
MAHARAJ: Seen from the earth, the sun rises and sets. But from the standpoint of the sun, it shines continuously and has no knowledge of rising and setting. While the beingness and its manifestation, including the activities therein, are temporary and time-bound, that which is prior to beingness is eternal. You are a student of the Bhagavad-gita; whatever I say, does it agree with the Gita?
Visitor: After listening to your talks I was able to under- stand clearly the fifteenth chapter of the Gita, where mention is made of Purushottama.
M: Purushottama is the Absolute, the Eternal. While the Absolute is without any external support, being totally self-supporting, it is itself the support for everything manifest.
V: Krishna has said: “Those alone who understand that I, the
Absolute, am beyond the states of being and non-being realize my true nature, and all others are fools.”
M: Those who are created out of stupid action are also stupid.
V: Whatever a jnani talks, is spiritual knowledge and even his behavior reveals knowledge.
M: Actually all our behavior is of the sattva-guna quality expressed out of the food essence, and it is neither yours nor mine. The sattva-guna has three states, viz. waking, deep sleep and beingness. When knowledge is correctly understood one is pure Brahman only, though having a body form.
It has no mind-modification.' This is what Krishna said.
The body is a product of the food essence. All plants, shrubs, trees, animals etc. are created out of seeds, and a seed (bija) means re-creating in the previous form. Also a seed is a product of the sattva-guna. Out of a seed sprouts the plant and later a big tree, but the source is the seed only.
Also out of the human seed, which is the product of the three gunas (sattvas, rajas and tamas) and the food essence, sprouts the body, beingness and manifestation. This can be realized by a human being only.
Having understood this, I have realized pure Brahman though having a body form. Rarely, anybody imbibes this wisdom. Many acquire so-called knowledge, but whatever is acquired is not true knowledge.
V: Is the beingness, or the knowledge “I am,” then the ultimate, true knowledge?
M: This true knowledge, the knowledge “I am,” is also rendered the status of “non-knowledge” in the final Absolute state. When one is established in his final free state, the knowledge “I am” becomes “non-knowledge.”
When you see a flowering tree you look only at the foliage, but you do not think of its roots and the seed out of which it has sprouted. Unless you understand the seed also, there will be no total understanding.
At present you understand yourself as a body, but you do not include in the understanding the source and the seed out of which this body has manifested.
A pen-point moist with ink writes volume after volume. The pen-point is the source of all writings. Similarly, your beingness is the source and beginning of your entire world.
The written material is easily observed and read, but its source—the pen-point, which is almost dimensionless—is not easily perceived. So also is the seed-beingness, which is formless, most elusive.
You do not identify with your beingness, but you are quick to identify with your visible body form. You cling to the form as “I” instead of the beingness. However, for the sustenance of the beingness a body form is essential. Even if Lord Krishna were to decide to incarnate again, he would be able to do so only with the medium of seed-beingness, which however will be a product of a food-essence body.
Not only Krishna, but also Christ and Buddha manifest only through the food-essence beingness. But do you know the meaning of Buddha, the bodbisattva?
V: Buddha means the innate nature of all of us.
M: And when you were initiated, what was the form of initiation and what were you initiated into?
V: I was taken into the order of holy sangh, as a monk, who was working for total happiness ...
M: Do not tell me all this. Diksha (initiation) means “just be,” alertly “Be what you are.” What advice was given to you at the time of initiation?
V: To watch my body-mind.
M: From what standpoint, or identity, did you watch?
V: I did not watch my body from any standpoint. There was only watching.
M: When you do not know yourself, then who is watching? And how does it happen?
V: The object of my witnessing comes up in the observer. Through the object comprising thought-emotion and body, there is a sense of self. I could observe this sense of self. I have seen pretty clearly that there is nothing substantial within this mind-body process.
M: How were you asked to be alert at the time of initiations?
V: All the time.
M: But with what identity should you be alert?
V: They did not tell me about any identity. They told me to be just alert.
M: To whom did they tell? Should they not indicate what the witness should be like?
V: No.
M: This is a lower type of initiation. First recognize the indwelling principle, the knowledge “I am” or the “self-love,” which is doing the witnessing. The witnessing just happens to it. When the pain is there, spontaneously I witness the pain that I am experiencing.
V: There seems to be a sense of separation between myself and the object of witnessing. So when I witness ...
M: But when do you witness?
V: When I witness the body-mind, I feel separation from body-mind.
M: To whom does the witnessing happen?
V: That I do not know.
M: Then what type of spirituality do you practice?
V: Though I wear a robe, I do not follow any particular avenue of spirituality or order. I just try to be aware of who I am.
M: For all beings it is the same experience. Early morning, immediately after waking, just the feeling “I am” is felt inside or the beingness happens, and thereafter further witnessing of all else happens. The first witnessing is that of “I am.” This primary witnessing is the prerequisite for all further witnessing. But to whom is the witnessing occurring? One that ever is, even without waking, to that ever-present substratum the witnessing of the waking state happens. The mystery of world-experience is at this point. The esoteric knowledge of seed-beingness is also here. Now you have woken up, and witnessing of waking happens. The primary witnessing is of my own presence, my existence. This waking, or the sense of existence, is a temporary state, being one of the trio of the deep-sleep, waking and knowingness states which together constitute the beingness. This beingness is like that quality of the moist pen-point. The aggregate of these three is the subtle energy represented by the male and female principles, termed purushaprakriti. In this beingness, the sattva-guna, is the visvasutra, brabma-sutra, atma-sutra. In that beingness dwells the universal manifestation. This sattva-guna is the thread around which Brahman and the manifest universe are strung.
V: A question I want...
M: What questions could you possibly have on this subject?
The very focus of that wet pen-point has assumed the multifarious forms. That beingness is known as sattva-shakti and prakriti-purushashakti. The sattva-guna which gave rise to the beingness is the product of the essence of the parents who belong to the species of vachaspati. This very essence assumed form, and the universe is revealed in its inside and outside. Understand clearly the source. It is just like a tiny seed of a banyan tree growing into a magnificent tree and occupying a lot of space, but who is it that occupies the space? It is the power of that small seed. Similarly, understand this quintessential emission of the parents that leads to the touch of “I-am-ness,” which manifests itself into a universe. Therefore go to that source and understand it fully. Just as the seed carries the latent form of the plant, so the seed of the parents carries the latent form of male or female in the image of the parents.
Father and mother are also the expression of the sattva-guna, the quintessential principle only. As a result of friction, emission has taken place. This emission having taken the photo of the parents grows into a child in the likeness of the parents. Before your birth, where was your beingness dwelling dormantly? Was it not in the quintessence of the parents? Is this not the eternal drama of reproduction of all species through the sattva principle and the energy denoted by purushaprakriti?
V: The touch of “I-am-ness” is itself nothing personal; it seems personal only when linked with body and mind.
M: This touch of “I-am-ness” is the manifest only and is not individualistic.
V: You talked about the “I-love” state. If I say I love somebody, it really means “I-am-ness” on this spot recognizes “I- am-ness” on that spot.
M: There is no otherness at all to make love to. Only the “love to be” has sprouted. To sustain the “love to be” state, you undergo a lot of difficulties and adversities. Just to keep that state pleased and satisfied, you involve yourself in so many activities.
V: The suffering is to direct attention to something other than the “I love” state, but if all this is meant to perpetuate “I-am-ness,” then is this not a desire?
M: This is not desire, it is the very nature of “I-am-ness” to be. Beingness wants to be and perpetuate itself. This is its very nature; it is not the individual's nature.
V: Even when it is linked with body-mind?
M: A number of minds and bodies are formed out of that principle. It is the source of creation. Millions of species are created out of that basic principle. It is moolamaya, the seed-illusion.
V: Is “I am” creating you?
M: Out of my beingness are created the three worlds. In my dream-world millions of worms, human beings etc. are created. When and from where did that dream-world emerge? It emerged from the apparent waking in the dream state. V: If I close my eyes, does it mean that you do not exist? M: Who told you that your eyes are closed?
V: My “I-am-ness.”
M: When you shut your eyes, was your consciousness also shut?
V: No.
M: As a result of the love union of embodied objects termed as parents, you are the reminder that you are the creation resulting from their blissful moment. The memory, “I am,” reminds of the blissful moment. This form, the embodied person, is a reminder of the bliss. You have collected a lot of knowledge, and you think yourself fit to be a guru and then you will expound the knowledge—that is, the collected knowledge, and not the revealed knowledge of your own. The knowledge is not fully revealed to you, you have not realized yourself, and hence you will be pseudo-gurus. Your existence was in a dormant condition in your father and mother. Now you want to proceed somewhere from here. From where did you spring? Go to the source from which you emerged. Be there first. Somebody had the fun of bliss and I suffer and cry for a hundred years.
V: Is it correct to compare “I-am-ness” to a room with two doors? On one side you see the world, and out of the other you perceive Parabrabman.
M: There are no doors to Parabrahman, dear son. Look at the door from which you emerged. Before emerging out of that door, how and where were you? You can put questions relating to this subject.
V: There is love and suffering too, in this “I am.”
M: The cause is happiness, and the result is “I-am-ness.” The cause is bliss, but the outcome has to suffer from the beginning till the end.
V: In that passing moment is there awareness of love and suffering simultaneously?
M: Everything that prevails in the cosmos at the time of love is registered in the outcome; and, incidentally, the outcome takes the form, is a replica, of the parents. Your birth means a film of the universe at that time. It is not merely a birth, it is charged with universe inside and outside.
V: Once you are born, consciousness is continuous, but in my meditation it comes and goes.
M: Beingness is continuous and it knows itself. only with the aid of a body form, while without it, it does not know itself (i.e., it is in the Absolute state). Who is the witness of the coming and going of the consciousness?
V: Just awareness.
M: What you say is correct in a way, but actually it is not so.
It is like saying that I promise to give you ten thousand rupees, but...The awareness is the Parabrahman state, but it is only a word; you have to abide in that state. At present, “I am” is in the beingness state. But when I do not have the knowingness of the “I am” illusion, then the Poornabrahman or Parabrabman state prevails. In the absence of the touch of “I-am-ness,” I am the total complete Poornabrahman state, the permanent state.
The borderline of beingness and non-beingness is intel- lect-boggling, because the intellect subsides at that precise location. This borderline is the maha-yoga.
In the phrase “you and I,” once the conjunction “and” is removed, no duality exists—that is, there is no separateness of “you” and “I.” Similarly, this beingness is like a conjunction: when it is removed, no duality remains.
You must be at that borderline, that maha-yoga state. You descend into the godown’? of that state which has the title of “birth.”
V: Where is the place of anger, fear and hate in that godown? In beingness, the birth principle, that touch of “I am”?
M: In the seed of those two forms (parents), there is potential for innumerable universes.
V: What you say very much agrees with the teachings of J. Krishnamurti.
M: The one who understands this speck of ignorance—that is beingness—can speak of anything he likes. In the space of that speck of beingness innumerable universes dwell. If you wish to understand this better, take the example of a dream-world. This dream-world is nothing but the apparent waking state in deep sleep, of very short duration—it is like touch and go. In the dream a lot of dream-universes are created.
January 28th 1980