chpts.51-59 I.A.T.(whew!) and a lot more coming..study,absorb

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51. Be Indifferent to Pain and Pleasure

Questioner: I am a Frenchman by birth and domicile and since about

ten years I have been practicing Yoga.

 

Maharaj: After ten years of work are you anywhere nearer your goal?

 

Q: A little nearer, maybe. It is hard work, you know.

 

M: The Self is near and the way to it is easy. All you need doing is

doing nothing.

 

Q: Yet I found my sadhana very difficult.

 

M: Your sadhana is to be. The doing happens. Just be watchful. Where

is the difficulty in remembering that you are? Your are all the time.

 

Q: The sense of being is there all the time -- no doubt. But the

field of attention is often overrun by all sorts of mental events --

emotions, images, ideas. The pure sense of being is usually crowded

out.

 

M: What is your procedure for clearing the mind of the unnecessary?

What are your means, your tools for the purification of the mind?

 

Q: Basically, man is afraid. He is afraid of himself most. I feel I

am like a man who is carrying a bomb that is going to explode. He

cannot defuse it, he cannot throw it away. He is terribly frightened

and is searching frantically for a solution, which he cannot find. To

me liberation is getting rid of this bomb. I do not know much about

the bomb. I only know that it comes from early childhood. I feel like

the frightened child protesting passionately against not being loved.

The child is craving for love and because he does not get it, he is

afraid and angry. Sometimes I feel like killing somebody or myself.

This desire is so strong that I am constantly afraid. And I do not

know how to get free from fear.

 

You see there is a difference between a Hindu mind and a European

mind. The Hindu mind is comparatively simple. The European is a much

more complex being. The Hindu is basically sattvic. He does not

understand the European's restlessness, hid tireless pursuit of what

he thinks needs be done; his greater general knowledge.

 

M: His reasoning capacity is so great, that he will reason himself

out of all reason! His self-assertiveness is due to his reliance on

logic.

 

Q: But thinking, reasoning is the mind's normal state. The mind

just cannot stop working.

 

M: It may be the habitual state, but it need not be the normal

state. A normal state cannot be painful, while a habit often leads to

chronic pain.

 

Q: If it is not the natural, or normal state of mind, then how to

stop it? There must be a way to quieten the mind. How often I tell

myself: enough, please stop, enough of this endless chatter of

sentences repeated round and round! But my mind would not stop. I

feel that one can stop it for a while, but not for long. Even the so-

called `spiritual' people use tricks to keep their mind quiet. They

repeat formulas, they sing, pray, breathe forcibly or gently, shake,

rotate, concentrate, meditate, chase trances, cultivate virtues --

working all the time, in order to cease working, cease chasing, cease

moving. Were it not so tragic, it would be ridiculous.

 

M: The mind exists in two states: as water and as honey. The water

vibrates at the least disturbance, while the honey, however

disturbed, returns quickly to immobility.

 

Q: By its very nature the mind is restless. It can perhaps be made

quiet, but it is not quiet by itself.

 

M: You may have a chronic fever and shiver all the time. It is

desires and fears that make the mind restless. Free from all negative

emotions it is quiet.

 

Q: You cannot protect the child from negative emotions. As soon as

it is born it learns pain and fear. Hunger is a cruel master and

teaches dependence and hate. The child loves the mother because she

feeds it and hates her because she is late with food. Our unconscious

mind is full of conflicts, which overflow into the conscious. We live

on a volcano; we are always in danger. I agree that the company of

people whose mind is peaceful has a very soothing affect, but as soon

as I am away from them, the old trouble starts. This is why I come

periodically to India to seek the company of my Guru.

 

M: You think you are coming and going, passing through various

states and moods. I see things as they are, momentary events,

presenting themselves to me in rapid succession, deriving their being

from me, yet definitely neither me nor mine. Among phenomena I am not

one, nor subject to any. I am independent so simply and totally, that

your mind, accustomed to opposition and denial, cannot grasp it. I

mean literally what I say; I do not need oppose, or deny, because it

is clear to me that I cannot be the opposite or denial of anything. I

am just beyond, in a different dimension altogether. Do not look for

me in identification with, or opposition to something: I am where

desire, and fear are not. Now, what is your experience? Do you also

feel that you stand totally aloof from all transient things?

 

Q: Yes, I do -- occasionally. But at once a sense of danger sets

in, I feel isolated, outside all relationship with others. You see,

here lies the difference in our mentalities. With the Hindu, the

emotion follows the thought. Give a Hindu an idea and his emotions

are roused. With the Westerner it is the opposite: give him an

emotion and he will produce an idea. Your ideas are very attractive --

intellectually, but emotionally I do not respond.

 

M: Set your intellect aside. Don't use it in these matters.

 

Q: Of what use is an advice which I cannot carry out? These are all

ideas and you want me to respond feelingly to ideas, for without

feelings there can be no action.

 

M: Why do you talk of action? Are you acting ever? Some unknown

power acts and you imagine that you are acting. You are merely

watching what happens, without being able to influence it in any way.

 

Q: Why is there such a tremendous resistance in me against

accepting that I just can do nothing?

 

M: But what can you do? You are like a patient under anaesthetics on

whom a surgeon performs an operation. When you wake up you find the

operation over; can you say you have done something?

 

Q: But it is me who has chosen to submit to an operation.

 

M: Certainly not. It is your illness on one side and the pressure of

your physician and family on the other that have made you decide. You

have no choice, only the illusion of it.

 

Q: Yet I feel I am not as helpless as you make me appear. I feel I

can do everything I can think of, only I do not know how. It is not

the power I lack, but the knowledge.

 

M: Not knowing the means is admittedly as bad as not having the

power! But let us drop the subject for the moment; after all it is

not important why we feel helpless, as long as we see clearly that

for the time being we are helpless.

 

I am now 74 years old. And yet I feel that I am an infant. I feel

clearly that in spite of all the changes I am a child. My Guru told

me: that child, which is you even now, is your real self (swarupa).

Go back to that state of pure being, where the 'I am' is still in its

purity before it got contaminated with 'this I am' or 'that I am'.

Your burden is of false self-identifications -- abandon them all. My

Guru told me -- 'Trust me. I tell you; you are divine. Take it as the

absolute truth. Your joy is divine, your suffering is divine too. All

comes from God. Remember it always. You are God, your will alone is

done'. I did believe him and soon realised how wonderfully true and

accurate were his words. I did not condition my mind by thinking: 'I

am God, I am wonderful, I am beyond'. I simply followed his

instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I am', and

stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with, nothing but

the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing

love became my normal state. In it all disappeared -- myself, my

Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and

unfathomable silence.

 

Q: It all looks very simple and easy, but it is just not so.

Sometimes the wonderful state of joyful peace dawns on me and I look

and wonder: how easily it comes and how intimate it seems, how

totally my own. Where was the need to strive so hard for a state so

near at hand? This time, surely, it has come to stay. Yet how soon it

all dissolves and leaves me wondering -- was it a taste of reality or

another aberration. If it was reality, why did it go? Maybe some

unique experience is needed to fix me for good in the new state and

until the crucial experience comes, this game of hide and seek must

continue.

 

M: Your expectation of something unique and dramatic, of some

wonderful explosion, is merely hindering and delaying your self-

realisation. You are not to expect an explosion, for the explosion

has already happened -- at the moment when you were born, when you

realised yourself as being-knowing­feeling. There is only one mistake

you are making: you take the inner for the outer and the outer for

the inner. What is in you, you take to be outside you and what is

outside, you take to be in you. The mind and feelings are external,

but you take them to be intimate. You believe the world to be

objective, while it is entirely a projection of your psyche. That is

the basic confusion and no new explosion will set it right. You have

to think yourself out of it. There is no other way.

 

Q: How am I to think myself out when my thoughts come and go as

they like. Their endless chatter distracts and exhausts me.

 

M: Watch your thoughts as you watch the street traffic. People come

and go; you register without response. It may not be easy in the

beginning, but with some practice you will find that your mind can

function on many levels at the same time and you can be aware of them

all. It is only when you have a vested interest in any particular

level, that your attention gets caught in it and you black out on

other levels. Even then the work on the blacked out levels goes on,

outside the field of consciousness. Do not struggle with your

memories and thoughts; try only to include in your field of attention

the other, more important questions, like 'Who am l?' 'How did I

happen to be born?' 'Whence this universe around me?'. 'What is real

and what is momentary?' No memory will persist, if you lose interest

in it, it is the emotional link that perpetuates the bondage. You are

always seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, always after happiness and

peace. Don't you see that it is your very search for happiness that

makes you feel miserable? Try the other way: indifferent to pain and

pleasure, neither asking, nor refusing, give all your attention to

the level on which 'I am' is timelessly present. Soon you will

realise that peace and happiness are in your very nature and it is

only seeking them through some particular channels, that disturbs.

Avoid the disturbance, that is all. To seek there is no need; you

would not seek what you already have. You yourself are God, the

Supreme Reality. To begin with, trust me, trust the Teacher. It

enables you to make the first step -- and then your trust is

justified by your own experience. In every walk of life initial trust

is essential; without it little can be done. Every undertaking is an

act of faith. Even your daily bread you eat on trust! By remembering

what I told you you will achieve everything. I am telling you again:

You are the all-pervading, all transcending reality. Behave

accordingly: think, feel and act in harmony with the whole and the

actual experience of what I say will dawn upon you in no time. No

effort is needed. Have faith and act on it. Please see that I want

nothing from you. It is in your own interest that l speak, because

above all you love yourself, you want yourself secure and happy.

Don't be ashamed of it, don't deny it. It is natural and good to love

oneself. Only you should know what exactly do you love. It is not the

body that you love, it is Life --perceiving, feeling, thinking,

doing, loving, striving, creating. It is that Life you love, which is

you, which is all. realise it in its totality, beyond all divisions

and limitations, and all your desires will merge in it, for the

greater contains the smaller. Therefore find yourself, for in finding

that you find all.

 

Everybody is glad to be. But few know the fullness of it. You come to

know by dwelling in your mind on 'I am', 'I know', 'I love' -- with

the will of reaching the deepest meaning of these words.

 

Q: Can I think 'I am God'?

 

M: Don't identify yourself with an idea. If you mean by God the

Unknown, then you merely say: 'I do not know what I am'. If you know

God as you know your self, you need not say it. Best is the simple

feeling 'I am'. Dwell on it patiently. Here patience is wisdom; don't

think of failure. There can be no failure in this undertaking.

 

Q: My thoughts will not let me.

 

M: Pay no attention. Don't fight them. Just do nothing about them,

let them be, whatever they are. Your very fighting them gives them

life. Just disregard. Look through. Remember to remember: 'whatever

happens -- happens because I am'. All reminds you that you are. Take

full advantage of the fact that to experience you must be. You need

not stop thinking. Just cease being interested. It is

disinterestedness that liberates. Don't hold on, that is all. The

world is made of rings. The hooks are all yours. Make straight your

hooks and nothing can hold you. Give up your addictions. There is

nothing else to give up. Stop your routine of acquisitiveness, your

habit of looking for results and the freedom of the universe is

yours. Be effortless.

 

Q: Life is effort. There are so many things to do.

 

M: What needs doing, do it. Don't resist. Your balance must be

dynamic, based on doing just the right thing, from moment to moment.

Don't be a child unwilling to grow up. Stereotyped gestures and

postures will not help you. Rely entirely on your clarity of thought,

purity of motive and integrity of action. You cannot possibly go

wrong . Go beyond and leave all behind.

 

Q: But can anything be left for good?

 

M: You want something like a round-the-clock ecstasy. Ecstasies come

and go, necessarily, for the human brain cannot stand the tension for

a long time. A prolonged ecstasy will burn out your brain, unless it

is extremely pure and subtle. In nature nothing is at stand-still,

everything pulsates, appears and disappears. Heart, breath,

digestion, sleep and waking -- birth and death everything comes and

goes in waves. Rhythm, periodicity, harmonious alternation of

extremes is the rule. No use rebelling against the very pattern of

life. If you seek the Immutable, go beyond experience. When I say:

remember 'I am' all the time, I mean: 'come back to it repeatedly'.

No particular thought can be mind's natural state, only silence. Not

the idea of silence, but silence itself. When the mind is in its

natural state, it reverts to silence spontaneously after every

experience or, rather, every experience happens against the

background of silence.

 

Now, what you have learnt here becomes the seed. You may forget it --

apparently. But it will live and in due season sprout and grow and

bring forth flowers and fruits. All will happen by itself. You need

not do anything, only don't prevent it.

 

52. Being Happy, Making Happy is the Rhythm of Life

Questioner: I came from Europe a few months ago on one of my

periodical visits to my Guru near Calcutta. Now I am on my way back

home. I was invited by a friend to meet you and I am glad I came.

 

Maharaj: What did you learn from your Guru and what practice did you

follow?

 

Q: He is a venerable old man of about eighty. Philosophically he is

a Vedantin and the practice he teaches has much to do with rousing

the unconscious energies of the mind and bringing the hidden

obstacles and blockages into the conscious. My personal sadhana was

related to my peculiar problem of early infancy and childhood. My

mother could not give me the feeling of being secure and loved, so

important to the child's normal development. She was a woman not fit

to be a mother; ridden with anxieties and neuroses, unsure of

herself, she felt me to be a responsibility and a burden beyond her

capacity to bear. She never wanted me to be born. She did not want me

to grow and to develop, she wanted me back in her womb, unborn, non­

existent. Any movement of life in me she resisted, any attempt to go

beyond the narrow circle of her habitual existence she fought

fiercely. As a child I was both sensitive and affectionate. I craved

for love above everything else and love, the simple, instinctive love

of a mother for her child was denied me. The child's search for its

mother became the leading motive of my life and I never grew out of

it. A happy child, a happy childhood became an obsession with me.

Pregnancy, birth, infancy interested me passionately. I became an

obstetrician of some renown and contributed to the development of the

method of painless childbirth. A happy child of a happy mother --

that was my ideal all my life. But my mother was always there --

unhappy herself, unwilling and incapable to see me happy. It

manifested itself in strange ways. Whenever I was unwell, she felt

better; when I was in good shape, she was down again, cursing herself

and me too. As if she never forgave me my crime of having been born,

she made me feel guilty of being alive. 'You live because you hate

me. If you love me -- die', was her constant, though silent message.

And so I spent my life, being offered death instead of love.

Imprisoned, as I was, in my mother, the perennial infant, I could not

develop a meaningful relation with a woman; the image of the mother

would stand between, unforgiving, unforgiven. I sought solace in my

work and found much; but I could not move from the pit of infancy.

Finally, I turned to spiritual search and I am on this line steadily

for many years. But, in a way it is the same old search for mother's

love, call it God or Atma or Supreme Reality. Basically I want to

love and be loved; unfortunately the so-called religious people are

against life and all for the mind. When faced with life's needs and

urges, they begin by classifying, abstracting and conceptualising and

then make the classification more important than life itself. They

ask to concentrate on and impersonate a concept. Instead of the

spontaneous integration through love they recommend a deliberate and

laborious concentration on a formula. Whether it is God or Atma, the

me or the other, it comes to the same! Something to think about, not

somebody to love. It is not theories and systems that I need; there

are many equally attractive or plausible. I need a stirring of the

heart, a renewal of life, and not a new way of thinking. There are no

new ways of thinking, but feelings can be ever fresh. When I love

somebody, I meditate on him spontaneously and powerfully, with warmth

and vigour, which my mind cannot command.

 

Words are good for shaping feelings; words without feeling are like

clothes with no body inside -- cold and limp. This mother of mine --

she drained me of all feelings -- my sources have run dry. Can I find

here the richness and abundance of emotions, which I needed in such

ample measure as a child?

 

M: Where is your childhood now? And what is your future?

 

Q: I was born, I have grown, I shall die.

 

M: You mean your body, of course. And your mind. I am not talking of

your physiology and psychology. They are a part of nature and are

governed by nature's laws. I am talking of your search for love. Had

it a beginning? Will it have an end?

 

Q: I really cannot say. It is there -- from the earliest to the

last moment of my life. This yearning for love -- how constant and

how hopeless!

 

M: In your search for love what exactly are you searching for?

 

Q: Simply this: to love and to be loved.

 

M: You mean a woman?

 

Q: Not necessarily. A friend, a teacher, a guide -- as long as the

feeling is bright and clear. Of course, a woman is the usual answer.

But it need not be the only one.

 

M: Of the two what would you prefer, to love or to be loved?

 

Q: I would rather have both! But I can see that to love is greater,

nobler, deeper. To be loved is sweet, but it does not make one grow.

 

M: Can you love on your own, or must you be made to love?

 

Q: One must meet somebody lovable, of course. My mother was not

only not loving, she was also not lovable.

 

M: What makes a person lovable? Is it not the being loved? First you

love and then you look for reasons.

 

Q: It can be the other way round. You love what makes you happy.

 

M: But what makes you happy?

 

Q: There is no rule about it. The entire subject is highly

individual and unpredictable.

 

M: Right. Whichever way you put it, unless you love there is no

happiness. But, does love make you always happy? Is not the

association of love with happiness a rather early, infantile stage?

When the beloved suffers, don't you suffer too? And do you cease to

love, because you suffer? Must love and happiness come and go

together? Is love merely the expectation of pleasure?

 

Q: Of course not. There can be much suffering in love.

 

M: Then what is love? Is it not a state of being rather than a state

of mind? Must you know that you love in order to love? Did you. not

love your mother unknowingly? Your craving for her love, for an

opportunity to love her, is it not the movement of love? Is not love

as much a part of you, as consciousness of being? You sought the love

of your mother, because you loved her.

 

Q: But she would not let me!

 

M: She could not stop you.

 

Q: Then, why was I unhappy all my life?

 

M: Because you did not go down to the very roots of your being. It

is your complete ignorance of yourself, that covered up your love and

happiness and made you seek for what you had never lost. Love is

will, the will to share your happiness with all. Being happy --

making happy -- this is the rhythm of love.

 

53. Desires Fulfilled, Breed More Desires

Questioner: I must confess I came today in a rebellious mood. I got a

raw deal at the airlines office. When faced with such situations

everything seems doubtful, everything seems useless.

 

Maharaj: This is a very useful mood. Doubting all, refusing all,

unwilling to learn through another. It is the fruit of your long

sadhana. After all one does not study for ever.

 

Q: Enough of it. It took me nowhere.

 

M: Don't say 'nowhere'. It took you where you are -- now.

 

Q: It is again the child and its tantrums. I have not moved an inch

from where I was.

 

M: You began as a child and you will end as a child. Whatever you

have acquired in the meantime you must lose and start at the

beginning.

 

Q: But the child kicks. When it is unhappy or denied anything it

kicks.

 

M: Let it kick. Just look at the kicking. And if you are too afraid

of the society to kick convincingly look at that too. I know it is a

painful business. But there is no remedy -- except one -- the search

for remedies must cease.

 

If you are angry or in pain, separate yourself from anger and pain

and watch them. Externalisation is the first step to liberation. Step

away and look. The physical events will go on happening, but by

themselves they have no importance. It is the mind alone that

matters. Whatever happens, you cannot kick and scream in an airline

office or in a Bank. Society does not allow it. If you do not like

their ways, or are not prepared to endure them, don't fly or carry

money. Walk, and if you cannot walk, don't travel. If you deal with

society you must accept its ways, for its ways are your ways. Your

needs and demands have created them. Your desires are so complex and

contradictory -- no wonder the society you create is also complex and

contradictory.

 

Q: I do see and admit that the outer chaos is merely a reflection

of my own inner disharmony. But what is the remedy?

 

M: Don't seek remedies.

 

Q: Sometimes one is in a 'state of grace' and life is happy and

harmonious. But such a state does not last! The mood changes and all

goes wrong.

 

M: If you could only keep quiet, clear of memories and expectations,

you would be able to discern the beautiful pattern of events. It is

your restlessness that causes chaos.

 

Q: For full three hours that I spent in the airline office I was

practising patience and forbearance. It did not speed up matters.

 

M: At least it did not slow them down, as your kicking would have

surely done! You want immediate results! We do not dispense magic

here. Everybody does the same mistake: refusing the means, but

wanting the ends. You want peace and harmony in the world, but refuse

to have them in yourself. Follow my advice implicitly and you will

not be disappointed. I cannot solve your problem by mere words. You

have to act on what I told you and persevere. It is not the right

advice that liberates, but the action based on it. Just like a

doctor, after giving the patient an injection, tells him: 'Now, keep

quiet. Do nothing more, just keep quiet,' I am telling you: you have

got your 'injection', now keep quiet, just keep quiet. You have

nothing else to do. My Guru did the same. He would tell me something

and then said: 'Now keep quiet. Don't go on ruminating all the time.

Stop. Be silent'.

 

Q: I can keep quiet for an hour in the morning. But the day is long

and many things happen that throw me out of balance. It is easy to

say 'be silent', but to be silent when all is screaming in me and

round me -- please tell me how it is done.

 

M: All that needs doing can be done in peace and silence. There is

no need to get upset.

 

Q: It is all theory which does not fit the facts. I am returning to

Europe with nothing to do there. My life is completely empty.

 

M: If you just try to keep quiet, all will come -- the work, the

strength for work, the right motive. Must you know everything

beforehand? Don't be anxious about your future -- be quiet now and

all will fall in place. The unexpected is bound to happen, while the

anticipated may never come. Don't tell me you cannot control your

nature. You need not control it. Throw it overboard. Have no nature

to fight, or to submit to. No experience will hurt you, provided you

don't make it into a habit. Of the entire universe you are the subtle

cause. All is because you are. Grasp this point firmly and deeply and

dwell on it repeatedly. To realise this as absolutely true, is

liberation.

 

Q: If I am the seed of my universe, then a rotten seed I am! By the

fruit the seed is known.

 

M: What is wrong with your world that you swear at it?

 

Q: It is full of pain.

 

M: Nature is neither pleasant nor painful. It is all intelligence

and beauty. Pain and pleasure are in the mind. Change your scale of

values and all will change. Pleasure and pain are mere disturbances

of the senses; treat them equally and there will be only bliss. And

the world is, what you make it; by all means make it happy. Only

contentment can make you happy -- desires fulfilled breed more

desires. Keeping away from all desires and contentment in what comes

by itself is a very fruitful state -- a precondition to the state of

fullness. Don't distrust its apparent sterility and emptiness.

Believe me, it is the satisfaction of desires that breeds misery.

Freedom from desires is bliss.

 

Q: There are things we need.

 

M: What you need will come to you, if you do not ask for what you do

not need. Yet only few people reach this state of complete dispassion

and detachment. It is a very high state, the very threshold of

liberation.

 

Q: I have been barren for the last two years, desolate and empty

and often was I praying for death to come.

 

M: Well, with your coming here events have started rolling. Let

things happen as they happen -- they will sort themselves out nicely

in the end. You need not strain towards the future -- the future will

come to you on its own. For some time longer you will remain sleep-

walking, as you do now, bereft of meaning and assurance; but this

period will end and you will find your work both fruitful and easy.

There are always moments when one feels empty and estranged. Such

moments are most desirable for it means the soul had cast its

moorings and is sailing for distant places. This is detachment --

when the old is over and the new has not yet come. If you are afraid,

the state may be distressing; but there is really nothing to be

afraid of. Remember the instruction: whatever you come across -- go

beyond.

 

Q: The Buddhas rule: to remember what needs to be remembered. But I

find it so difficult to remember the right thing at the right moment.

With me forgetting seems to be the rule!

 

M: It is not easy to remember when every situation brings up a storm

of desires and fears. Craving born of memory is also the destroyer of

memory.

 

Q: How am I to fight desire? There is nothing stronger.

 

M: The waters of life are thundering over the rocks of objects --

desirable or hateful. Remove the rocks by insight and detachment and

the same waters will flow deep and silent and swift, in greater

volume and with greater power. Don't be theoretical about it, give

time to thought and consideration; if you desire to be free, neglect

not the nearest step to freedom. It is like climbing a mountain: not

a step can be missed. One step less -- and the summit is not reached.

 

54. Body and Mind are Symptoms of Ignorance

Questioner: We were discussing one day the person -- the witness --

the absolute (vyakti-vyakta-avyakta). As far as I remember, you said

that the absolute alone is real and the witness is absolute only at a

given point of space and time. The person is the organism, gross and

subtle, illumined by the presence of the witness. I do not seem to

grasp the matter clearly; could we discuss it again? You also use the

terms mahadakash, chidakash and paramakash. How are they related to

person, witness, and the absolute?

 

Maharaj: Mahadakash is nature, the ocean of existences, the physical

space with all that can be contacted through the senses. Chidakash is

the expanse of awareness, the mental space of time, perception and

cognition. Paramakash is the timeless and spaceless reality,

mindless, undifferentiated, the infinite potentiality, the source and

origin, the substance and the essence, both matter and consciousness -

- yet beyond both. It cannot be perceived, but can be experienced as

ever witnessing the witness, perceiving the perceiver, the origin and

the end of all manifestation, the root of time and space, the prime

cause in every chain of causation.

 

Q: What is the difference between vyakta and avyakta?

 

M: There is no difference. It is like light and daylight. The

universe is full of light which you do not see; but the same light

you see as daylight. And what the daylight reveals is the vyakti, The

person is always the object, the witness is the subject and their

relation of mutual dependence is the reflection of their absolute

identity. You imagine that they are distinct and separate states.

They are not. They are the same consciousness at rest and in

movement, each state conscious of the other. In chit man knows God

and God knows man. In chit the man shapes the world and the world

shapes man. Chit is the link, the bridge between extremes, the

balancing and uniting factor in every experience. The totality of the

perceived is what you call matter. The totality of all perceivers is

what you call the universal mind. The identity of the two,

manifesting itself as perceptibility and perceiving, harmony and

intelligence, loveliness and loving, reasserts itself eternally.

 

Q: The three gunas, sattva--rajas--tamas, are they only in matter,

or also in the mind?

 

M: In both, of course, because the two are not separate. It is only

the absolute that is beyond gunas. In fact, these are but points of

view, ways of looking. They exist only in the mind. Beyond the mind

all distinctions cease.

 

Q: Is the universe a product of the senses?

 

M: Just as you recreate your world on waking up, so is the universe

unrolled. The mind with its five organs of perception, five organs of

action, and five vehicles of consciousness appears as memory,

thought, reason and selfhood.

 

Q: The sciences have made much progress. We know the body and the

mind much better than our ancestors. Your traditional way, describing

and analysing mind and matter, is no longer valid.

 

M: But where are your scientists with their sciences? Are they not

again images in your own mind?

 

Q: Here lies the basic difference! To me they are not my own

projections. They were before I was born and shall be there when I am

dead.

 

M: Of course. Once you accept time and space as real, you will

consider yourself minute and short-lived. But are they real? Do they

depend on you, or you on them? As body, you are in space. As mind,

you are in time. But are you mere body with a mind in it? Have you

ever investigated?

 

Q: I had neither the motive nor the method.

 

M: I am suggesting both. But the actual work of insight and

detachment (viveka-vairagya) is yours.

 

Q: The only motive I can perceive is my own causeless and timeless

happiness. And what is the method?

 

M: Happiness is incidental. The true and effective motive is love.

You see people suffer and you seek the best way of helping them. The

answer is obvious -- first put yourself beyond the need of help. Be

sure your attitude is of pure goodwill, free of expectation of any

kind.

 

Those who seek mere happiness may end up in sublime indifference,

while love will never rest.

 

As to method, there is only one -- you must come to know yourself --

both what you appear to be and what you are. Clarity and charity go

together -- each needs and strengthens the other.

 

Q: Compassion implies the existence of an objective world, full of

avoidable sorrow.

 

M: The world is not objective and the sorrow of it is not avoidable.

Compassion is but another word for the refusal to suffer for

imaginary reasons.

 

Q: If the reasons are imaginary, why should the suffering be

inevitable?

 

M: It is always the false that makes you suffer, the false desires

and fears, the false values and ideas, the false relationships

between people. Abandon the false and you are free of pain; truth

makes happy -- truth liberates.

 

Q: The truth is that I am a mind imprisoned in a body and this is a

very unhappy truth.

 

M: You are neither the body nor in the body -- there is no such

thing as body. You have grievously misunderstood yourself; to

understand rightly -- investigate.

 

Q: But I was born as a body, in a body and shall die with the body,

as a body.

 

M: This is your misconception. Enquire, investigate, doubt yourself

and others. To find truth, you must not cling to your convictions; if

you are sure of the immediate, you will never reach the ultimate.

Your idea that you were born and that you will die is absurd: both

logic and experience contradict it.

 

Q: All right, I shall not insist that I am the body. You have a

point here. But here and now, as I talk to you, I am in my body --

obviously. The body may not be me, but it is mine.

 

M: The entire universe contributes incessantly to your existence.

Hence the entire universe is your body. In that sense -- I agree.

 

Q: My body influences me deeply. In more than one way my body is my

destiny. My character, my moods, the nature of my reactions, my

desires and fears -- inborn or acquired -- they are all based on the

body. A little alcohol, some drug or other and all changes. Until the

drug wears off I become another man.

 

M: All this happens because you think yourself to be the body.

realise your real self and even drugs will have no power over you.

 

Q: You smoke?

 

M: My body kept a few habits which may as well continue till it

dies. There is no harm in them.

 

Q: You eat meat?

 

M: I was born among meat-eating people and my children are eating

meat. I eat very little -- and make no fuss.

 

Q: Meat-eating implies killing.

 

M: Obviously. I make no claims of consistency. You think absolute

consistency is possible; prove it by example. Don't preach what you

do not practise.

 

Coming back to the idea of having been born. You are stuck with what

your parents told you: all about conception, pregnancy and birth,

infant, child, youngster, teenager, and so on. Now, divest yourself

of the idea that you are the body with the help of the contrary idea

that you are not the body. It is also an idea, no doubt; treat it

like something to be abandoned when its work is done. The idea that I

am not the body gives reality to the body, when in fact, there is no

such thing as body, it is but a state of mind. You can have as many

bodies and as diverse as you like; just remember steadily what you

want and reject the incompatibles.

 

Q: I am like a box within box, within box, the outer box acting as

the body and the one next to it -- as the indwelling soul. Abstract

the outer box and the next becomes the body and the one next to it

the soul. It is an infinite series, an endless opening of boxes, is

the last one the ultimate soul?

 

M: If you have a body, you must have a soul; here your simile of a

nest of boxes applies. But here and now, through all your bodies and

souls shines awareness, the pure light of chit. Hold on to it

unswervingly. Without awareness, the body would not last a second.

There is in the body a current of energy, affection and intelligence,

which guides, maintains and energises the body. Discover that current

and stay with it.

 

Of course, all these are manners of speaking. Words are as much a

barrier, as a bridge. Find the spark of life that weaves the tissues

of your body and be with it. It is the only reality the body has.

 

Q: What happens to that spark of life after death?

 

M: It is beyond time. Birth and death are but points in time. Life

weaves eternally its many webs. The weaving is in time, but life

itself is timeless. Whatever name and shape you give to its

expressions, it is like the ocean -- never changing, ever changing.

 

Q: All you say sounds beautifully convincing. yet my feeling of

being just a person in a world strange and alien, often inimical and

dangerous, does not cease. Being a person, limited in space and time,

how can I possibly realise myself as the opposite; a de-personalised,

universalised awareness of nothing in particular?

 

M: You assert yourself to be what you are not and deny yourself to

be what you are. You omit the element of pure cognition, of awareness

free from all personal distortions. Unless you admit the reality of

chit, you will never know yourself.

 

Q: What am I to do? I do not see myself as you see me. Maybe you

are right and I am wrong, but how can I cease to be what I feel I am?

 

M: A prince who believes himself to be a beggar can be convinced

conclusively in one way only: he must behave as a prince and see what

happens. Behave as if what I say is true and judge by what actually

happens. All I ask is the little faith needed for making the first

step. With experience will come confidence and you will not need me

any more. I know what you are and I am telling you. Trust me for a

while.

 

Q: To be here and now, I need my body and its senses. To

understand, I need a mind.

 

M: The body and the mind are only symptoms of ignorance, of

misapprehension. Behave as if you were pure awareness, bodiless and

mindless, spaceless and timeless, beyond 'where' and 'when'

and 'how'. Dwell on it, think of it, learn to accept its reality.

Don't oppose it and deny it all the time. Keep an open mind at least.

Yoga is bending the outer to the inner. Make your mind and body

express the real which is all and beyond all. By doing you succeed,

not by arguing.

 

Q: Kindly allow me to come back to my first question. How does the

error of being a person originate?

 

M: The absolute precedes time. Awareness comes first. A bundle of

memories and mental habits attracts attention, awareness gets

focalised and a person suddenly appears. Remove the light of

awareness, go to sleep or swoon away -- and the person disappears.

The person (vyakti) flickers, awareness (vyakta) contains all space

and time, the absolute (avyakta) is.

 

55. Give up All and You Gain All

Questioner: What is your state at the present moment?

 

Maharaj: A state of non-experiencing. In it all experience is included

 

Q: Can you enter into the mind and heart of another man and share

his experience?

 

M: No. Such things require special training. I am like a dealer In

wheat. I know little about breads and cakes. Even the taste of a

wheat-gruel I may not know. But about the wheat grain I know all and

well. I know the source of all experience. But the innumerable

particular forms experience can take I do not know. Nor do I need to

know. From moment to moment, the little I need to know to live my

life, I somehow happen to know.

 

Q: Your particular existence and my particular existence, do they

both exist in the mind of Brahma?

 

M: The universal is not aware of the particular. The existence as a

person is a personal matter. A person exists in time and space, has

name and shape, beginning and end; the universal includes all persons

and the absolute is at the root of and beyond all.

 

Q: I am not concerned with the totality. My personal consciousness

and your personal consciousness -- what is the link between the two?

 

M: Between two dreamers what can be the link?

 

Q: They may dream of each other.

 

M: That is what people are doing. Everyone imagines 'others' and

seeks a link with them. The seeker is the link, there is none other.

 

Q: Surely there must be something in common between the many points

of consciousness we are.

 

M: Where are the many points? In your mind. You insist that your

world is independent of your mind. How can it be? Your desire to know

other people's minds is due to your not knowing your own mind. First

know your own mind and you will find that the question of other minds

does not arise at all, for there are no other people. You are the

common factor, the only link between the minds. Being is

consciousness; 'I am' applies to all.

 

Q: The Supreme Reality (Parabrahman) may be present in all of us.

But of what use is it to us?

 

M: You are like a man who says: 'I need a place where to keep my

things, but of what use is space to me?' or 'I need milk, tea, coffee

or soda, but for water I have no use'. Don't you see that the Supreme

Reality is what makes everything possible? But if you ask of what use

is it to you, I must answer: 'None'. In matters of daily life the

knower of the real has no advantage: he may be at a disadvantage

rather: being free from greed and fear, he does not protect himself.

The very idea of profit is foreign to him; he abhors accretions; his

life is constant divesting oneself, sharing, giving.

 

Q: If there is no advantage in gaining the Supreme, then why take

the trouble?

 

M: There is trouble only when you cling to something. When you hold

on to nothing, no trouble arises. The relinquishing of the lesser is

the gaining of the greater. Give up all and you gain all. Then life

becomes what it was meant to be: pure radiation from an inexhaustible

source. In that light the world appears dimly like a dream.

 

Q: If my world is merely a dream and you are a part of it, what can

you do for me? If the dream is not real, having no being, how can

reality affect it?

 

M: While it lasts, the dream has temporary being. It is your desire

to hold on to it, that creates the problem. Let go. Stop imagining

that the dream is yours.

 

Q: You seem to take for granted that there can be a dream without a

dreamer and that I identify myself with the dream of my own sweet

will. But I am the dreamer and the dream too. Who is to stop dreaming?

 

M: Let the dream unroll itself to its very end. You cannot help it.

But you can look at the dream as a dream, refuse it the stamp of

reality.

 

Q: Here am I, sitting before you. I am dreaming and you are

watching me talking in my dream. What is the link between us?

 

M: My intention to wake you up is the link. My heart wants you

awake. I see you suffer in your dream and I know that you must wake

up to end your woes. When you see your dream as dream, you wake up.

But in your dream itself I am not interested. Enough for me to know

that you must wake up. You need not bring your dream to a definite

conclusion, or make it noble, or happy, or beautiful; all you need is

to realise that you are dreaming. Stop imagining, stop believing. See

the contradictions, the incongruities, the falsehood and the sorrow

of the human state, the need to go beyond. Within the immensity of

space floats a tiny atom of consciousness and in it the entire

universe is contained.

 

Q: There are affections in the dream which seem real and

everlasting. Do they disappear on waking up?

 

M: In dream you love some and not others. On waking up you find you

are love itself, embracing all. Personal love, however intense and

genuine, invariably binds; love in freedom is love of all.

 

Q: People come and go. One loves whom one meets, one cannot love

all.

 

M: When you are love itself, you are beyond time and numbers. In

loving one you love all, in loving all, you love each. One and all

are not exclusive.

 

Q: You say you are in a timeless state. Does it mean that past and

future are open to you? Did you meet Vashishta Muni, Rama's Guru?

 

M: The question is in time and about time. Again you are asking me

about the contents of a dream. Timelessness is beyond the illusion of

time, it is not an extension in time. He who called himself Vashishta

knew Vashishta. I am beyond all names and shapes. Vashishta is a

dream in your dream. How can I know him? You are too much concerned

with past and future. It is all due to your longing to continue, to

protect yourself against extinction. And as you want to continue, you

want others to keep you company, hence your concern with their

survival. But what you call survival is but the survival of a dream.

Death is preferable to it . There is a chance of waking up .

 

Q: You are aware of eternity, therefore you are not concerned with

survival.

 

M: It is the other way round. Freedom from all desire is eternity.

All attachment implies fear, for all things are transient. And fear

makes one a slave. This freedom from attachment does not come with

practice; it is natural, when one knows one's true being. Love does

not cling; clinging is not love.

 

Q: So there is no way to gain detachment?

 

M: There is nothing to gain. Abandon all imaginings and know

yourself as you are. Self-knowledge is detachment. All craving is due

to a sense of insufficiency. When you know that you lack nothing,

that all there is, is you and yours, desire ceases.

 

Q: To know myself must I practise awareness?

 

M: There is nothing to practise. To know yourself, be yourself. To

be yourself, stop imagining yourself to be this or that. Just be. Let

your true nature emerge. Don't disturb your mind with seeking.

 

Q: It will take much time if I Just wait for self-realisation.

 

M: What have you to wait for when it is already here and now? You

have only to look and see. Look at your self, at your own being. You

know that you are and you like it. Abandon all imagining, that is

all. Do not rely on time. Time is death. Who waits -- dies. Life is

now only. Do not talk to me about past and future -- they exist only

in your mind.

 

Q: You too will die.

 

M: I am dead already. Physical death will make no difference in my

case. I am timeless being. I am free of desire or fear, because I do

not remember the past, or imagine the future. Where there are no

names and shapes, how can there be desire and fear? With

desirelessness comes timelessness. I am safe, because what is not,

cannot touch what is. You feel unsafe, because you imagine danger. Of

course, your body as such is complex and vulnerable and needs

protection. But not you. Once you realise your own unassailable

being, you will be at peace.

 

Q: How can I find peace when the world suffers?

 

M: The world suffers for very valid reasons. If you want to help the

world, you must be beyond the need of help. Then all your doing as

well as not doing will help the world most effectively.

 

Q: How can non-action be of use where action is needed?

 

M: Where action is needed, action happens. Man is not the actor. His

is to be aware of what is going on. His very presence is action. The

window is the absence of the wall and it gives air and light because

it is empty. Be empty of all mental content, of all imagination and

effort, and the very absence of obstacles will cause reality to rush

in. If you really want to help a person, keep away. If you are

emotionally committed to helping, you will fail to help. You may be

very busy and be very pleased with your charitable nature, but not

much will be done. A man is really helped when he is no longer in

need of help. All else is just futility.

 

Q: There is not enough time to sit and wait for help to happen. One

must do something.

 

M: By all means -- do. But what you can do is limited; the self

alone is unlimited. Give limitlessly -- of yourself. All else you can

give in small measures only. You alone are immeasurable. To help is

your very nature. Even when you eat and drink you help your body. For

yourself you need nothing. You are pure giving, beginning-less,

endless, inexhaustible. When you see sorrow and suffering, be with

it. Do not rush into activity. Neither learning nor action can really

help. Be with sorrow and lay bare its roots -- helping to understand

is real help.

 

Q: My death is nearing.

 

M: Your body is short of time, not you. Time and space are in the

mind only. You are not bound. Just understand yourself -- that itself

is eternity.

 

56. Consciousness Arising, World Arises

Questioner: When an ordinary man dies, what happens to him?

 

Maharaj: According to his belief it happens, As life before death is

but imagination, so is life after. The dream continues.

 

Q: And what about the jnani?

 

M: The jnani does not die because he was never born.

 

Q: He appears so to others.

 

M: But not to himself. In himself he is free of things -- physical

and mental.

 

Q: Still you must know the state of the man who died. At least from

your own past lives.

 

M: Until I met my Guru I knew so many things. Now I know nothing,

for all knowledge is in dream only and not valid. I know myself and I

find no life nor death in me, only pure being -- not being this or

that, but just being. But the moment the mind, drawing on its stock

of memories, begins to imagine, it fills the space with objects and

time with events. As I do not know even this birth, how can I know

past births? It is the mind that, itself in movement, sees everything

moving, and having created time, worries about the past and future.

All the universe is cradled in consciousness (maha tattva), which

arises where there is perfect order and harmony (maha sattva). As all

waves are in the ocean, so are all things physical and mental in

awareness. Hence awareness itself is all important, not the content

of it. Deepen and broaden your awareness of yourself and all the

blessings will flow. You need not seek anything, all will come to you

most naturally and effortlessly. The five senses and the four

functions of the mind -- memory, thought, understanding and selfhood;

the five elements -- earth, water, fire, air and ether; the two

aspects of creation -- matter and spirit, all are contained in

awareness.

 

Q: Yet, you must believe in having lived before.

 

M: The scriptures say so, but I know nothing about it. I know myself

as I am; as I appeared or will appear is not within my experience. It

is not that I do not remember. In fact there is nothing to remember.

Reincarnation implies a reincarnating self. There is no such thing.

The bundle of memories and hopes, called the 'I', imagines itself

existing everlastingly and creates time to accommodate its false

eternity: To be, I need no past or future. All experience is born of

imagination; I do not imagine, so no birth or death happens to me.

Only those who think themselves born can think themselves re-born.

You are accusing me of having been born -- I plead not guilty!

 

All exists in awareness and awareness neither dies nor is re­born. It

is the changeless reality itself.

 

All the universe of experience is born with the body and dies with

the body; it has its beginning and end in awareness, but awareness

knows no beginning, nor end. If you think it out carefully and brood

over it for a long time, you will come to see the light of awareness

in all its clarity and the world will fade out of your vision. It is

like looking at a burning incense stick, you see the stick and the

smoke first; when you notice the fiery point, you realise that it has

the power to consume mountains of sticks and fill the universe with

smoke. Timelessly the self actualises itself, without exhausting its

infinite possibilities. In the incense stick simile the stick is the

body and the smoke is the mind. As long as the mind is busy with its

contortions, it does not perceive its own source. The Guru comes and

turns your attention to the spark within. By its very nature the mind

is outward turned; it always tends to seek for the source of things

among the things themselves; to be told to look for the source

within, is, in a way, the beginning of a new life. Awareness takes

the place of consciousness; in consciousness there is the 'I', who is

conscious while awareness is undivided; awareness is aware of itself.

The 'I am' is a thought, while awareness is not a thought, there is

no 'I am aware' in awareness. Consciousness is an attribute while

awareness is not; one can be aware of being conscious, but not

conscious of awareness. God is the totality of consciousness, but

awareness is beyond all -- being as well as not-being.

 

Q: I had started with the question about the condition of a man

after death. When his body is destroyed, what happens to his

consciousness? Does he carry his senses of seeing, hearing etc. along

with him or does he leave them behind? And, if he loses his senses,

what becomes to his consciousness?

 

M: Senses are mere modes of perception. As the grosser modes

disappear, finer states of consciousness emerge.

 

Q: Is there no transition to awareness after death?

 

M: There can be no transition from consciousness to awareness, for

awareness is not a form of consciousness. Consciousness can only

become more subtle and refined and that is what happens after death.

As the various vehicles of man die off, the modes of consciousness

induced by them also fade away.

 

Q: Until only unconsciousness remains?

 

M: Look at yourself talking of unconsciousness as something that

comes and goes! Who is there to be conscious of unconsciousness? As

long as the window is open, there is sunlight in the room. With the

windows shut, the sun remains, but does it see the darkness in the

room? Is there anything like darkness to the sun? There is no such

thing as unconsciousness, for unconsciousness is not experienceable.

We infer unconsciousness when there is a lapse in memory or

communication. If I stop reacting, you will say that I am

unconscious. In reality I may be most acutely conscious, only unable

to communicate or remember.

 

Q: I am asking a simple question: there are about four billion

people in the world and they are all bound to die. What will be their

condition after death -- not physically, but psychologically? Will

their consciousness continue? And if it does, in what form? Do not

tell me that I am not asking the right question, or that you do not

know the answer, or that in your world my question is meaningless;

the moment you start talking about your world and my world as

different and incompatible, you build a wall between us. Either we

live in one world or your experience is of no use to us.

 

M: Of course we live in one world. Only I see it as it is, while you

don't. You see yourself in the world, while I see the world in

myself. To you, you get born and die, while to me, the world appears

and disappears. Our world is real, but your view of it is not. There

is no wall between us, except the one built by you. There is nothing

wrong with the senses, it is your imagination that misleads you. It

covers up the world as it is, with what you imagine it to be --

something existing independently of you and yet closely following

your inherited, or acquired patterns. There is a deep contradiction

in your attitude, which you do not see and which is the cause of

sorrow. You cling to the idea that you were born into a world of pain

and sorrow; I know that the world is a child of love, having its

beginning, growth and fulfilment in love. But I am beyond love even.

 

Q: If you have created the world out of love, why is it so full of

pain?

 

M: You are right -- from the body's point of view. But you are not

the body. You are the immensity and infinity of consciousness. Don't

assume what is not true and you will see things as I see them. Pain

and pleasure, good and bad, right and wrong: these are relative terms

and must not be taken absolutely. They are limited and temporary.

 

Q: In the Buddhist tradition it is stated that a Nirvani, an

enlightened Buddha, has the freedom of the universe. He can know and

experience for himself all that exists. He can command, interfere

with nature, with the chain of causation, change the sequence of

events, even undo the past! The world is still with him but he is

free in it.

 

M: What you describe is God. Of course, where there is a universe,

there will also be its counterpart, which is God. But I am beyond

both. There was a kingdom in search of a king. They found the right

man and made him king. In no way had he changed. He was merely given

the title, the rights and the duties of a king. His nature was not

affected, only his actions. Similarly, with the enlightened man; the

content of his consciousness undergoes a radical transformation. But

he is not misled. He knows the changeless.

 

Q: The changeless cannot be conscious. Consciousness is always of

change. The changeless leaves no trace in consciousness.

 

M: Yes and no. The paper is not the writing, yet it carries the

writing. The ink is not the message, nor is the reader's mind the

message -- but they all make the message possible.

 

Q: Does consciousness come down from reality or is it an attribute

of matter?

 

M: Consciousness as such is the subtle counterpart of matter. Just

as inertia (tamas) and energy (rajas) are attributes of matter, so

does harmony (sattva) manifest itself as consciousness. You may

consider it in a way as a form of very subtle energy. Wherever matter

organises itself into a stable organism, consciousness appears

spontaneously. With the destruction of the organism consciousness

disappears.

 

Q: Then what survives?

 

M: That, of which matter and consciousness are but aspects, which is

neither born nor dies.

 

Q: If it is beyond matter and consciousness, how can it be

experienced?

 

M: It can be known by its effects on both; look for it in beauty and

in bliss. But you will understand neither body nor consciousness,

unless you go beyond both.

 

Q: Please tell us squarely: are you conscious or unconscious?

 

M: The enlightened (jnani) is neither. But in his enlightenment

(jnana) all is contained. Awareness contains every experience. But he

who is aware is beyond every experience. He is beyond awareness

itself.

 

Q: There is the background of experience, call it matter. There is

the experiencer, call it mind. What makes the bridge between the two?

 

M: The very gap between is the bridge. That, which at one end looks

like matter and at the other as mind, is in itself the bridge. Don't

separate reality into mind and body and there will be no need of

bridges.

 

Consciousness arising, the world arises. When you consider the wisdom

and the beauty of the world, you call it God. Know the source of it

all, which is in yourself, and you will find all your questions

answered.

 

Q: The seer and the seen: are they one or two?

 

M: There is only seeing; both the seer and the seen are contained in

it. Don't create differences where there are none.

 

Q: I began with the question about the man who died. You said that

his experiences will shape themselves according to his expectations

and beliefs.

 

M: Before you were born you expected to live according to a plan,

which you yourself had laid down. Your own will was the backbone of

your destiny.

 

Q: Surely, karma interfered.

 

M: Karma shapes the circumstances: the attitudes are your own.

Ultimately your character shapes your life and you alone can shape

your character.

 

Q: How does one shape one's character?

 

M: By seeing it as it is, and being sincerely sorry. This integral

seeing-feeling can work miracles. It is like casting a bronze image;

metal alone, or fire alone will not do; nor will the mould be of any

use; you have to melt down the metal in the heat of the fire and cast

it in the mould.

 

57. Beyond Mind there is no Suffering

Questioner: I see you sitting in your son's house waiting for lunch

to be served. And I wonder whether the content of your consciousness

is similar to mine, or partly different, or totally different. Are

you hungry and thirsty as I am, waiting rather impatiently for the

meals to be served, or are you in an altogether different state of

mind?

 

Maharaj: There is not much difference on the surface, but very much

of it in depth. You know yourself only through the senses and the

mind. You take yourself to be what they suggest; having no direct

knowledge of yourself, you have mere ideas; all mediocre, second-

hand, by hearsay. Whatever you think you are you take it to be true;

the habit of imagining yourself perceivable and describable is very

strong with you.

 

I see as you see, hear as you hear, taste as you taste, eat as you

eat. I also feel thirst and hunger and expect my food to be served on

time. When starved or sick, my body and mind go weak. All this I

perceive quite clearly, but somehow I am not in it, I feel myself as

if floating over it, aloof and detached. Even not aloof and detached.

There is aloofness and detachment as there is thirst and hunger;

there is also the awareness of it all and a sense of Immense

distance, as if the body and the mind and all that happens to them

were somewhere far out on the horizon. I am like a cinema screen --

clear and empty -- the pictures pass over it and disappear, leaving

it as clear and empty as before. In no way is the screen affected by

the pictures, nor are the pictures affected by the screen. The screen

intercepts and reflects the pictures, it does not shape them. It has

nothing to do with the rolls of films. These are as they are, lumps

of destiny (prarabdha), but not my destiny; the destinies of the

people on the screen.

 

Q: You do not mean to say that the people in a picture have

destinies! They belong to the story, the story is not theirs.

 

M: And what about you? Do you shape your life or are you shaped by

it?

 

Q: Yes, you are right. A life story unrolls itself of which I am

one of the actors. I have no being outside it, as it has no being

without me. I am merely a character, not a person.

 

M: The character will become a person, when he begins to shape his

life instead of accepting it as it comes, and identifying himself

with it.

 

Q: When I ask a question and you answer, what exactly happens?

 

M: The question and the answer -- both appear on the screen. The

lips move, the body speaks -- and again the screen is clear and empty.

 

Q: When you say: clear and empty, what do you mean?

 

M: I mean free of all contents. To myself I am neither perceivable

nor conceivable; there is nothing I can point out and say: 'this I

am'. You identify yourself with everything so easily, I find it

impossible. The feeling: 'I am not this or that, nor is anything

mine' is so strong in me that as soon as a thing or a thought

appears, there comes at once the sense 'this I am not'.

 

Q: Do you mean to say that you spend your time repeating 'this I am

not, that I am not'?

 

M: Of course not. I am merely verbalizing for your sake. By the

grace of my Guru I have realised once and for good that I am neither

object nor subject and I do not need to remind myself all the time.

 

Q: I find it hard to grasp what exactly do you mean by saying that

you are neither the object nor the subject. At this very moment, as

we talk, am I not the object of your experience, and you the subject?

 

M: Look, my thumb touches my forefinger. Both touch and are touched.

When my attention; is on the thumb, the thumb is the feeler and the

forefinger -- the self. Shift the focus of attention and the

relationship is reversed. I find that somehow, by shifting the focus

of attention, I become the very thing I look at and experience the

kind of consciousness it has; I become the inner witness of the

thing. I call this capacity of entering other focal points of

consciousness -- love; you may give it any name you like. Love

says: 'I am everything'. Wisdom says: 'I am nothing' Between the two

my life flows. Since at any point of time and space I can be both the

subject and the object of experience, I express it by saying that I

am both, and neither, and beyond both.

 

Q: You make all these extraordinary statements about yourself. What

makes you say those things? What do you mean by saying that you are

beyond space and time?

 

M: You ask and the answer comes. I watch myself -- I watch the

answer and see no contradiction. It is clear to me that I am telling

you the truth. It is all very simple. Only you must trust me that I

mean what I say, that I am quite serious. As I told you already, my

Guru showed me my true nature -- and the true nature of the world.

Having realised that I am one with, and yet beyond the world, I

became free from all desire and fear. I did not reason out that I

should be free -- I found myself free -- unexpectedly, without the

least effort. This freedom from desire and fear remained with me

since then. Another thing I noticed was that I do not need to make an

effort; the deed follows the thought, without delay and friction. I

have also found that thoughts become self-fulfilling; things would

fall in place smoothly and rightly. The main change was in the mind;

it became motionless and silent, responding quickly, but not

perpetuating the response. Spontaneity became a way of life, the real

became natural and the natural became real. And above all, infinite

affection, love, dark and quiet, radiating in all directions,

embracing all, making all interesting and beautiful, significant and

auspicious.

 

Q: We are told that various Yogic powers arise spontaneously in a

man who has realised his own true being. What is your experience in

these matters?

 

M: Man's fivefold body (physical etc.) has potential powers beyond

our wildest dreams. Not only is the entire universe reflected in man,

but also the power to control the universe is waiting to be used by

him. The wise man is not anxious to use such powers, except when the

situation calls for them. He finds the abilities and skills of the

human personality quite adequate for the business of daily living.

Some of the powers can be developed by specialised training, but the

man who flaunts such powers is still in bondage. The wise man counts

nothing as his own. When at some time and place some miracle is

attributed to some person, he will not establish any causal link

between events and people, nor will he allow any conclusions to be

drawn. All happened as it happened because it had to happen

everything happens as it does, because the universe is as it is.

 

Q: The universe does not seem a happy place to live in. Why is

there so much suffering?

 

M: Pain is physical; suffering is mental. Beyond the mind there is

no suffering. Pain is merely a signal that the body is in danger and

requires attention. Similarly, suffering warns us that the structure

of memories and habits, which we call the person (vyakti), is

threatened by loss or change. Pain is essential for the survival of

the body, but none compels you to suffer. Suffering is due entirely

to clinging or resisting; it is a sign of our unwillingness to move

on, to flow with life.

 

As a sane life is free of pain, so is a saintly life free from

suffering.

 

Q: Nobody has suffered more than saints.

 

M: Did they tell you, or do you say so on your own? The essence of

saintliness is total acceptance of the present moment, harmony with

things as they happen. A saint does not want things to be different

from what they are; he knows that, considering all factors, they are

unavoidable. He is friendly with the inevitable and,. therefore, does

not suffer. Pain he may know, but it does not shatter him. If he can,

he does the needful to restore the lost balance -- or he lets things

take their course.

 

Q: He may die.

 

M: So what? What does he gain by living on and what does he lose by

dying? What was born, must die; what was never born cannot die. It

all depends on what he takes himself to be.

 

Q: Imagine you fall mortally ill. Would you not regret and resent?

 

M: But I am dead already, or, rather, neither alive nor dead. You

see my body behaving the habitual way and draw your own conclusions.

You will not admit that your conclusions bind nobody but you. Do see

that the image you have of me may be altogether wrong. Your image of

yourself is wrong too, but that is your problem. But you need not

create problems for me and then ask me to solve them. I am neither

creating problems nor solving them.

 

58. Perfection, Destiny of All

Questioner: When asked about the means for self-realisation, you

invariably stress the importance of the mind dwelling on the sense 'I

am'. Where is the causal factor? Why should this particular thought

result in self-realisation? How does the contemplation of 'I am'

affect me?

 

Maharaj: The very fact of observation alters the observer and the

observed. After all, what prevents the insight into one's true nature

is the weakness and obtuseness of the mind and its tendency to skip

the subtle and focus on the gross only. When you follow my advice and

try to keep your mind on the notion of 'I am' only, you become fully

aware of your mind and its vagaries. Awareness, being lucid harmony

(sattva) in action, dissolves dullness and quietens the restlessness

of the mind and gently, but steadily changes its very substance. This

change need not be spectacular; it may be hardly noticeable; yet it

is a deep and fundamental shift from darkness to light, from

inadvertence to awareness.

 

Q: Must it be the 'I am' formula? Will not any other sentence do?

If I concentrate on 'there is a table', will it not serve the same

purpose?

 

M: As an exercise in concentration -- yes. But it will not take you

beyond the idea of a table. You are not interested in tables, you

want to know yourself. For this keep steadily in the focus of

consciousness the only clue you have: your certainty of being. Be

with it, play with it, ponder over it, delve deeply into it, till the

shell of ignorance breaks open and you emerge into the realm of

reality.

 

Q: Is there any causal link between my focussing the 'I am' and the

breaking of the shell?

 

M: The urge to find oneself is a sign that you are getting ready.

The impulse always comes from within. Unless your time has come, you

will have neither the desire nor the strength to go for self-enquiry

whole-heartedly.

 

Q: Is not the grace of the Guru responsible for the desire and its

fulfilment? Is not the Guru's radiant face the bait on which we are

caught and pulled out of this mire of sorrow?

 

M: It is the Inner Guru (sadguru) who takes you to the Outer Guru,

as a mother takes her child to a teacher. Trust and obey your Guru,

for he is the messenger of your Real Self.

 

Q: How do I find a Guru whom I can trust?

 

M: Your own heart will tell you. There is no difficulty in finding a

Guru, because the Guru is in search of you. The Guru is always ready;

you are not ready. You have to be ready to learn; or you may meet

your Guru and waste your chance by sheer inattentiveness and

obstinacy. Take my example; there was nothing in me of much promise,

but when I met my Guru, I listened, trusted and obeyed.

 

Q: Must I not examine the teacher before I put myself entirely into

his hands?

 

M: By all means examine! But what can you find out? Only as he

appears to you on your own level.

 

Q: I shall watch whether he is consistent, whether there is harmony

between his life and his teaching.

 

M: You may find plenty of disharmony -- so what? It proves nothing.

Only motives matter. How will you know his motives?

 

Q: I should at least expect him to be a man of self-control who

lives a righteous life.

 

M: Such you will find many -- and of no use to you. A Guru can show

the way back home, to your real self. What has this to do with the

character, or temperament of the person he appears to be? Does he not

clearly tell you that he is not the person? The only way you can

judge is by the change in yourself when you are in his company. If

you feel more at peace and happy, if you understand yourself with

more than usual clarity and depth, it means you have met the right

man. Take your time, but once you have made up your mind to trust

him, trust him absolutely and follow every instruction fully and

faithfully. It does not matter much if you do not accept him as your

Guru and are satisfied with his company only. Satsang alone can also

take you to your goal, provided it is unmixed and undisturbed. But

once you accept somebody as your Guru, listen, remember and obey.

Half-heartedness is a serious drawback and the cause of much self-

created sorrow. The mistake is never the Guru's; it is always the

obtuseness and cussedness of the discipline that is at fault.

 

Q: Does the Guru then dismiss, or disqualify a disciple?

 

M: He would not be a Guru if he did! He bides his time and waits

till the disciple, chastened and sobered, comes back to him in a more

receptive mood.

 

Q: What is the motive? Why does the Guru take so much trouble?

 

M: Sorrow and the ending of sorrow. He sees people suffering in

their dreams and he wants them to wake up. Love is intolerant of pain

and suffering. The patience of a Guru has no limits and, therefore,

it cannot be defeated. The Guru never fails.

 

Q: Is my first Guru also my last, or do I have to pass from Guru to

Guru?

 

M: The entire universe is your Guru. You learn from everything, if

you are alert and intelligent. Were your mind clear and your heart

clean, you would learn from every passer-by;. It is because you are

indolent or restless, that your inner Self manifests as the outer

Guru and makes you trust him and obey.

 

Q: Is a Guru inevitable?

 

M: It is like asking 'Is a mother inevitable?' To rise in

consciousness from one dimension to another, you need help. The help

may not always be in the shape of a human person, it may be a subtle

presence, or a spark of intuition, but help must come. The inner Self

is watching and waiting for the son to return to his father. At the

right time he arranges everything affectionately and effectively.

Where a messenger is needed, or a guide, he sends the Guru to do the

needful.

 

Q: There is one thing I cannot grasp. You speak of the inner self

as wise and good and beautiful and in every way perfect, and of the

person as mere reflection without a being of its own. On the other

hand you take so much trouble in helping the person to realise

itself. If the person is so unimportant, why be so concerned with its

welfare? Who cares for a shadow?

 

M: You have brought in duality where there is none. There is the

body and there is the Self. Between them is the mind, in which the

Self is reflected as 'I am'. Because of the imperfections of the

mind, its crudity and restlessness, lack of discernment and insight,

it takes itself to be the body, not the Self. All that is needed is

to purify the mind so that it can realise its identity with the Self.

When the mind merges in the Self, the body presents no problems. It

remains what it is, an instrument of cognition and action, the tool

and the expression of the creative fire within: The ultimate value of

the body is that it serves to discover the cosmic body, which is the

universe in its entirety. As you realise yourself in manifestation,

you keep on discovering that you are ever more than what you have

imagined.

 

Q: Is there no end to self-discovery?

 

M: As there is no beginning, there is no end. But what I have

discovered by the grace of my Guru is: I am nothing that can be

pointed at. I am neither a 'this' nor a 'that'. This holds absolutely.

 

Q: Then, where comes in the never-ending discovery, the endless

transcending oneself into hew dimensions?

 

M: All this belongs to the realm of manifestation; it is in the very

structure of the universe, that the higher can be had only through

the freedom from the lower.

 

Q: What is lower and what is higher?

 

M: Look at it in terms of awareness. Wider and deeper consciousness

is higher. All that lives, works for protecting, perpetuating and

expanding consciousness. This is the world's sole meaning and

purpose. It is the very essence of Yoga -- ever raising the level of

consciousness, discovery of new dimensions, with their properties,

qualities and powers. In that sense the entire universe becomes a

school of Yoga (yogakshetra).

 

Q: Is perfection the destiny of all human beings?

 

M: Of all living beings -- ultimately. The possibility becomes a

certainty when the notion of enlightenment appears in the mind. Once

a living being has heard and understood that deliverance is within

his reach, he will never forget, for it is the first message from

within. It will take roots and grow and in due course take the

blessed shape of the Guru.

 

Q: So all we are concerned with is the redemption of the mind?

 

M: What else? The mind goes astray, the mind returns home. Even the

word 'astray' is not proper. The mind must know itself in every mood.

Nothing is a mistake unless repeated.

 

59. Desire and Fear: Self-centred States

Questioner: I would like to go again into the question of pleasure

and pain, desire and fear. I understand fear which is memory and

anticipation of pain. It is essential for the preservation of the

organism and its living pattern. Needs, when felt, are painful and

their anticipation is full of fear; we are rightly afraid of not

being able to meet our basic needs. The relief experienced when a

need is met, or an anxiety allayed is entirely due to the ending of

pain. We may give it positive names like pleasure, or joy, or

happiness, but essentially it is relief from pain. It is this fear of

pain that holds together our social, economic and political

institutions.

 

What puzzles me is that we derive pleasure from things and states of

mind, which have nothing to do with survival. On the contrary, our

pleasures are usually destructive. They damage or destroy the object,

the instrument and also the subject of pleasure. Otherwise, pleasure

and pursuit of pleasure would be no problem. This brings me to the

core of my question: why is pleasure destructive? Why, in spite of

its destructiveness, is it wanted?

 

I may add, I do not have in mind the pleasure-pain pattern by which

nature compels us to go her way. I think of the man-made pleasures,

both sensory and subtle, ranging from the grossest, like overeating,

to the most refined. Addiction to pleasure, at whatever cost, is so

universal that there must be something significant at the root of it.

 

Of course, not every activity of man must be utilitarian, designed to

meet a need. Play, for example, is natural and man is the most

playful animal in existence. Play fulfils the need for self-discovery

and self-development. But even on his play man becomes destructive of

nature, others and himself.

 

Maharaj: In short, you do not object to pleasure, but only to its

price in pain and sorrow.

 

Q: If reality itself is bliss, then pleasure in some way must be

related to it.

 

M: Let us not proceed by verbal logic. The bliss of reality does not

exclude suffering. Besides, you know only pleasure, not the bliss of

pure being. So let us examine pleasure at its own level.

 

If you look at yourself in your moments of pleasure or pain, you will

invariably find that it is not the thing in itself that is pleasant

or painful, but the situation of which it is a part. Pleasure lies in

the relationship between the enjoyer and the enjoyed. And the essence

of it is acceptance. Whatever may be the situation, if it is

acceptable, it is pleasant. If it is not acceptable, it is painful.

What makes it acceptable is not important; the cause may be physical,

or psychological, or untraceable; acceptance is the decisive factor.

Obversely, suffering is due to non­acceptance.

 

Q: Pain is not acceptable.

 

M: Why not? Did you ever try? Do try and you will find in pain a joy

which pleasure cannot yield, for the simple reason that acceptance of

pain takes you much deeper than pleasure does. The personal self by

its very nature is constantly pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain.

The ending of this pattern is the ending of the self. The ending of

the self with its desires and fears enables you to return to your

real nature, the source of all happiness and peace. The perennial

desire for pleasure is the reflection of the timeless harmony within.

It is an observable fact that one becomes self-conscious only when

caught in the conflict between pleasure and pain, which demands

choice and decision. It is this clash between desire and fear that

causes anger, which is the great destroyer of sanity in life. When

pain is accepted for what it is, a lesson and a warning, and deeply

looked into and heeded, the separation between pain and pleasure

breaks down, both become experience -- painful when resisted, joyful

when accepted.

 

Q: Do you advise shunning pleasure and pursuing pain?

 

M: No, nor pursuing pleasure and shunning pain. Accept both as they

come, enjoy both while they last, let them go, as they must.

 

Q: How can I possibly enjoy pain? Physical pain calls for action.

 

M: Of course. And so does Mental. The bliss is in the awareness of

it, in not shrinking, or in any way turning away from it. All

happiness comes from awareness. The more we are conscious, the deeper

the joy. Acceptance of pain, non-resistance, courage and endurance --

these open deep and perennial sources of real happiness, true bliss.

 

Q: Why should pain be more effective than pleasure?

 

M: Pleasure is readily accepted, while all the powers of the self

reject pain. As the acceptance of pain is the denial of the self, and

the self stands in the way of true happiness, the wholehearted

acceptance of pain releases the springs of happiness.

 

Q: Does the acceptance of suffering act the same way?

 

M: The fact of pain is easily brought within the focus of awareness.

With suffering it is not that simple. To focus suffering is not

enough, for mental life, as we know it, is one continuous stream of

suffering. To reach the deeper layers of suffering you must go to its

roots and uncover their vast underground network, where fear and

desire are closely interwoven and the currents of life's energy

oppose, obstruct and destroy each other.

 

Q: How can I set right a tangle which is entirely below the level

of my consciousness?

 

M: By being with yourself, the 'I am'; by watching yourself in your

daily life with alert interest, with the intention to understand

rather than to judge, in full acceptance of whatever may emerge,

because it is there, you encourage the deep to come to the surface

and enrich your life and consciousness with its captive energies.

This is the great work of awareness; it removes obstacles and

releases energies by understanding the nature of life and mind.

Intelligence is the door to freedom and alert attention is the mother

of intelligence.

 

Q: One more question. Why does pleasure end in pain?

 

M: Everything has a beginning and an end and so does pleasure. Don't

anticipate and don't regret, and there will be no pain. it is memory

and imagination that cause suffering.

 

Of course pain after pleasure may be due to the misuse of the body or

the mind. The body knows its measure, but the mind does not. Its

appetites are numberless and limitless. Watch your mind with great

diligence, for there lies your bondage and also the key to freedom.

 

Q: My question is not yet fully answered: Why are man's pleasures

destructive? Why does he find so much pleasure in destruction? Life's

concern lies in protection, perpetuation and expansion of itself. In

this it is guided by pain and pleasure. At what point do they become

destructive?

 

M: When the mind takes over, remembers and anticipates, it

exaggerates, it distorts, it overlooks. The past is projected into

future and the future betrays the expectations. The organs of

sensation and action are stimulated beyond capacity and they

inevitably break down. The objects of pleasure cannot yield what is

expected of them and get worn out, or destroyed, by misuse. It

results in excess of pain where pleasure was looked for.

 

Q: We destroy not only ourselves, but others too!

 

M: Naturally, selfishness is always destructive. Desire and fear,

both are self-centred states. Between desire and fear anger arises,

with anger hatred, with hatred passion for destruction. War is hatred

in action, organised and equipped with all the instruments of death.

 

Q: Is there a way to end these horrors?

 

M: When more people come to know their real nature, their influence,

however subtle, will prevail and the world's emotional atmosphere

will sweeten up. People follow their leaders and when among the

leaders appear some, great in heart and mind, and absolutely free

from self-seeking, their impact will be enough to make the crudities

and crimes of the present age impossible. A new golden age may come

and last for a time and succumb to its own perfection. For, ebb

begins when the tide is at its highest.

 

Q: Is there no such thing as permanent perfection?

 

M: Yes, there is, but it includes all imperfection. It is the

perfection of our self-nature which makes everything possible,

perceivable, interesting. It knows no suffering, for it neither likes

nor dislikes; neither accepts nor rejects. Creation and destruction

are the two poles between which it weaves its ever-changing pattern.

Be free from predilections and preferences and the mind with its

burden of sorrow will be no more.

 

Q: But I am not alone to suffer. There are others.

 

M: When you go to them with your desires and fears, you merely add

to their sorrows. First be free of suffering yourself and then only

hope of helping others. You do not even need to hope -- your very

existence will be the greatest help a man can give his fellowmen.