That I Am chpts.: 70-79 for everyone 'cept those who don't read the posts

[Guest guest]

70. God is the End of All Desire and Knowledge

Maharaj: Where are you coming from? What have you come for?

 

Questioner: I come from America and my friend is from the Republic of

Ireland. I came about six months ago and I was travelling from Ashram

to Ashram. My friend came on his own.

 

M: What have you seen?

 

Q: I have been at Sri Ramanashram and also I have visited

Rishikesh. Can I ask you what is your opinion of Sri Ramana Maharshi?

 

M: We are both in the same ancient state. But what do you know of

Maharshi? You take yourself to be a name and a body, so all you

perceive are names and bodies.

 

Q: Were you to meet the Maharshi, what would happen?

 

M: Probably we would feel quite happy. We may even exchange a few

words.

 

Q: But would he recognise you as a liberated man?

 

M: Of course. As a man recognises a man, so a jnani recognises a

jnani. You cannot appreciate what you have not experienced. You are

what you think yourself to be, but you cannot think yourself to be

what you have not experienced.

 

Q: To become an engineer I must learn engineering. To become God,

what must I learn?

 

M: You must unlearn everything. God is the end of all desire and

knowledge.

 

Q: You mean to say that I become God merely by giving up the desire

to become God?

 

M: All desires must be given up, because by desiring you take the

shape of your desires. When no desires remain, you revert to your

natural state.

 

Q: How do I come to know that I have achieved perfection?

 

M: You can not know perfection, you can know only imperfection. For

knowledge to be, there must be separation and disharmony. You can

know what you are not, but you can not know your real being. You can

be only what you are. The entire approach is through understanding,

which is in the seeing of the false as false. But to understand, you

must observe from outside.

 

Q: The Vedantic concept of Maya, illusion, applies to the

manifested. Therefore our knowledge of the manifested is unreliable.

But we should be able to trust our knowledge of the unmanifested.

 

M: There can be no knowledge of the unmanifested. The potential is

unknowable. Only the actual can be known.

 

Q: Why should the knower remain unknown?

 

M: The knower knows the known. Do you know the knower? Who is the

knower of the knower? You want to know the unmanifested. Can you say

you know the manifested?

 

Q: I know things and ideas and their relations. It is the sum total

of all my experiences.

 

M: All?

 

Q: Well, all actual experiences. I admit I cannot know what did not

happen.

 

M: If the manifested is the sum total of all actual experiences,

including their experiencers, how much of the total do you know? A

very small part indeed. And what is the little you know?

 

Q: Some sensory experiences as related to myself.

 

M: Not even that. You only know that you react. Who reacts and to

what, you do not know. You know on contact that you exist -- 'I am'.

The 'I am this', 'I am that' are imaginary.

 

Q: I know the manifested because I participate in it. I admit, my

part in it is very small, yet it is as real as the totality of it.

And what is more important, I give it meaning. Without me the world

is dark and silent.

 

M: A firefly illumining the world! You don't give meaning to the

world, you find it. Dive deep into yourself and find the source from

where all meaning flows. Surely it is not the superficial mind that

can give meaning.

 

Q: What makes me limited and superficial?

 

M: The total is open and available, but you will not take it. You

are attached to the little person you think yourself to be. Your

desires are narrow, your ambitions -- petty. After all, without a

centre of perception where would be the manifested? Unperceived, the

manifested is as good as the unmanifested. And you are the perceiving

point, the non-dimensional source of all dimensions. Know yourself as

the total.

 

Q: How can a point contain a universe?

 

M: There is enough space in a point for an infinity of universes.

There is no lack of capacity. Self-limitation is the only problem.

But you cannot run away from yourself. However far you go, you come

back to yourself and to the need of understanding this point, which

is as nothing and yet the source of everything.

 

Q: I came to India in search of a Yoga teacher. I am still in

search.

 

M: What kind of Yoga do you want to practice, the Yoga of getting,

or the Yoga of giving up?

 

Q: Don't they come to the same in the end?

 

M: How can they? One enslaves, the other liberates. The motive

matters supremely. Freedom comes through renunciation. All possession

is bondage.

 

Q: What I have the strength and the courage to hold on to, why

should I give up? And if I have not the strength, how can I give up?

I do not understand this need of giving up. When I want something,

why should I not pursue it? Renunciation is for the weak.

 

M: If you do not have the wisdom and the strength to give up, just

look at your possessions. Your mere looking will burn them up. If you

can stand outside your mind, you will soon find that total

renunciation of possessions and desires is the most obviously

reasonable thing to do. You create the world and then worry about it.

Becoming selfish makes you weak. If you think you have the strength

and courage to desire, it is because you are young and inexperienced.

Invariably the object of desire destroys the means of acquiring it

and then itself withers away. It is all for the best, because it

teaches you to shun desire like poison.

 

Q: How am I to practice desirelessness?

 

M: No need of practice. No need of any acts of renunciation. Just

turn your mind away, that is all. Desire is merely the fixation of

the mind on an idea. Get it out of its groove by denying it attention.

 

Q: That is all?

 

M: Yes, that is all. Whatever may be the desire or fear, don't dwell

upon it. Try and see for yourself. Here and there you may forget, it

does not matter. Go back to your attempts till the brushing away of

every desire and fear, of every reaction becomes automatic.

 

Q: How can one live without emotions?

 

M: You can have all the emotions you want, but beware of reactions,

of induced emotions. Be entirely self-determined and ruled from

within, not from without. Merely giving up a thing to secure a better

one is not true relinquishment. Give it up because you see its

valuelessness. As you keep on giving up, you will find that you grow

spontaneously in intelligence and power and inexhaustible love and

joy.

 

Q: Why so much insistence on relinquishing all desires and fears?

Are they not natural?

 

M: They are not. They are entirely mind-made. You have to give up

everything to know that you need nothing, not even your body. Your

needs are unreal and your efforts are meaningless. You imagine that

your possessions protect you. In reality they make you vulnerable.

realise yourself as away from all that can be pointed at as 'this'

or 'that'. You are unreachable by any sensory experience or verbal

construction. Turn away from them. Refuse to impersonate.

 

Q: After I have heard you, what am I to do?

 

M: Only hearing will not help you much. You must keep it in mind and

ponder over it and try to understand the state of mind which makes me

say what I say. I speak from truth; stretch your hand and take it.

You are not what you think yourself to be, I assure you. The image

you have of yourself is made up from memories and is purely

accidental.

 

Q: What I am is the result of my karma.

 

M: What you appear to be, you are not. Karma is only a word you have

learnt to repeat. You have never been, nor shall ever be a person.

Refuse to consider yourself as one. But as long as you do not even

doubt yourself to be a Mr. S0-and-so, there is little hope. When you

refuse to open your eyes, what can you be shown?

 

Q: I imagine karma to be a mysterious power that urges me towards

perfection.

 

M: That's what people told you. You are already perfect, here and

now. The perfectible is not you. You imagine yourself to be what you

are not -- stop it. It is the cessation that is important, not what

you are going to stop.

 

Q: Did not karma compel me to become what I am?

 

M: Nothing compels. You are as you believe yourself to be. Stop

believing.

 

Q: Here you are sitting on your seat and talking to me. What

compels you is your karma.

 

M: Nothing compels me. I do what needs doing. But you do so many

unnecessary things. It is your refusal to examine that creates karma.

It is the indifference to your own suffering that perpetuates it.

 

Q: Yes, it is true. What can put an end to this indifference?

 

M: The urge must come from within as a wave of detachment, or

compassion.

 

Q: Could I meet this urge half way?

 

M: Of course. See your own condition, see the condition of the world.

 

Q: We were told about karma and reincarnation, evolution and Yoga,

masters and disciples. What are we to do with all this knowledge?

 

M: Leave it all behind you. Forget it. Go forth, unburdened with

ideas and beliefs. Abandon all verbal structures, all relative truth,

all tangible objectives. The Absolute can be reached by absolute

devotion only. Don't be half-hearted.

 

Q: I must begin with some absolute truth. Is there any?

 

M: Yes, there is, the feeling: 'I am'. Begin with that.

 

Q: Nothing else is true?

 

M: All else is neither true nor false. It seems real when it

appears, it disappears when it is denied. A transient thing is a

mystery.

 

Q: I thought the real is the mystery.

 

M: How can it be? The real is simple, open, clear and kind,

beautiful and joyous. It is completely free of contradictions. It is

ever new, ever fresh, endlessly creative. Being and non-being, life

and death, all distinctions merge in it.

 

Q: I can admit that all is false. But, does it make my mind

nonexistent?

 

M: The mind is what it thinks. To make it true, think true.

 

Q: If the shape of things is mere appearance, what are they in

reality?

 

M: In reality there is only perception. The perceiver and the

perceived are conceptual, the fact of perceiving is actual.

 

Q: Where does the Absolute come in?

 

M: The Absolute is the birthplace of Perceiving. It makes perception

possible.

 

But too much analysis leads you nowhere. There is in you the core of

being which is beyond analysis, beyond the mind. You can know it in

action only. Express it in daily life and its light will grow ever

brighter.

 

The legitimate function of the mind is to tell you what is not. But

if you want positive knowledge, you must go beyond the mind.

 

Q: In all the universe is there one single thing of value?

 

M: Yes, the power of love.

 

71. In Self-awareness you Learn about Yourself

Questioner: It is our repeated experience that the disciples do much

harm to their Gurus. They make plans and carry them out, without

considering the Guru's wishes. In the end there is only endless worry

for the Guru and bitterness for his disciples.

 

Maharaj: Yes, it does happen.

 

Q: Who compels the Guru to submit to these indignities?

 

M: The Guru is basically without desire. He sees what happens, but

feels no urge to interfere. He makes no choices, takes no decisions.

As pure witness, he watches what is going on and remains unaffected.

 

Q: But his work suffers.

 

M: Victory is always his -- in the end. He knows that if the

disciples do not learn from his words, they will learn from their own

mistakes. Inwardly he remains quiet and silent. He has no sense of

being a separate person. The entire universe is his own, including

his disciples with their petty plans. Nothing in particular affects

him, or, which comes to the same, the entire universe affects him in

equal measure.

 

Q: Is there no such thing as the Guru's grace?

 

M: His grace is constant and universal. It is not given to one and

denied to another.

 

Q: How does it affect me personally?

 

M: It is by The Guru's grace that your mind is engaged in search for

truth and it is by his grace that you will find it. It works

unwaringly towards your ultimate good. And it is for all.

 

Q: Some disciples are ready, mature, and some are not. Must not the

Guru exercise choice and make decisions?

 

M: The Guru knows the Ultimate and relentlessly propels the disciple

towards it. The disciple is full of obstacles, which he himself must

overcome. The Guru is not very much concerned with the

superficialities of the disciple's life. It is like gravitation The

fruit must fall -- when no longer held back.

 

Q: If the disciple does not know the goal, how can he make out the

obstacles?

 

M: The goal is shown by the Guru, obstacles are discovered by the

disciple. The Guru has no preferences, but those who have obstacles

to overcome seem to be lagging behind.

 

In reality the disciple is not different from the Guru. He is the

same dimensionless centre of perception and love in action. It is

only his imagination and self-identification with the imagined, that

encloses him and converts him into a person. The Guru is concerned

little with the person. His attention is on the inner watcher. It is

the task of the watcher to understand and thereby eliminate the

person. While there is grace on one side, there must be dedication to

the task on the other.

 

Q: But the person does not want to be eliminated.

 

M: The person is merely the result of a misunderstanding. In

reality, there is no such thing. Feelings, thoughts and actions race

before the watcher in endless succession, leaving traces in the brain

and creating an illusion of continuity. A reflection of the watcher

in the mind creates the sense of 'I' and the person acquires an

apparently independent existence. In reality there is no person, only

the watcher identifying himself with the 'I' and the 'mine'. The

teacher tells the watcher: you are not this, there is nothing of

yours in this, except the little point of 'I am', which is the bridge

between the watcher and his dream. `I am this, I am that' is dream,

while pure 'I am' has the stamp of reality on it. You have tasted so

many things -- all came to naught. Only the sense 'I am' persisted --

unchanged. Stay with the changeless among the changeful, until you

are able to go beyond.

 

Q: When will it happen?

 

M: It will happen as soon as you remove the obstacles.

 

Q: Which obstacles?

 

M: Desire for the false and fear of the true. You, as the person,

imagine that the Guru is interested in you as a person. Not at all.

To him you are a nuisance and a hindrance to be done away with. He

actually aims at your elimination as a factor in consciousness.

 

Q: If I am eliminated, what will remain?

 

M: Nothing will remain, all will remain. The sense of identity will

remain, but no longer identification with a particular body. Being --

awareness -- love will shine in full splendour. Liberation is never

of the person, it is always from the person.

 

Q: And no trace remains of the person?

 

M: A vague memory remains, like the memory of a dream, or early

childhood. After all, what is there to remember? A flow of events,

mostly accidental and meaningless. A sequence of desires and fears

and inane blunders. Is there anything worth remembering? The person

is but a shell imprisoning you. Break the shell.

 

Q: Whom are you asking to break the shell? Who is to break the

shell?

 

M: Break the bonds of memory and self-identification and the shell

will break by itself. There is a centre that imparts reality to

whatever it perceives. All you need is to understand that you are the

source of reality, that you give reality instead of getting it, that

you need no support and no confirmation. Things are as they are,

because you accept them as they are. Stop accepting them and they

will dissolve. Whatever you think about with desire or fear appears

before you as real. Look at it without desire or fear and it does

lose substance. Pleasure and pain are momentary. It is simpler and

easier to disregard them than to act on them.

 

Q: If all things come to an end, why did they appear at all?

 

M: Creation is in the very nature of consciousness. Consciousness

causes appearances. Reality is beyond consciousness.

 

Q: While we are conscious of appearances, how is it that we are not

conscious that these are mere appearances?

 

M: The mind covers up reality, without knowing it. To know the

nature of the mind, you need intelligence, the capacity to look at

the mind in silent and dispassionate awareness.

 

Q: If I am of the nature of all-pervading consciousness, how could

ignorance and illusion happen to me?

 

M: Neither ignorance nor illusion ever happened to you. Find the

self to which you ascribe ignorance and illusion and your question

will be answered. You talk as if you know the self and see it to be

under the sway of ignorance and illusion. But, in fact, you do not

know the self, nor are you aware of ignorance. By all means become

aware -- this will bring you to the self and you will realise that

there is neither ignorance nor delusion in it. It is like saying: if

there is sun, how can darkness be? As under a stone there will be

darkness, however strong the sunlight, so in the shadow of the 'I-am-

the-body' consciousness there must be ignorance and illusion.

 

Q: But why did the body consciousness come into being?

 

M: Don't ask 'why', ask 'how'. It is in the nature of creative

imagination to identify itself with its creations. You can stop it

any moment by switching off attention. Or through investigation.

 

Q: Does creation come before investigation?

 

M: First you create a world, then the 'I am' becomes a person, who

is not happy for various reasons. He goes out in search of happiness,

meets a Guru who tells him: 'You are not a person, find who you are'.

He does it and goes beyond.

 

Q: Why did he not do it at the very start?

 

M: It did not occur to him. He needed somebody to tell him.

 

Q: Was that enough?

 

M: It was enough.

 

Q: Why does it not work in my case?

 

M: You do not trust me.

 

Q: Why is my faith weak?

 

M: Desires and fears have dulled your mind. It needs some scrubbing.

 

Q: How can I clear my mind?

 

M: By watching it relentlessly. Inattention obscures, attention

clarifies.

 

Q: Why do the Indian teachers advocate inactivity?

 

M: Most of people's activities are valueless, if not outright

destructive. Dominated by desire and fear, they can do nothing good.

Ceasing to do evil precedes beginning to do good. Hence the need for

stopping all activities for a time, to investigate one's urges and

their motives, see all that is false in one's life, purge the mind of

all evil and then only restart work, beginning with one's obvious

duties. Of course, if you have a chance to help somebody, by all

means do it and promptly too, don't keep him waiting till you are

perfect. But do not become a professional do-gooder.

 

Q: I do not feel there are too many do-gooders among disciples.

Most of those I met are too absorbed in their own petty conflicts.

They have no heart for others.

 

M: Such self-centeredness is temporary. Be patient with such people.

For so many years they gave attention to everything but themselves.

Let them turn to themselves for a change.

 

Q: What are the fruits of self-awareness?

 

M: You grow more intelligent. In awareness you learn. In self-

awareness you learn about yourself. Of course, you can only learn

what you are not. To know what you are, you must go beyond the mind.

 

Q: Is not awareness beyond the mind?

 

M: Awareness is the point at which the mind reaches out beyond

itself into reality. In awareness you seek not what pleases, but what

is true.

 

Q: I find that awareness brings about a state of inner silence, a

state of psychic void.

 

M: It is all right as it goes, but it is not enough. Have you felt

the all-embracing emptiness in which the universe swims like a cloud

in the blue sky?

 

Q: Sir, let me first come to know well my own inner space.

 

M: Destroy the wall that separates, the 'I-am-the-body' idea and the

inner and the outer will become one.

 

Q: Am I to die?

 

M: Physical destruction is meaningless. It is the clinging to

sensate life that binds you. If you could experience the inner void

fully, the explosion into the totality would be near.

 

Q: My own spiritual experience has its seasons. Sometimes I feel

glorious, then again I am down. I am like a little boy -- going up,

going down, going up, going down.

 

M: All changes in consciousness are due to the 'I-am-the-body' idea.

Divested of this idea the mind becomes steady. There is pure being,

free of experiencing anything in particular. But to realise it you

must do what your teacher tells you. Mere listening, even memorizing,

is not enough. If you do not struggle hard to apply every word of it

in your daily life, don't complain that you made no progress. All

real progress is irreversible. Ups and downs merely show that the

teaching has not been taken to heart and translated into action fully.

 

Q: The other day you told us that there is no such thing as karma.

Yet we see that every thing has a cause and the sum total of all the

causes may be called karma.

 

M: As long as you believe yourself to be a body, you will ascribe

causes to everything. I do not say things have no causes. Each thing

has innumerable causes. It is as it is, because the world is as it

is. Every cause in its ramifications covers the universe.

 

When you realise that you are absolutely free to be what you consent

to be, that you are what you appear to be because of ignorance or

indifference, you are free to revolt and change. You allow yourself

to be what you are not. You are looking for the causes of being what

you are not! It is a futile search. There are no causes, but your

ignorance of your real being, which is perfect and beyond all

causation. For whatever happens, all the universe is responsible and

you are the source of the universe.

 

Q: I know nothing about being the cause of the universe.

 

M: Because you do not investigate. Enquire, search within and you

will know.

 

Q: How can a speck like me create the vast universe?

 

M: When you are infected with the 'I-am-the-body' virus; a whole

universe springs into being. But when you have had enough of it, you

cherish some fanciful ideas about liberation and pursue lines of

action totally futile. You concentrate, you meditate, you torture

your mind and body, you do all sorts of unnecessary things, but you

miss the essential which is the elimination of the person.

 

Q: In the beginning we may have to pray and meditate for some time

before we are ready for self-enquiry.

 

M: If you believe so, go on. To me, all delay is a waste of time.

You can skip all the preparation and go directly for the ultimate

search within. Of all the Yogas it is the simplest and the shortest.

 

72. What is Pure, Unalloyed, Unattached is Real

Maharaj: You are back in India! Where have you been, what have you

seen?

 

Questioner: I come from Switzerland. I stayed there with a remarkable

man who claims to have realised. He has done many Yogas in his past

and had many experiences that passed away. Now he claims no special

abilities, nor knowledge; the only unusual thing about him is

connected with sensations; he is unable to separate the seer from the

seen. For instance, when he sees a car rushing at him, he does not

know whether the car is rushing at him, or he at a car. He seems to

be both at the same time, the seer and the seen. They become one.

Whatever he sees, he sees himself. When I asked him some Vedantic

questions he said: 'I really cannot answer. I do not know. All I know

is this strange identity with whatever I perceive. You know, I

expected anything but this.'

 

He is on the whole a humble man; he makes no disciples and in no way

puts himself on a pedestal. He is willing to talk about his strange

condition, but that is all.

 

M: Now he knows what he knows. All else is over. At least he still

talks. Soon he may cease talking.

 

Q: What will he do then?

 

M: Immobility and silence are not inactive. The flower fills the

space with perfume, the candle -- with light. They do nothing yet

they change everything by their mere presence. You can photograph the

candle, but not its light. You can know the man, his name and

appearance, but not his influence. His very presence is action.

 

Q: Is it not natural to be active?

 

M: Everybody wants to be active, but where do his actions originate?

There is no central point each action begets another, meaninglessly

and painfully, in endless succession. The alternation of work and

pause is not there. First find the immutable centre where all

movement takes birth. Just like a wheel turns round an axle, so must

you be always at the axle in the centre and not whirling at the

periphery.

 

Q: How do I go about it in practice?

 

M: Whenever a thought or emotion of desire or fear comes to your

mind, just turn away from it.

 

Q: By suppressing my thoughts and feelings I shall provoke a

reaction.

 

M: I am not talking of suppression. Just refuse attention.

 

Q: Must I not use effort to arrest the movements of the mind?

 

M: It has nothing to do with effort. Just turn away, look between

the thoughts, rather than at the thoughts. When you happen to walk in

a crowd, you do not fight every man you meet -- you just find your

way between.

 

Q: If I use my will to control the mind, it only strengthens the

ego.

 

M: Of course. When you fight, you invite a fight. But when you do

not resist, you meet with no resistance. When you refuse to play the

game, you are out of it.

 

Q: How long will it take me to get free of the mind?

 

M: It may take a thousand years, but really no time is required. All

you need is to be in dead earnest. Here the will is the deed. If you

are sincere, you have it. After all, it is a matter of attitude.

Nothing stops you from being a jnani here and now, except fear. You

are afraid of being impersonal, of impersonal being. It is all quite

simple. Turn away from your desires and fears and from the thoughts

they create and you are at once in your natural state.

 

Q: No question of reconditioning, changing, or eliminating the mind?

 

M: Absolutely none. Leave your mind alone, that is all. Don't go

along with it. After all, there is no such thing as mind apart from

thoughts which come and go obeying their own laws, not yours. They

dominate you only because you are interested in them. It is exactly

as Christ said 'Resist not evil'. By resisting evil you merely

strengthen it.

 

Q: Yes, I see now. All I have to do is to deny existence to evil.

Then it fades away. But does it not boil down to some kind of auto-

suggestion?

 

M: The auto-suggestion is in full swing now, when you think yourself

to be a person, caught between good and evil. What I am asking you to

do is to put an end to it, to wake up and see things as they are.

 

About your stay in Switzerland with that strange friend of yours:

what did you gain in his company?

 

Q: Nothing absolutely. His experience did not affect me at all. One

thing I have understood: there is nothing to search for. Wherever I

may go, nothing waits for me at the end of the journey. Discovery is

not the result of transportation.

 

M: Yes, you are quite apart from anything that can be gained or lost.

 

Q: Do you call it vairagya, relinquishment, renunciation?

 

M: There is nothing to renounce. Enough if you stop acquiring. To

give you must have, and to have you must take. Better don't take. It

is simpler than to practice renunciation, which leads to a dangerous

form of 'spiritual' pride.

 

All this weighing, selecting, choosing, exchanging -- it is all

shopping in some 'spiritual' market. What is your business there?

What deal are you out to strike? When you are not out for business,

what is the use of this endless anxiety of choice? Restlessness takes

you nowhere. Something prevents you from seeing that there is nothing

you need. Find it out and see its falseness. It is like having

swallowed some poison and suffering from unquenchable craving for

water. Instead of drinking beyond all measure, why not eliminate the

poison and be free of this burning thirst?

 

Q: I shall have to eliminate the ego!

 

M: The sense 'I am a person in time and space' is the poison. In a

way, time itself is the poison. In time all things come to an end and

new are born, to be devoured in their turn. Do not identify yourself

with time, do not ask anxiously: 'what next, what next?' Step out of

time and see it devour the world. Say: 'Well, it is in the nature of

time to put an end to everything. Let it be. It does not concern me.

I am not combustible, nor do I need to collect fuel'.

 

Q: Can the witness be without the things to witness?

 

M: There is always something to witness. If not a thing, then its

absence. Witnessing is natural and no problem. The problem is

excessive interest, leading to self-identification. Whatever you are

engrossed in you take to be real.

 

Q: Is the 'I am' real or unreal? Is the 'I am' the witness? Is the

witness real or unreal?

 

M: What is pure, unalloyed, unattached, is real. What is tainted,

mixed up, dependent and transient is unreal. Do not be misled by

words -- one word may convey several and even contradictory meanings.

The 'I am' that pursues the pleasant and shuns the unpleasant is

false; the 'I am' that sees pleasure and pain as inseparable sees

rightly. The witness that is enmeshed in what he perceives is the

person; the witness who stands aloof, unmoved and untouched, is the

watch-tower of the real, the point at which awareness, inherent in

the unmanifested, contacts the manifested. There can be no universe

without the witness, there can be no witness without the universe.

 

Q: Time consumes the world. Who is the witness of time?

 

M: He who is beyond time -- the Un-nameable. A glowing ember, moved

round and round quickly enough, appears as a glowing circle. When the

movement ceases, the ember remains. Similarly, the 'I am' in movement

creates the world. The 'I am' at peace becomes the Absolute. You are

like a man with an electric torch walking through a gallery. You can

see only what is within the beam. The rest is in darkness.

 

Q: If I project the world, I should be able to change it.

 

M: Of course, you can. But you must cease identifying yourself with

it and go beyond. Then you have the power to destroy and re-create.

 

Q: All I want is to be free.

 

M: You must know two things: What are you to be free from and what

keeps you bound.

 

Q: Why do you want to annihilate the universe?

 

M: I am not concerned with the universe. Let it be or not be. It is

enough if I know myself.

 

Q: If you are beyond the world, then you are of no use to the world.

 

M: Pity the self that is, not the world that is not! Engrossed in a

dream you have forgotten your true self.

 

Q: Without the world there is no place for love.

 

M: Quite so. All these attributes; being, consciousness, love and

beauty are reflections of the real in the world. No real -- no

reflection.

 

Q: The world is full of desirable things and people. How can I

imagine it non-existent?

 

M: Leave the desirable to those who desire. Change the current of

your desire from taking to giving. The passion for giving, for

sharing, will naturally wash the idea of an external world out of

your mind, and of giving as well. Only the pure radiance of love will

remain, beyond giving and receiving.

 

Q: In love there must be duality, the lover and the beloved.

 

M: In love there is not the one even, how can there be two? Love is

the refusal to separate, to make distinctions. Before you can think

of unity, you must first create duality. When you truly love, you do

not say: 'I love you'; where there is mentation, there is duality.

 

Q: What is it that brings me again and again to India? It cannot be

only the comparative cheapness of life here? Nor the colourfulness

and variety of impressions. There must be some more important factor.

 

M: There is also the spiritual aspect. The division between the

outer and the inner is less in India. It is easier here to express

the inner in the outer. Integration is easier. Society is not so

oppressive.

 

Q: Yes, in the West it is all tamas and rajas. In India there is

more of sattva, of harmony and balance.

 

M: Can't you go beyond the gunas? Why choose the sattva? Be what you

are, wherever you are and worry not about gunas.

 

Q: I have not the strength.

 

M: It merely shows that you have gained little in India. What you

truly have you cannot lose. Were you well-grounded in your self,

change of place would not affect it.

 

Q: In India spiritual life is easy. It is not so in the West. One

has to conform to environment to a much greater extent.

 

M: Why don't you create your own environment? The world has only as

much power over you as you give it. Rebel. Go beyond duality, make no

difference between east and west.

 

Q: What can one do when one finds oneself in a very unspiritual

environment?

 

M: Do nothing. Be yourself. Stay out. Look beyond.

 

Q: There may be clashes at home. Parents rarely understand.

 

M: When you know your true being, you have no problems. You may

please your parents or not, marry or not, make a lot of money or not;

it is all the same to you. Just act according to circumstances, yet

in close touch with the facts, with the reality in every situation.

 

Q: Is it not a very high state?

 

M: Oh no, it is the normal state. You call it high because you are

afraid of it. First be free from fear. See that there is nothing to

be afraid of. Fearlessness is the door to the Supreme.

 

Q: No amount of effort can make me fearless.

 

M: Fearlessness comes by itself, when you see that there is nothing

to be afraid of. When you walk in a crowded street, you just bypass

people. Some you see, some you just glance at, but you do not stop.

It is the stopping that creates the bottleneck. Keep moving!

Disregard names and shapes, don't be attached to them; your

attachment is your bondage.

 

Q: What should I do when a man slaps me on my face?

 

M: You will react according to your character, inborn or acquired.

 

Q: Is it inevitable? Am I, is the world, condemned to remain as we

are?

 

M: A jeweller who wants to refashion an ornament, first melts it

town to shapeless gold. Similarly, one must return to one's original

state before a new name and form can emerge. Death is essential for

renewal.

 

Q: You are always stressing the need of going beyond, of aloofness,

of solitude. You hardly ever use the words 'right' and 'wrong'. Why

is it so?

 

M: It is right to be oneself, it is wrong not to be. All else is

conditional. You are eager to separate right from wrong, because you

need some basis for action. You are always after doing something or

other. But, personally motivated action, based on some scale of

values, aiming at some result is worse than inaction, for its fruits

are always bitter.

 

Q: Are awareness and love one and the same?

 

M: Of course. Awareness is dynamic, love is being. Awareness is love

in action. By itself the mind can actualise any number of

possibilities, but unless they are prompted by love, they are

valueless. Love precedes creation. Without it there is only chaos.

 

Q: Where is the action in awareness?

 

M: You are so incurably operational! Unless there is movement,

restlessness, turmoil, you do not call it action. Chaos is movement

for movement's sake. True action does not displace; it transforms. A

change of place is mere transportation; a change of heart is action.

Just remember, nothing perceivable is real. Activity is not action.

Action is hidden, unknown, unknowable. You can only know the fruit.

 

Q: Is not God the all-doer?

 

M: Why do you bring in an outer doer? The world recreates itself out

of itself. It is an endless process, the transitory begetting the

transitory. It is your ego that makes you think that there must be a

doer. You create a God to your own Image, however dismal the image.

Through the film of your mind you project a world and also a God to

give it cause and purpose. It is all imagination -- step out of it.

 

Q: How difficult it is to see the world as purely mental! The

tangible reality of it seems so very convincing.

 

M: This is the mystery of imagination, that it seems to be so real.

You may be celibate or married, a monk or a family man; that is not

the point. Are you a slave of your imagination, or are you not?

Whatever decision you take, whatever work you do, it will be

invariably based on imagination, on assumptions parading as facts.

 

Q: Here I am sitting in front of you. What part of it is

imagination?

 

M: The whole of it. Even space and time are imagined.

 

Q: Does it mean that I don't exist?

 

M: I too do not exist. All existence is imaginary.

 

Q: Is being too imaginary?

 

M: Pure being, filling all and beyond all, is not existence which is

limited. All limitation is imaginary, only the unlimited is real.

 

Q: When you look at me, what do you see?

 

M: I see you imagining yourself to be.

 

Q: There are many like me. Yet each is different.

 

M: The totality of all projections is what is called maha-maya, the

Great Illusion.

 

Q: But when you look at yourself, what do you see?

 

M: It depends how I look. When I look through the mind, I see

numberless people. When I look beyond the mind, I see the witness.

Beyond the witness there is the infinite intensity of emptiness and

silence.

 

Q: How to deal with people?

 

M: Why make plans and what for? Such questions show anxiety.

Relationship is a living thing. Be at peace with your inner self and

you will be at peace with everybody.

 

realise that you are not the master of what happens, you cannot

control the future except in purely technical matters. Human

relationship cannot be planned, it is too rich and varied. Just be

understanding and compassionate, free of all self seeking.

 

Q: Surely, I am not the master of what happens. Its slave rather.

 

M: Be neither master, nor slave. Stand aloof.

 

Q: Does it imply avoidance of action?

 

M: You cannot avoid action. It happens, like everything else.

 

Q: My actions, surely, I can control.

 

M: Try. You will soon see that you do what you must.

 

Q: I can act according to my will.

 

M: You know your will only after you have acted.

 

Q: I remember my desires, the choices made, the decisions taken and

act accordingly.

 

M: Then your memory decides, not you.

 

Q: Where do I come in?

 

M: You make it possible by giving it attention.

 

Q: Is there no such thing as free will? Am I not free to desire?

 

M: Oh no, you are compelled to desire. In Hinduism the very idea of

free will is non-existent, so there is no word for it. Will is

commitment, fixation, bondage.

 

Q: I am free to choose my limitations.

 

M: You must be free first. To be free in the world you must be free

of the world. Otherwise your past decides for you and your future.

Between what had happened and what must happen you are caught. Call

it destiny or karma, but never -- freedom. First return to your true

being and then act from the heart of love.

 

Q: Within the manifested what is the stamp of the unmanifested?

 

M: There is none. The moment you begin to look for the stamp of the

unmanifested, the manifested dissolves. If you try to understand the

unmanifested with the mind, you at once go beyond the mind, like when

you stir the fire with a wooden stick, you burn the stick. Use the

mind to investigate the manifested. Be like the chick that pecks at

the shell. Speculating about life outside the shell would have been

of little use to it, but pecking at the shell breaks the shell from

within and liberates the chick. Similarly, break the mind from within

by investigation and exposure of its contradictions and absurdities.

 

Q: The longing to break the shell, where does it come from?

 

M: From the unmanifested.

 

73. Death of the Mind is Birth of Wisdom

Questioner: Before one can realise one's true nature need not one be

a person? Does not the ego have its value?

 

Maharaj: The person is of little use. It is deeply involved in its

own affairs and is completely ignorant of its true being. Unless the

witnessing consciousness begins to play on the person and it becomes

the object of observation rather than the subject, realisation is not

feasible. It is the witness that makes realisation desirable and

attainable.

 

Q: There comes a point in a person's life when it becomes the

witness.

 

M: Oh, no. The person by itself will not become the witness. It is

like expecting a cold candle to start burning in the course of time.

The person can stay in the darkness of ignorance forever, unless the

flame of awareness touches it.

 

Q: Who lights the candle?

 

M: The Guru. His words, his presence. In India it is very often the

mantra. Once the candle is lighted, the flame will consume the candle.

 

Q: Why is the mantra so effective?

 

M: Constant repetition of the mantra is something the person does

not do for one's own sake. The beneficiary is not the person. Just

like the candle which does not increase by burning.

 

Q: Can the person become aware of itself by itself?

 

M: Yes, it happens sometimes as a result of much suffering The Guru

wants to save you the endless pain. Such is his grace. Even when

there is no discoverable outer Guru, there is always the sadguru, the

inner Guru, who directs and helps from within. The words 'outer'

and 'inner' are relative to the body only; in reality all is one, the

outer being merely a projection of the inner. Awareness comes as if

from a higher dimension.

 

Q: Before the spark is lit and after, what is the difference?

 

M: Before the spark is lit there is no witness to perceive the

difference. The person may be conscious, but is not aware of being

conscious. It is completely identified with what it thinks and feels

and experiences. The darkness that is in it is of its own creation.

When the darkness is questioned, it dissolves. The desire to question

is planted by the Guru. In other words, the difference between the

person and the witness is as between not knowing and knowing oneself.

The world seen in consciousness is to be of the nature of

consciousness, when there is harmony (sattva); but when activity and

passivity (rajas and tamas) appear, they obscure and distort and you

see the false as real.

 

Q: What can the person do to prepare itself for the coming of the

Guru.

 

M: The very desire to be ready means that the Guru had come and the

flame is lighted. It may be a stray word, or a page in a book; the

Guru's grace works mysteriously.

 

Q: Is there no such thing as self-preparation? We hear so much

about yoga sadhana?

 

M: It is not the person that is doing sadhana. The person is in

unrest and resistance to the very end. It is the witness that works

on the person, on the totality of its illusions, past, present and

future.

 

Q: How can we know that what you say is true? While it is self

contained and free from inner contradictions, how can we know that it

is not a product of fertile imagination, nurtured and enriched by

constant repetition?

 

M: The proof of the truth lies in its effect on the listener.

 

Q: Words can have a most powerful effect. By hearing, or repeating

words, one can experience various kinds of trances. The listener's

experiences may be induced and cannot be considered as a proof.

 

M: The effect need not necessarily be an experience. It can be a

change in character, in motivation, in relationship to people and

one's self. Trances and visions induced by words, or drugs, or any

other sensory or mental means are temporary and inconclusive. The

truth of what is said here is immovable and everlasting. And the

proof of it is in the listener, in the deep and permanent changes in

his entire being. It is not something he can doubt, unless he doubts

his own existence, which is unthinkable. When my experience becomes

your own experience also, what better proof do you want?

 

Q: The experiencer is the proof of his experience.

 

M: Quite, but the experiencer needs no proof. 'I am, and I know I

am'. You cannot ask for further proofs.

 

Q: Can there be true knowledge of things?

 

M: Relatively -- yes. Absolutely -- there are no things. To know

that nothing is is true knowledge.

 

Q: What is the link between the relative and the absolute?

 

M: They are identical.

 

Q: From which point of view are they identical?

 

M: When the words are spoken, there is silence. When the relative is

over, the absolute remains. The silence before the words were spoken,

is it different from the silence that comes after? The silence is one

and without it the words could not have been heard. It is always

there -- at the back of the words. Shift your attention from words to

silence and you will hear it. The mind craves for experience, the

memory of which it takes for knowledge. The jnani is beyond all

experience and his memory is empty of the past. He is entirely

unrelated to anything in particular. But the mind craves for

formulations and definitions, always eager to squeeze reality into a

verbal shape. Of everything it wants an idea, for without ideas the

mind is not. Reality is essentially alone, but the mind will not

leave it alone -- and deals instead with the unreal. And yet it is

all the mind can do -- discover the unreal as unreal.

 

Q: And seeing the real as real?

 

M: There is no such state as seeing the real. Who is to see what?

You can only be the real -- which you are, anyhow. The problem is

only mental. Abandon false ideas, that is all. There is no need of

true ideas. There aren't any.

 

Q: Why then are we encouraged to seek the real?

 

M: The mind must have a purpose. To encourage it to free itself from

the unreal it is promised something in return. In reality, there is

no need of purpose. Being free from the false is good in itself, it

wants no reward. It is just like being clean -- which is its own

reward.

 

Q: Is not self-knowledge the reward?

 

M: The reward of self-knowledge is freedom from the personal self.

You cannot know the knower, for you are the knower. The fact of

knowing proves the knower. You need no other proof. The knower of the

known is not knowable. Just like the light is known in colours only,

so is the knower known in knowledge.

 

Q: Is the knower an inference only?

 

M: You know your body, mind and feelings. Are you an inference only?

 

Q: I am an inference to others. but not to myself.

 

M: So am I. An inference to you, but not to myself. I know myself by

being myself. As you know yourself to be a man by being one. You do

not keep on reminding yourself that you are a man. It is only when

your humanity is questioned that you assert it. Similarly, I know

that I am all. I do not need to keep on repeating: 'I am all, I am

all'. Only when you take me to be a particular, a person, I protest.

As you are a man all the time, so I am what I am -- all the time.

Whatever you are changelessly, that you are beyond all doubt.

 

Q: When I ask how do you know that you are a jnani, you answer: 'I

find no desire in me. Is this not a proof?'

 

M: Were I full of desires, I would have still been what I am.

 

Q: Myself, full of desires and you, full of desires; what

difference would there be?

 

M: You identify yourself with your desires and become their slave.

To me desires are things among other things, mere clouds in the

mental sky, and I do not feel compelled to act on them.

 

Q: The knower and his knowledge, are they one or two?

 

M: They are both. The knower is the unmanifested, the known is the

manifested. The known is always on the move, it changes, it has no

shape of its own, no dwelling place. The knower is the immutable

support of all knowledge; Each needs the other, but reality lies

beyond. The jnani cannot be known, because there is nobody to be

known. When there is a person, you can tell something about it, but

when there is no self-identification with the particular, what can be

said? You may tell a jnani anything; his question will always

be: 'about whom are you talking? There is no such person'. Just as

you cannot say anything about the universe because it includes

everything, so nothing can be said about a jnani, for he is all and

yet nothing in particular. You need a hook to hang your picture on;

when there is no hook, on what will the picture hang? To locate a

thing you need space, to place an event you need time; but the

timeless and spaceless defies all handling. It makes everything

perceivable, yet itself it is beyond perception. The mind cannot know

what is beyond the mind, but the mind is known by what is beyond it.

The jnani knows neither birth nor death; existence and non-existence

are the same to him.

 

Q: When your body dies, you remain.

 

M: Nothing dies. The body is just imagined. There is no such thing.

 

Q: Before another century will pass, you will be dead to all around

you. Your body will be covered with flowers, then burnt and the ashes

scattered. That will be our experience. What will be yours?

 

M: Time will come to an end. This is called the Great Death

(mahamrityu), the death of time.

 

Q: Does it mean that the universe and its contents will come to an

end?

 

M: The universe is your personal experience. How can it be affected?

You might have been delivering a lecture for two hours; where has it

gone when it is over? It has merged into silence in which the

beginning, middle and end of the lecture are all together. Time has

come to a stop, it was, but is no more. The silence after a life of

talking and the silence after a life of silence is the same silence.

Immortality is freedom from the feeling: 'I am'. Yet it is not

extinction. On the contrary, it is a state infinitely more real,

aware and happy than you can possibly think of. Only self-

consciousness is no more.

 

Q: Why does the Great Death of the mind coincide with the 'small

death' of the body?

 

M: It does not! You may die a hundred deaths without a break in the

mental turmoil. Or, you may keep your body and die only in the mind.

The death of the mind is the birth of wisdom.

 

Q: The person goes and only the witness remains.

 

M: Who remains to say: 'I am the witness'. When there is no 'I am',

where is the witness? In the timeless state there is no self to take

refuge in.

 

The man who carries a parcel is anxious not to lose it -- he is

parcel-conscious. The man who cherishes the feeling 'I am' is self-

conscious. The jnani holds on to nothing and cannot be said to be

conscious. And yet he is not unconscious. He is the very heart of

awareness. We call him digambara clothed in space, the Naked One,

beyond all appearance. There is no name and shape under which he may

be said to exist, yet he is the only one that truly is.

 

Q: I cannot grasp it.

 

M: Who can? The mind has its limits. It is enough to bring you to

the very frontiers of knowledge and make you face the immensity of

the unknown. To dive in it is up to you.

 

Q: What about the witness? Is it real or unreal?

 

M: It is both. The last remnant of illusion, the first touch of the

real. To say: I am only the witness is both false and true: false

because of the 'I am', true because of the witness. It is better to

say: 'there is witnessing'. The moment you say: 'I am', the entire

universe comes into being along with its creator.

 

Q: Another question: can we visualise the person and the self as

two brothers small and big? The little brother is mischievous and

selfish, rude and restless, while the big brother is intelligent and

kind, reasonable and considerate, free from body consciousness with

its desires and fears. The big brother knows the little one. but the

small one is ignorant of the big one and thinks itself to be entirely

on its own. The Guru comes and tells the smaller one: 'You are not

alone, you come from a very good family, your brother is a very

remarkable man, wise and kind, and he loves you very much. Remember

him, think of him, find him, serve him, and you will become one with

him'. Now, the question is are there two in us, the personal and the

individual, the false self and the true self, or is it only a simile?

 

M: It is both. They appear to be two, but on investigation they are

found to be one. Duality lasts only as long as it is not questioned.

The trinity: mind, self and spirit (vyakti, vyakta, avyakta), when

looked into, becomes unity. These are only modes of experiencing: of

attachment, of detachment, of transcendence.

 

Q: Your assumption that we are in a dream state makes your position

unassailable. Whatever objection we raise, you just deny its

validity. One cannot discuss with you!

 

M: The desire to discuss is also mere desire. The desire to know, to

have the power, even the desire to exist are desires only. Everybody

desires to be, to survive, to continue, for no one is sure of

himself. But everybody is immortal. You make yourself mortal by

taking yourself to be the body.

 

Q: Since you have found your freedom, will you not give me a little

of it?

 

M: Why little? Take the whole. Take it, it is there for the taking.

But you are afraid of freedom!

 

Q: Swami Ramdas had to deal with a similar request. Some devotees

collected round him one day and began to ask for liberation. Ramdas

listened smilingly and then suddenly he became serious and said: You

can have it, here and now, freedom absolute and permanent. Who wants

it, come forward. Nobody moved. Thrice he repeated the offer. None

accepted. Then he said: 'The offer is withdrawn'.

 

M: Attachment destroys courage. The giver is always ready to give.

The taker is absent. Freedom means letting go. People just do not

care to let go everything. They do not know that the finite is the

price of the infinite, as death is the price of immortality.

Spiritual maturity lies in the readiness to let go everything. The

giving up is the first step. But the real giving up is in realising

that there is nothing to give up, for nothing is your own. It is like

deep sleep -- you do not give up your bed when you fall sleep -- you

just forget it.

 

74. Truth is Here and Now

Questioner: My question is: What is the proof of truth? Followers of

every religion, metaphysical or political, philosophical or ethical,

are convinced that theirs is the only truth, that all else is false

and they take their own unshakable conviction for the proof of

truth. 'I am convinced, so it must be true', they say. It seems to

me, that no philosophy or religion, no doctrine or ideology, however

complete, free from inner contradictions and emotionally appealing,

can be the proof of its own truth. They are like clothes men put on,

which vary with times and circumstances and follow the fashion trends.

 

Now, can there be a religion or philosophy which is true and which

does not depend on somebody's conviction? Nor on scriptures, because

they again depend on somebody's faith in them? Is there a truth which

does not depend on trusting, which is not subjective?

 

Maharaj: What about science?

 

Q: Science is circular, it ends where it starts, with the senses.

It deals with experience, and experience is subjective. No two

persons can have the same experience, though they may express it in

the same words.

 

M: You must look for truth beyond the mind.

 

Q: Sir, I have had enough of trances. Any drug can induce them

cheaply and quickly. Even the classical samadhis, caused by breathing

or mental exercises, are not much different. There are oxygen

samadhis and carbon dioxide samadhis and self induced samadhis,

caused by repetition of a formula or a chain of thoughts. Monotony is

soporific. I cannot accept samadhi, however glorious, as a proof of

truth.

 

M: Samadhi is beyond experience. It is a qualityless state.

 

Q: The absence of experience is due to inattention. It reappears

with attention. Closing one's eyes does not disprove light.

Attributing reality to negative states will not take us far. The very

negation contains an affirmation.

 

M: In a way you are right. But don't you see, you are asking for the

proof of truth, without explaining what is the truth you have in mind

and what proof will satisfy you? You can prove anything, provided you

trust your proof. But what will prove that your proof is true? I can

easily drive you into an admission that you know only that you exist -

- that you are the only proof you can have of anything. But I do not

identify mere existence with reality. Existence is momentary, always

in time and space, while reality is changeless and all-pervading.

 

Q: Sir, I do not know what is truth and what can prove it. Do not

throw me on my own resources. I have none. Here you are the truth-

knower, not me.

 

M: You refuse testimony as the proof of truth: the experience of

others is of no use to you, you reject all inference from the

concurring statements of a vast number of independent witnesses; so

it is for you to tell me what is the proof that will satisfy you,

what is your test of a valid proof?

 

Q: Honestly, I do not know what makes a proof.

 

M: Not even your own experience?

 

Q: Neither my experience, nor even existence. They depend on my

being conscious.

 

M: And your being conscious depends on what?

 

Q: I do not know. Formerly, I would have said: on my body; now I

can see that the body is secondary, not primary, and cannot be

considered as an evidence of existence.

 

M: I am glad you have abandoned the l-am-the-body idea, the main

source of error and suffering.

 

Q: I have abandoned it intellectually, but the sense of being the

particular, a person, is still with me. I can say: 'I am', but what I

am I cannot say. I know I exist, but I do not know what exists.

Whichever way I put it, I face the unknown.

 

M: Your very being is the real.

 

Q: Surely, we are not talking of the same thing. I am not some

abstract being. I am a person, limited and aware of its limitations.

I am a fact, but a most unsubstantial fact I am. There is nothing I

can build on my momentary existence as a person.

 

M: Your words are wiser than you are! As a person, your existence is

momentary. But are you a person only? Are you a person at all?

 

Q: How am I to answer? My sense of being proves only that I am; it

does not prove anything which is independent of me. I am relative,

both creature and creator of the relative. The absolute proof of the

absolute truth -- what is it, where is it? Can the mere feeling 'I

am' be the proof of reality?

 

M: Of course not. 'I am' and 'the world is' are related and

conditional. They are due to the tendency of the mind to project

names and shapes.

 

Q: Names and shapes and ideas and convictions, but not truth. But

for you, I would have accepted the relativity of everything,

including truth, and learnt to live by assumptions. But then I meet

you and hear you talking of the Absolute as within my reach and also

as supremely desirable. Words like peace, bliss, eternity,

immortality, catch my attention, as offering freedom from pain and

fear. My inborn instincts: pleasure seeking and curiosity are roused

and I begin to explore the realm you have opened. All seems most

attractive and naturally I ask. Is it attainable? Is it real?

 

M: You are like a child that says: Prove that the sugar is sweet

then only I shall have it. The proof of the sweetness is in the mouth

not in the sugar. To know it is sweet, you must taste it, there is no

other way. Of course, you begin by asking: Is it sugar? Is it sweet?

and you accept my assurance until you taste it. Then only all doubts

dissolve and your knowledge becomes first hand and unshakable. I do

not ask you to believe me. Just trust me enough to begin with. Every

step proves or disproves itself. You seem to want the proof of truth

to precede truth. And what will be the proof of the proof? You see,

you are falling into a regress. To cut it you must put a stop to

asking for proofs and accept, for a moment only, something as true.

It does not really matter what it is. It may be God, or me, or your

own self. In each case you accept something, or somebody, unknown as

true. Now, if you act on the truth you have accepted, even for a

moment, very soon you will be brought to the next step. It is like

climbing a tree in the dark -- you can get hold of the next branch

only when you are perched on the previous one. In science it is

called the experimental approach. To prove a theory you carry out an

experiment according to the operational instructions, left by those

who have made the experiment before you. In spiritual search the

chain of experiments one has to make is called Yoga.

 

Q: There are so many Yogas, which to choose?

 

M: Of course, every jnani will suggest the path of his own

attainment as the one he knows most intimately. But most of them are

very liberal and adapt their advice to the needs of the enquirer. All

the paths take you to the purification of the mind. The impure mind

is opaque to truth; the pure mind is transparent. Truth can be seen

through it easily and clearly.

 

Q: I am sorry, but I seem unable to convey my difficulty. I and

asking about the proof of truth and am being given the methods of

attaining it. Assuming I follow the methods and attain some most

wonderful and desirable state, how do I come to know that my state is

true? Every religion begins with faith and promises some ecstasy. Is

the ecstasy of the real, or the product of faith? For, if it is an

induced state, I shall have nothing to do with it. Take Christianity

that says: Jesus is your Saviour, believe and be saved from sin. When

I ask a sinning Christian how is it that he has not been saved from

sin in spite of his faith in Christ, he answers: My faith is not

perfect. Again we are in the vicious circle -- without perfect faith -

- no salvation, without salvation -- no perfect faith, hence no

salvation. Conditions are imposed which are unfulfillable and then we

are blamed for not fulfilling them.

 

M: You do not realise that your present waking state is one of

ignorance. Your question about the proof of truth is born from

ignorance of reality. You are contacting your sensory and mental

states in consciousness, at the point of 'I am', while reality is not

mediated, not contacted, not experienced. You are taking duality so

much for granted, that you do not even notice it, while to me variety

and diversity do not create separation. You imagine reality to stand

apart from names and forms, while to me names and forms are the ever

changing expressions of reality and not apart from it. You ask for

the proof of truth while to me all existence is the proof. You

separate existence from being and being from reality, while to me it

is all one. However much you are convinced of the truth of your

waking state, you do not claim it to be permanent and changeless, as

I do when I talk of mine. Yet I see no difference between us, except

that you are imagining things, while I do not.

 

Q: First you disqualify me from asking about truth, then you accuse

me of imagination! What is imagination to you is reality to me.

 

M: Until you investigate. I am not accusing you of anything. I am

only asking you to question wisely. Instead of searching for the

proof of truth, which you do not know, go through the proofs you have

of what you believe to know. You will find you know nothing for sure -

- you trust on hearsay. To know the truth, you must pass through your

own experience.

 

Q: I am mortally afraid of samadhis and other trances, whatever

their cause. A drink, a smoke, a fever, a drug, breathing, singing,

shaking, dancing, whirling, praying, sex or fasting, mantras or some

vertiginous abstraction can dislodge me from my waking state and give

me some experience, extraordinary because unfamiliar. But when the

cause ceases, the effect dissolves and only a memory remains,

haunting but fading.

 

Let us give up all means and their results, for the results are bound

by the means; let us put the question anew; can truth be found?

 

M: Where is the dwelling place of truth where you could go in search

of it? And how will you know that you have found it? What touchstone

do you bring with you to test it? You are back at your initial

question: What is the proof of truth? There must be something wrong

with the question itself, for you tend to repeat it again and again.

Why do you ask what are the proofs of truth? Is it not because you do

not know truth first hand and you are afraid that you may be

deceived? You imagine that truth is a thing which carries the

name 'truth' and that it is advantageous to have it, provided it is

genuine. Hence your fear of being cheated. You are shopping for

truth, but you do not trust the merchants. You are afraid of

forgeries and imitations.

 

Q: I am not afraid of being cheated. I am afraid of cheating myself.

 

M: But you are cheating yourself in your ignorance of your true

motives. You are asking for truth, but in fact you merely seek

comfort, which you want to last for ever. Now, nothing, no state of

mind, can last for ever. In time and space there is always a limit,

because time and space themselves are limited. And in the timeless

the words 'for ever' have no meaning. The same with the 'proof of

truth'. In the realm of non-duality everything is complete, its own

proof, meaning and purpose. Where all is one, no supports are needed.

You imagine that permanence is the proof of truth, that what lasts

longer is somehow more true. Time becomes the measure of truth. And

since time is in the mind, the mind becomes the arbiter and searches

within itself for the proof of truth -- a task altogether impossible

and hopeless!

 

Q: Sir, were you to say: Nothing is true, all is relative, I would

agree with you. But you maintain there is truth, reality, perfect

knowledge, therefore I ask: What is it and how do you know? And what

will make me say: Yes, Maharaj was right?

 

M: You are holding on to the need for a proof, a testimony, an

authority. You still imagine that truth needs pointing at and telling

you: 'Look, here is truth'. It is not so. Truth is not the result of

an effort, the end of a road. It is here and now, in the very longing

and the search for it. It is nearer than the mind and the body,

nearer than the sense 'I am'. You do not see it because you look too

far away from yourself, outside your innermost being. You have

objectified truth and insist on your standard proofs and tests, which

apply only to things and thoughts.

 

Q: All I can make out from what you say is that truth is beyond me

and I am not qualified to talk about it.

 

M: You are not only qualified, but you are truth itself. Only you

mistake the false for the true.

 

Q: You seem to say: Don't ask for proofs of truth. Concern yourself

with untruth only.

 

M: The discovery of truth is in the discernment of the false. You

can know what is not. What is -- you can only be. Knowledge is

relative to the known. In a way it is the counterpart of ignorance.

Where ignorance is not, where is the need of knowledge? By themselves

neither ignorance nor knowledge have being. They are only states of

mind, which again is but an appearance of movement in consciousness

which is in its essence immutable.

 

Q: Is truth within the realm of the mind or beyond?

 

M: It is neither, it is both. It cannot be put into words.

 

Q: This is what I hear all the time -- inexpressible

(anirvachaniya). It does not make me wiser.

 

M: It is true that it often covers sheer ignorance. The mind can

operate with terms of its own making, it just cannot go beyond

itself. That which is neither sensory nor mental, and yet without

which neither sensory nor the mental can exist, cannot be contained

in them. Do understand that the mind has its limits; to go beyond,

you must consent to silence.

 

Q: Can we say that action is the proof of truth? It may not be

verbalised, but it may be demonstrated.

 

M: Neither action nor inaction. It is beyond both.

 

Q: Can a man ever say: 'Yes, this is true'? Or is he limited to the

denial of the false? In other words, is truth pure negation? Or, does

a moment come when it becomes assertion?

 

M: Truth cannot be described, but it can be experienced.

 

Q: Experience is subjective, it cannot be shared. Your experiences

leaves me where I am.

 

M: Truth can be experienced, but it is not mere experience. I know

it and I can convey it, but only if you are open to it. To be open

means to want nothing else.

 

Q: I am full of desires and fears. Does it mean that I am not

eligible for truth?

 

M: Truth is not a reward for good behaviour, nor a prize for passing

some tests. It cannot be brought about. It is the primary, the

unborn, the ancient source of all that is. You are eligible because

you are. You need not merit truth. It is your own. Just stop running

away by running after. Stand still, be quiet.

 

Q: Sir, if you want the body to be still and the mind -- quiet,

tell me how it is done. In self-awareness I see the body and the mind

moved by causes beyond my control. Heredity and environment dominate

me absolutely. The mighty 'I am', the creator of the universe, can be

wiped out by a drug temporarily, or a drop of poison -- permanently.

 

M: Again, you take yourself to be the body.

 

Q: Even if I dismiss this body of bones, flesh and blood as not-me,

still I remain with the subtle body made up of thoughts and feelings,

memories and imaginations. If I dismiss these also as not-me, I still

remain with consciousness, which also is a kind of body.

 

M: You are quite right, but you need not stop there. Go beyond.

Neither consciousness, nor the 'I am' at the centre of it are you.

Your true being is entirely un-self-conscious, completely free from

all self-identification with whatever it may be, gross, subtle or

transcendental.

 

Q: I can imagine myself to be beyond. But what proof have l? To be,

I must be somebody.

 

M: It is the other way round. To be, you must be nobody. To think

yourself to be something, or somebody, is death and hell.

 

Q: I have read that in ancient Egypt people were admitted to some

mysteries where, under the influence of drugs or incantations, they

would be expelled from their bodies and could actually experience

standing outside and looking at their own prostrate forms. This was

intended to convince them of the reality of the after-death existence

and create in them a deep concern with their ultimate destiny, so

profitable to the state and temple. The self-identification with the

person owning the body remained.

 

M: The body is made of food, as the mind is made of thoughts. See

them as they are. Non-identification, when natural and spontaneous,

is liberation. You need not know what you are. Enough to know what

you are not. What you are you will never know, for every discovery

reveals new dimensions to conquer. The unknown has no limits.

 

Q: Does it imply ignorance for ever?

 

M: It means that ignorance never was. Truth is in the discovery not

in the discovered. And to discovery there is no beginning and no end.

Question the limits, go beyond, set yourself tasks apparently

impossible -- this is the way.

 

75. In Peace and Silence you Grow

Questioner: The Indian tradition tells us that the Guru is

indispensable. What is he indispensable for? A mother is

indispensable for giving the child a body. But the soul she does not

give. Her role is limited. How is it with the Guru? Is his role also

limited, and if so, to what? Or is he indispensable generally, even

absolutely?

 

Maharaj: The innermost light, shining peacefully and timelessly in

the heart, is the real Guru. All others merely show the way.

 

Q: I am not concerned with the inner Guru. only with the one that

shows the way. There are people who believe that without a Guru Yoga

is inaccessible. They are ever in search of the right Guru, changing

one for another. Of what value are such Gurus?

 

M: They are temporary, time-bound Gurus. You find them in every walk

of life. You need them for acquiring any knowledge or skill.

 

Q: A mother is only for a lifetime, she begins at birth and ends at

death. She is not for ever.

 

M:. Similarly, the time-bound Guru is not for ever. He fulfils his

purpose and yields his place to the next. It is quite natural and

there is no blame attached to it.

 

Q: For every kind of knowledge, or skill, do I need a separate Guru?

 

M: There can be no rule in these matters, except one 'the outer is

transient, the innermost -- permanent and changeless', though ever

new in appearance and action.

 

Q: What is the relation between the inner and the outer Gurus?

 

M: The outer represent the inner, the inner accepts the outer -- for

a time.

 

Q: Whose is the effort?

 

M: The disciple's, of course. The outer Guru gives the instructions,

the inner sends the strength; the alert application is the

disciple's. Without will, intelligence and energy on the part of the

disciple the outer Guru is helpless. The inner Guru bids his chance.

Obtuseness and wrong pursuits bring about a crisis and the disciple

wakes up to his own plight. Wise is he who does not wait for a shock,

which can be quite rude.

 

Q: Is it a threat?

 

M: Not a threat, a warning. The inner Guru is not committed to non-

violence. He can be quite violent at times, to the point of

destroying the obtuse or perverted personality. Suffering and death,

as life and happiness, are his tools of work. It is only in duality

that non-violence becomes the unifying law.

 

Q: Has one to be afraid of his own self?

 

M: Not afraid, for the self means well.. But it must be taken

seriously. It calls for attention and obedience; when it is not

listened to, it turns from persuasion to compulsion, for while it can

wait, it shall not be denied. The difficulty lies not with the Guru,

inner or outer. The Guru is always available. It is the ripe disciple

that is lacking. When a person is not ready, what can be done?

 

Q: Ready or willing?

 

M: Both. It comes to the same. In India we call it adhikari. It

means both capable and entitled.

 

Q: Can the outer Guru grant initiation (diksha)?

 

M: He can give all kinds of initiations, but the initiation into

Reality must come from within.

 

Q: Who gives the ultimate initiation?

 

M: It is self-given.

 

Q: I feel we are running in circles. After all, I know one self

only, the present, empirical self. The inner or higher self is but an

idea conceived to explain and encourage. We talk of it as having

independent existence. It hasn't.

 

M: The outer self and the inner both are imagined. The obsession of

being an 'I' needs another obsession with a 'super-l' to get cured,

as one needs another thorn to remove a thorn, or another poison to

neutralise a poison. All assertion calls for a denial, but this is

the first step only. The next is to go beyond both.

 

Q: I do understand that the outer Guru is needed to call my

attention to myself and to the urgent need of doing something about

myself. I also understand how helpless he is when it comes to any

deep change in me. But here you bring in the sadguru, the inner Guru,

beginningless, changeless, the root of being, the standing promise,

the certain goal. Is he a concept or a reality?

 

M: He is the only reality. All else is shadow, cast by the body mind

(deha-buddhi) on the face of time. Of course, even a shadow is

related to reality, but by itself it is not real.

 

Q: I am the only reality I know. The sadguru is there as long as I

think of him. What do I gain by shifting reality to him?

 

M: Your loss is your gain. When the shadow is seen to be a shadow

only, you stop following it. You turn round and discover the sun

which was there all the time -- behind your back!

 

Q: Does the inner Guru also teach?

 

M: He grants the conviction that you are the eternal, changeless,

reality-consciousness-love, within and beyond all appearances.

 

Q: A conviction is not enough. There must be certainty.

 

M: Quite right. But in this case certainty takes the shape of

courage. Fear ceases absolutely. This state of fearlessness is so

unmistakably new, yet felt deeply as one's own, that it cannot be

denied. It is like loving one's own child. Who can doubt it?

 

Q: We hear of progress in our spiritual endeavours. What kind of

progress do you have in mind?

 

M: When you go beyond progress, you will know what is progress.

 

Q: What makes us progress?

 

M: Silence is the main factor. In peace and silence you grow.

 

Q: The mind is so absolutely restless. For quieting it what is the

way?

 

M: Trust the teacher. Take my own case. My Guru ordered me to attend

to the sense 'I am' and to give attention to nothing else. I just

obeyed. I did not follow any particular course of breathing, or

meditation, or study of scriptures. Whatever happened, I would turn

away my attention from it and remain with the sense `I am', it may

look too simple, even crude. My only reason for doing it was that my

Guru told me so. Yet it worked! Obedience is a powerful solvent of

all desires and fears.

 

Just turn away from all that occupies the mind; do whatever work you

have to complete, but avoid new obligations; keep empty, keep

available, resist not what comes uninvited.

 

In the end you reach a state of non-grasping, of joyful non-

attachment, of inner ease and freedom indescribable, yet wonderfully

real.

 

Q: When a truth-seeker earnestly practices his Yogas, does his

inner Guru guide and help him or does he leave him to his own

resources, just waiting for the outcome?

 

M: All happens by itself. Neither the seeker. nor the Guru do

anything. Things happen as they happen; blame or praise are

apportioned later, after the sense of doership appearing.

 

Q: How strange! Surely the doer comes before the deed.

 

M: It is the other way round; the deed is a fact, the doer a mere

concept. Your very language shows that while the deed is certain, the

doer is dubious; shifting responsibility is a game peculiarly human.

Considering the endless list of factors required for anything to

happen, one can only admit that everything is responsible for

everything, however remote. Doership is a myth born from the illusion

of 'me' and 'the mine'.

 

Q: How powerful the illusion?

 

M: No doubt, because based on reality.

 

Q: What is real in it?

 

M: Find out, by discerning and rejecting all that is unreal.

 

Q: I have not understood well the role of the inner self in

spiritual endeavour. Who makes the effort? Is it the outer self, or

the inner?

 

M: You have invented words like effort, inner, outer, self, etc. and

seek to impose them on reality. Things just happen to be as they are,

but we want to build them into a pattern, laid down by the structure

of our language. So strong is this habit, that we tend to deny

reality to what cannot be verbalised. We just refuse to see that

words are mere symbols, related by convention and habit to repeated

experiences.

 

Q: What is the value of spiritual books?

 

M: They help in dispelling ignorance. They are useful in the

beginning, but become a hindrance in the end. One must know when to

discard them.

 

Q: What is the link between atma and sattva, between the self and

the universal harmony?

 

M: As between the sun and its rays. Harmony and beauty,

understanding and affection are all expressions of reality. It is

reality in action, the impact of the spirit on matter. Tamas

obscures, rajas distorts, sattva harmonises. With the maturing of the

sattva all desires and fears come to an end. The real being is

reflected in the mind undistorted. Matter is redeemed, spirit --

revealed. The two are seen as one. They were always one, but the

imperfect mind saw them as two. Perfection of the mind is the human

task, for matter and spirit meet in the mind.

 

Q: I feel like a man before a door. I know the door is open but it

is guarded by the dogs of desire and fear. What am I to do?

 

M: Obey the teacher and brave the dogs. Behave as if they were not

there. Again, obedience is the golden rule. Freedom is won by

obedience. To escape from prison one must unquestioningly obey

instructions sent by those who work for one's release.

 

Q: The words of the Guru, when merely heard, have little power. One

must have faith to obey them. What creates such faith?

 

M: When the time comes, faith comes. Everything comes in time. The

Guru is always ready to share, but there are no takers.

 

Q: Yes, Sri Ramana Maharshi used to say: Gurus there are many, but

where are the disciples?

 

M: Well, in the course of time everything happens. All will come

through, not a single soul (jiva) shall be lost.

 

Q: I am very much afraid of taking intellectual understanding for

realisation. I may talk of truth without knowing it, and may know it

without a single word said.

 

I understand these conversations are going to be published. What will

be their effect on the reader?

 

M: In the attentive and thoughtful reader they will ripen and bring

out flowers and fruits. Words based on truth, if fully tested, have

their own power.

 

76. To Know that You do not Know, is True Knowledge

Maharaj: There is the body. Inside the body appears to be an observer

and outside -- a world under observation. The observer and his

observation as well as the world observed all appear and disappear

together. Beyond it all, there is void. This void is one for all.

 

Questioner: What you say appears simple, but not everyone would say

it. It is you, and you alone, who talks of the three and the void

beyond. I see the world only, which includes all.

 

M: Even the 'I am'?

 

Q: Even the 'I am'. The 'I am' is there because the world is there.

 

M: And the world is there because the 'I am' is there.

 

Q: Yes, it goes both ways. I cannot separate the two, nor go

beyond, I cannot say something is, unless I experience it, as I

cannot say something is not, because I do not experience it. What is

it that you experience that makes you speak with such assurance?

 

M: I know myself as I am -- timeless, spaceless, causeless. You

happen not to know, being engrossed as you are in other things.

 

Q: Why am I so engrossed?

 

M: Because you are interested.

 

Q: What makes me interested?

 

M: Fear of pain, desire for pleasure. Pleasant is the ending of pain

and painful the end of pleasure. They just rotate in endless

succession. Investigate the vicious circle till you find yourself

beyond it.

 

Q: Don't I need your grace to take me beyond?

 

M: The grace of your Inner Reality is timelessly with you. Your very

asking for grace is a sign of it. Do not worry about my grace, but do

what you are told. The doing is the proof of earnestness, not the

expecting of grace.

 

Q: What am I to be earnest about?

 

M: Assiduously investigate everything that crosses your field of

attention. With practice the field will broaden and investigation

deepen, until they become spontaneous and limitless.

 

Q: Are you not making realisation the result of practice? Practice

operates within the limitations of physical existence. How can it

give birth to the unlimited?

 

M: Of course, there can be no causal connection between practice and

wisdom. But the obstacles to wisdom are deeply affected by practice.

 

Q: What are the obstacles?

 

M: Wrong ideas and desires leading to wrong actions, causing

dissipation and weakness of mind and body. The discovery and

abandonment of the false remove what prevents the real entering the

mind.

 

Q: I can distinguish two states of mind: 'I am' and 'the world is';

they arise and subside together. People say: 'I am, because the world

is'. You seem to say: 'The world is, because I am'. Which is true?

 

M: Neither. The two are one and the same state, in space and time.

Beyond, there is the timeless.

 

Q: What is the connection between time and the timeless?

 

M: The timeless knows the time, the time does not know the timeless.

All consciousness is in time and to it the timeless appears

unconscious. Yet, it is what makes consciousness possible. Light

shines in darkness. In light darkness is not visible. Or, you can put

it the other way -- in the endless ocean of light, clouds of

consciousness appear -- dark and limited, perceivable by contrast.

These are mere attempts to express in words something very simple,

yet altogether inexpressible.

 

Q: Words should serve as a bridge to cross over.

 

M: Word refers to a state of mind, not to reality. The river, the

two banks, the bridge across -- these are all in the mind. Words

alone cannot take you beyond the mind. There must be the immense

longing for truth, or absolute faith in the Guru. Believe me, there

is no goal, nor a way to reach it. You are the way and the goal,

there is nothing else to reach except yourself. All you need is to

understand and understanding is the flowering of the mind. The tree

is perennial, but the flowering and the fruit bearing come in season.

The seasons change, but not the tree. You are the tree. You have

grown numberless branches and leaves in the past and you may grow

them also in the future -- yet you remain. Not what was, or shall be,

must you know, but what is. Yours is the desire that creates the

universe. Know the world as your own creation and be free.

 

Q: You say the world is the child of love. When I know the horrors

the world is full of, the wars, the concentration camps, the inhuman

exploitations, how can I own it as my own creation? However limited I

am, I could not have created so cruel a world.

 

M: Find to whom this cruel world appears and you will know why it

appears so cruel. Your questions are perfectly legitimate, but just

cannot be answered unless you know whose is the world. To find out

the meaning of a thing you must ask its maker. I am telling you: You

are the maker of the world in which you live -- you alone can change

it, or unmake it.

 

Q: How can you say I have made the world? I hardly know it.

 

M: There is nothing in the world that you cannot know, when you know

yourself. Thinking yourself to be the body you know the world as a

collection of material things. When you know yourself as a centre of

consciousness, the world appears as the ocean of the mind. When you

know yourself as you are in reality, you know the world as yourself.

 

Q: It all sounds very beautiful, but does not answer my question.

Why is there so much suffering in the world?

 

M: If you stand aloof as observer only, you will not suffer. You

will see the world as a show. a most entertaining show indeed.

 

Q: Oh, no! This lila theory I shall not have. The suffering is too

acute and all-pervading. What a perversion to be entertained by a

spectacle of suffering! What a cruel God are you offering me!

 

M: The cause of suffering is in the identification of the perceiver

with the perceived. Out of it desire is born and with desire blind

action, unmindful of results. Look round and you will see --

suffering is a man-made thing.

 

Q: Were a man to create his own sorrow only, I would agree with

you. But in his folly he makes others suffer. A dreamer has his own

private nightmare and none suffers but himself. But what kind of

dream is it that plays havoc in the lives of others?

 

M: Descriptions are many and contradictory. Reality is simple -- all

is one, harmony is the eternal law, none compels to suffer. It is

only when you try to describe and explain, that the words fail you.

 

Q: I remember Gandhiji telling me once that the Self is not bound

by the law of non-violence (ahimsa). The Self has the freedom to

impose suffering on its expressions in order to set them right.

 

M: On the level of duality it may be so, but in reality there is

only the source, dark in itself, making everything shine.

Unperceived, it causes perception. Unfelt, it causes feeling.

Unthinkable, it causes thought. Non-being, it gives birth to being.

It is the immovable background of motion. Once you are there you are

at home everywhere.

 

Q: If I am that, then what causes me to be born?

 

M: The memory of the past unfulfilled desires traps energy, which

manifests itself as a person. When its charge gets exhausted, the

person dies. Unfulfilled desires are carried over into the next

birth. Self-identification with the body creates ever fresh desires

and there is no end to them, unless this mechanism of bondage is

clearly seen. It is clarity that is liberating, for you cannot

abandon desire, unless its causes and effects are clearly seen. I do

not say that the same person is reborn. It dies and dies for good.

But its memories remain and their desires and fears. They supply the

energy for a new person. The real takes no part in it, but makes it

possible by giving it, the light.

 

Q: My difficulty is this. As I can see, every experience is its own

reality. It is there -- experienced. The moment I question it and ask

to whom it happens, who is the observer and so on, the experience is

over and all I can investigate is only the memory of it. I just

cannot investigate the living moment -- the now. My awareness is of

the past, not of the present. When I am aware, I do not really live

in the now, but only in the past. Can there really be an awareness of

the present?

 

M: What you are describing is not awareness at all, but only

thinking about the experience. True awareness (samvid) is a state of

pure witnessing, without the least attempt to do anything about the

event witnessed. Your thoughts and feelings, words and actions may

also be a part of the event; you watch all unconcerned in the full

light of clarity and understanding. You understand precisely what is

going on, because it does not affect you. It may seem to be an

attitude of cold aloofness, but it is not really so. Once you are in

it, you will find that you love what you see, whatever may be its

nature. This choiceless love is the touchstone of awareness. If it is

not there, you are merely interested -- for some personal reasons.

 

Q: As long as there are pain and pleasure, one is bound to be

interested.

 

M: And as long as one is conscious, there will be pain and pleasure.

You cannot fight pain and pleasure on the level of consciousness. To

go beyond them you must go beyond consciousness, which is possible

only when you look at consciousness as something that happens to you

and not in you, as something external, alien, superimposed. Then,

suddenly you are free of consciousness, really alone, with nothing to

intrude. And that is your true state. Consciousness is an itching

rash that makes you scratch. Of course, you cannot step out of

consciousness for the very idea of stepping out is in consciousness.

But if you learn to look at your consciousness as a sort of fever,

personal and private, in which you are enclosed like a chick in its

shell, out of this very attitude will come the crisis which will

break the shell.

 

Q: Buddha said that life is suffering.

 

M: He must have meant that all consciousness is painful, which is

obvious.

 

Q: And does death offer delivery?

 

M: One who believes himself as having been born is very much afraid

of death. On the other hand, to him who knows himself truly, death is

a happy event.

 

Q: The Hindu tradition says that suffering is brought by destiny

and destiny is merited. Look at the immense calamities, natural or

man-made, floods and earthquakes, wars and revolutions. Can we dare

to think that each suffers for his own sins, of which he can have no

idea? The billions who suffer, are they all criminals justly punished?

 

M: Must one suffer only for one's own sins? Are we really separate?

In this vast ocean of life we suffer for the sins of others, and make

others suffer for our sins. Of course, the law of balance rules

Supreme and accounts are squared in the end. But while life lasts, we

affect each other deeply.

 

Q: Yes, as the poet says: 'No man is an island'.

 

M: At the back of every experience is the Self and its interest in

the experience. Call it desire, call it love -- words do not matter.

 

Q: Can I desire suffering? Can I deliberately ask for pain? Am I

not like a man who made for himself a downy bed hoping for a good

night of sleep and then he is visited by a nightmare and he tosses

and screams in his dream? Surely, it is not the love that produces

nightmares.

 

M: All suffering is caused by selfish isolation, by insularity and

greed. When the cause of suffering is seen and removed, suffering

ceases.

 

Q: I may remove my causes of sorrow, but others will be left to

suffer.

 

M: To understand suffering, you must go beyond pain and pleasure.

Your own desires and fears prevent you from understanding and thereby

helping others. In reality there are no others, and by helping

yourself you help everybody else. If you are serious about the

sufferings of mankind, you must perfect the only means of help you

have -- Yourself.

 

Q: You keep on saying that I am the creator, preserver and

destroyer of this world, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent. When I

ponder over what you say, I ask myself: 'How is it that there is so

much evil in my world'.

 

M: There is no evil, there is no suffering; the joy of living is

paramount. Look, how everything clings to life, how dear the

existence is.

 

Q: On the screen of my mind images follow each other in endless

succession. There is nothing permanent about me.

 

M: Have a better look at yourself. The screen is there -- it does

not change. The light shines steadily. Only the film in between keeps

moving and causes pictures to appear. You may call the film --

destiny (prarabdha).

 

Q: What creates destiny?

 

M: Ignorance is the cause of inevitability.

 

Q: Ignorance of what?

 

M: Ignorance of yourself primarily. Also, ignorance of the true

nature of things, of their causes and effects. You look round without

understanding and take appearances for reality. You believe you know

the world and yourself -- but it is only your ignorance that makes

you say: I know. Begin with the admission that you do not know and

start from there.

 

There is nothing that can help the world more than your putting an

end to ignorance. Then, you need not do anything in particular to

help the world. Your very being is a help, action or no action.

 

Q: How can ignorance be known? To know ignorance presupposes

knowledge.

 

M: Quite right. The very admission: 'I am ignorant' is the dawn of

knowledge. An ignorant man is ignorant of his ignorance. You can say

that ignorance does not exist, for the moment it is seen it is no

more. Therefore, you may call it unconsciousness or blindness. All

you see around and within you is what you do not know and do not

understand, without even knowing that you do not know and do not

understand. To know that you do not know and do not understand is

true knowledge, the knowledge of an humble heart.

 

Q: Yes, Christ said: Blessed are the poor in spirit...

 

M: Put it as you like; the fact is that knowledge is of ignorance

only. You know that you do not know.

 

Q: Will ignorance ever end?

 

M: What is wrong with not knowing? You need not know all. Enough to

know what you need to know. The rest can look after itself, without

your knowing how it does it. What is important is that your

unconscious does not work against the conscious, that there is

integration on all levels. To know is not so very important.

 

Q: What you say is correct psychologically. But when it comes to

knowing others, knowing the world, my knowing that I do not know does

not help much.

 

M: Once you are inwardly integrated, outer knowledge comes to you

spontaneously. At every moment of your life you know what you need to

know. In the ocean of the universal mind all knowledge is contained;

it is yours on demand. Most of it you may never need to know -- but

it is yours all the same.

 

As with knowledge, so it is with power.

 

Whatever you feel needs be done happens unfailingly. No doubt, God

attends to this business of managing the universe; but He is glad to

have some help. When the helper is selfless and intelligent, all the

powers of the universe are for him to command.

 

Q: Even the blind powers of nature?

 

M: There are no blind powers. Consciousness is power. Be aware of

what needs be done and it will be done. Only keep alert -- and quiet.

Once you reach your destination and Know your real nature, your

existence becomes a blessing to all. You may not know, nor will the

world know, yet the help radiates. There are people in the world who

do more good than all the statesmen and philanthropists put together.

They radiate light and peace with no intention or knowledge. When

others tell them about the miracles they worked, they also are wonder

struck. Yet, taking nothing as their own, they are neither proud, nor

do they crave for reputation. They are just unable to desire anything

for themselves, not even the joy of helping others knowing that God

is good they are at peace.

 

77. 'I' and 'Mine' are False Ideas

Questioner: I am very much attached to my family and possessions. How

can I conquer this attachment?

 

Maharaj: This attachment is born along with the sense of 'me'

and 'mine'. Find the true meaning of these words and you will be free

of all bondage. You have a mind which is spread in time. One after

another all things happen to you and the memory remains. There is

nothing wrong in it. The problem arises only when the memory of past

pains and pleasures -- which are essential to all organic life --

remains as a reflex, dominating behaviour. This reflex takes the

shape of 'I' and uses the body and the mind for its purposes, which

are invariably in search for pleasure or flight from pain. When you

recognise the 'I' as it is, a bundle of desires and fears, and the

sense of 'mine', as embracing all things and people needed for the

purpose of avoiding pain and securing pleasure, you will see that

the 'I' and the 'mine' are false ideas, having no foundation in

reality. Created by the mind, they rule their creator as long as it

takes them to be true; when questioned, they dissolve.

 

The 'I' and 'mine', having no existence in themselves, need a support

which they find in the body. The body becomes their point of

reference. When you talk of 'my' husband and 'my' children, you mean

the body's husband and the body's children. Give up the idea of being

the body and face the question: Who am l? At once a process will be

set in motion which will bring back reality, or, rather, will take

the mind to reality. Only, you must not be afraid.

 

Q: What am I to be afraid of?

 

M: For reality to be, the ideas of 'me' and 'mine' must go. They

will go if you let them. Then your normal natural state reappears, in

which you are neither the body nor the mind, neither the 'me' nor

the 'mine', but in a different state of being altogether. It is pure

awareness of being, without being this or that, without any self-

identification with anything in particular, or in general. In that

pure light of consciousness there is nothing, not even the idea of

nothing. There is only light.

 

Q: There are people whom I love. Must I give them up?

 

M: You only let go your hold on them. The rest is up to them. They

may lose interest in you, or may not.

 

Q: How could they? Are they not my own?

 

M: They are your body's, not your own. Or, better, there is none who

is not your own.

 

Q: And what about my possessions?

 

M: When the 'mine' is no more, where are your possessions?

 

Q: Please tell me, must I lose all by losing the 'I'?

 

M: You may or you may not. It will be all the same to you. Your loss

will be somebody's gain. You will not mind.

 

Q: If I do not mind, I shall lose all!

 

M: Once you have nothing you have no problems.

 

Q: I am left with the problem of survival.

 

M: It is the body's problem and it will solve it by eating, drinking

and sleeping. There is enough for all, provided all share.

 

Q: Our society is based on grabbing, not on sharing.

 

M: By sharing you will change it.

 

Q: I do not feel like sharing. Anyhow, I am being taxed out of my

possessions.

 

M: This is not the same as voluntary sharing. Society will not

change by compulsion. It requires a change of heart. Understand that

nothing is your own, that all belongs to all. Then only society will

change.

 

Q: One man's understanding will not take the world far.

 

M: The world in which you live will be affected deeply. it will be a

healthy and happy world, which will radiate and communicate, increase

and spread. The power of a true heart is immense.

 

Q: Please tell us more.

 

M: Talking is not my hobby. Sometimes I talk, sometimes I do not. My

talking, or not talking, is a part of a given situation and does not

depend on me. When there is a situation in which I have to talk, I

hear myself talking. In some other situation I may not hear myself

talking. It is all the same to me. Whether I talk or not, the light

and love of being what I am are not affected, nor are they under my

control. They are, and I know they are. There is a glad awareness,

but nobody who is glad. Of course, there is a sense of identity, but

it is the identity of a memory track, like the identity of a sequence

of pictures on the ever-present screen. Without the light and the

screen there can be no picture. To know the picture as the play of

light on the screen, gives freedom from the idea that the picture is

real. All you have to do is to understand that you love the self and

the self loves you and that the sense 'I am' is the link between you

both, a token of identity in spite of apparent diversity. Look at

the 'I am' as a sign of love between the inner and the outer, the

real and the appearance. Just like in a dream all is different,

except the sense of 'I', which enables you to say 'I dreamt', so does

the sense of 'I am' enable you to say 'I am my real Self again'. I do

nothing, nor is anything done to me. I am what I am and nothing can

affect me. I appear to depend on everything, but in fact all depends

on me.

 

Q: How can you say you do nothing? Are you not talking to me?

 

M: I do not have the feeling that I am talking. There is talking

going on, that is all.

 

Q: I talk.

 

M: Do you? You hear yourself talking and you say: I talk.

 

Q: Everybody says: 'I work, I come, I go'.

 

M: I have no objection to the conventions of your language, but they

distort and destroy reality. A more accurate way of saying would have

been: 'There is talking, working, coming, going'. For anything to

happen, the entire universe must coincide. It is wrong to believe

that anything in particular can cause an event. Every cause is

universal. Your very body would not exist without the entire universe

contributing to its creation and survival. I am fully aware that

things happen as they happen because the world is as it is. To affect

the course of events I must bring a new factor into the world and

such factor can only be myself, the power of love and understanding

focussed in me.

 

When the body is born, all kinds of things happen to it and you take

part in them, because you take yourself to be the body. You are like

the man in the cinema house, laughing and crying with the picture,

though knowing fully well that he is all the time in his seat and the

picture is but the play of light. It is enough to shift attention

from the screen to oneself to break the spell. When the body dies,

the kind of life you live now -- succession of physical and mental

events -- comes to an end. It can end even now -- without waiting for

the death of the body -- it is enough to shift attention to the Self

and keep it there. All happens as if there is a mysterious power that

creates and moves everything. realise that you are not the mover,

only the observer, and you will be at peace.

 

Q: Is that power separate from me?

 

M: Of course not. But you must begin by being the dispassionate

observer. Then only will you realise your full being as the universal

lover and actor. As long as you are enmeshed in the tribulations of a

particular personality, you can see nothing beyond it. But ultimately

you will come to see that you are neither the particular nor the

universal, you are beyond both. As the tiny point of a pencil can

draw innumerable pictures, so does the dimensionless point of

awareness draw the contents of the vast universe. Find that point and

be free.

 

Q: Out of what do I create this world?

 

M: Out of your own memories. As long as you are ignorant of yourself

as the creator, your world is limited and repetitive. Once you go

beyond your self-identification with your past, you are free to

create a new world of harmony and beauty. Or you just remain --

beyond being and non-being.

 

Q: What will remain with me if I let go my memories?

 

M: Nothing will remain.

 

Q: I am afraid.

 

M: You will be afraid until you experience freedom and its

blessings. Of course, some memories are needed to identify and guide

the body and such memories do remain, but there is no attachment left

to the body as such; it is no longer the ground for desire or fear.

All this is not very difficult to understand and practice, but you

must be interested. Without interest nothing can be done.

 

Having seen that you are a bundle of memories held together by

attachment, step out and look from the outside. You may perceive for

the first time something which is not memory. You cease to be a Mr-so-

and-so, busy about his own affairs. You are at last at peace. You

realise that nothing was ever wrong with the world -- you alone were

wrong and now it is all over. Never again will you be caught in the

meshes of desire born of ignorance.

 

78. All Knowledge is Ignorance

Questioner: Are we permitted to request you to tell us the manner of

your realisation?

 

Maharaj: Somehow it was very simple and easy in my case. My Guru,

before he died, told me: Believe me, you are the Supreme Reality.

Don't doubt my words, don't disbelieve me. I am telling you the

truth -- act on it. I could not forget his words and by not

forgetting -- I have realised.

 

Q: But what were you actually doing?

 

M: Nothing special. I lived my life, plied my trade, looked after my

family, and every free moment I would spend just remembering my Guru

and his words. He died soon after and I had only the memory to fall

back on. It was enough.

 

Q: It must have been the grace and power of your Guru.

 

M: His words were true and so they came true. True words always come

true. My Guru did nothing; his words acted because they were true.

Whatever I did, came from within, un-asked and unexpected.

 

Q: The Guru started a process without taking any part in it?

 

M: Put it as you like. Things happen as they happen -- who can tell

why and how? I did nothing deliberately. All came by itself -- the

desire to let go, to be alone, to go within.

 

Q: You made no efforts whatsoever?

 

M: None. Believe it or not, I was not even anxious to realise. He

only told me that I am the Supreme and then died. I just could not

disbelieve him. The rest happened by itself. I found myself changing -

- that is all. As a matter of fact, I was astonished. But a desire

arose in me to verify his words. I was so sure that he, could not

possibly have told a lie, that I felt I shall either realise the full

meaning of his words or die. I was feeling quite determined, but did

not know what to do. I would spend hours thinking of him and his

assurance, not arguing, but just remembering what he told me.

 

Q: What happened to you then? How did you know that you are the

Supreme?

 

M: Nobody came to tell me. Nor was I told so inwardly. In fact, it

was only in the beginning when I was making efforts, that I was

passing through some strange experiences; seeing lights, hearing

voices, meeting gods and goddesses and conversing with them. Once the

Guru told me: 'You are the Supreme Reality', I ceased having visions

and trances and became very quiet and simple. I found myself desiring

and knowing less and less, until I could say in utter

astonishment: 'I know nothing, I want nothing.'

 

Q: Were you genuinely free of desire and knowledge, or did you

impersonate a jnani according to the image given to you by your Guru?

 

M: I was not given any image, nor did I have one. My Guru never told

me what to expect.

 

Q: More things may happen to you. Are you at the end of your

journey?

 

M: There was never any journey. I am, as I always was.

 

Q: What was the Supreme Reality you were supposed to reach?

 

M: I was undeceived, that is all. I used to create a world and

populate it -- now I don't do it any more.

 

Q: Where do you live, then?

 

M: In the void beyond being and non-being, beyond consciousness.

This void is also fullness; do not pity me. It is like a man

saying: 'I have done my work, there is nothing left to do'.

 

Q: You are giving a certain date to your realisation. It means

something did happen to you at that date. What happened?

 

M: The mind ceased producing events. The ancient and ceaseless

search stopped -- l wanted nothing, expected nothing -- accepted

nothing as my own. There was no 'me' left to strive for. Even the

bare 'I am' faded away. The other thing that I noticed was that I

lost all my habitual certainties. Earlier I was sure of so many

things, now I am sure of nothing. But I feel that I have lost nothing

by not knowing, because all my knowledge was false. My not knowing

was in itself knowledge of the fact that all knowledge is ignorance,

that 'I do not know' is the only true statement the mind can make.

Take the idea 'I was born'. You may take it to be true. It is not.

You were never born, nor will you ever die. It is the idea that was

born and shall die, not you. By identifying yourself with it you

became mortal. Just like in a cinema all is light, so does

consciousness become the vast world. Look closely, and you will see

that all names and forms are but transitory waves on the ocean of

consciousness, that only consciousness can be said to be, not its

transformations.

 

In the immensity of consciousness a light appears, a tiny point that

moves rapidly and traces shapes, thoughts and feelings, concepts and

ideas, like the pen writing on paper. And the ink that leaves a trace

is memory. You are that tiny point and by your movement the world is

ever re-created. Stop moving, and there will be no world. Look within

and you will find that the point of light is the reflection of the

immensity of light in the body, as the sense 'I am'. There is only

light, all else appears.

 

Q: Do you know that light? Have you seen it?

 

M: To the mind it appears as darkness. It can be known only through

its reflections. All is seen in daylight -- except daylight.

 

Q: Have I to understand that our minds are similar?

 

M: How can it be? You have your own private mind, woven with

memories, held together by desires and fears. I have no mind of my

own; what I need to know the universe brings before me, as it

supplies the food I eat.

 

Q: Do you know all you want to know?

 

M: There is nothing I want to know. But what I need to know, I come

to know.

 

Q: Does this knowledge come to you from within or from outside?

 

M: It does not apply. My inner is outside and my outer is inside. I

may get from you the knowledge needed at the moment, but you are not

apart from me.

 

Q: What is turiya, the fourth state we hear about?

 

M: To be the point of light tracing the world is turiya. To be the

light itself is turiyatita. But of what use are names when reality is

so near?

 

Q: Is there any progress in your condition? When you compare

yourself yesterday with yourself today, do you find yourself

changing, making progress? Does your vision of reality grow in width

and depth?

 

M: Reality is immovable and yet in constant movement. It is like a

mighty river -- it flows and yet it is there -- eternally. What flows

is not the river with its bed and banks, but its water, so does the

sattva guna, the universal harmony, play its games against tamas and

rajas, the forces of darkness and despair. In sattva there is always

change and progress, in rajas there is change and regress, while

tamas stands for chaos. The three Gunas play eternally against each

other -- it is a fact and there can be no quarrel with a fact.

 

Q: Must I always go dull with tamas and desperate with rajas? What

about sattva?

 

M: Sattva is the radiance of your real nature. You can always find

it beyond the mind and its many worlds. But if you want a world, you

must accept the three gunas as inseparable -- matter -- energy --

life -- one in essence, distinct in appearance. They mix and flow --

in consciousness. In time and space there is eternal flow, birth and

death again, advance, retreat, another advance, again retreat --

apparently without a beginning and without end; reality being

timeless, changeless, bodyless, mindless awareness is bliss.

 

Q: I understand that, according to you, everything is a state of

consciousness. The world is full of things -- a grain of sand is a

thing, a planet is a thing. How are they related to consciousness?

 

M: Where consciousness does not reach, matter begins. A thing is a

form of being which we have not understood. It does not change -- it

is always the same -- it appears to be there on its own -- something

strange and alien. Of course it is in the chit, consciousness, but

appears to be outside because of its apparent changelessness. The

foundation of things is in memory -- without memory there would be no

recognition. Creation -- reflection -- rejection: Brahma -- Vishnu --

Shiva: this is the eternal process. All things are governed by it.

 

Q: Is there no escape?

 

M: I am doing nothing else, but showing the escape. Understand that

the One includes the Three and that you are the One, and you shall be

free of the world process.

 

Q: What happens then to my consciousness?

 

M: After the stage of creation, comes the stage of examination and

reflection and, finally, the stage of abandonment and forgetting. The

consciousness remains, but in a latent, quiet state.

 

Q: Does the state of identity remain?

 

M: The state of identity is inherent in reality and never fades. But

identity is neither the transient personality (vyakti), nor the karma-

bound individuality (vyakta). It is what remains when all self-

identification is given up as false -- pure consciousness, the sense

of being all there is, or could be. Consciousness is pure in the

beginning and pure in the end; in between it gets contaminated by

imagination which is at the root of creation. At all times

consciousness remains the same. To know it as it is, is realisation

and timeless peace.

 

Q: Is the sense 'I am' real or unreal?

 

M: Both. It is unreal when we say: 'I am this, I am that'. It is

real when we mean 'I am not this, nor that'.

 

The knower comes and goes with the known, and is transient; but that

which knows that it does not know, which is free of memory and

anticipation, is timeless.

 

Q: Is 'I am' itself the witness, or are they separate?

 

M: Without one the other cannot be. Yet they are not one. It is like

the flower and its colour. Without flower -- no colours; without

colour -- the flower remains unseen. Beyond is the light which on

contact with the flower creates the colour. realise that your true

nature is that of pure light only, and both the perceived and the

perceiver come and go together. That which makes both possible, and

yet is neither, is your real being, which means not being a 'this'

or 'that', but pure awareness of being and not-being. When awareness

is turned on itself, the feeling is of not knowing. When it is turned

outward, the knowables come into being. To say: 'I know myself' is a

contradiction in terms for what is 'known' cannot be 'myself'.

 

Q: If the self is for ever the unknown, what then is realised in

self-realisation?

 

M: To know that the known cannot be me nor mine, is liberation

enough. Freedom from self-identification with a set of memories and

habits, the state of wonder at the infinite reaches of the being, its

inexhaustible creativity and total transcendence, the absolute

fearlessness born from the realisation of the illusoriness and

transiency of every mode of consciousness -- flow from a deep and

inexhaustible source. To know the source as source and appearance as

appearance, and oneself as the source only is self-realisation.

 

Q: On what side is the witness? Is it real or unreal?

 

M: Nobody can say: `I am the witness'. The `I am' is always

witnessed. The state of detached awareness is the witness-

consciousness, the 'mirror-mind'. It rises and sets with its object

and thus it is not quite the real. Whatever its object, it remains

the same, hence it is also real. It partakes of both the real and the

unreal and is therefore a bridge between the two.

 

Q: If all happens only to the 'I am', if the 'I am' is the known

and the knower and the knowledge itself, what does the witness do? Of

what use is it?

 

M: It does nothing and is of no use whatsoever.

 

Q: Then why do we talk of it?

 

M: Because it is there. The bridge serves one purpose only -- to

cross over. You don't build houses on a bridge. The 'I am' looks at

things, the witness sees through them. It sees them as they are --

unreal and transient. To say 'not me, not mine' is the task of the

witness.

 

Q: Is it the manifested (saguna) by which the unmanifested

(nirguna) is represented?

 

M: The unmanifested is not represented. Nothing manifested can

represent the unmanifested.

 

Q: Then why do you talk of it?

 

M: Because it is my birthplace.

 

79. Person, Witness and the Supreme

Questioner: We have a long history of drug-taking behind us, mostly

drugs of the consciousness-expanding variety. They gave us the

experience of other states of consciousness, high and low, and also

the conviction, that drugs are unreliable and, at best, transitory

and, at worst, destructive of organism and personality. We are in

search of better means for developing consciousness and

transcendence. We want the fruits of our search to stay with us and

enrich our lives, instead of turning to pale memories and helpless

regrets. If by the spiritual we mean self-investigation and

development, our purpose in coming to India is definitely spiritual.

The happy hippy stage is behind us; we are serious now and on the

move. We know there is reality to be found, but we do not know how to

find and hold on to it. We need no convincing, only guidance. Can you

help us?

 

Maharaj: You do not need help, only advice. What you seek is already

in you. Take my own case. I did nothing for my realisation. My

teacher told me that the reality is within me; I looked within and

found it there, exactly as my teacher told me. To see reality is as

simple as to see one's face in a mirror. Only the mirror must be

clear and true. A quiet mind, undistorted by desires and fears, free

from ideas and opinions, clear on all the levels, is needed to

reflect the reality. Be clear and quiet -- alert and detached, all

else will happen by itself.

 

Q: You had to make your mind clear and quiet before you could

realise the truth. How did you do it?

 

M: I did nothing. It just happened. I lived my life, attending to my

family's needs. Nor did my Guru do it. It just happened, as he said

it will.

 

Q: Things do not just happen. There must be a cause for everything.

 

M: All that happens is the cause of all that happens. Causes are

numberless; the idea of a sole cause is an illusion.

 

Q: You must have been doing something specific -- some meditation

or Yoga. How can you say that realisation will happen on its own?

 

M: Nothing specific. I just lived my life.

 

Q: I am amazed!

 

M: So was I. But what was there to be amazed at? My teacher's words

came true. So what? He knew me better than I knew myself, that is

all. Why search for causes? In the very beginning I was giving some

attention and time to the sense 'I am', but only in the beginning.

Soon after my Guru died, I lived on. His words proved to be true.

That is all. It is all one process. You tend to separate things in

time and then look for causes.

 

Q: What is your work now? What are you doing?

 

M: You imagine being and doing as identical. It is not so. The mind

and the body move and change and cause other minds and bodies to move

and change and that is called doing, action. I see that it is in the

nature of action to create further action like fire that continues by

burning. I neither act nor cause others to act; I am timelessly aware

of what is going on.

 

Q: In your mind, or also in other minds?

 

M: There is only one mind, which swarms with ideas; 'I am this, I am

that, this is mine, that is mine'. I am not the mind, never was, nor

shall be.

 

Q: How did the mind come into being?

 

M: The world consists of matter, energy and intelligence. They

manifest themselves in many ways. Desire and imagination create the

world and intelligence reconciles the two and causes a sense of

harmony and peace To me it all happens; I am aware, yet unaffected.

 

Q: You cannot be aware, yet unaffected. There is a contradiction in

terms. Perception is change. Once you have experienced a sensation,

memory will not allow you to return to the former state.

 

M: Yes, what is added to memory cannot be erased easily. But it can

surely be done and, in fact, I am doing it all the time. Like a bird

on its wings, I leave no footprints.

 

Q: Has the witness name and form, or is it beyond these?

 

M: The witness is merely a point in awareness. It has no name and

form. It is like the reflection of the sun in a drop of dew. The drop

of dew has name and form, but the little point of light is caused by

the sun. The clearness and smoothness of the drop is a necessary

condition but not sufficient by itself. Similarly clarity and silence

of the mind are necessary for the reflection of reality to appear in

the mind, but by themselves they are not sufficient. There must be

reality beyond it. Because reality is timelessly present, the stress

is on the necessary conditions.

 

Q: Can it happen that the mind is clear and quiet and yet no

reflection appears?

 

M: There is destiny to consider. The unconscious is in the grip of

destiny, it is destiny, in fact. One may have to wait. But however

heavy may be the hand of destiny, it can be lifted by patience and

self-control. Integrity and purity remove the obstacles and the

vision of reality appears in the mind.

 

Q: How does one gain self-control? I am so weak-minded!

 

M: Understand first that you are not the person you believe yourself

to be. What you think yourself to be is mere suggestion or

imagination. You have no parents, you were not born, nor will you

die. Either trust me when I tell you so, or arrive to it by study and

investigation. The way of total faith is quick, the other is slow but

steady. Both must be tested in action. Act on what you think is true -

- this is the way to truth.

 

Q: Are deserving the truth and destiny one and the same?

 

M: Yes, both are in the unconscious. Conscious merit is mere vanity.

Consciousness is always of obstacles; when there are no obstacles,

one goes beyond it.

 

Q: Will the understanding that I am not the body give me the

strength of character needed for self-control?

 

M: When you know that you are neither body nor mind, you will not be

swayed by them. You will follow truth, wherever it takes you, and do

what needs be done, whatever the price to pay.

 

Q: Is action essential for self-realisation?

 

M: For realisation, understanding is essential. Action is only

incidental. A man of steady understanding will not refrain from

action. Action is the test of truth.

 

Q: Are tests needed?

 

M: If you do not test yourself all the time, you will not be able to

distinguish between reality and fancy. Observation and close

reasoning help to some extent, but reality is paradoxical. How do you

know that you have realised unless you watch your thoughts and

feelings, words and actions and wonder at the changes occurring in

you without your knowing why and how? It is exactly because they are

so surprising that you know that they are real. The foreseen and

expected is rarely true.

 

Q: How does the person come into being?

 

M: Exactly as a shadow appears when light is intercepted by the

body, so does the person arise when pure self-awareness is obstructed

by the 'I-am-the-body' idea. And as the shadow changes shape and

position according to the lay of the land, so does the person appear

to rejoice and suffer, rest and toil, find and lose according to the

pattern of destiny. When the body is no more, the person disappears

completely without return, only the witness remains and the Great

Unknown.

 

The witness is that which says 'I know'. The person says 'I do'. Now,

to say 'I know' is not untrue -- it is merely limited. But to say 'I

do' is altogether false, because there is nobody who does; all

happens by itself, including the idea of being a doer.

 

Q: Then what is action?

 

M: The universe is full of action, but there is no actor. There are

numberless persons small and big and very big, who, through

identification, imagine themselves as acting, but it does not change

the fact that the world of action (mahadakash) is one single whole in

which all depends on, and affects all. The stars affect us deeply and

we affect the stars. Step back from action to consciousness, leave

action to the body and the mind; it is their domain. Remain as pure

witness, till even witnessing dissolves in the Supreme.

 

Imagine a thick jungle full of heavy timber. A plank is shaped out of

the timber and a small pencil to write on it. The witness reads the

writing and knows that while the pencil and the plank are distantly

related to the jungle, the writing has nothing to do with it. It is

totally super-imposed and its disappearance just does not matter. The

dissolution of personality is followed always by a sense of great

relief, as if a heavy burden has fallen off.

 

Q: When you say, I am in the state beyond the witness, what is the

experience that makes you say so? In what way does it differ from the

stage of being a witness only?

 

M: It is like washing printed cloth. First the design fades, then

the background and in the end the cloth is plain white. The

personality gives place to the witness, then the witness goes and

pure awareness remains. The cloth was white in the beginning and is

white in the end; the patterns and colours just happened -- for a

time.

 

Q: Can there be awareness without an object of awareness?

 

M: Awareness with an object we called witnessing. When there is also

self-identification with the object, caused by desire or fear, such a

state is called a person. In reality there is only one state; when

distorted by self-identification it is called a person, when coloured

with the sense of being, it is the witness; when colourless and

limitless, it is called the Supreme.

 

Q: I find that I am always restless, longing, hoping, seeking,

finding, enjoying, abandoning, searching again. What is it that keeps

me on the boil?

 

M: You are really in search of yourself, without knowing it. You are

love-longing for the love-worthy, the perfectly lovable. Due to

ignorance you are looking for it in the world of opposites and

contradictions. When you find it within, your search will be over.

 

Q: There will be always this sorrowful world to contend with.

 

M: Don't anticipate. You do not know. It is true that all

manifestation is in the opposites. Pleasure and pain, good and bad,

high and low, progress and regress, rest and strife they all come and

go together -- and as long as there is a world, its contradictions

will be there. There may also be periods of perfect harmony, of bliss

and beauty, but only for a time. What is perfect, returns to the

source of all perfection and the opposites play on.

 

Q: How am I to reach perfection?

 

M: Keep quiet. Do your work in the world, but inwardly keep quiet.

Then all will come to you. Do not rely on your work for realisation.

It may profit others, but not you. Your hope lies in keeping silent

in your mind and quiet in your heart. realised people are very quiet.