January 13, 1980


Maharaj: By our own concepts we decide that something is dirty or not. Some people process the excrement of a wild boar as a remedy for certain diseases, and it is extremely effective, even for those on the point of death. What is otherwise considered as dirt is used as a medicine. Even the human body is created out of what might be considered as dirt. Would one give importance to one’s individuality if one considered what this body is? 

As far as I am concerned, I have no faith in anything which has been told, not even what has been told by the Vedas. Only my own experience. 

You have had many visions. Is there any truth in the visions? What is the basis for any visions? 

Questioner: The “I Am” consciousness. 

M: In the traditional view Brahman is supposed to have created the world, Vishnu to maintain it, and Shiva to destroy it. Is not this Brahman who creates the world the same as the Brahma-randhra out of which the sense of “I Am” comes? Who is this Brahman other than this “I Amness”? All these names are given to it. Whatever is time-bound is created out of the beingness. Have you understood the basic concept? 

Q: Whatever happens in our experience is all to be viewed as neither good nor bad? 

M: Why do you even talk like this? What is the point? Q: Right. 

M: The only thing to be thought about is: “How did this form and being come about? I didn't want to have them.” What is the basis on which I view any one who comes here? 

Q: It is all the same thing. 

M: That is “I Am”; what I am the others are. If you accept what I say, what idea do you have about yourself? 

Q: The self we know is no more real than what we know of others. In other words, it is all illusory. 

M: What do you think will happen to you? 

Q: I hope eventually to discover the part that is real and not be limited to the time-bound. 

M: Why? Having realized that what one sees is false, who is the “you” who is searching for the real? Is there any answer? 

Q: No. 

M: Having made this search what have you found? What is your conclusion? 

Q: I have settled into just seeing what occurs. 

M: Is this expectation or is it because one is compelled to? 

Q: Neither one, it just is, with no expectations. That is where I am right now. Does it mean that, other than nature, there is nothing? 

M: Other than the word nature there is nothing on which we can hang our support. Do you know out of what we observe the creation? How do you understand the creation of anybody in name and form? 

Q: Only in terms of our own experience. 

M: What is that? 

Q: I start with myself, what I observe within myself. I do not build any theories behind it. 

M: What are you observing? 

Q: Everything that comes and goes. 

M: The beingness is witnessing spontaneously. How is the witnessing of your beingness going to be useful to you? 

Q: I really don't know, but I accept that there is a value in observing it as being unreal. 

M: After understanding this, what is the purpose of your existence? 

Q: Is the purpose of the body to get that state which is prior? 

M: Who says that? Give me his identity. 

Q: I can't. 

M: If you can't give any identity why are you speaking? 

Q: Simply in obedience to Maharaj. 

M: That is because the questioning itself becomes impossible at this stage. Since the questions are not, what is the use of staying here? 

Q: We don't have a complete insight into being nothing; there's a little we need to get rid of. 

M: That which is totally dissolved or obliterated is observed, That which IS always is not perceptible. That principle ever remains. 

Any one of you who has clearly understood what I have said today need not come here again. 

Q: I have understood intellectually, but I have not realized it. I am still sick; that’s why I have to come here. 

M: When you are fully convinced that whatever you see is unreal why hang on to the unreal principle? 

Q: We must have recourse to that faith or belief? 

M: Yes. What is that faith or belief—it is only the principle “I Am.” 

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