July 1980

 

July 1, 1980

Maharaj: Once the body is gone, that knowledge which experienced itself as Christ, Krishna, Buddha, etc., has subsided, has become one with the total. If you abuse them by word, they do not come and ask why you are abusing them, because that knowledge which experienced itself as one of these has subsided into the totality. Similarly now, you might be a very great person but when you go to sleep you forget yourself as a separate entity.

Don't say that you are an individual; just stay in the beingness. The whole problem is the sense of being a separate entity - once that subsides, that is true bliss. With the arising of the "I Am" the whole of manifestation takes place; in any activity that which witnesses is the "I Am," that which is doing all this is maya, the tendencies, attributes.

This is what I am trying to tell you, but you want something else, something that is in the manifestation - you want knowledge. That knowledge "I Am" is new, it is not the Real; the Real I am not telling you, words negate That. Whatever I am telling you is not the truth, because it has come out of this "I Am." The truth is beyond expression.

You are going all over, amassing knowledge for an individual-This amassing of knowledge is not going to help you, because it is in a dream.

Questioner: How does Maharaj feel about all the people coming here?

M: I don't care. You come and listen to me and go. If you want it, take it. If not, go away. The space in this room is neither for, nor against, nor in love with, the space in that room; it is one.

Like a river flowing, if you want to utilize it, you take the water and drink it, assimilate it; otherwise, let it flow past. I am not charging you, just like the river is not charging for the water. You are spending a lot of money every day; come on, you put your money away and take my water.

While talking about it I take you to the source of the spring; there water is coming out in a trickle. This water afterwards becomes a river, an estuary, becomes the sea. I am taking you again and again to the source. Once you go to the source you will come to know there is no water actually, water is the news of "I Am." 

There is only one principle, the principle "I Am." Because you are, everything is. Hold it close. You have heard, now live accordingly.

Q. My work as a doctor keeps me constantly busy, how can I do as Maharaj says?

M. You are engaging in worldly activity everyday, but before you go to sleep at night forget all that, and think of what I have told you. Take one sentence of what I have told you and stay with it; that will lead you to your source. [Maharaj tells a story]: A person meets a man and the man gives him something to drink, then he tells him, "I have put poison in that drink, and in six months you will die." That person becomes very frightened and believes, that he will die in six months. Later he meets a friend, and tells him what has happened and that he will die in six months. His friend tells him not to worry, and says, "Here, drink this, and if you drink it there will be no death for you." So the fellow is happy and drinks it.

With the first concept he is full of fright, and convinced that he is going to die; later on, the friend gives him another concept which negates the first concept. This is one of the attributes of the vital air, getting concepts, ideas, creations, again and again. It is only when you search for your Self that you become aware of this.

The very source of all happiness is your beingness, be there. If you get involved with the flow of maya there will be misery. You try to derive pleasure from the activities of maya, this is the product of beingness. Be still in your beingness.

What I have told you, remember it, chew it, recollect it. It will lead you to the stillness. Establish in that knowledge.

Q: What will happen?

M. It will be clear to you, just as clear as seeing the five fingers on your hand. You observe, this body is made of the five elements, and because the five elemental body is there, your beingness, the consciousness has appeared.

Your beingness is there because of this food body and the vital breath, and you will be able to watch all these elements - the body, your vital force and your beingness; but you must be established in that knowledge. In short, you liquidate that yardstick of body-mind as your identity. When this is done, you are Iswara, you are Brahman.

Q. Then how do I elevate it to a higher level?

M. Leave it alone! There is no question of elevating to a higher level. Here it is only a question of understanding. Iswara is the manifestation of the five elements and the universe, the "I Amness." To the Absolute, the witnessing of that "I Amness" occurs. This is the Absolute standpoint, siddha. This understanding should not be claimed by you, who are a sadhaka. Sadhaka means the process of getting established in the Iswara principle, the consciousness.

Q. Last night "there was an experience of very great vibration in the body. In fact there was no body, just vibration, no form, and very intense.

M: Whatever that vibration, that is the product of the five elements.

Q. It is not a taste of "I Amness"?

M. If you want to express it that way, you may. These are the five elements, three gunas, prakriti and purusha, ten elements. These are the expressions of your beingness.

Q: So when Maharaj says to stay firm in the consciousness of not being the body-mind, how does that relate to these ten elements?

M: That talk - to transcend the body-mind and establish in your beingness, is for the kindergarten spiritual seeker, the lowest level. But now I am talking to a sadhaka who is getting established in beingness; that first lesson is over now.

Q: Oh!

M: Your world, your universe, is the expression of your beingness. The second step, the sadhaka gets established in beingness, Iswara principle, manifestation. A sadhaka is manifestation. 

Now, after listening to all these talks, he will leave this place and tell people that he meets, "I have met a Maharaj who was talking, and he has added confusion worse compounded."

Q. Maharaj's teaching is very clear. The only thing is that it is happening so fast, and that it is clear, so fast.

M. This manifestation is Self-effulgent, Self-created, but you are still wanting to modify something, you are not through with this.

Q: That is what 1 am saying. The consciousness is aware of being everything, that it is Iswara, then because of somefirm-set habit of the body-mind state, all o fa sudden, spontaneously, comes a desire to mod , or adjust everything, and, at that moment something else happens that says, 5ou can't adjust it, it is as it is. " That is what has been happening.

M. See that you are not involved in that. 

Q: That is why it is so helpful for me to be here.

M: The Absolute is aloof. In the sleeping state the "I Amness" goes into oblivion, he forgets himself. "I Amness" is subjected to the waking and deep sleep states, but the Absolute is also that. You will not comprehend exactly what it means, but as you get established in beingness and transcend that, you will understand how you are beyond deep sleep and waking, because those are only the characteristics of the beingness.

Q: That Absolute, is He aware what is happening when that "I Amness"goes to sleep?

M. "I Amness" is a sort of tool, with "I Amness" only He observes. You entertain some concepts, when you listen to me. If you hear something that tallies with your concepts you are quite happy - you say it is knowledge - but I completely blast that. I want to blast all concepts and establish you in a no-concept state.

Your beingness is the subtlest, at the same time it has gross qualities latent in it. Take the seed of the banyan tree: it is very small, very subtle, but all the gross matter is already there, inside. Your beingness is the subtlest, and still it contains the entire universe. It is a continuous process; the seed contains everything, repeat, repeat, repeat. The so-called spiritual seeker wants Brahman, but how? As he orders, the Brahman should happen like that. According to your concepts, you want to recreate the Brahman.

Q. Which just brings you further from the truth.

M. Everything is the truth - the Absolute. Brahman is created out of your beingness. All this Brahman is illusion, ignorance. Your beingness is ignorance only, from the Absolute standpoint.

When you pursue this spiritual path of understanding the Self, all your desires just drop off - even the primary desire, to be. When you stay put in that beingness for some time, that desire also will drop off; you are in the Absolute.

Q: That is what was happening today, and there is a certain sadness, in realizing that, and yet, a great understanding of the Absolute.

M. It is only that consciousness constantly repeating, receding from the Absolute, there is no movement for you - It is minding the show. When you are in consciousness, you understand the nature of consciousness. 

This consciousness is extinguishing, knowingness is disappearing, but nothing affects you, the Absolute - that is the moment of death, but what matters? The vital breath is leaving the body, the "I Amness" receding, but the "I Amness" is going to the Absolute. That is the greatest moment, the greatest moment of immortality. The "I Amness" was there, that movement was there, and I observe, it is extinguished. 

The ignorant one will get very frightened at the moment of death - he is struggling - but for the jnani, it is the happiest moment.


July 6, 1980

Maharaj: Whatever goes on in the world is based on the life force (pramshakti), but the Atman, the witnesser, is totally apart; no action can be attributed to the Atman.

So long as you have not understood pram shakti, the vital breath, whose language is the four types of speech which flow through the vital breath - so long as you do not recognize it, whatever the mind tells you you are bound to take as certain. Those concepts which the mind gives you will be final for you. 

Questioner: What are the four types of speech?

M. They are, Para (source-consciousness), then pashyanti (the emanation of thoughts), then madhyama (formulation of thoughts-words), and vaikhari (language explodes out). The ordinary ignorant person is not aware of Para and pashyanti, which starts the whole process, they are too subtle; he starts working on madhyama, which is also identified with the mind, and comes out with words (vaikhari).

The mind throws out words and thoughts, and through these we have mistaken our identity as "me" or "mine," whereas whatever takes place is independent of the one who witnesses and is based entirely on the life force. This consciousness has mistakenly identified itself with the body, and with thoughts or words. It considers itself to be guilty of something, or that it has acquired merit by some action, whereas everything merely takes place through the action of the life force.

The one who understands this vital breath, the life force, is beyond all mental concepts. The one who has not understood it is a slave to histhoughts.

Q; After prolonged use of the mantra, will it get dissolved?

M. Both the mantra and the faith in the mantra will get dissolved. There is a purpose in the mantra. In India the mantra has great efficacy. By concentrating on the mantra the form behind the mantra will appear out of the ether, but all this is time bound. Man has evolved all kinds of things for his own preservation, the preservation of the consciousness.

I am not any longer concerned with, and no longer want, the continuation of either the body or the vital breath. That bundle of three states and three attributes3 has been born, and whatever happens, happens to that bundle, and I am not concerned with it. That is why I am totally fearless, without any reaction to a disease which would be traumatic to others.

Having known that I am not that which has been born, yet there is some little attachment to that with which I have been associated for a long time - it is a speck of attachment because of eighty-four years' association. 

Say I meet someone from my hometown whom I have known 3 Waking, sleep and 'I Am' consciousness - the 3 gunar - saUwa, rgja, tamer. for a long time, he comes and he goes away, so I bid him goodbye, and there is that little speck of attachment, because I have known him for a long time.

The consciousness which is born thinks that it is the body and works through the three gunas, but I have nothing to do with this, the whole thing is an illusion.

Q. Will there be no continuation of memories after death?

M: Only if there is sugar cane, or sugar, will there be sweetness. If the body is not there, how can there be memories, the beingness itself is gone.

Q. How does one know what remains?

M. There are twenty people in this room, all twenty people leave, then what remains is there, but someone who has left cannot understand what it is. So in that Parabrahman which is without attributes, without identity, unconditioned, who is there to ask?

This is to be understood, but not by someone: the experience and the experiencer must be one, you must become the experience. What is this Parabrahman like? The answer is, what is Bombay? Don't give me the geography or the atmosphere of Bombay, give me a handful of Bombay.

What is Bombay? It is impossible to say, so also with Parabrahman. There is no giving or taking of Parabrahman, you can only be That.

Q: We want the state which Maharaj enjoys.

M. The eternal Truth is there, but for witnessing it is of no use. You give up this study in the name of religion or spirituality, or whatever you are trying to study. Do only one thing, that "I Amness" or consciousness is the Godliest principle; it is there only so long as the vital breath is there - it is presently your nature. You worship that only. That "I Amness' is something like the sweetness of the sugar cane, abide in the sweetness of your beingness, then only you will reach and abide in eternal peace.

Q. I feel the life force energy polarized and intensified in my body in the presence of Maharaj.

M. In practicing meditation the life force gets purified, and when it is purified the light of the Self shines forth, but the, working principle is the life force. When this purified life force and the light of the Atman (Self) merge, then the concept, the mind, the imagination, everything is taken away. The life force is the acting principle and that which gives sentience to the person is the consciousness.

Q. This is what the tradition of shiva and shakti signifies?

M: Shiva means the consciousness and shakti is the life force. People go by various names which have been given, and forget the basic principle. Merely sit in contemplation and let the consciousness unfold itself. 

What have you understood?

Q, This consciousness starts to get a greater sense of itself, and the prang and the body's energy becomes intensified and polarized, it seems to be part of the purification.

M. When this consciousness and the pram shakti (life force) merge, they tend to go and become steady in the Brahma-randra, and then all thoughts cease. This is the start of samadhi, Then one comes back again and the life force starts its normal activities.


July 9, 1980

Maharaj: Understand that it is not the individual which has consciousness, it is the consciousness which assumes innumerable forms. That something which is born or which will die is purely imaginary. It is the child of a barren woman.

In the absence of this basic concept "I Am" there is no thought, there is no consciousness.

Questioner: Maharaj has said that ifyou stay in the consciousness, the beingness, it will automatically happen, that you will transcend the consciousness. Is this true, there is nothing more to be done?

M. Suppose I am sitting here and you come, I come to know that you are, the witnessing happens automatically. Has anything been done? No. It is like that. It is simple. You should understand. Just like a raw mango becomes a ripe mango, it happens. Many people get satisfied in the consciousness state.

Q: I am not going to be satisfied until I am in Maharaj s state.

M. Whatever you consider yourself to be at the moment, when you get rid of that, whatever your true nature, it is spontaneous. Abide in the words of the Guru.

Q When you read Maharaj's teachings you want very much to be in his company. There is something very enlivening about that. Is it important or essential?

M. It is very advantageous to get rid of all your doubts. That's why the questions and answers are required. This is the place where you get rid of all concepts. The trees which are near the sandalwood tree also have the same smell, because of proximity.

What is the Self? If you want to expand, the entire world is the manifestation. At the same time it is very tiny - the seed beingness - like an atom, a pinprick of "I Amness."  That is the very source of love. Such a potential is there, having provided that love to the entire world; it remains in that seed "I Am," the leftover is that "I Am." That pinprick or touch of "I Amness" is the quintessence of all essence.

One must have firm abidance or faith in the words of the Guru. Here I do not repeat or imitate what other sages do. I am not championing any religion. I have no pose or stance for anything, not even that I am a man or a woman. The moment you accept any pose or stance you have to take care of that by following certain disciplines relating to that pose. I abide in the Self only.

I do not believe that anybody did exist prior to me. When my beingness appeared, then everything appeared. Prior to my beingness, nothing was. Originally I am without any stigma, uncovered by anything. 

The Paramatman is the core Self, the highest Self. Its identity is without any stigma, it is subtler than space.

Why are you dying? Understand the first moment, when you understood that you are. Due to what? How? Once you understand this, you are the highest of the Gods -the point at which everything rises; the source and the end is the same point.

Once you understand that point, you are released from that point. Nobody tries to understand this happening of the "I Amness." I, the Absolute am not this "I Amness." In meditation your beingness should merge in itself, a non-dual state. Remain still. Do not struggle to come out of the mud of your concepts, you will only go deeper. Remain still.


July 15, 1980

Maharaj: What is the effect of what I have spoken on you?

Questioner: Whatever Maharaj has spoken is the truth, but I also request him to show me a way. Maharaj says that sadhana is not the way, but the determination that I am the consciousness is a very difficult thing. I am practicing.

M: Who is practicing? It has no form, it is dwelling in this body. How long will it continue and what is the gain? Abide in the Self only. Until then it will continue the sadhana; once it is established in the Self, the objective, the person who is practicing, and the process of practicing is gone. A sankalpa indicates a need, an objective.

Q. What is a sankalpa?

M: You want a medical degree, that is the sankalpa. Sadhana is the study, practice, homework. You wanted to meet me today, that is a sankalpa. You walked here and climbed the stairs, that is the sadhana. That sankalpa has no form, the one who makes the sankalpa also has no form. So long as you are identifying with the form the practice will go on. Once you reach the objective, which is that you are not the body-mind, then there is no practice.

You have great faith in the Bhagavad Gita: is this correct?

Q. Yes.

M. Gita is a song sung by Lord Krishna. He sang the song just as I am singing this talk to you now; this is Rg Gita. You have read the Bhagavad Gita, recited it, remembered it; but what is important? You must get to know that Krishna who sang that Gita. You must get his knowledge, what he is.

Is it not an incarnation? In short, from nothingness the form is taken; the nothingness descends into form, that is Avatar. Normally we say from nothingness a person is there, but for these great personalities, great sages, you will say Avatar. Are you trying to understand that Krishna? 

No, you are creating certain concepts and trying to understand him. That is not correct. From nothingness he was - how did it happen? This incarnation you must understand, the descending into Avatar, or form; what is this? Prior to incarnation that personality had no knowledge about himself, after descending into -this incarnation he started knowing himself. What are your comments?

Q: Before Avatar he had no knowledge of himself?

M. Before descending into this Avatar this knowledge quality is not there.

Q. But Parabrahman ...

M. These are all conceptual titles and names; they are shackles on you. In your core Self there is no imposition of any title or name, externally you have accepted them. Any embodied person with the knowledge "I Am" carries on his activities in the world with the name only. That inner core, the "I Am" has no shackles. Once it is understood that I am that "I Am" only, and not this shackled form, then no liberation is called for; that itself is liberation.

You know the historical facts about Sri Krishna by heart, but you must know what this incarnation is. Names are the handcuffs, the bondage.

Every person is shackled because of his identification with the body. Without that name and form, please proceed to talk and question.

Q: The only words I have are very much words with name and form. They are words of gratitude. Gratitude for what Maharaj has blessed me with since I have been here. To even see a sage in one's lifetime would be an incomparable grace, and to have had 'so much grace from him in the form of his instructions just overwhelms me, and there is absolutely no way I can ever thank him.

M. What do you mean by grace? Grace means that you have come to me. I and that you are only one. That you understand that we are one is grace.

Q. At times like these that is the hardest thing to understand.

M: Grace means totality, wholeness, there is no fragmentation.

Q. [another] Why I am ostracized? Why can't I see the truth? 

M. You are ostracized because you are identifying with the body-mind and the memory that you are a body. Give up that identity, and that memory, and then whatever you see will be the truth. 

This is a very rare, a very precious opportunity, wherein you get this conflux of three entities: body, vital force and the touch of "I Amness," and with this alone you can reach right up to the Absolute - you can abide in the Absolute.

In the name of spirituality people carry out various types of acting, likejapa, penances, etc. Once you accept that actors pose, you undergo the disciplines and therefore all the sufferings are related to that. This is not going to lead you to the Ultimate, the Absolute.

For you, the first step is worship that vital breath; here you must focus your attention on that vital breath pulsation - and together with that, carry out the name-japa. When you do that, the vital breath will be purified, and in the process of purification this beingness will open up.

Just reciting the name of God is concentrating the vital breath. The meaning of the mantra is that you are not the name or form. All the 24 hours this vital breath, or vital force, through various perceptions, is recording the pictures of all your experiences and memorizing whatever is relevant. Can you do that with your intellect?

Q: [newcomer] I saw the article in the Mountain Path4 about Maharaj and I have come to ask his blessings.

M: Your spiritual acquisitions, everything is very good, but when you finally realize yourself you will come to the conclusion that all is useless, redundant, superfluous. 

Q. That is why I am asking for the blessing of Maharaj - to have that experience. 

M: In that highest state there is no experience. Experience, experiencing, experiencer - everything is only one.

Q: Can Maharaj give a push to reach that state?

M. Somebody has already given a push to you and that is why you have come here. From the front you are pushed backward. Recede into the source. [To another] Has your talking machine gone out of order?

Q: Before I acquired this body, did I know everything?

M. You were perfect, total.

Q. Just because I am encased in this body I am suffering.

M. How did you reach your parents? Deliberate on that.

Q. I had the desire?

M. For the time being let us assume that you had the desire, but just tell me, how did you reach those parents?

Q. I do not know.

M. Whatever you do not know is perfect. Whatever you know is imperfect, fraudulent.

Q. Just because I am encased in the body I am in agony to be perfect, which I am not.

M: Why do you worry about this encasement in a body?

Q: Who is worrying? That cannot be me.

M: The worrier is not you, it is the affair of the intelligence. [In English Maharaj said, "You ... No!"] Now I am talking in English.

Q. The English language is blessed.

M: My teaching is spread among all the foreigners through the English language. Very intelligent people, very advanced, thousands of them. The beauty lies in the fact that my knowledge will be in conflagration in foreign countries. It will be spread in America and from there it will be spread back to the Indians. When the Indians receive it they will say, "It 4Mountain Path (Tiruvannamalai, S. India: Sri Ramanasram) has the approval of the foreigners, therefore we will accept it."; that is the nature of the Indians. Indians are like this. If somebody goes to America or England and works, even washing dishes, when he returns many people will go to see him and present garlands; that is our nature.

Q. Ramana Maharshi was a great sage, he was unknown in India. When Paul Brunton wrote the book in English about him, everybody went to see him and he became well known.

M. I agree with that. Ramana Maharshi was discovered by Paul Brunton and I was discovered by Maurice Frydman.


July 19, 1980

Maharaj: In this spiritual hierarchy, from the grossest to the, subtlest, you are the subtlest. How can this be realized? The very base is that you don't know you are, and suddenly the feeling of "I Amness" appears. The moment it appears you see space, mental space; that subtle, skylike space, stabilize you there. You are that. When you are able to stabilize in that state, you are the space only. 

When this space-like identity "I Am" disappears, the space also will disappear, there is no space. When that space-like "I Am" goes into oblivion, that is the eternal state, nirguna, no form, no beingness. Actually, what did happen there?

This message "I Am" was no message. Dealing with this aspect, I cannot talk much because there is no scope to put it into words.

Questioner: Does Maharaj go into samadhi?

M. I am stabilized in the Highest. There is no going into samadhi, or coming down from samadhi; that is over.

Q. Should we continue our meditation?

M. It doesn't mean this is an excuse for you to give up meditation, you must persist in meditation until you come to a stage when you feel there is no meditation. When the purpose of meditation is gained it will drop off naturally.

Q Which is the way to the Supreme state?

M. There is no question of going into that state. You are the Supreme state, but whatever ignorance you have will drop off.

I've been advised by doctors not to talk, therefore I am not talking.

Q. Is there a desire not to die and lose your body?

M. The sage is not concerned with that.

Q. Is there a desire of the body, not of the Self?

M: You may say something like that; this is the administrative action of that beingness. It is a very complicated riddle. You have to discard whatever you know, whatever you have read, and have a firm conviction about That about which nobody knows anything. You can't get any information about That, and about That you must have firm conviction. How difficult it is.

Most people reach that state which is, but nobody reaches that state which is not. It is very rarely that one can reach that state. It transcends all knowledge. Most essential is that knowledge "I Am." Claim it, appropriate it as you own. If that is not there, nothing is. Knowledge of all the stages will be obtained only with the aid of this knowledge "I Am." 

From the Absolute no-knowing state, spontaneously, this consciousness "I Am" has appeared -there is no reason, no cause. Spontaneously it has come, with the waking state, deep sleep, the five elemental play, three Gunas, and Prakriti and Purusha. Then it embraces the body as its self and therefore identifies as a male or a female. This "I Amness" has its own love to be: it wants to remain, to perpetuate itself, but it is not eternal.

This passing show may be likened to the following situation: suppose I was well all along, then suddenly I was sick and the doctor gave me medicine. After three days my fever was gone. So this stage of fever for three days is the "I Am" consciousness. Exactly like that -a passing show, a time-bound state. This principle loves to be, and one must not belittle it - it is a very Godly principle. This "I Amness" contains the entire cosmos.

It is said that all this is unreal. When is it certified as unreal? Only when one understands this temporary phase. And in the process of understanding one is in the Absolute and from there recognizes this as a temporary, unreal state.

In my present state I am not able to talk much. The difficulty is that you have been accepting this as real and I have to disprove this and a lot of talking is to be done by me, which I am not in a position to do now. So, you go now, do bhajans.


July 20, 1980

Maharaj: You are having experiences in the world with body and mind, but what do you know about your identity? You have an image of yourself, but that identity is only a temporary thing.

Questioner: What is mind?

M: Mind is the language of the vital breath. That mind-language will talk only about the impressions it has collected. The knowledge "I Am" is not a thought but observes the, thoughts. Out of prana, the pranava, the beginning of sound, in the sound is the love to be. The innermost, subtlest principle is that gnawing principle "I Am, I Am," without words, by which you know you are. It has no form or image, it is only beingness, the love to be.

Para shakti is the beingness or love to be. The next stage of the Para shakti is Para shunti, the formation but not yet perceptible. The next stage is mind formation: the language is formed in the mind, next is the explosion of words, vocal words. In this where are you? This is a process happening.

For you I am expounding very secret knowledge about your own beingness, how it came about - that is what I am talking about. This play is just happening; you are not playing a part. When you are ignorant, you think you are playing a part in this manifest world.

There is no one working deliberately - it is happening spontaneously. You cannot claim anything in this process. When you are thoroughly knowledgeable you will come to the conclusion that this beingness is also an illusion.

Q. Who recognizes that it is illusion or ignorance?

M. Only that one recognizes or witnesses all that as ignorance. That one cannot understand That one, he can witness and understand only the ignorance. The one who recognizes all this as ignorance, that one is knowledgeable. Why are you calling mejnani and listening to my talks?

Because I have recognized and understood that child ignorance, the "I Amness," and have transcended that. Finally you have to understand that the principle which you are using to talk, to move about, and operate in this world, is not you.

Q. I have read and listened to so many stories about the different sages and personalities of the past, and they were all dierent, they founded different sects, etc.; why is this so?

M: According to the time and the situation they have taught their concepts, but they are concepts meant only for that period, that situation, and then their concepts have developed into religions. All of you presume that you are very knowledgeable spiritually.
 
Before you think of deriving any benefit out of anything, first of all, find out what is your identity.


July 21, 1980

Questioner: Why did I take this form?

Maharaj: Because you were a fool. If you had known anything about it, you would not have come into this world.

Q: First I hadn't any form, isn't that so?

M. Yes, even now you don't have any form. It is not your shape, it is the shape of the seed.

Q Isn't it the nature of the seed that it grows, like a tree grows out of a seed?

M. It is its nature.

Q: So, I am not to blame. The seed must be foolish.

M. Because the seed is foolish it has come like this. The seed is the original foolish state, yet what big titles are given to that seed. The seed is transient, and the whole world is full of the seeds. All the five elements, all the objective world, is in that seed. You are not the seed - you are the observer of the seed.

For many centuries the Western people were not interested in spiritual matters, but now they have realized that, in spite of all their riches, they cannot get real peace, so they are searching for the truth now. The nearer you get to the truth, the more you lose interest in worldly affairs. Such a one will not have any particular interest in the world, but will act like an ordinary person.

The sum and substance of spirituality is nothing but to come to a decision, make a judgment, about the Self, God and the world - what is it?

You must first dispose of this question. This world is filled up. with selfishness due to your association with the body. Once you know what these principles are, then you dissolve the personality, and in the process that selfishness vanishes because you are no more an individual.

Q. How can I be in my true state and lose my fear?

M. You are already in your true state. Because of the mind, duality comes in and therefore you are afraid. The association with the body and mind is because of love for the body-mind; that is going to go away, therefore everyone is afraid of death.

Q. The world is given tome by my senses. When you go beyond that state of "I Amness" do you experience the world?

M. There is no question of going beyond. I was never born, will never die. Whatever is - is all the time. Going beyond is only an idea meant to remove all other ideas you have accumulated. You think about birth. Do you know anything about your birth?

Q: No, I do not know that 1 am born. I feel that I am really not born, and yet the world seems so real.

M. Do not worry about the world. First start from here: the "I Am," and then find out what is the world. Find out the nature of this "I."

Q. Why find out about the "1" which is not real?

M. It is the seed from which everything comes out. If the seed is not there, the universe is not. How have you come into this so-called objective world? Here everything will be wiped out. I invite you, in your own interest, to go home.


July 22, 1980

Maharaj: All these discussions are an exchange of ideas and mental entertainment, meant to while away the time.

Questioner: If you don't make some kind of effort, you get nowhere.

M. Don't think that some progress has to be made. You will continue to do something, even if it is conceptual, but the one who understands that he is already there, what will he do?

Q. Okay, but isn't there tremendous scope for self deception here?

M. Who is this who is going to be self-deceived? 

Q: The empirical ego.

M. There is no entity. It is not possible for a phenomenal object to achieve something, and this is only a phenomenal object.

Q. Don't you have to make that effort to stand back?

M. Not doing anything means what kind of doing?

Q. Our normal way of living is identifying. If we stand back, is there a qualitative difference?

M: Carry on your entertainment, but don't be under the misapprehension that you are doing anything.

Q: When I say that 1 am God, how come people don't come and prostate before me?

M. If you have truly understood that you are God, before that conviction comes you will have lost your identity, you will have merged with the total manifestation, therefore who will expect whom to come and do pranams? 

Q: Is there such a thing as using one's will to do something? If one is trying to stay awake, saying a mantra, or meditating, and keeps pulling himself back from sleep, is he not doing something?

M. At the stage of a seeker what he is doing may be right, but he will soon find out that the seeker disappears in the seeking. When the seeker disappears there is no question of doing. Later the seeker will understand that it was not his true nature which was doing all this, but that to which the label "born" was attached - that is the consciousness which has identified itself with the body and the states of waking and sleeping.

That whole bundle is what was doing and he is not that. This body is perceptible, but my true nature is That which was before the body and the consciousness came into being. Anything that is sensorially seen and interpreted by the mind is an appearance in consciousness, and is not true.

I am not telling you anything which is foreign to my experience, I am telling you what I have understood and experienced. It is very simple: this is time-bound and anything which is time-bound is untrue, because time itself is a concept.

What I am telling you is based on this simple fact, as it is based on my experience. If it appeals to you as a concept at the moment, accept it. Otherwise not.

If at all you want to do something, do that which you cannot do at all. That is the state of no-being.

Q. There is a constant restlessness in the mind, wanting to realize something; that in itself seems to be an obstacle.

M: Are you prior to the mind or after?

Q. Prior to the mind.

M. So don't worry about the mind. Employ your mind to the extent that is useful for your normal daily chores, not beyond that.

M. The knowledgeable one just witnesses or cancels whatever experiences are obtainable through the mind as having no substance. All this world play is in the realm of the mind; once you understand that you are not the mind in what way are you concerned? This is a temporary phase, imperfect, inadequate.

Q. Even beingness is an imperfect temporary phase?

M. That consciousness is a product of the food essence body; the body is the fuel on which "I Amness" is sustained. Do you not observe what the body is? Is it not a morsel of food and water? Presently you are embroiled in this "I Amness," but you - the Absolute - are not this "I Amness."

Q What you are saying is, even the "I Amness, " the way you recognize it in the mind, that is not the way it is actually?

M. Take it like this: this is as good or as bad an experience as having a tummy ache or a pain in the neck. In my perfect state [never had a pain, but when the "I Amness" was there, suddenly I felt the pain. That "I Amness" will merge, will disappear, I am the perfect state when "I Amness" was not. I definitely know that "I Amness" was not. Just as I have to suffer a chronic ailment I suffer this beingness. Just understand at what level I am talking, to what level I am leading you. 

Just imagine the flight to which this spiritual talk has gone. The normal spiritual approach everywhere is to worship this consciousness with so many titles, but to me it is a pain and I want to get rid of that.


July 23, 1980

Questioner: Maharaj says all that is necessary is to be aware. The mind keeps on casting doubts, and particularly keeps on saying that there must be more practices or, something more to be done.

Maharaj: All the activities are in the field of consciousness, the mind, and vital force. The knower of the mind is just a witness. It does not interfere in anything. 

Guru's grace means the knowledge you are. When you stabilize in this conviction, that will open up and give you all the knowledge and that is the grace.

If you are there, then everything is immeasurably there. You give no significance to the fact that you are - you are carried away by all the manifestation which is the expression of your beingness.

Q: My tendency is to look outward, rather than inward.

M. That is the quality of your "I Amness," not of you, the Absolute. You have embraced the body as your Self. That also is superficial, you don't know what is happening inside the body either.

Q. Correct. I don't know what's happening in my organs or how they act.

M. All the actions happening in this wide world, the samples of all those, are also happening in the body.

Q. That which is, does not know Itself.

M. In that state you do not know you are. With the tool, or aid, of beingness you know you are.

Q. With the tool we try to go beyond?

M. Don't try to go beyond consciousness, only recognize, understand, what the beingness is, that does the trick. The proof that consciousness was not lies with you only. You, the Absolute, are the proof of that. 

Spontaneously, uncalled for, this beingness has come and this beingness is being witnessed by you, the Absolute. Ask questions - you will not have such an opportunity again.

Q: The urge is not so much to ask questions, as to just be with Maharaj.

M: That is quite proper. Just by sitting here quietly and listening to the talks you mind will be annihilated. In case the mind sprouts again you forestall it by asking questions.

The mind is sprouting, expressing itself with various concepts. Don't identify with that, let it go. Don't be a customer to your mind concepts.

Q: Things like getting food, eating at regular times, earning money, all these are concepts of the mind and are responded to by the mind. If one does not respond to these things, then how does one live?

M. By all means employ the mind, but don't get lost in the mind. Observe the mind, be a witness to the mind flow.


July 26, 1980

Questioner: I have come to Maharaj in the hope that he may help me put an end to this search.

Maharaj: Can you communicate to me what you have understood? 

Q. It is all concepts, all illusion.

M. Yes.

Q. I don't believe in processes that take time and disciplines, I've done all that. I want it to end.

M. The basic fact - that you are not the body - must be clear to you by now. You are working in the world and you think that you are doing that work, but what is really happening is this: the life force, when it comes out in thoughts and words, is the mind, so it is this pram mind, life force mind, which is the acting principle. The beingness, the consciousness, is the God which witnesses the life force and mind working. It does not interfere; it merely witnesses. The reason for your unhappiness is that you think it is ou are working.

Q. I realize that anything I say is a concept arising out of my consciousness.

M: That you are, and the world is, are both concepts. You must know that.

Q. How does this knowledge work? I mean: you tell me words and there comes a sense of understanding. Is it a mental process? Is there still a faculty witnessing all this?

M: The mind understands because of the consciousness.

Q. Then it is all an automatic happening?

M. That is true. The mind interprets whatever the concept is, the base is consciousness on which the concept arises at the moment.

Q. So what is there actually to attain ifyou cannot change this consciousness and you cannot touch, cannot reach by words? It is there all the time, right now. So for what are we here? Doing belongs to the mind - that is clear - it is going on like an automaton. I see clearly now. I want this mind to surrender to the consciousness. Do you understand?

M: All this conceptualizing, all this articulation, has been taking place only after the original concept arose that you are . What was the position before this concept arose? At that time did you have any concepts, any needs?

Q Like deep sleep?

M. This concept that it is like deep sleep is not incorrect, but it is still a concept, and the original state is beyond concepts.

Q What is the fact now?

M: That you are awake is itself a concept at this moment. Let this sink in.

Q. It's a movie.

M. Go back to the source: before this concept of beingness, "I Am," arose, what was your state?

Q, I don't know.

M: That which you don't know, that is the right state. Everything that comes after this consciousness is attained, is like a dose of salts - it is useless, consciousness is useless.

Q. So the search, all aspects of it, belongs to the same?

M. Throw away every thought, every experience, everything that happens after this consciousness has come. Other than throwing it away as useless, there is nothing to be done beyond this firm understanding in which you become more and more absorbed.

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