Talks with
Sri Nisarga Datta Maharaj
Q: Is morality so important? ~
M: Don't cheat, don't hurt--is it not important? Above all you need inne! peace--which demands harmony between the inner and the outer. Do what you believe in and believe in what you do. All else is waste of energy and time. Mind and the World are not Separate 97
Questioner: I see here pictures of several saints and I am told that they are your spiritual ancestors. Who are they and how did it all begin?
Maharaj: We are called coliectively the 'Nine Masters'. The legend says that our first teacher was Rishi Dattatreya, the great incarnation of the Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Even the 'Nine Masters' (Navnath) are mythological.
Q: What is the peculiarity of their teaching?
M: Its simplicity, both in theory and practice.
Q: How does one become a Navnath? By initiation or by suc- cession?
M: Neither. The Nine Masters' tradition, Navnath Parampara, is like a river--it f!ows into the ocean of reality and whoever en- ters it is carried along. Ml ND AND THE WORLD ARE NOT SEPARATE 501
Q: DGes it imply acceptance by a living master belonging to the same tradition?
M: Those who practise the sadhana of focussing their minds on ~I am' may feel related to others who have followed the same sadhana and socceeded. They may decide to verbalize their sense of kinship by calling themselves Navnaths. It gives them th~e pleasure of belonging to an established tradition.
Q: Do they in any way benefit by joining?
M: The circle of satsang, the 'company of saints', expands in numbers as time passes.
Q: Do they get hold thereby of a source of power and grace from which they would have been barred otherwise?
M: Power and grace are for all and for the asking. Giving one- self a particular name does not help. Call yourself by any name --as long as you are intensely mindful of yourself, the accumu- lated obstacles to self-knowledge are bound to be swept away.
Q: If I like your teaching and accept your guidance, can I call myself a Navnath?
M: Please your word-addicted mind! The name will not change you. At best it may remind you to behave. There is a succession of Gurus and their disciples, who in ~urn train more disciples and thus the line is maintained. But the continuity of tradition is informal and voluntary. It is like a family name, but here the fam- iiy is spiritual.
Q: Do you have to realize to join the Sampradaya?
M: The Navnath Sampradaya is only a tradition, a way of teach- ing and practice. It does not denote a level of consciousness. If you accept a Navnath Sampradaya teacher as your 5uru, you join his Sampradaya. Usually you receive a token of his grac~-- a look, a touch, or a word, sometimes a vivid dream or a strong remembrance. Sometimes the only sign of grace is a significant and rapid change in character and behaviour.
Q: I know you now for some years and I meet you regularly. The thought of you is never far from my mind. I~oes it make me be- long to your Sampradaya?
M: Your belonging is a matter of your own feeling and convic- 502 1 AM THAT tion. After all, it is all verbal and formal. In reality there is neither Guru nor disciple, neither theory nor practice, neither ignorance nor realization. It all depends on what you take yourself to be. Know yourself correctly. There is no substitute to self- knowledge.
Q: What proof will I have that I know myself correctly?
M: You need no proofs. The experience is unique and unmis- takable. It will dawn on you suddenly, when the obstacles are removed to some extent. It is like a frayed rope snapping. Yours is to work at the strands. The break is bound to happen. It can be delayed, but not prevented.
Q: I am confused by your denial of causality. Does it mean that none is responsible for the world as it is?
M: The idea of responsibility is in your mind. You think there must be something or somebody solely responsible for all that happens. There is a contradiction between a multiple universe and a single cause. Either one or the other must be false. Or both. As I see it, it is all day-dreaming. There is no reality in ideas. The fact is that without you, neither the universe nor its cause could have come into being.
Q: I cannot make out whether I am the creature or the creator of the universe.
M: 'I am' is an ever-present fact, while 'I am created' is an idea. Neither God nor the universe have come to tell you that they have created you. The mind obsessed by the idea of causality invents creation and then wonders 'who is the creator?' The mind itself is the creator. Even this is not quite true, for the created and its creator are one. The mind and the world are not separate. Do understand that what you think to be the world is your own mind.
Q: Is there a world beyond, or outside the mind??
M: All space and time are in the mind. Where will you locate a superamental.world? There are many levels of the mind and each projects its own version, yet all are in the mind and created by the mind. (! What is your attitude to sin? How do you look at a sinner, somebody who breaks the law, inner or outer? Do you want him MIND AND THE WORLD ARE NOT SEPARATE 503 to change or you just pity him? Or, are you indifferent to him be- cause of his sins?
M: I know no sin, nor sinner. Your distinction and valuation do not bind me. Everybody behaves according to his nature. It cannot be helped, nor need it be regretted.
Q: Others suffer
M: Life lives on lite. In nature the process is compulsory, in soc- iety it should be voluntary. There can be no life without sacrifice. A sinner refuses to sacrifice and invites death. This is as it is, and gives no cause for condemnation or pity.
Q: Surely you feel at least compassion when you see a man steeped in sin.
M: Yes, I feel I am that man and his sins are my sins.
Q: Right, and what next?
M: By my becoming one with hlm he becomes one with me. It is not a conscious process, it happens entirely by itself. None of us can help it. What needs changing shall change anyhow; enough to know oneself as one is, here and now. Intense and methodical investigation into one's mind is Yoga.
Q: What about the chains of destiny forged by sin~
M: When ignorance, the mother of sin, dissolves, destiny, the compulsion to sin again, ceases.
Q: There are retributions to make.
M: With ignorance cGming to an end all comes to an end. Things are then seen as they are and they are good.
Q: If a sinner, a breaker of the law, comes before you and asks for your grace, what will be your response?
M: He will get what he ask$ for.
Q: In spite of being a very bad man?
M: I know no bad people, I only know myself. I see no saints nor sinners, only living beings. I do not hand out grace. There is no- thing I can give, or deny, which you do not have already in equal measure. Just be aware of your riches and make full use of them. As long as you imagine that you need my grace, you will be at my door begging for it. 504 1 AM THAT My begging for grace from you would make as little sense! We are not separate, the real is common.
Q: A mother comes to you with a tale of woe. Her only son has taken to drugs and sex and is going from bad to worse. She is asking for your grace. What shall be your response?
M: Probably I shall hear myself telling her that all will be well.
Q: That's all?
M: That's all. What more do you expect?
Q: But will the son of the woman change?
M: He may or he may not.
Q: The people who collect round you, and who know you for many years, maintain that when you say 'it will be all right' it in- variably happens as you say.
M: You may ~s weil say that it is the mother's heart that saved the child. For everything th.ere are innumerable causes.
Q: I am told that the man who wants nothing for himself is all- powerful. The entire universe is at his disposal.
M: If you believe so, act on it. Abandon every personal desire and use the power thus saved for changing the world !
Q: All the Buddhas and Rishis have not succeeded in changing the world.
M: The world does not yield to changing. By its very nature it is painful and transient. See it as it is and divest yourself of all de- sire and fear. When the world does not hold and bind you, it be- comes an abode of joy and beauty. You can be happy in the world only when you are free of it.
Q: What is right and what is wrong?
M: Generally, what causes suffering is wrong and what re- moves it, is right. The body and the mind are limited and there- fore vulnerable; they need protection which gives rise to fear. As long as you identify yourself with them you are bound to suffer realize your independence and remain happy. I tell you, this is the secret of happiness. To believe that you depend on things and people for happiness is due to ignorance of your true na- ture; to know that vou need nothing to be happy, except self- knowledqe, is wisdom. MIND AND THE WORLD ARE NOT SEPARATE 505
Q: What comes first, being or desire?
M: With being arising in consciousness, the ideas of what you are arise in your mind as well as what you should be. This brings forth desire and action and the process of becoming begins. Becoming has, apparently, no beginning and no end, for it re- starts every moment. With the cessation of imagination and de- sire, becoming ceases and the being this or that merges into pure being, which is not describable, only experienceable. The world appears to you so overwhelmingly real, because you think cf it all the time; cease think'ing of it'and it will dissolve into thin mist. You need not forget; when desire and fear end, bondage also ends. It is the emotional involvement, the pattern of likes and dislikes which we call character and temperament, that create the bondage.
Q: Without desire and fear what motive is there for action?
M: None, unless you consider love of life, of righteousness, of beauty, motive enough. Do not be afraid of freedom from desire and fear. It enables you to live a life so different from all you know, so much more in- tense and interesting, that, truly, by losing all you gain all.
Q: Since you count your spiritual ancestry from Rishi Datta- treya, are we right in believing that you and all your predeces- sors are reincarnations of the Rishi?
M: You may believe in whatever you like and if you act on your belief, you will get the fruits of it; but to me it has no impo!tance. I am what I am and this is enough for me. I have no desire to iden- tify myself with anybody, however illustrious. Nor do I feel the need to take myths for reality. I am only interested in ignorance and the freedom from ignorance. The proper role of a Guru is to dispel ignorance in the hearts and minds of his disciples. Once the disciple has understood, the confirming action is up to him. Nobody can act for another. And if he does not act rightly, it only means that he has not understood and that the Guru's work is not over.
Q: There must be some hopeless cases too?
M: None is hopeless. Obstacles can be overcome. What life cannot rnend, death will end, but the Guru cannot fail. 506 1 AM THAT ~: What gives you the assurar ce? M The Guru and man's inner reality are really one and work to- gether towards the same goal--the redemption and salvation of the mind They cannot fail. Out of the very boulders that obs- truct them they build their bridges. Consciousness is not the whole of being--there are other levels on which man is much more co-operative. The Guru is at home on all levels and his energy and patience are inexhaustible.
Q: You keep on telling me that I am dreaming and that it is high time I should wake up. How does it happen that the Maharaj, who has come to me in my dreams, has not succeeded in wak- ing me up? He keeps on urging and reminding, but the dream continues.
M: It is because you have not really understood that you are dreaming. This is the essence of bondage--the mixing of the real with unreal. In your present state only the sense 'I am' refers to reality; the 'what' and the 'how I am' are illusions imposed by destiny, or accident. 0: When did the dream begin?
M: It appears to be beginningless, but in fact it is only now. From moment to moment you are renewing it. Once you have seen that you are dreaming, you shall wake up. But you do no~ see, because you want the dream to continue. A day will come when you will long for the ending of the dream, with all your heart and mind, and be willing to pay any price; the price will be dispassion and detachment, the loss of interest in the dream it- self.
Q: How helpless I am. As long as the dream of existence lasts, I want it to continue. As long as I want it to continue, it will last.
M: Wanting it to continue is not inevitable. See clearly your condition, your very clarity will release you.
Q: As long as I am with you, all you say seems pretty obvious; but as soon as I am away from you I run about restless and an- XIOUS .
M: You need not keep away from me, in your mind at least. But your mind is after the world's welfare!
Q: The world is full of troubles, no wonder my mind too is full of MIND AND THE WORLD ARE NOT SEPARATE 507 them.
M: Was there ever a world without troubles? Your being as a person depends on violence to others. Your very body is a bat- tlefield, full of the dead and dying. Existence implies violence.
Q: As a body--yes. As a human being--definitely no. For humanity non-violence is the law of life and violence ot death.
M: There is little of non-violence in nature.
Q: God and nature are not human and need not be humane. I am concerned with man alone. To be human I must be compas- sionate absolutely.
M: Do you realize that as long as you have a self to defend, you must be violent?
Q: I do. To be truly human I must be self-less. As long as ! am selfish, I am sub-human, a humanoid only.
M: So, we are all sub-human and only a few are human. Few or many, it is again 'clarity and charity' that make us human. The sub-human--the 'humanoids'--are dominated by tamas and rajas and the humans by sattva. Clarity and charity is sattva as it affects mind and action. But the real is beyond sattva. Since I have known you, you seem to be always after helping the world. How much did you help?
Q: Not a bit. Neither the world has changed, nor have 1. But the world suffers and I suffer along with it. To struggle against suf- fering is a natural reaction. And what is civilization and culture, philosophy and religion, but a revolt against suffering. Evil and the ending of evil--is it not your own main preoccupation? You may call it ignorance--it comes to the same.
M: Well, words do not matter, nor does it matter in what shape you are just now. Names and shapes change incessantly. Know yourself to be the changeless witness of the changeful mind. That is enough. ** No page found ** Freedom from Self-identification 98
Maharaj: Can you sit on the floor? Do you need a pillow? Have you any questions to ask? Not that you need to ask, you can as well be quiet. To be, just be, is important. You need not ask any- thing, nor do anything. Such apparently lazy way of spending time is highly regarded in India. It means that for the time being you are free from the obsession with 'what next'. When you Abe not in a hurry and the mind is free from anxieties, it becomes quiet and in the silence something may be heard which is ordi- narily too fine and subtle for perception. The mind must be open and quiet to see. What we are trying to do here is to bring our minds into the right state for understanding what is real.
Questioner: How do we learn to cut out worries?
M: You need not worry about your worries. Just be. Do not try to be quiet; do not make 'being quiet' into a task to be performed. Don't be restless about 'being quiet', miserable about 'being happy'. Just be aware that you are and remain aware--don't say: 'yes, I am; what next?' There is no 'next' in 'I am'. It is a time- less state.
Q: If it is a timeless state, it will assert itself anyhow.
M: You are what you are, timelessly, but of what use is it to you unless you know it and act on it? Your begging bowl may be of pure gold, but as long as you do not know it, you are a pauper. You must know your inner worth and trust it and express it in the daily sacrifice of desire and fear.
Q: If I know myself, shall I not desire and fear?
M: For some time the mental habits may linger in spite of the FREEDOM FROM SELF-IDENTIFICATION 509 new vision, the habit of longing for the known past and fearing the unknown future. Whenyou know these are of the mind only, you can go beyond them. As long as you have all sorts of ideas about yourself, you know yourself through the mist of these ideas; to know yourself as you are, give up all ideas. You cannot imagine the taste of pure water' you can only discover it by abandoning all flavorings. As long as you are interested in your present way of living, you will not abandon it. Discovery cannot come as long as you cling to the familiar. It is only when you realize fully the immense sorrow of your life and revolt against it, that a way out can be found .
Q: I can now see that the secret of India's eternal life lies in these dimensions ofexistence, of which Lydia was always the custodian .
M: It is an open secret and there were always people willing and ready to share it. Teachers--there are many, fearless dis- ciples--very few.
Q: I am quite willing to learn.
M: Learning words is not enough. You may know the theory, but without the actual experience of yourself as the impersonal and unqualified center of being, love and bliss, mere verbal know- ledge is sterile.
Q: Then, what am I to do?
M: Try to be, only to be. The all-importarlt word is 'try'. Allot enough time daily for sitting quietly and trying, just trying, to go beyond the personality, with its addictions and obsessions. Don't ask how, it cannot be explained. You just keep on trying until you succeed. If you persevere, there can be no failure. What matters supremely is sincerity, earnestness; you must re- ally have had surfeit of being the person you are, now see the urgent need of being free of this unnecessary self-identification with a bundle of memories and habits. This steady resistorice against the unnecessary is the secret of success. After all, you are what you are every moment of your life, but you are never conscious of it, except, maybe, at the point of awakening from sleep. All you need is to Fe aware of being, not as a verbal statement. but as an ever-present fact. The a wal- e510 1 AM T I T news that you are will open your eyes to what you are. It is all very simple. First of all, establish a constant contact with your self, be with yourself all the time. Into self-awareness all bles- sings flow. Begin as a center of observation, deliberate cogniz- ance, and grow into a center of love in action. 'I am' is a tiny seed which will grow into a mighty tree--quite naturally, with- out a trace of effort.
Q: I see so much evil in myself. Must I not change it?
M: Evil is the shadow of inattention. In the light of self- awareness it will wither and fall off. All dependence on another is futile, for what others can give others will take away. Only what is your own at the start will re- main your own in the end. Accept no guidance but from within, and even then sift out all memorizes for they will mislead you. Even if you are quite ignorant of the ways and the means, keep quiet and look within; guidance is sure to come. You are never left without knowing what your next step should be. The trouble is that you may shirk it. The Guru is there for giving you courage because of his experience and success. But only what you dis- cover through your own awareness, your own effort, will be of permanent use to you. Remember, nothing you perceive is your own. Nothing of value can come to you from outside; it is only your own feeling and understanding that are relevant and revealing. Words, heard or read, will only create images in your mind, but you are not a mental image. You are the power of perception and action behind and beyond the image.
Q: You seem to advise me to be self-centered to the point of egoism. Must I not yield even to my interest in other people?
M: Your interest in others is egoistic, self-concerned, self- oriented. You are not interested in others as persons, but only as far as they enrich,or ennoble your own image of yourself. And the ultimate in selfishness is to care only for the protection, preservation and multiplication of one's own body. By body I mean all that is related to your name and shape--your family, tribe, country, race, etc. To be attached to one's name and shape is selfishness. A-man who knows that he is neither body nor mind cannot be selfish, for Fe has nothing to be selfish for. FREEDOM FROM SELF-IDENTIFICATION 511 Or,-you may say, he is equally 'selfish' on behalf cf everybody he meets; everybody's welfare is his own. The feeling 'I am the world, the world is myself' becomes quite natural; once it is es- tablished, there is just no way of being selfish. To be selfish means to covet, acquire, accumulate on behalf of the part against the whole.
Q: One may be rich with many possessions, by inheritance, or marriage, or just good luck.
M: If you do not hold on to, it will be taken away from you.
Q: In your present state can you love another person as a per- son?
M: I am the other person, the other person is myself; in name and shape we are different, but there is no separation. At the root of our be ins we are one.
Q: Is it not so whenever there is love between people?
M: It ,s, but they are not conscious of it. They feel the attraction, but do not know the reason.
Q: Why is love selective?
M: Love is not selective, desire is selective. In love there are no strangers. When the center of selfishness is no longer, all de- sires for pleasure and fear of pain cease; one is no Icnger in- terested in being happy; beyond happiness there is pure in te- n sty, inexhaustible energy, the ecstasy of giving from a perennial source.
Q: Mustn't I begin by solving for myself the problem of right and wrong?
M: What is pleasant people take it to be good and what is pain- ful they take it to be bad.
Q: Yes, that is how it is with us, ordinary people. But how is it with you, at the level of oneness? For you what is good and what is bad?
M: What increases suffering is bad and what removes it is good.
Q: So you deny goodness to suffering itself. There are religions in which suffering is considered good and noble.
M: Karma, cr destiny, is an expression of a beneficial law: the 512 1 AM THAT universal trend towards balance, harmony and unity. At every moment, whatever happens now, is for the best. It may appear painful and ugly, a suffering bitter and meaningless, yet cons - I during the past and the future it is for the best, as the only way out of a disastrous situation.
Q: Does one suffer only for one's own sins?
M: One suffers along with what one thinks oneself to be. If you feel one with humanity, you suffer with humanity.
Q: And since you claim to be one with the arrivers, there is no limit in time or space to your suffering !
M: To be is to suffer. The narrower the circle of my self- identification, the more acute the suffering caused by desire and fear.
Q: Christianity accepts suffering as purifying and ennobling, while Hinduism looks at it with distaste.
M: Christianity is one way of putting words together and Hin- duism is another. The real is, behind and beyond words, In- communicable, directly experienced, explosive in its effect on the mind. It is easily had when nothing else is wanted. The in- nards created by imagination and perpetuated by desire.
Q: Can there be no suffering that Jo necessary and good?
M: Accidental or incidental pain is inevitable and transitory; de- liberate pain, inflicted with even the best of intentions, is mean- ingless and cruel.
Q: You would not punish crime?
M: Punishment is but legalized crime. In a society built on pre- vention, rather than retaliation, there would be very little crime. The few exceptions will be treated medically, as of unsound mind and body.
Q: You seem to have little use for religion.
M: What is religion? A cloud in the sky. I live in the sky, not in the clouds, which are so many words held together. Remove the verbiage and what remains? Truth remains. My home is in the unchangeable, which appears to be a state of constant recoi- n solution and integration of opposites. People come here to learn about the actual existence of such a state, the obstacles to its emergence, and, once perceived, the art of stabilisina it in con- FREEDOM FROM SELF-IDENTIFICATION . I sauciness, so that there is no clash between understanding and living. The state itself is beyond the mind and need not be learnt. The mind can only focus the obstacles; seeing an obsta- cle as a, I obstacle is effective, because it is the mind acting on the mind. Begin from the beginning: give attention to the fact that you arc. At no time can you say 'I was not' all you can say: 'I do not remember'. You know how unreliable is memory. Accept that, engrossed in petty personal affairs you have forgotten what you are; try to bring back the lost memory through the elimination of the known. You cannot be told what will happen, nor is it desirable; anticipation will create illusions. In the inner search the unexpected is inevitable; the discovery is invariably beyond all imagination. Just as an unborn child cannot know life after birth, for it has nothing in its mind with which -to form a valid picture, so is the mind unable to think of the real in terms of the unreal, except by negation: I Not this, not that'. The acceptance of the unreal as real is the obstacle; to see the false as false and abandon the false brings reality into being. The states of utter clarity, immense love, utter fearlessness; these are mere words at the present, outlines without color, hints at what can be. You are like a blind man expecting to see as a result of an operation --provided you do not shirk the operation! The state 1 am in words do not matter at all. Nor is there any addiction to words. Only facts matter.
Q: There can be no religion without words.
M: Recorded religions are mere heaps of verbiage. Religions show their true face in action, in silent action. To know what man believes, watch how he acts. For most of the people service of their bodies and their minds is their religion. They may have Re- xaegis ideas, but they do not act on them. They play with them, they are often very fond of them, but they will not act on them.
Q: Words are needed for communication.
M: For exchange of information--yes. But real communication between people is not verbal. For establishing and maintaining relationship affectionate awareness expressed in direct action is required. Not-what you say, but what you do is that matters. Words are made by the mind and are meaningful only on the level of the mind. The word ~bread~: neither can vow eat nor live 514 1 AM THAT by it; it merely conveys an idea. It acquires meaning only with the actual eating. In the same sense am I telling you that the Normal State is not verbal. I may say it is wise love expressed in action, but these words convey little. unless you experience them in their fullness and beauty. Words have their limited usefulness, but we put no limits to them and bring ourselves to the brink of disaster. Our noble ideas are finely balanced by ignoble actions. We talk of God, Truth and Love, but instead of direct experience we have defini- tions. Instead of enlarging and deepening action we chisel our definitions. And we imagine that we know what we can define!
Q: How can one convey experience except through nerds?
M: Experience cannot be conveyed through words. It comes with action. A man who is intense in his experience will radiate confidence and courage. Others too will act and gain experi- ence born out of action. Verbal teaching has its use, it prepares the mind for voiding itself of its accumulations. A level of mental maturity is reached when nothing external is of any value and the heart is ready to relinquish all. Then the real has a chance and it grasps it. Delays, if any, are caused by the mind being unwilling to see or to discard.
Q: Are we so totally alone?
M: Oh, no, we are not. Those who have, can give. And such givers are many. The world itself is a supreme gift, maintained by loving sacrifice. But the right receivers, wise and humble, are so few. 'Ask and you shall be given' is the eternal law. So many words you have learnt, so many you have spoken. You know everything, but you do not know yourself. For the self is not known through words--only direct insight will reveal it. Look within, search within.
Q: It is very difficult to abandon words. Our mental life is one continuous stream of words.
M: It is not a matter of easy, or difficult. You have no alternative. Either you try or you don't. It is up to you.
Q: I have tried many times and failed.
M: Try again. If you keep on trying, something may happen. But if you don't, you are stuck. You may know all the right words, FRFFnoM FROM ~FI F-IDFNTIFICATIO~I 515 quote the scriptures, be brilliant in your discussions and yet re- main a bag of bones. Qr you may be in con,spicllQus and hum- ~ble, an insignificant person altogether, yet glowing with loving kindness and deep wisdom. 99 The Perceived can not be the Perceiver
Questioner: I have been moving from place to place investiga- ting the various Yogas available for practice and I could not de- cide which will suit me best. I should be thankful for some com- petent advice. At present, as a result of all this searching, I am just tired of the idea of finding truth. It seems to me, both un- necessary and troublesome. Life is enjoyable 2S it is and I see no purpose in improving on it. Maharaja: . You are welcome to stay in your contentment, but can you? Youth, vigor, money--all will pass away sooner than you expect. Sorrow, shunned so far, will pursue you. If you want to be beyond suffering, you must meet it half way and embrace it. Re- linquish your habits and addictions, live a simple and sober life, don't hurt a living being; this is the foundation of Yoga. To find reality you must be real in the smallest daily action; there can be no deceit in the search for truth. You say you find your life enjoy- able. Maybe it is--at present. But who enjoys it?
Q: I confess I do not know the annealer nor the envied. I only 516 I AM THAT know the enjoyment.
M: Quite right. But enjoyment is a state of mind--it comes and goes. Its very impermanence makes it perceivable. You cannot be conscious of what does not change. All consciousness is consciousness of change. But the very perception of change-- does it not necessitate a changeless background?
Q: Not at all. The memory of the last state--compared to the actuality of the present state gives the experience of change.
M: Between the remembered and the actual there is a basic dif- ference which can be observed from moment to moment. At ro point of time is the actual the remembered. Between the two there is a difference in kind, not merely in intensity. The actual is unmistakably so. By no effort of will or imagination can you in- terchange the two. A, what is it that gives this unique quality to the actual?
Q: The actual is real, white there is a good deal of uncertainty about the remembered.
M: Quite so, but why? A moment back the remembered was ac- tual, in a moment the actual will be the remembered. What makes the actual unique? Obviously, it is your sense of being present. In memory and anticipation there is a clear feeling that it is a mental state under observation, while in the actual! the feel- ing is primarily of being present and aware-
Q: Yes I can see. It is awareness that makes the difference be- tween the actual and the remembered. One thinks of the past or the future, but one is present in the now.
M: Wherever you go, the sense of here and now you carry with you all the time. It means that you are independent of space and time, that space and time are in you, not you in them. It is your self-identrfication with the body, which, of course, is limited in space and time, that gives you the feeling of finiteness. In reality you are infinite and eternal.
Q: This infinite and eternal self of mine, how am I to know it?
M: The self you want to know, is it some second self? Are you made of several selves? Surely, there is only one self and you are that self. The self you are is the only self there is. Remove and abandon your wrong ideas about yourself and there it is, in THE PERCEIVED CAN NOT BE THE PERCEIVER 517 all its glory. It is only your mind that prevents self-knowledge.
Q: How am I to be rid of the mind? And is life without mind at all possible on the human level?
M: There is no such thing as mind. There are ideas and some of them are wrong. Abandon the wrong ideas, for they are false and obstruct your vision of yourself. a Which ideas are wrong and which are true?
M: Assertions are usually wrong and denials--right.
Q: One cannot live by denying everything!
M: Only by denying can one live. Assertion is bondage. To question and deny is necessary. It is the essence of revolt and without revolt there can be no freedom. There is no second, or higher self to search for. You are the highest self, only give up the false ideas you have about your self. Roth faith and reason tell you thatyou are neither the body, nor its desires and fears, nor are you the mind with its fanciful ideas, nor the role society compels you to play, the person you are supposed to be. Give up the false and the true will come into its own. You say you want to know your self. You are your self--you cannot be anything but what you are. Is knowing separate from being? Whatever you can know with your mind is of the mind, not you; about yourself you can only say: 'I am. I am aware, I like It'.
Q: I find being alive a painful state.
M: You cannot be alive for you are life itself. It is the person you Imagine yourself to be that suffers, not you. Dissolve it in aware- ness. It is merely a bundle of memories and habits. From the awareness of the unreal to the awareness of your real nature there is a chasm which you will easily cross, once you have mastered the art of pure awareness.
Q: All I know is that I do not know myself.
M: How do you know, that you do not know your self? Your di- rect insight tells you that yourself you know first, for nothing ex- ists to you without your being there to experience its existence. You imagine you do not know your self, because you cannot describe your self. You can always say: 'I know that I am' and 518 1 AM THAT you will refuse as untrue the statement: 'I am not'. But whatever can be described cannot be your self, and what you are cannot be described. You can only know your self by being yourself without any attempt at self-definition and self-description. Once you have understood that you are nothing perceivable or con- ceivable, that whatever appears in the field of consciousness cannot be your self, you will apply yourself to the eradication of all self-identification, as the only way that can take you to a deeper realization of your self. You literally progress by rejection --a veritable rocket. To know that you are neither in the body nor in the mind, though aware of both, is already self- knowledo,e.
Q: If I am neither the body nor mind, how am I aware of them? How can I perceive something quite foreign to myself?
M: 'Nothing is me,' is the first step. 'Everything is me' is the next. Both hang on the idea: 'there is a world'. When this too is given up, you remain what you are--the non-dual Self. You are it here and now, but your vision is obstructed by your false ideas about your self.
Q: Well, I admit that I am, I was, I shall be; atleast from birth to death. I have no doubts of my being, here and now. But I find that it is not enough. My life lacks joy, born of harmony between the inner and the outer If I alone am and the world is merely a protection, then why is there disharmony?
M: You create disharmony and then complain,! When you de- sire and fear, and identify yourself with your feelings, you create sorrow and bondage. Wtien you create, with love and wisdom, and remain unattached to your creations, the result is harmony and peace. But whatever be the condition of your mind, in whir way does it reflect on you? It is only your self-identification with your mind that makes you happy O! unhappy. Rebel against your slavery to your mind, see your bonds as self-created and break the chains of attachment and revulsion. Keep in mind your goal of freedom, until it dawns on you what you are already free, that freedom is not something in the distant future to be earned with painful efforts, but perennially one's own, to be used! Liberation is not an acquisition but a matter of courage, the courage to believe that you are free already and to act on it. THE PERCEIVED CAN NOT BE THE PERCEIVER 519
Q: If I do as I like, I shall have to suffer.
M: Nevertheless, you are free. The consequences of your ac- tion will depend on the society in which you live and its conven- tions.
Q: I may act recklessly.
M: Along with courage will emerge wisdom and compassion and skill in action. You will know what to do and whatever you do will be good for all.
Q: I find that the various aspects of myself are at war between themselves and there is no Peace in me. Where are freedom and courage, 7visdom and compassion?-My actions merely in- crease the chasm in which I exist.
M: It is all so, because you take yourself to be somebody, or something. Stop, look, investigate, ask the right questions, come to the right conclusions and have the courage to act on them and see what happens. The first steps may bring the roof down on your head, but soon the commotion will clear and there will be peace and joy. You know so many things about yourself, but the knower you do not know. Find out who you are, the knower of the known. Look within diligently, remember to re- member that the perceived cannot be the perceive Whatever you see, hear or think of, remember--you are not what hap- pens you are he to whom it happens. Delve deeply into the sense 'I am' and you will surely discover that the perceiving center is universal, as universal as the light that illumines the world. All that happens in the universe happens to you, the sil- ent witness. On the other hand, whatever is done, is done by vow, the universal and inexhaustible energy.
Q: It is, no doubt, very gratifying to hear that one is the silent witness as well as the universal energy. But how is one to cross over from a verbal statement to direct knowledge? Hearing is not knowing.
M: Before you can know anything directly, nonverbally, you must know the knower. So far, you took the mind for the knower, but it is just not so. The mind clogs you up with images and ideas, which leave scars in memory. You take remembering to be knowledge. True knowledge is ever fresh, new, unexpected. 520 1 AM THAT It wells up from within. When you know what you are, you also are what you know. Between knowing and being there is no gap.
Q: I can only investigate the mind with the mind.
M: By all means use your mind to know your mind. It is perfectly legitimate and also the best preparation for going beyond the mind. Being, knowing and enjoying is your own. First realize your own being. This is easy because the sense 'I am' is always with you. Then meet yourself as the knower, apart from the known. Once you know yourself as pure being, the ecstasy of freedom is your own.
Q: Which Yoga is this?
M: Why worry? What make,s you come here is your being dis- pleased with your life as you know it, the life of your body and mind. You may try to improve them, through controlling and bending them to an ideal, or you may cut the knot of self- identification altogether and look at your body and mind as something that hopers without committing you in any way.
Q: Sham call the way of control and discipline r~ja yoga and the way of detachment--Ghana yoga? And the worship of an ideal--bhakti yoga?
M: If it pleases you. Words indicate, but do not explain. What I teach is the ancient and simple way of liberation through under- standing. Understand your own mind and its hold on you will snap. The mind misunderstands, misunderstanding is its very nature. Right understanding is the only remedy, whatever name you give it. It is the earliest and also the latest, for it deals with the mind as it is. Nothing you do will change you, for you need no change. You may change your mind or your body, but it is always something external to you that has changed, not yourself. Why bother at all to change? Realize once for all that neither your body nor your mind, nor even your consciousness is yourself and stand alone in your true nature beyond consciousness and unconscious- ness. No effort can take you there, only the clarity of understand- ing. Trace your misunderstandings and abandon them, that is all. There is nothing to seek and find, for there is nothing lost. Relax and watch the 'I am'. Reality is rust behind it. Keep quiet, THE PERCEIVED CAN NOT BE THE PERCEIVER 521 keep silent; it will emerge, or, rather, it will take you in.
Q: Must I not get rid of my body and mind first?
M: You cannot, for the very idea binds you to them. Just under- stand and disregard.
Q: I am unable to disregard, for i am not integrated.
M: Imagine you are completely integrated, your thought and action fully coordinated. How will it help you? It will not free you from mistaking yourself to be the body or the mind. See them correctly as 'not you', that is all.
Q: You want me to remember to forget!
M: Yes, it looks so. Yet, it is not hopeless. You can do it. Just set about it in earnest. Your blind groping is full of promise. Your very searching is the finding. You cannot fail.
Q: Because we are disintegrated, we suffer.
M: We shall suffer as long as our thoughts and actions are prompted by desires and fears. See their futility and the danger and chaos they create will subside. Don't try to reform yourself, just see the futility of all change. The changeful keeps on chang- ing while the changeless is waiting. Do not expect the change- ful, to take you to the changeless--it can never happen. Only when the very idea of changing is seen as false and aban- doned, the changeless can come into its own.
Q: Everywhere Igo,l am told that I must change profoundly be- fore I can see the real. This process of deliberate, self-imposed change is called Yoga.
M: All change affects tic mind only. To be what you are, you must go beyond the mind, into your own being. It is immaterial what is the mind that you leave behind, provided you leave it behind for good. This again is not possible without self- realization .
Q: What comes first--the abandoning of the mind or self- realization?
M:. Self-realization definitely comes first. The mind cannot go beyond itself by itself. It must explode.
Q: No exploration before explosions
M: The explosive power comes from the real. But you are well 52~ 1 AM THAT advised to have your mind ready for it. Fear can always delay it, until another opportunity arises.
Q: I thought there is always a chance.
M: In theory--yes. In practice a situation must arise, when all the factors necessary for se!f-realization are present. This need no I discourage you. Your dwelling on the fact of 'I am' will soon create another chance. For, attitude attracts opportunity. All you know is second-hand. Only 11 am' is first-hand and needs no proofs. Stay with it. Understanding leads to Freedom 1 00
Questioner: In many countries of the world investigating offi- cers follow certain practices aimed at extracting confessions from their victim and also changing his personality, if needed. By.a judicious choice of physical and moral deprivations and by persuasions the old personality is broken down and a new per- sonality established in its place. The man under investigation hears so many times repeated that he is an enemy of the State and a traitor to his country, that a day comes when something breaks down in him and he begins to feel with full conviction that he is a traitor, a rebel, altogether despicable and deserving the direst punishment. This process is known as brain-washing. It struck me that the religious and Yogic practices are very UNDERSTANDING LEADS TO FREEDOM 523 similar to 'brain-washing'. The same physical and mental depri- vation, solitary confinement, a powerful sense of sin, despair and a desire to escape through expiation and conversion, adoption of a new image of oneself and impersonating that image. The same repetition of set formulas: 'God is good; the Guru (party) knows; faith will save me.' In the so-called Yogic or religious practices the same mechanism operates. The mind is made to concentrate on some particular idea to the exclusion of all other ideas and concentration is powerfully reinforced by rigid discipline and painful austerities. A high price in life and happiness is pa~id and what one gets in return appears there- fore, to be of great importance. This prearranged conversion, obvious or hidden, religious or political, ethical or social, may look genuine and lasting, yet there is a feeling of artificiality about it. Maharaja: You are quite right. By undergoing so many hardships the mind gets dislocated and immobilized. Its condition be comes precarious; whatever it undertakes, ends in a deeper bondage.
Q: Then why are sadhanas prescribed?
M: Unless you make tremendous efforts, you will not be con- vinced that effort will take you nowhere. The self is so self- confident, that unless it is totally discouraged, it will not give up. Mere verbal conviction is not enough. Hard facts alone can show the absolute nothingness of the self-image;
Q: The brain-washer drives me mad, and the Guru drives me sane. The driving is similar. Yet the motive and the purpose are totally different. The similarities are, perhaps merely verbal.
M: Inviting, or compelling to suffer contains in it violence and the fruit of violence cannot be swe~. There are certain life situations, inevitably painful, and you have to take them in your stride. There are also certain situations which you have created, either deliberately or by neglect. And from these you have to learn a lesson so that they are not re- peated again. .
Q: It seems that we must suffer, so that we learn to overcome pain.
M: Pain has to pe endured. There is no such thing as overcome 524 1 AM THAT in the pain and no training is needed. Training for the future, developing attitudes is a sign ot fear.
Q: Once I know how to face pain, I am free of it, not afraid of it, and therefore happy. This is what happens to a prisoner. He ac- cepts his punishment as just and proper and is at peace with the prison authorities and the State. All religions do nothing else but preach acceptance and surrender. We are being encou- raged to plead guilty, to feel responsible for all the evils in the world and point at ourselves as their only cause. My problem is: I cannot see much difference between brain-washing and sad Han?, except that in the case of sadhana one is not physi- cally constrained. The element of compulsive suggestion is present in both.
M: As you have said, the similarities are superficial. You need not hoard on them.
Q: Sir, the similarities are not superficial. Man is a complex being and can be at the same time the accuser and the ac- cused, the judge, the warden and the executioner. There is not much that is voluntary in a 'voluntary' sadhana. One is moved by forces beyond one's ken and control. I can change my mental metabolism as little as the physical, except by painful and pro- tracted efforts--which is Yoga. All I am asking is: does Maharaj agree with me that Yoga implies violence?
M: I agree that Yoga, as presented by you, means violence and I never advocate any form of violence. My path is totally non- violent. I mean exactly what I say: non-violent. Find out for your- self what it is. I merely say: it is non-violent.
Q: I am not misusing words. When a Guru asks me to meditate sixteen hours a day for the rest of my life, I cannot do it without extreme violence to myself. Is such a Guru right or wrong?
M: None compels you to meditate sixteen hours a day, unless you feel like doing so. It is only a way of telling you: 'remain with yourself, don't get lost among others'. The teacher will wait, but the mind is impatient. It is not the teacher, it is the mind that is violent and also afraid of its own violence. What is of the mind is relative, it is a mistake to make it into an absolute. UNDERSTANDING LEADS TO FREEDOM 525
Q: If I remain passive, nothing will change. If I am active, I must be violent. What is it I can do which is neither sterile nor violent?
M: Of course, there is a way which is neither violent nor sterile and yet supremely effective. Just look at yourself as you are, see yourself as you are, accept yourself as you are and go ever deeper into what you are. Violence and non-violence describe your attitude to others; the self in relation to itself is neither viol- ent nor non-violent, it is either aware or unaware of itself. If it knows itself, all it does will be right; if it does not, all it does will be wrong.
Q: What do you mean by saying: I know myself as I am?
M: Before the mind--I am. 'I am' is not a thought in the mind; the mind happens to me, I do not happen to the mind. And since time and space are in the mind, I am beyond time and space, eternal and omnipresent.
Q: Are you serious? Do you really mean that you exist every- where and at all times?
M: Yes, I do. To me it is as obvious, as the freedom of move- ment is to you. Imagine a tree asking a monkey: 'Do you seri- ously mean that you can move from place to place?' And the monkey saying: 'Yes. I do.'
Q: Are you also free from causality? Can you produce mira- cles?
M: The world itself is a miracle. I am beyond miracles--I am absolutely normal. With me everything happens as it must. I do not interfere with creation. Of what use are small miracles to me when the greatest of miracles is happening all the time? What- ever you see it is always your own being that you see. Go ever deeper into yourself, seek within, there is neither violence nor non-violence in self-discovery. The destruction of the false is not violence.
Q: When I practice self-enquiry, or go within with the idea that it will profit me in some way or other, I am still escaping from what I am.
M: Quite right. True enquiry is always into something, not out of something. When I enquire how to get, or avoid something, I am not really inquiring. To know anything I must accept it--totally. 526 1 EM THAT
Q: Yes, to know God I must accept God--how frightening !
M: Before you can accept God, you must accept yourself, which is even more frightening. The first steps in self- acceptance are not at all pleasant, for what one sees is not a happy sight. One needs all the courage to go further. What helps is silence. Look at yourself in total silence, do not describe yourself. Look at the being you believe you are and remember --you are not what you see. 'This I am not--what am l?' is the movement of self-enquiry. There are no other means to'libera- tion, all means delay. Resolutely reject what you are not, till the real Self emerges in its glorious nothingness, its 'not-a-thing- ness.' .
Q: The world is passing through rapid and critical changes. We can see them with great clarity in the United States, though they happen in other countries. There is an increase in crime on one hand and more genuine holiness on the other. Communities are being formed and some of them are on a very high level of in- tegrity and austerity. It looks as if evil is destroying itself by its own successes, like a fire which consumes its fuel, ú.Nhile the good, like life, perpetuates itself.
M: As long as you divide events into good and evil, you may be right. In fact, good becomes evil and evil becomes good by their own fulfillment.
Q: What about love?
M: When it turns to lust, it becomes destructive
Q: What is lust?
M: Remembering--imagining--anticipating. It is sensory and verbal. A form of addiction.
Q: Is brahmacharya, continence, imperative in Yoga?
M: A life of constraint and suppression is not Yoga. Mind must be free of desires and relaxed. It comes with understanding, not with determination, which is but another form of memory. An understanding mind is free of desires and fears.
Q: How can I make myself understand?
M: By meditating which means giving attention. Become fully aware of your problem, look at it from all sides, watch how it af- fects your life. Then leave it alone. You can't do more than that. UNDERSTANDING LEADS TO FREEDOM 527
Q: Will it set me free?
M: You are free from what you have understood. The outer ex- pressions of freedom may take time to appear, but they are al- ready there. Do not expect perfection. There is no perfection in manifestation. Details must clash. No problem is solved com- pletely, but you can withdraw from it to a level on which it does not operate. ú---- 1 01 Gnani does not Grasp, nor Hold
Questioner: How does the nanny proceed when he needs something to be done? Does he make plans, decide about de- tails and execute them? Maharaja: Gnani understands a situation fully and knows at once what needs be done. That is all. Th.e rest happens by itself, and to a large extent unconsciously. The nannies identity with all that is, is so complete, that as he responds to the universe, so does the universe respond to him. He is supremely confident that once a situation has been cognized, events will move in adequate response. The ordinary man is personally concerned, he counts his risks and chances, while the nanny remains aloof, sure that all will happen as it must; and it does not matter much what happens, for ultimately the return to balance and harmony is inevitable. The heart of things is at peace. 528 1 AM THAT
Q: I have understood that personality is an illusion, and alert detachment, without loss of identity, is our point of contact with the reality. Will you, please, tell me--at this moment are you a person or a self-aware identity?
M: I am both. But the real self cannot be described except in terms supplied by the person, in terms of what I am not. All you can tell about the person is not the self, and you can tell nothing about the self, which would not refer to the person; as it is, as it could be, as it should be. All attributes are personal. The real is beyond all attributes.
Q: Are you sometimes the self and sometimes the person?
M: How can I be? The person is what I appear to be to other persons. To myself I am the infinite expanse of consciousness in which innumerable persons emerge and disappear in endless succession.
Q: How is it that the person, which to you is quite illusory, ap- pears real to us?
M: You, the self, being the root of all being, consciousness and joy, impart your reality to whatever you perceive. This imparting of reality takes place invariably in the now, at no other time, be- cause past and future are only in the mind. 'Being' applies to the now only.
Q: Is not eternity endless too?
M: Time is endless, though limited, eternity is In the split Mo- e Mont of the now. We miss it because the mind is ever shuttling between the past and the future. It will not stop to focus the now. It can be done with comparative ease, if interest is aroused.
Q: What arouses interest?
M: Earnestness, the sign of maturity.
Q: And how does maturity come about?
M: By keeping your mind clear and clean, by living your life in full awareness of every moment as it happens, by examining and dissolving one's desires and fears as soon as they arise.
Q: Is such concentration at all possible?
M: Try. One step at a time is easy. Energy flows from earnest- ness. GNANI DOES NOT GRASP. Noll HOLD 529
Q: I find I am not earnest enough.
M: Self-betrayal is a grievous matter. It rots the mind like cancer. The remedy lies in clarity and integrity of thinking. Try to understand that you live in a world of illusions, examine them and uncover their roots. The very attempt to do so will make you earnest, for there is bliss in right endeavor.
Q: Where will it lead me?
M: Where can it lead you if not to its own perfection? Once you are well-established in the now, you have nowhere else to go What you are timelessly, you express eternally.
Q: Are you one or many?
M: I am one, but appear as many.
Q: Why does one appear at all?
M: It is good to be, and to be conscious.
Q: Life is sad.
M: Ignorance causes sorrow. Happiness follows understand- ing.
Q: Why should ignorance be painful?
M: It is at the root of all desire an~d fear, which are painful states and the source of endless errors.
Q: I have seen people supposed to have realized, laughing and crying. Does it not show that they are not free of desire and fear?
M: They may laugh and cry according to circumstances, but inwardly they are cool and clear, watching detachedly their own spontaneous reactions. Appearances are misleading and more so in the case of agnani.
Q: I do not understand you.
M: The mind cannot understand, for the mind is trained for grasping and holding while the nanny is not-grasping and not holding .
Q: What am I holding on to, which you do not?
M: You are a creature of memories; at least you imagine your- self to be so. I am entirely unimagined. I am what I am, not iden- tifiable with Ann Physical or mental state. 530 1 AM THAT
Q: An accident would destroy your equanimity.
M: The strange fact is that it does not. To my own surprise, I remain as I am--pure awareness, alert to all that happens.
Q: Even at the Moment of deaths?
M: What is it to me that the body dies?
Q: Don't you need it to contact the world?
M: I do not need the world. Nor am I in one. The world you think of is in your own mind. I can see it through your eyes and mind, but I am fully aware that it is a projection of memories; it is touched by the real only at the point of awareness, which can be only now.
Q: The only difference between us seems to be that while I keep on saying that I do not know my real self, you maintain that you know it well; is there any other difference between us?
M: There is no difference between us; nor can I say that I know myself, I know that I am not describable nor definable. There is a vastness beyond the farthest reaches of the mind. That vast- ness is my home; that vastness is myself. And that vastness is also love.
Q: You see love everywhere, while I see hatred and suffering. The history of humanity is the history of murder, individual and collective. No other living being so delights in killing.
M: If you go into the motives, you will find love, love of oneself and of one's own. People fight for what they imagine they love.
Q: Surely their love must be real enough when they are ready to die for it.
M: Love is boundless. What is limited to a few cannot be called love.
Q: Do you know such unlimited love?
M: Yes,ldo.
Q: How does it feel?
M: All is loved and lovable. Nothing is excluded.
Q: Not even the ugly and the criminal?
M: All is within my consciousness; all is my own. It is madness to split oneself through likes and dislikes. I am beyond both. I GNANI DOES NOT GRASP, NOR HOLD 531 am not alienated.
Q: To be free from like and dislike is a state of indifference.
M: It may look and feel so in the beginning. Persevere in such indifference and it will blossom into an all-pervading and all- embracing love. Q One has such moments when the mind becomes a flower and a flame, but they do not last and the life reverts to its daily grayness .
M: Discontinuity is the law, when you deal with the concrete: The continuous cannot be experienced, for it has no borders. Consciousness implies alterations, change followings change, when one thing or state comes to an end and another begins; that which has no borderline cannot be experienced in the common meaning of the word. One can only be it, without know- ing, but one can know what it is not. It is definitely not the entire content of consciousness which is always on the move.
Q: If the immovable cannot be known, what is the meaning and purpose of its realization?
M: To realize the immovable means to become immovable. And the purpose is the good of Al I that lives.
Q: Life is movement. Immobility is death. Of what use is death to life?
M: I am talking of immovability, not of immobility. You become immovable in reticence. You become a power which gets all things right. It may or may not imply intense outward activity, but the mind remains deep and quiet.
Q: As I watch my mind I find it changing all the time, mood suc- ceeding mood in infinite variety, while you seem to be perpetu- ally in the same mood of cheerful benevolence.
M: Moods are in the mind and do not matter. Go within, go beyond. Cease being fascinated by the content of your con- sciousness. When you reach the deep layers of your true being, you will find that the mind's surface-play affects you very little.
Q: There will be-play all the same?
M: A quiet mind is not a dead mind.
Q: Consciousness is always in movement--it is an observable 532 1 AM THAT fact. Immovable consciousness is a contradiction. When you talk of a quiet mind, what is it? Is not mind the same as con- sciousness?
M: We must remember that words are used in many ways, ac- cording to the context. The fact is that there is little difference between the conscious and the unconscious ---they are essen- tially the same. The waking state differs from deep sleep in the presence of the witness. A ray of awareness illumines a part of our mind and that part becomes our dream or waking con- sciousness, while awareness appears as the witness. The wit news usually knows only consciousness. Sadhana consists in the witness turning back first on his conscious, then upon him- self in his own awareness. Self-awareness is Yoga.
Q: If awareness is all-pervading, then a blind man, once realized, can see?
M: You are mixing sensation with awareness. The nanny knows himself as he is. He is also aware of his body being crippled and his mind being deprived of a range of sensory perceptions. But he is not affected by the availability of eyesight, nor by its ab- sence.
Q: My question is more specific; when a blind man becomes a nanny will his eyesight be restored to him or not?
M: Unless his eyes and brain undergo a renovation, how can he see?
Q: But will they undergo a renovation?
M: They may or may not. It all depends on destiny and grace. But a nanny commands a mode of spontaneous, non-sensory perception, which makes him know things directly, without the intermediary of the senses. He is beyond the perceptual and the conceptual, beyond the categories of time and space, name and shape. He is neither the perceived nor the perceive, but the simple and the universal facto~r that makes perceiving pos- sible. Reality is within consciousness, but it is not conscious- ness nor any of its contents.
Q: What is false, the world, or my knowledge of it?
M: Is there a world outside your knowledge? Can you go beyond what you know? You may postulate a world beyond the GNANI DOES NOT GRASP, NOR HOLD 533 mind, but it will remain a concept, unproved and unp-ovable. Your experience is your proof, and it is valid for you only. Who else can have your experience, when the other person is only as real as he appears in your experience?
Q: Am I so hopelessly lonely?
M: You are. as a person. In your real being vow are the whole.
Q: Are you a part of the world which I have in consciousness, or are you independent?
M: What you see is yours and what I see is mine. The two have little in common.
Q: There must be some common factor which unites us.
M: To find the common factor you must abandon all dustier,c tons. Only the universal is in common.
Q: What strikes me as exceedingly strange is that while you say that I am merely a product of my memories and woefully limited, I create a vast and rich world in which. everything is contained, including you and your teaching. How this vastness is created and contained in my smallness is what I find hard to under- stand. May be you are giving me the whole truth, but I am grasp- ing only a small part of it.
M: Yet, it is a fact--the small projects the whole, but it cannot contain the whole. However great and complete is your world it is self-contradictorv and transitory and altogether illusory.
Q: It may be illusory yet it is marvelous. When I look and listen, touch, smell and taste, think and feel, remember and imagine, 1 cannot but be astonished at my miraculous creativity. I look through a microscope or telescope and see wonders, I follow the track of an atom and hear the whisper of the stars. If I am the sole creator of all this, then I am God indeed! But if I am God, why do I appear so small and helpless to myself?
M: You are God, but you do not know it.
Q: If I am God, then the world I create must be true.
M: It is true in essence, but no! in appearance. Be free of de- sires and fearsRand at once your vision will clear and you shall see all things as they are. Or, you may say that the satoguna creates the world, the tamoguna obscures it and the rajoguna 534 1 AM THAT distorts .
Q: This does not tell me much, because if I ask what are the gun as, the answer will be: what creates--what obscures-- what distorts. The fact remains--something unbelievable hap- pened to me, and I do not understand what has happened, how and why.
M: Well, wonder is the dawn of wisdom. To be steadily and consistently wondering is sadhana.
Q: I am in a world which I do not understand and therefore, I am afraid of it. This is everybody's experience.
M: You have separated yourself from the world, therefore it pains and frightens you. Discover your mistake and be free of fear.
Q: You are asking me to give up the world, while I want to be happy in the world.
M: If you ask for the impossible, who can help you'd The limited is bound to be painful and pleasant in turns. If you seek real happiness, unassailable and unchangeable, you must leave the world with its pains and pleasures behind you.
Q: How is it done?
M: Mere physical renunciation is only a token of earnestness, but earnestness alone does not liberate. There must be under- standing which comes with alert perceptivity, eager enquiry and deep investigation. You must work relentlessly for your salvation from sin and sorrow.
Q: What is sin?
M: All that binds you.
M: Don't cheat, don't hurt--is it not important? Above all you need inne! peace--which demands harmony between the inner and the outer. Do what you believe in and believe in what you do. All else is waste of energy and time. Mind and the World are not Separate 97
Questioner: I see here pictures of several saints and I am told that they are your spiritual ancestors. Who are they and how did it all begin?
Maharaj: We are called coliectively the 'Nine Masters'. The legend says that our first teacher was Rishi Dattatreya, the great incarnation of the Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Even the 'Nine Masters' (Navnath) are mythological.
Q: What is the peculiarity of their teaching?
M: Its simplicity, both in theory and practice.
Q: How does one become a Navnath? By initiation or by suc- cession?
M: Neither. The Nine Masters' tradition, Navnath Parampara, is like a river--it f!ows into the ocean of reality and whoever en- ters it is carried along. Ml ND AND THE WORLD ARE NOT SEPARATE 501
Q: DGes it imply acceptance by a living master belonging to the same tradition?
M: Those who practise the sadhana of focussing their minds on ~I am' may feel related to others who have followed the same sadhana and socceeded. They may decide to verbalize their sense of kinship by calling themselves Navnaths. It gives them th~e pleasure of belonging to an established tradition.
Q: Do they in any way benefit by joining?
M: The circle of satsang, the 'company of saints', expands in numbers as time passes.
Q: Do they get hold thereby of a source of power and grace from which they would have been barred otherwise?
M: Power and grace are for all and for the asking. Giving one- self a particular name does not help. Call yourself by any name --as long as you are intensely mindful of yourself, the accumu- lated obstacles to self-knowledge are bound to be swept away.
Q: If I like your teaching and accept your guidance, can I call myself a Navnath?
M: Please your word-addicted mind! The name will not change you. At best it may remind you to behave. There is a succession of Gurus and their disciples, who in ~urn train more disciples and thus the line is maintained. But the continuity of tradition is informal and voluntary. It is like a family name, but here the fam- iiy is spiritual.
Q: Do you have to realize to join the Sampradaya?
M: The Navnath Sampradaya is only a tradition, a way of teach- ing and practice. It does not denote a level of consciousness. If you accept a Navnath Sampradaya teacher as your 5uru, you join his Sampradaya. Usually you receive a token of his grac~-- a look, a touch, or a word, sometimes a vivid dream or a strong remembrance. Sometimes the only sign of grace is a significant and rapid change in character and behaviour.
Q: I know you now for some years and I meet you regularly. The thought of you is never far from my mind. I~oes it make me be- long to your Sampradaya?
M: Your belonging is a matter of your own feeling and convic- 502 1 AM THAT tion. After all, it is all verbal and formal. In reality there is neither Guru nor disciple, neither theory nor practice, neither ignorance nor realization. It all depends on what you take yourself to be. Know yourself correctly. There is no substitute to self- knowledge.
Q: What proof will I have that I know myself correctly?
M: You need no proofs. The experience is unique and unmis- takable. It will dawn on you suddenly, when the obstacles are removed to some extent. It is like a frayed rope snapping. Yours is to work at the strands. The break is bound to happen. It can be delayed, but not prevented.
Q: I am confused by your denial of causality. Does it mean that none is responsible for the world as it is?
M: The idea of responsibility is in your mind. You think there must be something or somebody solely responsible for all that happens. There is a contradiction between a multiple universe and a single cause. Either one or the other must be false. Or both. As I see it, it is all day-dreaming. There is no reality in ideas. The fact is that without you, neither the universe nor its cause could have come into being.
Q: I cannot make out whether I am the creature or the creator of the universe.
M: 'I am' is an ever-present fact, while 'I am created' is an idea. Neither God nor the universe have come to tell you that they have created you. The mind obsessed by the idea of causality invents creation and then wonders 'who is the creator?' The mind itself is the creator. Even this is not quite true, for the created and its creator are one. The mind and the world are not separate. Do understand that what you think to be the world is your own mind.
Q: Is there a world beyond, or outside the mind??
M: All space and time are in the mind. Where will you locate a superamental.world? There are many levels of the mind and each projects its own version, yet all are in the mind and created by the mind. (! What is your attitude to sin? How do you look at a sinner, somebody who breaks the law, inner or outer? Do you want him MIND AND THE WORLD ARE NOT SEPARATE 503 to change or you just pity him? Or, are you indifferent to him be- cause of his sins?
M: I know no sin, nor sinner. Your distinction and valuation do not bind me. Everybody behaves according to his nature. It cannot be helped, nor need it be regretted.
Q: Others suffer
M: Life lives on lite. In nature the process is compulsory, in soc- iety it should be voluntary. There can be no life without sacrifice. A sinner refuses to sacrifice and invites death. This is as it is, and gives no cause for condemnation or pity.
Q: Surely you feel at least compassion when you see a man steeped in sin.
M: Yes, I feel I am that man and his sins are my sins.
Q: Right, and what next?
M: By my becoming one with hlm he becomes one with me. It is not a conscious process, it happens entirely by itself. None of us can help it. What needs changing shall change anyhow; enough to know oneself as one is, here and now. Intense and methodical investigation into one's mind is Yoga.
Q: What about the chains of destiny forged by sin~
M: When ignorance, the mother of sin, dissolves, destiny, the compulsion to sin again, ceases.
Q: There are retributions to make.
M: With ignorance cGming to an end all comes to an end. Things are then seen as they are and they are good.
Q: If a sinner, a breaker of the law, comes before you and asks for your grace, what will be your response?
M: He will get what he ask$ for.
Q: In spite of being a very bad man?
M: I know no bad people, I only know myself. I see no saints nor sinners, only living beings. I do not hand out grace. There is no- thing I can give, or deny, which you do not have already in equal measure. Just be aware of your riches and make full use of them. As long as you imagine that you need my grace, you will be at my door begging for it. 504 1 AM THAT My begging for grace from you would make as little sense! We are not separate, the real is common.
Q: A mother comes to you with a tale of woe. Her only son has taken to drugs and sex and is going from bad to worse. She is asking for your grace. What shall be your response?
M: Probably I shall hear myself telling her that all will be well.
Q: That's all?
M: That's all. What more do you expect?
Q: But will the son of the woman change?
M: He may or he may not.
Q: The people who collect round you, and who know you for many years, maintain that when you say 'it will be all right' it in- variably happens as you say.
M: You may ~s weil say that it is the mother's heart that saved the child. For everything th.ere are innumerable causes.
Q: I am told that the man who wants nothing for himself is all- powerful. The entire universe is at his disposal.
M: If you believe so, act on it. Abandon every personal desire and use the power thus saved for changing the world !
Q: All the Buddhas and Rishis have not succeeded in changing the world.
M: The world does not yield to changing. By its very nature it is painful and transient. See it as it is and divest yourself of all de- sire and fear. When the world does not hold and bind you, it be- comes an abode of joy and beauty. You can be happy in the world only when you are free of it.
Q: What is right and what is wrong?
M: Generally, what causes suffering is wrong and what re- moves it, is right. The body and the mind are limited and there- fore vulnerable; they need protection which gives rise to fear. As long as you identify yourself with them you are bound to suffer realize your independence and remain happy. I tell you, this is the secret of happiness. To believe that you depend on things and people for happiness is due to ignorance of your true na- ture; to know that vou need nothing to be happy, except self- knowledqe, is wisdom. MIND AND THE WORLD ARE NOT SEPARATE 505
Q: What comes first, being or desire?
M: With being arising in consciousness, the ideas of what you are arise in your mind as well as what you should be. This brings forth desire and action and the process of becoming begins. Becoming has, apparently, no beginning and no end, for it re- starts every moment. With the cessation of imagination and de- sire, becoming ceases and the being this or that merges into pure being, which is not describable, only experienceable. The world appears to you so overwhelmingly real, because you think cf it all the time; cease think'ing of it'and it will dissolve into thin mist. You need not forget; when desire and fear end, bondage also ends. It is the emotional involvement, the pattern of likes and dislikes which we call character and temperament, that create the bondage.
Q: Without desire and fear what motive is there for action?
M: None, unless you consider love of life, of righteousness, of beauty, motive enough. Do not be afraid of freedom from desire and fear. It enables you to live a life so different from all you know, so much more in- tense and interesting, that, truly, by losing all you gain all.
Q: Since you count your spiritual ancestry from Rishi Datta- treya, are we right in believing that you and all your predeces- sors are reincarnations of the Rishi?
M: You may believe in whatever you like and if you act on your belief, you will get the fruits of it; but to me it has no impo!tance. I am what I am and this is enough for me. I have no desire to iden- tify myself with anybody, however illustrious. Nor do I feel the need to take myths for reality. I am only interested in ignorance and the freedom from ignorance. The proper role of a Guru is to dispel ignorance in the hearts and minds of his disciples. Once the disciple has understood, the confirming action is up to him. Nobody can act for another. And if he does not act rightly, it only means that he has not understood and that the Guru's work is not over.
Q: There must be some hopeless cases too?
M: None is hopeless. Obstacles can be overcome. What life cannot rnend, death will end, but the Guru cannot fail. 506 1 AM THAT ~: What gives you the assurar ce? M The Guru and man's inner reality are really one and work to- gether towards the same goal--the redemption and salvation of the mind They cannot fail. Out of the very boulders that obs- truct them they build their bridges. Consciousness is not the whole of being--there are other levels on which man is much more co-operative. The Guru is at home on all levels and his energy and patience are inexhaustible.
Q: You keep on telling me that I am dreaming and that it is high time I should wake up. How does it happen that the Maharaj, who has come to me in my dreams, has not succeeded in wak- ing me up? He keeps on urging and reminding, but the dream continues.
M: It is because you have not really understood that you are dreaming. This is the essence of bondage--the mixing of the real with unreal. In your present state only the sense 'I am' refers to reality; the 'what' and the 'how I am' are illusions imposed by destiny, or accident. 0: When did the dream begin?
M: It appears to be beginningless, but in fact it is only now. From moment to moment you are renewing it. Once you have seen that you are dreaming, you shall wake up. But you do no~ see, because you want the dream to continue. A day will come when you will long for the ending of the dream, with all your heart and mind, and be willing to pay any price; the price will be dispassion and detachment, the loss of interest in the dream it- self.
Q: How helpless I am. As long as the dream of existence lasts, I want it to continue. As long as I want it to continue, it will last.
M: Wanting it to continue is not inevitable. See clearly your condition, your very clarity will release you.
Q: As long as I am with you, all you say seems pretty obvious; but as soon as I am away from you I run about restless and an- XIOUS .
M: You need not keep away from me, in your mind at least. But your mind is after the world's welfare!
Q: The world is full of troubles, no wonder my mind too is full of MIND AND THE WORLD ARE NOT SEPARATE 507 them.
M: Was there ever a world without troubles? Your being as a person depends on violence to others. Your very body is a bat- tlefield, full of the dead and dying. Existence implies violence.
Q: As a body--yes. As a human being--definitely no. For humanity non-violence is the law of life and violence ot death.
M: There is little of non-violence in nature.
Q: God and nature are not human and need not be humane. I am concerned with man alone. To be human I must be compas- sionate absolutely.
M: Do you realize that as long as you have a self to defend, you must be violent?
Q: I do. To be truly human I must be self-less. As long as ! am selfish, I am sub-human, a humanoid only.
M: So, we are all sub-human and only a few are human. Few or many, it is again 'clarity and charity' that make us human. The sub-human--the 'humanoids'--are dominated by tamas and rajas and the humans by sattva. Clarity and charity is sattva as it affects mind and action. But the real is beyond sattva. Since I have known you, you seem to be always after helping the world. How much did you help?
Q: Not a bit. Neither the world has changed, nor have 1. But the world suffers and I suffer along with it. To struggle against suf- fering is a natural reaction. And what is civilization and culture, philosophy and religion, but a revolt against suffering. Evil and the ending of evil--is it not your own main preoccupation? You may call it ignorance--it comes to the same.
M: Well, words do not matter, nor does it matter in what shape you are just now. Names and shapes change incessantly. Know yourself to be the changeless witness of the changeful mind. That is enough. ** No page found ** Freedom from Self-identification 98
Maharaj: Can you sit on the floor? Do you need a pillow? Have you any questions to ask? Not that you need to ask, you can as well be quiet. To be, just be, is important. You need not ask any- thing, nor do anything. Such apparently lazy way of spending time is highly regarded in India. It means that for the time being you are free from the obsession with 'what next'. When you Abe not in a hurry and the mind is free from anxieties, it becomes quiet and in the silence something may be heard which is ordi- narily too fine and subtle for perception. The mind must be open and quiet to see. What we are trying to do here is to bring our minds into the right state for understanding what is real.
Questioner: How do we learn to cut out worries?
M: You need not worry about your worries. Just be. Do not try to be quiet; do not make 'being quiet' into a task to be performed. Don't be restless about 'being quiet', miserable about 'being happy'. Just be aware that you are and remain aware--don't say: 'yes, I am; what next?' There is no 'next' in 'I am'. It is a time- less state.
Q: If it is a timeless state, it will assert itself anyhow.
M: You are what you are, timelessly, but of what use is it to you unless you know it and act on it? Your begging bowl may be of pure gold, but as long as you do not know it, you are a pauper. You must know your inner worth and trust it and express it in the daily sacrifice of desire and fear.
Q: If I know myself, shall I not desire and fear?
M: For some time the mental habits may linger in spite of the FREEDOM FROM SELF-IDENTIFICATION 509 new vision, the habit of longing for the known past and fearing the unknown future. Whenyou know these are of the mind only, you can go beyond them. As long as you have all sorts of ideas about yourself, you know yourself through the mist of these ideas; to know yourself as you are, give up all ideas. You cannot imagine the taste of pure water' you can only discover it by abandoning all flavorings. As long as you are interested in your present way of living, you will not abandon it. Discovery cannot come as long as you cling to the familiar. It is only when you realize fully the immense sorrow of your life and revolt against it, that a way out can be found .
Q: I can now see that the secret of India's eternal life lies in these dimensions ofexistence, of which Lydia was always the custodian .
M: It is an open secret and there were always people willing and ready to share it. Teachers--there are many, fearless dis- ciples--very few.
Q: I am quite willing to learn.
M: Learning words is not enough. You may know the theory, but without the actual experience of yourself as the impersonal and unqualified center of being, love and bliss, mere verbal know- ledge is sterile.
Q: Then, what am I to do?
M: Try to be, only to be. The all-importarlt word is 'try'. Allot enough time daily for sitting quietly and trying, just trying, to go beyond the personality, with its addictions and obsessions. Don't ask how, it cannot be explained. You just keep on trying until you succeed. If you persevere, there can be no failure. What matters supremely is sincerity, earnestness; you must re- ally have had surfeit of being the person you are, now see the urgent need of being free of this unnecessary self-identification with a bundle of memories and habits. This steady resistorice against the unnecessary is the secret of success. After all, you are what you are every moment of your life, but you are never conscious of it, except, maybe, at the point of awakening from sleep. All you need is to Fe aware of being, not as a verbal statement. but as an ever-present fact. The a wal- e510 1 AM T I T news that you are will open your eyes to what you are. It is all very simple. First of all, establish a constant contact with your self, be with yourself all the time. Into self-awareness all bles- sings flow. Begin as a center of observation, deliberate cogniz- ance, and grow into a center of love in action. 'I am' is a tiny seed which will grow into a mighty tree--quite naturally, with- out a trace of effort.
Q: I see so much evil in myself. Must I not change it?
M: Evil is the shadow of inattention. In the light of self- awareness it will wither and fall off. All dependence on another is futile, for what others can give others will take away. Only what is your own at the start will re- main your own in the end. Accept no guidance but from within, and even then sift out all memorizes for they will mislead you. Even if you are quite ignorant of the ways and the means, keep quiet and look within; guidance is sure to come. You are never left without knowing what your next step should be. The trouble is that you may shirk it. The Guru is there for giving you courage because of his experience and success. But only what you dis- cover through your own awareness, your own effort, will be of permanent use to you. Remember, nothing you perceive is your own. Nothing of value can come to you from outside; it is only your own feeling and understanding that are relevant and revealing. Words, heard or read, will only create images in your mind, but you are not a mental image. You are the power of perception and action behind and beyond the image.
Q: You seem to advise me to be self-centered to the point of egoism. Must I not yield even to my interest in other people?
M: Your interest in others is egoistic, self-concerned, self- oriented. You are not interested in others as persons, but only as far as they enrich,or ennoble your own image of yourself. And the ultimate in selfishness is to care only for the protection, preservation and multiplication of one's own body. By body I mean all that is related to your name and shape--your family, tribe, country, race, etc. To be attached to one's name and shape is selfishness. A-man who knows that he is neither body nor mind cannot be selfish, for Fe has nothing to be selfish for. FREEDOM FROM SELF-IDENTIFICATION 511 Or,-you may say, he is equally 'selfish' on behalf cf everybody he meets; everybody's welfare is his own. The feeling 'I am the world, the world is myself' becomes quite natural; once it is es- tablished, there is just no way of being selfish. To be selfish means to covet, acquire, accumulate on behalf of the part against the whole.
Q: One may be rich with many possessions, by inheritance, or marriage, or just good luck.
M: If you do not hold on to, it will be taken away from you.
Q: In your present state can you love another person as a per- son?
M: I am the other person, the other person is myself; in name and shape we are different, but there is no separation. At the root of our be ins we are one.
Q: Is it not so whenever there is love between people?
M: It ,s, but they are not conscious of it. They feel the attraction, but do not know the reason.
Q: Why is love selective?
M: Love is not selective, desire is selective. In love there are no strangers. When the center of selfishness is no longer, all de- sires for pleasure and fear of pain cease; one is no Icnger in- terested in being happy; beyond happiness there is pure in te- n sty, inexhaustible energy, the ecstasy of giving from a perennial source.
Q: Mustn't I begin by solving for myself the problem of right and wrong?
M: What is pleasant people take it to be good and what is pain- ful they take it to be bad.
Q: Yes, that is how it is with us, ordinary people. But how is it with you, at the level of oneness? For you what is good and what is bad?
M: What increases suffering is bad and what removes it is good.
Q: So you deny goodness to suffering itself. There are religions in which suffering is considered good and noble.
M: Karma, cr destiny, is an expression of a beneficial law: the 512 1 AM THAT universal trend towards balance, harmony and unity. At every moment, whatever happens now, is for the best. It may appear painful and ugly, a suffering bitter and meaningless, yet cons - I during the past and the future it is for the best, as the only way out of a disastrous situation.
Q: Does one suffer only for one's own sins?
M: One suffers along with what one thinks oneself to be. If you feel one with humanity, you suffer with humanity.
Q: And since you claim to be one with the arrivers, there is no limit in time or space to your suffering !
M: To be is to suffer. The narrower the circle of my self- identification, the more acute the suffering caused by desire and fear.
Q: Christianity accepts suffering as purifying and ennobling, while Hinduism looks at it with distaste.
M: Christianity is one way of putting words together and Hin- duism is another. The real is, behind and beyond words, In- communicable, directly experienced, explosive in its effect on the mind. It is easily had when nothing else is wanted. The in- nards created by imagination and perpetuated by desire.
Q: Can there be no suffering that Jo necessary and good?
M: Accidental or incidental pain is inevitable and transitory; de- liberate pain, inflicted with even the best of intentions, is mean- ingless and cruel.
Q: You would not punish crime?
M: Punishment is but legalized crime. In a society built on pre- vention, rather than retaliation, there would be very little crime. The few exceptions will be treated medically, as of unsound mind and body.
Q: You seem to have little use for religion.
M: What is religion? A cloud in the sky. I live in the sky, not in the clouds, which are so many words held together. Remove the verbiage and what remains? Truth remains. My home is in the unchangeable, which appears to be a state of constant recoi- n solution and integration of opposites. People come here to learn about the actual existence of such a state, the obstacles to its emergence, and, once perceived, the art of stabilisina it in con- FREEDOM FROM SELF-IDENTIFICATION . I sauciness, so that there is no clash between understanding and living. The state itself is beyond the mind and need not be learnt. The mind can only focus the obstacles; seeing an obsta- cle as a, I obstacle is effective, because it is the mind acting on the mind. Begin from the beginning: give attention to the fact that you arc. At no time can you say 'I was not' all you can say: 'I do not remember'. You know how unreliable is memory. Accept that, engrossed in petty personal affairs you have forgotten what you are; try to bring back the lost memory through the elimination of the known. You cannot be told what will happen, nor is it desirable; anticipation will create illusions. In the inner search the unexpected is inevitable; the discovery is invariably beyond all imagination. Just as an unborn child cannot know life after birth, for it has nothing in its mind with which -to form a valid picture, so is the mind unable to think of the real in terms of the unreal, except by negation: I Not this, not that'. The acceptance of the unreal as real is the obstacle; to see the false as false and abandon the false brings reality into being. The states of utter clarity, immense love, utter fearlessness; these are mere words at the present, outlines without color, hints at what can be. You are like a blind man expecting to see as a result of an operation --provided you do not shirk the operation! The state 1 am in words do not matter at all. Nor is there any addiction to words. Only facts matter.
Q: There can be no religion without words.
M: Recorded religions are mere heaps of verbiage. Religions show their true face in action, in silent action. To know what man believes, watch how he acts. For most of the people service of their bodies and their minds is their religion. They may have Re- xaegis ideas, but they do not act on them. They play with them, they are often very fond of them, but they will not act on them.
Q: Words are needed for communication.
M: For exchange of information--yes. But real communication between people is not verbal. For establishing and maintaining relationship affectionate awareness expressed in direct action is required. Not-what you say, but what you do is that matters. Words are made by the mind and are meaningful only on the level of the mind. The word ~bread~: neither can vow eat nor live 514 1 AM THAT by it; it merely conveys an idea. It acquires meaning only with the actual eating. In the same sense am I telling you that the Normal State is not verbal. I may say it is wise love expressed in action, but these words convey little. unless you experience them in their fullness and beauty. Words have their limited usefulness, but we put no limits to them and bring ourselves to the brink of disaster. Our noble ideas are finely balanced by ignoble actions. We talk of God, Truth and Love, but instead of direct experience we have defini- tions. Instead of enlarging and deepening action we chisel our definitions. And we imagine that we know what we can define!
Q: How can one convey experience except through nerds?
M: Experience cannot be conveyed through words. It comes with action. A man who is intense in his experience will radiate confidence and courage. Others too will act and gain experi- ence born out of action. Verbal teaching has its use, it prepares the mind for voiding itself of its accumulations. A level of mental maturity is reached when nothing external is of any value and the heart is ready to relinquish all. Then the real has a chance and it grasps it. Delays, if any, are caused by the mind being unwilling to see or to discard.
Q: Are we so totally alone?
M: Oh, no, we are not. Those who have, can give. And such givers are many. The world itself is a supreme gift, maintained by loving sacrifice. But the right receivers, wise and humble, are so few. 'Ask and you shall be given' is the eternal law. So many words you have learnt, so many you have spoken. You know everything, but you do not know yourself. For the self is not known through words--only direct insight will reveal it. Look within, search within.
Q: It is very difficult to abandon words. Our mental life is one continuous stream of words.
M: It is not a matter of easy, or difficult. You have no alternative. Either you try or you don't. It is up to you.
Q: I have tried many times and failed.
M: Try again. If you keep on trying, something may happen. But if you don't, you are stuck. You may know all the right words, FRFFnoM FROM ~FI F-IDFNTIFICATIO~I 515 quote the scriptures, be brilliant in your discussions and yet re- main a bag of bones. Qr you may be in con,spicllQus and hum- ~ble, an insignificant person altogether, yet glowing with loving kindness and deep wisdom. 99 The Perceived can not be the Perceiver
Questioner: I have been moving from place to place investiga- ting the various Yogas available for practice and I could not de- cide which will suit me best. I should be thankful for some com- petent advice. At present, as a result of all this searching, I am just tired of the idea of finding truth. It seems to me, both un- necessary and troublesome. Life is enjoyable 2S it is and I see no purpose in improving on it. Maharaja: . You are welcome to stay in your contentment, but can you? Youth, vigor, money--all will pass away sooner than you expect. Sorrow, shunned so far, will pursue you. If you want to be beyond suffering, you must meet it half way and embrace it. Re- linquish your habits and addictions, live a simple and sober life, don't hurt a living being; this is the foundation of Yoga. To find reality you must be real in the smallest daily action; there can be no deceit in the search for truth. You say you find your life enjoy- able. Maybe it is--at present. But who enjoys it?
Q: I confess I do not know the annealer nor the envied. I only 516 I AM THAT know the enjoyment.
M: Quite right. But enjoyment is a state of mind--it comes and goes. Its very impermanence makes it perceivable. You cannot be conscious of what does not change. All consciousness is consciousness of change. But the very perception of change-- does it not necessitate a changeless background?
Q: Not at all. The memory of the last state--compared to the actuality of the present state gives the experience of change.
M: Between the remembered and the actual there is a basic dif- ference which can be observed from moment to moment. At ro point of time is the actual the remembered. Between the two there is a difference in kind, not merely in intensity. The actual is unmistakably so. By no effort of will or imagination can you in- terchange the two. A, what is it that gives this unique quality to the actual?
Q: The actual is real, white there is a good deal of uncertainty about the remembered.
M: Quite so, but why? A moment back the remembered was ac- tual, in a moment the actual will be the remembered. What makes the actual unique? Obviously, it is your sense of being present. In memory and anticipation there is a clear feeling that it is a mental state under observation, while in the actual! the feel- ing is primarily of being present and aware-
Q: Yes I can see. It is awareness that makes the difference be- tween the actual and the remembered. One thinks of the past or the future, but one is present in the now.
M: Wherever you go, the sense of here and now you carry with you all the time. It means that you are independent of space and time, that space and time are in you, not you in them. It is your self-identrfication with the body, which, of course, is limited in space and time, that gives you the feeling of finiteness. In reality you are infinite and eternal.
Q: This infinite and eternal self of mine, how am I to know it?
M: The self you want to know, is it some second self? Are you made of several selves? Surely, there is only one self and you are that self. The self you are is the only self there is. Remove and abandon your wrong ideas about yourself and there it is, in THE PERCEIVED CAN NOT BE THE PERCEIVER 517 all its glory. It is only your mind that prevents self-knowledge.
Q: How am I to be rid of the mind? And is life without mind at all possible on the human level?
M: There is no such thing as mind. There are ideas and some of them are wrong. Abandon the wrong ideas, for they are false and obstruct your vision of yourself. a Which ideas are wrong and which are true?
M: Assertions are usually wrong and denials--right.
Q: One cannot live by denying everything!
M: Only by denying can one live. Assertion is bondage. To question and deny is necessary. It is the essence of revolt and without revolt there can be no freedom. There is no second, or higher self to search for. You are the highest self, only give up the false ideas you have about your self. Roth faith and reason tell you thatyou are neither the body, nor its desires and fears, nor are you the mind with its fanciful ideas, nor the role society compels you to play, the person you are supposed to be. Give up the false and the true will come into its own. You say you want to know your self. You are your self--you cannot be anything but what you are. Is knowing separate from being? Whatever you can know with your mind is of the mind, not you; about yourself you can only say: 'I am. I am aware, I like It'.
Q: I find being alive a painful state.
M: You cannot be alive for you are life itself. It is the person you Imagine yourself to be that suffers, not you. Dissolve it in aware- ness. It is merely a bundle of memories and habits. From the awareness of the unreal to the awareness of your real nature there is a chasm which you will easily cross, once you have mastered the art of pure awareness.
Q: All I know is that I do not know myself.
M: How do you know, that you do not know your self? Your di- rect insight tells you that yourself you know first, for nothing ex- ists to you without your being there to experience its existence. You imagine you do not know your self, because you cannot describe your self. You can always say: 'I know that I am' and 518 1 AM THAT you will refuse as untrue the statement: 'I am not'. But whatever can be described cannot be your self, and what you are cannot be described. You can only know your self by being yourself without any attempt at self-definition and self-description. Once you have understood that you are nothing perceivable or con- ceivable, that whatever appears in the field of consciousness cannot be your self, you will apply yourself to the eradication of all self-identification, as the only way that can take you to a deeper realization of your self. You literally progress by rejection --a veritable rocket. To know that you are neither in the body nor in the mind, though aware of both, is already self- knowledo,e.
Q: If I am neither the body nor mind, how am I aware of them? How can I perceive something quite foreign to myself?
M: 'Nothing is me,' is the first step. 'Everything is me' is the next. Both hang on the idea: 'there is a world'. When this too is given up, you remain what you are--the non-dual Self. You are it here and now, but your vision is obstructed by your false ideas about your self.
Q: Well, I admit that I am, I was, I shall be; atleast from birth to death. I have no doubts of my being, here and now. But I find that it is not enough. My life lacks joy, born of harmony between the inner and the outer If I alone am and the world is merely a protection, then why is there disharmony?
M: You create disharmony and then complain,! When you de- sire and fear, and identify yourself with your feelings, you create sorrow and bondage. Wtien you create, with love and wisdom, and remain unattached to your creations, the result is harmony and peace. But whatever be the condition of your mind, in whir way does it reflect on you? It is only your self-identification with your mind that makes you happy O! unhappy. Rebel against your slavery to your mind, see your bonds as self-created and break the chains of attachment and revulsion. Keep in mind your goal of freedom, until it dawns on you what you are already free, that freedom is not something in the distant future to be earned with painful efforts, but perennially one's own, to be used! Liberation is not an acquisition but a matter of courage, the courage to believe that you are free already and to act on it. THE PERCEIVED CAN NOT BE THE PERCEIVER 519
Q: If I do as I like, I shall have to suffer.
M: Nevertheless, you are free. The consequences of your ac- tion will depend on the society in which you live and its conven- tions.
Q: I may act recklessly.
M: Along with courage will emerge wisdom and compassion and skill in action. You will know what to do and whatever you do will be good for all.
Q: I find that the various aspects of myself are at war between themselves and there is no Peace in me. Where are freedom and courage, 7visdom and compassion?-My actions merely in- crease the chasm in which I exist.
M: It is all so, because you take yourself to be somebody, or something. Stop, look, investigate, ask the right questions, come to the right conclusions and have the courage to act on them and see what happens. The first steps may bring the roof down on your head, but soon the commotion will clear and there will be peace and joy. You know so many things about yourself, but the knower you do not know. Find out who you are, the knower of the known. Look within diligently, remember to re- member that the perceived cannot be the perceive Whatever you see, hear or think of, remember--you are not what hap- pens you are he to whom it happens. Delve deeply into the sense 'I am' and you will surely discover that the perceiving center is universal, as universal as the light that illumines the world. All that happens in the universe happens to you, the sil- ent witness. On the other hand, whatever is done, is done by vow, the universal and inexhaustible energy.
Q: It is, no doubt, very gratifying to hear that one is the silent witness as well as the universal energy. But how is one to cross over from a verbal statement to direct knowledge? Hearing is not knowing.
M: Before you can know anything directly, nonverbally, you must know the knower. So far, you took the mind for the knower, but it is just not so. The mind clogs you up with images and ideas, which leave scars in memory. You take remembering to be knowledge. True knowledge is ever fresh, new, unexpected. 520 1 AM THAT It wells up from within. When you know what you are, you also are what you know. Between knowing and being there is no gap.
Q: I can only investigate the mind with the mind.
M: By all means use your mind to know your mind. It is perfectly legitimate and also the best preparation for going beyond the mind. Being, knowing and enjoying is your own. First realize your own being. This is easy because the sense 'I am' is always with you. Then meet yourself as the knower, apart from the known. Once you know yourself as pure being, the ecstasy of freedom is your own.
Q: Which Yoga is this?
M: Why worry? What make,s you come here is your being dis- pleased with your life as you know it, the life of your body and mind. You may try to improve them, through controlling and bending them to an ideal, or you may cut the knot of self- identification altogether and look at your body and mind as something that hopers without committing you in any way.
Q: Sham call the way of control and discipline r~ja yoga and the way of detachment--Ghana yoga? And the worship of an ideal--bhakti yoga?
M: If it pleases you. Words indicate, but do not explain. What I teach is the ancient and simple way of liberation through under- standing. Understand your own mind and its hold on you will snap. The mind misunderstands, misunderstanding is its very nature. Right understanding is the only remedy, whatever name you give it. It is the earliest and also the latest, for it deals with the mind as it is. Nothing you do will change you, for you need no change. You may change your mind or your body, but it is always something external to you that has changed, not yourself. Why bother at all to change? Realize once for all that neither your body nor your mind, nor even your consciousness is yourself and stand alone in your true nature beyond consciousness and unconscious- ness. No effort can take you there, only the clarity of understand- ing. Trace your misunderstandings and abandon them, that is all. There is nothing to seek and find, for there is nothing lost. Relax and watch the 'I am'. Reality is rust behind it. Keep quiet, THE PERCEIVED CAN NOT BE THE PERCEIVER 521 keep silent; it will emerge, or, rather, it will take you in.
Q: Must I not get rid of my body and mind first?
M: You cannot, for the very idea binds you to them. Just under- stand and disregard.
Q: I am unable to disregard, for i am not integrated.
M: Imagine you are completely integrated, your thought and action fully coordinated. How will it help you? It will not free you from mistaking yourself to be the body or the mind. See them correctly as 'not you', that is all.
Q: You want me to remember to forget!
M: Yes, it looks so. Yet, it is not hopeless. You can do it. Just set about it in earnest. Your blind groping is full of promise. Your very searching is the finding. You cannot fail.
Q: Because we are disintegrated, we suffer.
M: We shall suffer as long as our thoughts and actions are prompted by desires and fears. See their futility and the danger and chaos they create will subside. Don't try to reform yourself, just see the futility of all change. The changeful keeps on chang- ing while the changeless is waiting. Do not expect the change- ful, to take you to the changeless--it can never happen. Only when the very idea of changing is seen as false and aban- doned, the changeless can come into its own.
Q: Everywhere Igo,l am told that I must change profoundly be- fore I can see the real. This process of deliberate, self-imposed change is called Yoga.
M: All change affects tic mind only. To be what you are, you must go beyond the mind, into your own being. It is immaterial what is the mind that you leave behind, provided you leave it behind for good. This again is not possible without self- realization .
Q: What comes first--the abandoning of the mind or self- realization?
M:. Self-realization definitely comes first. The mind cannot go beyond itself by itself. It must explode.
Q: No exploration before explosions
M: The explosive power comes from the real. But you are well 52~ 1 AM THAT advised to have your mind ready for it. Fear can always delay it, until another opportunity arises.
Q: I thought there is always a chance.
M: In theory--yes. In practice a situation must arise, when all the factors necessary for se!f-realization are present. This need no I discourage you. Your dwelling on the fact of 'I am' will soon create another chance. For, attitude attracts opportunity. All you know is second-hand. Only 11 am' is first-hand and needs no proofs. Stay with it. Understanding leads to Freedom 1 00
Questioner: In many countries of the world investigating offi- cers follow certain practices aimed at extracting confessions from their victim and also changing his personality, if needed. By.a judicious choice of physical and moral deprivations and by persuasions the old personality is broken down and a new per- sonality established in its place. The man under investigation hears so many times repeated that he is an enemy of the State and a traitor to his country, that a day comes when something breaks down in him and he begins to feel with full conviction that he is a traitor, a rebel, altogether despicable and deserving the direst punishment. This process is known as brain-washing. It struck me that the religious and Yogic practices are very UNDERSTANDING LEADS TO FREEDOM 523 similar to 'brain-washing'. The same physical and mental depri- vation, solitary confinement, a powerful sense of sin, despair and a desire to escape through expiation and conversion, adoption of a new image of oneself and impersonating that image. The same repetition of set formulas: 'God is good; the Guru (party) knows; faith will save me.' In the so-called Yogic or religious practices the same mechanism operates. The mind is made to concentrate on some particular idea to the exclusion of all other ideas and concentration is powerfully reinforced by rigid discipline and painful austerities. A high price in life and happiness is pa~id and what one gets in return appears there- fore, to be of great importance. This prearranged conversion, obvious or hidden, religious or political, ethical or social, may look genuine and lasting, yet there is a feeling of artificiality about it. Maharaja: You are quite right. By undergoing so many hardships the mind gets dislocated and immobilized. Its condition be comes precarious; whatever it undertakes, ends in a deeper bondage.
Q: Then why are sadhanas prescribed?
M: Unless you make tremendous efforts, you will not be con- vinced that effort will take you nowhere. The self is so self- confident, that unless it is totally discouraged, it will not give up. Mere verbal conviction is not enough. Hard facts alone can show the absolute nothingness of the self-image;
Q: The brain-washer drives me mad, and the Guru drives me sane. The driving is similar. Yet the motive and the purpose are totally different. The similarities are, perhaps merely verbal.
M: Inviting, or compelling to suffer contains in it violence and the fruit of violence cannot be swe~. There are certain life situations, inevitably painful, and you have to take them in your stride. There are also certain situations which you have created, either deliberately or by neglect. And from these you have to learn a lesson so that they are not re- peated again. .
Q: It seems that we must suffer, so that we learn to overcome pain.
M: Pain has to pe endured. There is no such thing as overcome 524 1 AM THAT in the pain and no training is needed. Training for the future, developing attitudes is a sign ot fear.
Q: Once I know how to face pain, I am free of it, not afraid of it, and therefore happy. This is what happens to a prisoner. He ac- cepts his punishment as just and proper and is at peace with the prison authorities and the State. All religions do nothing else but preach acceptance and surrender. We are being encou- raged to plead guilty, to feel responsible for all the evils in the world and point at ourselves as their only cause. My problem is: I cannot see much difference between brain-washing and sad Han?, except that in the case of sadhana one is not physi- cally constrained. The element of compulsive suggestion is present in both.
M: As you have said, the similarities are superficial. You need not hoard on them.
Q: Sir, the similarities are not superficial. Man is a complex being and can be at the same time the accuser and the ac- cused, the judge, the warden and the executioner. There is not much that is voluntary in a 'voluntary' sadhana. One is moved by forces beyond one's ken and control. I can change my mental metabolism as little as the physical, except by painful and pro- tracted efforts--which is Yoga. All I am asking is: does Maharaj agree with me that Yoga implies violence?
M: I agree that Yoga, as presented by you, means violence and I never advocate any form of violence. My path is totally non- violent. I mean exactly what I say: non-violent. Find out for your- self what it is. I merely say: it is non-violent.
Q: I am not misusing words. When a Guru asks me to meditate sixteen hours a day for the rest of my life, I cannot do it without extreme violence to myself. Is such a Guru right or wrong?
M: None compels you to meditate sixteen hours a day, unless you feel like doing so. It is only a way of telling you: 'remain with yourself, don't get lost among others'. The teacher will wait, but the mind is impatient. It is not the teacher, it is the mind that is violent and also afraid of its own violence. What is of the mind is relative, it is a mistake to make it into an absolute. UNDERSTANDING LEADS TO FREEDOM 525
Q: If I remain passive, nothing will change. If I am active, I must be violent. What is it I can do which is neither sterile nor violent?
M: Of course, there is a way which is neither violent nor sterile and yet supremely effective. Just look at yourself as you are, see yourself as you are, accept yourself as you are and go ever deeper into what you are. Violence and non-violence describe your attitude to others; the self in relation to itself is neither viol- ent nor non-violent, it is either aware or unaware of itself. If it knows itself, all it does will be right; if it does not, all it does will be wrong.
Q: What do you mean by saying: I know myself as I am?
M: Before the mind--I am. 'I am' is not a thought in the mind; the mind happens to me, I do not happen to the mind. And since time and space are in the mind, I am beyond time and space, eternal and omnipresent.
Q: Are you serious? Do you really mean that you exist every- where and at all times?
M: Yes, I do. To me it is as obvious, as the freedom of move- ment is to you. Imagine a tree asking a monkey: 'Do you seri- ously mean that you can move from place to place?' And the monkey saying: 'Yes. I do.'
Q: Are you also free from causality? Can you produce mira- cles?
M: The world itself is a miracle. I am beyond miracles--I am absolutely normal. With me everything happens as it must. I do not interfere with creation. Of what use are small miracles to me when the greatest of miracles is happening all the time? What- ever you see it is always your own being that you see. Go ever deeper into yourself, seek within, there is neither violence nor non-violence in self-discovery. The destruction of the false is not violence.
Q: When I practice self-enquiry, or go within with the idea that it will profit me in some way or other, I am still escaping from what I am.
M: Quite right. True enquiry is always into something, not out of something. When I enquire how to get, or avoid something, I am not really inquiring. To know anything I must accept it--totally. 526 1 EM THAT
Q: Yes, to know God I must accept God--how frightening !
M: Before you can accept God, you must accept yourself, which is even more frightening. The first steps in self- acceptance are not at all pleasant, for what one sees is not a happy sight. One needs all the courage to go further. What helps is silence. Look at yourself in total silence, do not describe yourself. Look at the being you believe you are and remember --you are not what you see. 'This I am not--what am l?' is the movement of self-enquiry. There are no other means to'libera- tion, all means delay. Resolutely reject what you are not, till the real Self emerges in its glorious nothingness, its 'not-a-thing- ness.' .
Q: The world is passing through rapid and critical changes. We can see them with great clarity in the United States, though they happen in other countries. There is an increase in crime on one hand and more genuine holiness on the other. Communities are being formed and some of them are on a very high level of in- tegrity and austerity. It looks as if evil is destroying itself by its own successes, like a fire which consumes its fuel, ú.Nhile the good, like life, perpetuates itself.
M: As long as you divide events into good and evil, you may be right. In fact, good becomes evil and evil becomes good by their own fulfillment.
Q: What about love?
M: When it turns to lust, it becomes destructive
Q: What is lust?
M: Remembering--imagining--anticipating. It is sensory and verbal. A form of addiction.
Q: Is brahmacharya, continence, imperative in Yoga?
M: A life of constraint and suppression is not Yoga. Mind must be free of desires and relaxed. It comes with understanding, not with determination, which is but another form of memory. An understanding mind is free of desires and fears.
Q: How can I make myself understand?
M: By meditating which means giving attention. Become fully aware of your problem, look at it from all sides, watch how it af- fects your life. Then leave it alone. You can't do more than that. UNDERSTANDING LEADS TO FREEDOM 527
Q: Will it set me free?
M: You are free from what you have understood. The outer ex- pressions of freedom may take time to appear, but they are al- ready there. Do not expect perfection. There is no perfection in manifestation. Details must clash. No problem is solved com- pletely, but you can withdraw from it to a level on which it does not operate. ú---- 1 01 Gnani does not Grasp, nor Hold
Questioner: How does the nanny proceed when he needs something to be done? Does he make plans, decide about de- tails and execute them? Maharaja: Gnani understands a situation fully and knows at once what needs be done. That is all. Th.e rest happens by itself, and to a large extent unconsciously. The nannies identity with all that is, is so complete, that as he responds to the universe, so does the universe respond to him. He is supremely confident that once a situation has been cognized, events will move in adequate response. The ordinary man is personally concerned, he counts his risks and chances, while the nanny remains aloof, sure that all will happen as it must; and it does not matter much what happens, for ultimately the return to balance and harmony is inevitable. The heart of things is at peace. 528 1 AM THAT
Q: I have understood that personality is an illusion, and alert detachment, without loss of identity, is our point of contact with the reality. Will you, please, tell me--at this moment are you a person or a self-aware identity?
M: I am both. But the real self cannot be described except in terms supplied by the person, in terms of what I am not. All you can tell about the person is not the self, and you can tell nothing about the self, which would not refer to the person; as it is, as it could be, as it should be. All attributes are personal. The real is beyond all attributes.
Q: Are you sometimes the self and sometimes the person?
M: How can I be? The person is what I appear to be to other persons. To myself I am the infinite expanse of consciousness in which innumerable persons emerge and disappear in endless succession.
Q: How is it that the person, which to you is quite illusory, ap- pears real to us?
M: You, the self, being the root of all being, consciousness and joy, impart your reality to whatever you perceive. This imparting of reality takes place invariably in the now, at no other time, be- cause past and future are only in the mind. 'Being' applies to the now only.
Q: Is not eternity endless too?
M: Time is endless, though limited, eternity is In the split Mo- e Mont of the now. We miss it because the mind is ever shuttling between the past and the future. It will not stop to focus the now. It can be done with comparative ease, if interest is aroused.
Q: What arouses interest?
M: Earnestness, the sign of maturity.
Q: And how does maturity come about?
M: By keeping your mind clear and clean, by living your life in full awareness of every moment as it happens, by examining and dissolving one's desires and fears as soon as they arise.
Q: Is such concentration at all possible?
M: Try. One step at a time is easy. Energy flows from earnest- ness. GNANI DOES NOT GRASP. Noll HOLD 529
Q: I find I am not earnest enough.
M: Self-betrayal is a grievous matter. It rots the mind like cancer. The remedy lies in clarity and integrity of thinking. Try to understand that you live in a world of illusions, examine them and uncover their roots. The very attempt to do so will make you earnest, for there is bliss in right endeavor.
Q: Where will it lead me?
M: Where can it lead you if not to its own perfection? Once you are well-established in the now, you have nowhere else to go What you are timelessly, you express eternally.
Q: Are you one or many?
M: I am one, but appear as many.
Q: Why does one appear at all?
M: It is good to be, and to be conscious.
Q: Life is sad.
M: Ignorance causes sorrow. Happiness follows understand- ing.
Q: Why should ignorance be painful?
M: It is at the root of all desire an~d fear, which are painful states and the source of endless errors.
Q: I have seen people supposed to have realized, laughing and crying. Does it not show that they are not free of desire and fear?
M: They may laugh and cry according to circumstances, but inwardly they are cool and clear, watching detachedly their own spontaneous reactions. Appearances are misleading and more so in the case of agnani.
Q: I do not understand you.
M: The mind cannot understand, for the mind is trained for grasping and holding while the nanny is not-grasping and not holding .
Q: What am I holding on to, which you do not?
M: You are a creature of memories; at least you imagine your- self to be so. I am entirely unimagined. I am what I am, not iden- tifiable with Ann Physical or mental state. 530 1 AM THAT
Q: An accident would destroy your equanimity.
M: The strange fact is that it does not. To my own surprise, I remain as I am--pure awareness, alert to all that happens.
Q: Even at the Moment of deaths?
M: What is it to me that the body dies?
Q: Don't you need it to contact the world?
M: I do not need the world. Nor am I in one. The world you think of is in your own mind. I can see it through your eyes and mind, but I am fully aware that it is a projection of memories; it is touched by the real only at the point of awareness, which can be only now.
Q: The only difference between us seems to be that while I keep on saying that I do not know my real self, you maintain that you know it well; is there any other difference between us?
M: There is no difference between us; nor can I say that I know myself, I know that I am not describable nor definable. There is a vastness beyond the farthest reaches of the mind. That vast- ness is my home; that vastness is myself. And that vastness is also love.
Q: You see love everywhere, while I see hatred and suffering. The history of humanity is the history of murder, individual and collective. No other living being so delights in killing.
M: If you go into the motives, you will find love, love of oneself and of one's own. People fight for what they imagine they love.
Q: Surely their love must be real enough when they are ready to die for it.
M: Love is boundless. What is limited to a few cannot be called love.
Q: Do you know such unlimited love?
M: Yes,ldo.
Q: How does it feel?
M: All is loved and lovable. Nothing is excluded.
Q: Not even the ugly and the criminal?
M: All is within my consciousness; all is my own. It is madness to split oneself through likes and dislikes. I am beyond both. I GNANI DOES NOT GRASP, NOR HOLD 531 am not alienated.
Q: To be free from like and dislike is a state of indifference.
M: It may look and feel so in the beginning. Persevere in such indifference and it will blossom into an all-pervading and all- embracing love. Q One has such moments when the mind becomes a flower and a flame, but they do not last and the life reverts to its daily grayness .
M: Discontinuity is the law, when you deal with the concrete: The continuous cannot be experienced, for it has no borders. Consciousness implies alterations, change followings change, when one thing or state comes to an end and another begins; that which has no borderline cannot be experienced in the common meaning of the word. One can only be it, without know- ing, but one can know what it is not. It is definitely not the entire content of consciousness which is always on the move.
Q: If the immovable cannot be known, what is the meaning and purpose of its realization?
M: To realize the immovable means to become immovable. And the purpose is the good of Al I that lives.
Q: Life is movement. Immobility is death. Of what use is death to life?
M: I am talking of immovability, not of immobility. You become immovable in reticence. You become a power which gets all things right. It may or may not imply intense outward activity, but the mind remains deep and quiet.
Q: As I watch my mind I find it changing all the time, mood suc- ceeding mood in infinite variety, while you seem to be perpetu- ally in the same mood of cheerful benevolence.
M: Moods are in the mind and do not matter. Go within, go beyond. Cease being fascinated by the content of your con- sciousness. When you reach the deep layers of your true being, you will find that the mind's surface-play affects you very little.
Q: There will be-play all the same?
M: A quiet mind is not a dead mind.
Q: Consciousness is always in movement--it is an observable 532 1 AM THAT fact. Immovable consciousness is a contradiction. When you talk of a quiet mind, what is it? Is not mind the same as con- sciousness?
M: We must remember that words are used in many ways, ac- cording to the context. The fact is that there is little difference between the conscious and the unconscious ---they are essen- tially the same. The waking state differs from deep sleep in the presence of the witness. A ray of awareness illumines a part of our mind and that part becomes our dream or waking con- sciousness, while awareness appears as the witness. The wit news usually knows only consciousness. Sadhana consists in the witness turning back first on his conscious, then upon him- self in his own awareness. Self-awareness is Yoga.
Q: If awareness is all-pervading, then a blind man, once realized, can see?
M: You are mixing sensation with awareness. The nanny knows himself as he is. He is also aware of his body being crippled and his mind being deprived of a range of sensory perceptions. But he is not affected by the availability of eyesight, nor by its ab- sence.
Q: My question is more specific; when a blind man becomes a nanny will his eyesight be restored to him or not?
M: Unless his eyes and brain undergo a renovation, how can he see?
Q: But will they undergo a renovation?
M: They may or may not. It all depends on destiny and grace. But a nanny commands a mode of spontaneous, non-sensory perception, which makes him know things directly, without the intermediary of the senses. He is beyond the perceptual and the conceptual, beyond the categories of time and space, name and shape. He is neither the perceived nor the perceive, but the simple and the universal facto~r that makes perceiving pos- sible. Reality is within consciousness, but it is not conscious- ness nor any of its contents.
Q: What is false, the world, or my knowledge of it?
M: Is there a world outside your knowledge? Can you go beyond what you know? You may postulate a world beyond the GNANI DOES NOT GRASP, NOR HOLD 533 mind, but it will remain a concept, unproved and unp-ovable. Your experience is your proof, and it is valid for you only. Who else can have your experience, when the other person is only as real as he appears in your experience?
Q: Am I so hopelessly lonely?
M: You are. as a person. In your real being vow are the whole.
Q: Are you a part of the world which I have in consciousness, or are you independent?
M: What you see is yours and what I see is mine. The two have little in common.
Q: There must be some common factor which unites us.
M: To find the common factor you must abandon all dustier,c tons. Only the universal is in common.
Q: What strikes me as exceedingly strange is that while you say that I am merely a product of my memories and woefully limited, I create a vast and rich world in which. everything is contained, including you and your teaching. How this vastness is created and contained in my smallness is what I find hard to under- stand. May be you are giving me the whole truth, but I am grasp- ing only a small part of it.
M: Yet, it is a fact--the small projects the whole, but it cannot contain the whole. However great and complete is your world it is self-contradictorv and transitory and altogether illusory.
Q: It may be illusory yet it is marvelous. When I look and listen, touch, smell and taste, think and feel, remember and imagine, 1 cannot but be astonished at my miraculous creativity. I look through a microscope or telescope and see wonders, I follow the track of an atom and hear the whisper of the stars. If I am the sole creator of all this, then I am God indeed! But if I am God, why do I appear so small and helpless to myself?
M: You are God, but you do not know it.
Q: If I am God, then the world I create must be true.
M: It is true in essence, but no! in appearance. Be free of de- sires and fearsRand at once your vision will clear and you shall see all things as they are. Or, you may say that the satoguna creates the world, the tamoguna obscures it and the rajoguna 534 1 AM THAT distorts .
Q: This does not tell me much, because if I ask what are the gun as, the answer will be: what creates--what obscures-- what distorts. The fact remains--something unbelievable hap- pened to me, and I do not understand what has happened, how and why.
M: Well, wonder is the dawn of wisdom. To be steadily and consistently wondering is sadhana.
Q: I am in a world which I do not understand and therefore, I am afraid of it. This is everybody's experience.
M: You have separated yourself from the world, therefore it pains and frightens you. Discover your mistake and be free of fear.
Q: You are asking me to give up the world, while I want to be happy in the world.
M: If you ask for the impossible, who can help you'd The limited is bound to be painful and pleasant in turns. If you seek real happiness, unassailable and unchangeable, you must leave the world with its pains and pleasures behind you.
Q: How is it done?
M: Mere physical renunciation is only a token of earnestness, but earnestness alone does not liberate. There must be under- standing which comes with alert perceptivity, eager enquiry and deep investigation. You must work relentlessly for your salvation from sin and sorrow.
Q: What is sin?
M: All that binds you.
(My humble salutations to Advaita Vedanta Library for the collection)
Note: This text may have spelling and grammatical mistakes.
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