17. TO KNOW WHAT ONE IS, ONE MUST KNOW ONE’S BEGINNING


MAHARAJ: Discrimination means selecting words and mean- ings worthy of us. Nevertheless, words that are worthy of our true nature and describe our ultimate state are never available. 

Out of a heap of wheat, you pick up and collect good wheat for your consumption, while rejecting stones and bad wheat. Similarly, discrimination is to be used. 

At present, you identify yourself with your body and mind. Therefore, in the initial stages of your spiritual practice, you should reject the identity by imbibing the principle that “I am” is the vital breath and the consciousness only and not the body and mind. In the later stages, the vital breath and the consciousness—that is, the knowledge “I am’ merge in one’s ultimate nature, just as the thoughts of a professor or pandit subside in him when he goes to sleep. A person in deep sleep does not know himself, because even the sense of his beingness has merged in him. 

When you realize that you are neither the body nor the mind, you will remain unaffected by any mental modifications. In that state, you are the dynamic universal consciousness. You should abide in this state. 

Pleasure, pain and miseries are felt so long as identification with the body and mind is retained. Suppose a ship sank in mid-ocean with thousands of passengers. Could their identities survive the calamity in the absence of their bodies and minds? Further, could the victims have any idea about them- selves after such a tragedy, when their bodies have totally vanished? Under these circumstances, even their surviving relatives are unable to visualize the state of the unfortunate passengers. To determine an identity, a body, vital breath, and the beingness are prerequisites. 

V: Compassion, forgiveness, peace and attachment relate to the domain of human existence. Am I right in saying this? 

M: These qualities are significant so long as the beingness is there, as a result of the functioning of a body and the vital breath. When these three principles function coherently, everything is there; otherwise nothing is. 

Spirituality means abidance in the Self. When you discuss or think of any topic such as discrimination or spirituality, you study it objectively’ and fractionally. But I do it subjectively’ and totally by pointing to the all-embracing principle, the Self. Understand the Self; be the Self. 

So long as your body, the vital breath and the beingness are there, you know that “you are.” When the vital breath goes, the body drops off and the beingness extinguishes; the process is termed “death.” One who is dead cannot know anything. A dead one does not know “he is,” or “he was.” So there is no registering of such a “dead” one’s existence either with us or with the one. 

Go to the root of your beingness. In the process, the beingness will be transcended and the ultimate “You” only remain, without the knowledge “you are.” 

That ultimate state is known as vishranti, which means total rest, complete relaxation, utter quietude etc. 

The other meaning, by splitting the word, would be vishara-anti—forget yourself in the end. That means, in the ultimate state, “you-are-ness” is totally forgotten. Whether “I am” or “I am not,” both are forgotten. This is the highest type of rest—parama-vishranti. Don’t meekly accept what I say. If you have doubts, by all means ask questions. If anybody is going to ask questions, they will be from the body-mind level, and mind means whatever one has collected from the outside. It is not one’s own. So, ask only about what has been discussed and from the correct standpoint. 

V: How to experience that Highest State? 

M: There is no question of experiencing, You are that state only. 

V: All experience is derived through the senses. 

M: Yes, but “You,” the ultimate experiencer, are not merely the sum total of experiences. 

On waking up, you know “you are”; this is your knowing- ness. Prior to this knowingness, whatever “you are,” it is not the knowingness. 

V: Does this have anything to do with the Ultimate? 

M: There are many titles and attributes, but prior to all attributes, “You” are. 

V: Do we have realization? 

M: These are all concepts. The ultimate state, however, is beyond the grasp of words. Out of one concept more concepts are born, and everything is going on with and through these concepts. Thus, the storehouse is filled with concepts. But when the primary concept itself is abolished, where is the question of further concepts? 

V: Is this “I” exaggerated or not? 

M: What is your age? 

V: Sixty-one years. 

M: Going back in time to one day prior to those sixty-one odd years (of your life span), did you know that you were going to take birth? 

V: Obviously not. I had no idea that I was going to be born, before my birth. 

M: Now having been born, did you ever inquire why at all you were born? Earlier, this “I-am-ness” knowledge was not there before birth. 

V: I do not know when I was born, nor do I know when I am going to die. 

M: But all these days, why did you not make the inquiry? Now that you have the knowledge “I am,” how did you come to it? Granted that you were born unknowingly, but like a man asleep on waking finds that he has a large boil, will he not inquire, “When did I get this boil?” 

V: I did inquire. 

M: With whom did you inquire? What answer did you get? 

V: But I did not get any answer. 

M: How and why this knowledge “I am”? That you must know. How did this knowledge “I am” appear from the “non-knowing” state? 

V: I don’t know. 

M: You must know that. What is the use of all types of information? Thousands of people have drowned in a ship. What information can you have about their present state? 

V: Death. 

M: Obviously nothing. Can the one who did not know about death or birth have knowledge of his death? 

V: We shall have to inquire from the dead person. 

M: Are you going to inquire from the dead? 

Unknowingly this knowingness has appeared. How? From “Nothingness” this “I-am-ness” has appeared. How? Prior to your birth, did you ever experience your “J-am-ness”? 

V: Probably not. 

M: Why “probably”? 

V: Definitely no. Collection of any information regarding the “non-knowing” state is merely an idle inquiry. 

M: Why do you clasp that knowingness now, since you are going to meet death definitely? Prior to birth you did not know you were. You are going to die, then why are you clinging to all these concepts of heaven, hell, virtue and sin? Will you care to turn around and observe, now that you have heard all these talks? 

V: Sometimes I do. 

M: What is the use of that? ; 

Finally, you must come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as the “me” and the “mine.” See at least your beginning. 

V: Probably we have a right to the beginning, and not to the end. 

M: IJ am interested only in your beginning. How did you happen to be? It is most important. 

V: I am interested in me and myself. M: But did you come to know what you are? 

V: You bless me. 

M: You place before me your identity, then I will bless it. When one does not know his very beginning, how can he plead for anyone? 

Although you know full well that you do not know, why do you still embrace all this? 

V: It is instinct; we naturally embrace all this. 

M: What is that instinctive uprising? What is it that is born? You are not concerned about it. You do not have that knowledge, because you do not have the urge. If you have a deep urge, then only will there be illumination. Until then you will be making all the efforts, while someone else will be taking the advantage, like a blind man working on a grinding stone while a dog eats all the flour. 

V: How should we get rid of this blindness? 

M: By abiding in the Self through insistence. Meditate on the Self. You must do the hatha-yoga of insistence and perseverance to have perfect knowledge about the Self. 

V: Is there anybody who has such knowledge? 

M: Yes, a rare one, one in ten million. Having come upon these mathematical odds, do you now give up on the inquiry? 

V: I do not want to give up. 

M: Have you come to this conclusion after pinching your ears? V: What is the use of striving all along? 

M: What is the use of any of your concepts? A jnani is beyond concept. He gives no importance to any concept. 

V: He may not know how much we are striving now and have done so earlier; you have no idea. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa appealed to the Mother, “O Mother, take me beyond thought and knowledge, as I get mad with them.” 

M: Did you try it yourself, to go beyond thought and knowledge? If not, why do you refer to others? 

V: No. 

M: If you have not tried the recipe on yourself, why do you talk about it? Why do you introduce someone else’s judgement? Can you remain alive without words? Without them, how can you manage your daily activities? I know the history of your birth. Why you call a person your “father” or “mother,” I know full well. Why do you bother about others, instead of bothering about your own self—others such as Ramakrishna Paramahamsa? If you are ignorant, it is all right to inquire about others. But when you are concerned about yourself, then inquire about yourself only. When I pleased my “I-am-ness” by understanding it, only then did I come to know this “I-am-ness” and in the process also discovered that “I,” the Absolute, am not that “I am.” Stay put at one place. Having collected all the knowledge, ponder over it in seclusion. 

V: If Maharaj blesses me, I shall have enlightenment. 

M: That is not so simple. It is just like saying that a married couple will beget children merely if somebody blesses them. 

V: The knowledge “I am” is a curse. 

M: It is accidental, spontaneous. The beginning of “I am” is when I get the phone message that “I am.” And when I have the information “I am,” that is the ganesha state. 

V: Why is ganesha equated with the primordial sound pranava that is “Om”? 

M: Because ganesha represents the knowledge prana, the vital breath. Out of the pranava, the product of prana, the vocal language develops, after passing through four stages— that is, para, pashyanti, madhbyama and vaikbari. Para is the source and the subtlest stage, while vaikhari is the grossest, representing the bursting out of vocal language. The state prior to para is “Love to be,” the sense of love, which gives rise to all activities. That state is ganesha. 


July 26th 1980 

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