
MAHARAJ: There is no doer, there is no creator of this, all is happening spontaneously.
Visitor: While doing japa (i.e., repetition of sacred words), should we bring the meaning of the words into the focus of attention?
M: You should not deliberately try to work out the meaning of the japa. Meaning will spread by itself in you, will charge you in due course according to your quality. Manifestation of the dynamic shakti or energy takes place through the person and varies with each individual. By all means perform your family activities, comply with worldly and social responsibilities with full zest and enthusiasm, but at least understand and know your own “self,” what “you are.” And gradually you will realize that as the knower you have no identity with respect to a place or form. All perceptible and tangible move- ments in the universe and world just happen, without any specific reason; that is, there is functioning, rotating, vibrating, humming, without a purpose. However, You prevail for- ever without identity of body form, name or any other illusory datum. And whatever the other principle is, defined by and identified with form, illusion, name and body, it creates, nourishes and sustains itself by itself. Later it has to disappear. Understanding all this action-play is knowledge. Lord Krishna only spoke about Paramatman—that is, the highest self—as himself. Others also expounded, but they were caught up in their own concepts. If I do any thinking at all, it relates to the manifestation and its natural play. I do not think of altering the course of manifestation. However, when you engage in thinking it will be at the personality or individual level, about your personal problems. There is nothing to be done, just find out how this touch of “I-am-ness” has come about in you.
V: When I talk, there is no feeling that I am talking.
M: Now you talk from whatever identity you have. What is the support of that identity?
V: The words just come out.
M: When you talk, do you depend on your own existence or someone else’s?
V: On my own identity.
M: This beingness of the self is of a short duration; it is expe- rienced for a short time only. But the one that experiences the beingness exists for ever. You must realize that the Experiencer, “You,” is the ever-present, existing principle. From what identity are you going to talk?
V: Since I have absolutely no desire to talk, it does not come from the former.
M: I want a precise reply to my question. Why did you utter some irrelevant words? I again repeat my question, “Are you talking from the standpoint of the short-duration beingness, or the Eternal?”
V: There is no personal “I” that is talking.
M: Do not give me that! I accuse you that you alone are talk- ing. Are you talking from the temporary position, or the permanent one?
V: Not from the temporary position.
M: You are not telling the truth.
V: It is my experience that no “I” is talking. When you say that “I,” the person, is talking, it is not true.
M: You are silly to say this, as the true knowledge has not been revealed to you. Are you going to give me the information from the standpoint of the temporary phase or the other?
You do not seem to understand my question.
V: It shows clearly to me that what appears temporal is really temporal.
M: Then what type of information will you give someone about the state which is permanent?
V: I will insist that he should go and see a sat-guru.
M: Then where is the value or worth of the person who is guiding?
V: He will be a guide to some few people who will be visiting him.
M: I am going to send you out of here. I am not going to give you any knowledge. Should I teach you the ABC of all this? Read the book I Am That and ponder over it first. Every time a fellow comes here, am I to teach him from scratch? How was “I” prior to the appearance of beingness? How and why did the beingness appear? We must get the answers to those questions only.
V: I follow the approach shown by my guru. Whatever is acquired is unreal and time-bound.
M: This anybody can say. How did this body and beingness arise? I want to know that.
V: I have not decided what I should talk about. Whatever is imbibed by me will express itself.
M: Nobody can decide what he is going to talk about. Sup- pose you prepare yourself to talk a lot here, and cannot recollect it; then what? It is not as if whatever you decide is actually going to transpire every time. The sense that “you are” is a big thing. What is most significant is the fact that you remember your sense of being. Subsequently, all other things appear. Earlier this memory “I am” was not, and suddenly it appeared. Now I expound on the spiritual talk called niroopona. In Marathi the word niroopona is derived from the word niroopa, which means “message.” Therefore, to deliver any spiritual talk that is niroopona, the primary message “I am” must first be present; then whatever ensues from this primary message will be the spiritual talk. The spiritual message which is delivered gives information about those who listen to the message. For delivering this message, the Absolute “I” assumes the beingness. Now take the case of a Government courier; he merely delivers a Government message, but, he is not the Government. He carries out his duty as a Government servant. But here the “I-am-ness” itself is the Government and the courier. Some prophets say they are messengers of God. But Krishna does not say that. He emphati- cally declares “All this creation is out of Me, but I—the Absolute—am apart from it. And whatever is created out of me, blazes like the fireworks in a festival, and gets extinguished, but I—the Absolute—prevail for ever.” There are different methods of expounding spirituality. I do not learn by rote the spiritual pronouncements of others. The main point to be understood is this. How and why did this sense of my being appear, with the title of birth; and how was I, prior to the sense of being? Only a very rare one understands this.
There have been many incarnations. But only Bhagavan Krishna said, “I am the creator of all the avatars and I am also their knower.”
Both Shankaracharya and Ramana Maharshi have explained this aspect of spirituality, with clarity. How am I the eternal “I”? And how am “I,” the one qualified by the sense of beingness and time? This is to be understood. That is all.
But the great moolamaya deludes you by influencing you to believe that you have taken millions of births. But you, the ignorant one, never ponder on this in a correct manner. Prior to your birth, you had no knowledge that “you were” and that you experienced millions of such births. Can such a story be believed at all? You believe that you are born, and that you have rebirths, don’t you? What are you and how are you? Unless attention is paid to this, and it is understood fully, you will not be released from the domination of such concepts. They are also conveyed by the four Vedas, which have made many persons dance to their tune. When I concentrated my attention on the point of waking, the Vedas folded their palms in total surrender and went into silence.
To understand the process, consider first the prakriti and purusha, the two eternal principles. As a result of their interaction, the five great elements and the three gunas have emerged. Space, air, fire, water, together with sattva, rajas and tamas, formed the earth, making it ready for further development. On the earth grew vegetation, and when the juice of the vegetation took body form, the dormant principle of beingness also appeared in it. The five elements have no inkling of their sense of being. The beingness is manifested in body form during the five-elemental process. From then on, rules, regulations, rituals etc. were formulated. Now that eternal principle, which did not know its existence, is manifest through millions of forms.
Before the birth, neither that principle nor the parents knew each other. The principle was planted in fluid form in the womb of the mother. In the course of nine months it developed into the form of an infant, who is the very seed of all future experiences. This seed-beingness is the pure sattva, and the quintessence of the food body, and it is wholly ignorance only. The seed of future experiences determines prarabdha, which is whatever that future child will have to suffer and experience. The unfortunate child, who was not in his “knowingness” before birth, is now presented with a whvie gamut of sufferings at birth. At the moment of a child’s conception, the exact photo of the total situation in the cosmos, including the material out of which he was created (parents), position of planets, stars in the firmament etc. was imprinted on him. What is that principle which takes the photograph? That supreme principle is known by titles such as brabma-sutra, moolamaya, maba-tattva, hiranyagarbha, atma-prem etc. It is called maha-tattva' because it has supreme significance in the world. This maba-tattva is further known by godly names such as Christ, Krishna, Shiva, and Vishnu. It is also called parabdbi—that is, the ocean of life seething with millions of forms. Lord Krishna says that through this yogamaya, the Supreme Principle, I execute all the universal functions in the world, while, I, as Absolute, remain aloof.
The entire manifest universe is linked and charged with this energy through yogamaya, the yogashakti. This beingness was not fully manifest in the womb. Therefore you remember that your “J-am-ness,” your destiny, has appeared sponta- neously and unsolicitedly. This beingness, which is manifest, how long is it going to last? It has brought with it its own expiration date; hence, it is time-bound. In the womb, the beingness does not know itself.
A jnani is called thusly because he understands the roots of beingness, and that it is pure ignorance only. He does not involve himself in the play of this beingness, and hence transcends it. He observes the sprouting, nourishing and disap- pearance of this principle, and knows he is not that principle. He is the witness and knower of that beingness, the prarabdha.
That beingness, which was in the nascent stage in the womb, felt its beingness a little after coming into the world and accepted the identity of its body as itself. Through nourishment, this form began to develop into the image of the parents whose photo was imprinted upon it at the time of conception. This little container of food essence is being sucked by that beingness, “I am,” day and night. The principle that sucks that container is not the body, it is apart from the body. This beingness principle dwells in that food body itself. Just as the child sucks on the mother’s breast, the beingness consumes the body.
You want self-knowledge, don’t you? It is by no means child’s play. If you want to be a jnani, you must understand what you are; that is, what this “I-am-ness” is and how it did appear. What was your true state prior to “J-am-ness”? Only Lord Krishna has expounded this clearly. He says, since “I-am-ness” appears and disappears, I, the Absolute, cannot be that. I forever prevail.
My sat-guru told me: “In spite of your worldly activities, you are unborn, you are apart from all.” So any person can become a jnani provided he clearly understands the following: Beingness appears as a result of the food-essence body, functions by itself, and disappears when the quality of food body fails to sustain it. In the process of this understanding, he realizes that he is not the beingness, and so abides in the jnani state.
There have been so many incarnations who claimed the highest spiritual status, but they got stuck in concepts gathered from outside themselves—either by listening, or by read- ing books. To conduct any worldly or spiritual activities, words are necessary. Since a jnani transcends concepts, he is word-free. In the quietude of the jnani, the words went into silence, because the Vedas, while saying “I am not this, I am not that,”? exhausted totally all their words and became “Vedanta”—that is, the end of Vedas, end of words.
I have told you enough about the prarabdha and its experiences, and how and why they were created. Now in this whole play, where are you? What is your location? What is your identity that you would like to preserve? What identity of yours right from childhood until now has remained faithful to you? Once, you had the identity of a child, followed by that of youth, then of middle age, finally that of an old max. Amongst all these, which is your one true identity? As a mat- ter of fact, there is no evidence at all that you were born.
V: I do not think of any identity as such. In all my experience, at times I feel the sense of “I” much less. It is just attention and object of attention. But when the attention is on “I am,” then “I am” becomes less.
M: When you put your attention on “I am,” do you feel any physical sensation?
V: When my attention is not on “I am,” it is gone. But when my attention is very strong, objects are perceived. M: But is your attention stable, permanently?
V: Yes.
M: If so, describe that. And do you have this experience?
V: Yes.
M: Then, why did you come here?
V: The experience is not continuous.
M: If it is firmly stabilized, then it must be continuous and forever.
V: It is stable for a moment.
M: Who witnesses the two states of pure and impure attention?
V: Maybe the knower, the attention. Perhaps someone remarks on attention, but I do not speak.
M: Who is paying attention to all this, you or somebody else?
V: The truth knows.
M: You study it properly. Do meditation as often as possible. Go into samadhi for hours at a time.
V: My mind is still, but it is attentive. I look at this “I am.”
M: You have come up to the stage of knowingness, but you still have to reach your destination. This is possible only when attention merges into attention. If it had expended itself, you would not have come here.
V: Oh, I see I should have chewed up my attention.
M: Yes. Currently, you are stagnating at the stage of attention. It should be fully consumed. You are now talking from that stage of knowledge, “I am,” which is time-bound and temporary.
SECOND VisITorR: Objectless attention, could it be that?
M: Can that attention be, without any object? If attention is there, the object is also there.
V: When attention and its object fade out, then can one attain samadhi?
M: Who is the knower of it?
V: You are laying a bait for me?
M: Talk for yourself.
SECOND Visitor: My mind is very still, and it is not moving towards any object; it seems to be a stillness of mind, a quietude. This is the result of my experiences here.
M: What did he say?
V: When something comes to feel that attention, my stillness is broken and the sense of “I am” comes into being. At that moment, my mind looks out towards the object, so that the object and the sense “I am” arise at the same time.
M: You appear to be talking from the body-mind state. I am talking from the no-mind state. The mind persists so long as the body-identity is there. When this is gone, where is the mind? The waking state, deep sleep and beingness are titled by the term “birth,” and it is a temporary phase.
V: But don’t I have to investigate the body-mind from that state in order to know it?
M: Am I a kindergarten teacher, that I should start from A, B, C—that is, the body-mind state? My talk begins from prarabdha and the root of beingness. I don’t deal with body-mind.
January 31st 1980