July 9, 1980
Maharaja Understand that it is not the individual which has
consciousness, it is the consciousness which assumes innumerable forms.
That something which is born or which will die is purely imaginary. It is
the child of a barren woman.
In the absence of this basic concept "I Am" there is no thought, there is
no consciousness.
Questioner: Maharaj has said that ifyou stay in the consciousness, the beingness, it
will automatically happen, that you will transcend the consciousness. Is this true, there
is nothing more to be done?
M. Suppose I am sitting here and you come, I come to know that you
are, the witnessing happens automatically. Has anything been done?
No. It is like that. It is simple. You should understand. Just like a raw
mango becomes a ripe mango, it happens. Many people get satisfied in the
consciousness state.
Q: I am not going to be satisfied until I am in Maharaj s state.
M. Whatever you consider yourself to be at the moment, when you get rid
of that, whatever your true nature, it is spontaneous. Abide in the words
of the Guru.
Q When you read Maharaj's teachings you want very much to be in his company.
There is something very enlivening about that. Is it important or essential?
M. It is very advantageous to get rid of all your doubts. That's why the
questions and answers are required. This is the place where you get rid
of all concepts. The trees which are near the sandalwood tree also have
the same smell, because of proximity.
What is the Self? If you want to expand, the entire world is the
manifestation. At the same time it is very tiny - the seed beingness - like
an atom, a pinprick of "I Amness."
That is the very source of love. Such a potential is there, having
provided that love to the entire world; it remains in that seed "I Am," the
leftover is that "I Am." That pinprick or touch of "I Amness" is the
quintessence of all essence.
One must have firm abidance or faith in the words of the Guru. Here I
do not repeat or imitate what other sages do. I am not championing any
religion. I have no pose or stance for anything, not even that I am a man or
a woman. The moment you accept any pose or stance you have to take care
of that by following certain disciplines relating to that pose. I abide in the
Self only.
I do not believe that anybody did exist prior to me. When my beingness
appeared, then everything appeared. Prior to my beingness,
nothing was. Originally I am without any stigma, uncovered by anything.
The Paramatman is the core Self, the highest Self. Its identity is without
any stigma, it is subtler than space.
Why are you dying? Understand the first moment, when you
understood that you are. Due to what? How?
Once you understand this, you are the highest of the Gods -the
point at which everything rises; the source and the end is the same point.
Once you understand that point, you are released from that point.
Nobody tries to understand this happening of the "I Amness." I, the
Absolute am not this "I Amness."
In meditation your beingness should merge in itself, a non-dual
state. Remain still. Do not struggle to come out of the mud of your
concepts, you will only go deeper. Remain still.
July 15, 1980
Maharaja What is the effect of what I have spoken on you?
Questioner: Whatever Maharaj has spoken is the truth, but I also request him to
show me a way. Maharaj says that sadhana is not the way, but the determination
that I am the consciousness is a very difficult thing. I am practicing.
M: Who is practicing? It has no form, it is dwelling in this body. How
long will it continue and what is the gain? Abide in the Self only. Until
then it will continue the sadhana; once it is established in the Self, the
objective, the person who is practicing, and the process of practicing is
gone. A sankalpa indicates a need, an objective.
Q. What is a sankalpa?
M: You want a medical degree, that is the sankalpa. Sadhana is the study,
practice, homework. You wanted to meet me today, that is a sankalpa. You
walked here and climbed the stairs, that is the sadhana. That sankalpa has
no form, the one who makes the sankalpa also has no form. So long as you
are identifying with the form the practice will go on. Once you reach the
objective, which is that you are not the body-mind, then there is no
practice.
You have great faith in the Bhagavad Gita: is this correct?
Q. Yes.
M.• Gita is a song sung by Lord Krishna. He sang the song just as I am
singing this talk to you now; this is Rg Gita. You have read the Bhagavad
Gita, recited it, remembered it; but what is important? You must get to
know that Krishna who sang that Gita. You must get his knowledge,
what he is.
Is it not an incarnation? In short, from nothingness the form is
taken; the nothingness descends into form, that is Avatar. Normally we say
from nothingness a person is there, but for these great personalities, great
sages, you will say Avatar. Are you trying to understand that Krishna?
No, you are creating certain concepts and trying to understand him.
That is not correct. From nothingness he was - how did it happen? This
incarnation you must understand, the descending into Avatar, or form;
what is this? Prior to incarnation that personality had no knowledge about
himself, after descending into -this incarnation he started knowing
himself. What are your comments?
Q: Before Avatar he had no knowledge of himself?
M. Before descending into this Avatar this knowledge quality is not
there.
Q. But Parabrahman ...
M. These are all conceptual titles and names; they are shackles on you. In
your core Self there is no imposition of any title or name, externally you
have accepted them.
Any embodied person with the knowledge "I Am" carries on his activi
ties in the world with the name only. That inner core, the "I Am" has no
shackles. Once it is understood that I am that "I Am" only, and not this
shackled form, then no liberation is called for; that itself is liberation.
You know the historical facts about Sri Krishna by heart, but you
must know what this incarnation is. Names are the handcuffs, the bondage.
Every person is shackled because of his identification with the body.
Without that name and form, please proceed to talk and question.
Q: The only words I have are very much words with name and form. They are
words of gratitude. Gratitude for what Maharaj has blessed me with since I have been
here. To even see a sage in one's lifetime would be an incomparable grace, and to have had
'so much grace from him in the form of his instructions just overwhelms me, and there is
absolutely no way I can ever thank him.
M. What do you mean by grace? Grace means that you have come to
me. I and that you are only one. That you understand that we are one is
grace.
Q. At times like these that is the hardest thing to understand.
M: Grace means totality, wholeness, there is no fragmentation.
Q. [another] Why I am ostracized? Why can't I see the truth?
M. You are ostracized because you are identifying with the body-mind
and the memory that you are a body. Give up that identity, and that
memory, and then whatever you see will be the truth.
This is a very rare, a very precious opportunity, wherein you get this
conflux of three entities: body, vital force and the touch of "I Amness,"
and with this alone you can reach right up to the Absolute - you can
abide in the Absolute.
In the name of spirituality people carry out various types of acting,
likejapa, penances, etc. Once you accept that actors pose, you undergo the
disciplines and therefore all the sufferings are related to that. This is not
going to lead you to the Ultimate, the Absolute.
For you, the first step is worship that vital breath; here you must
focus your attention on that vital breath pulsation - and together with
that, carry out the name-japa. When you do that, the vital breath will be
purified, and in the process of purification this beingness will open up.
Just reciting the name of God is concentrating the vital breath. The
meaning of the mantra is that you are not the name or form.
All the 24 hours this vital breath, or vital force, through various
perceptions, is recording the pictures of all your experiences and
memorizing whatever is relevant. Can you do that with your intellect?
Q: [newcomer] I saw the article in the Mountain Path4 about Maharaj and I have
come to ask his blessings.
M: Your spiritual acquisitions, everything is very good, but when you f
inally realize yourself you will come to the conclusion that all is useless,
redundant, superfluous.
Q. That is why I am asking for the blessing of Maharaj - to have that experience. M:
In that highest state there is no experience. Experience, experiencing,
experiencer - everything is only one.
Q: Can Maharaj give a push to reach that state?
M. Somebody has already given a push to you and that is why you have
come here. From the front you are pushed backward. Recede into the
source. [To another] Has your talking machine gone out of order?
Q: Before I acquired this body, did I know everything?
M. You were perfect, total.
Q. Just because I am encased in this body I am suffering.
M. How did you reach your parents? Deliberate on that.
Q. I had the desire?
M. For the time being let us assume that you had the desire, but just teli
me, how did you reach those parents?
Q• I do not know.
M. Whatever you do not know is perfect. Whatever you know is
imperfect, fraudulent.
Q. Just because I am encased in the body I am in agony to be perfect, which I am not.
M: Why do you worry about this encasement in a body?
Q: Who is worrying? That cannot be me.
M: The worrier is not you, it is the affair of the intelligence. [In English
Maharaj said, "You ... No!"] Now I am talking in English.
Q.• The English language is blessed.
M: My teaching is spread among all the foreigners through the English
language. Very intelligent people, very advanced, thousands of them.
The beauty lies in the fact that my knowledge will be in conflagration in
foreign countries. It will be spread in America and from there it will be
spread back to the Indians. When the Indians receive it they will say, "It
has the approval of the foreigners, therefore we will accept it."; that is
the nature of the Indians. Indians are like this. If somebody goes to
America or England and works, even washing dishes, when he returns
many people will go to see him and present garlands; that is our nature.
Q. Ramana Maharshi was a great sage, he was unknown in India. When Paul
Brunton wrote the book in English about him, everybody went to see him and he
became well known.
M I agree with that. Ramana Maharshi was discovered by Paul Brunton
and I was discovered by Maurice Frydman.
July 19, 1980
Maharaj: In this spiritual hierarchy, from the grossest to the, subtlest,
you are the subtlest. How can this be realized? The very base is that you
don't know you are, and suddenly the feeling of "I Amness" appears.
The moment it appears you see space, mental space; that subtle, skylike
space, stabilize you there. You are that. When you are able to
stabilize in that state, you are the space only.
When this space-like identity "I Am" disappears, the space also will
disappear, there is no space.
When that space-like "I Am" goes into oblivion, that is the eternal
state, nirguna, no form, no beingness. Actually, what did happen there?
This message "I Am" was no message. Dealing with this aspect, I cannot
talk much because there is no scope to put it into words.
Questioner: Does Maharaj go into samadhi?
M. I am stabilized in the Highest. There is no going into samadhi, or
coming down from samadhi; that is over.
Q. Should we continue our meditation?
M.• It doesn't mean this is an excuse for you to give up meditation, you
must persist in meditation until you come to a stage when you feel there is
no meditation. When the purpose of meditation is gained it will drop off
naturally.
Q Which is the way to the Supreme state?
M. There is no question of going into that state. You are the Supreme
state, but whatever ignorance you have will drop off.
I've been advised by doctors not to talk, therefore I am not talking.
Q. Is there a desire not to die and lose your body?
M. The sage is not concerned with that.
Q. Is there a desire of the body, not of the Self?
M: You may say something like that; this is the administrative action of
that beingness.
It is a very complicated riddle. You have to discard whatever you
know, whatever you have read, and have a firm conviction about That
about which nobody knows anything. You can't get any information
about That, and about That you must have firm conviction. How difficult
it is.
Most people reach that state which is, but nobody reaches that state
which is not. It is very rarely that one can reach that state. It transcends all
knowledge.
Most essential is that knowledge "I Am." Claim it, appropriate it as
you own. If that is not there, nothing is. Knowledge of all the stages will be
obtained only with the aid of this knowledge "I Am."
From the Absolute no-knowing state, spontaneously, this consciousness
"I Am" has appeared -there is no reason, no cause. Spontaneously
it has come, with the waking state, deep sleep, the five elemental
play, three Gunas, and Prakriti and Purusha. Then it embraces the
body as its self and therefore identifies as a male or a female. This "I Amness"
has its own love to be: it wants to remain, to perpetuate itself, but it
is not eternal.
This passing show may be likened to the following situation: suppose
I was well all along, then suddenly I was sick and the doctor gave me
medicine. After three days my fever was gone. So this stage of fever for
three days is the "I Am" consciousness. Exactly like that -a passing
show, a time-bound state. This principle loves to be, and one must not
belittle it - it is a very Godly principle. This "I Amness" contains the entire
cosmos.
It is said that all this is unreal. When is it certified as unreal? Only
when one understands this temporary phase. And in the process of
understanding one is in the Absolute and from there recognizes this as a
temporary, unreal state.
In my present state I am not able to talk much. The difficulty is that
you have been accepting this as real and I have to disprove this and a lot of
talking is to be done by me, which I am not in a position to do now. So,
you go now, do bhajans.
July 20, 1980
Maharaj: You are having experiences in the world with body and
mind, but what do you know about your identity? You have an image of
yourself, but that identity is only a temporary thing.
Questioner: What is mind?
M: Mind is the language of the vital breath. That mind-language will
talk only about the impressions it has collected. The knowledge "I Am" is not
a thought but observes the, thoughts.
Out of prana, the pranava, the beginning of sound, in the sound is the love
to be. The innermost, subtlest principle is that gnawing principle "I Am, I
Am," without words, by which you know you are. It has no form or image,
it is only beingness, the love to be.
Para shakti is the beingness or love to be. The next stage of the Para
shakti is Para shunti, the formation but not yet perceptible. The next stage
is mind formation: the language is formed in the mind, next is the explosion
of words, vocal words. In this where are you? This is a process happening.
For you I am expounding very secret knowledge about your own
beingness, how it came about - that is what I am talking about.
This play is just happening; you are not playing a part. When you
are ignorant, you think you are playing a part in this manifest world.
There is no one working deliberately - it is happening spontaneously.
You cannot claim anything in this process. When you are thoroughly
knowledgeable you will come to the conclusion that this beingness is also
an illusion.
Q. Who recognizes that it is illusion or ignorance?
M. Only that one recognizes or witnesses all that as ignorance. That
M: According to the time and the situation they have taught their
concepts, but they are concepts meant only for that period, that situation,
and then their concepts have developed into religions.
All of you presume that you are very knowledgeable spiritually.
Before you think of deriving any benefit out of anything, first of all, find
out what is your identity.
July 21, 1980
Questioner: Why did I take this form?
Maharaj: Because you were a fool. If you had known anything about it, you
would not have come into this world.
Q: First I hadn't any form, isn't that so?
M.• Yes, even now you don't have any form. It is not your shape, it is the
shape of the seed.
Q Isn't it the nature of the seed that it grows, like a tree grows out of a seed?
M. It is its nature.
Q: So, I am not to blame. The seed must be foolish.
M. Because the seed is foolish it has come like this. The seed is the original
foolish state, yet what big titles are given to that seed. The seed is
transient, and the whole world is full of the seeds. All the five elements, all
the objective world, is in that seed. You are not the seed - you are the
observer of the seed.
For many centuries the Western people were not interested in spiritual
matters, but now they have realized that, in spite of all their riches, they
cannot get real peace, so they are searching for the truth now. The nearer
you get to the truth, the more you lose interest in worldly affairs. Such a
one will not have any particular interest in the world, but will act like an
ordinary person.
The sum and substance of spirituality is nothing but to come to a
decision, make a judgment, about the Self, God and the world - what is it?
You must first dispose of this question.
This world is filled up. with selfishness due to your association with the
body. Once you know what these principles are, then you dissolve the
personality, and in the process that selfishness vanishes because you are
no more an individual.
Q. How can I be in my true state and lose my fear?
M. You are already in your true state. Because of the mind, duality
comes in and therefore you are afraid. The association with the body and
mind is because of love for the body-mind; that is going to go away,
therefore everyone is afraid of death.
Q. The world is given tome by my senses. When you go beyond that state of "I
Amness" do you experience the world?
M.• There is no question of going beyond. I was never born, will never die.
Whatever is - is all the time. Going beyond is only an idea meant to
remove all other ideas you have accumulated. You think about birth. Do you
know anything about your birth?
Q: No, I do not know that 1 am born. I feel that I am really not born, and yet the
world seems so real.
M. Do not worry about the world. First start from here: the "I Am," and
then find out what is the world. Find out the nature of this "I."
Q• Why find out about the "1" which is not real?
M.• It is the seed from which everything comes out. If the seed is not
there, the universe is not. How have you come into this so-called objective
world? Here everything will be wiped out. I invite you, in your own
interest, to go home.
July 22, 1980
Maharaja All these discussions are an exchange of ideas and mental
entertainment, meant to while away the time.
Questioner: If you don't make some kind of effort, you get nowhere.
M. Don't think that some progress has to be made. You will continue to do
something, even if it is conceptual, but the one who understands that he is
already there, what will he do?
Q. Okay, but isn't there tremendous scope for self deception here?
M. Who is this who is going to be self-deceived? Q:
The empirical ego.
M. There is no entity. It is not possible for a phenomenal object to
achieve something, and this is only a phenomenal object.
one cannot understand That one, he can witness and understand only the
ignorance. The one who recognizes all this as ignorance, that one is
knowledgeable. Why are you calling mejnani and listening to my talks?
Because I have recognized and understood that child ignorance, the "I
Amness," and have transcended that.
Finally you have to understand that the principle which you are using to
talk, to move about, and operate in this world, is not you.
Q- I have read and listened to so many stories about the different sages and personalities
of the past, and they were all dierent, they founded different sects, etc.; why is this so?
Q. Don't you have to make that effort to stand back?
M.• Not doing anything means what kind of doing?
Q. Our normal way of living is identifying. If we stand back, is there a qualitative
difference?
M: Carry on your entertainment, but don't be under the misapprehension
that you are doing anything.
Q: When I say that 1 am God, how come people don't come and prostate before me?
M. If you have truly understood that you are God, before that conviction
comes you will have lost your identity, you will have merged with the total
manifestation, therefore who will expect whom to come and do pranams?
Q: Is there such a thing as using one's will to do something? If one is trying to stay
awake,, saying a mantra, or meditating, and keeps pulling himself back from sleep, is
he not doing something?
M. At the stage of a seeker what he is doing may be right, but he will
soon find out that the seeker disappears in the seeking. When the seeker
disappears there is no question of doing. Later the seeker will understand
that it was not his true nature which was doing all this, but that to
which the label "born" was attached - that is the consciousness which
has identified itself with the body and the states of waking and sleeping.
That whole bundle is what was doing and he is not that. This body is
perceptible, but my true nature is That which was before the body and the
consciousness came into being. Anything that is sensorially seen and interpreted
by the mind is an appearance in consciousness, and is not true.
I am not telling you anything which is foreign to my experience, I am
telling you what I have understood and experienced. It is very simple:
this is time-bound and anything which is time-bound is untrue, because
time itself is a concept.
What I am telling you is based on this simple fact, as it is based on my
experience. If it appeals to you as a concept at the moment, accept it.
Otherwise not.
If at all you want to do something, do that which you cannot do at all.
That is the state of no-being.
Q. There is a constant restlessness in the mind, wanting to realize something; that in
itself seems to be an obstacle.
M: Are you prior to the mind or after?
Q. Prior to the mind.
M. So don't worry about the mind. Employ your mind to the extent that is
useful for your normal daily chores, not beyond that.
M.- The knowledgeable one just witnesses or cancels whatever
experiences are obtainable through the mind as having no substance. All
this world play is in the realm of the mind; once you understand that you
are not the mind in what way are you concerned? This is a temporary phase,.
imperfect, inadequate.
Q. Even beingness is an imperfect temporary phase?
M. That consciousness is a product of the food essence body; the body
is the fuel on which "I Amness" is sustained. Do you not observe what
the body is? Is it not a morsel of food and water? Presently you are embroiled
in this "I Amness," but you - the Absolute - are not this "I
Amness."
Q What you are saying is, even the "I Amness, " the way you recognize it in the
mind, that is not the way it is actually?
M. Take it like this: this is as good or as bad an experience as having a
tummy ache or a pain in the neck. In my perfect state [never had a pain,
but when the "I Amness" was there, suddenly I felt the pain. That "I
Amness" will merge, will disappear, I am the perfect state when "I
Amness" was not. I definitely know that "I Amness" was not. Just as I
have to suffer a chronic ailment I suffer this beingness. Just understand at
what level I am talking, to what level I am leading you.
Just imagine the flight to which this spiritual talk has gone. The normal
spiritual approach everywhere is to worship this consciousness with so
many titles, but to me it is a pain and I want to get rid of that.
July 23, 1980
Questioner: Maharaj says all that is necessary is to be aware. The mind keeps on
casting doubts, and particularly keeps on saying that there must be more practices or,
something more to be done.
Maharaj: All the activities are in the field of consciousness, the mind,
and vital force. The knower of the mind is just a witness. It does not
interfere in anything.
Guru's grace means the knowledge you are. When you stabilize in
this conviction, that will open up and give you all the knowledge and
that is the grace.
If you are there, then everything is immeasurably there. You give no
significance to the fact that you are - you are carried away by all the
manifestation which is the expression of your beingness.
Q: My tendency is to look outward, rather than inward.
M. That is the quality of your "I Amness," not of you, the Absolute.
You have embraced the body as your Self. That also is superficial, you
don't know what is happening inside the body either.
Q. Correct. I don't know what's happening in my organs or how they act.
M. All the actions happening in this wide world, the samples of all
those, are also happening in the body.
Q. That which is, does not know Itse�P
M. In that state you do not know you are. With the tool, or aid, of
beingness you know you are.
Q. With the tool we try to go beyond?
M. Don't try to go beyond consciousness, only recognize, understand,
what the beingness is, that does the trick. The proof that consciousness
was not lies with you only. You, the Absolute, are the proof of that.
Spontaneously, uncalled for, this beingness has come and this beingness is
being witnessed by you, the Absolute. Ask questions - you will not have
such an opportunity again.
Q: The urge is not so much to ask questions, as to just be with Maharaj.
M: That is quite proper. Just by sitting here quietly and listening to the
talks you mind will be annihilated. In case the mind sprouts again you
forestall it by asking questions.
The mind is sprouting, expressing itself with various concepts. Don't
identify with that, let it go. Don't be a customer to your mind concepts.
Q: Things like getting food, eating at regular times, earning money, all these are
concepts of the mind and are responded to by the mind. If one does not respond to
these things, then how does one live?
M. By all means employ the mind, but don't get lost in the mind.
Observe the mind, be a witness to the mind flow.
July 26, 1980
Questioner: I have come to Maharaj in the hope that he may help me put an end to this
search.
Maharaja Can you communicate to me what you have understood? Q It
is all concepts, all illusion.
M. Yes.
Q I don't believe in processes that take time and disciplines, I've done all that. I
want it to end.
M.• The basic fact - that you are not the body - must be clear to you by
now. You are working in the world and you think that you are doing that
work, but what is really happening is this: the life force, when it comes out
in thoughts and words, is the mind, so it is this pram mind, life force mind,
which is the acting principle. The beingness, the consciousness, is the God
which witnesses the life force and mind working. It does not interfere; it
merely witnesses. The reason for your unhappiness is that you think it is
you are working.
Q. I realize that anything I say is a concept arising out of my consciousness.
M: That you are, and the world is, are both concepts. You must know
that.
Q. How does this knowledge work? I mean: you tell me words and there comes a
sense of understanding. Is it a mental process? Is there still a faculty witnessing all
this?
M: The mind understands because of the consciousness.
Q Then it is all an automatic happening?
M. That is true. The mind interprets whatever the concept is, the base is
consciousness on which the concept arises at the moment.
Q So what is there actually to attain ifyou cannot change this consciousness and
you cannot touch, cannot reach by words? It is there all the time, right now. So for
what are we here? Doing belongs to the mind - that is clear - it is going on like an
automaton. I see clearly now. I want this mind to surrender to the consciousness. Do you
understand?
M: All this conceptualizing, all this articulation, has been taking place
only after the original concept arose that you are . What was the position
before this concept arose? At that time did you have any concepts, any
needs?
Q Like deep sleep?
M.• This concept that it is like deep sleep is not incorrect, but it is still a
concept, and the original state is beyond concepts.
Q What is the fact now?
M: That you are awake is itself a concept at this moment. Let this sink in.
Q. It's a movie.
M. Go back to the source: before this concept of beingness, "I Am,"
arose, what was your state?
Q, I don't know.
M: That which you don't know, that is the right state. Everything that
comes after this consciousness is attained, is like a dose of salts - it is
useless, consciousness is useless.
Q. So the search, all aspects of it, belongs to the same?
M. Throw away every thought, every experience, everything that happens
after this consciousness has come. Other than throwing it away as useless,
there is nothing to be done beyond this firm understanding in which you
become more and more absorbed.
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