Talk 609 - #2

[Guest guest]

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Lady Bateman appreciated the discourse and thanked Sri Bhagavan.

Later, she said that she would be leaving the next day.

Sri Bhagavan smiled and said: You do not leave one place for another.

You are always stationary. The scenes go past you. Even from the

ordinary point of view you sit in your cabin and the ship sails but

you do not move. We see a picture of a man running several miles

and rushing towards us but the screen does not move. It is the

picture that moves on and away.

D.: I see, but I can understand it only after I realise the Self.

M.: The Self is always realised. Were Realisation something to be

gained hereafter there is an equal chance of its being lost. It will

thus be only transitory. Transitory bliss brings pain in its train. It

cannot be liberation which is eternal.

Were it true that you realise it later it means that you are not realised

now. Absence of Realisation of the present moment may be repeated at

any moment in the future, for Time is infinite. So too, such realisation is

impermanent. But that is not true. It is wrong to consider Realisation to

be impermanent. It is the True Eternal State which cannot change.

D.: Yes, I shall understand it in course of time.

M.: You are already That. Time and space cannot affect the Self. They are

in you; so also all that you see around you are in you. There is a story

to illustrate this point: A lady had a precious necklace round her neck.

Once in her excitement she forgot it and thought that the necklace was

lost. She became anxious and looked for it in her home but could not

find it. She asked her friends and neighbours if they knew anything

about the necklace. They did not. At last a kind friend of hers told her

to feel the necklace round the neck. She found that it had all along

been round her neck and she was happy! When others asked her later

if she found the necklace which was lost, she said, “Yes, I have found

it.” She still felt that she had recovered a lost jewel.

Now did she lose it at all? It was all along round her neck. But

judge her feelings. She is happy as if she had recovered a lost jewel.

Similarly with us, we imagine that we would realise that Self some

time, whereas we are never anything but the Self.

D.: I feel that I am transplanted into some other land than the earth.

 

Sri Bhagavan, while looking into some correspondence, heard it, smiled

and said: This is the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven

mentioned in the Bible and this world are not two different regions.

“The Kingdom is within you,” says the Bible. So it is. The realised

being sees this as the Kingdom of Heaven whereas the others see it

as ‘this world’. The difference lies only in the angles of vision.

D.: How can we deny the world and the people therein? I hear some

music. It is sweet and grand. I recognise it to be Wagner’s music.

I cannot claim it to be mine.

M.: Does Wagner or his music exist apart from you? Unless you are

there to say that it is Wagner’s music, can you be aware of it? Without

being aware of it, can it be said to exist? To make it more clear, do

you recognise Wagner’s music in your deep sleep? And yet you admit

that you exist in sleep. So it is clear that Wagner and music are only

your thoughts. They are in you and not out of you.

D.: It is beautiful.