
March 2, 1981
Questioner: Maharaj has said that he used to think of himself as an individual, but now he does not, for that would be identification with the body. The fact that the body continues even afterward-I mean - the body is so strong that it can continue for a certain period even after one realizes that he is not. Maharaj has said that when this sickness started, the last traces of individuality disappeared.
Maharaj: What is your question?
Q: Is the identification with the body so strong - I mean - is it such a habit that one identifies with the body even after one knows what lies beyond?
M: It is not identification as a person, as you think. The body is an aid for the manifestation of consciousness, for experiencing. So long as this consciousness exists, it needs an instrument; without the body, consciousness cannot exist in that form. What is lost is the feeling of being a separate entity.
A jnani is like an unborn child, the consciousness is the child when it is born, and the child is sick. This material, objective body is sick. The jnani cannot be sick. This body [referring to himself]instrument is disturbed and there is an imbalance; therefore, I am not able to talk properly, nor walk properly.
Only so long as you have a body do you know that you are. This applies to all other creatures also. When the body is, the knowledge "I Am" is also there.
Q: As the Ultimate, am I not aware of my being?
M: To the Absolute, the witnessing of this "I Amness" happens.
March 4, 1981
Maharaj: How did you get this "I Amness"? Did it come spontaneously, or did you try for it? As the Absolute, you were free from all concepts, including the primary concept "I Am"; suddenly you were caught up in this "I Amness". Who did it? Has it not happened spontaneously?
Questioner: Yes, that is true.
M: You did not have this concept "I Am" in the course of the nine months in the womb. Understand this state of affairs; the concept "I Am" comes spontaneously and goes spontaneously. Amazingly, when it appears, it is accepted as real. All subsequent misconceptions arise from that feeling of reality in the "I Amness." Try to stabilize in that primary concept "I Am", in order to lose that and with it all other concepts. Why am I totally free? Because I have understood the unreality of that "I Am".
I offer my salutations to all the prophets, creeds, religions, etc. I know they are not real, they are only the play of this consciousness. The Truth, the Eternal, cannot be witnessed. It ever prevails.
In your true state there are no words, but you think yourself important and you embrace many words. Poor human beings are caught between worldly life and spiritual life. One in a million understands all this play of consciousness, transcends it.
Q: What is death?
M: Death is also a hearsay. Have you experienced death? Having followed the course of spirituality, you have come to the end of personality and there is no more human being. There is only impersonal consciousness. In this realm of consciousness all that is going on is dynamic playfulness, a process of functioning. There is no differentiation in this process as to a person, an entity, a community, a creed, a religion.
In the flash of your consciousness, all this play is going on. The play will come to an end.
March 7, 1981
Questioner: In pursuing what Maharaj says, the result may be a type of behavior which will be considered peculiar in the world.
Maharaj: Whose behavior? And considered peculiar by whom? All that IS is the essence of the five elements. By this aperception, the nature of the five elements is not going to change. The essence of the five elements is this momentary sense of presence, as compared to eternity.
You come here with a sense of love and regard for me, and you will benefit to the extent of how you perceive me. If you continue to see me as an individual, that will be the extent of your benefits; if you see me as I see myself, and as I see you, that will be the further measure of your benefits. The real state is that state which was prior to the arrival of consciousness. Very few will have reached that state. Most of you will not want to go beyond identification with an entity or a body.
This identification, which has been changing from infancy to your present state, and which will continue to change in the course of time, is purely seasonal.
You identify with the body on the strength of hearsay. Your parents told you that you were born on a certain date, and that this body is what you are. So, based on hearsay, you formed your identity with a certain image. You may think that now you have become jnanis and that you know your identity very well, but most often this is a case of sensory deception. Whatever your image of yourself, it is nothing but a concept.
Just understand what you are, and carry on your daily life to the best of your ability.
Q: Is daily puja (worship) being observed here?
M: Yes. Here the worshipper is the consciousness, and the object of worship is also the consciousness.
March 12, 1981
Questioner: What arose first, "I Amness" or desire?
Maharaj: If the "I Amness" is not there, what else can there be? This consciousness is in a state of flux, not stationary. If the power to manifest itself and that knowingness ("I Amness") have not appeared, no identification can take place. When that "I Amness" appears, and is accepted as real, it is conditioned, or confined to a certain identity.
Q: I have dropped my identity.
M: Who has dropped it?
Q: No one has dropped it. It dropped by itself. It was possible to observe the capacity of the brain not to register anything.
M: If the non-reaction state was possible, consciousness would not arise.
Q: If consciousness is only the content of consciousness, then that knowledge is dropped.
M: What is the necessity of its getting dropped? What was not, will not be. That knowledge was not there earlier and is going to disappear.
There have been so many teachings by the various saints who have appeared and disappeared.
In these talks here, where are the references to Christ, Rama, Krishna, or others? Do we refer to them in our dialogue?
There have been so many saints, sages, and jnanis, and each one has been enamored of a particular concept that he wanted the world to know about. Ultimately, the different religions were only individual concepts which appealed to the consciousness in a particular individual at a particular time.
Q: That is why we are here.
M: When you came, was it not on account of your body-mind? Not only is the body-mind unreal, but this manifest consciousness, this universe, is also unreal. The "I Amness" is dream-like, ephemeral.
Even the feeling of having understood is likely to lead one into a sense of illusion, because the individual thinks he has found something to impart to others, but there is no individual.
It is so easy to get totally lost when juggling words, by attaching too much importance to them.
Just remember that the total functioning of the manifest happens through the friction of the five elements and the talking which takes place is a part of the total functioning. There is no question of anyone seeking a particular benefit for himself as an individual teacher.
Man identifies with the gross form, he neither recognizes nor identifies with the manifest consciousness. All the activities go on because of the consciousness, but no one really understands it.
When people come here they have many questions and they think, after a while, they know something, but when they finally know there will be no questions to ask.
March 13, 1981
Maharaj: Everything happens out of our own Self. This consciousness is spontaneously felt in the Self only. This "I" is not an individual. What is, is the Absolute unmanifested. What appears, as if in a dream, is the manifested, relative world, and this experience of the dreamlike state is the same, an identical state, for everyone.
In this process of functioning that becomes manifest, if you accept something as an individual event then it affects you as an individual. If you do not take delivery as an individual but as total functioning, then you are free of whatever is happening. The knowledge of the Self is this dream like feeling of "I Amness". By assuming a separate identity one taints that which is taintless; that is the original sin.
Go to the very root: who are you, what are you? You are the product of the five elements, you have taken the support of the five elements. Your feeling of "I Amness" emanates from the five elements. Focus your attention at that point. What change should occur in you so that you realize your Self? What change could happen to you? When you come here, you must be expecting something to happen. What change do you expect in yourself so that you may say, "I have now attained what I sought. I need not go to Maharaj any more." With reference to what state are you speaking? What is that state? In that dream-like state, I am not keeping a record of anyone coming here, nor of any conversations among us.
March 21, 1981
Questioner: If someone understands the truth, does this have any effect on the world at large?
Maharaj: The first thing that happens is that the individuality is lost, and whatever happens then is seen as total functioning; the understanding of the total functioning cannot be divided. There is no question of "I" or "you" understanding something. It IS understanding.
This knowledge is not found in books. It is not intellectual knowledge. Although this consciousness functions through millions of forms, it is one and the same consciousness.
We have this conviction that I am, I exist, I'm alive. That conviction is because of the consciousness, and consciousness is not aware of itself unless the body is there, so what is the relationship? Consciousness is the taste of this physical form. If the form is not there, the taste is not there. The body is the essence of food and the consciousness is the essence of the physical form. If this is properly understood, is there any individuality? This individuality is a process of manifestation.
Q: Why does the consciousness want to preserve itself in a particular form ?
M: When the consciousness identifies itself with a form, it is the nature of this identity to want to continue as long as possible. Consciousness loves that identification so much that it wants to continue.
Q: If this individuality is lost, will consciousness still want to continue?
M: Once consciousness has lost its individuality and has become one with the universe, it will have no need to continue?
March 24, 1981
Maharaj: If you sit here quietly, being one with the knowledge "I Am", then you are not concerned with the world or what goes on in the world. It is only when the consciousness starts operating and there are various movements in the consciousness that the behavior in the world takes place. When I am not conscious of the existence of the body, experiences are not registered.
Just as the universe is contained in consciousness, so too this physical body is merely an appearance in consciousness, perceived and cognized by consciousness. No amount of effort can make you understand this; only the deepest apperception of this in consciousness will make that experience happen by itself.
Anyone in that condition, where the consciousness is present but the registration of the existence of the body is not, even in that state the conditions in the body change constantly. All of this is an appearance in consciousness; therefore, consciousness has to suffer all of the changing conditions.
In that state any number of events happen, but all that is really happening is a total functioning against the background of this void which, in reality, is really consciousness. There is no separate identity; what IS is this consciousness, apart from that no one can exist.
When you are very quiet, you have arrived at the basis of everything. That is the deep, dark blue state in which there are millions of stars and planets. When you are in that state, you have no awareness of your existence.
March 29, 1981
Questioner: If the consciousness in all the different forms is identical, then why do thoughts and actions differ from one human being to another?
Maharaj: The thoughts and actions belong to the body-mind and the body-mind is the essence of the five elements. The nature of the form depends on the various degrees of the five elements and the three gunas. The thoughts and deeds depend on the conditioning received right from the time the consciousness is there. Without the consciousness, there would be only dead forms.
Consciousness and the body are kept in working condition by the food and medicine that we imbibe. In each form the thoughts, words, and deeds depend not only on the conditioning the form has received after it has been created; but they depend on even earlier conditioning at the time of conception. The consciousness was latent in that birth chemical.
How amusing it is that one identifies with the body. How long have you been following spirituality?
Q: For forty years. I was following the "Who am I" of Ramana Maharshi, and 1 have read the book of Maharaj's teachings.
M: So far, so good. What do you understand about your own Self? What are you?
Q: Consciousness.
M: The Ultimate is prior to any experience. "I Amness" is the beginning of experience. On the Ultimate there appeared this knowingness, and the question arose, "Who or what am I?" That feeling of being is not colored by form. It is just a feeling of being, of "I Amness". That was the first experience.
Q: This is Maya.
M: Because you don't get the answer to "Who am I," you give the reply that this is Maya. You cannot catch it by a reply. With what do you identify?
Q: I am the Brahman.
M: This is not your direct experience. You are just repeating what you have read or heard. What do you think you are?
Q: I have experienced....
M: The experience can be there when the "I Amness" is there, but prior to this experience "I Am", what was the state?
Q: I do not know.
M: I am talking to you because you have the wisdom to understand.
Q: Can I stop this "I Amness" and be before the "I Amness"?
M: What natural processes can you stop? Everything is spontaneous. Presently you are in the consciousness, which is stirring, vibrant. Don't think you are something separate from this stirring, vibrant consciousness. You are part of the play of this consciousness. You, the consciousness, are the product of the food consumed.
At the level of active consciousness, which is Self, and which is in activity, there cannot be identity of a body
Q: How can I be convinced of this?
M: When you remain still in your Self, then you receive the conviction. You stay in quietude.