The Nature of The Self - [10]

[Guest guest]

Q: Does my realisation help others?

 

A: Yes, certainly. It is the best help possible. But there are no

others to be helped. For the realised being sees only the Self,

just like a goldsmith estimating the gold in various items of

jewelry sees only gold. When you identify yourself with the body

then only the forms and shapes are there. But when you transcend

your body the others disappear along with your body-consciousness.

 

Q: Is it so with plants, trees, etc.?

 

 

A: Do they exist at all apart from the Self? Find it out.

You think that you see them. The thought is projected out

from the Self. Find out from where it rises. Thoughts will

cease to rise and the Self alone will remain.

 

Q: I understand theoretically. But they are still there.

 

A: Yes. It is like a cinema show. There is the light on the screen

and the shadows fleeting across it impress the audience as the

enactment of some piece. If in the same play an audience also is

shown on the screen as part of the performance, the seer and the

seen will then both be on the screen. Apply it to yourself. You

are the screen, the Self has created the ego, the ego has its

accretions of thoughts, which are displayed as the world, the

trees and the plants of which you are asking. In reality, all

these are nothing but the self. If you see the Self, the same will

be found to be all, everywhere and always. Nothing but the Self

exists.

 

Q: Yes, I still understand only theoretically. Yet the answers are

simple, beautiful and convincing.

 

 

A: Even the thought " I do not realise " is a hindrance. In fact, the

Self alone is.

 

Our real nature is Mukti (liberation). But we are imagining we are

bound and are making various, strenuous attempts to become free,

while we are all the while free. This will be understood only when

we reach that stage. We will be surprised that we were frantically

trying to attain something, which we have always been and are. An

illustration will make this clear. A man goes to sleep in this

hall. He dreams he has gone on a world tour, is roaming over hill

and dale, forest and country, desert and sea, across various

continents and after many years of weary and strenuous travel,

returns to this country, reaches Tiruvannamalai, enters the ashram

and walks into the hall. Just at that moment he wakes up and finds

he has not moved an inch but was sleeping where he lay down. He

has not returned after great effort to this hall, but is and

always has been in the hall. It is exactly like that. If it is

asked, " Why being free do we imagine that we are bound? " I

answer, " Why being in the hall did you imagine you were on a world

adventure, crossing hill and dale, desert and sea? It is all mind

or Maya (illusion) " .