September 17, 1979


Questioner: In Western theology there is a great law of sacrifice which has two benefits. If one sacrifices bad habits, not only is their recurrence overcome but willpower is built also. The other benefit of sacrificing bad habits is that when the moment comes to ask for something, surely it will be granted. Does this law hold true with Maharaj also? 

Maharaj: This is absolutely correct. Willpower grows and you are granted what you want. Sacrifice is giving up and donating yourself. In higher expression it is called detachment. 

Q: Can Maharaj recommend what we might give up initially in order to achieve this end? 

M: When you come here I do not take you to be an ordinary person. I assume that you have studied enough before you came here. Therefore I do not tell you openly to leave this or that, because I believe your standard is very high, very much higher; you are not an ordinary seeker. You have a superior intellect; that is why I talk to you like this. 

Q. That kind of confidence makes it difficult for me to live up to that standard. 

M: I do not ask you to keep up to a certain standard; I only ask you to see what is. 

Q: Relating to his question about sacrifice being helpful to attain what one wants: is not wanting itself a habit? Does not wanting come out of ignorance? 

M: The raindrops are falling; is it not the nature of the rain to fall, of the wind to blow? To want something is natural, so long as there is the identity with the body-mind. Once that is transcended there will be no wants. 

Q: My experience has been that the more I detach from the body-mind, the less I want, and the more my needs are simply fulfilled. 

M: Even to think that you are becoming detached is not correct, because you are already detached. When your ego is completely dissolved then you are employing multitudes of bodies. 

Q: Knowingly or unknowingly? 

M: Everything manifests and there is no individuality. It is all-pervading, it is not necessary to do it knowingly. 

Q: It is simply happening? there is no question of knowing or not knowing? 

M: Yes. Why does this conflict normally occur? Why the dispute between us? People come here with some profound concepts of spirituality. They think that they have spiritual knowledge, and they want me to give them a clean certificate, “Yes, you are very knowledgeable.” This I don't do, I blast their concepts, and hence the confrontation. This is how the disharmony starts. 

Q: Yes, it is for this confrontation that I have come here; yet the mind, the thing that holds the concepts, is afraid. Only willpower sustains me. 

M: Who is the knower of the willpower? 

Q: If Maharaj wants to ask about the knower, the mind can always give an answer, the mind is always capable of giving a concept, but I am now seeing what that is and, as best I can, am making an effort. 

M: It's all right. I know that you are identifying with that mind-consciousness, I know it. 

Q: I know it too. 

M: Try to know that “I.” 

Q: Yes. When I first came to know that I was coming here, the mind became very excited, with many questions and ideas of what it was like to be with Maharaj, but I saw very clearly that it was the play of the mind. So, for me to come here each morning with questions, for me personally, I know it is the play of the mind. For me it must come in the confrontation. 

M: Now that you have understood the quality of the mind have you attained peace? 

Q : There have been moments, and then the mind again rambles. 

M: You know that you are not the mind. Did you reach that state in which you witness the play of the mind earlier or when you came here? 

Q: Earlier, that was a part of the development. Ten years ago something happened to me. From what has been said, what you call Sat Guru appears to be this thing that I have no name for. I have followed that call for ten years. There is no difference between that inner thing and what I am experiencing with Maharaj. I have a question on technique. When one closes the eyes and dwells in the “I Am,” initially there is darkness which is observed. It is known that that twilight can be changed into clarity and it will become infinite. How can you achieve that? 

M: Why do you want to change it? 

Q: If it is within the capability of the one perceiving that darkness to change it into light, why hang about in the darkness? Why not enjoy the light? 

M: Who are you to turn it into light? It is in that darkness that several lights of lights are flowing. That is not darkness; it is the pool of nectar. Dive into it. Let it be. 

Q: There is another problem encountered in the state of 

head itself, and it develops into a tremendous force whose release is actually the spilling over of the consciousness to fill, say, a room. Is this proper? 

M: Speak without the body consciousness. That consciousness which you say spills into the room spontaneously occupies the room and the cosmos totally. In the process of stabilizing it expands into the cosmos. When it expands fully, then it stabilizes in the Brahma aperture, the Brahma- randhra. 

Q: There are many students of Kundalini Yoga, of Shakti; does the Jnani necessarily, through his practice, through his being, awaken the Kundalini that others speak about? 

M: The Jnani has no interest whatsoever in the Kundalini. Prior to your birth where was the Kundalini? This Kundalini is all that you perceive, all that you see. They call it by different names, that's all. 

Q: But some Yogis concentrate a force which goes through the seven chakras and presumably follows the spinal column. 

M: What you say is correct, but prior to your birth it was not there. It is only thought. 

Q: Are they all deluded, then, in pursuing the study of Kundalini Yoga? 

M: Anyone who wants to practice anything can do so, but what is it? Zero—nothing. 

Q: From what is being said it appears that all of this remains a play in consciousness and if one chooses to identify with consciousness one can play an infinite number of games. 

M: Whatever one chooses or likes, he is invited to follow that profession or entertainment. 

Q: What we have been doing is trying to find the real game to play and yet it all remains a game in consciousness. 

M: You are not playing, you are witnessing. 

Q: I have seen that what has kept me playing in consciousness is a fear that nothing will happen. The moments that I have been apparently free from consciousness, things happen anyhow, but they don't arise out of my desire. They happen because the universe pushes them. 

M: When you see that, are you in the consciousness? 

Q: At least it appears that I am out of it; I see the dream for a dream. 

M: You don't know whether you are in it or out of it; you simply witness it. 

Q: As long as there is the connection with the body it seems to me that the witness is still in the dream in some way. 

M: Yes, he is not awake, it's a dream. 

Q: It's like those moments between dream and awakening, when one is suddenly aware that one is dreaming. There is no break in the continuity of one who wakes up in that dream. I am awake in a dream. 

M: That dream is yourself. Whatever you see is not the dream, that is the “I" that you are. That consciousness that sees everything sees through the dream itself. 

Q: Will the mantra be useful in moments of mental fluctuation? 

M: Yes; it is for that only—to check your fluctuating mind. 

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