
Maharaj: This knowledge “I Am” has appeared out of love, and that love comes out in existence. When this knowledge has dawned on the Self it is absolutely happy, but after the child is two or three years old, gradually he gets involved in “I” and “mine,” and he gradually loses hold of the joy that “I Am.” The result of all this involvement is that he comes to the conclusion that he was born and is going to die.
This knowledge has appeared to you and you are charged with many sins and births. The accused is standing in the dock and has been sentenced to twenty-five years of rigorous imprisonment, and death by hanging at the twenty-sixth year. And he is pleading guilty! Examine yourself thoroughly: are you a body-mind? were you born? who are you? what are you? Find out for yourself. Before you were born there was nothing, there was no idea that you were taking a forM: this form came to your knowledge only after your mother introduced you to yourself. After passing this examination the result will be that no idea of death will appear to you.
Questioner: What is this knowledge, knowingness?
M: This knowledge is the essence of the food that has been assimilated by the body. It is as material as the body and it will disappear, even as this fire will be extinguished. If we want to live during the next month is it not necessary that we feed our body? Suppose you have some stale food; if you put it aside it will become sour and in due course worms and insects will form therein. Is it not the food which is giving life to those worms and insects? What does it indicate? The life force which is expressed in that insect is the food essence only. The life-giving force is in this food essence, and the food essence is itself its own food.
Q: So far—if it were to hang in the air right here and not get any farther—what Maharaj said gave the impression that something like a magnetic field involved with food organizes into an “I Am.” In other words, he has set up a reality of food which contains in it a field that constitutes an “I Am.” I don't think that is what he is trying to get across, but it sounds like that.
M: What is that body? Out of the elements, the earth, and vegetation a body is formed—is it not so?
Q: Yes.
M: Out of that where are you?
Q: I don't know where I am.
M: Take a grain of sugar; the sugar is the essence of the sugarcane; it is sweetness only. You taste the sweetness of the sugar—you are not the sugar. What happens to that sweetness? Does it have a form?
Q: There’s always the possibility.
M: When the taste has disappeared has it gone to heaven or hell? It did not go anywhere; it has merged into you.
Q: Earlier Maharaj spoke of the “I Amness” arising from the five elements. Do not the five elements also arise from the “I Am”?
M: Yes, it is a vicious circle. Understand it and get out of it. If the food body is not present, you will be whatever you were before when the food body is exhausted. Consciousness, the world, and this manifestation is an expression that
The sum total is: understand all this and do not try to interfere. All the prophets and social workers have come and gone; they could not change what is. This is the play of Maya. All this has happened out of nothingness, and it is going to the same state.
This “I Amness” is a product of the five elements and the “I Amness” again creates the five elements. So how are we to destroy that?
Q: You can't destroy it—you just have to go beyond it.
M: “I Amness” is part of the play. You are prior to the “I Amness.”