Talks with
Sri Nisarga Datta Maharaj
Q: What is the realization which- ;~ heyon~J understanding? M. Imagine a dense forest Fe.!l! of titers and you in a strong steel GO BEYOND THE l-AM-THE-BO[!Y IDEA I 7 7 cage. Knowing that you are well protected by the cage, you watch the tigers fearlessly. next you find the tigers in the cage and yourself roaming about in the jungle. Last--the cage dis- appears and you ride the tigers!
Q: I attended one of the group meditation sessions, held re- cently in Bombay, and witnessed the frenzy and self-abandon of the participants. Why do people go for such things?
M: These are all inventions of a restless mind pampering to people in search of sensations. Some of them help the uncon- scious to disgorge suppressed memories and longings and to that extent they provide relief. But ultimately they leave the prac- titioner where he was--or worse.
Q: I have read recently a book by a Yogi on his experiences in meditation. It is full of visions and sounds, colors and melodies; quite a display and a most gorgeous entertainment! In the end they all faded out and only the feeling of Tar fear- lessness remained. No wonder--a man who passed through all these experiences unscathed need not be afraid of anything! Yet I was wondering of what use is such book to Rae?
M: Of no use, probably, since it does not attract you. Others may be impressed. People differ. But all are faced with the fact of their own existence. 'I am' is the ultimate fact; 'Who am l?' is the ultimate question to which everybody must find an answer.
Q: The same answer?
M: The same in essence, varied in expression. Each seeker accepts, or invents, a method which suits him, applies it to himself with some earnestness and effort, obtains results according to his temperament and expectations, casts them into the mound of words, builds them into a system, estab- lishes a tradition and begins to admit others into his 'school of Yoga'. It is all built on memory and imagination. No such school is valueless, nor indispensable; in each one can progress up to the point, when all desire for progress must be abandoned to make further progress possible. Then all schools are given up, all effort ceases; in solitude and darkness the vast step is made which ends ignorance and fear forever.'. The true teacher, however, will not imprison his disciple in a prescribed set of ideas, feelings and actions; on the contrary, 478 1 AM THAT he will show him patiently the need to be free from all ideas and set patterns of behavior, to be vigilant and earnest and go with life wherever it takes him, not to enjoyor suffer, but to under- stand and learn. Under the right teacher the disciple learns to learn, not to re- member and obey. Sat sang, the company of the noble, does not mound, it liberates. Beware of all that makes you dependent. Most of the so-called 'surrenders to the Guru' end in disap- pointment, if not in tragedy. Fortunately, an earnest seeker will disentangle himself in time, the wiser for the experience.
Q: Surely, self-surrender has its value.
M: Self-surrender is the surrender of all self-concern. It cannot be done, it happens when you realize your true nature. Verbal self-surrender, even when accompanied by feeling, is of little value and breaks down under stress. At the best it shows an apsiration, not an actual fact.
Q: In the Rigveda there is the mention of the ad hi yoga, the Primordial Yoga, consisting of the marriage of pragna with Prana, which, as I understand, means the bringing together of wisdom and life. Would you say it means also the union of Dharma and Karma, righteousness and action?
M: Yes, provided by righteousness you mean harmony with one's true nature and by action--only unselfish and desire less action. In ad hi yoga life itself is the Guru and the mind--the disciple. The mind attends to life, it does not dictate. Life flows naturally and effortlessly and the mind removes the obstacles to its even flow.
Q: Is not life by its very nature repetitive? Will not following life lead to stagnation?
M: By itself life is immensely creative. A seed, in course of time, becomes a forest. The mind is like a forester--protecting and reoulatina the immense vital urge of existence.
Q: Seen as the service of life by the mind, the ad hi yoga is a perfect democracy Everyone is engaged in living a life to his best capacity and knowledge, everyone is a disciple of the same Guru. GO BEYOND THE l-AM-THE-BODY IDEA 479
M: You may say so. It may be so--potentially. But unless life is loved and trusted, followed with eagerness and zest, it would be fanciful to talk of Yoga, which is a movement in consciousness, awareness in action. 0: Once I watched a mountain-stream flowing between the boulders. At each boulder the commotion was different, accord- ing to the shape and size of the boulder. Is not every person a mere commotion over a body, while life is one and eternal?
M: The commotion and the water are not separate. It is the dis- turbance that makes you aware of water. Consciousness is al- ways of movement, of change. There can be no such thing as changeless consciousness. Changeless Ness wipes out con- sciousness immediately. A man deprived of outer or inner sen- sations blanks out, or goes beyond consciousness and uncon- sciousness into the birth less and deathless state. Only when spirit and matter come together consciousness is born.
Q: Are they one or two?
M: It depends on the words you use: they are one, or two, or three. On investigation three become two and two become one. Take the simile of face--mirror--image. Any two of them pre- suppose the third which unites the two. In sadhana you see the three as two, until you realize the two as one. A long as you are engrossed in the world, you are unable to know yourself: to know yourself, turn away your attention from the world and turn it within.
Q: I cannot destroy the world.
M: There is no need. Just understand that what you see is not what is. Appearances will dissolve on investigation and the un- derlying reality will come to the surface. You need not burn the house to get out of it. You just walk out. It is only when you can- not come and go freely that the house becomes a jail. I move in and out of consciousness easily and naturally and therefore to me the world is a home, not a prison.
Q: But ultimately is there a world, or is there none?
M: What you see is nothing but your self. Call it what you like, it does not change the fact. Through the film of destiny your own light depicts pictures on the screen. You are the viewer, the 380 1 AM THAT 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 im- mense 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 hor- rors 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 a skits 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 center 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 ques- tion. 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. TO KNOW THAT YOU DO NOT KNOW, IS TRUE KNOWLEDGE 381
Q: Oh, no! This Lola 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 perceive with the perceived. Out of it desire is born and with desire blind action, unmindful of results. Look round and you will see--suf- fering 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 thereis only the source, dark in itself, making everything shine. Unper- ceived, it causes perception. Unfelt, it causes feeling. Unthink- able, it causes thought. Non-being, it gives birth to being. It is the immovable background of motion. Once you are Ihere 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 ex- hausted, 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 libera- ting, for you cannot abandon desire, unless its causes and ef- fects are clearly seen. I do not say that the same person IS re- born. It dies and dies for good. But its memories remain and their desires and fears. They supply the energy fox a new per- son. The real takes no part in it, but makes it possible by giving it, the light. 382 1 AM Ti I AT
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 ex- perience 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 un- concerned in the full light of clarity and understanding. You un- derstand 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 choice less love is the touchstone of awareness. if it is not there, you are merely in- terested--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 pleassure on the level of consciousness. To go beyond them you must go beyond con- sciousness, which is possible only when you look at conscious- ness as something that happens to you and not in you, as some- thing 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 con- sciousness for the very idea of stepping out is in conscious- ness. 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 To KNOW THAT YOU DO NOT KNOW. IS TRUE KNOWLEDGE 383 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 crimi- nals justly punished?
M: Must one suffer only for one's own sins? Are we really sepa- rate? 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, suffer- ing 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 under- standing 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 de- 384 1 AM THAT stroker of this world, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent. When I ponder over what you say, I ask myself: 'How is it Thai 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 end- less 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 (prarabdhaJ.
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 underset.~nding and take appearances for reality. You believe you know the world and yourself--but it is only your ig- norance 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 put- ting an end to ignorance. Then, you need not do anything in par- ticular to help the world. Your very being is a help, action or no action.
Q: How can ignorance be known? To know ignorance presup- poses 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. . . TO KNOW THAT YOU DO NOT KNOW, IS TRUE KNOWLEDGE 385
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 impor- tant.
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 natt~re?
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. ù-- 'I' and 'Mine' are False Ideas
Questioner: I am very much attached to my gamily and posses- sions. How can I conquer this attacher,t~
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 re- mains. There is nothing.~vrong in it. The problem arises only when the memory of past pains and pleasures--which are es- sential to all organic life--remains as a reflex, dominating be- havior. 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 recognize the 'I' as it is, a bundle of desires and fears, and the sense of 'mine', as embra- cing 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' chil- dren, 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 trust not be afraid.
Q: What am I to be afraid of?
M: For reality to be, the ideas of 'Rae' and 'mine' must go. They will go if you let them. Then your normal natural state reappears, ~l~ Anvil ~MINF ARE FALSE IDEAS 387 in which you are rather 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 Moe, 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 wit.l 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. Under- stand that nothing is your own, that all belongs to all. Thor, 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 communi- cate, increase and spread. The power of a true heart is im- mense. 388 1 AM THAT
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 ap- pearance. Just like in a dream all is different, except the sense of '1', 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 theyhappen because the 'I' AND 'MINE' ARE FALSE IDEAS 389 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 hap- pens as if there is a mysterious power that creates and moves everything. Realize that you are not the mover, only the ob- server, and you will be at peace.
Q: Is that power separate from me?
M: Of course not. But you must begin by being the dispassion- ate observer. Then only will you realize your full being as the universal lover and actor. us 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 bles- sings. Of course, some memories are needed to identify and 390 1 AM THAT guide the body and such memories do remain, lout 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 realize that nothing was ever wrong with the world--you alone were wrong and now it is all over. Never again wit! YOU be caught in the meshes of desire born of ignorance. All Knowledge is Ignorance 78
Questioner: Are we permitted to request you to tell us the man- ner of your realization? Maharaja- 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 realized.
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 wow!d spend just remember ALL KNOWLEDGE IS IGNORANCE 391 in my Guru and his words. He died soon after and ! had only the memory to fall back on. It was enough.
Q: It must have beer, Ike grace and power of your Guru.
M: His words were true and so they came true. True words al- ways come true. My Guru did nothing; his words acted because they were true. Whatever I did, came from within, unmasked and unexpected .
Q: The Guru started a process without taking any part in it?
M: Put it as you like. rings 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 realize. 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 realize the full meaning of his words or die. 1. was feeling quite deter- mined, but did not know what to do. I would spend hours think- ing 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 tights, hear- ing voices, meeting gods and goddesses and conversing with them. Once the Guru told me: 'You are the Supaim 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: Wereyou genuinely free of desire and knowledge, or did you impersonate a nanny 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. 392 1 AM THAT
Q: More things may happen to you. Are you at the end of your journey?
M: There was never Ann tourney. 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 popKate 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 con- sciousness. This void is also fullness; do not pity me. It is like a man saying: 'Ishave done my work, there is nothing left to do'.
Q: You are giving a certain date to your realization. It means something did happen to you at that date. What happened?
M: The mind ceased producing events. The ancient and cease- less 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 know- ledge 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 tran- sitory waves on the ocean of consciousness, that only con- sciousness 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 feel- ings, concepts and ideas, Luke 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 recreated. 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 ALL KNOWLEDGE IS IGNORANCE . 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 Roy 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 out- side?
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 tarry, the fourth state we hear about?
M: To be the point of light tracing the world is tarry. 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 gun a, the universal harmony, play its games against tam as and rajahs, the forces of darkness and despair. In sattva there is always change and progress, in rajahs there is change and regress, while tam as stands for chaos. The three Gunas play eternally against each other ---it is a fact and there Gun be no quarrel with a fact.
Q: Must I always go dull with tam as and desperate with rajahs? What aboutsattva? 394 1 AM THAT
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 gun as as inseparable--mat- ter--energy--life--one in essence, district 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, body less, mind- less 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 conscious- ness?
M: Where consciousness does not reach, matter begins. A thing is a form of being which we have not understood. Itdoes not change--it is always.the same--it appears to be there or. its own--something strange and alien. Of course it IS in the chit, consciousness, but appears to be outside because of its apparent changeless Ness. The foundation of things is n memo- ry--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 nothi~ng else, but showing the escape. Under- stand 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 c, eat ion, 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 (vacuity), nor the karma-bound individuality (vacuity). 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 Al I KNOWLEDGE ISIGNORANCE 395 pure in the beginning and pure in the end; in between it gets contaminated by imagination which is at the root of creation. At ail times consciousness remains the same. To know it as it is, is realization 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 color. Without flower---no colors; with- out color--the flower remains unseen. Beyond is the light which on contact with the flower creates the color. Realize that your true nature is that of pure light only, and both the perceived and the parser come an,d 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. Whenwit is turned outward, the knowable 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 realized in self-realization?
M: To know that the known can riot 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 realization of the illusori- ness 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-realization.
Q: On what side is the witness? Is it real or unreal?
M: Nobody car say: PI am the witness'. The PI am' is always wit- ne~.ce~ The state of detached awareness is the witness- 396 1 AM THAT 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 Rex!. 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? IDA: Because it is there. The bridge serves one purpose only-- to crass 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 Tao of thy wit I
Q: Is it the manifested (sauna) 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. Person, Witness and the Supreme
Questioner: We have a long history of drug-taking behind us, mostly drums 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 Rexpity to be fount, but we do not know how to find and hold on to it. We need no convincing, only guidance. Can you help us? Maharaja: You do not need help, only advice. What you seek is already in you. Take my own case. I did nothing for my realiza- tion. 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 mir- ror 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 de- tached, all else will happen by itself.
Q: You had to make your mind clear and quiet before you could realize the truth. How did you do it?
M: I did nothing. It just happened. I lived my life, attending tc my family's needs. Nor did my Guru do it. It just happened, as 398 1 AM THAT he said it will.
Q: Things do not just happen. There must be a cause for every- thing.
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 realization will hap- pen on its own?
M: Nothing specific. I just lived my life.
Q: I am amazed! .
M: So was !. But what was there to be amazed at? My teacher's words came true. So what? He knew me better than I knew my- self, 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, ac- tion. 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 aso 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 tune mln~ 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 Tc me it all happens; I am aware, yet unaffected.
Q: You cannot be aware, yet unaffected. There is a contradic- tion in terms. Perception is change. Once you have expert PERSON, WITNESS AND THE SUPREME 399 ens Ed 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 nari~e 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 awes 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 cla- rity 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 rea- lity is timelessly present, the stress is on the necessary condi- tions.
Q: Can it happen that the mind is clear and quiet and yet no re- flection 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 how- ever heavy may be the hand of destiny, it can be lifted by pati- ence 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 woes beyond it.
Q: Will the understanding that I am not the body give me the strength of character needed for self-control?400 1 EM T I T
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-realization?
M: For realization, understanding is essential. Action is only in- cidental. A man of steady understanding will not refrain from ac- tion. 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 realized 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 foreseer 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'Jidea. 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 t I 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 (mahadakasl~.) 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 PEPSON. WITNESS AND THE SUPREME 401 their domain. ~emaln as pure witness, till even witnessing dis- solves in the Supreme. Imagine a thick jungle full of heavy timber. A plank is shaped out of the timber and a Somali pencil to write on it. The witness reads the writing and knows that while the pencil and the plank aredistantly 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 al- ways 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 per- sonality 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 colors 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 colored with the sense of being, it is the witness; when colorless 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 nM know. It is true that all manifes- tation is in the opposites. Pleasure and pain, good and bad, high and low, progress and regress, rest and strife they all 402 1 AM THAT come and go together--and as long as there is a world, its contradictions will be there. There may also be periods of per- fect 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 realization. It may profit others, but not you. Your hope lies in keeping silent in your rind and quiet in your heart. Realized people are very quiet. Awareness 80
Questioner: Does it take time to realize the Self, or time cannot help to realize? Is self-realization a matter of time only, or does it depend on factors other than time? Maharaja: All waiting is futile. To depend on time to solve our problems is self-delusion. The future, left to itself merely repeats the past. Change can only happen now, never in the future.
Q: What brings about a change?
M: With crystal clarity see the need of change. This is all.
Q: Does self-realization happen in matter, or beyond? Is it not an experience depending on the body and the mind for its oc- currence? AWARENFSS 4n3
M: All experience is illusory, limited and temporal. Expect no- thing from experience. Realization by itself is not an experience, though it may lead tug a new dimension of experiences. Yet the new experiences, however interesting, are not more real than the old. Definitely realization is not a new experience. It is the discovery of the timeless factor in every experience. It is aware- ness, which makes experience possible. Just like in all the col- ors light is the colorless factor, so. in every experience aware- ness is present, yet it is not an experience.
Q: If awareness is not an experience, how can it be realized?
M: Awareness is ever there. It need not be realized. Open the shutter of the mind, and it will be flooded with light.
Q: What is matter?
M: What you do not understand is matter.
Q: Science understands matter.
M: Science merely pushes back the frontiers of our ignorance.
Q: And what is nature?
M: The totality of conscious experiences is nature. As a con- scious self you are a part of nature. As awareness, you are beyond. Seeing nature as mere consciousness is awareness.
Q: Are there levels of awareness?
M: There are levels in consciousness, but not in awareness. It is of one block, homogeneous. Its reflection in the mind is love and understanding. There are levels of clarity in understanding and intensity in love, but not in their source. The source is simple and single, but its gifts are infinite. Only do not take the gifts for the source. Realize yourself as the source and not as the river; that is all.
Q: I am the river too.
M: Of course, you are. As an 'I am' you are the river, flowing be- tween the banks of the body. But you are also the source and the ocean and the clouds in the sky. Wherever there is life and consciousness, you are. Smaller than the smallest, bigger than the biggest, you are, while all else appears.
Q: The sense of being and the sense of living--are they one and the same, or different? a 1 AM THAT
M: The identity in space creates one, the continuity in time creates the qther.
Q: You said once that the seer, seeing and the seen are one single thing, not three. To me the three are separate. I do not doubt your words, only I do not understand.
M: Look closely and you will see that the seer and the seen ap- pear only when there is seeing. They are attributes of seeing. When you say 'I am seeing this'. 'I am' and 'this' come with se- eing, not before. You cannot have an unseen 'this' nor an unse- eing 'I am'.
Q: I can say: 'I do not see'.
M: The 'I am seeing this' has become 'l am seeing my not se- eing', or 'I am seeing darkness'. The seeing remains. In the trip- licity: the known, knowing and the knower, only the knowing is a fact. The 'I am' and 'this' are doubtful. Who knows? What is known? There is no certainty, except that there is knowing.
Q: Why am I sure of knowing, but not of the knower?
M: Knowing is a reflection of your true nature along with being and loving. The knower and the known are added by the mind. It is in the nature of the mind to create a subject-object duality, where there is none.
Q: What is the cause of desire and fear?
M: Obviously, the memory of past pains and pleasures. There is no great mystery about it. Conflict arises only when desire Ann fear refer to the same object. 0: How to put an end to memory?
M: It is-neither necessary, nor possible. Realize that all hap- pens in consciousness and you are the root, the source, the foundation of consciousness. The world is but a succession of experiences and you are what makes them conscious, and yet remain beyond all experience. It is like the heat, the flame and the burning wood. The heat maintains the flame, the flame con- sumes the wood. Without heat there would be neither flame nor fuel. Similarly, without awareness there would be no conscious- ness, nor life, which transforms matter into a vehicle of con- . sauciness. ,
Q: You maintain that without me there would be no world. and AWARENESS 405 that the world and my knowledge of the world are identical. Sci- ence has come to a quite different conclusion: the world exists as something concrete and continuous, while I am a by-product of biological evolution of the nervous system, which is primarily not so much a seat of consciousness, as a mechanism of survi- val as individual and species. Yours is altogether a subjective view, while science tries to describe everything in objective terms. Is this contradiction inevitable?
M: The confusion is apparent and purely verbal. What is, is. It is neither subjective nor objective. Matter and mind are not sepa- rate, they are aspects of one energy. Look at the mind as a func- tion of matter and you have science; look at matter as the pro- duct of the mind and you have religion. a But what is true? What comes first, mind or matter?
M: Neither comes first. for neither appears alone. Matter is the shape, mind is the name. Together they make the world. Per- vading and transcending is Reality, pure being--awareness-- bliss, your very essence.
Q: All I know is the stream of consciousness, an endless suc- cession of events. The river of time flows, bringing and carrying away relentlessly. Transformation of the future into past is going on all the time.
M: Are you not the victim of your language? You speak about the flow of time, as if you were stationary. But the events you have witnessed yesterday somebody else may see tomorrow. It is you who are in movement and not time. Stop moving and time will cease.
Q: What does it mean--time will cease?
M: Past and future will merge in the eternal now.
Q: But what does it mean in actual experience? How do you know that for you time has ceased?
M: It may mean that past and future do not matter any more. It may also mean that all that happened and will happen becomes an open book to be read at will.
Q: I can imagine a sort of cosmic memory, accessib!e with some training. But how can the future be known? The unex- pected is inevitable. 40~i 1 AM THAT
M: What is unexpected on one level may be certain to happen, when seen from a higher level After all, we are within the limits of the mind. In reality nothing happens, there is no past nor fu- ture; all appears and nothing is.
Q: What does it mean, nothing is? Do you turn blank, or go to sleep? Or do you dissolve the world and keep us all in abeyance, until we are brought back to life at the next flicker of your thought?
M: Oh, no, it is not that bad. The world of mind and matter, of names and shapes, continues, but it does not matter to me at all. It islike having a shadow. It is there--following me where- ver Igo, but not hindering me in any way. It remains a world of experiences, but not of names and forms related to me by de- sires and fears. The experiences are quality less, pure experi- ences, if I may say so. I call them experiences for the lack of a better word. They are like the waves on the surface of the ocean, the ever-present, but not affecting its peaceful power.
Q: You mean to say an experience can be nameless, formless, undefined?
M: In the beginning all experience is such. It is only desire and fear, born of memory, that give it name and form and separate it from other experiences. It is not a conscious experience, for it is not in opposition to other experiences, yet it is an experience all the same.
Q: If it is not conscious, why talk about it?
M: Most of your experiences are unconscious. The conscious ones are very few. You are unaware of the fact because to you only the conscious ones count. Become aware of the uncon- scious .
Q: Can one be aware of the unconscious? How is it done?
M: Desire and fear are the obscuring and distorting factors. When mind is free of them the unconscious becomes accessi- ble.
Q: Does it mean that the unconscious becomes conscious?
M: It is rather the other way round. The conscious becomes one with the unconscious. The distinction ceases, whichever way you look at it. AWARENESS ~n7
Q: I am puzzled. How can one be aware and yet unconscious?
M: Awareness is not Jimited to consciousness. It is of all that is. Consciousness is of duality. There is no duality in awareness. It is one single block of pure cognition. In the same way one can talk of the pure being and pure creation--nameless, formless, silent and yet absolutely real, powerful, effective. Their being indescribable does not affect them in the least. While they are unconscious, they are essential. The conscious cannot change fundamentally, it can only modify. Any thing, to change, must pass through death, through obscuration and dissolution. Gold jewelry must be melted down before it is cast into another shape. What refuses to die cannot be reborn.
Q: Barring the death of the body, how does one die?
M: Withdrawal, aloofness, letting go is death. To live fully, death IS essential; every ending makes a new beginning. On the other hand, do understand, that only the dead can die, not the living. That which is alive in you, is immortal.
Q: From where does desire draw its energy?
M: Its name and shape it draws from memory. The energy flows from the source.
Q: Some desires are altogether wrong. How can wrong desires flow from a sublime source?
M: The source is neither right nor wrong. Nor is desire by itself right or wrong. It is nothing but striving for happiness. Having identified yourself with a speck of a body you feel lost and search desperately for the sense of fullness and completene you call happiness.
Q: When did I losewit? I never had it.
M: You had it before you woke up this morning. Go beyond your consciousness and you will find it.
Q: How am I to go beyond?
M: You know it already; do it.
Q: That's what you say. I know nothing about it.
M: Yet I repeat--you know it. Do it. Go beyond, back to your normal, natural, supreme state.
Q: I'm puzzled. 408 1 AM THAT
M: A speck in the eye makes you think you are blind. Wash it out and look.
Q: I do look I I see only darkness.
M: Remove the speck and your eyes will be flooded with light. The light is there--waiting. The eyes are there--ready. The darkness you 'see is but the shadow of the tiny speck. Get rid of it and come back to your natural state. Root Cause of Fear
Maharaj: Where do you come from?
Questioner: I am from the United States, but I live mostly in Europe. To India I came recently. I was in Rishikesh, in two As- hrams. I was taught meditation and breathing.
M: How long were you there?
Q: Eight days in one, six days in another. I was not happy there and I left. Then for three weeks I was with the Tibetan Lam as. But they were all wrapped up in formulas and rituals.
M: And what was the net result of it all?
Q: Definitely there was an increase of energy. But before I left for Rishikesh, I did some fasting and dieting at a Nature Cure Sanatorium at Pudukkotai in South India. It has done me enorm- ous good.
M: Maybe the access of energy was due to better health. ROOT CAUSE OF FEAR 4r~s
Q: I cannot say. But as a result of all these attempts some fires started burning in various places in my body and I heard chants and voices where there were none.
M: And what are you after now?
Q: Well, what are we all after? Some truth, some inner certainty, some real happiness. In the various schools of self-realization there is so much talk of awareness, tl~at one ends with the im- pression that awareness itself is the supreme reality. Is it so? The body is looked after by the brain, the brain is illumined by consciousness; awareness watches over consciousness; is there anything beyond awareness?
M: How do you know that you are aware?
Q: I feel that I am. I cannot express it otherwise.
M: When you follow it up carefully from brain through con- sciousness to awareness, you find that the sense of duality per- sists. When you go beyond awareness, there is a state of non- duality, in which there is no cognition, only pure being, which may be as well called non-being, if by being you mean being something in particular.
Q: What you call pure being is it universal being, being every- thing?
M: Everything implies a collection of particulars. In pure being the very idea of the particular is absent.
Q: Is there any relationship between pure being and particular being?
M: What relationship can there be between what is and what merely appears to be? Is there any relationship between the ocean and its waves? The real enables the unreal to appear and causes it to disappear. the succession of transient moments creates the illusion of time, but the timeless reality of pure being is not in movement, for all movement requires a motionless background. It is itself the background. Once you have found it in yourself, you know that you had never lost that independent being, independent of all divisions and separations. But don't look for it in consciousness I you will not find it there. Don't look for it anywhere, for nothing contains it. On the contrary, it con- tains everything and manifests everything. It is like the daylight 410 1 AM THAT that makes everything visible while itself remaining invisible.
Q: Sir, of what use to me is your telling me that reality cannot be found in consciousness? Where else am I to look for it? How do you apprehend it?
M: It is quite simple. If I ask you what is the taste of your mouth all you can do is to say: it is neither sweet nor bitter, nor sour nor astringent; it is what remains when all these tastes are not. Simi- larly, when all distinctions and reactions are no more, what re- mains is reality, simple and solid.
Q: All that I understand is that I am in the grip of a beginning- less illusion. And I do not see how. it can come to an end. If it could, it would--long ago. I must have had as many oppor- tunities in the past as I shall have in the future. What could not happen cannot happen. Or, if it did, it could not last. Our very deplorable state after all these untold millions of years carries at best, the promise of ultimate extinction, or, which is worse, the threat of an endless and meaningless repetition.
M: What proof have you that your present state is beginning- less and endless? How were you before you were b~orn? How will you be after death? And of your present state--how much do yowl know? You do not know even what was your condition before you woke up this morning? You only know a little of your present state and from it you draw conclusions for all times and places. You may be just dreaming and imagining your dream to be eternal.
Q: Calling it a dream does not change the situation. i repeat my question: what hope is left which the eternity behind me could not fulfill? Why should my future be different from my past?
M: In your fevered state, you project a past and a future and take them to be real. In fact, you know only your present mo- ment. Why not investigate what is now, instead of questioning the imaginary past and future? Your present state is neither be- ginning less nor endless. If is over in a flash. Watch carefully from where it comes and where it goes. You will soon discover the timeless regality behind it.
Q: Why have I not done it before?
M: Just as every wave subsides into the ocean, so does every ROOT CAUSE OF FEAR 411 nominate return to its source. Realization consists in discovering the source and abiding there.
Q: Who discovers?
M: The mind discovers.
Q: Does it find the answers?
M: It finds that it is left without questions, that no answers are needed.
Q: Being born is a fall. Dying is another fact. How do they ap- pear to the witness?
M: A child was born; a man has died--just events in tune course of time.
Q: Is there any progress in the witness? Does awareness evolve?
M: What is seen may undergo many changes when the light of awareness is focussed on it, but it is the object that changes, not the light. Plants grow in sunlight, but the sun does not grow. By themselves both the body and the witness are motionless, but when brought together in the mind, both aspLear to move.
Q: Yes, I can see that what moves and changes is the 'I am' only. Is the 'I am' needed at all?
M: Who needs it? It is there--now. It had a beginning it will have an end.
Q: What remans wren Ike I ~r~l y I
M: What does not come and go--remains. It is the ever- greedy mind that creates ideas of progress and evolution to- wards perfection. It disturbs and talks of order, destroys and seeks security.
Q: Is there progress in destiny, in karma?
M: Karma is only a store of unspent energies, of unfulfilled de- sires and fears not understood. The store is being constantly replenished by new desires and fears. It need not be so for ever. Understand the root cause of your fears--estrangement from yourself: and of desires--the longing for the self, and your karma will dissolve like a dream. Between earth and heaven life goes on. Neither,g is affected, only bodies grow and decay. 412 1 AM THAT
Q: Between the person and the witness, what is the relation?
M: There can be no relation between them because they are one. Don't separate and don't look for relationship.
Q: If the seer and the seen are one, how did the separation occur?
M: Fascinated by names and forms, which are by their very na- ture distinct and diverse, you distinguish what is natural and separate what is one. The world is rich in diversity, but your feel- ing strange and frightened is due to misapprehension. It is the body that is in danger, ntot you. a I can see that the basic biological anxiety, the flight instinct, takes many shapes and distorts my thoughts and feelings. But how did this anxiety come into being?
M: It is a mental state caused by the 'I am-the-body' idea. It can be removed by the contrary idea: 'I am-not-the-body'. Both the ideas are false, but one removes the other. Realize that no ideas are your own, they all come to you from outside. You must think it all out for yourself, become yourself the object of your medita- tion. The effort to understand yourself is Yoga. Be a Yogi, give your life to it, brood, wonder, search, till you come to the root of error and to the truth beyond the error.
Q: In meditation, who meditates, the person or the witness?
M: Meditation is a deliberate attempt to pierce into the higher states of consciousness and finally go beyond it. The art of meditation is the art of shifting the focus of attention to ever sub- tler levels, without losing one's grip on the levels left behind. In a way it is like having death under control. One begins with the lowest levels: social circumstances, customs and habits; physi- cal surroundings, the posture and the breathing of the body, the senses, their sensations and perceptions; the mind, its thoughts and feelings; until the entire mechanism of personality is grasped and firmly held. The final stage of meditation is reached when the sense of identity goes beyond the '1- am-so-and-so', beyond 'so-l-am', beyond 'I-am-the-witness- only', beyond 'there-is', beyond all ideas into the imper- sonally personal pure being. But you must be energetic when you take to meditation. It is definitely not a part-time occurcation. ROOT CAUSE OF FEAR 413 Limit your interests and activities to what is needed for you Ann your dependents' barest neeo~s. Save all your energies and time for breaking the wall your mind had built around you. Believe me, you will not regret.
Q: How do I come to know that my experience is universal?
M: At the end of your meditation all is known directly no proofs whatsoever Arab required. Just as every drop of the ocean car- ries the taste of the ocean, so does every moment carry the taste of eternity. Definitions and descriptions have their place as useful incentives for further search, but you must go beyond them into what is undefinable and indescribable, except in nega- tive terms. After all, even universality and eternity are mere concepts, the opposites of being place and time-bound. Reality is not a con- cept, nor the manifestation of a concept. It has nothing to do with concepts. Concern yourself with your mind, remove its dis- tortions and impurities. Once you had the taste of your own self, you will find it everywhere and at all times. Therefore, it is so im- portant that you should come to it. Once you know it, you will never lose it. But you must give yourself the opportunity through intensive, even arduous meditation.
Q: What exactly do you want me to do? M. Give your heart and mind to brooding over the 'I am', what is it, how is it, what is its source, its life, its meaning. It is very much like digging a well. You reject all that is not water, till you reach the life-giving spring.
Q: How shall I know that I am moving in the right direction?
M: By your progress in intentness, in clarity and devotion to the task.
Q: We, Europeans, find it very difficult to keep quiet. The world is too much with us.
M: Oh, no, you are dreamers too. We differ only in the contents of our dreams. You are after perfection . in the future. We are intent on finding it--in the now. The limited only is perfectible. The unlimited is already perfect. You are perfect, only you don't know it. Lear to know yourself and you will discover wonders 414 I AM THAT All you need is already within you, only you must approach your self with reverence and love. Self-condemnation and self- dlstrust are previous errors. Your constant flight from pain and search for pleasure is a sign of love you bear for your self, all I plead with you is this: make love of your self perfect. Deny your- self nothing--glue your self infinity and eternity and discover that you do not need them; you are beyond. ù.. Absolute Perfection is Here and Now 82
Questioner: The war is on. What is your attitude to it? Maharaja: In some place or other, in some form or other, the war IS always on. Was there a time when there was no war? Some say it IS the will of God. Some say it is God's play. It is another way of saying that wars are inevitable and nobody is responsi- ble.
Q: But what is your own attitude?
M: Why impose attitudes on me? I have no attitude to call my own.
Q: Surely somebody is responsible for this horrible and sense- less carnage. Why do people kill each other so readily?
M: Search for the culprit within. The ideas of 'me' and 'mine' are at the root of all conflict. Be free of them and you will be out of ABSOLUTE PERFECTION IS HERE AND NOW 415 conflict.
Q: What of it that I am out of conflict? It will not affect the war. If I am the cause of way, I am resay to be destroyed. Yet, it stands to reason that the disappearance of a thousand like me will not stop wars. They did not start with my birth nor will end with my death . I am not Rex possible. Who is?
M: Strife and struggle are a part of existence. Why don't you enquire who is responsible for existence?
Q: Why do you say that existence and conflict are inseparable? Can there be no existence without strife? I need not fight others to be myself.
M: You fight others all the time for your survival as a separate body-mind, a particular name and form. To live you must de- stroy. From the moment you were conceived you started a war with your environment--a merciless war of mutual extermina- tion, until death sets you free.
Q: My question remains unanswered. You are merely describ- ing what I know--life and its sorrows. But who is responsible, you do not say. When I press you, you throw the blame on God, or karma, or on my own greed and fear--which merely invites further questions. Give me the final answer.
M: The final answer is this nothing is. All is a momentary ap- pearance in the field of the universal consciousness; continuity as name and form is a mental formation only, easy to dispel.
Q: I am asking about the immediate, the transitory, the appear- ance. Here is a picture of a child killed by soldiers. It is a fact-- staring at you. You cannot deny it. Now, who is responsible for the death of the child?
M: Nobody and everybody. The world is what it contains and each thing affects all others. We all kill the child and we all die with it. Every event has innumerable causes and produces numberless effects. It is useless to keep accounts, nothing is traceable.
Q: Your people speak of karma and retribution.
M: It is merely a gross approximation: in reality we are all creators and creatures of each other, causing and bearing each other's burden. 416 1 AM THAT
Q: So, the innocent suffers for the guilty?
M: In our ignorance we are innocent; in our actions we are guilty. We sin without knowing and suffer without understand- ing. Our only hope: to stop, to look, to understand and to get out of the traps of memory. For memory feeds imagination and im-, agitation generates desire and fear.
Q: Why do I imagine at all?
M: The light of consciousness passes through the film of mem- ory and throws pictures on your brain. Because of the deficient and disordered state of your brain, what you perceive is dis- torted and colored by feelings of like and dislike. Make your thinking orderly and free from emotional overtones, and you will see people and things as they are, with clarity and charity. The witness of birth, life and death is one and the same. It is the witness of pain and of love. For while the existence in limita- tion and separation is sorrowful, we love it. We love it and hate it at the same time. We fight, we kill, we destroy life and property and yet we are affectionate and self-sacrificing. We nurse the child tenderly and orphan it too. Our life is full of contradictions. Yet we cling to it. This clinging is at the root of everything. Still, it is entirely superficial. We hold on to something or somebody, with all our might and next moment we forget it; like a child that shapes its mud-pies and abandons them lightheartedly. Touch them---it will scream with anger, divert the child and he forgets them. For our life is now, and the love of it is now. We love vari- ety, the play of pain and pleasure, we are fascinated by con- trasts. For thus we need the opposites and their apparent sepa- ration. We enjoy them for a time and then get tired and crave for the peace and silence of put!e being. The cosmic heart beats ceaselessly. I am the witness and the heart too.
Q: I can see the picture, but who is the painter? Who is respon- sible for this terrible and yet adorable experience?
M: The painter is in the picture. You separate the painter from the picture and look for him. Don't separate and don't put false questions. Things are as they are and nobody in particular is res- ponsible. The idea of personal responsibility comes from the il- lusion of agency. 'Somebody must have done it, somebody is responsible'. Society as it is now, with its framework of laws and ABSOLUTE PERFECTION IS HERE AND NOW 417 customs, is based on the idea of a separate and responsible personality, but this is not the only form a society can take. There may be other forms, where the sense of separation is weak and responsibility diffused.
Q: An individual with a weak sense of personality--is he nearer self-realization?
M: Take the case of a young child. The sense of 'I-am' is not yet formed, the personality is rudimentary. The obstacles to self- knowledge are few, but the power and the clarity of awareness, its width and depth are lacking. In the course of years aware- ness will grow stronger, but also the latent personality will emerge and obscure and complicate. Just as the harder the wood, the hotter the flame, so the stronger the personality, brighter the light generated from its destruction. a Have you no problems?
M: I do have problems. I told you already. To be, to exist with a name and form is painful, yet I love it.
Q: But you love everything !
M: In existence everything is contained. My very nature is to love; even the painful is lovable.
Q: It does not make it less painful. Why not remain in the unli- mited?
M: It is the instinct of exploration, the love of the unknown, that brings me into existence. It is in the nature of being to see ad- venture in becoming, as it is in the very nature of becoming to seek peace in being. This alteration of being and becoming is inevitable; but my home is beyond.
Q: Is your home in God?
M: To love and worship a god is also ignorance. My home is beyond all notions, however sublime.
Q: But God is not a notion! It is the reality beyond existence.
M: You may use any word you like. Whatever you may think ox,, am beyond it.
Q: Once you -know your home, why not stay in it? What wakes you out of it?
M: Out of love for corporate existence one is born and ~nc~ 418 1 AMTHAT born, one gets involved in destiny. Destiny is inseparable from becoming. The desire to be the particular makes you into a per- son with all its personal past and future. Look at some great man, what a wonderful man he was! And yet how troubled was his life and limited its fruits. How utterly dependent is the per- sonality of man and how indifferent is its world. And yet we love it and protect it for its very insignificance.
Q: The war is on and there is chaos and you are being asked to take charge of a feeding center. You are given what is needed it is only a question of getting through the job. Will you refuse it?
M: To work, or not to work, is one and the same to me. I may take charge, or may not. There may be others, bettor endowed it such tasks, than I am--professional caterers for instance. But my attitude is different. I do not look at death as a calamity as I do not rejoice at the birth of a child. The child is out for trou- ble while the dead is out of it. Attachment to life is attachment to sorrow. We love what gives us pain. Such is our nature. For me toe moment of death will be a moment of jubilation, not of fear. I cried when I was born and I shall die laughing. a What is the change in consciousness at the moment of death?
M: What change do you expect? When the film projection ends all remains the same as when it started. The state before you were born was also the state after death, if you remember.
Q: I remember nothing .
M: Because you never tried. It is only a question of tuning in the mind. It requires training, of course.
Q: Why don't you take part in social work?
M: But I am doing nothing else all the time! And what is the so- cial work you want me to do? Patchwork is not for me. My stand is clear: produce to distribute, feed before you eat, give before you take, think of others, before you think of yourself. Only a self- less society based on sharing can be stable and happy. This is the only practical solution. If you do not want it--fight.
Q: It is all a matter of gun as. Where tam as and rajahs predomi- nate, there must be war. Wheresattva rules, there will be peace.
M: Put it whichever way you like, it comes to the same. Society ORSol UTE PERFECTION IS HERE AND NOW 419 is built on motives. Put goodwill into the foundations and Lou will not need specialized social workers.
Q: The world is getting better.
M: The world had all the time to get better, yet it did not. What hope is there for the future? Of course, there have been and will be periods of harmony and peace, when sattva was in ascen- dance, but things get destroyed by their own perfection. A per- fect society is necessarily static and, therefore, it stagnates and decays. From the summit all roads lead downwards. Sochateaus are like people--they are born, they grow to some point of relative perfection and then decay and die.
Q: Is there not a state of absolute perfection which does not decay?
M: Whatever has a beginning must have an end. In the timeless all is perfect, here and now.
Q: But shall we reach the timeless in due course?
M: In due course we shall come back to the starting point. Time cannot take us out of time, as space cannot take us out of space. All you get by waiting is more waiting. Absolute perfec- tion is here and now, not in some future, near or far. The secret is in action--here and now. It is your behavior that blinds you to yourself. Disregard whatever you think yourself to be and act as if you were absolutely perfect--whatever your idea of per- fection may be. All you need is courage.
Q: Where do I find such courage?
M: In yourself, of course. Look within.
Q: Your grace will help
M: My grace is telling you now: look within. Ail you need you have. Use it. Behave as best you know, do what you think you should. Don't be afraid of mistakes; you can always correct them, only intentions matter. The shape things take is not within your power; the motives of your actions are.
Q: I attended one of the group meditation sessions, held re- cently in Bombay, and witnessed the frenzy and self-abandon of the participants. Why do people go for such things?
M: These are all inventions of a restless mind pampering to people in search of sensations. Some of them help the uncon- scious to disgorge suppressed memories and longings and to that extent they provide relief. But ultimately they leave the prac- titioner where he was--or worse.
Q: I have read recently a book by a Yogi on his experiences in meditation. It is full of visions and sounds, colors and melodies; quite a display and a most gorgeous entertainment! In the end they all faded out and only the feeling of Tar fear- lessness remained. No wonder--a man who passed through all these experiences unscathed need not be afraid of anything! Yet I was wondering of what use is such book to Rae?
M: Of no use, probably, since it does not attract you. Others may be impressed. People differ. But all are faced with the fact of their own existence. 'I am' is the ultimate fact; 'Who am l?' is the ultimate question to which everybody must find an answer.
Q: The same answer?
M: The same in essence, varied in expression. Each seeker accepts, or invents, a method which suits him, applies it to himself with some earnestness and effort, obtains results according to his temperament and expectations, casts them into the mound of words, builds them into a system, estab- lishes a tradition and begins to admit others into his 'school of Yoga'. It is all built on memory and imagination. No such school is valueless, nor indispensable; in each one can progress up to the point, when all desire for progress must be abandoned to make further progress possible. Then all schools are given up, all effort ceases; in solitude and darkness the vast step is made which ends ignorance and fear forever.'. The true teacher, however, will not imprison his disciple in a prescribed set of ideas, feelings and actions; on the contrary, 478 1 AM THAT he will show him patiently the need to be free from all ideas and set patterns of behavior, to be vigilant and earnest and go with life wherever it takes him, not to enjoyor suffer, but to under- stand and learn. Under the right teacher the disciple learns to learn, not to re- member and obey. Sat sang, the company of the noble, does not mound, it liberates. Beware of all that makes you dependent. Most of the so-called 'surrenders to the Guru' end in disap- pointment, if not in tragedy. Fortunately, an earnest seeker will disentangle himself in time, the wiser for the experience.
Q: Surely, self-surrender has its value.
M: Self-surrender is the surrender of all self-concern. It cannot be done, it happens when you realize your true nature. Verbal self-surrender, even when accompanied by feeling, is of little value and breaks down under stress. At the best it shows an apsiration, not an actual fact.
Q: In the Rigveda there is the mention of the ad hi yoga, the Primordial Yoga, consisting of the marriage of pragna with Prana, which, as I understand, means the bringing together of wisdom and life. Would you say it means also the union of Dharma and Karma, righteousness and action?
M: Yes, provided by righteousness you mean harmony with one's true nature and by action--only unselfish and desire less action. In ad hi yoga life itself is the Guru and the mind--the disciple. The mind attends to life, it does not dictate. Life flows naturally and effortlessly and the mind removes the obstacles to its even flow.
Q: Is not life by its very nature repetitive? Will not following life lead to stagnation?
M: By itself life is immensely creative. A seed, in course of time, becomes a forest. The mind is like a forester--protecting and reoulatina the immense vital urge of existence.
Q: Seen as the service of life by the mind, the ad hi yoga is a perfect democracy Everyone is engaged in living a life to his best capacity and knowledge, everyone is a disciple of the same Guru. GO BEYOND THE l-AM-THE-BODY IDEA 479
M: You may say so. It may be so--potentially. But unless life is loved and trusted, followed with eagerness and zest, it would be fanciful to talk of Yoga, which is a movement in consciousness, awareness in action. 0: Once I watched a mountain-stream flowing between the boulders. At each boulder the commotion was different, accord- ing to the shape and size of the boulder. Is not every person a mere commotion over a body, while life is one and eternal?
M: The commotion and the water are not separate. It is the dis- turbance that makes you aware of water. Consciousness is al- ways of movement, of change. There can be no such thing as changeless consciousness. Changeless Ness wipes out con- sciousness immediately. A man deprived of outer or inner sen- sations blanks out, or goes beyond consciousness and uncon- sciousness into the birth less and deathless state. Only when spirit and matter come together consciousness is born.
Q: Are they one or two?
M: It depends on the words you use: they are one, or two, or three. On investigation three become two and two become one. Take the simile of face--mirror--image. Any two of them pre- suppose the third which unites the two. In sadhana you see the three as two, until you realize the two as one. A long as you are engrossed in the world, you are unable to know yourself: to know yourself, turn away your attention from the world and turn it within.
Q: I cannot destroy the world.
M: There is no need. Just understand that what you see is not what is. Appearances will dissolve on investigation and the un- derlying reality will come to the surface. You need not burn the house to get out of it. You just walk out. It is only when you can- not come and go freely that the house becomes a jail. I move in and out of consciousness easily and naturally and therefore to me the world is a home, not a prison.
Q: But ultimately is there a world, or is there none?
M: What you see is nothing but your self. Call it what you like, it does not change the fact. Through the film of destiny your own light depicts pictures on the screen. You are the viewer, the 380 1 AM THAT 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 im- mense 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 hor- rors 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 a skits 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 center 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 ques- tion. 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. TO KNOW THAT YOU DO NOT KNOW, IS TRUE KNOWLEDGE 381
Q: Oh, no! This Lola 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 perceive with the perceived. Out of it desire is born and with desire blind action, unmindful of results. Look round and you will see--suf- fering 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 thereis only the source, dark in itself, making everything shine. Unper- ceived, it causes perception. Unfelt, it causes feeling. Unthink- able, it causes thought. Non-being, it gives birth to being. It is the immovable background of motion. Once you are Ihere 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 ex- hausted, 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 libera- ting, for you cannot abandon desire, unless its causes and ef- fects are clearly seen. I do not say that the same person IS re- born. It dies and dies for good. But its memories remain and their desires and fears. They supply the energy fox a new per- son. The real takes no part in it, but makes it possible by giving it, the light. 382 1 AM Ti I AT
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 ex- perience 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 un- concerned in the full light of clarity and understanding. You un- derstand 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 choice less love is the touchstone of awareness. if it is not there, you are merely in- terested--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 pleassure on the level of consciousness. To go beyond them you must go beyond con- sciousness, which is possible only when you look at conscious- ness as something that happens to you and not in you, as some- thing 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 con- sciousness for the very idea of stepping out is in conscious- ness. 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 To KNOW THAT YOU DO NOT KNOW. IS TRUE KNOWLEDGE 383 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 crimi- nals justly punished?
M: Must one suffer only for one's own sins? Are we really sepa- rate? 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, suffer- ing 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 under- standing 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 de- 384 1 AM THAT stroker of this world, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent. When I ponder over what you say, I ask myself: 'How is it Thai 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 end- less 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 (prarabdhaJ.
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 underset.~nding and take appearances for reality. You believe you know the world and yourself--but it is only your ig- norance 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 put- ting an end to ignorance. Then, you need not do anything in par- ticular to help the world. Your very being is a help, action or no action.
Q: How can ignorance be known? To know ignorance presup- poses 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. . . TO KNOW THAT YOU DO NOT KNOW, IS TRUE KNOWLEDGE 385
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 impor- tant.
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 natt~re?
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. ù-- 'I' and 'Mine' are False Ideas
Questioner: I am very much attached to my gamily and posses- sions. How can I conquer this attacher,t~
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 re- mains. There is nothing.~vrong in it. The problem arises only when the memory of past pains and pleasures--which are es- sential to all organic life--remains as a reflex, dominating be- havior. 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 recognize the 'I' as it is, a bundle of desires and fears, and the sense of 'mine', as embra- cing 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' chil- dren, 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 trust not be afraid.
Q: What am I to be afraid of?
M: For reality to be, the ideas of 'Rae' and 'mine' must go. They will go if you let them. Then your normal natural state reappears, ~l~ Anvil ~MINF ARE FALSE IDEAS 387 in which you are rather 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 Moe, 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 wit.l 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. Under- stand that nothing is your own, that all belongs to all. Thor, 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 communi- cate, increase and spread. The power of a true heart is im- mense. 388 1 AM THAT
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 ap- pearance. Just like in a dream all is different, except the sense of '1', 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 theyhappen because the 'I' AND 'MINE' ARE FALSE IDEAS 389 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 hap- pens as if there is a mysterious power that creates and moves everything. Realize that you are not the mover, only the ob- server, and you will be at peace.
Q: Is that power separate from me?
M: Of course not. But you must begin by being the dispassion- ate observer. Then only will you realize your full being as the universal lover and actor. us 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 bles- sings. Of course, some memories are needed to identify and 390 1 AM THAT guide the body and such memories do remain, lout 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 realize that nothing was ever wrong with the world--you alone were wrong and now it is all over. Never again wit! YOU be caught in the meshes of desire born of ignorance. All Knowledge is Ignorance 78
Questioner: Are we permitted to request you to tell us the man- ner of your realization? Maharaja- 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 realized.
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 wow!d spend just remember ALL KNOWLEDGE IS IGNORANCE 391 in my Guru and his words. He died soon after and ! had only the memory to fall back on. It was enough.
Q: It must have beer, Ike grace and power of your Guru.
M: His words were true and so they came true. True words al- ways come true. My Guru did nothing; his words acted because they were true. Whatever I did, came from within, unmasked and unexpected .
Q: The Guru started a process without taking any part in it?
M: Put it as you like. rings 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 realize. 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 realize the full meaning of his words or die. 1. was feeling quite deter- mined, but did not know what to do. I would spend hours think- ing 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 tights, hear- ing voices, meeting gods and goddesses and conversing with them. Once the Guru told me: 'You are the Supaim 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: Wereyou genuinely free of desire and knowledge, or did you impersonate a nanny 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. 392 1 AM THAT
Q: More things may happen to you. Are you at the end of your journey?
M: There was never Ann tourney. 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 popKate 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 con- sciousness. This void is also fullness; do not pity me. It is like a man saying: 'Ishave done my work, there is nothing left to do'.
Q: You are giving a certain date to your realization. It means something did happen to you at that date. What happened?
M: The mind ceased producing events. The ancient and cease- less 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 know- ledge 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 tran- sitory waves on the ocean of consciousness, that only con- sciousness 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 feel- ings, concepts and ideas, Luke 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 recreated. 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 ALL KNOWLEDGE IS IGNORANCE . 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 Roy 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 out- side?
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 tarry, the fourth state we hear about?
M: To be the point of light tracing the world is tarry. 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 gun a, the universal harmony, play its games against tam as and rajahs, the forces of darkness and despair. In sattva there is always change and progress, in rajahs there is change and regress, while tam as stands for chaos. The three Gunas play eternally against each other ---it is a fact and there Gun be no quarrel with a fact.
Q: Must I always go dull with tam as and desperate with rajahs? What aboutsattva? 394 1 AM THAT
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 gun as as inseparable--mat- ter--energy--life--one in essence, district 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, body less, mind- less 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 conscious- ness?
M: Where consciousness does not reach, matter begins. A thing is a form of being which we have not understood. Itdoes not change--it is always.the same--it appears to be there or. its own--something strange and alien. Of course it IS in the chit, consciousness, but appears to be outside because of its apparent changeless Ness. The foundation of things is n memo- ry--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 nothi~ng else, but showing the escape. Under- stand 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 c, eat ion, 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 (vacuity), nor the karma-bound individuality (vacuity). 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 Al I KNOWLEDGE ISIGNORANCE 395 pure in the beginning and pure in the end; in between it gets contaminated by imagination which is at the root of creation. At ail times consciousness remains the same. To know it as it is, is realization 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 color. Without flower---no colors; with- out color--the flower remains unseen. Beyond is the light which on contact with the flower creates the color. Realize that your true nature is that of pure light only, and both the perceived and the parser come an,d 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. Whenwit is turned outward, the knowable 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 realized in self-realization?
M: To know that the known can riot 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 realization of the illusori- ness 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-realization.
Q: On what side is the witness? Is it real or unreal?
M: Nobody car say: PI am the witness'. The PI am' is always wit- ne~.ce~ The state of detached awareness is the witness- 396 1 AM THAT 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 Rex!. 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? IDA: Because it is there. The bridge serves one purpose only-- to crass 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 Tao of thy wit I
Q: Is it the manifested (sauna) 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. Person, Witness and the Supreme
Questioner: We have a long history of drug-taking behind us, mostly drums 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 Rexpity to be fount, but we do not know how to find and hold on to it. We need no convincing, only guidance. Can you help us? Maharaja: You do not need help, only advice. What you seek is already in you. Take my own case. I did nothing for my realiza- tion. 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 mir- ror 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 de- tached, all else will happen by itself.
Q: You had to make your mind clear and quiet before you could realize the truth. How did you do it?
M: I did nothing. It just happened. I lived my life, attending tc my family's needs. Nor did my Guru do it. It just happened, as 398 1 AM THAT he said it will.
Q: Things do not just happen. There must be a cause for every- thing.
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 realization will hap- pen on its own?
M: Nothing specific. I just lived my life.
Q: I am amazed! .
M: So was !. But what was there to be amazed at? My teacher's words came true. So what? He knew me better than I knew my- self, 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, ac- tion. 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 aso 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 tune mln~ 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 Tc me it all happens; I am aware, yet unaffected.
Q: You cannot be aware, yet unaffected. There is a contradic- tion in terms. Perception is change. Once you have expert PERSON, WITNESS AND THE SUPREME 399 ens Ed 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 nari~e 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 awes 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 cla- rity 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 rea- lity is timelessly present, the stress is on the necessary condi- tions.
Q: Can it happen that the mind is clear and quiet and yet no re- flection 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 how- ever heavy may be the hand of destiny, it can be lifted by pati- ence 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 woes beyond it.
Q: Will the understanding that I am not the body give me the strength of character needed for self-control?400 1 EM T I T
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-realization?
M: For realization, understanding is essential. Action is only in- cidental. A man of steady understanding will not refrain from ac- tion. 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 realized 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 foreseer 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'Jidea. 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 t I 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 (mahadakasl~.) 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 PEPSON. WITNESS AND THE SUPREME 401 their domain. ~emaln as pure witness, till even witnessing dis- solves in the Supreme. Imagine a thick jungle full of heavy timber. A plank is shaped out of the timber and a Somali pencil to write on it. The witness reads the writing and knows that while the pencil and the plank aredistantly 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 al- ways 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 per- sonality 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 colors 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 colored with the sense of being, it is the witness; when colorless 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 nM know. It is true that all manifes- tation is in the opposites. Pleasure and pain, good and bad, high and low, progress and regress, rest and strife they all 402 1 AM THAT come and go together--and as long as there is a world, its contradictions will be there. There may also be periods of per- fect 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 realization. It may profit others, but not you. Your hope lies in keeping silent in your rind and quiet in your heart. Realized people are very quiet. Awareness 80
Questioner: Does it take time to realize the Self, or time cannot help to realize? Is self-realization a matter of time only, or does it depend on factors other than time? Maharaja: All waiting is futile. To depend on time to solve our problems is self-delusion. The future, left to itself merely repeats the past. Change can only happen now, never in the future.
Q: What brings about a change?
M: With crystal clarity see the need of change. This is all.
Q: Does self-realization happen in matter, or beyond? Is it not an experience depending on the body and the mind for its oc- currence? AWARENFSS 4n3
M: All experience is illusory, limited and temporal. Expect no- thing from experience. Realization by itself is not an experience, though it may lead tug a new dimension of experiences. Yet the new experiences, however interesting, are not more real than the old. Definitely realization is not a new experience. It is the discovery of the timeless factor in every experience. It is aware- ness, which makes experience possible. Just like in all the col- ors light is the colorless factor, so. in every experience aware- ness is present, yet it is not an experience.
Q: If awareness is not an experience, how can it be realized?
M: Awareness is ever there. It need not be realized. Open the shutter of the mind, and it will be flooded with light.
Q: What is matter?
M: What you do not understand is matter.
Q: Science understands matter.
M: Science merely pushes back the frontiers of our ignorance.
Q: And what is nature?
M: The totality of conscious experiences is nature. As a con- scious self you are a part of nature. As awareness, you are beyond. Seeing nature as mere consciousness is awareness.
Q: Are there levels of awareness?
M: There are levels in consciousness, but not in awareness. It is of one block, homogeneous. Its reflection in the mind is love and understanding. There are levels of clarity in understanding and intensity in love, but not in their source. The source is simple and single, but its gifts are infinite. Only do not take the gifts for the source. Realize yourself as the source and not as the river; that is all.
Q: I am the river too.
M: Of course, you are. As an 'I am' you are the river, flowing be- tween the banks of the body. But you are also the source and the ocean and the clouds in the sky. Wherever there is life and consciousness, you are. Smaller than the smallest, bigger than the biggest, you are, while all else appears.
Q: The sense of being and the sense of living--are they one and the same, or different? a 1 AM THAT
M: The identity in space creates one, the continuity in time creates the qther.
Q: You said once that the seer, seeing and the seen are one single thing, not three. To me the three are separate. I do not doubt your words, only I do not understand.
M: Look closely and you will see that the seer and the seen ap- pear only when there is seeing. They are attributes of seeing. When you say 'I am seeing this'. 'I am' and 'this' come with se- eing, not before. You cannot have an unseen 'this' nor an unse- eing 'I am'.
Q: I can say: 'I do not see'.
M: The 'I am seeing this' has become 'l am seeing my not se- eing', or 'I am seeing darkness'. The seeing remains. In the trip- licity: the known, knowing and the knower, only the knowing is a fact. The 'I am' and 'this' are doubtful. Who knows? What is known? There is no certainty, except that there is knowing.
Q: Why am I sure of knowing, but not of the knower?
M: Knowing is a reflection of your true nature along with being and loving. The knower and the known are added by the mind. It is in the nature of the mind to create a subject-object duality, where there is none.
Q: What is the cause of desire and fear?
M: Obviously, the memory of past pains and pleasures. There is no great mystery about it. Conflict arises only when desire Ann fear refer to the same object. 0: How to put an end to memory?
M: It is-neither necessary, nor possible. Realize that all hap- pens in consciousness and you are the root, the source, the foundation of consciousness. The world is but a succession of experiences and you are what makes them conscious, and yet remain beyond all experience. It is like the heat, the flame and the burning wood. The heat maintains the flame, the flame con- sumes the wood. Without heat there would be neither flame nor fuel. Similarly, without awareness there would be no conscious- ness, nor life, which transforms matter into a vehicle of con- . sauciness. ,
Q: You maintain that without me there would be no world. and AWARENESS 405 that the world and my knowledge of the world are identical. Sci- ence has come to a quite different conclusion: the world exists as something concrete and continuous, while I am a by-product of biological evolution of the nervous system, which is primarily not so much a seat of consciousness, as a mechanism of survi- val as individual and species. Yours is altogether a subjective view, while science tries to describe everything in objective terms. Is this contradiction inevitable?
M: The confusion is apparent and purely verbal. What is, is. It is neither subjective nor objective. Matter and mind are not sepa- rate, they are aspects of one energy. Look at the mind as a func- tion of matter and you have science; look at matter as the pro- duct of the mind and you have religion. a But what is true? What comes first, mind or matter?
M: Neither comes first. for neither appears alone. Matter is the shape, mind is the name. Together they make the world. Per- vading and transcending is Reality, pure being--awareness-- bliss, your very essence.
Q: All I know is the stream of consciousness, an endless suc- cession of events. The river of time flows, bringing and carrying away relentlessly. Transformation of the future into past is going on all the time.
M: Are you not the victim of your language? You speak about the flow of time, as if you were stationary. But the events you have witnessed yesterday somebody else may see tomorrow. It is you who are in movement and not time. Stop moving and time will cease.
Q: What does it mean--time will cease?
M: Past and future will merge in the eternal now.
Q: But what does it mean in actual experience? How do you know that for you time has ceased?
M: It may mean that past and future do not matter any more. It may also mean that all that happened and will happen becomes an open book to be read at will.
Q: I can imagine a sort of cosmic memory, accessib!e with some training. But how can the future be known? The unex- pected is inevitable. 40~i 1 AM THAT
M: What is unexpected on one level may be certain to happen, when seen from a higher level After all, we are within the limits of the mind. In reality nothing happens, there is no past nor fu- ture; all appears and nothing is.
Q: What does it mean, nothing is? Do you turn blank, or go to sleep? Or do you dissolve the world and keep us all in abeyance, until we are brought back to life at the next flicker of your thought?
M: Oh, no, it is not that bad. The world of mind and matter, of names and shapes, continues, but it does not matter to me at all. It islike having a shadow. It is there--following me where- ver Igo, but not hindering me in any way. It remains a world of experiences, but not of names and forms related to me by de- sires and fears. The experiences are quality less, pure experi- ences, if I may say so. I call them experiences for the lack of a better word. They are like the waves on the surface of the ocean, the ever-present, but not affecting its peaceful power.
Q: You mean to say an experience can be nameless, formless, undefined?
M: In the beginning all experience is such. It is only desire and fear, born of memory, that give it name and form and separate it from other experiences. It is not a conscious experience, for it is not in opposition to other experiences, yet it is an experience all the same.
Q: If it is not conscious, why talk about it?
M: Most of your experiences are unconscious. The conscious ones are very few. You are unaware of the fact because to you only the conscious ones count. Become aware of the uncon- scious .
Q: Can one be aware of the unconscious? How is it done?
M: Desire and fear are the obscuring and distorting factors. When mind is free of them the unconscious becomes accessi- ble.
Q: Does it mean that the unconscious becomes conscious?
M: It is rather the other way round. The conscious becomes one with the unconscious. The distinction ceases, whichever way you look at it. AWARENESS ~n7
Q: I am puzzled. How can one be aware and yet unconscious?
M: Awareness is not Jimited to consciousness. It is of all that is. Consciousness is of duality. There is no duality in awareness. It is one single block of pure cognition. In the same way one can talk of the pure being and pure creation--nameless, formless, silent and yet absolutely real, powerful, effective. Their being indescribable does not affect them in the least. While they are unconscious, they are essential. The conscious cannot change fundamentally, it can only modify. Any thing, to change, must pass through death, through obscuration and dissolution. Gold jewelry must be melted down before it is cast into another shape. What refuses to die cannot be reborn.
Q: Barring the death of the body, how does one die?
M: Withdrawal, aloofness, letting go is death. To live fully, death IS essential; every ending makes a new beginning. On the other hand, do understand, that only the dead can die, not the living. That which is alive in you, is immortal.
Q: From where does desire draw its energy?
M: Its name and shape it draws from memory. The energy flows from the source.
Q: Some desires are altogether wrong. How can wrong desires flow from a sublime source?
M: The source is neither right nor wrong. Nor is desire by itself right or wrong. It is nothing but striving for happiness. Having identified yourself with a speck of a body you feel lost and search desperately for the sense of fullness and completene you call happiness.
Q: When did I losewit? I never had it.
M: You had it before you woke up this morning. Go beyond your consciousness and you will find it.
Q: How am I to go beyond?
M: You know it already; do it.
Q: That's what you say. I know nothing about it.
M: Yet I repeat--you know it. Do it. Go beyond, back to your normal, natural, supreme state.
Q: I'm puzzled. 408 1 AM THAT
M: A speck in the eye makes you think you are blind. Wash it out and look.
Q: I do look I I see only darkness.
M: Remove the speck and your eyes will be flooded with light. The light is there--waiting. The eyes are there--ready. The darkness you 'see is but the shadow of the tiny speck. Get rid of it and come back to your natural state. Root Cause of Fear
Maharaj: Where do you come from?
Questioner: I am from the United States, but I live mostly in Europe. To India I came recently. I was in Rishikesh, in two As- hrams. I was taught meditation and breathing.
M: How long were you there?
Q: Eight days in one, six days in another. I was not happy there and I left. Then for three weeks I was with the Tibetan Lam as. But they were all wrapped up in formulas and rituals.
M: And what was the net result of it all?
Q: Definitely there was an increase of energy. But before I left for Rishikesh, I did some fasting and dieting at a Nature Cure Sanatorium at Pudukkotai in South India. It has done me enorm- ous good.
M: Maybe the access of energy was due to better health. ROOT CAUSE OF FEAR 4r~s
Q: I cannot say. But as a result of all these attempts some fires started burning in various places in my body and I heard chants and voices where there were none.
M: And what are you after now?
Q: Well, what are we all after? Some truth, some inner certainty, some real happiness. In the various schools of self-realization there is so much talk of awareness, tl~at one ends with the im- pression that awareness itself is the supreme reality. Is it so? The body is looked after by the brain, the brain is illumined by consciousness; awareness watches over consciousness; is there anything beyond awareness?
M: How do you know that you are aware?
Q: I feel that I am. I cannot express it otherwise.
M: When you follow it up carefully from brain through con- sciousness to awareness, you find that the sense of duality per- sists. When you go beyond awareness, there is a state of non- duality, in which there is no cognition, only pure being, which may be as well called non-being, if by being you mean being something in particular.
Q: What you call pure being is it universal being, being every- thing?
M: Everything implies a collection of particulars. In pure being the very idea of the particular is absent.
Q: Is there any relationship between pure being and particular being?
M: What relationship can there be between what is and what merely appears to be? Is there any relationship between the ocean and its waves? The real enables the unreal to appear and causes it to disappear. the succession of transient moments creates the illusion of time, but the timeless reality of pure being is not in movement, for all movement requires a motionless background. It is itself the background. Once you have found it in yourself, you know that you had never lost that independent being, independent of all divisions and separations. But don't look for it in consciousness I you will not find it there. Don't look for it anywhere, for nothing contains it. On the contrary, it con- tains everything and manifests everything. It is like the daylight 410 1 AM THAT that makes everything visible while itself remaining invisible.
Q: Sir, of what use to me is your telling me that reality cannot be found in consciousness? Where else am I to look for it? How do you apprehend it?
M: It is quite simple. If I ask you what is the taste of your mouth all you can do is to say: it is neither sweet nor bitter, nor sour nor astringent; it is what remains when all these tastes are not. Simi- larly, when all distinctions and reactions are no more, what re- mains is reality, simple and solid.
Q: All that I understand is that I am in the grip of a beginning- less illusion. And I do not see how. it can come to an end. If it could, it would--long ago. I must have had as many oppor- tunities in the past as I shall have in the future. What could not happen cannot happen. Or, if it did, it could not last. Our very deplorable state after all these untold millions of years carries at best, the promise of ultimate extinction, or, which is worse, the threat of an endless and meaningless repetition.
M: What proof have you that your present state is beginning- less and endless? How were you before you were b~orn? How will you be after death? And of your present state--how much do yowl know? You do not know even what was your condition before you woke up this morning? You only know a little of your present state and from it you draw conclusions for all times and places. You may be just dreaming and imagining your dream to be eternal.
Q: Calling it a dream does not change the situation. i repeat my question: what hope is left which the eternity behind me could not fulfill? Why should my future be different from my past?
M: In your fevered state, you project a past and a future and take them to be real. In fact, you know only your present mo- ment. Why not investigate what is now, instead of questioning the imaginary past and future? Your present state is neither be- ginning less nor endless. If is over in a flash. Watch carefully from where it comes and where it goes. You will soon discover the timeless regality behind it.
Q: Why have I not done it before?
M: Just as every wave subsides into the ocean, so does every ROOT CAUSE OF FEAR 411 nominate return to its source. Realization consists in discovering the source and abiding there.
Q: Who discovers?
M: The mind discovers.
Q: Does it find the answers?
M: It finds that it is left without questions, that no answers are needed.
Q: Being born is a fall. Dying is another fact. How do they ap- pear to the witness?
M: A child was born; a man has died--just events in tune course of time.
Q: Is there any progress in the witness? Does awareness evolve?
M: What is seen may undergo many changes when the light of awareness is focussed on it, but it is the object that changes, not the light. Plants grow in sunlight, but the sun does not grow. By themselves both the body and the witness are motionless, but when brought together in the mind, both aspLear to move.
Q: Yes, I can see that what moves and changes is the 'I am' only. Is the 'I am' needed at all?
M: Who needs it? It is there--now. It had a beginning it will have an end.
Q: What remans wren Ike I ~r~l y I
M: What does not come and go--remains. It is the ever- greedy mind that creates ideas of progress and evolution to- wards perfection. It disturbs and talks of order, destroys and seeks security.
Q: Is there progress in destiny, in karma?
M: Karma is only a store of unspent energies, of unfulfilled de- sires and fears not understood. The store is being constantly replenished by new desires and fears. It need not be so for ever. Understand the root cause of your fears--estrangement from yourself: and of desires--the longing for the self, and your karma will dissolve like a dream. Between earth and heaven life goes on. Neither,g is affected, only bodies grow and decay. 412 1 AM THAT
Q: Between the person and the witness, what is the relation?
M: There can be no relation between them because they are one. Don't separate and don't look for relationship.
Q: If the seer and the seen are one, how did the separation occur?
M: Fascinated by names and forms, which are by their very na- ture distinct and diverse, you distinguish what is natural and separate what is one. The world is rich in diversity, but your feel- ing strange and frightened is due to misapprehension. It is the body that is in danger, ntot you. a I can see that the basic biological anxiety, the flight instinct, takes many shapes and distorts my thoughts and feelings. But how did this anxiety come into being?
M: It is a mental state caused by the 'I am-the-body' idea. It can be removed by the contrary idea: 'I am-not-the-body'. Both the ideas are false, but one removes the other. Realize that no ideas are your own, they all come to you from outside. You must think it all out for yourself, become yourself the object of your medita- tion. The effort to understand yourself is Yoga. Be a Yogi, give your life to it, brood, wonder, search, till you come to the root of error and to the truth beyond the error.
Q: In meditation, who meditates, the person or the witness?
M: Meditation is a deliberate attempt to pierce into the higher states of consciousness and finally go beyond it. The art of meditation is the art of shifting the focus of attention to ever sub- tler levels, without losing one's grip on the levels left behind. In a way it is like having death under control. One begins with the lowest levels: social circumstances, customs and habits; physi- cal surroundings, the posture and the breathing of the body, the senses, their sensations and perceptions; the mind, its thoughts and feelings; until the entire mechanism of personality is grasped and firmly held. The final stage of meditation is reached when the sense of identity goes beyond the '1- am-so-and-so', beyond 'so-l-am', beyond 'I-am-the-witness- only', beyond 'there-is', beyond all ideas into the imper- sonally personal pure being. But you must be energetic when you take to meditation. It is definitely not a part-time occurcation. ROOT CAUSE OF FEAR 413 Limit your interests and activities to what is needed for you Ann your dependents' barest neeo~s. Save all your energies and time for breaking the wall your mind had built around you. Believe me, you will not regret.
Q: How do I come to know that my experience is universal?
M: At the end of your meditation all is known directly no proofs whatsoever Arab required. Just as every drop of the ocean car- ries the taste of the ocean, so does every moment carry the taste of eternity. Definitions and descriptions have their place as useful incentives for further search, but you must go beyond them into what is undefinable and indescribable, except in nega- tive terms. After all, even universality and eternity are mere concepts, the opposites of being place and time-bound. Reality is not a con- cept, nor the manifestation of a concept. It has nothing to do with concepts. Concern yourself with your mind, remove its dis- tortions and impurities. Once you had the taste of your own self, you will find it everywhere and at all times. Therefore, it is so im- portant that you should come to it. Once you know it, you will never lose it. But you must give yourself the opportunity through intensive, even arduous meditation.
Q: What exactly do you want me to do? M. Give your heart and mind to brooding over the 'I am', what is it, how is it, what is its source, its life, its meaning. It is very much like digging a well. You reject all that is not water, till you reach the life-giving spring.
Q: How shall I know that I am moving in the right direction?
M: By your progress in intentness, in clarity and devotion to the task.
Q: We, Europeans, find it very difficult to keep quiet. The world is too much with us.
M: Oh, no, you are dreamers too. We differ only in the contents of our dreams. You are after perfection . in the future. We are intent on finding it--in the now. The limited only is perfectible. The unlimited is already perfect. You are perfect, only you don't know it. Lear to know yourself and you will discover wonders 414 I AM THAT All you need is already within you, only you must approach your self with reverence and love. Self-condemnation and self- dlstrust are previous errors. Your constant flight from pain and search for pleasure is a sign of love you bear for your self, all I plead with you is this: make love of your self perfect. Deny your- self nothing--glue your self infinity and eternity and discover that you do not need them; you are beyond. ù.. Absolute Perfection is Here and Now 82
Questioner: The war is on. What is your attitude to it? Maharaja: In some place or other, in some form or other, the war IS always on. Was there a time when there was no war? Some say it IS the will of God. Some say it is God's play. It is another way of saying that wars are inevitable and nobody is responsi- ble.
Q: But what is your own attitude?
M: Why impose attitudes on me? I have no attitude to call my own.
Q: Surely somebody is responsible for this horrible and sense- less carnage. Why do people kill each other so readily?
M: Search for the culprit within. The ideas of 'me' and 'mine' are at the root of all conflict. Be free of them and you will be out of ABSOLUTE PERFECTION IS HERE AND NOW 415 conflict.
Q: What of it that I am out of conflict? It will not affect the war. If I am the cause of way, I am resay to be destroyed. Yet, it stands to reason that the disappearance of a thousand like me will not stop wars. They did not start with my birth nor will end with my death . I am not Rex possible. Who is?
M: Strife and struggle are a part of existence. Why don't you enquire who is responsible for existence?
Q: Why do you say that existence and conflict are inseparable? Can there be no existence without strife? I need not fight others to be myself.
M: You fight others all the time for your survival as a separate body-mind, a particular name and form. To live you must de- stroy. From the moment you were conceived you started a war with your environment--a merciless war of mutual extermina- tion, until death sets you free.
Q: My question remains unanswered. You are merely describ- ing what I know--life and its sorrows. But who is responsible, you do not say. When I press you, you throw the blame on God, or karma, or on my own greed and fear--which merely invites further questions. Give me the final answer.
M: The final answer is this nothing is. All is a momentary ap- pearance in the field of the universal consciousness; continuity as name and form is a mental formation only, easy to dispel.
Q: I am asking about the immediate, the transitory, the appear- ance. Here is a picture of a child killed by soldiers. It is a fact-- staring at you. You cannot deny it. Now, who is responsible for the death of the child?
M: Nobody and everybody. The world is what it contains and each thing affects all others. We all kill the child and we all die with it. Every event has innumerable causes and produces numberless effects. It is useless to keep accounts, nothing is traceable.
Q: Your people speak of karma and retribution.
M: It is merely a gross approximation: in reality we are all creators and creatures of each other, causing and bearing each other's burden. 416 1 AM THAT
Q: So, the innocent suffers for the guilty?
M: In our ignorance we are innocent; in our actions we are guilty. We sin without knowing and suffer without understand- ing. Our only hope: to stop, to look, to understand and to get out of the traps of memory. For memory feeds imagination and im-, agitation generates desire and fear.
Q: Why do I imagine at all?
M: The light of consciousness passes through the film of mem- ory and throws pictures on your brain. Because of the deficient and disordered state of your brain, what you perceive is dis- torted and colored by feelings of like and dislike. Make your thinking orderly and free from emotional overtones, and you will see people and things as they are, with clarity and charity. The witness of birth, life and death is one and the same. It is the witness of pain and of love. For while the existence in limita- tion and separation is sorrowful, we love it. We love it and hate it at the same time. We fight, we kill, we destroy life and property and yet we are affectionate and self-sacrificing. We nurse the child tenderly and orphan it too. Our life is full of contradictions. Yet we cling to it. This clinging is at the root of everything. Still, it is entirely superficial. We hold on to something or somebody, with all our might and next moment we forget it; like a child that shapes its mud-pies and abandons them lightheartedly. Touch them---it will scream with anger, divert the child and he forgets them. For our life is now, and the love of it is now. We love vari- ety, the play of pain and pleasure, we are fascinated by con- trasts. For thus we need the opposites and their apparent sepa- ration. We enjoy them for a time and then get tired and crave for the peace and silence of put!e being. The cosmic heart beats ceaselessly. I am the witness and the heart too.
Q: I can see the picture, but who is the painter? Who is respon- sible for this terrible and yet adorable experience?
M: The painter is in the picture. You separate the painter from the picture and look for him. Don't separate and don't put false questions. Things are as they are and nobody in particular is res- ponsible. The idea of personal responsibility comes from the il- lusion of agency. 'Somebody must have done it, somebody is responsible'. Society as it is now, with its framework of laws and ABSOLUTE PERFECTION IS HERE AND NOW 417 customs, is based on the idea of a separate and responsible personality, but this is not the only form a society can take. There may be other forms, where the sense of separation is weak and responsibility diffused.
Q: An individual with a weak sense of personality--is he nearer self-realization?
M: Take the case of a young child. The sense of 'I-am' is not yet formed, the personality is rudimentary. The obstacles to self- knowledge are few, but the power and the clarity of awareness, its width and depth are lacking. In the course of years aware- ness will grow stronger, but also the latent personality will emerge and obscure and complicate. Just as the harder the wood, the hotter the flame, so the stronger the personality, brighter the light generated from its destruction. a Have you no problems?
M: I do have problems. I told you already. To be, to exist with a name and form is painful, yet I love it.
Q: But you love everything !
M: In existence everything is contained. My very nature is to love; even the painful is lovable.
Q: It does not make it less painful. Why not remain in the unli- mited?
M: It is the instinct of exploration, the love of the unknown, that brings me into existence. It is in the nature of being to see ad- venture in becoming, as it is in the very nature of becoming to seek peace in being. This alteration of being and becoming is inevitable; but my home is beyond.
Q: Is your home in God?
M: To love and worship a god is also ignorance. My home is beyond all notions, however sublime.
Q: But God is not a notion! It is the reality beyond existence.
M: You may use any word you like. Whatever you may think ox,, am beyond it.
Q: Once you -know your home, why not stay in it? What wakes you out of it?
M: Out of love for corporate existence one is born and ~nc~ 418 1 AMTHAT born, one gets involved in destiny. Destiny is inseparable from becoming. The desire to be the particular makes you into a per- son with all its personal past and future. Look at some great man, what a wonderful man he was! And yet how troubled was his life and limited its fruits. How utterly dependent is the per- sonality of man and how indifferent is its world. And yet we love it and protect it for its very insignificance.
Q: The war is on and there is chaos and you are being asked to take charge of a feeding center. You are given what is needed it is only a question of getting through the job. Will you refuse it?
M: To work, or not to work, is one and the same to me. I may take charge, or may not. There may be others, bettor endowed it such tasks, than I am--professional caterers for instance. But my attitude is different. I do not look at death as a calamity as I do not rejoice at the birth of a child. The child is out for trou- ble while the dead is out of it. Attachment to life is attachment to sorrow. We love what gives us pain. Such is our nature. For me toe moment of death will be a moment of jubilation, not of fear. I cried when I was born and I shall die laughing. a What is the change in consciousness at the moment of death?
M: What change do you expect? When the film projection ends all remains the same as when it started. The state before you were born was also the state after death, if you remember.
Q: I remember nothing .
M: Because you never tried. It is only a question of tuning in the mind. It requires training, of course.
Q: Why don't you take part in social work?
M: But I am doing nothing else all the time! And what is the so- cial work you want me to do? Patchwork is not for me. My stand is clear: produce to distribute, feed before you eat, give before you take, think of others, before you think of yourself. Only a self- less society based on sharing can be stable and happy. This is the only practical solution. If you do not want it--fight.
Q: It is all a matter of gun as. Where tam as and rajahs predomi- nate, there must be war. Wheresattva rules, there will be peace.
M: Put it whichever way you like, it comes to the same. Society ORSol UTE PERFECTION IS HERE AND NOW 419 is built on motives. Put goodwill into the foundations and Lou will not need specialized social workers.
Q: The world is getting better.
M: The world had all the time to get better, yet it did not. What hope is there for the future? Of course, there have been and will be periods of harmony and peace, when sattva was in ascen- dance, but things get destroyed by their own perfection. A per- fect society is necessarily static and, therefore, it stagnates and decays. From the summit all roads lead downwards. Sochateaus are like people--they are born, they grow to some point of relative perfection and then decay and die.
Q: Is there not a state of absolute perfection which does not decay?
M: Whatever has a beginning must have an end. In the timeless all is perfect, here and now.
Q: But shall we reach the timeless in due course?
M: In due course we shall come back to the starting point. Time cannot take us out of time, as space cannot take us out of space. All you get by waiting is more waiting. Absolute perfec- tion is here and now, not in some future, near or far. The secret is in action--here and now. It is your behavior that blinds you to yourself. Disregard whatever you think yourself to be and act as if you were absolutely perfect--whatever your idea of per- fection may be. All you need is courage.
Q: Where do I find such courage?
M: In yourself, of course. Look within.
Q: Your grace will help
M: My grace is telling you now: look within. Ail you need you have. Use it. Behave as best you know, do what you think you should. Don't be afraid of mistakes; you can always correct them, only intentions matter. The shape things take is not within your power; the motives of your actions are.
(My humble salutations to Advaita Vedanta Library for the collection)
Note: This text may have spelling and grammatical mistakes.
(Continued .......)
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