tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58753440404254944262024-02-08T11:36:26.370-08:00Nisargadatta Maharaj and vipassanaTo be is to suffer. The narrower the circle of my self-identification, the more acute the suffering caused by desire and fear. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-37918659154262827082013-10-02T02:53:00.000-07:002013-10-02T02:55:21.361-07:00Arahat<style type="text/css">
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M: The common things of life: I
experience them just as you do. The difference lies in what I do not experience. I do not experience fear or
greed, hate or anger. I ask nothing, refuse nothing, keep nothing.
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Questioner: I see you sitting in your
son's house waiting for lunch to be served. And I wonder whether the
content of your consciousness is similar to mine, or partly
different, or totally different. Are you hungry and thirsty as I am,
waiting rather impatiently for the meals to be served, or are you in
an altogether different state of mind?
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Maharaj: There is not much difference
on the surface, but very much of it in depth. You know yourself only
through the senses and the mind. You take yourself to be what they
suggest; having no direct knowledge of yourself, you have mere ideas;
all mediocre, second-hand, by hearsay. Whatever you think you are you
take it to be true; the habit of imagining yourself perceivable and
describable is very strong with you. I see as you see, hear as you
hear, taste as you taste, eat as you eat. I also feel thirst and
hunger and expect my food to be served on time. When starved or sick,
my body and mind go weak. All this I perceive quite clearly, but
somehow I am not in it, I feel myself as if floating over it, aloof
and detached. Even not aloof and detached. There is aloofness and
detachment as there is thirst and hunger; there is also the awareness
of it all and a sense of immense distance, as if the body and the
mind and all that happens to them were somewhere far out on the
horizon. I am like a cinema screen -- clear and empty -- the pictures
pass over it and disappear, leaving it as clear and empty as before.
In no way is the screen affected by the pictures, nor are the
pictures affected by the screen. The screen intercepts and reflects
the pictures, it does not shape them. It has nothing to do with the
rolls of films. These are as they are, lumps of destiny (prarabdha),
but not my destiny; the destinies of the people on the screen.
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Q: When I ask a question and you
answer, what exactly happens?
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M: The question and the answer -- both
appear on the screen. The lips move, the body speaks -- and again the
screen is clear and empty.
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Q: When you say: clear and empty, what
do you mean?
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M: I mean free of all contents. To
myself I am neither perceivable nor conceivable; there is nothing I
can point out and say: 'this I am'. You identify yourself with
everything so easily, I find it impossible. The feeling: 'I am not
this or that, nor is anything mine' is so strong in me that as soon
as a thing or a thought appears, there comes at once the sense 'this
I am not'.
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Q: Do you mean to say that you spend
your time repeating 'this I am not, that I am not'?
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M: Of course not. I am merely
verbalizing for your sake.
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Q: You make all these extraordinary
statements about yourself. What makes you say those things? What do
you mean by saying that you are beyond space and time?
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M: You ask and the answer comes. I
watch myself -- I watch the answer and see no contradiction. It is
clear to me that I am telling you the truth. It is all very simple.
Only you must trust me that I mean what I say, that I am quite
serious. As I told you already, my Guru showed me my true nature --
and the true nature of the world. Having realised that I am one with,
and yet beyond the world, I became free from all desire and fear. I
did not reason out that I should be free -- I found myself free --
unexpectedly, without the least effort. This freedom from desire and
fear remained with me since then.
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Q: Is there no such thing as permanent
perfection?
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M: Yes, there is, but it includes all
imperfection. It is the perfection of our self-nature which makes
everything possible, perceivable, interesting. It knows no suffering,
for it neither likes nor dislikes; neither accepts nor rejects.
Creation and destruction are the two poles between which it weaves
its ever-changing pattern. Be free from predilections and preferences
and the mind with its burden of sorrow will be no more.
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Q: Can one believe himself to be
realised and be mistaken?
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M: Of course. The very idea 'I am
self-realised' is a mistake. There is no 'I am this'. 'I am that' in
the Natural State.
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M: I am nowhere to be found! I am not a
thing to be given a place among other things. All things are in me,
but I am not among things. You are telling me about the
superstructure while I am concerned with the foundations. The
superstructures rise and fall, but the foundations last. I am not
interested in the transient, while you talk of nothing else.
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Q: The person goes and only the witness
remains.
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M: Who remains to say: 'I am the
witness'. When there is no 'I am', where is the witness? In the
timeless state there is no self to take refuge in.
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The man who carries a parcel is anxious
not to lose it -- he is parcel-conscious. The man who cherishes the
feeling 'I am' is self-conscious. The jnani holds on to nothing and
cannot be said to be conscious. And yet he is not unconscious. He is
the very heart of awareness. We call him digambara clothed in space,
the Naked One, beyond all appearance. There is no name and shape
under which he may be said to exist, yet he is the only one that
truly is.
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Q: I cannot grasp it.
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M: Who can? The mind has its limits. It
is enough to bring you to the very frontiers of knowledge and make
you face the immensity of the unknown. To dive in it is up to you.
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Q: What about the witness? Is it real
or unreal?
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M: It is both. The last remnant of
illusion, the first touch of the real. To say: I am only the witness
is both false and true: false because of
the 'I am', true because of the witness. It is better to say: 'there
is witnessing'. The moment you say: 'I am', the entire universe comes
into being along with its creator.
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Q: You are giving a certain date to
your realisation. It means something did happen to you at that date.
What happened?
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M: The mind ceased producing events.
The ancient and ceaseless search stopped -- l wanted nothing,
expected nothing -- accepted nothing as my own. There was no 'me'
left to strive for. Even the bare 'I am' faded away.
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Q: Which experience?
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M: The experience of being empty,
uncluttered by memories and expectations; it is like the happiness of
open spaces, of being young, of having all the time and energy for
doing things, for discovery, for adventure.
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M: Be nothing, know nothing, have
nothing. This is the only life worth living, the only happiness worth
having.
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M: My home is in the unchangeable,
which appears to be a state of constant reconciliation and
integration of opposites.
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People come here to learn about the
actual existence of such a state, the obstacles to its emergence, and, once perceived, the art
of stabilising it in consciousness, so that there is no clash between understanding and living. The
state itself is beyond the mind and need not be learnt. The mind can only focus the obstacles;
seeing an obstacle as an obstacle is effective, because it is the
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mind acting on the mind. Begin from the
beginning: give attention to the fact that you are. At no time can you say 'I was not' all you can
say: 'I do not remember'. You know how unreliable is memory. Accept that, engrossed in petty
personal affairs you have forgotten what you are; try to bring back the lost memory through the elimination
of the known. You cannot be told what will happen, nor is it desirable; anticipation will create
illusions.
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M: The ordinary man is personally
concerned, he counts his risks and chances, while the jnani remains
aloof, sure that all will happen as it must; and it does not matter
much what happens, for ultimately the return to balance and harmony
is inevitable. The heart of things is at peace.
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Q: I do not understand you.
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M: The mind cannot understand, for the
mind is trained for grasping and holding while the jnani is
not-grasping and not holding.
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Q: What am I holding on to, which you
do not?
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M: You are a creature of memories; at
least you imagine yourself to be so. I am entirely unimagined. I am
what I am, not identifiable with any physical or mental state.
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Q: An accident would destroy your
equanimity.
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M: The strange fact is that it does
not. To my own surprise, I remain as I am -- pure awareness, alert to
all that happens.
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-9113018803035552002013-10-02T02:52:00.001-07:002013-10-02T02:52:30.011-07:00Asankhata dhatu<style type="text/css">
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Q: When you say, I am in the state
beyond the witness, what is the experience that makes you say so? In
what way does it differ from the stage of being a witness only?
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M: It is like washing printed cloth.
First the design fades, then the background and in the end the cloth
is plain white. The personality gives place to the witness, then the
witness goes and pure awareness remains. The cloth was white in the
beginning and is white in the end; the patterns and colours just
happened -- for a time.
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Q: Can there be awareness without an
object of awareness?
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M: Awareness with an object we called
witnessing. When there is also self-identification with the object,
caused by desire or fear, such a state is called a person. In reality
there is only one state; when distorted by self-identification it is
called a person, when coloured with the sense of being, it is the
witness; when colourless and limitless, it is called the Supreme.
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Q: Then what is eternal?
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M: That which does not change with
time. You cannot eternalise a transient thing -- only the changeless
is eternal.
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Q: What does it mean to know myself? By
knowing myself what exactly do I come to know?
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M: All that you are not.
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Q: And not what I am?
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M: What you are, you already are. By
knowing what you are not, you are free of it and remain in your own
natural state. It all happens quite spontaneously and effortlessly.
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Q: And what do I discover?
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M: You discover that there is nothing
to discover. You are what you are and that is all.
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Q: I do not understand!
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M: It is your fixed idea that you must
be something or other, that blinds you.
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Q: How can I get rid of this idea?
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M: If you trust me, believe when I tell
you that you are the pure awareness that illuminates consciousness
and its infinite content. Realise this and live accordingly. If you
do not believe me, then go within, enquiring ‘What am I’? or,
focus your mind on ‘I am’, which is pure and simple being.
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M: Take an example. A venerable Yogi, a
master in the art of longevity, himself over 1000 years old, comes to
teach me his art. I fully respect and sincerely admire his
achievements, yet all I can tell him is: of what use is longevity to
me? I am beyond time. However long a life may be, it is but a moment
and a dream. In the same way I am beyond all attributes. They appear
and disappear in my light, but cannot describe me. The universe is
all names and forms, based on qualities and their differences, while
I am beyond. The world is there because I am, but I am not the world.
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Q: But you are living in the world!
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M: That's what you say! I know there is
a world, which includes this body and this mind, but I do not
consider them to be more “mine” than other minds and bodies. They
are there, in time and space, but I am timeless and spaceless.
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All the objects of consciousness form
the universe. What is beyond both, supporting both, is the supreme
state, a state of utter stillness and silence. Whoever goes there,
disappears. It is unreachable by words, or mind. You may call it God,
or Parabrahman, or Supreme Reality, but these are names given by the
mind. It is the nameless, contentless, effortless and spontaneous
state, beyond being and not being.
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This state is entirely one and
indivisible, a single solid block of reality. The only way of knowing
it is to be it. The mind cannot reach it. To perceive it does not
need the senses; to know it, does not need the mind.
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It is not perceivable, because it is
what makes perception possible. It is beyond being and not being. It
is neither the mirror nor the image in the mirror. It is what is --
the timeless reality, unbelievably hard and solid.
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NM: And as long as you cling to the
idea that only what has name and shape exists, the Supreme will
appear to you non-existing. When you understand that names and shapes
are hollow shells without any content whatsoever, and what is real is
nameless and formless, pure energy of life and light of
consciousness, you will be at peace -- immersed in the deep silence
of reality.
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Q: If time and space are mere illusions
and you are beyond, please tell me what is the weather in New York.
Is it hot or raining there?
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M: How can I tell you? Such things need
special training. Or, just travelling to New York. I may be quite
certain that I am beyond time and space, and yet unable to locate
myself at will at some point of time and space. I am not interested
enough; I see no purpose in undergoing a special Yogic training. I
have just heard of New York. To me it is a word. Why should I know
more than the word conveys? Every atom may be a universe, as complex
as ours. Must I know them all? I can -- if I train.
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Q: In putting the question about the
weather in New York, where did I make the mistake?
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M: The world and the mind are states of
being. The supreme is not a state. It pervades, all states, but it is
not a state of something else. It is entirely uncaused, independent,
complete in itself, beyond time and space, mind and matter.
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Q: By what sign do you recognise it?
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M: That's the point that it leaves no
traces. There is nothing to recognise it by. It must be seen
directly, by giving up all search for signs and approaches. When all
names and forms have been given up, the real is with you. You need
not seek it. Plurality and diversity are the play of the mind only.
Reality is one.
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M: To take appearance for reality is a
grievous sin and the cause of all calamities. You are the all-
pervading, eternal and infinitely creative awareness --
consciousness. All else is local and temporary.
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Nothing of value can happen to a mind
which knows exactly what it wants. For nothing the mind can visualise
and want is of much value.
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Q: Then what is worth wanting?
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M: Want the best. The highest
happiness, the greatest freedom. Desirelessness is the highest bliss.
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M: It does not depend on memories and
expectations, desires and fears, likes and dislikes. All is seen as
it is.<br />
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Q: Is it what you call the fourth state
(turiya)?
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M: Call it as you like. It is solid,
steady, changeless, beginningless and endless, ever new, ever fresh.
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Q: How is it reached?
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M: Desirelessness and fearlessness will
take you there.
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Q: How is the Supreme affected?
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M: What can affect it and how? The
source is not affected by the vagaries of the river nor is the metal
-- by the shape of the jewellery. Is the light affected by the
picture on the screen? The Supreme makes everything possible, that is
all.
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Q: What is the link between the Self
(Vyakta) and the Supreme (Avyakta)?
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M: From the self's point of view the
world is the known, the Supreme -- the Unknown. The Unknown gives
birth to the known, yet remains Unknown. The known is infinite, but
the Unknown is an infinitude of infinities. Just like a ray of light
is never seen unless intercepted by the specs of dust, so does the
Supreme make everything known, itself remaining unknown.
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Q: Does it mean that the Unknown is
inaccessible?
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M: Oh, no. The Supreme is the easiest
to reach for it is your very being. It is enough to stop thinking and
desiring anything, but the Supreme.
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Q: And if I desire nothing, not even
the Supreme?
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M: Then you are as good as dead, or you
are the Supreme.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The mistake of students consists in
their imagining the inner to be something to get hold of, and
forgetting that all perceivables are transient and, therefore,
unreal. Only that which makes perception possible, call it Life or
Brahman, or what you like, is real.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The difficulty comes with the word
'state'. The Real is not a state of something else -- it is not a
state of mind or consciousness or psyche -- nor is it something that
has a beginning and an end, being and not being. All opposites are
contained in it -- but it is not in the play of opposites. You must
not take it to be the end of a transition. It is itself, after the
consciousness as such is no more. Then words 'I am man', or 'I am
God' have no meaning. Only in silence and in darkness can it be heard
and seen.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: At the root of all creation lies
desire. Desire and imagination foster and reinforce each other. The
fourth state (turiya) is a state of pure witnessing, detached
awareness, passionless and wordless. It is like space, unaffected by
whatever it contains. Bodily and mental troubles do not reach it --
they are outside, 'there', while the witness is always 'here'.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: What has been attained may be lost
again. Only when you realise the true peace, the peace you have never
lost, that peace will remain with you, for it was never away. Instead
of searching for what you do not have, find out what is it that you
have never lost? That which is there before the beginning and after
the ending of everything; that to which there is no birth, nor death.
That immovable state, which is not affected by the birth and death of
a body or a mind, that state you must perceive.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What are the means to such
perception?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: In life nothing can be had without
overcoming obstacles. The obstacles to the clear perception of one's
true being are desire for pleasure and fear of pain. It is the
pleasure-pain motivation that stands in the way. The very freedom
from all motivation, the state in which no desire arises is the
natural state.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Anything that implies a continuity, a
sequence, a passing from stage to stage cannot be the real. There is
no progress in reality, it is final, perfect, unrelated.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: How can I bring it about?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You can do nothing to bring it
about, but you can avoid creating obstacles. Watch your mind, how it
comes into being, how it operates.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Why then live at all? Why all this
unnecessary coming and going, waking and sleeping, eating and
digesting?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Nothing is done by me, everything
just happens I do not expect, I do not plan, I just watch events
happening, knowing them to be unreal.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Were you always like this from the
first moment of enlightenment?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The three states rotate as usual --
there is waking and sleeping and waking again, but they do not happen
to me. They just happen. To me nothing ever happens. There is
something changeless, motionless, immovable, rocklike, unassailable;
a solid mass of pure being-consciousness-bliss. I am
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
never out of it. Nothing can take me
out of it, no torture, no calamity.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Yet, you are conscious!
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Yes and no. There is peace -- deep,
immense, unshakeable. Events are registered in memory, but are of no
importance. I am hardly aware of them.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: If I understand you rightly, this
state did not come by cultivation.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: There was no coming. It was so --
always. There was discovery and it was sudden. Just as at birth you
discover the world suddenly, as suddenly I discovered my real being.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Was it clouded over and your sadhana
dissolved the mist? When your true state became clear to you, did it
remain clear, or did it get obscured again? Is your condition
permanent or intermittent?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Absolutely steady. Whatever I may
do, it stays like a rock -- motionless. Once you have awakened into
reality, you stay in it. A child does not return to the womb! It is a
simple state, smaller than the smallest, bigger than the biggest. It
is self-evident and yet beyond description.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Is there a way to it?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Everything can become a way,
provided you are interested. Just puzzling over my words and trying
to grasp their full meaning is a sadhana quite sufficient for
breaking down the wall. Nothing troubles me. I offer no resistance to
trouble -- therefore it does not stay with me. On your side there is
so much trouble. On mine there is no trouble at all. Come to my side.
You are trouble-prone. I am immune. Anything may happen -- what is
needed is sincere interest. Earnestness does it.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Can I do it?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Of course. You are quite capable of
crossing over. Only be sincere.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Just as a cloud obscures the sun
without in any way affecting it, so does assumption obscure reality
without destroying it. The very idea of destruction of reality is
ridiculous; the destroyer is always more real than the destroyed.
Reality is the ultimate destroyer. All separation, every kind of
estrangement and alienation is false.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Truth is permanent. The real is
changeless. What changes is not real, what is real does not change.
Now, what is it in you that does not change? As long as there is
food, there is body and mind. When the food is stopped, the body dies
and the mind dissolves. But does the observer perish?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Maharaj: Mahadakash is nature, the
ocean of existences, the physical space with all that can be
contacted through the senses. Chidakash is the expanse of awareness,
the mental space of time, perception and cognition. Paramakash is the
timeless and spaceless reality, mindless, undifferentiated, the
infinite potentiality, the source and origin, the substance and the
essence, both matter and consciousness -- yet beyond both. It cannot
be perceived, but can be experienced as ever witnessing the witness,
perceiving the perceiver, the origin and the end of all
manifestation, the root of time and space, the prime cause in every
chain of causation.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: How shall I recognise this state
when I reach it?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: There will be no fear.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Surrounded by a world full of
mysteries and dangers, how can I remain unafraid?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Your own little body too is full of
mysteries and dangers, yet you are not afraid of it, for you take it
as your own. What you do not know is that the entire universe is your
body and you need not be afraid of it. You may say you have two
bodies; the personal and the universal. The personal comes and goes,
the universal is always with you. The entire creation is your
universal body. You are so blinded by what is personal, that you do
not see the universal. This blindness will not end by itself -- it
must be undone skilfully and deliberately. When all illusions are
understood and abandoned, you reach the error-free and perfect state
in which all distinctions between the personal and the universal are
no more.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Truth gives no advantage. It gives you
no higher status, no power over others; all you get is truth and the
freedom from the false.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: How can I want the inconceivable?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: What else is there worth wanting?
Granted, the real cannot be wanted, as a thing is wanted. But you can see the unreal as unreal and
discard it. It is the discarding the false that opens the way to the
true.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
What comes must go. The permanent is
beyond all comings and goings. Go to the root of all experience, to
the sense of being. Beyond being and not-being lies the immensity of
the real.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: This is thinking in terms of
duality.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: All thinking is in duality. In
identity no thought survives.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Does the inner Guru also teach?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: He grants the conviction that you
are the eternal, changeless, reality-consciousness-love, within and
beyond all appearances.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: A conviction is not enough. There
must be certainty.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Quite right. But in this case
certainty takes the shape of courage. Fear ceases absolutely. This
state of fearlessness is so unmistakably new, yet felt deeply as
one's own, that it cannot be denied. It is like loving one's own child. Who
can doubt it?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: That which cannot change, remains.
The great peace, the deep silence, the hidden beauty of reality
remain. While it can not be conveyed through words, it is waiting for
you to experience for yourself.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
True happiness is uncaused and this
cannot disappear for lack of stimulation.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Consciousness being a product of
conditions and circumstances, depends on them and changes along with
them. What is independent, uncreated, timeless and changeless, and
yet ever new and fresh, is beyond the mind. When the mind thinks of
it, the mind dissolves and only happiness remains.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Before the mind -- I am. 'I am' is
not a thought in the mind; the mind happens to me, I do not happen to
the mind. And since time and space are in the mind, I am beyond time
and space, eternal and omnipresent.
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-63456949520238442472013-10-02T02:46:00.004-07:002013-10-02T02:48:37.807-07:00Awareness<style type="text/css">
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There is no 'I am' in awareness.
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<br /></div>
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*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Awareness is primordial; it is the
original state, beginningless, endless, uncaused, unsupported, without parts, without change.
Consciousness is on contact, a reflection against a surface, a state
of duality. There can be no consciousness
without awareness, but there can be awareness without
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
consciousness, as in deep sleep.
Awareness is absolute, consciousness is relative to its content; consciousness is always of something.
Consciousness is partial and changeful, awareness is total, changeless, calm and silent. And it is
the common matrix of every experience.
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Awareness is not of time. Time
exists in consciousness only. Beyond consciousness where are time and space?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
For him the right procedure is to
adhere to the thought that he is the ground of all knowledge, the
immutable and perennial awareness of all that happens to the senses
and the mind. If he keeps it in mind all the time, aware and alert,
he is bound to break the bounds of non-awareness and emerge into pure
life, light and love. The idea -- 'I am the witness only' will purify
the body and the mind and open the eye of wisdom. Then man goes
beyond illusion and his heart is free of all desires. Just like ice
turns to water and water to vapour, and vapour dissolves in air and
disappears in space, so does the body dissolve into pure awareness
(chidakash), then into pure being (paramakash), which is beyond all
existence and non-existence.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What is the purpose in reminding
oneself all the time that one is the watcher?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The mind must learn that beyond the
moving mind there is the background of awareness, which does not
change. The mind must come to know the true self and respect it and
cease covering it up, like the moon which obscures the sun
during solar eclipse. Just realise that nothing observable, or
experienceable is you, or binds you. Take no notice of what is not
yourself.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: To do what you tell me I must be
ceaselessly aware.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: To be aware is to be awake. Unaware
means asleep. You are aware anyhow, you need not try to be. What you
need is to be aware of being aware. Be aware deliberately and
consciously, broaden and deepen the field of awareness. You are
always conscious of the mind, but you are not aware of yourself as
being conscious.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Everybody is conscious, but not
everybody is aware.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Don't say: 'everybody is conscious'.
Say: 'there is consciousness', in which everything appears and
disappears. Our minds are just waves on the ocean of consciousness.
As waves they come and go. As ocean they are infinite and eternal.
Know yourself as the ocean of being, the womb of all existence. These
are all metaphors of course; the reality is beyond description. You
can know it only by being it.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Is the search for it worth the
trouble?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Without it all is trouble. If you
want to live sanely, creatively and happily and have infinite riches to share, search for what you are.
While the mind is centred in the body and consciousness is centred in
the mind, awareness is free. The body has its urges and mind its
pains and pleasures. Awareness is unattached and unshaken. It is
lucid, silent, peaceful, alert and unafraid, without desire and fear.
Meditate on it as your true being and try to be it in your daily
life, and you shall realise it in its fullness. Mind is interested in what happens,
while awareness is interested in the mind itself. The child is after
the toy, but the mother watches the child, not the toy.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Awareness becomes consciousness when
it has an object. The object changes all the time. In consciousness
there is movement; awareness by itself is motionless and timeless,
here and now.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: To be here and now, I need my body
and its senses. To understand, I need a mind.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The body and the mind are only
symptoms of ignorance, of misapprehension. Behave as if you were pure
awareness, bodiless and mindless, spaceless and timeless, beyond
'where' and 'when' and 'how'. Dwell on it, think of it, learn to
accept its reality. Don't oppose it and deny it all the time. Keep an
open mind at least. Yoga is bending the outer to the inner. Make your
mind and body express the real which is all and beyond all. By doing
you succeed, not by arguing.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Hence awareness itself is all
important, not the content of it. Deepen and broaden your awareness
of yourself and all the blessings will flow. You need not seek
anything, all will come to you most naturally and effortlessly. The
five senses and the four functions of the mind -- memory, thought,
understanding and selfhood; the five elements -- earth, water, fire,
air and ether; the two aspects of creation -- matter and spirit, all
are contained in awareness.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Awareness takes the place of
consciousness; in consciousness there is the 'I', who is conscious
while awareness is undivided; awareness is aware of itself. The 'I
am' is a thought, while awareness is not a thought, there is no 'I am
aware' in awareness. Consciousness is an attribute while awareness is
not; one can be aware of being conscious, but not conscious of
awareness. God is the totality of consciousness, but awareness is
beyond all -- being as well as not-being.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As I talk to you, I am in the state of
detached but affectionate awareness (turiya). When this awareness
turns upon itself, you may call it the Supreme State, (turiyatita).
But the fundamental reality is beyond awareness, beyond the three states of
becoming, being and not-being.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: While we are conscious of
appearances, how is it that we are not conscious that these are mere
appearances?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The mind covers up reality, without
knowing it. To know the nature of the mind, you need intelligence,
the capacity to look at the mind in silent and dispassionate
awareness.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What are the fruits of
self-awareness?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You grow more intelligent. In
awareness you learn. In self-awareness you learn about yourself. Of
course, you can only learn what you are not. To know what you are,
you must go beyond the mind.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Is not awareness beyond the mind?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Awareness is the point at which the
mind reaches out beyond itself into reality. In awareness you seek
not what pleases, but what is true.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I find that awareness brings about a
state of inner silence, a state of psychic void.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It is all right as it goes, but it
is not enough. Have you felt the all-embracing emptiness in which the
universe swims like a cloud in the blue sky?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Sir, let me first come to know well
my own inner space.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Destroy the wall that separates, the
'I-am-the-body' idea and the inner and the outer will become one.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Am I to die?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Physical destruction is meaningless.
It is the clinging to sensate life that binds you. If you could
experience the inner void fully, the explosion into the totality
would be near.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: My difficulty is this. As I can see,
every experience is its own reality. It is there – experienced. The
moment I question it and ask to whom it happens, who is the observer
and so on, the experience is over and all I can investigate is only
the memory of it. I just cannot investigate the living moment -- the
now. My awareness is of the past, not of the present. When I am
aware, I do not really live in the now, but only in the past. Can
there really be an awareness of the present?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: What you are describing is not
awareness at all, but only thinking about the experience. True
awareness (samvid) is a state of pure witnessing, without the least
attempt to do anything about the event witnessed. Your thoughts and
feelings, words and actions may also be a part of the event; you
watch all unconcerned in the full light of clarity and understanding.
You understand precisely what is going on, because it does not affect
you. It may seem to be an attitude of cold aloofness, but it is not
really so. Once you are in it, you will find that you love what you
see, whatever may be its nature. This choiceless love is the
touchstone of awareness. If it is not there, you are merely
interested -- for some personal reasons.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
When awareness is turned on itself, the
feeling is of not knowing. When it is turned outward, the knowables
come into being. To say: 'I know myself' is a contradiction in terms
for what is 'known' cannot be 'myself'.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: On what side is the witness? Is it
real or unreal?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Nobody can say: ‘I am the
witness'. The ‘I am' is always witnessed. The state of detached
awareness is the witness-consciousness, the 'mirror-mind'. It rises
and sets with its object and thus it is not quite the real. Whatever
its object, it remains the same, hence it is also real. It partakes
of both the real and the unreal and is therefore a bridge between the
two.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: All experience is illusory, limited
and temporal. Expect nothing from experience. realisation by itself
is not an experience, though it may lead to a new dimension of
experiences. Yet the new experiences, however interesting, are not
more real than the old. Definitely realisation is not a new
experience. It is the discovery of the timeless factor in every
experience. It is awareness, which makes experience possible. Just
like in all the colours light is the colourless factor, so in every
experience awareness is present, yet it is not an experience.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: If awareness is not an experience,
how can it be realised?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Awareness is ever there. It need not
be realised. Open the shutter of the mind, and it will be flooded
with light.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Experience may be faulty and
misleading.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Quite, but not the fact of an
experience. Whatever may be the experience, true or false, the fact
of an experience taking place cannot be denied. It is its own proof.
Watch yourself closely and you will see that whatever be the content
of consciousness, the witnessing of it does not depend on the
content. Awareness is itself and does not change with the event. The
event may be pleasant or unpleasant, minor or important, awareness is
the same. Take note of the peculiar nature of pure awareness, its
natural self-identity, without the least trace of self-consciousness,
and go to the root of it and you will soon realise that awareness is
your true nature and nothing you may be aware of, you can call your
own.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Put your awareness to work, not your
mind. The mind is not the right instrument for this task. The
timeless can be reached only by the timeless. Your body and your mind
are both subject to time; Only awareness is timeless, even in the
now. In awareness you are facing facts and reality is fond of facts.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Will, affection, bliss, striving and
enjoying are so deeply tainted with the personal, that they cannot be
trusted. The clarification and purification needed at the very start
of the journey, only awareness can give. Love and will shall have
their turn, but the ground must be prepared. The sun of awareness
must rise first -- all else will follow.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What is the course of training in
self-awareness?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: There is no need of training.
Awareness is always with you. The same attention that you give to the
outer, you turn to the inner. No new, or special kind of awareness is
needed.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: But at the root of the universe
there is pure awareness, beyond space and time, here and now. Know it
to be your real being and act accordingly.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I find being alive a painful state.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You cannot be alive for you are life
itself. It is the person you imagine yourself to be that suffers, not
you. Dissolve it in awareness. It is merely a bundle of memories and
habits. From the awareness of the unreal to the awareness of your
real nature there is a chasm which you will easily cross, once you
have mastered the art of pure awareness.
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-87478687704452587142013-10-02T02:44:00.001-07:002013-10-02T02:45:51.788-07:00Body - anatta<style type="text/css">
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Obviously, I am not all-pervading
and eternal. I am only here and now.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Good enough. The 'here' is
everywhere and the now -- always. Go beyond the 'I-am-the-body' idea
and you will find that space and time are in you and not you in space
and time. Once you have understood this, the main obstacle to
realisation is removed.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Is it not important to you to know
whether you are a mere body, or something else? Or, maybe nothing at
all? Don’t you see that all your problems are your body’s
problems -- food, clothing, shelter, family, friends, name, fame,
security, survival -- all these lose their meaning the moment you
realise that you may not be a mere body.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Within the field of your
consciousness there is your body also.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Of course. But the idea 'my body',
as different from other bodies, is not there. To me it is 'a body',
not 'my body', 'a mind', not 'my mind'. The mind looks after the body
all right, I need not interfere. What needs be done is being done, in
the normal and natural way.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I am told I was born. I do not
remember. I am told I shall die I do not expect it. You tell me I
have forgotten, or I lack imagination. But I just cannot remember
what never happened, nor expect the patently impossible. Bodies are
born and bodies die, but what is it to me?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: As you are now, the personality is
only an obstacle. Self-identification with the body may be good for
an infant, but true growing up depends on getting the body out of the
way.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: In the same way are not the body and
the dweller in the body one?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Events in time and space -- birth
and death, cause and effect -- these may be taken as one; but the
body and the embodied are not of the same order of reality. The body
exists in time and space, transient and limited, while the dweller is
timeless and spaceless, eternal and all-pervading. To identify the
two is a grievous mistake and the cause of endless suffering.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What I want to say is very simple.
As long as I believe: 'I am the body', I must not say: 'God will look
after my body'. God will not. He will let it starve, sicken and die.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: What else do you expect from a mere
body? Why are you so anxious about it? Because you think you are the
body, you want it indestructible. You can extend its life
considerably by appropriate practices, but for what ultimate good?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: It is better to live long and
healthy. It gives us a chance to avoid the mistakes of childhood and
youth, the frustrations of adulthood, the miseries and imbecility of
old age.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: By all means live long. But you are
not the master. Can you decide the days of your birth and death?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: There can be no evidence of your
state. All I know about it is what you say. All I see is a very
interesting old man.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You are the interesting old man, not
me! I was never born. How can I grow old? What I appear to be to you
exists only in your mind. I am not concerned with it.<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Imagine you are ill -- high fever,
aches, shivers. The doctor tells you the condition is serious, there
are only a few days to live. What would be your first reaction?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: No reaction. As it is natural for
the incense stick to burn out, so it is natural for the body to die.
Really, it is a matter of very little importance. What matters is
that I am neither the body nor the mind.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
By all means let your body and mind
function, but do not let them limit you.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Just stop thinking you are the bodies
and the problems of love and sex will lose their meaning. With all
sense of limitation gone, fear, pain and the search for pleasure --
all cease. Only awareness remains.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: But I was born as a body, in a body
and shall die with the body, as a body.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: This is your misconception. Enquire,
investigate, doubt yourself and others. To find truth, you must not
cling to your convictions; if you are sure of the immediate, you will
never reach the ultimate. Your idea that you were born and that you
will die is absurd: both logic and experience contradict it.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Coming back to the idea of having been
born. You are stuck with what your parents told you: all about
conception, pregnancy and birth, infant, child, youngster, teenager,
and so on. Now, divest yourself of the idea that you are the body
with the help of the contrary idea that you are not the body. It is
also an idea, no doubt; treat it like something to be abandoned when
its work is done.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: My death is nearing.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Your body is short of time, not you.
Time and space are in the mind only. You are not bound. Just
understand yourself -- that itself is eternity.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Those who claim to have selected
their father and mother and decided how they are going to live their
next life may know for themselves. I know for myself. I was never
born.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I see you sitting in front of me and
replying my questions.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You see the body only which, of
course, was born and will die.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: You said the body defines the outer
self. Since you have a body, do you have also an outer self?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: I would, were I attached to the body
and take it to be myself.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: But you are aware of it and attend
to its needs.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The contrary is nearer to truth --
the body knows me and is aware of my needs. But neither is really so.
This body appears in your mind; in my mind nothing is.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Do you mean to say you are quite
unconscious of having a body?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: On the contrary, I am conscious of
not having a body.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I see you smoking!
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Exactly so. You see me smoking. Find
out for yourself how did you come to see me Smoking, and you will
easily realise that it is your 'I-am-the-body' state of mind that is
responsible for this 'I- see-you-smoking' idea.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: There is the body and there is
myself. I know the body. Apart from it, what am l?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: There is no 'I' apart from the body,
nor the world. The three appear and disappear together. At the root is the sense 'I am'. Go beyond
it. The idea: 'I-am-not-the-body' is merely an antidote to the idea 'I-am-the-body' which is false.
What is that 'I am’? Unless you know yourself, what else can you
know?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The way to truth lies through the
destruction of the false. To destroy the false, you must question
your most inveterate beliefs. Of these the idea that you are the body
is the worst. With the body comes the world, with the world -- God,
who is supposed to have created the world and thus it starts --
fears, religions, prayers, sacrifices, all sorts of systems -- all to
protect and support the child-man, frightened out of his wits by
monsters of his own making. realise that what you are cannot be born
nor die and with the fear gone all suffering ends.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It is enough if you do not imagine
yourself to be the body. It is the 'I-am-the-body' idea that is so
calamitous. It blinds you completely to your real nature. Even for a
moment do not think that you are the body. Give yourself no name, no
shape. In the darkness and the silence reality is found.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Must not I think with some
conviction that I am not the body? Where am I to find such
conviction?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Behave as if you were fully
convinced and the confidence will come. What is the use of mere
words? A formula, a mental pattern will not help you. But unselfish
action, free from all concern with the body and its interests will
carry you into the very heart of Reality.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: You may be God himself, but you need
a well-fed body to talk to us.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It is you that need my body to talk
to you. I am not my body, nor do I need it. I am the witness only. I
have no shape of my own. You are so accustomed to think of yourselves
as bodies having consciousness that you just cannot imagine
consciousness as having bodies. Once you realise that bodily
existence is but a state of mind, a movement in consciousness, that
the ocean of consciousness is infinite and eternal, and that, when in
touch with consciousness, you are the witness only, you will be able
to withdraw beyond consciousness altogether.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
When the body is born, all kinds of
things happen to it and you take part in them, because you take
yourself to be the body. You are like the man in the cinema house,
laughing and crying with the picture, though knowing fully well that
he is all the time in his seat and the picture is but the play of
light. It is enough to shift attention from the screen to oneself to
break the spell. When the body dies, the kind of life you live now --
succession of physical and mental events -- comes to an end. It can
end even now -- without waiting for the death of the body -- it is
enough to shift attention to the Self and keep it there. All happens
as if there is a mysterious power that creates and moves everything.
realise that you are not the mover, only the observer, and you will
be at peace.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Is that power separate from me?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Of course not. But you must begin by
being the dispassionate observer. Then only will you realise your
full being as the universal lover and actor. As long as you are
enmeshed in the tribulations of a particular personality, you can see
nothing beyond it. But ultimately you will come to see that you are
neither the particular nor the universal, you are beyond both. As the
tiny point of a pencil can draw innumerable pictures, so does the
dimensionless point of awareness draw the contents of the vast
universe. Find that point and be free.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Take the idea 'I was born'. You may
take it to be true. It is not. You were never born, nor will you ever
die. It is the idea that was born and shall die, not you. By
identifying yourself with it you became mortal. Just like in a cinema
all is light, so does consciousness become the vast world. Look
closely, and you will see that all names and forms are but transitory
waves on the ocean of consciousness, that only consciousness can be
said to be, not its transformations.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I can see that the basic biological
anxiety, the flight instinct, takes many shapes and distorts my
thoughts and feelings. But how did this anxiety come into being?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It is a mental state caused by the
'I-am-the-body' idea. It can be removed by the contrary idea: 'I-
am-not-the-body'. Both the ideas are false, but one removes the
other.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I feel my hold on the body is so
strong that I just cannot give up the idea that I am the body. It will cling to me as long as the body
lasts. There are people who maintain that no realisation is possible
while alive and I feel inclined to agree with them.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Before you agree or disagree, why
not investigate the very idea of a body? Does the mind appear in the
body or the body in the mind? Surely there must be a mind to conceive
the ‘I-am-the- body’ idea. A body without a mind cannot be ‘my
body’. ‘My body’ is invariably absent when the mind is in
abeyance. It is also absent when the mind is deeply engaged in
thoughts and feelings. Once you realise that the body depends on the
mind, and the mind on consciousness, and consciousness on awareness
and not the other way round, your question about waiting for self-
realisation till you die is answered. It is not that you must be free
from ‘I-am-the-body’ idea first, and then realise the self. It is
definitely the other way round -- you cling to the false, because you
do not know the true.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I am afraid of dying, not of death
itself. I imagine the dying process to be painful and ugly.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: How do you know? It need not be so.
It may be beautiful and peaceful. Once you know that death happens to
the body and not to you, you just watch your body falling off like a
discarded garment.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: When you are bound by the illusion:
'I am this body', you are merely a point in space and a moment in
time. When the self-identification with the body is no more, all
space and time are in your mind, which is a mere ripple in
consciousness, which is awareness reflected in nature. Awareness and
matter are the active and the passive aspects of pure being, which is
in both and beyond both. Space and time are the body and the mind of
the universal existence.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Questioner: You keep on saying that I
was never born and will never die. If so, how is it that I see the
world as one which has been born and will surely die?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Maharaj: You believe so because you
have never questioned your belief that you are the body which,
obviously, is born and dies. While alive, it attracts attention and
fascinates so completely that rarely does one perceive one's real
nature. It is like seeing the surface of the ocean and completely
forgetting the immensity beneath. The world is but the surface of the
mind and the mind is infinite. What we call thoughts are just ripples
in the mind. When the mind is quiet it reflects reality. When it is
motionless through and through, it dissolves and only reality
remains. This reality is so concrete, so actual, so much more
tangible than mind and matter, that compared to it even diamond is
soft like butter. This overwhelming actuality makes the world
dreamlike, misty, irrelevant.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: You seem to advise me to be
self-centred to the point of egoism. Must I not yield even to my
interest in other people?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Your interest in others is egoistic,
self-concerned, self-oriented. You are not interested in others as
persons, but only as far as they enrich, or ennoble your own image of
yourself. And the ultimate in selfishness is to care only for the
protection, preservation and multiplication of one's own body. By
body I mean all that is related to your name and shape -- your
family, tribe, country, race, etc. To be attached to one's name and
shape is selfishness. A man who knows that he is neither body nor
mind cannot be selfish, for he has nothing to be selfish for.
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-31025735740750461102013-10-02T02:41:00.003-07:002013-10-02T02:41:25.482-07:00Craving
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<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: What you call destiny (karma) is but
the result of your own will to live. How strong is this will you can
judge by the universal horror of death.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: People die willingly quite often.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Only when the alternative is worse
than death. But such readiness to die flows from the same source as
the will to live, a source deeper even than life itself. To be a
living being is not the ultimate state; there is something beyond,
much more wonderful, which is neither being nor non- being, neither
living nor not-living. It is a state of pure awareness, beyond the
limitations of space and time. Once the illusion that the body-mind
is oneself is abandoned, death loses its terror, it becomes a part of
living.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Above all, we want to remain conscious.
We shall bear every suffering and humiliation, but we shall rather
remain conscious. Unless we revolt against this craving for
experience and let go the manifested altogether, there can be no
relief. We shall remain trapped.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: It is not glory that I seek. I seek
Reality.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: For this you need a well-ordered and
quiet life, peace of mind and immense earnestness. At every moment
whatever comes to you unasked, comes from God and will surely help
you, if you make the fullest use of it. It is only what you strive
for, out of your own imagination and desire, that gives you trouble.
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-21220216752015525722013-10-02T02:39:00.001-07:002013-10-02T02:40:29.290-07:00Dependence<style type="text/css">
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Q: Can we talk of witnessing the real?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: How can we? We can talk only of the
unreal, the illusory, the transient, the conditioned. To go beyond,
we must pass through total negation of everything as having
independent existence. All things depend.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: On what do they depend?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: On consciousness.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: By itself nothing has existence.
Everything needs its own absence. To be, is to be distinguishable, to
be here and not there, to be now and not then, to be thus and not
otherwise. Like water is shaped by the container, so is everything
determined by conditions (gunas). As water remains water regardless
of the vessels, as light remains itself regardless of the colours it
brings out, so does the real remain real, regardless of conditions in
which it is reflected. Why keep the reflection only in the focus of
consciousness? Why not the real itself?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Consciousness itself is a
reflection. How can it hold the real?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: To know that consciousness and its
content are but reflections, changeful and transient, is the
focussing of the real. The refusal to see the snake in the rope is
the necessary condition for seeing the rope.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Can the unconditioned be
experienced?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: To know the conditioned as
conditioned is all that can be said about the unconditioned. Positive
terms are mere hints and misleading.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: If the unconditioned cannot be
experienced, for all experience is conditioned, then why talk of it
at all?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: How can there be knowledge of the
conditioned without the unconditioned? There must be a source from
which all this flows, a foundation on which all stands.
Self-realisation is primarily the knowledge of one's conditioning and
the awareness that the infinite variety of conditions depends on our
infinite ability to be conditioned and to give rise to variety. To
the conditioned mind the unconditioned appears as the totality as
well as the absence of everything. Neither can be directly
experienced, but this does not make it not-existent.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Is it not a feeling?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: A feeling too is a state of mind.
Just like a healthy body does not call for attention, so is the
unconditioned free from experience. Take the experience of death. The
ordinary man is afraid to die, because he is afraid of change. The
jnani is not afraid because his mind is dead already. He does not
think: 'I live'. He knows: 'There is life'. There is no change in it
and no death. Death appears to be a change in time and space. Where
there is neither time nor space, how can there be death? The jnani is
already dead to name and shape. How can their loss affect him? The
man in the train travels from place to place, but the man off the
train goes nowhere, for he is not bound for a destination. He has
nowhere to go, nothing to do, nothing to become. Those who make plans
will be born to carry them out. Those who make no plans need not be
born.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Questioner: The person immersed in the
world has a life of many flavours. He weeps, he laughs, loves and
hates, desires and fears, suffers and rejoices. The desireless and
fearless jnani, what life has he? Is he not left high and dry in his
aloofness?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: His state is not so desolate. It
tastes of the pure, uncaused, undiluted bliss. He is happy and fully
aware that happiness is his very nature and that he need not do
anything, nor strive for anything to secure it. It follows him, more
real than the body, nearer than the mind itself. You imagine that
without cause there can be no happiness. To me dependence on anything
for happiness is utter misery. Pleasure and pain have causes, while
my state is my own, totally uncaused, independent, unassailable.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The witness is merely a point in
awareness. It has no name and form. It is like the reflection of the
sun in a drop of dew. The drop of dew has name and form, but the
little point of light is caused by the sun. The clearness and
smoothness of the drop is a necessary condition but not sufficient by
itself. Similarly clarity and silence of the mind are necessary for
the reflection of reality to appear in the mind, but by themselves
they are not sufficient. There must be reality beyond it. Because
reality is timelessly present, the stress is on the necessary
conditions.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Can it happen that the mind is clear
and quiet and yet no reflection appears?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: There is destiny to consider. The
unconscious is in the grip of destiny, it is destiny, in fact. One
may have to wait. But however heavy may be the hand of destiny, it
can be lifted by patience and self-control. Integrity and purity
remove the obstacles and the vision of reality appears in the mind.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Why do you say so? I do want to be
happy.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You are quite satisfied with
pleasures. There is no place for happiness. Empty your cup and clean
it. It cannot be filled otherwise. Others can give you pleasure, but
never happiness.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: A chain of pleasurable events is
good enough.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Soon it ends in pain, if not in
disaster. What is Yoga after all, but seeking lasting happiness
within?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: You can speak only for the East. In
the West the conditions are different and what you say does not
apply.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: There is no East and West in sorrow
and fear. The problem is universal -- suffering and the ending of suffering. The cause of
suffering is dependence and independence is the remedy. Yoga is the science and the art of
self-liberation through self-understanding.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: When we are in trouble, we are bound
to be unhappy.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Fear is the only trouble. Know
yourself as independent and you will be free from fear and its
shadows.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What is the difference between
happiness and pleasure?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Pleasure depends on things,
happiness does not.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: If happiness is independent, why are
we not always happy?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: As long as we believe that we need
things to make us happy, we shall also believe that in their absence
we must be miserable. Mind always shapes itself according to its
beliefs. Hence the importance of convincing oneself that one need not
be prodded into happiness; that, on the contrary, pleasure is a
distraction and a nuisance, for it merely increases the false
conviction that one needs to have and do things to be happy when in
reality it is just the opposite.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But why talk of happiness at all? You
do not think of happiness except when you are unhappy. A man who
says: 'Now I am happy', is between two sorrows -- past and future.
This happiness is mere excitement caused by relief from pain. Real
happiness is utterly unselfconscious. It is best expressed negatively
as: 'there is nothing wrong with me. I have nothing to worry about'.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Once you know yourself, it is
immaterial what you do, but to realise your independence, you must
test it by letting go all you were dependent on. The realised man
lives on the level of the absolutes; his wisdom, love and courage are
complete, there is nothing relative about him.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What is right and what is wrong?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Generally, what causes suffering is
wrong and what removes it, is right. The body and the mind are
limited and therefore vulnerable; they need protection which gives
rise to fear. As long as you identify yourself with them you are
bound to suffer; realise your independence and remain happy. I tell
you, this is the secret of happiness. To believe that you depend on
things and people for happiness is due to ignorance of your true
nature; to know that you need nothing to be happy, except
self-knowledge, is wisdom.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: All dependence on another is futile,
for what others can give others will take away. Only what is your own
at the start will remain your own in the end. Accept no guidance but
from within, and even then sift out all memories for they will
mislead you. Even if you are quite ignorant of the ways and the
means, keep quiet and look within; guidance is sure to come. You are
never left without knowing what your next step should be. The trouble
is that you may shirk it. The Guru is there for giving you courage
because of his experience and success. But only what you discover
through your own awareness, your own effort, will be of permanent use
to you.
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-14668076969710788112013-10-02T02:36:00.004-07:002013-10-02T02:38:11.244-07:00Disidentification<style type="text/css">
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<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I can reject only verbally. At best
I remember to repeat the formula: 'This is not me, this is not mine.
I am beyond all this'.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Good enough. First verbally, then
mentally and emotionally, then in action. Give attention to the reality within you and it will come to
light. It is like churning the cream for butter. Do it correctly and assiduously and the result is sure to
come.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Nobody suffers in a play.<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Unless one identifies himself with
it. Don't identify yourself with the world and you will not suffer.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: To know that you are neither body
nor mind, watch yourself steadily and live unaffected by your body
and mind, completely aloof, as if you were dead. It means you have no
vested interests, either in the body or in the mind.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Dangerous!
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: I am not asking you to commit
suicide. Nor can you. You can only kill the body, you cannot stop the
mental process, nor can you put an end to the person you think you
are. Just remain unaffected. This complete aloofness, unconcern with
mind and body is the best proof that at the core of your being you
are neither mind nor body. What happens to the body and the mind may
not be within your power to change, but you can always put an end to
your imagining yourself to be body and mind. What-ever happens,
remind yourself that only your body and mind are affected, not
yourself. The more earnest you are at remembering what needs to be
remembered, the sooner will you be aware of yourself as you are, for
memory will become experience. Earnestness reveals being. What is
imagined and willed becomes actuality -- here lies the danger as well
as the way out.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Man becomes what he believes himself
to be. Abandon all ideas about yourself and you will find yourself to
be the pure witness, beyond all that can happen to the body or the
mind.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: If I become anything I think myself
to be, and I start thinking that I am the Supreme Reality, will not
my Supreme Reality remain a mere idea?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: First reach that state and then ask
the question.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Sir, if you want the body to be
still and the mind -- quiet, tell me how it is done. In self-
awareness I see the body and the mind moved by causes beyond my
control. Heredity and environment dominate me absolutely. The mighty
'I am', the creator of the universe, can be wiped out by a drug
temporarily, or a drop of poison – permanently.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Again, you take yourself to be the
body.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Even if I dismiss this body of
bones, flesh and blood as not-me, still I remain with the subtle body made up of thoughts and feelings,
memories and imaginations. If I dismiss these also as not-me, I still remain with consciousness,
which also is a kind of body.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You are quite right, but you need
not stop there. Go beyond. Neither consciousness, nor the 'I am' at
the centre of it are you. Your true being is entirely
un-self-conscious, completely free from all self-identification with
whatever it may be, gross, subtle or transcendental.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I can imagine myself to be beyond.
But what proof have l? To be, I must be somebody.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It is the other way round. To be,
you must be nobody. To think yourself to be something, or somebody,
is death and hell.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Is the sense 'I am' real or unreal?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Both. It is unreal when we say: 'I
am this, I am that'. It is real when we mean 'I am not this, nor
that'.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: If the self is for ever the unknown,
what then is realised in self-realisation?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: To know that the known cannot be me
nor mine, is liberation enough. Freedom from self- identification
with a set of memories and habits, the state of wonder at the
infinite reaches of the being, its inexhaustible creativity and total
transcendence, the absolute fearlessness born from the realisation
of the illusoriness and transiency of every mode of consciousness --
flow from a deep and inexhaustible source. To know the source as
source and appearance as appearance, and oneself as the source only
is self-realisation.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I can see, beyond the least shadow of
doubt, that you are not what you believe yourself to be. Logic or no
logic, you cannot deny the obvious. You are nothing that you are
conscious of. Apply yourself diligently to pulling apart the
structure you have built in your mind. What the mind has done the
mind must undo.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Questioner: From the beginning of my
life I am pursued by a sense of incompleteness. From school to
college, to work, to marriage, to affluence, I imagined that the next
thing will surely give me peace, but there was no peace. This sense
of unfulfillment keeps on growing as years pass by.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Maharaj: As long as there is the body
and the sense of identity with the body, frustration is inevitable.
Only when you know yourself as entirely alien to and different from
the body, will you find respite from the mixture of fear and craving
inseparable from the 'I-am-the-body' idea. Merely assuaging fears and
satisfying desires will not remove this sense of emptiness you are
trying to escape from; only self-knowledge can help you. By
self-knowledge I mean full knowledge of what you are not.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Just see the person you imagine
yourself to be as a part of the world you perceive within your mind
and look at the mind from the outside, for you are not the mind.
After all, your only problem is the eager self-identification with
whatever you perceive. Give up this habit, remember that you are not
what you perceive, use your power of alert aloofness.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Quite right. True enquiry is always
into something, not out of something. When I enquire how to get, or
avoid something, I am not really inquiring. To know anything I must
accept it – totally.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Yes, to know God I must accept God
-- how frightening!
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Before you can accept God, you must
accept yourself, which is even more frightening. The first steps in
self acceptance are not at all pleasant, for what one sees is not a
happy sight. One needs all the courage to go further. What helps is
silence. Look at yourself in total silence, do not describe yourself.
Look at the being you believe you are and remember -- you are not
what you see. 'This I am not -- what am l?' is the movement of
self-enquiry. There are no other means to liberation, all means
delay. Resolutely reject what you are not, till the real Self emerges
in its glorious nothingness, its 'not-a-thingness.'
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-82601418479804096762013-10-02T02:34:00.002-07:002013-10-02T02:35:45.621-07:00Desire<style type="text/css">
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<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: When I say a thing is without a
cause, I mean it can be without a particular cause. Your own mother
was needed to give you birth; But you could not have been born
without the sun and the earth. Even these could not have caused your
birth without your own desire to be born. It is desire that gives
birth, that gives name and form. The desirable is imagined and wanted
and manifests itself as something tangible or conceivable. Thus is
created the world in which we live, our personal world. The real
world is beyond the mind's ken; we see it through the net of our
desires, divided into pleasure and pain, right and wrong, inner and
outer. To see the universe as it is, you must step beyond the net. It
is not hard to do so, for the net is full of holes.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What do you mean by holes? And how
to find them?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Look at the net and its many
contradictions. You do and undo at every step. You want peace, love,
happiness and work hard to create pain, hatred and war. You want
longevity and overeat, you want friendship and exploit. See your net
as made of such contradictions and remove them – your very seeing
them will make them go.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What are the guide-lines for such
distinction? How am I to know which of my desires are right and which
are wrong?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: In your case desires that lead to
sorrow are wrong and those which lead to happiness are right. But you
must not forget others. Their sorrow and happiness also count.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Results are in the future. How can I
know what they will be?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Use your mind. Remember. Observe.
You are not different from others. Most of their experiences are
valid for you too. Think clearly and deeply, go into the entire
structure of your desires and their ramifications. They are a most
important part of your mental and emotional make- up and powerfully
affect your actions. Remember, you cannot abandon what you do not
know. To go beyond yourself, you must know yourself.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Why do desires arise at all?<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Because you imagine that you were
born, and that you will die if you do not take care of your body.
Desire for embodied existence is the root-cause of trouble.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Your mind projects a structure and
you identify yourself with it. It is in the nature of desire to
prompt the mind to create a world for its fulfilment. Even a small
desire can start a long line of action; what about a strong desire?
Desire can produce a universe; its powers are miraculous. Just as a
small matchstick can set a huge forest on fire, so does a desire
light the fires of manifestation. The very purpose of creation is the
fulfilment of desire. The desire may be noble, or ignoble, space
(akash) is neutral -- one can fill it with what one likes: You must
be very careful as to what you desire. And as to the people you want
to help, they are in their respective worlds for the sake of their
desires; there is no way of helping them except through their
desires. You can only teach them to have right desires so that they
may rise above them and be free from the urge to create and re-
create worlds of desires, abodes of pain and pleasure.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: The desire to live is a tremendous
thing.<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Still greater is the freedom from
the urge to live.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The desire to live is the one
fundamental desire. All else depends on it.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: We live, because we must.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: We live, because we crave sensory
existence.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: A thing so universal cannot be
wrong.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Not wrong, of course. In its own
place and time nothing is wrong. But when you are concerned with
truth, with reality, you must question every thing, your very life.
By asserting the necessity of sensory and intellectual experience you
narrow down your enquiry to search for comfort.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I seek happiness, not comfort.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Beyond comfort of mind and body what
happiness do you know?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Is there any other?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Find out for yourself. Question
every urge, hold no desire legitimate. Empty of possession, physical and mental, free of all
self-concern, be open for discovery.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Without trust there is no peace.
Somebody or other you always trust -- it may be your mother, or your
wife. Of all the people the knower of the self, the liberated man, is
the most trust-worthy. But merely to trust is not enough. You must
also desire. Without desire for freedom of what use is the confidence
that you can acquire freedom? Desire and confidence must go together.
The stronger your desire, the easier comes the help. The greatest
Guru is helpless as long as the disciple is not eager to learn.
Eagerness and earnestness are all-important. Confidence will come
with experience. Be devoted to your goal -- and devotion to him who
can guide you will follow. If your desire and confidence are strong,
they will operate and take you to your goal, for you will not cause
delay by hesitation and compromise.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Only contentment can make you happy --
desires fulfilled breed more desires. Keeping away from all desires
and contentment in what comes by itself is a very fruitful state -- a
precondition to the state of fullness. Don't distrust its apparent
sterility and emptiness. Believe me, it is the satisfaction of
desires that breeds misery. Freedom from desires is bliss.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Above everything else you cherish
yourself. You would accept nothing in exchange for your existence.
The desire to be is the strongest of all desires and will go only on
the realisation of your true nature.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: All desires must be given up,
because by desiring you take the shape of your desires. When no
desires remain, you revert to your natural state.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: If you do not have the wisdom and
the strength to give up, just look at your possessions. Your mere
looking will burn them up. If you can stand outside your mind, you
will soon find that total renunciation of possessions and desires is
the most obviously reasonable thing to do. You create the world and
then worry about it. Becoming selfish makes you weak. If you think
you have the strength and courage to desire, it is because you are
young and inexperienced. Invariably the object of desire destroys the
means of acquiring it and then itself withers away. It is all for the
best, because it teaches you to shun desire like poison.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: How am I to practice desirelessness?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: No need of practice. No need of any
acts of renunciation. Just turn your mind away, that is all. Desire
is merely the fixation of the mind on an idea. Get it out of its
groove by denying it attention.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: That is all?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Yes, that is all. Whatever may be
the desire or fear, don't dwell upon it. Try and see for yourself.
Here and there you may forget, it does not matter. Go back to your
attempts till the brushing away of every desire and fear, of every
reaction becomes automatic.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: When I ask how do you know that you
are a jnani, you answer: 'I find no desire in me. Is this not a
proof?'
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Were I full of desires, I would have
still been what I am.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Myself, full of desires and you,
full of desires; what difference would there be?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You identify yourself with your
desires and become their slave. To me desires are things among other
things, mere clouds in the mental sky, and I do not feel compelled to
act on them.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: From where does desire draw its
energy?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Its name and shape it draws from
memory. The energy flows from the source.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Some desires are altogether wrong.
How can wrong desires flow from a sublime source?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The source is neither right nor
wrong. Nor is desire by itself right or wrong. It is nothing but
striving for happiness. Having identified yourself with a speck of a
body you feel lost and search desperately for the sense of fullness
and completeness you call happiness.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Things may be transient, yet they
are very much with us, in endless repetition.<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Desires are strong. It is desire
that causes repetition. There is no recurrence where desire is not.<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What about fear?<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Desire is of the past, fear is of
the future. The memory of past suffering and the fear of its
recurrence make one anxious about the future.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: There is also fear of the unknown.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Who has not suffered is not afraid.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: We are condemned to fear?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Until we can look at fear and accept
it as the shadow of personal existence, as persons we are bound to be
afraid. Abandon all personal equations and you shall be free from
fear. It is not difficult. Desirelessness comes on its own when
desire is recognised as false. You need not struggle with desire.
Ultimately, it is an urge to happiness, which is natural as long as
there is sorrow. Only see that there is no happiness in what you
desire.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: We settle for pleasure.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Each pleasure is wrapped in pain.
You soon discover that you cannot have one without the other.
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-21354329064580133372013-10-02T02:31:00.000-07:002013-10-02T02:33:33.550-07:00Detachment<style type="text/css">
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
NM: I know nothing about it all and see
no difference between you and me. My life is a succession of events, just like yours. Only I am
detached and see the passing show as a passing show, while you stick to things and move along with
them.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
NM: What is wrong with its seeking the
pleasant and shirking the unpleasant? Between the banks of pain and pleasure the river of life
flows. It is only when the mind refuses to flow with life, and gets stuck at the banks, that it becomes a
problem. By flowing with life I mean acceptance -- letting come what comes and go what goes. Desire
not, fear not, observe the actual (…)</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
For in reality nothing is of value. Be
passionately dispassionate -- that is all.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Our real being is all the time with
us, you say. How is it that we do not notice it?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Yes, you are always the Supreme. But
your attention is fixed on things, physical or mental. When your
attention is off a thing and not yet fixed on another, in the
interval you are pure being. When through the practice of
discrimination and detachment (viveka-vairagya), you lose sight of
sensory and mental states, pure being emerges as the natural state.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Just like a deficiency disease is cured
through the supply of the missing factor, so are the diseases of
living cured by a good dose of intelligent detachment.
(viveka-vairagya).
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Put it as you like; attachment is
bondage, detachment is freedom. To crave is to slave.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Let us say, the jnani is ill. He has
caught some flu and every joint aches and burns. What is his state of
mind?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Every sensation is contemplated in
perfect equanimity. There is no desire for it, nor refusal. It is as
it is and then he looks at it with a smile of affectionate
detachment.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: He may be detached from his own
suffering, but still it is there.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It is there, but it does not matter.
Whatever state I am in, I see it as a state of mind to be accepted as
it is.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: What you gave up is of no importance
now. What have you not given up?. Find that out and give up that.
Sadhana is a search for what to give up. Empty yourself completely.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It is enough to watch oneself
dispassionately to isolate oneself completely from what is going on.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: What you need will come to you, if
you do not ask for what you do not need. Yet only few people reach
this state of complete dispassion and detachment. It is a very high
state, the very threshold of liberation.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It is not easy to remember when
every situation brings up a storm of desires and fears. Craving born
of memory is also the destroyer of memory.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: How am I to fight desire? There is
nothing stronger.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The waters of life are thundering
over the rocks of objects -- desirable or hateful. Remove the rocks
by insight and detachment and the same waters will flow deep and
silent and swift, in greater volume and with greater power. Don't be
theoretical about it, give time to thought and consideration; if you
desire to be free, neglect not the nearest step to freedom. It is
like climbing a mountain: not a step can be missed. One step less --
and the summit is not reached.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: There is trouble only when you cling
to something. When you hold on to nothing, no trouble arises. The
relinquishing of the lesser is the gaining of the greater. Give up
all and you gain all. Then life becomes what it was meant to be: pure
radiation from an inexhaustible source. In that light the world
appears dimly like a dream.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: If you are beyond words, what shall
we talk about? Metaphysically speaking, what you say holds together;
there is no inner contradiction. But there is no food for me in what
you say. It is so completely beyond my urgent needs. When I ask for
bread, you are giving jewels. They are beautiful, no doubt, but I am
hungry.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It is not so. I am offering you
exactly what you need -- awakening. You are not hungry and you need
no bread. You need cessation, relinquishing, disentanglement. What
you believe you need is not what you need. Your real need I know, not
you. You need to return to the state in which I am -- your natural
state. Anything else you may think of is an illusion and an obstacle.
Believe me, you need nothing except to be what you are. You imagine
you will increase your value by acquisition. It is like gold
imagining that an addition of copper will improve it. Elimination and
purification, renunciation of all that is foreign to your nature is
enough. All else is vanity.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Merely giving up a thing to secure a
better one is not true relinquishment. Give it up because you see its
valuelessness. As you keep on giving up, you will find that you grow
spontaneously in intelligence and power and inexhaustible love and
joy.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Why so much insistence on
relinquishing all desires and fears? Are they not natural?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: They are not. They are entirely
mind-made. You have to give up everything to know that you need
nothing, not even your body. Your needs are unreal and your efforts
are meaningless. You imagine that your possessions protect you. In
reality they make you vulnerable. realise yourself as away from all
that can be pointed at as 'this' or 'that'. You are unreachable by
any sensory experience or verbal construction. Turn away from them.
Refuse to impersonate.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Whenever a thought or emotion of
desire or fear comes to your mind, just turn away from it.<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: By suppressing my thoughts and
feelings I shall provoke a reaction.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: I am not talking of suppression.
Just refuse attention.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Must I not use effort to arrest the
movements of the mind?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It has nothing to do with effort.
Just turn away, look between the thoughts, rather than at the
thoughts. When you happen to walk in a crowd, you do not fight every
man you meet -- you just find your way between.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: If I use my will to control the
mind, it only strengthens the ego.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Of course. When you fight, you
invite a fight. But when you do not resist, you meet with no
resistance. When you refuse to play the game, you are out of it.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: No amount of effort can make me
fearless.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Fearlessness comes by itself, when
you see that there is nothing to be afraid of. When you walk in a
crowded street, you just bypass people. Some you see, some you just
glance at, but you do not stop. It is the stopping that creates the
bottleneck. Keep moving! Disregard names and shapes, don't be
attached to them; your attachment is your bondage.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Attachment destroys courage. The
giver is always ready to give. The taker is absent. Freedom means
letting go. People just do not care to let go everything. They do not
know that the finite is the price of the infinite, as death is the
price of immortality. Spiritual maturity lies in the readiness to let
go everything. The giving up is the first step. But the real giving
up is in realising that there is nothing to give up, for nothing is
your own. It is like deep sleep -- you do not give up your bed when
you fall sleep -- you just forget it.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Of course, when there is total
surrender, complete relinquishment of all concern with one's past,
presents and future, with one's physical and spiritual security and
standing, a new life dawns, full of love and beauty; then the Guru is
not important, for the disciple has broken the shell of self-defence.
Complete self-surrender by itself is liberation.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: .. to be quite detached, beyond the
reach of all self- concern, all selfish consideration, is an
inescapable condition of liberation. You may call it death; to me it
is living at its most meaningful and intense, for I am one with life
in its totality and fullness -- intensity, meaningfulness, harmony;
what more do you want?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I feel the need of cooling down.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It is very often so with Americans
and Europeans. After a stretch of sadhana they become charged with
energy and frantically seek an outlet. They organise communities,
become teachers of Yoga, marry, write books -- anything except
keeping quiet and turning their energies within, to find the source
of the inexhaustible power and learn the art of keeping it under
control.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I admit that now I want to go back
and live a very active life, because I feel full of energy. M: You
can do what you like, as long as you do not take yourself to be the
body and the mind. It is not so much a question of actual giving up
the body and all that goes with it, as a clear understanding that you
are not the body. A sense of aloofness, of emotional non-involvement.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Refuse attention, let things come
and go. Desires and thoughts are also things. Disregard them. Since
immemorial time the dust of events was covering the clear mirror of
your mind, so that only memories you could see. Brush off the dust
before it has time to settle; this will lay bare the old layers until
the true nature of your mind is discovered. It is all very simple and
comparatively easy; be earnest and patient, that is all. Dispassion,
detachment, freedom from desire and fear, from all self-concern, mere
awareness -- free from memory and expectation -- this is the state of
mind to which discovery can happen.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: A level of mental maturity is
reached when nothing external is of any value and the heart is ready
to relinquish all. Then the real has a
chance and it grasps it. Delays, if any, are caused by the mind being
unwilling to see or to discard.
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-54741646963047810642013-10-02T02:29:00.001-07:002013-10-02T02:30:04.323-07:00Division <style type="text/css">
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: The seer and the seen: are they one
or two? </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: There is only seeing; both the seer
and the seen are contained in it. Don't create differences where
there are none.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: In reality there is only perception.
The perceiver and the perceived are conceptual, the fact of
perceiving is actual.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Where does the Absolute come in?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The Absolute is the birthplace of
Perceiving. It makes perception possible.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Maharaj: You are back in India! Where
have you been, what have you seen?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Questioner: I come from Switzerland. I
stayed there with a remarkable man who claims to have realised. He
has done many Yogas in his past and had many experiences that passed
away. Now he claims no special abilities, nor knowledge; the only
unusual thing about him is connected with sensations; he is unable to
separate the seer from the seen. For instance, when he sees a car
rushing at him, he does not know whether the car is rushing at him,
or he at a car. He seems to be both at the same time, the seer and
the seen. They become one. Whatever he sees, he sees himself. When I
asked him some Vedantic questions he said: 'I really cannot answer. I
do not know. All I know is this strange identity with whatever I
perceive. You know, I expected anything but this.' He is on the whole
a humble man; he makes no disciples and in no way puts himself on a
pedestal. He is willing to talk about his strange condition, but that
is all.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Now he knows what he knows. All else
is over. At least he still talks. Soon he may cease talking.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Things happen as they happen; blame or
praise are apportioned later, after the sense of doership appearing.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: How strange! Surely the doer comes
before the deed.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It is the other way round; the deed
is a fact, the doer a mere concept. Your very language shows that
while the deed is certain, the doer is dubious; shifting
responsibility is a game peculiarly human. Considering the endless
list of factors required for anything to happen, one can only admit
that everything is responsible for everything, however remote.
Doership is a myth born from the illusion of 'me' and 'the mine'.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: How powerful the illusion?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: No doubt, because based on reality.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Everybody says: 'I work, I come, I
go'.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: I have no objection to the
conventions of your language, but they distort and destroy reality. A
more accurate way of saying would have been: 'There is talking,
working, coming, going'.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: You said once that the seer, seeing
and the seen are one single thing, not three. To me the three are
separate. I do not doubt your words, only I do not understand.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Look closely and you will see that
the seer and the seen appear only when there is seeing. They are
attributes of seeing. When you say 'I am seeing this'. 'I am' and
'this' come with seeing, not before. You cannot have an unseen 'this'
nor an unseeing 'I am'.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I can say: 'I do not see'.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The 'I am seeing this' has become 'l
am seeing my not seeing', or 'I am seeing darkness'. The seeing
remains. In the triplicity: the known, knowing and the knower, only
the knowing is a fact. The 'I am' and 'this' are doubtful. Who knows?
What is known? There is no certainty, except that there is knowing.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Why am I sure of knowing, but not of
the knower?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Knowing is a reflection of your true
nature along with being and loving. The knower and the known are
added by the mind. It is in the nature of the mind to create a
subject-object duality, where there is none.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: There is the experiencer and there
is his experience. What created the link between the two?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Nothing created it. It is. The two
are one.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I feel there is a catch somewhere,
but I do not know where.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The catch is in your mind, which
insists on seeing duality where there is none.
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-36031261954989296802013-10-02T02:26:00.003-07:002013-10-02T02:26:20.602-07:00Dream
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: A man who moves with the earth will
necessarily experience days and nights. He who stays with the sun
will know no darkness. My world is not yours. As I see it, you all
are on a stage performing. There is no reality about your comings and
goings. And your problems are so unreal!
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: We may be sleep-walkers, or subject
to nightmares. Is there nothing you can do?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: I am doing: I did enter your
dreamlike state to tell you -- "Stop hurting yourself and
others, stop suffering, wake up".
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Take dream for an example. In a
hospital there may be many patients, all sleeping, all dreaming, each
dreaming his own private, personal dreams unrelated, unaffected,
having one single factor in common -- illness. Similarly, we have
divorced ourselves in our imagination from the real world of common
experience and enclosed ourselves in a cloud of personal desire and
fears, images and thoughts, ideas and concepts.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: This I can understand. But what
could be the cause of the tremendous variety of the personal worlds?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The variety is not so great. All the
dreams are superimposed over a common world. To some extent they
shape and influence each other.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: If I start the practice of
dismissing everything as a dream where will it lead me?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Wherever it leads you, it will be a
dream. The very idea of going beyond the dream is illusory. Why go
anywhere? Just realise that you are dreaming a dream you call the
world, and stop looking for ways out. The dream is not your problem.
Your problem is that you like one part of your dream and not another.
Love all, or none of it, and stop complaining. When you have seen the
dream as a dream, you have done all that needs be done.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Joy and sorrow life and death, they all
are real to the man in bondage; to me they are all in the show, as
unreal as the show itself. I may perceive the world just like you,
but you believe to be in it, while I see it as an iridescent drop in
the vast expanse of consciousness.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Or, take another example. We wake and
we sleep. After a day's work sleep comes. Now, do I go to sleep or
does inadvertence -- characteristic of the sleeping state -- come to
me? In other words -- we are awake because we are asleep. We do not
wake up into a really waking state. In the waking state the world
emerges due to ignorance and takes one into a waking-dream state.
Both sleep and waking are misnomers. We are only dreaming. True
waking and true sleeping only the jnani knows. We dream that we are
awake, we dream that we are asleep. The three states are only
varieties of the dream state. Treating everything as a dream
liberates. As long as you give reality to dreams, you are their
slave. By imagining that you are born as so-and-so, you become a
slave to the so-and- so. The essence of slavery is to imagine
yourself to be a process, to have past and future, to have history.
In fact, we have no history, we are not a process, we do not develop,
nor decay; also see all as a dream and stay out of it.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: You seem to take for granted that
there can be a dream without a dreamer and that I identify myself
with the dream of my own sweet will. But I am the dreamer and the
dream too. Who is to stop dreaming?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Let the dream unroll itself to its
very end. You cannot help it. But you can look at the dream as a
dream, refuse it the stamp of reality.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Here am I, sitting before you. I am
dreaming and you are watching me talking in my dream. What is the
link between us?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: My intention to wake you up is the
link. My heart wants you awake. I see you suffer in your dream and I
know that you must wake up to end your woes. When you see your dream
as dream, you wake up. But in your dream itself I am not interested.
Enough for me to know that you must wake up. You need not bring your
dream to a definite conclusion, or make it noble, or happy, or
beautiful; all you need is to realise that you are dreaming. Stop
imagining, stop believing. See the contradictions, the incongruities,
the falsehood and the sorrow of the human state, the need to go
beyond. Within the immensity of space floats a tiny atom of
consciousness and in it the entire universe is contained.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: There are affections in the dream
which seem real and everlasting. Do they disappear on waking up?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: In dream you love some and not
others. On waking up you find you are love itself, embracing all.
Personal love, however intense and genuine, invariably binds; love in
freedom is love of all.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Our common world, in which we live.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Are you sure we live in the same
world? I do not mean nature, the sea and the land, plants and
animals. They are not the problem, nor the endless space, the
infinite time, the inexhaustible power. Do not be misled by my eating
and smoking, reading and talking. My mind is not here, my life is not
here. Your world, of desires and their fulfilments, of fears and
their escapes, is definitely not my world. I do not even perceive it,
except through what you tell me about it. It is your private dream
world and my only reaction to it is to ask you to stop dreaming.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Surely, wars and revolutions are not
dreams. Sick mothers and starving children are not dreams. Wealth,
ill-gotten and misused, is not a dream.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: What else?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: A dream cannot be shared.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Nor can the waking state. All the
three states -- of waking, dreaming and sleeping – are subjective,
personal, intimate. They all happen to and are contained within the
little bubble in consciousness, called 'I'. The real world lies
beyond the self.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Self or no self, facts are real.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Of course facts are real! I live
among them. But you live with fancies, not with facts. Facts never
clash, while your life and world are full of contradictions.
Contradiction is the mark of the false; the real never contradicts
itself.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
For instance, you complain that people
are abjectly poor. Yet you do not share your riches with them. You
mind the war next door, but you hardly give it a thought when it is
in some far off country. The shifting fortunes of your ego determine
your values; 'I think', 'I want', 'I must' are made into absolutes.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Nevertheless, the evil is real.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Not more real than you are. Evil is
in the wrong approach to problems created by misunderstanding and
misuse. It is a vicious circle.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Can the circle be broken?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: A false circle need not be broken.
It is enough to see it as it is – non-existent.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: But, real enough to make us submit
to and inflict indignities and atrocities.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Insanity is universal. Sanity is
rare. Yet there is hope, because the moment we perceive our insanity,
we are on the way to sanity. This is the function of the Guru -- to
make us see the madness of our daily living. Life makes you
conscious, but the teacher makes you aware.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
You merely dream that you roam about.
In a few years your stay in India will appear as a dream to you. You
will dream some other dream at that time. Do realise that it is not
you who moves from dream to dream, but the dreams flow before you and
you are the immutable witness. No happening affects your real being
-- this is the absolute truth.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: We, Europeans, find it very
difficult to keep quiet. The world is too much with us.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Oh, no, you are dreamers too. We
differ only in the contents of our dreams. You are after perfection
-- in the future. We are intent on finding it -- in the now. The
limited only is perfectible. The unlimited is already perfect. You
are perfect, only you don't know it. Learn to know yourself and you
will discover wonders.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: In the question ‘Who am I?’ the
‘I’ is not known and the question can be worded as: “I do not
know what I mean by ‘I’” What you are, you must find out. I can
only tell you what you are not. You are not of the world, you are not
even in the world. The world is not, you alone are. You create the
world in your imagination like a dream. As you cannot separate the
dream from yourself, so you cannot have an outer world independent of
yourself. You are independent, not the world. Don’t be afraid of a
world you yourself have created. Cease from looking for happiness and
reality in a dream and you will wake up. You need not know ‘why’
and ‘how’, there is no end to questions. Abandon all desires,
keep your mind silent and you shall discover.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Questioner: Do you experience the three
states of waking, dreaming and sleeping just as we do, or otherwise?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Maharaj: All the three states are sleep
to me. My waking state is beyond them. As I look at you, you all seem
asleep, dreaming up words of your own. I am aware, for I imagine
nothing. It is not samadhi which is but a kind of sleep. It is just a
state unaffected by the mind, free from the past and future. In your
case it is distorted by desire and fear, by memories and hopes; in
mine it is as it is -- normal. To be a person is to be asleep.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: You keep on telling me that I am
dreaming and that it is high time I should wake up. How does it
happen that the Maharaj, who has come to me in my dreams, has not
succeeded in waking me up? He keeps on urging and reminding, but the
dream continues.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It is because you have not really
understood that you are dreaming. This is the essence of bondage --
the mixing of the real with unreal. In your present state only the
sense 'I am' refers to reality; the 'what' and the 'how I am' are
illusions imposed by destiny, or accident.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: When did the dream begin?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It appears to be beginningless, but
in fact it is only now. From moment to moment you are renewing it.
Once you have seen that you are dreaming, you shall wake up. But you
do not see, because you want the dream to continue. A day will come
when you will long for the ending of the dream, with all your heart
and mind, and be willing to pay any price; the price will be
dispassion and detachment, the loss of interest in the dream itself.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: How helpless I am. As long as the
dream of existence lasts, I want it to continue. As long as I want it
to continue, it will last.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Wanting it to continue is not
inevitable. See clearly your condition, your very clarity will
release you.
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-72049639713598095232013-10-02T02:23:00.002-07:002013-10-02T02:24:58.775-07:00Dukkha<style type="text/css">
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<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: God will help.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: To help you God must know your
existence. But you and your world are dream states. In dream you may
suffer agonies. None knows them, and none can help you.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What is the real cause of suffering?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Self-identification with the limited
(vyaktitva). Sensations as such, however strong, do not cause
suffering. It is the mind bewildered by wrong ideas, addicted to
thinking: 'I am this' 'I am that', that fears loss and craves gain
and suffers when frustrated.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: You cannot save the world by
preaching counsels of perfection. People are as they are. Must they
suffer?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: As long as they are as they are,
there is no escape from suffering. Remove the sense of separateness
and there will be no conflict.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: What is birth and death but the
beginning and the ending of a stream of events in consciousness?
Because of the idea of separation and limitation they are painful.
Momentary relief from pain we call pleasure -- and we build castles
in the air hoping for endless pleasure which we call happiness. It is
all misunderstanding and misuse. Wake up, go beyond, live really.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: When you have understood that all
existence, in separation and limitation, is painful, and when you are
willing and able to live integrally, in oneness with all life, as
pure being, you have gone beyond all need of help. You can help
another by precept and example and, above all, by your being. (…)</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: But, is it true that all existence
is painful?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: What else can be the cause of this
universal search for pleasure? Does a happy man seek happiness? How
restless people are, how constantly on the move! It is because they
are in pain that they seek relief in pleasure. All the happiness they
can imagine is in the assurance of repeated pleasure.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: What is birth and death but the
beginning and the ending of a stream of events in consciousness?
Because of the idea of separation and limitation they are painful.
Momentary relief from pain we call pleasure -- and we build castles
in the air hoping for endless pleasure which we call happiness. It is
all misunderstanding and misuse. Wake up, go beyond, live really.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: All consciousness is limited and
therefore painful. At the root of consciousness lies desire, the urge
to experience.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What is your objection to
consciousness?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It is a burden. Body means burden.
Sensations, desires, thoughts -- these are all burdens. All
consciousness is of conflict.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Pain is physical; suffering is
mental. Beyond the mind there is no suffering. Pain is merely a
signal that the body is in danger and requires attention. Similarly,
suffering warns us that the structure of memories and habits, which
we call the person (vyakti), is threatened by loss or change. Pain is
essential for the survival of the body, but none compels you to
suffer. Suffering is due entirely to clinging or resisting; it is a
sign of our unwillingness to move on, to flow with life. As a sane
life is free of pain, so is a saintly life free from suffering.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Nobody has suffered more than
saints.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Did they tell you, or do you say so
on your own? The essence of saintliness is total acceptance of the
present moment, harmony with things as they happen. A saint does not
want things to be different from what they are; he knows that,
considering all factors, they are unavoidable. He is friendly with
the inevitable and,. therefore, does not suffer. Pain he may know,
but it does not shatter him. If he can, he does the needful to
restore the lost balance -- or he lets things take their course.<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: He may die.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: So what? What does he gain by living
on and what does he lose by dying? What was born, must die; what was
never born cannot die. It all depends on what he takes himself to be.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What is the motive? Why does the
Guru take so much trouble?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Sorrow and the ending of sorrow. He
sees people suffering in their dreams and he wants them to wake up.
Love is intolerant of pain and suffering. The patience of a Guru has
no limits and, therefore, it cannot be defeated. The Guru never
fails.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Must we not suffer to grow?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It is enough to know that there is
suffering, that the world suffers. By themselves neither pleasure nor
pain enlighten. Only understanding does. Once you have grasped the
truth that the world is full of suffering, that to be born is a
calamity, you will find the urge and the energy to go beyond it.
Pleasure puts you to sleep and pain wakes you up.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What is right and what is wrong?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Relatively, what causes suffering is
wrong, what alleviates it is right. Absolutely, what brings you back
to reality is right and what dims reality is wrong.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It is the indifference to your own
suffering that perpetuates it.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Yes, it is true. What can put an end
to this indifference?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The urge must come from within as a
wave of detachment, or compassion.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Could I meet this urge half way?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Of course. See your own condition,
see the condition of the world.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: All suffering is caused by selfish
isolation, by insularity and greed. When the cause of suffering is
seen and removed, suffering ceases.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I may remove my causes of sorrow,
but others will be left to suffer.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: To understand suffering, you must go
beyond pain and pleasure. Your own desires and fears prevent you from
understanding and thereby helping others. In reality there are no
others, and by helping yourself you help everybody else. If you are
serious about the sufferings of mankind, you must perfect the only
means of help you have -- Yourself.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But my attitude is different. I do not
look at death as a calamity as I do not rejoice at the birth of a
child. The child is out for trouble while the dead is out of it.
Attachment to life is attachment to sorrow. We love what gives us
pain. Such is our nature.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What makes one earnest?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Compassion is the foundation of
earnestness. Compassion for yourself and others, born of suffering,
your own and others.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Must I suffer to be earnest?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You need not, if you are sensitive
and respond to the suffering of others, as Buddha did. But if you are
callous and without pity, your own suffering will make you ask the
inevitable questions.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I find myself suffering, but not
enough. Life is unpleasant, but bearable. My little pleasures
compensate me for my small pains and on the whole I am better off
than most of the people I know. I know that my condition is
precarious, that a calamity can overtake me any moment. Must I wait
for a crisis to put me on my way to truth?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The moment you have seen how fragile
is your condition, you are already alert. Now, keep alert, give
attention, enquire, investigate, discover your mistakes of mind and
body and abandon them.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Please don’t tell me that I am
dreaming and that I will soon wake up. I wish it were so. But I am
awake and in pain. You talk of a painless state, but you add that I
cannot have it in my present condition. I feel lost.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Don’t feel lost. I only say that
to find the immutable and blissful you must give up your hold on the
mutable and painful. You are concerned with your own happiness and I
am telling you that there is no such thing. Happiness is never your
own, it is where the ‘I’ is not.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Centuries roll on, but the human
problem does not change -- the problem of suffering and the ending of
suffering.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Do we condemn ourselves to suffer?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: We grow through investigation, and
to investigate we need experience. We tend to repeat what we have not understood. If we are
sensitive and intelligent, we need not suffer. Pain is a call for
attention and the penalty of carelessness. Intelligent and
compassionate action is the only remedy.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: It is because I have grown in
intelligence that I would not tolerate my suffering again. What is
wrong with suicide?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Nothing wrong, if it solves the
problem. What, if it does not? Suffering caused by extraneous factors
-- some painful and incurable disease, or unbearable calamity -- may
provide some justification, but where wisdom and compassion are
lacking, suicide cannot help. A foolish death means foolishness
reborn. Besides there is the question of karma to consider. Endurance
is usually the wisest course.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I may not want to change. My life is
good enough as it is.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You say so because you have not seen
how painful is the life you live. You are like a child sleeping with
a lollypop in its mouth. You may feel happy for a moment by being
totally self-centred, but it is enough to have a good look at human
faces to perceive the universality of suffering. Even your own
happiness is so vulnerable and short-lived, at the mercy of a
bank-crash, or a stomach ulcer. It is just a moment of respite, a
mere gap between two sorrows. Real happiness is not vulnerable,
because it does not depend on circumstances.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Are you talking from your own
experience? Are you too unhappy?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: I have no personal problems. But the
world is full of living beings whose lives are squeezed between fear
and craving. They are like cattle driven to the slaughter house,
jumping and frisking, carefree and happy, yet dead and skinned within
an hour.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
You say you are happy. Are you really
happy, or are you merely trying to convince yourself. Look at
yourself fearlessly and you will at once realise that your happiness
depends on conditions and circumstances, hence it is momentary, not
real. Real happiness flows from within.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Why is there so much suffering in
the world?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Selfishness is the cause of
suffering. There is no other cause.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I understood that suffering is
inherent in limitation.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Differences and distinctions are not
the causes of sorrow. Unity in diversity is natural and good. It is
only with separateness and self-seeking that real suffering appears
in the world.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M; With the dissolution of the personal
'I' personal suffering disappears.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: To be is to suffer. The narrower the
circle of my self-identification, the more acute the suffering caused
by desire and fear.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Christianity accepts suffering as
purifying and ennobling, while Hinduism looks at it with distaste.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Christianity is one way of putting
words together and Hinduism is another. The real is, behind and
beyond words, incommunicable, directly experienced, explosive in its
effect on the mind. It is easily had when nothing else is wanted. The
innards created by imagination and perpetuated by desire.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q”: Life is enjoyable as it is and I
see no purpose in improving on it.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Maharaj: You are welcome to stay in
your contentment, but can you? Youth, vigour, money – all will pass
away sooner than you expect. Sorrow, shunned so far, will pursue you.
If you want to be beyond suffering, you must meet it half way and
embrace it. Relinquish your habits and addictions, live a simple and
sober life, don't hurt a living being; this is the foundation of
Yoga. To find reality you must be real in the smallest daily action;
there can be no deceit in the search for truth.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: We shall suffer as long as our
thoughts and actions are prompted by desires and fears. See their
futility and the danger and chaos they create will subside. Don't try
to reform yourself, just see the futility of all change. The
changeful keeps on changing while the changeless is waiting. Do not
expect the changeful, to take you to the changeless -- it can never
happen. Only when the very idea of changing is seen as false and
abandoned, the changeless can come into its own.
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-75291924638505473322013-10-02T02:20:00.003-07:002013-10-02T02:22:58.110-07:00Freedom<style type="text/css">
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<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: You say you are free. Of what are
you free? For heaven's sake, don't feed me on words, enlighten me,
help me to wake up, since it is you who sees me tossing in my sleep.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: When I say I am free, I merely state
a fact. If you are an adult, you are free from infancy. I am free from all description and
identification. Whatever you may hear, see, or think of, I am not
that. I am free from being a percept, or a
concept.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Still, you have a body and you
depend on it.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Again you assume that your point of
view is the only correct one. I repeat: I was not, am not, shall not
be a body. To me this is a fact. I too was under the illusion of
having been born, but my Guru made me see that birth and death are
mere ideas -- birth is merely the idea: 'I have a body'. And death --
'I have lost my body'. Now, when I know I am not a body, the body may
be there or may not -- what difference does it make?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: If I am free, why am I in a body?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: you are not in the body, the body is
in you! The mind is in you. They happen to you. They are there
because you find them interesting. Your very nature has the infinite
capacity to enjoy. It is full of zest and affection. It sheds its
radiance on all that comes within its focus of awareness and nothing
is excluded. It does not know evil nor ugliness, it hopes, it trusts,
it loves. You people do not know how much you miss by not knowing
your own true self. You are neither the body nor the mind, neither
the fuel nor the fire. They appear and disappear according to their
own laws.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
That which you are, your true self, you
love it, and whatever you do, you do for your own happiness. To find it, to know it, to cherish it
is your basic urge. Since time immemorial you loved yourself, but
never wisely. Use your body and mind wisely in the service of the
self, that is all. Be true to your own self, love your self
absolutely. Do not pretend that you love others as yourself. Unless
you have realised them as one with yourself, you cannot love them
Don't pretend to be what you are not, don't refuse to be what you
are. Your love of others is the result of self-knowledge, not its
cause. Without self-realisation, no virtue is genuine. When you know
beyond all doubting that the same life flows through all that is and
you are that life, you will love all naturally and spontaneously.
When you realise the depth and fullness of your love of yourself, you
know that every living being and the entire universe are included in
your affection. But when you look at anything as separate from you,
you cannot love it for you are afraid of it. Alienation causes fear
and fear deepens alienation. It is a vicious circle. Only
self-realisation can break it. Go for it resolutely.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Sex is an acquired habit. Go beyond.
As long as your focus is on the body, you will remain in the clutches
of food and sex, fear and death. Find yourself and be free.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: You are aware of eternity, therefore
you are not concerned with survival.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It is the other way round. Freedom
from all desire is eternity. All attachment implies fear, for all
things are transient. And fear makes one a slave. This freedom from
attachment does not come with practice; it is natural, when one knows
one's true being. Love does not cling; clinging is not love.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Is self-realisation so important?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Without it you will be consumed by
desires and fears, repeating themselves meaninglessly in endless
suffering. Most of the people do not know that there can be an end to
pain. But once they have heard the good news, obviously going beyond
all strife and struggle is the most urgent task that can be. You know
that you can be free and now it is up to you. Either you remain
forever hungry and thirsty, longing, searching, grabbing, holding,
ever losing and sorrowing, or go out whole-heartedly in search of the
state of timeless perfection to which nothing can be added, from
which nothing -- taken away. In it all desires and fears are absent,
not because they were given up, but because they have lost their
meaning.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Don't we reach the Absolute through
a gradation of experiences? Beginning with the grossest, we end with
the most sublime.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: There can be no experience without
desire for it. There can be gradation between desires, but between
the most sublime desire and the freedom from all desire there is an
abyss which must be crossed. The unreal may look real, but it is
transient. The real is not afraid of time.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Freedom comes through renunciation. All
possession is bondage.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: How long will it take me to get free
of the mind?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It may take a thousand years, but
really no time is required. All you need is to be in dead earnest.
Here the will is the deed. If you are sincere, you have it. After
all, it is a matter of attitude. Nothing stops you from being a jnani
here and now, except fear. You are afraid of being impersonal, of
impersonal being. It is all quite simple. Turn away from your desires
and fears and from the thoughts they create and you are at once in
your natural state.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: All I want is to be free.<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You must know two things: What are
you to be free from and what keeps you bound.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I am free to choose my limitations.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You must be free first. To be free
in the world you must be free of the world. Otherwise your past
decides for you and your future. Between what had happened and what
must happen you are caught. Call it destiny or karma, but never --
freedom. First return to your true being and then act from the heart
of love.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Be like the chick that pecks at the
shell. Speculating about life outside the shell would have been of
little use to it, but pecking at the shell breaks the shell from
within and liberates the chick. Similarly, break the mind from within
by investigation and exposure of its contradictions and absurdities.<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: The longing to break the shell,
where does it come from?<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: From the unmanifested.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The reward of self-knowledge is
freedom from the personal self.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Your assumption that we are in a
dream state makes your position unassailable. Whatever objection we
raise, you just deny its validity. One cannot discuss with you!
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The desire to discuss is also mere
desire. The desire to know, to have the power, even the desire to
exist are desires only. Everybody desires to be, to survive, to
continue, for no one is sure of himself. But everybody is immortal.
You make yourself mortal by taking yourself to be the body.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Since you have found your freedom,
will you not give me a little of it?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Why little? Take the whole. Take it,
it is there for the taking. But you are afraid of freedom!
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Then, even in the body you are not
born. To be embodied or bodyless is the same to you. You reach a
point when nothing can happen to you. Without body, you cannot be
killed; without possessions you cannot be robbed; without mind, you
cannot be deceived. There is no point where a desire or fear can hook
on. As long as no change can happen to you, what else matters?
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-88350163510980336422013-10-01T09:25:00.003-07:002013-10-01T09:25:09.162-07:00God
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Q: In God's economy everything must
have a purpose.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Do you know God that you talk of him
so freely? What is God to you? A sound, a word on paper, an idea in
the mind?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: By his power I am born and kept
alive.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: And suffer, and die. Are you glad?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: It may be my own fault that I suffer
and die. I was created unto life eternal.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Why eternal in the future and not in
the past. What has a beginning must have an end. Only the
beginningless is endless.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: God may be a mere concept, a working
theory. A very useful concept all the same!
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: For this it must be free of inner
contradictions, which is not the case. Why not work on the theory
that you are your own creation and creator. At least there will be no
external God to battle with.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: This world is so rich and complex --
how could I create it?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Do you know yourself enough to know
what you can do and what you cannot? You do not know your own powers.
You never investigated. Begin with yourself now.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Everybody believes in God.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: To me you are your own God. But if
you think otherwise, think to the end. If there be God, then all is
God's and all is for the best. Welcome all that comes with a glad and
thankful heart. And love
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
all creatures.
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-42702654296194871332013-10-01T09:24:00.000-07:002013-10-01T09:24:16.818-07:00Ignorance<style type="text/css">
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M: I am what I am and this is enough
for me. I have no desire to identify myself with anybody, however
illustrious. Nor do I feel the need to take myths for reality. I am
only interested in ignorance and the freedom from ignorance. The
proper role of a Guru is to dispel ignorance in the hearts and minds
of his disciples. Once the disciple has understood, the confirming
action is up to him. Nobody can act for another. And if he does not
act rightly, it only means that he has not understood and that the
Guru's work is not over.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: What is beginningless cannot have a
cause. It is not that you knew what you are and then you have
forgotten. Once you know, you cannot forget. Ignorance has no
beginning, but can have an end. Enquire: who is ignorant and
ignorance will dissolve like a dream. The world is full of
contradictions, hence your search for harmony and peace. These you
cannot find in the world, for the world is the child of chaos. To
find order you must search within. The world comes into being only
when you are born in a body. No body -- no world. First enquire
whether you are the body. The understanding of the world will come
later.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What you say sounds convincing, but
of what use is it to the private person, who knows itself to be in
the world and of the world?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Millions eat bread, but few know all
about wheat. And only those who know can improve the bread.
Similarly, only those who know the self, who have seen beyond the
world, can improve the world. Their value to private persons is
immense, for they are their only hope of salvation. What is in the
world cannot save the world; if you really care to help the world you
must step out of it.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: But can one step out of the world?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Who was born first, you or the
world? As long as you give first place to the world, you are bound by
it; once you realise, beyond all trace of doubt that the world is in
you and not you in the world, you are out of it.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
All you want is to be happy. All your
desires, whatever they may be, are expressions of your longing for
happiness. Basically, you wish yourself well.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I know that I should not...
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Wait! Who told you that you should
not? What is wrong with wanting to be happy?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: The self must go, l know.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: But the self is there. Your desires
are there. Your longing to be happy is there. Why? Because you love
yourself. By all means love yourself -- wisely. What is wrong is to
love yourself stupidly, so as to make yourself suffer. Love yourself
wisely. Both indulgence and austerity have the same purpose in view
-- to make you happy. Indulgence is the stupid way, austerity is the
wise way.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It is always the false that makes
you suffer, the false desires and fears, the false values and ideas, the false relationships between
people. Abandon the false and you are free of pain; truth makes happy -- truth liberates.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: If my true being is always with me,
how is it that I am ignorant of it?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Because it is very subtle and your
mind is gross, full of gross thoughts and feelings. Calm and clarify
your mind and you will know yourself as you are.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Do I need the mind to know myself?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You are beyond the mind, but you
know with your mind. It is obvious that the extent, depth and character of knowledge depend on what
instrument you use. Improve your instrument and your knowledge will
improve.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: To know perfectly I need a perfect
mind.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: A quiet mind is all you need. All
else will happen rightly, once your mind is quiet. As the sun on
rising makes the world active, so does self-awareness affect changes
in the mind. In the light of calm and steady self-awareness inner
energies wake up and work miracles without any effort on your part.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: How do I come to know that I have
achieved perfection?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You can not know perfection, you can
know only imperfection. For knowledge to be, there must be separation
and disharmony. You can know what you are not, but you can not know
your real being. You can be only what you are. The entire approach is
through understanding, which is in the seeing of the false as false.
But to understand, you must observe from outside.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As under a stone there will be
darkness, however strong the sunlight, so in the shadow of the 'I-
am-the-body' consciousness there must be ignorance and illusion.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What are the obstacles?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Wrong ideas and desires leading to
wrong actions, causing dissipation and weakness of mind and body. The
discovery and abandonment of the false remove what prevents the real
entering the mind.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Ignorance is the cause of
inevitability.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Ignorance of what?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Ignorance of yourself primarily.
Also, ignorance of the true nature of things, of their causes and
effects. You look round without understanding and take appearances
for reality. You believe you know the world and yourself -- but it is
only your ignorance that makes youQ: Then why are we not free here
and now?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: But we are free ‘here and now’.
It is only the mind that imagines bondage. say: I know. Begin with
the admission that you do not know and start from there.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
There is nothing that can help the
world more than your putting an end to ignorance. Then, you need not
do anything in particular to help the world. Your very being is a
help, action or no action.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: How can ignorance be known? To know
ignorance presupposes knowledge.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Quite right. The very admission: 'I
am ignorant' is the dawn of knowledge. An ignorant man is ignorant of
his ignorance. You can say that ignorance does not exist, for the
moment it is seen it is no more. Therefore, you may call it
unconsciousness or blindness. All you see around and within you is
what you do not know and do not understand, without even knowing that
you do not know and do not understand. To know that you do not know
and do not understand is true knowledge, the knowledge of an humble
heart.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Yes, Christ said: Blessed are the
poor in spirit...
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Put it as you like; the fact is that
knowledge is of ignorance only. You know that you do not know.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What will remain with me if I let go
my memories?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Nothing will remain.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I am afraid.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You will be afraid until you
experience freedom and its blessings. Of course, some memories are
needed to identify and guide the body and such memories do remain,
but there is no attachment left to the body as such; it is no longer
the ground for desire or fear. All this is not very difficult to
understand and practice, but you must be interested. Without interest
nothing can be done.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Having seen that you are a bundle of
memories held together by attachment, step out and look from the
outside. You may perceive for the first time something which is not
memory. You cease to be a Mr-so-and-so, busy about his own affairs.
You are at last at peace. You realise that nothing was ever wrong
with the world -- you alone were wrong and now it is all over. Never
again will you be caught in the meshes of desire born of ignorance.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I find that I am always restless,
longing, hoping, seeking, finding, enjoying, abandoning, searching
again. What is it that keeps me on the boil?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You are really in search of
yourself, without knowing it. You are love-longing for the
love-worthy, the perfectly lovable. Due to ignorance you are looking
for it in the world of opposites and contradictions. When you find it
within, your search will be over.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Maharaj: All waiting is futile. To
depend on time to solve our problems is self-delusion. The future,
left to itself merely repeats the past. Change can only happen now,
never in the future.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What brings about a change?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: With crystal clarity see the need of
change. This is all.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Questioner: The war is on. What is your
attitude to it?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Maharaj: In some place or other, in
some form or other, the war is always on. Was there a time when there
was no war? Some say it is the will of God. Some say it is God's
play. It is another way of saying that wars are inevitable and nobody
is responsible.<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: But what is your own attitude?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Why impose attitudes on me? I have
no attitude to call my own.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Surely somebody is responsible for
this horrible and senseless carnage. Why do people kill each other so
readily?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Search for the culprit within. The
ideas of 'me' and 'mine' are at the root of all conflict. Be free of
them and you will be out of conflict.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: No doubt, a drug that can affect
your brain can also affect your mind, and give you all the strange
experiences promised. But what are all the drugs compared to the drug
that gave you this most unusual experience of being born and living
in sorrow and fear, in search of happiness, which does not come, or
does not last. You should enquire into the nature of this drug and
find an antidote. Birth, life, death -- they are one. Find out what
had caused them. Before you were born, you were already drugged. What
kind of drug was it? You may cure yourself of all diseases, but if
you are still under the influence of the primordial drug, of what use
are the superficial cures?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Is it not karma that causes rebirth?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You may change the name, but the
fact remains. What is the drug which you call karma or destiny? It
made you believe yourself to be what you are not. What is it, and can
you be free of it? Before you go further you must accept, at least as
a working theory, that you are not what you appear to be, that you
are under the influence of a drug. Then only will you have the urge
and the patience to examine the symptoms and search for their common
cause. All that a Guru can tell you is: ‘My dear Sir, you are quite
mistaken about yourself. You are not the person you think yourself to
be.’ Trust nobody, not even yourself. Search, find out, remove and
reject every assumption till you reach the living waters and the rock
of truth. Until you are free of the drug, all your religions and
sciences, prayers and Yogas are of no use to you, for based on a
mistake, they strengthen it. But if you stay with the idea that you
are not the body nor the mind, not even their witness, but altogether
beyond, your mind will grow in clarity, your desires -- in purity,
your actions -- in charity and that inner distillation will take you
to another world, a world of truth and fearless love. Resist your old
habits of feeling and thinking; keep on telling yourself: ‘No, not
so, it cannot be so; I am not like this, I do not need it, I do not
want it’, and a day will surely come when the entire structure of
error and despair will collapse and the ground will be free for a new
life. After all, you must remember, that all your preoccupations with
yourself are only in your waking hours and partly in your dreams; in
sleep all is put aside and forgotten. It shows how little important
is your waking life, even to yourself, that merely lying down and
closing the eyes can end it. Each time you go to sleep you do so
without the least certainty of waking up and yet you accept the risk.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: What you see as false, dissolves. It
is the very nature of illusion to dissolve on investigation.
Investigate -- that is all. You cannot destroy the false, for you are
creating it all the time. Withdraw from it, ignore it, go beyond, and
it will cease to be.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Then why are we not free here and
now?<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: But we are free ‘here and now’.
It is only the mind that imagines bondage.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Do not try to know the truth, for
knowledge by the mind is not true knowledge. But you can know what is
not true -- which is enough to liberate you from the false. The idea
that you know what is true is dangerous, for it keeps you imprisoned
in the mind. It is when you do not know, that you are free to
investigate. And there can be no salvation, without investigation,
because non-investigation is the main cause of bondage.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: What else are you fit for? All your
going and coming, seeking pleasure, loving and hating – all this
shows that you struggle against limitations, self-imposed or
accepted. In your ignorance you make mistakes and cause pain to
yourself and others, but the urge is there and shall not be denied.
The same urge that seeks birth, happiness and death shall seek
understanding and liberation. It is like a spark of fire in a cargo
of cotton. You may not know about it, but sooner or later the ship
will burst in flames.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Sooner or later your physical and
mental resources will come to an end. What will you do then? Despair?
All right, despair. You will get tired of despairing and begin to
question. At that moment you will be fit for conscious Yoga.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I find all this seeking and brooding
most unnatural.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Yours is the naturalness of a born
cripple. You may be unaware but it does not make you normal. What it
means to be natural or normal you do not know, nor do you know that
you do not know.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
At present you are drifting and
therefore in danger, for to a drifter any moment anything may happen.
It would be better to wake up and see your situation. That you are --
you know. What you are -- you don't know. Find out what you are.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What about the chains of destiny
forged by sin?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: When ignorance, the mother of sin,
dissolves, destiny, the compulsion to sin again, ceases.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: There are retributions to make.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: With ignorance coming to an end all
comes to an end. Things are then seen as they are and they are good.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: If I know myself, shall I not desire
and fear?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: For some time the mental habits may
linger in spite of the new vision, the habit of longing for the known
past and fearing the unknown future. When you know these are of the
mind only, you can go beyond them. As long as you have all sorts of
ideas about yourself, you know yourself through the mist of these
ideas; to know yourself as you are, give up all ideas. You cannot
imagine the taste of pure water, you can only discover it by
abandoning all flavourings.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As long as you are interested in your
present way of living, you will not abandon it. Discovery cannot come
as long as you cling to the familiar. It is only when you realise
fully the immense sorrow of your life and revolt against it, that a
way out can be found.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Religions show their true face in
action, in silent action. To know what man believes, watch how he
acts. For most of the people service of their bodies and their minds
is their religion. They may have religious ideas, but they do not act
on them. They play with them, they are often very fond of them, but
they will not act on them.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Only by denying can one live.
Assertion is bondage. To question and deny is necessary. It is the
essence of revolt and without revolt there can be no freedom.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
There is no second, or higher self to
search for. You are the highest self, only give up the false ideas
you have about your self. Both faith and reason tell you that you are
neither the body, nor its desires and fears, nor are you the mind
with its fanciful ideas, nor the role society compels you to play,
the person you are supposed to be. Give up the false and the true
will come into its own.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Life is sad.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Ignorance causes sorrow. Happiness
follows understanding.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Why should ignorance be painful?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It is at the root of all desire and
fear, which are painful states and the source of endless errors.
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-4574474970050099112013-10-01T09:17:00.000-07:002013-10-01T09:17:19.161-07:00Imagination<style type="text/css">
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<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: The worry with me is that I am prone
to denying existence to what I cannot imagine.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You would be wiser to deny the
existence of what you imagine. It is the imagined that is unreal.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Is all imaginable unreal?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Imagination based on memories is
unreal. The future is not entirely unreal.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And what is liberation after all? To
know that you are beyond birth and death. By forgetting who you are
and imagining yourself a mortal creature, you created so much trouble
for yourself that you have to wake up, like from a bad dream.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: But what gives you courage?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: How perverted are your views! Need
courage be given? Your question implies that anxiety is the normal
state and courage is abnormal. It is the other way round. Anxiety and
hope are born of imagination -- I am free of both.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What am I to learn?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: To live without self-concern. For
this you must know your own true being (swarupa) as indomitable,
fearless, ever victorious. Once you know with absolute certainty that
nothing can trouble you but your own imagination, you come to
disregard your desires and fears, concepts and ideas and live by
truth alone.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: And so, I can do as I like and put
the blame on some universal power? How easy!
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Yes, very easy. Just realise the One
Mover behind all that moves and leave all to Him. If you do not
hesitate, or cheat, this is the shortest way to reality. Stand
without desire and fear, relinquishing all control and all
responsibility.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What madness!
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Yes, divine madness. What is wrong
in letting go the illusion of personal control and personal
responsibility? Both are in the mind only. Of course, as long as you
imagine yourself to be in control, you should also imagine yourself
to be responsible. One implies the other.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The main point to grasp is that you
have projected onto yourself a world of your own imagination, based
on memories, on desires and fears, and that you have imprisoned
yourself in it. Break the spell and be free.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Learn to look without imagination, to
listen without distortion: that is all. Stop attributing names and shapes to the essentially nameless and
formless, realise that every mode of perception is subjective, that
what is seen or heard, touched or smelt, felt or thought, expected or
imagined, is in the mind and not in reality, and you will experience
peace and freedom from fear.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: What have you to wait for when it is
already here and now? You have only to look and see. Look at your
self, at your own being. You know that you are and you like it.
Abandon all imagining, that is all. Do not rely on time. Time is
death. Who waits -- dies. Life is now only. Do not talk to me about
past and future -- they exist only in your mind.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: You too will die.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: I am dead already. Physical death
will make no difference in my case. I am timeless being. I am free of
desire or fear, because I do not remember the past, or imagine the
future. Where there are no names and shapes, how can there be desire
and fear? With desirelessness comes timelessness. I am safe, because
what is not, cannot touch what is. You feel unsafe, because you
imagine danger. Of course, your body as such is complex and
vulnerable and needs protection. But not you. Once you realise your
own unassailable being, you will be at peace.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: How can I find peace when the world
suffers?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The world suffers for very valid
reasons. If you want to help the world, you must be beyond the need
of help. Then all your doing as well as not doing will help the world
most effectively.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
To be, I need no past or future. All
experience is born of imagination; I do not imagine, so no birth or
death happens to me. Only those who think themselves born can think
themselves re-born. You are accusing me of having been born -- I
plead not guilty!
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: There is only imagination. The
intelligence and power are all used up in your imagination. It has
absorbed you so completely that you just cannot grasp how far from
reality you have wandered. No doubt imagination is richly creative.
Universe within universe are built on it. Yet they are all in space
and time, past and future, which just do not exist.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: This is the mystery of imagination,
that it seems to be so real. You may be celibate or married, a monk
or a family man; that is not the point. Are you a slave of your
imagination, or are you not? Whatever decision you take, whatever
work you do, it will be invariably based on imagination, on
assumptions parading as facts.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Here I am sitting in front of you.
What part of it is imagination?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The whole of it. Even space and time
are imagined.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Does it mean that I don't exist?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: I too do not exist. All existence is
imaginary.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Is being too imaginary?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Pure being, filling all and beyond
all, is not existence which is limited. All limitation is imaginary,
only the unlimited is real.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: When you look at me, what do you
see?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: I see you imagining yourself to be.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: There are many like me. Yet each is
different.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The totality of all projections is
what is called maha-maya, the Great Illusion.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: But when you look at yourself, what
do you see?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It depends how I look. When I look
through the mind, I see numberless people. When I look beyond the
mind, I see the witness. Beyond the witness there is the infinite
intensity of emptiness and silence.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: In our ignorance we are innocent; in
our actions we are guilty. We sin without knowing and suffer without
understanding. Our only hope: to stop, to look, to understand and to
get out of the traps of memory. For memory feeds imagination and
imagination generates desire and fear.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
To know that you are a prisoner of your
mind, that you live in an imaginary world of your own creation is the
dawn of wisdom. To want nothing of it, to be ready to abandon it
entirely, is earnestness. Only such earnestness, born of true
despair, will make you trust me.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Once you have understood that nothing
perceivable, or conceivable can be yourself, you are free of your
imaginations. To see everything as imagination, born of desire, is
necessary for self-realisation. We miss the real by lack of attention
and create the unreal by excess of imagination.
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-88615430295466941112013-10-01T09:15:00.001-07:002013-10-01T09:15:13.254-07:00Impermanence
<style type="text/css">
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<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: All experience is time bound.
Whatever has a beginning must have an end.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
All you can do is to grasp the central
point, that reality is not an event and does not happen and whatever
happens, whatever comes and goes, is not reality. See the event as
event only, the transient as transient, experience as mere experience
and you have done all you can. Then you are vulnerable to reality, no
longer armoured against it, as you were when you gave reality to
events and experiences. But as soon as there is some like or dislike,
you have drawn a screen.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: How does one reach the Supreme
State?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: By renouncing all lesser desires. As
long as you are pleased with the lesser, you cannot have the highest.
Whatever pleases you, keeps you back. Until you realise the
unsatisfactoriness of everything, its transiency and limitation, and
collect your energies in one great longing, even the first step is
not made. On the other hand, the integrity of the desire for the
Supreme is by itself a call from the Supreme. Nothing, physical or
mental, can give you freedom. You are free once you underst
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
When you are in love with somebody, you
give it reality -- you imagine your love to be all-powerful and
everlasting. When it comes to an end, you say: 'I thought it was
real, but it wasn't'. Transiency is the best proof of unreality. What
is limited in time and space, and applicable to one person only, is
not real. The real is for all and forever.
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-46246366542105066652013-10-01T09:13:00.000-07:002013-10-01T09:14:16.120-07:00Indifference<style type="text/css">
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<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: How am I to think myself out when my
thoughts come and go as they like. Their endless chatter distracts
and exhausts me.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Watch your thoughts as you watch the
street traffic. People come and go; you register without response. It
may not be easy in the beginning, but with some practice you will
find that your mind can function on many levels at the same time and
you can be aware of them all. It is only when you have a vested
interest in any particular level, that your attention gets caught in
it and you black out on other levels. Even then the work on the
blacked out levels goes on, outside the field of consciousness. Do
not struggle with your memories and thoughts; try only to include in
your field of attention the other, more important questions, like
'Who am l?' 'How did I happen to be born?' 'Whence this universe
around me?'. 'What is real and what is momentary?' No memory will
persist, if you lose interest in it, it is the emotional link that
perpetuates the bondage. You are always seeking pleasure, avoiding
pain, always after happiness and peace. Don't you see that it is your
very search for happiness that makes you feel miserable? Try the
other way: indifferent to pain and pleasure, neither asking, nor
refusing, give all your attention to the level on which 'I am' is
timelessly present. Soon you will realise that peace and happiness
are in your very nature and it is only seeking them through some
particular channels, that disturbs. Avoid the disturbance, that is
all.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
You need not stop thinking. Just cease
being interested. It is disinterestedness that liberates. Don't hold
on, that is all. The world is made of rings. The hooks are all yours.
Make straight your hooks and nothing can hold you. Give up your
addictions. There is nothing else to give up. Stop your routine of
acquisitiveness, your habit of looking for results and the freedom of
the universe is yours. Be effortless.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-89409191280523311602013-10-01T09:09:00.001-07:002013-10-01T09:11:11.976-07:00I am<style type="text/css">
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<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Immortality is freedom from the
feeling: 'I am'.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Or, you may not bother about any thing
you want, or think, or do and just stay put in the thought and
feeling 'I am', focussing 'I am' firmly in your mind. All kinds of
experience may come to you -- remain unmoved in the knowledge that
all perceivable is transient, and only the 'I am' endures.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
All knowledge is about the 'I am'.
False ideas about this 'I am' lead to bondage, right knowledge leads
to freedom and happiness.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Is 'I am' and 'there is' the same?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: 'I am' denotes the inner, 'there is'
-- the outer. Both are based on the sense of being.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
NM: After all, the only fact you are
sure of is that you are. The 'I am' is certain. The 'I am this' is
not. Struggle to find out what you are in reality.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I am doing nothing else for the last
60 years.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: What is wrong with striving? Why
look for results? Striving itself is your real nature.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Striving is painful.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You make it so by seeking results.
Strive without seeking, struggle without greed.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Not as long as you think yourself to
be a person.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: By what sign shall l know that I am
beyond sin and virtue?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: By being free from all desire and
fear, from the very idea of being a person. To nourish the ideas: 'I am a sinner' 'I am not a
sinner', is sin. To identify oneself with the particular is all the
sin there is. The impersonal is real, the
personal appears and disappears. 'I am' is the impersonal Being. 'I am this' is the person. The
person is relative and the pure Being -- fundamental.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: You speak from your own experience.
How can I make it mine?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You speak of my experience as
different from your experience, because you believe we are separate.
But we are not. On a deeper level my experience is your experience.
Dive deep within yourself and you will find it easily and simply. Go
in the direction of 'I am'.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Again a counsel of perfection! To
integrate and strengthen the mind is not an easy task! How does one
begin?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You can start only from where you
are. You are here and now, you cannot get out of here and now.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: But what can I do here and now?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You can be aware of your being --
here and now.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: That is all?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: That is all. There is nothing more
to it.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: All my waking and dreaming I am
conscious of myself. It does not help me much.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You were aware of thinking, feeling,
doing. You were not aware of your being.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: See what you are. Don't ask others,
don't let others tell you about yourself. Look within and see. All
the teacher can tell you is only this. There is no need of going from
one to another. The same water is in all the wells. You just draw
from the nearest.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
By no effort of logic or imagination
can you change the 'I am' into 'I am not'. In the very denial of your
being you assert it.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Watch it, and it shall cease. Use
every opportunity to remind yourself that you are in bondage, that
whatever happens to you is due to the fact of your bodily existence.
Desire, fear, trouble, joy, they cannot appear unless you are there
to appear to. Yet, whatever happens, points to your existence as a
perceiving centre.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The Supreme State is universal, here
and now; everybody already shares in it. It is the state of being --
knowing and liking. Who does not like to be, or does not know his own
existence? But we take no advantage of this joy of being conscious,
we do not go into it and purify it of all that is foreign to it. This
work of mental self-purification, the cleansing of the psyche, is
essential. Just as a speck in the eye, by causing inflammation, may
wipe out the world, so the mistaken idea: 'I am the body-mind' causes
the self-concern, which obscures the universe. It is useless to fight
the sense of being a limited and separate person unless the roots of
it are laid bare. Selfishness is rooted in the mistaken ideas of
oneself. Clarification of the mind is Yoga.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I am now 74 years old. And yet I feel
that I am an infant. I feel clearly that in spite of all the changes
I am a child. My Guru told me: that child, which is you even now, is
your real self (swarupa). Go back to that state of pure being, where
the 'I am' is still in its purity before it got contaminated with
'this I am' or 'that I am'. Your burden is of false
self-identifications -- abandon them all. My Guru told me -- 'Trust
me. I tell you; you are divine. Take it as the absolute truth. Your
joy is divine, your suffering is divine too. All comes from God.
Remember it always. You are God, your will alone is done'. I did
believe him and soon realised how wonderfully true and accurate were
his words. I did not condition my mind by thinking: 'I am God, I am
wonderful, I am beyond'. I simply followed his instruction which was
to focus the mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit
for hours together, with, nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon
peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state.
In it all disappeared -- myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world
around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
When you follow my advice and try to
keep your mind on the notion of 'I am' only, you become fully aware
of your mind and its vagaries. Awareness, being lucid harmony
(sattva) in action, dissolves dullness and quietens the restlessness
of the mind and gently, but steadily changes its very substance.
This change need not be spectacular; it may be hardly noticeable;
yet it is a deep and fundamental shift from darkness to light, from
inadvertence to awareness.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Must it be the 'I am' formula? Will
not any other sentence do? If I concentrate on 'there is a table',
will it not serve the same purpose?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: As an exercise in concentration --
yes. But it will not take you beyond the idea of a table. You are not
interested in tables, you want to know yourself. For this keep
steadily in the focus of consciousness the only clue you have: your
certainty of being. Be with it, play with it, ponder over it, delve
deeply into it, till the shell of ignorance breaks open and you
emerge into the realm of reality.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Is there any causal link between my
focussing the 'I am' and the breaking of the shell?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The urge to find oneself is a sign
that you are getting ready. The impulse always comes from within.
Unless your time has come, you will have neither the desire nor the
strength to go for self- enquiry whole-heartedly.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Questioner: Some forty years ago J.
Krishnamurti said that there is life only and all talk of
personalities and individualities has no foundation in reality. He
did not attempt to describe life – he merely said that while life
need not and cannot be described, it can be fully experienced, if the
obstacles to its being experienced are removed. The main hindrance
lies in our idea of, and addiction to, time, in our habit of
anticipating a future in the light of the past. The sum total of the
past becomes the 'I was', the hoped for future becomes the 'I shall
be' and life is a constant effort of crossing over from what 'I was'
to what ‘I shall be'. The present moment, the. 'now' is lost sight
of. Maharaj speaks of 'I am'. Is it an illusion, like 'I was' and 'I
shall be', or is there something real about it? And if the ‘I am'
too is an illusion, how does one free oneself from it? The very
notion of I am free of 'I am' is an absurdity. Is there something
real, something lasting about the 'I am' in distinction from the 'I
was', or ‘I shall be', which change with time, as added memories
create new expectations?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Maharaj: The present 'I am' is as false
as the 'I was' and 'I shall be'. It is merely an idea in the mind, an
impression left by memory, and the separate identity it creates is
false. this habit of referring to a false centre must be done away
with, the notion 'I see', 'I feel', 'I think', 'I do', must disappear
from the field of consciousness; what remains when the false is no
more, is real.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Why should I imagine myself so
wretched?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You do it by habit only. Change your
ways of feeling and thinking, take stock of them and examine them
closely. You are in bondage by inadvertence. Attention liberates. You
are taking so many things for granted. Begin to question. The most
obvious things are the most doubtful. Ask yourself such questions as:
‘Was I really born?' 'Am I really so-and-so?’ 'How do I know that
I exist? 'Who are my parents?’ 'Have they created me, or have I
created them?' 'Must I believe all I am told about myself?' ‘Who am
I, anyhow?'. You have put so much energy into building a prison for
yourself. Now spend as much on demolishing it. In fact, demolition is
easy, for the false dissolves when it is discovered. All hangs on the
idea 'I am'. Examine it very thoroughly. It lies at the root of every
trouble. It is a sort of skin that separates you from the reality.
The real is both within and without the skin, but the skin itself is
not real. This 'I am' idea was not born with you. You could have
lived very well without it. It came later due to your
self-identification with the body. It created an illusion of
separation where there was none. It made you a stranger in your own
world and made the world alien and inimical. Without the sense of 'I
am' life goes on.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: In what direction am I to look?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: All directions are within the mind!
I am not asking you to look in any particular direction. Just look
away from all that happens in your mind and bring it to the feeling
'I am'. The 'I am' is not a direction. It is the negation of all
direction. Ultimately even the 'I am' will have to go, for you need
not keep on asserting what is obvious. Bringing the mind to the
feeling 'I am' merely helps in turning the mind away from everything
else.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Where does it all lead me?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: When the mind is kept away from its
preoccupations, it becomes quiet. If you do not disturb this quiet
and stay in it, you find that it is permeated with a light and a love
you have never known; and yet you recognise it at once as your own
nature. Once you have passed through this experience, you will never
be the same man again; the unruly mind may break its peace and
obliterate its vision; but it is bound to return, provided the effort
is sustained; until the day when all bonds are broken, delusions and
attachments end and life becomes supremely concentrated in the
present.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Being needs no proofs -- it proves all
else. If only they go deeply into the fact of being and discover the
vastness and the glory to which the 'I am' is the door, and cross the
door and go beyond, their life will be full of happiness and light.
Believe me, the effort needed is as nothing when compared with the
discoveries arrived at.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What made you decide to become a
teacher?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: I was made into one by being called
so. Who am I to teach and whom? What I am, you are, and what you are
-- I am. The ‘I am’ is common to us all; beyond the ‘I am’
there is the immensity of light and love. We do not see it because we
look elsewhere; I can only point at the sky; seeing of the star is
your own work. Some take more time before they see the star, some
take less; it depends on the clarity of their vision and their
earnestness in search. These two must be their own -- I can only
encourage.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Then, what am I to do?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Try to be, only to be. The
all-important word is 'try'. Allot enough time daily for sitting
quietly and trying, just trying, to go beyond the personality, with
its addictions and obsessions. Don't ask how, it cannot be explained.
You just keep on trying until you succeed. If you persevere, there
can be no failure. What matters supremely is sincerity, earnestness;
you must really have had surfeit of being the person you are, now see
the urgent need of being free of this unnecessary self-identification
with a bundle of memories and habits. This steady resistance against
the unnecessary is the secret of success.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
After all, you are what you are every
moment of your life, but you are never conscious of it, except,
maybe, at the point of awakening from sleep. All you need is to be
aware of being, not as a verbal statement, but as an ever-present
fact. The a awareness that you are will open your eyes to what you
are. It is all very simple. First of all, establish a constant
contact with your self, be with yourself all the time. Into
self-awareness all blessings flow. Begin as a centre of observation,
deliberate cognisance, and grow into a centre of love in action. 'I
am' is a tiny seed which will grow into a mighty tree -- quite
naturally, without a trace of effort.
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-43612625391832924652013-10-01T09:05:00.001-07:002013-10-01T09:08:31.567-07:00I, mine<style type="text/css">
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<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Questioner: I am very much attached to
my family and possessions. How can I conquer this attachment?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Maharaj: This attachment is born along
with the sense of 'me' and 'mine'. Find the true meaning of these
words and you will be free of all bondage. You have a mind which is
spread in time. One after another all things happen to you and the
memory remains. There is nothing wrong in it. The problem arises only
when the memory of past pains and pleasures -- which are essential to
all organic life -- remains as a reflex, dominating behaviour. This
reflex takes the shape of 'I' and uses the body and the mind for its
purposes, which are invariably in search for pleasure or flight from
pain. When you recognise the 'I' as it is, a bundle of desires and
fears, and the sense of 'mine', as embracing all things and people
needed for the purpose of avoiding pain and securing pleasure, you
will see that the 'I' and the 'mine' are false ideas, having no
foundation in reality. Created by the mind, they rule their creator
as long as it takes them to be true; when questioned, they dissolve.
The 'I' and 'mine', having no existence in themselves, need a support
which they find in the body. The body becomes their point of
reference. When you talk of 'my' husband and 'my' children, you mean
the body's husband and the body's children. Give up the idea of being
the body and face the question: Who am l? At once a process will be
set in motion which will bring back reality, or, rather, will take
the mind to reality. Only, you must not be afraid.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What am I to be afraid of?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: For reality to be, the ideas of 'me'
and 'mine' must go. They will go if you let them. Then your normal
natural state reappears, in which you are neither the body nor the
mind, neither the 'me’ nor the 'mine', but in a different state of
being altogether. It is pure awareness of being, without being this
or that, without any self-identification with anything in particular,
or in general. In that pure light of consciousness there is nothing,
not even the idea of nothing. There is only light.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: How is one to be free from the
'I'-sense?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You must deal with the 'I'-sense if
you want to be free of it. Watch it in operation and at peace, how it
starts and when it ceases, what it wants and how it gets it, till you
see clearly and understand fully. After all, all the Yogas, whatever
their source and character, have only one aim: to save you from the
calamity of separate existence, of being a meaningless dot in a vast
and beautiful picture. You suffer because you have alienated yourself
from reality and now you seek an escape from this alienation. You
cannot escape from your own obsessions. You can only cease nursing
them. It is because the ‘I am' is false that it wants to continue.
Reality need not continue -- knowing itself indestructible, it is
indifferent to the destruction of forms and expressions. To
strengthen, and stabilise the 'I am' we do all sorts of things -- all
in vain, for the 'I am' is being rebuilt from moment to moment. It is
unceasing work and the only radical solution is to dissolve the
separative sense of 'I am such-and-such person' once and for good.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Similarly, I watch all that happens,
including my talking to you. It is not me who talks, the words appear
in my mind and then I hear them said.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Is it not the case with everybody?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Who said no? But you insist that you
think, you speak, while to me there is thinking, there is speaking.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: There is nothing in my mind. As you
hear the words, so do I hear them. The power that makes everything
happen makes them also happen.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: But you are speaking, not me.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: That is how it appears to you. As I
see it, two body-minds exchange symbolic noises.
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-4016023798502801712013-10-01T02:21:00.002-07:002013-10-01T02:22:36.021-07:00Love<style type="text/css">
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Does love act deliberately? Yes and
no. Life is love and love is life. What keeps the body together but
love? What is desire, but love of the self? What is fear but the urge
to protect? And what is knowledge but the love of truth? The means
and forms may be wrong, but the motive behind is always love -- love
of the me and the mine. The me and the mine may be small, or may
explode and embrace the universe, but love remains.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Of all the affections the love of
oneself comes first. Your love of the world is the reflection of your
love of yourself, for your world is of your own creation. Light and
love are impersonal, but they are reflected in your mind as knowing
and wishing oneself well. We are always friendly towards ourselves.
but not always wise.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The witness of birth, life and death is
one and the same. It is the witness of pain and of love. For while
the existence in limitation and separation is sorrowful, we love it.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: We love only ourselves.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Were it so, it would be splendid!
Love your self wisely and you will reach the summit of perfection.
Everybody loves his body, but few love their real being.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Does my real being need my love?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Your real being is love itself and
your many loves are its reflections according to the situation at the
moment.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: We are selfish, we know only
self-love.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Good enough for a start. By all
means wish yourself well. Think over, feel out deeply what is really
good for you and strive for it earnestly. Very soon you will find
that the real is your only good.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: In your present state can you love
another person as a person?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: I am the other person, the other
person is myself; in name and shape we are different, but there is no
separation. At the root of our being we are one.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Is it not so whenever there is love
between people?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It is, but they are not conscious of
it. They feel the attraction, but do not know the reason.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Why is love selective?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Love is not selective, desire is
selective. In love there are no strangers. When the centre of
selfishness is no longer, all desires for pleasure and fear of pain
cease; one is no longer interested in being happy; beyond happiness
there is pure intensity, inexhaustible energy, the ecstasy of giving
from a perennial source.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What about love?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: When it turns to lust, it becomes
destructive.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What is lust?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Remembering -- imagining --
anticipating. It is sensory and verbal. A form of addiction.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: You see love everywhere, while I see
hatred and suffering. The history of humanity is the history of
murder, individual and collective. No other living being so delights
in killing. M: If you go into the motives, you will find love, love
of oneself and of one's own. People fight for what they imagine they
love.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Surely their love must be real
enough when they are ready to die for it.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Love is boundless. What is limited
to a few cannot be called love.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Do you know such unlimited love?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Yes, l do.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: How does it feel?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: All is loved and lovable. Nothing is
excluded.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Not even the ugly and the criminal?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: All is within my consciousness; all
is my own. It is madness to split oneself through likes and dislikes.
I am beyond both. I am not alienated.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: To be free from like and dislike is
a state of indifference.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It may look and feel so in the
beginning. Persevere in such indifference and it will blossom into an
all-pervading and all-embracing love.
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-67371794695892330842013-10-01T02:20:00.001-07:002013-12-25T18:19:54.555-08:00Meditation<style type="text/css">
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<br />
Q: What is meditation and what are its uses?<br />
<br />
M: As long as you are beginner certain formalized meditations or<br />
prayers may be good for you. But for a seeker for reality, there is<br />
only one meditation – the rigorous refusal to harbor thoughts. To be<br />
free from thoughts is itself meditation.<br />
<br />
Q: How it is done?<br />
<br />
M: You begin by letting thoughts flow and watching them. The very<br />
observation slows down the mind till it stops altogether. Once the<br />
mind is quiet, keep it quiet. Don't get bored with peace, be in it, go<br />
deeper into it.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-6777842162946248332013-10-01T02:17:00.003-07:002013-10-01T02:21:27.041-07:00Methaphisics<style type="text/css">
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: The picture is in the mind of the
painter and the painter is in the picture, which is in the mind of
the painter who is in the picture! Is not this infinity of states and
dimensions absurd? The moment we talk of picture in the mind, which
itself is in the picture, we come to an endless succession of
witnesses, the higher witness witnessing the lower. It is like
standing between two mirrors and wondering at the crowd!
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Quite right, you alone and the
double mirror are there. Between the two, your forms and names are
numberless.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
To be nothing, to have nothing, to keep
nothing for oneself is the greatest gift, the highest generosity.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: How does the jnani fare after death?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The jnani is dead already. Do you
expect him to die again?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Surely, the dissolution of the body
is an important event even to a jnani.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: There are no important events for a
jnani, except when somebody reaches the highest goal. Then only his
heart rejoices. All else is of no concern. The entire universe is his
body, all life is his life. As in a city of lights, when one bulb
burns out, it does not affect the network, so the death of a body
does not affect the whole
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: The particular may not matter to the
whole, but it does matter to the particular. The whole is an abstraction, the particular, the
concrete, is real.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: That is what you say. To me it may
be the other way -- the whole is real, the part comes and goes. The
particular is born and reborn, changing name and shape, the jnani is
the Changeless Reality, which makes the changeful possible. But he
cannot give you the conviction. It must come with your own
experience.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Imagine a big building collapsing. Some
rooms are in ruins, some are intact. But can you speak of the space
as ruined or intact? It is only the structure that suffered and the
people who happened to live in it. Nothing happened to space itself.
Similarly, nothing happens to life when forms break down and names
are wiped out. The goldsmith melts down old ornaments to make new.
Sometimes a good piece goes with the bad. He takes it in his stride,
for he knows that no gold is lost.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The universal is not aware of the
particular. The existence as a person is a personal matter. A person
exists in time and space, has name and shape, beginning and end; the
universal includes all persons and the absolute is at the root of and
beyond all.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I am not concerned with the
totality. My personal consciousness and your personal consciousness
-- what is the link between the two?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Between two dreamers what can be the
link?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: They may dream of each other.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: That is what people are doing.
Everyone imagines 'others' and seeks a link with them. The seeker is
the link, there is none other.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Surely there must be something in
common between the many points of consciousness we are.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Where are the many points? In your
mind. You insist that your world is independent of your mind. How can
it be? Your desire to know other people's minds is due to your not
knowing your own mind. First know your own mind and you will find
that the question of other minds does not arise at all, for there are
no other people. You are the common factor, the only link between the
minds. Being is consciousness; 'I am' applies to all.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Anyhow, begin by realising that the
world is in you, not you in the world.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: How can it be? I am only a part of
the world. How can the whole world be contained in the part, except
by reflection, mirror like?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: What you say is true. Your personal
body is a part in which the whole is wonderfully reflected. But you
have also a universal body. You cannot even say that you do not know
it, because you see and experience it all the time. Only you call it
'the world' and are afraid of it.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: I feel I know my little body, while
the other I do not know, except through science.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Your little body is full of
mysteries and wonders which you do not know. There also science is
your only guide. Both anatomy and astronomy describe you.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Even If I accept your doctrine of
the universal body as a working theory, in what way can I test
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
it and of what use is it to me?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Knowing yourself as the dweller in
both the bodies you will disown nothing. All the universe will be
your concern; every living thing you will love and help most tenderly
and wisely. There will be no clash of interests between you and
others. All exploitation will cease absolutely. Your every action
will be beneficial, every movement will be a blessing.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: It is all very tempting, but how am
I to proceed to realise my universal being?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You have two ways: you can give your
heart and mind to self-discovery, or you accept my words on trust and
act accordingly. In other words, either you become totally
self-concerned, or totally un-self-concerned. It is the word
'totally' that is important. You must be extreme to reach the
Supreme.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: How can I aspire to such heights,
small and limited as I am?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: realise yourself as the ocean of
consciousness in which all happens. This is not difficult. A little
of attentiveness, of close observation of oneself, and you will see
that no event is outside your consciousness.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: The world is full of events which do
not appear in my consciousness.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Even your body is full of events
which do not appear in your consciousness. This does not prevent you
from claiming your body to be your own. You know the world exactly as
you know your body -- through your senses. It is your mind that has
separated the world outside your skin from the world inside and put
them in opposition. This created fear and hatred and all the miseries
of living.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
When you realise yourself as less than
a point in space and time, something too small to be cut and too
short-lived to be killed, then, and then only, all fear goes. When
you are smaller than the point of a needle, then the needle cannot
pierce you -- you pierce the needle!
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-24394150662856523182013-10-01T02:15:00.002-07:002013-10-01T02:16:44.788-07:00Mind<style type="text/css">
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<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: No question of reconditioning,
changing, or eliminating the mind?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Absolutely none. Leave your mind
alone, that is all. Don't go along with it. After all, there is no
such thing as mind apart from thoughts which come and go obeying
their own laws, not yours. They dominate you only because you are
interested in them. It is exactly as Christ said 'Resist not evil'.
By resisting evil you merely strengthen it.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: When the words are spoken, there is
silence. When the relative is over, the absolute remains. The silence
before the words were spoken, is it different from the silence that
comes after? The silence is one and without it the words could not
have been heard. It is always there -- at the back of the words.
Shift your attention from words to silence and you will hear it. The
mind craves for experience, the memory of which it takes for
knowledge. The jnani is beyond all experience and his memory is empty
of the past. He is entirely unrelated to anything in particular. But
the mind craves for formulations and definitions, always eager to
squeeze reality into a verbal shape. Of everything it wants an idea,
for without ideas the mind is not. Reality is essentially alone, but
the mind will not leave it alone -- and deals instead with the
unreal. And yet it is all the mind can do -- discover the unreal as
unreal.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
To see reality is as simple as to see
one's face in a mirror. Only the mirror must be clear and true. A
quiet mind, undistorted by desires and fears, free from ideas and
opinions, clear on all the levels, is needed to reflect the reality.
Be clear and quiet -- alert and detached, all else will happen by
itself.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The real sees the real in the unreal.
It is the mind that creates the unreal and it is the mind that sees
the false as false.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: What do I gain by learning to use my
mind?<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You gain freedom from desire and
fear, which are entirely due to wrong uses of the mind.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Can one know the mind of another
person?<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Know you own mind first. It contains
the entire universe and with space to spare!
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: In the mirror of your mind all kinds
of pictures appear and disappear. Knowing that they are entirely your
own creations, watch them silently come and go, be alert, but not
perturbed. This attitude of silent observation is the very foundation
of Yoga. You see the picture, but you are not the picture.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: First realise that your problem
exists in your waking state only, that however painful it is, you are
able to forget it altogether when you go to sleep. When you are awake
you are conscious; when you are asleep, you are only alive.
Consciousness and life -- both you may call God; but you are beyond
both, beyond God, beyond being and not-being. What prevents you from
knowing yourself as all and beyond all, is the mind based on memory.
It has power over you as long as you trust it; don't struggle with
it; just disregard it. Deprived of attention, it will slow down and
reveal the mechanism of its working. Once you know its nature and
purpose, you will not allow it to create imaginary problems.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Surely, not all problems are
imaginary. There are real problems.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: What problems can there be which the
mind did not create? Life and death do not create problems; pains and
pleasures come and go, experienced and forgotten. It is memory and
anticipation that create problems of attainment or avoidance,
coloured by like and dislike.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
m: The mind and the world are not
separate. Do understand that what you think to be the world is your
own mind.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Is there a world beyond, or outside
the mind?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: All space and time are in the mind.
Where will you locate a supramental world? There are many levels of
the mind and each projects its own version, yet all are in the mind
and created by the mind.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Know yourself to be the changeless
witness of the changeful mind. That is enough.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: To be, just be, is important. You
need not ask anything, nor do anything. Such apparently lazy way of
spending time is highly regarded in India. It means that for the time
being you are free from the obsession with 'what next'. When you Are
not in a hurry and the mind is free from anxieties, it becomes quiet
and in the silence something may be heard which is ordinarily too
fine and subtle for perception. The mind must be open and quiet to
see. What we are trying to do here is to bring our minds into the
right state for understanding what is real.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Questioner: How do we learn to cut out
worries?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You need not worry about your
worries. Just be. Do not try to be quiet; do not make 'being quiet' into a task to be performed. Don't be
restless about 'being quiet', miserable about 'being happy'. Just be aware that you are and remain
aware -- don't say: 'yes, I am; what next?' There is no 'next' in 'I am'. It is a timeless state.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: You create disharmony and then
complain! When you desire and fear, and identify yourself with your
feelings, you create sorrow and bondage. When you create, with love
and wisdom, and remain unattached to your creations, the result is
harmony and peace. But whatever be the condition of your mind, in
what way does it reflect on you? It is only your self-identification
with your mind that makes you happy or unhappy. Rebel against your
slavery to your mind, see your bonds as self- created and break the
chains of attachment and revulsion.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: As I watch my mind I find it
changing all the time, mood succeeding mood in infinite variety,
while you seem to be perpetually in the same mood of cheerful
benevolence.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Moods are in the mind and do not
matter. Go within, go beyond. Cease being fascinated by the content
of your consciousness. When you reach the deep layers of your true
being, you will find that the mind's surface-play affects you very
little.
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875344040425494426.post-67767658318661289692013-10-01T02:14:00.001-07:002013-10-01T02:14:50.629-07:00Mindfulness
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<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Can I make myself remember my state
of deep sleep?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Of course! By eliminating the
intervals of inadvertence during your waking hours you will gradually
eliminate the long interval of absent-mindedness, which you call
sleep. You will be aware
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
that you are asleep.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Reality is not the result of a process;
it is an explosion. It is definitely beyond the mind, but all you can
do is to know your mind well. Not that the mind will help you, but by
knowing your mind you may avoid your mind disabling you. You have to
be very alert, or else your mind will play false with you. It is like
watching a thief -- not that you expect anything from a thief, but
you do not want to be robbed. In the same way you give a lot of
attention to the mind without expecting anything from it.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: The main thing is to be free of
negative emotions -- desire, fear etc., the 'six enemies' of the
mind. Once the mind is free of them, the rest will come easily. Just
as cloth kept in soap water will become clean, so will the mind get
purified in the stream of pure feeling.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
When you sit quiet and watch yourself,
all kinds of things may come to the surface. Do nothing about them,
don't react to them; as they have come so will they go, by
themselves. All that matters is mindfulness, total awareness of
oneself or rather, of one's mind.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: How is it that here my mind is
engaged in high topics and finds dwelling on them easy and pleasant.
When I return home I find myself forgetting all l have learnt here,
worrying and fretting, unable to remember my real nature even for a
moment. What may be the cause?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: It is your childishness you are
returning to. You are not fully grown up; there are levels left
undeveloped because unattended. Just give full attention to what in
you is crude and primitive, unreasonable and unkind, altogether
childish, and you will ripen. It is the maturity of heart and mind
that is essential. It comes effortlessly when the main obstacle is
removed – inattention, unawareness. In awareness you grow.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: There is such a way, open to all, on
every level, in every walk of life. Everybody is aware of himself.
The deepening and broadening of self-awareness is the royal way. Call
it mindfulness, or witnessing, or just attention -- it is for all.
None is unripe for it and none can fail. But, of course, your must
not be merely alert. Your mindfulness must include the mind also.
Witnessing is primarily awareness of consciousness and its movements.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
*</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: How can I clear my mind?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: By watching it relentlessly.
Inattention obscures, attention clarifies.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Q: Why do the Indian teachers advocate
inactivity?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
M: Most of people's activities are
valueless, if not outright destructive. Dominated by desire and fear,
they can do nothing good. Ceasing to do evil precedes beginning to do
good. Hence the need for stopping all activities for a time, to
investigate one's urges and their motives, see all that is false in
one's life, purge the mind of all evil and then only restart work,
beginning with one's obvious duties. Of course, if you have a chance
to help somebody, by all means do it and promptly too, don't keep him
waiting till you are perfect. But do not become a professional
do-gooder.
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02313919539221241362noreply@blogger.com0