
Maharaj: After you became conscious of your body and your beingness you gathered impressions from your environment and observed the manifested world around you. After deliberating on the panorama of the world, of yourself in it, you must have come to some conclusion of your own.
All your behavior is dependent on your identification with the body, which depends on the knowledge “I Am.” The “I Am” depends upon the food essence sustaining your body.
This is your capital for going about in the world. This consciousness of beingness which you are now experiencing is dependent on the essence of the food you eat. When you can no longer assimilate that food your vital breath becomes weaker and will one day go, along with the consciousness that ‘‘you are.” You will solve this puzzle if you are eager to deliberate on it. There was absolutely no experience of yourself or the world before you experienced body or the food. This manifestation is beginningless. First was born the sky; out of the sky came the air; out of the air, the light and heat; out of that heat the water; and out of the water whatever was became the earth from which the whole of life sprouted. These five elements together are responsible for this great manifestation. Consciousness is the quality of the essence of the food that is in all the five elements together.
Questioner: Then the different qualities of the food should produce different qualities of that consciousness?
M: The five elements differ from each other. Guna is different in each form. When that consciousness is limited to the body it seems to be different, but when it knows itself it will merge into the universal consciousness, which is all- embracing.
Q: How is the illusion born?
M: How is the shade of a substance born? It comes out of all the substances that make up the body. This Maya is nothing but love for that beingness.
Q: We are not able to step out of that trap.
M: You stick to what you are in the beginning, without embellishments or attachments. It is an imaginary trap that you are caught in.
Q: What do we do to get this experience?
M: Don't do anything. Just be in your “I Amness” and do not give it the shape of your body.
Q: Why should we hold on to the “I Amness”?
M: You must know the consciousness of your beingness. By doing that you will be like the man who has caught Brahma in the hand. As a fisherman catches the fish in his net, so you will be after knowing your beingness.
Q: The mind-ego always makes it difficult to know myself.
M: Mind does not exist without your consciousness. It is all a matter of words. Vital breath has given birth to mind.
Q: Why do we have to hold on to this “I Am” if we already know that we are beyond it? “I Am” is only a concept.
M: When did it occur to you that “I Am” is only a concept?
Q: I became aware that everything is concepts and that I don't have to live with concepts.
M: There is no question of being with this or that. Just be.
Q: We hear that we are to live as what we are already. While we are here, in this room, it is very easy to cast off what we are not, but how are we to live outside in a world that does not really exist?
M: You will come to realize that you do nothing. Everything happens; and you will come to know that you are only the observer of what happens. Just be. Where is the world for those who have realized? The world is in that beingness.
Q: I do not have to do anything?
M: What have you done so far?
Q: So far our relationship is of “have to” and “be.” Is it to “be” first and then “have to”?
M: That will look after itself. I only show you the state of affairs; what you do after that is your own business. In one way you will understand that the whole supply of everything is through your Self and in another way, you will have lost everything.