November 11, 1979


Questioner: People come to me and ask questions about Maharaj's teachings. How should I answer? 

Maharaj: If you know the answer by all means give it, but don't consider yourself as someone superior. Should the person be only superficially interested, given an offhand answer. If there is real intent to understand—if the person is very concerned to know—discuss the question with him. Should you give correct knowledge to someone not really interested from the heart, it will damage him and others to whom he may talk. 

Q: I don’t know that I can explain the Self. 

M: We perceive things but we must understand that we are that principle which makes perception possible. Normally an individual identifies himself with whatever he sees or perceives. You must understand the root cause of your being here. One's birth is basically associated with the womb, and that whole process must be clearly understood. 

Many who call themselves Gurus have not really understood this. They go by the tradition of words. They hear something and from there they proceed, but they do not go back to the root of the matter. There have been a number of prophets, who have devised various religions according to their own ideas and concepts. These religions prescribe various codes of conduct: “Do this/' “Don't do that." With all these do's and don'ts, is there any change in the basic instincts of people? 

A Hindu throws a stone at a cow and the cow dies. Because of his religion, the Hindu thinks that he has committed a great sin. At the same time people of other religions slaughter a cow and eat the meat. To them there is no sin. The butcher and his family are quite happy, and well off too! They are not affected by sin. The Hindu will perform conventional acts to expiate his sin. Don't go into these different conventional codes. Go to the root. 

Out of the womb of conception, out of the seed you are born. At the time of conception your beingness is in a latent condition and because of its presence the formation of the body is taking place in the fetus. Are you that? 

You are not very steady mentally. Whenever I talk I want you to go to the source; instead you go forward. You don’t perceive the source. Can you ask questions? 

Q: How was the first body made? 

M: Whether the first or the last, the process is identical. 

Q: If there is no beginning it means there is nothing. Nothing began, nothing ends. 

M: Here you will not get the reply of words. Dwell in the source. Stabilize there and you will get the reply. 

Prakriti and Purusa, these two principles: Purusa means stationary, Prakriti is the movement. They have no body or form. We start right from space, space is steady and there is the movement of the air, Prakriti. So the Prakriti projections begin there. With the air and the sky there is friction, and out of the friction there is heat, and when this heat subsides it oozes in the form of water. The water falls as rain; where it settles the earth formation takes place, and out of the earth the sprouting of the vegetation occurs. 

It is all the play of Prakriti and Purusa. When it comes to the stage of the earth and vegetation, only the formation of bodies, forms, shapes, takes place. Then various insects, animals, human beings are born. But all the formation is already decided in the space. The fate is already sealed in the space. 

There is the contact of Purusa and Prakriti in the space, and its final culmination is the creation of human bodies, animals, etc. There are eighty-four million species, according to Hindu mythology. 

Q: What makes the creation take place? 

M: It is not real, but in the realm of Maya it is real. Understand all this game and get out of it. 

Q: If it is not real why do we have to understand it? 

M: So you will understand how futile it is to have this shape. In the process of inquiry you will find you are not any of that. One will be immediately liberated when one realizes, “I have nothing to do with the affairs of Prakriti and Purusa." 

Q: How can that life principle in the womb be “I" or my beingness? 

M: Your inquiry starts from the grosser state; that's why this “I" and “mine" question arises. Understand the whole process. In this universal process are you really one of those illusions? 

Q: How do we get out of the cycle? 

M: Are we not separate? You are there and I am here. Understand that this is the universal play of Prakriti and Purusa; you are not that, and you are not in that. It is simple logic. Suppose a relative of yours dies and his body is cremated. Is the relative cremated? The dead body is cremated. He is not the body. The vital breath also left the body. He is not the vital breath. 

Suppose there has been an accident and hundreds of people are dead. You have heard that your dearest friend was involved, so you go to the scene and inquire. When you learn that your friend was not there, immediately you are happy and free from anxiety. Similarly, when you investigate this whole process you will find that you are not in it. Then you are free from the cycle. 

Q: There are so many attractions of the world and God. 

M: Why do you worry about the attractions of the world? Only when you are there the world and God are there. 

Finally what we must find out is what this beingness is due to. Once you understand that beingness is the product of the food essence, you know that you can’t be that beingness. There is no object for meditation. Once one comes to the conclusion that there is nothing else except one’s Self, whom should he worship? That One is everything. 

Q: Only One is there, but it is ample, many. 

M: You know it very well but you have turned your back on it. Once one becomes a Jnani he is one with the Absolute, but as far as the body is concerned—what happens to it and its behavior—everything will be different from that of another Jnani. There is no design for a Jnani; he is not an individual. He is not concerned with how that body will act. 

Q: What is the true prostration before a Jnani? 

M: You may think I am a Jnani, but from my point of view, whatever I see is just child’s play. The whole thing. The existence of the world and the knowledge of the world is child’s play. This child is eighty-three years old and this is the play of that child’s illusion. 

What is the game that is being played? The infant has been born and the age belongs to that infant, not to me. Only one in a hundred thousand will really understand the knowledge which is given. Most won’t give up their body sense. 

All these talks are like the play between a mother and child; just entertaining, but there is no real meaning to it. The child just lives in the present, for that moment; it has no anxiety and no responsibility. The same thing happens, even if he is eighty-three years old. 

This consciousness which makes perception possible is the Atma. That which is aware of the consciousness is the Brahman. I speak every day on the same subject; the trouble is that when you hear something you forget it. 

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