particular, nor a

sum of particulars, not even the totality of all particulars, which

make up a universe. All exists in the mind, even the body is an

integration in the mind of a vast number of sensory perceptions, each

perception also a mental state. If you say: 'I am the body', show it.

 

Q: Here it is.

 

M: Only when you think of it. Both mind and body are intermittent

states. The sum total of these flashes creates the illusion of

existence. Enquire what is permanent in the transient, real in the

unreal. This is sadhana.

 

Q: The fact is that I am thinking of myself as the body.

 

M: Think of yourself by all means. Only don't bring the idea of a

body into the picture. There is only a stream of sensations,

perceptions, memories and ideations. The body is an abstraction,

created by our tendency to seek unity in diversity -- which again is

not wrong.

 

Q: I am being told that to think 'I am the body' is a blemish in

the mind.

 

M: Why talk like this? Such expressions create problems. The self is

the source of all, and of all -- the final destination. Nothing is

external.

 

Q: When the body idea becomes obsessive, is it not altogether wrong?

 

M: There is nothing wrong in the idea of a body, nor even in the

idea 'I am the body'. But limiting oneself to one body only is a

mistake. In reality all existence, every form, is my own, within my

consciousness. I cannot tell what I am because words can describe

only what I am not. I am, and because I am, all is. But I am beyond

consciousness and, therefore, in consciousness I cannot say what I

am. Yet, I am. The question 'Who am I' has no answer. No experience

can answer it, for the self is beyond experience.

 

Q: Still, the question 'Who am I' must be of some use.

 

M: It has no answer in consciousness and, therefore, helps to go

beyond consciousness.

 

Q: Here I am -- in the present moment. What is real in it, and what

is not? Now, please don't tell me that my question is wrong.

Questioning my questions leads me nowhere.

 

M: Your question is not wrong. It is unnecessary. You said: 'Here

and now I am'. Stop there, this is real. Don't turn a fact into a

question. There lies your mistake. You are neither knowing nor not-

knowing, neither mind nor matter; don't attempt to describe yourself

in terms of mind and matter.

 

Q: Just now a boy came to you with a problem. You told him a few

words and he went away. Did you help him?

 

M: Of course.

 

Q: Wow can you be so sure?

 

M: To help is my nature.

 

Q: How did you come to know It?

 

M: No need to know. It operates by itself.

 

Q: Still you have made a statement. On what is it based?

 

M: On what people tell me. But it is you who asks for proofs. I do

not need them. Setting things right lies in my very nature, which is

satyam, shivam, sundaram (the true, the good, the beautiful).

 

Q: When a man comes to you for advice and you give him advice,

wherefrom does it come and by what power does it help?

 

M: His own being affects his mind and induces a response.

 

Q: And what is your role?

 

M: In me the man and his self come together.

 

Q: Why does not the self help the man without you?

 

M: But I am the self! You imagine me as separate, hence your

question. There is no 'my self' and 'his self'. There is the Self,

the only Self of all. Misled by the diversity of names and shapes,

minds and bodies, you imagine multiple selves. We both are the self,

but you seem to be unconvinced. This talk of personal self and

universal self is the learner's stage; go beyond, don't be stuck in

duality.

 

Q: Let us come back to the man in need of help. He comes to you.

 

M: If he comes, he is sure to get help. Because he was destined to

get help, he came. There is nothing fanciful about it. I cannot help

some and refuse others. All who come are helped, for such is the law.

Only the shape help takes varies according to the need.

 

Q: Why must he come here to get advice? Can't he get it from within?

 

M: He will not listen. His mind is turned outward. But in fact all

experience is in the mind, and even his coming to me and getting help

is all within himself. Instead of finding an answer within himself,

he imagines an answer from without. To me there is no me, no man and

no giving. All this is merely a flicker in the mind. I am infinite

peace and silence in which nothing appears, for all that appears --

disappears. Nobody comes for help, nobody offers help, nobody gets

help. It is all but a display in consciousness.

 

Q: Yet the power to help is there and there is somebody or

something that displays that power, call it God or Self or the

Universal Mind. The name does not matter, but the fact does.

 

M: This is the stand the body-mind takes. The pure mind sees things

as they are -- bubbles in consciousness. These bubbles are appearing,

disappearing and reappearing -- without having real being. No

particular cause can be ascribed to them, for each is caused by all

and affects all. Each bubble is a body and all these bodies are mine.

 

Q: Do you mean to say, that you have the power to do everything

rightly?

 

M: There is no power as separate from me. It is inherent in my very

nature. Call it creativity. Out of a lump of gold you can make many

ornaments -- each will remain gold. Similarly, in whatever role I may

appear and whatever function I may perform -- I remain what I am:

the 'I am' immovable, unshakable, independent. What you call the

universe, nature, is my spontaneous creativity. Whatever happens --

happens. But such is my nature that all ends in joy.

 

Q: I have a case of a boy gone blind because his stupid mother fed

him methyl alcohol. I am requesting you to help him. You are full of

compassion and, obviously, eager to help. By what power can you help

him?

 

M: His case is registered in consciousness. It is there --

indelibly. Consciousness will operate.

 

Q: Does it make any difference that I ask you to help?

 

M: Your asking is a part of the boy's blindness. Because he is

blind, you ask. You have added nothing.

 

Q: But your help will be a new factor?

 

M: No, all is contained in the boy's blindness. All is in it -- the

mother, the boy, you and me and all else. It is one event.

 

Q: You mean to say that even our discussing the boy's case was

predestined?

 

M: How else? All things contain their future. The boy appears in

consciousness. I am beyond. I do not issue orders to consciousness. I

know that it is in the nature of awareness to set things right. Let

consciousness look after its creations! The boy's sorrow, your pity,

my listening and consciousness acting -- all this is one single fact -

- don't split it into components and then ask questions.

 

Q: How strangely does your mind work?

 

M: You are strange, not me. I am normal. I am sane. I see things as

they are, and therefore l am not afraid of them. But you are afraid

of reality.

 

Q: Why should l?

 

M: It is ignorance of yourself that makes you afraid and also

unaware that you are afraid. Don't try not to be afraid. Break down

the wall of ignorance first.

 

People are afraid to die, because they do not know what is death. The

jnani has died before his death, he saw that there was nothing to be

afraid of. The moment you know your real being, you are afraid of

nothing. Death gives freedom and power. To be free in the world, you

must die to the world. Then the universe is your own, it becomes your

body, an expression and a tool. The happiness of being absolutely

free is beyond description. On the other hand, he who is afraid of

freedom cannot die.

 

Q: You mean that one who cannot die, cannot live?

 

M: Put it as you like; attachment is bondage, detachment is freedom.

To crave is to slave.

 

Q: Does it follow that if you are saved, the world is saved?

 

M: As a whole the world does not need saving. Man makes mistakes and

creates sorrow; when it enters the field of awareness, the

consciousness of a jnani, it is set right. Such is his nature.

 

Q: We can observe what may be called spiritual progress. A selfish

man turns religious, controls himself, refines his thoughts and

feelings, takes to spiritual practice, realises his true being. Is

such progress ruled by causality, or is it accidental?

 

M: From my point of view everything happens by itself, quite

spontaneously. But man imagines that he works for an incentive,

towards a goal. He has always a reward in mind and strives for it.

 

Q: A crude, unevolved man will not work without a reward. Is it not

right to offer him incentives?

 

M: He will create for himself incentives anyhow. He does not know

that to grow is in the nature of consciousness. He will progress from

motive to motive and will chase Gurus for the fulfilment of his

desires. When by the laws of his being he finds the way of return

(nivritti) he abandons all motives, for his interest in the world is

over. He wants nothing -- neither from others nor from himself. He

dies to all and becomes the All. To want nothing and do nothing --

that is true creation! To watch the universe emerging and subsiding

in one's heart is a wonder.

 

Q: The great obstacle to inner effort is boredom. The disciple gets

bored.

 

M: Inertia and restlessness (tamas and rajas) work together and keep

clarity and harmony (sattva) down. Tamas and Rajas must be conquered

before Sattva can appear. It will all come in due course, quite

spontaneously.

 

Q: Is there no need of effort then?

 

M: When effort is needed, effort will appear. When effortlessness

becomes essential, it will assert itself. You need not push life

about. Just flow with it and give yourself completely to the task of

the present moment, which is the dying now to the now. For living is

dying. Without death life cannot be.

 

Get hold of the main thing that the world and the self are one and

perfect. Only your attitude is faulty and needs readjustment.

 

This process or readjustment is what you call sadhana. You come to it

by putting an end to indolence and using all your energy to clear the

way for clarity and charity. But in reality, these all are signs of

inevitable growth. Don't be afraid, don't resist, don't delay. Be

what you are. There is nothing to be afraid of. Trust and try.

Experiment honestly. Give your real being a chance to shape your

life. You will not regret.

 

34. Mind is restlessness Itself

Questioner: I am a Swede by birth. Now I am teaching Hatha Yoga in

Mexico and in the States.

 

Maharaj: Where did you learn it?

 

Q: I had a teacher in the States, an Indian Swami.

 

M: What did it give you?

 

Q: It gave me good health and a means of livelihood.

 

M: Good enough. Is it all you want?

 

Q: I seek peace of mind. I got disgusted with all the cruel things

done by the so-called Christians in the name of Christ. For some time

I was without religion. Then I got attracted to Yoga.

 

M: What did you gain?

 

Q: I studied the philosophy of Yoga and it did help me.

 

M: In what way did it help you? By what signs did you conclude that

you have been helped?

 

Q: Good health is something quite tangible.

 

M: No doubt it is very pleasant to feel fit. Is pleasure all you

expected from Yoga?

 

Q: The joy of well-being is the reward of Hatha Yoga. But Yoga in

general yields more than that. It answers many questions.

 

M: What do you mean by Yoga?

 

Q: The whole teaching of India -- evolution, re-incarnation, karma

and so on.

 

M: All right, you got all the knowledge you wanted. But in what way

are you benefited by it?

 

Q: It gave me peace of mind.

 

M: Did it? Is your mind at peace? Is your search over?

 

Q: No, not yet.

 

M: Naturally. There will be no end to it, because there is no such

thing as peace of mind. Mind means disturbance; restlessness itself

is mind. Yoga is not an attribute of the mind, nor is it a state of

mind.

 

Q: Some measure of peace I did derive from Yoga.

 

M: Examine closely and you will see that the mind is seething with

thoughts. It may go blank occasionally, but it does it for a time and

reverts to its usual restlessness. A becalmed mind is not a peaceful

mind. You say you want to pacify your mind. Is he, who wants to

pacify the mind, himself peaceful?

 

Q: No. I am not at peace, I take the help of Yoga.

 

M: Don't you see the contradiction? For many years you sought your

peace of mind. You could not find it, for a thing essentially

restless cannot be at peace.

 

Q: There is some improvement.

 

M: The peace you claim to have found is very brittle any little

thing can crack it. What you call peace is only absence of

disturbance. It is hardly worth the name. The real peace cannot be

disturbed. Can you claim a peace of mind that is unassailable?

 

Q: l am striving.

 

M: Striving too is a form of restlessness.

 

Q: So what remains?

 

M: The self does not need to be put to rest. It is peace itself, not

at peace. Only the mind is restless. All it knows is restlessness,

with its many modes and grades. The pleasant are considered superior

and the painful are discounted. What we call progress is merely a

change over from the unpleasant to the pleasant. But changes by

themselves cannot bring us to the changeless, for whatever has a

beginning must have an end. The real does not begin; it only reveals

itself as beginningless and endless, all-pervading, all-powerful,

immovable prime mover, timelessly changeless.

 

Q: So what has one to do?

 

M: Through Yoga you have accumulated knowledge and experience. This

cannot be denied. But of what use is it all to you? Yoga means union,

joining. What have you re-united, re-joined?

 

Q: I am trying to rejoin the personality back to the real self.

 

M: The personality (vyakti) is but a product of imagination. The

self (vyakta) is the victim of this imagination. It is the taking

yourself to be what you are not that binds you. The person cannot be

said to exist on its own rights; it is the self that believes there

is a person and is conscious of being it. Beyond the self (vyakta)

lies the unmanifested (avyakta), the causeless cause of everything.

Even to talk of re-uniting the person with the self is not right,

because there is no person, only a mental picture given a false

reality by conviction. Nothing was divided and there is nothing to

unite.

 

Q: Yoga helps in the search for and the finding of the self.

 

M: You can find what you have lost. But you cannot find what you

have not lost.

 

Q: Had I never lost anything, I would have been enlightened. But I

am not. I am searching. Is not my very search a proof of my having

lost something?

 

M: It only shows that you believe you have lost. But who believes

it? And what is believed to be lost? Have you lost a person like

yourself? What is the self you are in search of? What exactly do you

expect to find?

 

Q: The true knowledge of the self.

 

M: The true knowledge of the self is not a knowledge. It is not

something that you find by searching, by looking everywhere. It is

not to be found in space or time. Knowledge is but a memory, a

pattern of thought, a mental habit. All these are motivated by

pleasure and pain. It is because you are goaded by pleasure and pain

that you are in search of knowledge. Being oneself is completely

beyond all motivation. You cannot be yourself for some reason. You

are yourself, and no reason is needed.

 

Q: By doing Yoga I shall find peace.

 

M: Can there be peace apart from yourself? Are you talking from your

own experience or from books only? Your book knowledge is useful to

begin with, but soon it must be given up for direct experience, which

by its very nature is inexpressible. Words can be used for

destruction also; of words images are built, by words they are

destroyed. You got yourself into your present state through verbal

thinking; you must get out of it the same way.

 

Q: I did attain a degree of inner peace. Am I to destroy it?

 

M: What has been attained may be lost again. Only when you realise

the true peace, the peace you have never lost, that peace will remain

with you, for it was never away. Instead of searching for what you do

not have, find out what is it that you have never lost? That which is

there before the beginning and after the ending of everything; that

to which there is no birth, nor death. That immovable state, which is

not affected by the birth and death of a body or a mind, that state

you must perceive.

 

Q: What are the means to such perception?

 

M: In life nothing can be had without overcoming obstacles. The

obstacles to the clear perception of one's true being are desire for

pleasure and fear of pain. It is the pleasure-pain motivation that

stands in the way. The very freedom from all motivation, the state in

which no desire arises is the natural state.

 

Q: Such giving up of desires, does it need time?

 

M: If you leave it to time, millions of years will be needed. Giving

up desire after desire is a lengthy process with the end never in

sight. Leave alone your desires and fears, give your entire attention

to the subject, to him who is behind the experience of desire and

fear. Ask: 'who desires?' Let each desire bring you back to yourself.

 

Q: The root of all desires and fears is the same -- the longing for

happiness.

 

M: The happiness you can think of and long for, is mere physical or

mental satisfaction. Such sensory or mental pleasure is not the real,

the absolute happiness.

 

Q: Even sensory and mental pleasures and the general sense of well-

being which arises with physical and mental health, must have their

roots in reality.

 

M: They have their roots in imagination. A man who is given a stone

and assured that it is a priceless diamond will be mightily pleased

until he realises his mistake; in the same way pleasures lose their

tang and pains their barb when the self is known. Both are seen as

they are -- conditional responses, mere reactions, plain attractions

and repulsions, based on memories or pre-conceptions. Usually

pleasure and pain are experienced when expected. It is all a matter

of acquired habits and convictions.

 

Q: Well, pleasure may be imaginary. But pain is real.

 

M: Pain and pleasure go always together. Freedom from one means

freedom from both. If you do not care for pleasure, you will not be

afraid of pain. But there is happiness which is neither, which is

completely beyond. The happiness you know is describable and

measurable. It is objective, so to say. But the objective cannot be

your own. It would be a grievous mistake to identify yourself with

something external. This churning up of levels leads nowhere. Reality

is beyond the subjective and objective, beyond all levels, beyond

every distinction. Most definitely it is not their origin, source or

root. These come from ignorance of reality, not from reality itself,

which is indescribable, beyond being and not-being.

 

Q: Many teachers have I followed and studied many doctrines, yet

none gave me what I wanted.

 

M: The desire to find the self will be surely fulfilled, provided

you want nothing else. But you must be honest with yourself and

really want nothing else. If in the meantime you want many other

things and are engaged in their pursuit, your main purpose may be

delayed until you grow wiser and cease being torn between

contradictory urges. Go within, without swerving, without ever

looking outward.

 

Q: But my desires and fears are still there.

 

M: Where are they but in your memory? realise that their root is in

expectation born of memory and they will cease to obsess you.

 

Q: I have understood very well that social service is an endless

task, because improvement and decay, progress and regress, go side by

side. We can see it on all sides and on every level. What remains?

 

M: Whatever work you have undertaken -- complete it. Do not take up

new tasks. unless it is called for by a concrete situation of

suffering and relief from suffering. Find yourself first, and endless

blessings will follow. Nothing profits the world as much as the

abandoning of profits. A man who no longer thinks in terms of loss

and gain is the truly non-violent man, for he is beyond all conflict.

 

Q: Yes, I was always attracted by the idea of ahimsa (non-violence).

 

M: Primarily, ahimsa means what it says: 'don't hurt'. It is not

doing good that comes first, but ceasing to hurt, not adding to

suffering. Pleasing others is not ahimsa.

 

Q: I am not talking of pleasing, but I am all for helping others.

 

M: The only help worth giving is freeing from the need for further

help. Repeated help is no help at all. Do not talk of helping

another, unless you can put him beyond all need of help.

 

Q: How does one go beyond the need of help? And can one help

another to do so?

 

M: When you have understood that all existence, in separation and

limitation, is painful, and when you are willing and able to live

integrally, in oneness with all life, as pure being, you have gone

beyond all need of help. You can help another by precept and example

and, above all, by your being. You cannot give what you do not have

and you don't have what you are not. You can only give what you are --

and of that you can give limitlessly.

 

Q: But, is it true that all existence is painful?

 

M: What else can be the cause of this universal search for pleasure?

Does a happy man seek happiness? How restless people are, how

constantly on the move! It is because they are in pain that they seek

relief in pleasure. All the happiness they can imagine is in the

assurance of repeated pleasure.

 

Q: If what I am, as I am, the person I take myself to be, cannot be

happy, then what am I to do?

 

M: You can only cease to be -- as you seem to be now. There is

nothing cruel in what I say. To wake up a man from a nightmare is

compassion. You came here because you are in pain, and all I say is:

wake up, know yourself, be yourself. The end of pain lies not in

pleasure. When you realise that you are beyond both pain and

pleasure, aloof and unassailable, then the pursuit of happiness

ceases and the resultant sorrow too. For pain aims at pleasure and

pleasure ends in pain, relentlessly.

 

Q: In the ultimate state there can be no happiness?

 

M: Nor sorrow. Only freedom. Happiness depends on something or other

and can be lost; freedom from everything depends on nothing and

cannot be lost. Freedom from sorrow has no cause and, therefore,

cannot be destroyed. realise that freedom.

 

Q: Am I not born to suffer as a result of my past? Is freedom

possible at all? Was I born of my own will? Am I not just a creature?

 

M: What is birth and death but the beginning and the ending of a

stream of events in consciousness? Because of the idea of separation

and limitation they are painful. Momentary relief from pain we call

pleasure -- and we build castles in the air hoping for endless

pleasure which we call happiness. It is all misunderstanding and

misuse. Wake up, go beyond, live really.

 

Q: My knowledge is limited, my power negligible.

 

M: Being the source of both. the self is beyond both knowledge and

power. The observable is in the mind. The nature of the self is pure

awareness, pure witnessing, unaffected by the presence or absence of

knowledge or liking.

 

Have your being outside this body of birth and death and all your

problems will be solved. They exist because you believe yourself born

to die. Undeceive yourself and be free. You are not a person.

 

35. Greatest Guru is Your Inner Self

Questioner: On all sides I hear that freedom from desires and

inclinations is the first condition of self-realisation. But I find

the condition impossible of fulfilment. Ignorance of oneself causes

desires and desires perpetuate ignorance. A truly vicious circle!

 

Maharaj: There are no conditions to fulfil. There is nothing to be

done, nothing to be given up. Just look and remember, whatever you

perceive is not you, nor yours. It is there in the field of

consciousness, but you are not the field and its contents, nor even

the knower of the field. It is your idea that you have to do things

that entangle you in the results of your efforts -- the motive, the

desire, the failure to achieve, the sense of frustration -- all this

holds you back. Simply look at whatever happens and know that you are

beyond it.

 

Q: Does it mean I should abstain from doing anything?

 

M: You cannot! What goes on must go on. If you stop suddenly, you

will crash.

 

Q: Is it a matter of the known and the knower becoming one?

 

M: Both are ideas in the mind, and words that express them. There is

no self in them. The self is neither, between nor beyond. To look for

it on the mental level is futile. Stop searching, and see -- it is

here and now -- it is that 'I am' you know so well. All you need to

do is to cease taking yourself to be within the field of

consciousness. Unless you have already considered these matters

carefully, listening to me once will not do. Forget your past

experiences and achievements, stand naked, exposed to the winds and

rains of life and you will have a chance.

 

Q: Has devotion (bhakti) any place in your teaching?

 

M: When you are not well, you go to a physician who tells you what

is wrong and what is the remedy. If you have confidence in him, it

makes things simple: you take the medicine, follow the diet

restrictions and get well. But if you do not trust him, you may still

take a chance, or you may study medicine yourself! In all cases it is

your desire for recovery that moves you, not the physician.

 

Without trust there is no peace. Somebody or other you always trust --

it may be your mother, or your wife. Of all the people the knower of

the self, the liberated man, is the most trust-worthy. But merely to

trust is not enough. You must also desire. Without desire for freedom

of what use is the confidence that you can acquire freedom? Desire

and confidence must go together. The stronger your desire, the easier

comes the help. The greatest Guru is helpless as long as the disciple

is not eager to learn. Eagerness and earnestness are all-important.

Confidence will come with experience. Be devoted to your goal -- and

devotion to him who can guide you will follow. If your desire and

confidence are strong, they will operate and take you to your goal,

for you will not cause delay by hesitation and compromise.

 

The greatest Guru is your inner self. Truly, he is the supreme

teacher. He alone can take you to your goal and he alone meets you at

the end of the road. Confide in him and you need no outer Guru. But

again you must have the strong desire to find him and do nothing that

will create obstacles and delays. And do not waste energy and time on

regrets. Learn from your mistakes and do not repeat them.

 

Q: If you do not mind my asking a personal question...?

 

M: Yes, go ahead.

 

Q: I see you sitting on an antelope skin. How does it tally with

non-violence?

 

M: All my working life I was a cigarette-maker, helping people to

spoil their health. And in front of my door the municipality has put

up a public lavatory, spoiling my health. In this violent world how

can one keep away from violence of some kind or other?

 

Q: Surely all avoidable violence should be avoided. And yet in

India every holy man has his tiger, lion, leopard or antelope skin to

sit on.

 

M: Maybe because no plastics were available in ancient times and a

skin was best to keep the damp away. Rheumatism has no charm, even

for a saint! Thus the tradition arose that for lengthy meditations a

skin is needed. Just like the drum-hide in a temple, so is the

antelope skin of a Yogi. We hardly notice it.

 

Q: But the animal had to be killed.

 

M: I have never heard of a Yogi killing a tiger for his hide. The

killers are not Yogis and the Yogis are not killers.

 

Q: Should you not express your disapproval by refusing to sit on a

skin?

 

M: What an idea! I disapprove of the entire universe, why only a

skin?

 

Q: What is wrong with the universe?

 

M: Forgetting your Self is the greatest injury; all the calamities

flow from it. Take care of the most important, the lesser will take

care of itself. You do not tidy up a dark room. You open the windows

first. Letting in the light makes everything easy. So, let us wait

with improving others until we have seen ourselves as we are -- and

have changed. There is no need to turn round and round in endless

questioning; find yourself and everything will fall into its proper

place.

 

Q: The urge to return to the source is very rare. Is it at all

natural?

 

M: Outgoing is natural in the beginning, ingoing -- in the end. But

in reality the two are one, just like breathing in and out are one.

 

Q: In the same way are not the body and the dweller in the body one?

 

M: Events in time and space -- birth and death, cause and effect --

these may be taken as one; but the body and the embodied are not of

the same order of reality. The body exists in time and space,

transient and limited, while the dweller is timeless and spaceless,

eternal and all-pervading. To identify the two is a grievous mistake

and the cause of endless suffering. You can speak of the mind and

body as one, but the body-mind is not the underlying reality.

 

Q: Whoever he may be, the dweller is in control of the body and,

therefore, responsible for it.

 

M: There is a universal power which is in control and is responsible.

 

Q: And so, I can do as I like and put the blame on some universal

power? How easy!

 

M: Yes, very easy. Just realise the One Mover behind all that moves

and leave all to Him. If you do not hesitate, or cheat, this is the

shortest way to reality. Stand without desire and fear, relinquishing

all control and all responsibility.

 

Q: What madness!

 

M: Yes, divine madness. What is wrong in letting go the illusion of

personal control and personal responsibility? Both are in the mind

only. Of course, as long as you imagine yourself to be in control,

you should also imagine yourself to be responsible. One implies the

other.

 

Q: How can the universal be responsible for the particular?

 

M: All life on earth depends on the sun. Yet you cannot blame the

sun for all that happens, though it is the ultimate cause. Light

causes the colour of the flower, but it neither controls, nor is

responsible for it directly. It makes it possible, that is all.

 

Q: What I do not like in all this is taking refuge in some

universal power.

 

M: You cannot quarrel with facts.

 

Q: Whose facts? Yours or mine?

 

M: Yours. You cannot deny my facts, for you do not know them. Could

you know them, you would not deny them. Here lies the trouble. You

take your imagining for facts and my facts for imagination. I know

for certain that all is one. Differences do not separate. Either you

are responsible for nothing, or for everything. To imagine that you

are in control and responsible for one body only is the aberration of

the body-mind.

 

Q: Still, you are limited by your body.

 

M: Only in matters pertaining to the body. This I do not mind. It is

like enduring the seasons of the year. They come, they go -- they

hardly affect me. In the same way body-minds come and go -- life is

forever in search of new expressions.

 

Q: As long as you do not put all the burden of evil on God, I am

satisfied. There may be a God for all I know, but to me he is a

concept projected by the human mind. He may be a reality to you, but

to me society is more real than God, for I am both its creature and

its prisoner. Your values are wisdom and compassion; society's

sagacious selfishness. I live in a world quite different from yours.

 

M: None compels.

 

Q: None compels you, but I am compelled. My world is an evil world,

full of tears, toil and pain. To explain it away by the

intellectualising, by putting forth theories of evolution and karma

is merely adding insult to injury. The God of an evil world is a

cruel God.

 

M: You are the god of your world and you are both stupid and cruel.

Let God be a concept -- your own creation. Find out who you are, how

did you come to live, longing for truth, goodness and beauty in a

world full of evil. Of what use is your arguing for or against God.

when you just do not know who is God and what are you talking about.

The God born of fear and hope, shaped by desire and imagination,

cannot be the Power That is, the Mind and the Heart of the universe.

 

Q: I agree that the world I live in and the God I believe in are

both creatures of imagination. But in what way are they created by

desire? Why do I imagine a world so painful and a God so indifferent?

What is wrong with me that I should torture myself so cruelly? The

enlightened man comes and tells me: 'it is but a dream to put an end

to', but is he not himself a part of the dream? I find myself trapped

and see no way out. You say you are free. Of what are you free? For

heaven's sake, don't feed me on words, enlighten me, help me to wake

up, since it is you who sees me tossing in my sleep.

 

M: When I say I am free, I merely state a fact. If you are an adult,

you are free from infancy. I am free from all description and

identification. Whatever you may hear, see, or think of, I am not

that. I am free from being a percept, or a concept.

 

Q: Still, you have a body and you depend on it.

 

M: Again you assume that your point of view is the only correct one.

I repeat: I was not, am not, shall not be a body. To me this is a

fact. I too was under the illusion of having been born, but my Guru

made me see that birth and death are mere ideas -- birth is merely

the idea: 'I have a body'. And death -- 'I have lost my body'. Now,

when I know I am not a body, the body may be there or may not -- what

difference does it make? The body­mind is like a room. It is there,

but I need not live in it all the time.

 

Q: Yet, there is a body and you do take care of it.

 

M: The power that created the body takes care of it.

 

Q: We are jumping from level to level all the time.

 

M: There are two levels to consider -- the physical -- of facts, and

mental -- of ideas. I am beyond both. Neither your facts, nor ideas

are mine. What I see is beyond. Cross over to my side and see with me.

 

Q: What I want to say is very simple. As long as I believe: 'I am

the body', I must not say: 'God will look after my body'. God will

not. He will let it starve, sicken and die.

 

M: What else do you expect from a mere body? Why are you so anxious

about it?

 

Because you think you are the body, you want it indestructible. You

can extend its life considerably by appropriate practices, but for

what ultimate good?

 

Q: It is better to live long and healthy. It gives us a chance to

avoid the mistakes of childhood and youth, the frustrations of

adulthood, the miseries and imbecility of old age.

 

M: By all means live long. But you are not the master. Can you

decide the days of your birth and death? We are not speaking the same

language. Yours is a make-believe talk, all hangs on suppositions and

assumptions. You speak with assurance about things you are not sure

of.

 

Q: Therefore, I am here.

 

M: You are not yet here. I am here. Come in! But you don't. You want

me to live your life, feel your way, use your language. I cannot, and

it will not help you. You must come to me. Words are of the mind and

the mind obscures and distorts. Hence the absolute need to go beyond

words and move over to my side.

 

Q: Take me over.

 

M: I am doing it, but you resist. You give reality to concepts,

while concepts are distortions of reality. Abandon all

conceptualisation and stay silent and attentive. Be earnest about it

and all will be well with you