
January 1, 1981
Questioner: Does the universe exist without me?
Maharaj: When you did not have the consciousness were you concerned with the world? The world will exist as long as consciousness is there.
Don't get involved in too many questions and answers. Do meditation. Focus your attention on that and everything will be revealed to you. If you, as an entity, want to make an intellectual study of this subject, don't come to see me. Here it is you only; get in the test tube.
Why do you get entangled in the branches and leaves; why don't you go to the seed? Without the seed the tree would not be there. Find out where the seed comes from. This is what I am taking you back to again and again. Whatever I have to suffer, physical or otherwise, is due to what? It begins with self-love, the need to be present. This consciousness is the cause of all suffering. This love of being, love of self, love of consciousness, is the nature of what? It is the nature of the seed, the sperm. The consciousness was latent in that to which the name birth is given. Where is the one who understands this?
Having got the spiritual knowledge, why do you want to reduce it to pen and paper?
People will hear what I say, but hardly anyone will put it into practice.
I did not have a long association with my Guru. My Guru merely told me, "You are not this, you are This." That is all. I accepted it with such conviction that the knowledge has flowered into what has come.
Out of food essence, the taste "I Am." The Absolute has no taste, no color, no design. You cannot be witnessed by you; only what is other than you can be witnessed by you.
January 6, 1981
Questioner: After death can I help other people to reach the light?
Maharaj: After death you will not remember that you are. You must know what death is. You are talking about existence after this life; do you remember any past lives?
Q. I was on an island, helping other people in my last life.
M. Do you remember your parents?
Q. No.
M: What is the proof that you were born there?
Q. I don't know.
M: This is only imagination, a phantasy, a concept occurring to you. If, at the time of death the consciousness entertains a very strong concept, the consciousness can create that particular concept. Suppose that at the time of death the person imagines having a life somewhere - the consciousness will create a similar situation. The realm of consciousness is not eternal. The consciousness is a fraud. All of these things are illusions in the realm of consciousness.
Q: Consciousness is always manifested, isn't it?
M: Consciousness will be there as long as a particle of space will be available.
Q. Is it helpful to go into seclusion to realize that?
M: Yes.
Q: To go out of the ordinary life?
M. Not like that. You need not go out of your family life.
Q: What kind of seclusion?
M. Even among this crowd be alone, abide in your own Self. Focus your attention on your Self.
Q: Does it matter if one does not understand intellectually but simply has devotion?
M: If you have that devotion, knowledge will proliferate out of it. When it is said that out of devotion somebody meets a God, it is not a personality God, but the devotee himself proliferates into the knowledge, into profundity - he becomes Godly. That God will be so long as the devotee knows himself; when the devotee subsides into nothingness, the God also subsides into nothingness. You have to come to the conclusion that in the final analysis your balance sheet is nil.
Out of the essence of the digested food in the body the "I Amness" is there. What you are presently is the outcome of this food material. If the food isn't available, where are you? What about all this profound knowledge which you have collected?
Don't arrogate to yourself the doership of anything - it is all happening. If you are not, what is the need for all the disciplines, including God? Even if you are fully convinced about this, you are reduced to nothing; nevertheless, on the death bed you will take the last drop of medicine to survive.
This is real liberation: to know that you are nothing. All your knowledge, including yourself, is liquidated - then you are liberated. If you think that you have done some great deed, then you will be planning to go to heaven, you are obsessed by concepts, you are not liberated. This knowledge is fit for that one who has devotion to the Guru; only that person is fit to receive this knowledge.
Q: Although we have been listening to these talks for many years, we never feel exhausted.
M: There is that fascination to listen to this again and again. You are not collecting words and storing them, you are getting the impact of the words and then letting them go.
January 10, 1981
Questioner: Does consciousness work through the mind?
Maharaj: Everything takes place in consciousness. I have long ago given up my independent identity, there is no question of an independent entity, everything is an appearance in consciousness only.
As in any piece of cloth the main element is the thread, so in any appearance the essence is the consciousness. This must be deeply apperceived and this cannot happen as long as there is identification with the body. As long as identification is there you will think of benefiting only this pseudo-personality.
The whole universe is alive as long as you have this consciousness, once gone from you, nothing is there. Understand, there is a difference between someone who speaks from book learning and someone who speaks from experience.
Jnani identifies with the universal consciousness and so there is a perfect adaptation to everything and every place. Only witnessing is taking place. This psychosomatic apparatus is there both for the jnani and the ignorant, but the ignorant one who identifies with the body, is happy or unhappy, as the situation changes. The jnani only witnesses, he is not individually concerned with what happens.
I repeat again and again, please listen; understand what it is because of which we feel alive, understand the nature of it, understand the taste of it, then the body identification will go.
This Atman Prem (Self love), this beingness, has come about with no effort on your part. What is its nature, its taste, what is it? That you must find out. Fix your identity firmly in this beingness, do not give it limbs, shape or form, for once you give it form you have limited it.
Understand this energy which is behind the entire manifestation of the universe.
You ask many questions, you look for the answers in books and words, not in intuitive experience. This is not knowledge. Knowledge springs from the consciousness without effort, of its own accord.
Various names have been given to this energy which is the source of all manifestation. People pray to these names and forms, they do not pray to that beingness, that substance, which these names represent. Pray to that beingness only.
As there is no separateness between two genuine friends, as a genuine friend knows the needs of the other without speaking, who cares for him and does it spontaneously, so you should develop such a deep friendship with that substance, not in the attitude of praying for favors, but as a friend seeking a friend. Be one with the knowledge "I Am," the source of sentience, the beingness itself.
People think and talk about everything else except this basic thing which I have told them. They are interested in scientific miracles, they make science a God, they concern themselves with these shapes which are already manifest. They are not interested in the original miracle, this body and its life force. We ignore this miracle. If there is no consciousness there is no God.
The existence and essence of God are both in this consciousness, and therefore in this body.
How did these temples and churches come about? Because of the inspiration of the consciousness within the body. The consciousness is the seed of Brahman, God, of everything, events only happen and manifest when consciousness is there, and in the body is the consciousness.
Nothing I say will benefit you in this world, I only tell you what you are. If you are seeking that kind of peace which is priceless, it can only be in establishing yourself in the consciousness with steadfast conviction. By conviction I mean never doubted, firm, unshakeable, never wavering - have that kind of conviction in your beingness. Think of nothing else, pray to nothing else. Atman Prem, because of it everything is.
At the moment of what is called death, what happens? All it means is that a speck of consciousness is given up. This speck is given up to a concept you have accepted as time, you reluctantly hand it over to time. The jnani gives it up to his own true nature.
This Atman Rem, this existence which we have protected for so many years, to whom shall we give it up? If ignorant, to our concept of time. If ignorant bhakti (devotee), to a concept of God. If jnani, to his own true nature.
Whatever you think you have got as an identity, have you acquired it by effort or intention? Is there anything you have really got? No. This body, this consciousness, has come spontaneously, so sleep comes when it likes, even waking and sleep are not in your control. What is yours? Who has this knowledge of the Self by his own effort?
This pseudo entity thinks that it is he who is active and doing. I am talking to you now as consciousness. Can any one of you give me an indication of that knowledge, that beingness that you are?
Q. Consciousness thanks consciousness over and over again.
M. That about which nothing can be said, I have said. Accept that drop, taste it and swallow it. Hear this: God can only exist in the heart of man, not elsewhere.
You identify with the body and limit yourself, and yet, remember, do not neglect this body, this is the house of God, take care of it. Only in this body can God be realized.
It is only for an analytic understanding that God, your body, your Self, have been divided, but it is one Self, each is intimately related.
January 19, 1981
Maharaj: This sense of presence, is it not the most acceptable thing, as far as you are concerned - do you not love it the most?
Why are you sitting here? You are sitting here for yourself, because you want something for yourself. What is it that you are? Go into that. You have no doubt that you are present, so what is it that makes you want to continue all the time?
Aeons of time have come and gone. During this time millions of forms have been created and destroyed. Do they have a sense of being present? Are they worried about themselves? There is nothing you can do without this sense of presence and there is nothing you can do to continue it.
Questioner: Why does it love to continue?
M. That is its nature. Consciousness and love are the same thing. Ask yourself, what is it that you want, what are you after? You consider yourself an entity and want something. If consciousness were not there would you need anything?
What you hear is totally different from what you expected to hear.
Q. Am I to identify myself with consciousness?
M. What is this "you" other than consciousness? Are they two? There is no entity who can do anything in the world; there is no entity who can do any spiritual search. If there is no entity there is no bondage and no liberation. Just understand this: there is nothing to be done. Whatever I am telling you, hear it and discard it. Before you acquired this body and had this sense of presence, tell me what had you done? After this sense of presence, the knowledge "I Am," then you have been shown a sort of TV film: "This is your family, these are your parents." Do you personally have any experience of any of this?
Understand what has been created and will be destroyed; understand what you are that cannot suffer anything.
I have come to the conclusion that consciousness and whatever appears in consciousness is nothing but a gigantic fraud. There is no one who has committed this fraud - it is a spontaneous happening. There is no perpetrator of this fraud.
This speck of consciousness creates Gods of mud and earth which, having been accepted, give us whatever we pray for. Having understood this fraud, also understand that there is nothing that can be done about it, therefore all that can happen is for the understanding to take place.
This body and the taste of the body - that is the understanding. Is not the body the essence of food and is not consciousness the nature of the essence of food? There is a very simple question one must keep in mind; what authority or control do I have over my own existence? Therefore what can one do by one's own efforts?
Understand that the total manifestation is the child of a barren woman, but, having understood it, give full attention to your work and let that work be done as efficiently as possible. Take good care of this work that you do in the world because it is an orphan.
January 20, 1981
Maharaj: The Absolute is ... to give you an idea, there is a place in India where you have never been; if a description were given it would still remain a description for you. The universal consciousness, the beingness, is anything that is seen. When the universal consciousness manifests itself as a phenomenon, the phenomenon is that limited form which thinks that it is independent but is not. The phenomenon is the manifestation of consciousness; when it is not manifested it is immanent in everything. If you think you have understood, it is not so. Anything that you know is not the truth.
The body is made up of the five elements and each body behaves according to the proportion of the combination of the five elements. So long as one is identified with the essence of the five elements it is impossible to understand, because that which is trying to understand is a pseudo entity.
The biggest drawback to understanding is the concept that I am an entity and, secondly, that any concept I have is the truth. It is only when it is understood with the greatest conviction that there is no entity, and what is happening is merely the program of the functioning of consciousness - there is merely the functioning, there is no entity who is causing it and there is no entity who is suffering - only then can the disidentification take place. Otherwise all kinds of misconceptions occur.
You have not understood until you have solved the riddle of the one who thinks he has understood.
Do I identify myself with the dirt which I blow from my nose? The stuff of which this body has been created, is it any different?
I am neither the material from which the body has been created nor the consciousness which is immanent in that material.
January 27, 1981
Maharaj: Where are you from and who directed you here?
Questioner: I have been studying in a monastery in Thailand and the Abbot suggested I read the books of Maharaj's teachings. When I decided to come to India several friends, who had been to see Maharaj, told me to come here.
M. Do you have questions?
Q. Will Maharaj explain what is the method of practice he recommends?
M: There is no practice or discipline to be followed. Merely listen to me and accept what I tell you with firm conviction.
Q: What about the importance of meditation?
M: The only thing which anyone has is the conviction that one exists, the conscious presence. Meditation is only on that sense of presence, nothing else.
Q. During the meditation period one just sits and thinks of one's presence.
M. Not as an individual sitting, but the sense of presence without words. Meditate on that which knows you are sitting here. Your feeling that your body is here is identification with the body, but that which knows that this body is sitting here is the expression of the Absolute.
Q. Is this known with the mind?
M. Mind is the nature of the material; you are not the material, you are that which understands the material. That sense of presence will explain anything that is necessary for you to understand. Your effort will not do it, but that sense of presence, with which you become one, will do it.
Q. Should I develop this sense of presence throughout the day, in all my activities?
M. It is not necessary for you to concentrate on it, it is always there. Whatever you do, the essence of it is the body-mind. Let the body-mind do its work but understand that what is doing the work is not you, you are the sense of presence.
Whatever efforts you make, either physically or intellectually, will be essentially the effort of the body-mind. There is nothing for you to do.
Whatever happens will happen by itself, with your conviction that you are totally apart from body and mind.
Q. That sounds easy, but it must be very hard.
M. Whatever you think, easy or hard, you stick to one conviction, that you are that sense of presence and not the body-mind. That which you are has no shape or color.
Q. Does that sense of presence continue after the body and mind go?
M: When the body goes that sense of presence will go and consciousness will no longer be conscious of itself.
Q: When the body goes, everything goes?
M. Correct. There is no experience of either happiness or unhappiness, there is no need of experience either.
Q. Is there nothing that continues - nothing?
M. You are thinking at a conceptual level. At that level, who is there who wants to know? Forget about That state.
Q. I would like to understand That.
M. Whatever can be understood or perceived can never be the eternal Truth. The Unknown is the Truth.
I have no need of any experience, therefore I have no need to quarrel with anybody. The body and mind will go on doing whatever they like during their natural course of duration.
Q. Is it better to do one thing than another? For instance, with this mind and body could just sit and do nothing, or I could go around helping people, doing goo things. Which would be better to do?
M. The body and mind will do whatever is natural for that combination.
Q: You can control things -for example you can eat too much or drink too much, things like that - or else you can do good things, helping people, etc.
M. These are the do's and don'ts regarding the body-mind, which you are not; that is the premise from where you have started. Understand that when there is no body, consciousness is not conscious of itself. So long as the body is there, the body must do its natural functioning.
Q. Then I just let it do what's natural?
M. There is no question of your allowing it to happen, it will happen, you have no control over it.
Q. But some things I can control. If I come here or I stay outside - I-can control that.
M. That is a misconception. Whatever happens, happens by itself. All this is the show, or the expression, of consciousness - the nature of it is change. It is the dance of the conscious presence. There are so many ways in which consciousness entertains itself, many different forms, abilities, capacities are functioning, but the functioning is merely to entertain itself. When it is tired, it rests in sleep, when awake it needs some kind of entertainment, some movement, some doing.
They are all appearances in consciousness; each will last according to its own duration, but basically, nothing that happens has any validity or importance. Until the awakening, or understanding, you think that you are the doer, but once this apperception takes place you know there is no entity that is working.
Q. I just think it would be best to do good things instead of bad things.
M: What do you mean by good and bad things? Good things in one set of circumstances can be bad things in another set of circumstances. Even the things you consider good can be so only as long as the body lasts. Only a rare one will realize there is nothing to do -he is already That.
Q: Maharaj is helping us, is that a volitional state?
M. It is part of the total functioning. What is taking place is sort of a dream state and whatever happens will be part of the dream. Whatever happens out of me, either spiritual or worldly, will not multiply into mind modifications, because any actions are universal and spiritual. The spirituality is perfect because of stabilization in the Unknown.
Many times the witnessing of physical pain happens to me, because the body and the consciousness are still there, an instrument to register pleasure and pain; because of my health the pain is registered more. I was witnessing that pain earlier, but since you have come it is gone.
When you are established in consciousness it is full of joy only. I was established in that consciousness and full of joy, but suddenly the disease has appeared and the pain has come. So long as you are established in consciousness and do not have any physical disorder, you will not have any experience of pain. That is the quality of that consciousness itself.
You are prior to the consciousness. In that state there is no pleasure or pain.
The association of the body and consciousness is something like this: you are a bachelor and you are having a happy free life; with the association with a wife, the pleasure and pain results begin. It is just like that.
Q. How can I acquire that state?
M. It always prevails but It is beyond knowing. That state cannot be elucidated, these are merely pointers, "There It is" - words cannot enter that state.