September 7, 1979


Questioner: What are we to do today? 

Maharaj: Witness that consciousness, that mischievous, illusive consciousness because of which you observe various stages. It's very simple. This consciousness was not there earlier and it is going to disappear. Still you will be there and witness that consciousness. You, the Absolute, are the perfect state. You are not the consciousness, nor are you in the consciousness, which is full of wants and needs. 

Another way of understanding: Whatever knowledge I have acquired through bhajans, devotion, etc., is surrendered to the knowledge of God, but I am not that. I don't come within the perfume of that knowledge or consciousness. All is surrendered to the consciousness itself and I am apart from it. “I surrender all my knowledge, including myself and consciousness, to that manifest consciousness Brahma.” Creation itself is Brahma, the sacrificial fire is also Brahma and the sacrificer is Brahma. 

Q: The only thing I understand is that we are the Reality, not the body-mind. I am always thinking of that. 

M: Tell me about your knowledge of this. 

Q: It is very difficult. That is all there is and we are always that. 

M: You find it very difficult to describe because you cannot give it a name or form. What is it of which you cannot give a description? 

Q: I just feel the presence of that “I Amness,” that existence; I cannot describe it. 

M: You cannot see that knowingness, but that sees everything else. That consciousness is the same in everything and everywhere. Having once realized this with conviction, can you make use of it? 

Q: No, no use can be made of it. 

M: Whatever happens in the world—will it have the same attraction for you? 

Q: No. I used to be concerned with whatever was happening, but it does not concern me now. 

M: Things are happening in the world just as they used to happen, but one has realized that one has no name or form and therefore no activities. Whatever is happening in the world is in the nature of a dream. The individual personality is lost. One who knows this cannot be interested in improving such a world. He does not concern himself with the behavior in the world. 

A person may have the brightest intellect in the world and, with the aid of that intellect, collect the maximum information about the world, but all that will be useless because the basis is false. After listening to the significance of these words, have you reached your original state? You.

Q: No. 

M: That is because of your identify with, and pride in, your body-mind. 

Q: Why do we see a world? Why do we see wrongly? 

M: When you ask this question, are you not aware of yourself, don’t you have an identify with your body? 

Q: Yes, I have. 

M: Give up this idea. 

Q: How can I? 

M: There is really nothing to give up. You have a name; you think you are that name but you are not. 

Q: What is the function of the name? my body? my personality? 

M: You don’t have a personality. It’s all in the mind. 

Q: I do have a mind and my mind tells me that I have a personality. What can I do? 

M: It’s not the mind, it’s the vital breath that makes you feel you are a separate entity. Vital force gives rise to the thoughts, otherwise there is no mind. The breath gives rise to the thoughts in the world and you are only watching it. 

So long as you identify with the body-mind this subject is far beyond your understanding. You must go beyond the mind. 

Q: I don’t want to go beyond. 

M: Come here only if you are prepared to listen without the body-mind identity, otherwise you are wasting your time. Don’t come here unless you are prepared to give up this identity. 

Q: But I keep on finding myself here! 

M: All right, do come here, but keep on pondering about this: that you are not the body. 

Q: I think about it all the time, but my thinking does not take me further. 

M: Keep thinking and discriminating. When the body dies, you do not die. 

Q: It must be a part of myself which I have never known. I just know my body, my name, my personality. That's all I know. 

M: You keep thinking about it and listening. Read about it, study about it. 

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