I AM UNBORN

(Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)

http://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/upl … aharaj.pdf

Edited by
PRADEEP APTE, PhD
Composed by
Vijayendra Deshpande
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Mr. Damodar Lund, English and Aesthetics Professor, deeply interested in mysticism and
Buddhism and an ardent disciple of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, was a regular participant in the
satsangs held by Maharaj at his residence. This book is the product of the notes, he took during
the meetings, which he left behind, before his untimely death. Mrs. Kamala Lund, his wife, was
kind enough to allow me to use the notes for the preparation of the book. She wanted it to be
distributed freely on the Internet, as Maharaj would have wanted it, had he been alive. Mr.
Pradeep Apte, in spite of his hectic schedule was kind enough to edit the notes in preparation of
the book, for which I am extremely grateful. I am also thankful to my friend Mr. Gajanan
Netrawali, who encouraged me to take up this task, and also to put up the website for free
materials on Maharaj. -VIJAYENDRA DESHPANDE

YOU MAY FREELY DISTRIBUTE THIS EBOOK AS A WHOLE. NO ALTERATIONS OF
THIS EBOOK IS ALLOWED. THIS EBOOK CANNOT BE USED FOR COMMERCIAL
EXPLOITATION IN WHOLE OR IN PART. FOR DETAILS AND OTHER INFORMATION
ON THE BOOK, PLEASE MAIL TO vijaydesh7@gmail.com

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Table of Contents
1. The Elemental Play ...............................................................................................................................4
2. No-beingness ........................................................................................................................................5
3. The Brahma Aperture ............................................................................................................................6
4. This ‘I am’ business ..............................................................................................................................8
5. A Kohinoor Diamond ..........................................................................................................................10
6. Unborn Children ................................................................................................................................12
7. Beyond Concepts ...............................................................................................................................15
8. Beingness ...........................................................................................................................................17
9. Worship the ‘I am’ ..............................................................................................................................19
10. It’s kept in your Palm! ......................................................................................................................21
11. A Wound ..........................................................................................................................................22
12. Nisargadatta .....................................................................................................................................23
13. Take it (‘I am’) as Destiny ................................................................................................................25
14. Mind cannot interpret You ................................................................................................................28
15. The Beingness Dynasty .....................................................................................................................31
16. Everybody listens, few Practice ........................................................................................................33
17. Kick the Thoughts out! .....................................................................................................................35
18. Knowledge has no form ....................................................................................................................37
19. Birth is an illusion .............................................................................................................................39
20. Falseness begins with your Parents ...................................................................................................41
21. Paul’s Redemption ............................................................................................................................42
22. A Village without Day or Night ........................................................................................................47
23.The ‘I am’ is God ...............................................................................................................................49
24. The self-annihilator’s cry (‘Har Har Mahadev!’) ..............................................................................52
25. You are Limitless ..............................................................................................................................54
26. Annihilate yourself by your own identity .........................................................................................56
27. The Soundless Sound ........................................................................................................................58
28. Just be, to realize No-beingness ........................................................................................................60
29. The Telescope ..................................................................................................................................63
30. You are not whatever you Experience ..............................................................................................65
31. How you met your Parents? ..............................................................................................................67
32. The ‘I am’ is the Primary Illusion .....................................................................................................69
33. Meditation means merging with Beingness ......................................................................................71
34. Swallow the Beingness .....................................................................................................................73
35. Body identity is an Illusion ...............................................................................................................75
36. The ‘I am’ is temporary in the Infinite ..............................................................................................76
37. Transcend the ‘I am’ .........................................................................................................................79
38. The Python’s Breath ..........................................................................................................................80
39. The age of an Unborn child ...............................................................................................................82
40. I am not whatever I think ..................................................................................................................85
41. You are, so just be .............................................................................................................................89
42. Your destiny is not death, but the disappearance of ‘I am’ ...............................................................93
43. You are the Principle that rejects the Body .......................................................................................95
44. I am Unborn .....................................................................................................................................97
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45. From no-knowingness, suddenly ‘I am’ ...........................................................................................99
46. The Witnessing principle ever prevails ...........................................................................................102
47. The ‘I am’ is formless .....................................................................................................................104
48. Guru means, not an individual ........................................................................................................106
49. There is no other Brahman greater than you ...................................................................................108
50. The touch of ‘I amness’ is unreal ....................................................................................................109
51. ‘You are’ has no form .....................................................................................................................111
52. The fish out of water .......................................................................................................................113
53. Awakened Knowledge is Meditation ..............................................................................................120
54. Nothing…. ‘Something for sometime’…. Nothing ........................................................................122
55. The Color of The ‘Seer’ ..................................................................................................................125
56. Everything happens in the Knowledge ‘I am’ .................................................................................127
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1. The Elemental Play
30th November 1979
Maharaj: It is the pleasure of two that is the cause of this birth, this body and the result is lifelong
suffering for someone. Only the rare one comes here, the Guru shows him the result of this pleasure.
He shows him a mirror that reflects the true picture. For a Jnani, death is the highest pleasure. As soon
as Consciousness stirs, the mind creates the Universe. Creation is Prakriti, Purusha (Consciousness)
and Prakriti (Nature) as such have no name or form.
This body has a feeling that the end is coming. I know that the body is the essence of five elements.
The five elements are always in flux in relation to one another. The body results from the essence of
them. The individual considers the body to be his own. We think that we see with our ear and eyes, but
what really sees and hears is beingness
The five elements never die. If you identify with your body, you are sinning and you will suffer at the
time of death. The centre of Consciousness is the crest of your head. The quintessence of the five
elemental activity is Consciousness, and quintessence knows no death. Beingness is not a personality,
understand beingness and death. Finally, you the Absolute are not the beingness. The five elements are
constantly at war in you and everywhere. Conflict is incessant, space is at war with air, air with fire,
fire with water, water with earth and so forth, and all these are expressed in the body.
The interaction of four elements results in their subsiding into the earth. Then we have vegetation and
food species, we have individual formations. The elemental conflict is expressed in the human body
and the human being says “My bad luck”. The four elemental interactions subside in the womb of the
earth. Out of the juice of vegetation come the species but the forms embrace their identity. Thus we
have 85 million species, that’s the story of this earth.
One who cognizes this principle, what would be his quality? One who understands Consciousness will
be beyond Consciousness, beyond the five elements. He, at death becomes an ocean of bliss. Others,
who take themselves to be body-mind, will undergo a traumatic experience of suffering. Mind-body
identification is the result of bliss of just a fraction of a second.
Contrast the Jnani’s pleasure to that of the pleasure of two. Saint Jnaneshwara wrote a commentary on
the Bhagwad Gita (“Jnaneshwari”). Then he wrote ‘Amruta Anubhava”- Experience of Immortality
(Mrit=Death, Amrita=No death) - bottomless ocean of bliss.
The five elements and three gunas are creating havoc in the universe. But how is a Jnani affected by all
this? Having recognized this elemental play, he has transcended it. This business of looking and the
looked, observer and the observed will go and nothing will remain. Just be, just be quiet. Don’t get
disturbed and let the mind be. On which principle will there be a dent? Only time and time will
disappear. The one who observes change, can he change? Only the changeless can see the change.
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2. No-beingness
1st December 1979
Maharaj: My beingness was not there, it has appeared and it is temporary, I have no control over it. I
cannot be a customer to what God has to give, let him be great, I am not interested. Knowledge cannot
be given to all. One loses interest. If you lose interest, even the world stops existing. It is because of the
chemical (beingness), the sattva guna that photographs are taken and accordingly that entity grows. All
activities are mechanical, so everything happens as per plan.
I am talking in relation to what? On what is it supported? It is the beingness. After beingness departs,
there is no-beingness, which is eternal. There is no knowledge, no god, no Ishwara. What can I talk?
Beingness will disappear. I always prevail in no-beingness.
From no-beingness, beingness appears. I should know myself how it happened. Some people praise me,
I am like a mountain. I know that nothing exists, names and forms are categories. Nothing good or bad
can happen to anyone, It has never happened before nor will it ever happen. So why bother? Form and
beingness have happened unknowingly, or else how would I have entered the dirty place for nine
months. Even if a rat is dead, one runs away.
People talk of spiritualism, in the process, they exclude their core Self. Stay put in your Self and talk.
Investigate about yourself. The Absolute is eternal, a no-beingness state, and real. Beingness is
temporary and with it appear the five elements and so on, no beingness – nothing. Nothing can give
you company in this world on a permanent basis. People will have my memories, some happy, some
annoying, on me the impact is nil.
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3. The Brahma Aperture
4th December 1979
Maharaj: In deep sleep, nothing is. Try to catch that in the waking state. My thinking now is towards
five elements. Whichever way I think, I conclude all forms are creations of five elements. Forms, with
three gunas act in different ways. The basic guna is Sattva. Prakriti and Purusha are starting points- the
creator of five elements. There is awareness in the Brahma aperture which is talking. The shuddha
(pure) Sattva – like a drop of ghee (clarified butter) – is the Brahma aperture. That small drop contains
the picture of the whole universe.
Each one’s intellect is different, so the power of intellect differs, understanding differs. The primary
nature of consciousness is not to remain constant. Objects keep on changing, when the mind stops,
there is no-mind. The very nature of consciousness is to change, but you think one thing, then the very
next second, something different, if consciousness becomes steady it will be awareness.
The words, including nama-roopa (name and form) cannot have, by their very nature, any steadiness.
Even ideas about yourselves are bound to change. Give me an idea of what you consider as yourself,
you cannot, it changes. Mind does not speak to personality, it is its creation, mind speaks to mind, boy
friend, girl friend and so on, all are movements in consciousness. At that point of consciousness where
one’s mind realizes the ‘I Am’ (I amness), the word, breath and mind is one.
I go to some place, sit and think and form opinions, all is mind, its movements. The Brahma aperture is
Sattva, harmony, and the mind is its result. Sattva created the world. The mind is also its product, when
the Sattva movement stops, mind disappears and the people say ‘he is dead’.But the knower says, I am
not consciousness, mind or Sattva, I am apart from the elements and their products. All that is seen is of
five elements, however high an entity may be he is the end product of five elements. Where are the
individuals or Avatars after death? The mind, the word, name and form have no independent existence
apart from the five elements.
For me there is no death and birth, for the mixture of five elements, their essence, their products – the
forms – the starting point is Purusha and Prakriti. Purusha and Prakriti have no forms so how can they
be destroyed? In fact it is ‘moolmaya’, the root cause of the illusion. When Consciousness begins to stir
the forms and the Universe arise and these are my own body. From a tiny drop of Sattva, arises the
entire Universe. Is my own body and world in that Sattva? I refuse to accept, how can it be? It’s a lie.
There is the body so I suffer, you say: there is the world, how can it all be an illusion? But the mind is a
concept all worlds are movements in consciousness, hence, false. When you see the false as false, the
mind settles down and disappears.
There are different human races and creeds each praises and denigrates the others. All these are
movements in Consciousness, emanating from nonbeingness. My beingness sees false as false
therefore, I do not comment on them. Anything that you acquire, even knowledge, is false, zero, try to
transcend the knowledge. Only sometimes, a rare one at the time of death, will realize that he is not the
body, the body disintegrates in the fire and mingles with the five elements.
Brahman is a concept because it is not going to be in my association for long. Just for a short period as
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long as there is the beingness there is the world. For the one who realizes the departure of beingness
there is bliss. The ignorant get involved with beingness, hence there is traumatic suffering for them. All
is suffering – the waking, deep sleep and dream states, the five elements and three gunas, realize this
and get rid of suffering. The ignorant one dies while the one who understands is liberated. The mind
must sing the ‘I am’ without words. Be liberated, if you think you have acquired knowledge and that is
your achievement, then you are still far from Self-knowledge.
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4. This ‘I am’ business
5th December 1979
Maharaj: There is a customer for everything, but what is the cause of your beingness being the
customer? The primary concept is the ‘I am’, out of it are created all other concepts. You have come
from the primary concept, so long as you have the need to be, you have this prolific wonderful world
and all the Gods are available. The distinction between the world and Brahman has come because you
want to sustain your beingness, the ‘I am’, the manifest world is made important by you because you
want to be. But when the need for beingness is not felt, like in sleep or in short, when consciousness is
not conscious, there is no need. When consciousness is there, it will always need consciousness when
consciousness is not there, where is the need for anything at all? Of what use is the availability of the
world? The world and its lord are only a nuisance in my state. The need to be is bondage, no needs no
bondage. I will not be stupid and ask how I am in the absence of consciousness. There can be no talk
about the state prior to consciousness. In the realm of consciousness are the experiences and all the
talk. The one, who has recognized, understood and transcended oneself can talk, otherwise, one is
caught in the pincer movement of Maya; you are caught by your own tentacles (identification with
body-pincer). Because of your own deception, you ask questions, you are caught and enmeshed in more
and more concepts.
Information about myself in the absence of consciousness, nobody can tell me. I also don’t need it,
since that is so; you are non-plussed by me. I have full knowledge prior to beingness, which is eternal.
In the waking state there is struggle and fatigue, in deep sleep there is relaxation, it is a cycle. What is
the purpose?
Visitor: To maintain consciousness. What is beyond it?
M: Whatever without it (consciousness) is perfect. Only that is, nothing else. My body is universal, not
individualistic. What is this ‘I am’ business? Understand it and be apart from it, transcend it. Just be.
V: Where has Maharaj's ego gone?
M: It is not individualistic, it is manifestable, but when it is manifest, it is no more an individual
suffering.
V: what is the use of self-realization?
M: Nishkam (stable) Parabramhan .When you are hit by pain, the doctor gives you an ointment. Who is
the customer? Pain is the customer, not you.
V: does the pain go?
M: It is just an event happening, understand it and go through it. The ‘I’ consciousness is pain as well
as happiness. You wake up happy in the morning, as the day goes by there is unhappiness. Without ‘I’
consciousness can you understand anything? The ‘I’ consciousness is unhappiness therefore you seek
happiness. That which you do with effort is unhappiness. Even now, I am speaking from deep sleep, so
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it is coming from sleep. I have enjoyed it, so I speak. Sleep is darkness, complete – that is ignorance. In
darkness, ignorance I speak. Knowledge from ignorance is ignorance. This knowledge is an illusion. A
child born of ignorance says I am Brahman.
V: Who is doing this?
M: That is the trap of your mind. If you do not experience your mind, you are liberated. Why do you
call anything logical? Waking and sleep states are your experience. You don’t accept what I say,
because in doing so you are nothing. In reality nothing can be given and taken, call it logic, experience.
Take it as you like, here acceptance and rejection are transcended. Parents have given you a name;
apart from that can you give me your name or identification? The Atman is formless, names and forms
are of the body. Consciousness is also an illusion, non-personal, non-verbal. The moment you do not
recognize mind and body you feel no pinch, can you say the sky is diseased?
Food contains both the useful and the waste, so what is good or what is bad is relative. Flowers are
eventually dirt but while buying they cost fifty rupees. I don’t discuss Brahman or Maya; I tell you my
story which is your story as well. With Atmajnana (Self-knowledge) the ‘I’ consciousness is not there.
Then I don’t worry about God or illusion. The ‘I am’ is the starting point of both misery and happiness.
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5. A Kohinoor Diamond
7th December 1979
Maharaj: As a seeker, you are told that you are not the body-mind, though you are in the body but you
are knowledge. So we see this all-pervasive knowledge in everything. Body – man or woman – has
form but consciousness has no form. One who considers himself to be a man or woman is not a seeker;
seeker is the one who seeks knowledge.
Prior to the appearance of form in the womb, food stuffs take the form ‘I am’ and that appears in nine
months. With birth the bodily functions begin, the child does not know that it is. As the child begins to
identify, the sense of ‘I amness’ takes shape, only then the mother can teach the misleading headings
like body name and so forth.
Prior to the waking or sleep state is the Parabrahman. The state which gives you knowledge is
Brahman.
Visitor: The need for self-knowledge differs from man to man; intellectuals have no time for all this
M: People who got knowledge were simple people.
V: Is it decided at birth?
M: Knowledge being ignorance is also (ultimately) not required. Your womb being not clean, you
entertain fear, when in the womb for nine months, only the knowledge that ‘you are’ is there – nothing
beyond it. In the womb knowledge is there but it is dormant. In this lighter (Maharaj holds up the
lighter), the flame is dormant, does the lighter know the flame? What do you consider yourself to be? If
you take yourself to be the body you are involved. If you take yourself to be knowledge there is no
involvement. Somebody provoked the Guru in you, it is that Guru that receives knowledge and is the
one that speaks.
V: Isn’t it possible to pretend that one is the Absolute?
M: More important is to get rid of the body-mind sense instead of trying to be the Absolute, the rest
will happen. After the realization of Self, everything happens. Then there is no question of getting
involved or not.
V: But can one experience qualitative changes before and after?
M: Whatever you presume to be will be buried, whatever I am talking too will abandon the body and
disappear. To start with you are that principle which abandons the body and runs away. Second step,
identify with that principle which quits the body. Third step, Jnana, recognizes this Godly state and
transcend. I Repeat, the principle abandoning the body is Godly, full of knowledge, highest is the one
who recognizes this Godly principle and transcends it. This principle, which quits the body, because of
involvement with the body presumes that it is going to die. Actually, the body also has no death; it has
life in association with beingness without beingness it is a dead rat. You are that principle which
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abandons the body, thereafter who are you? The body or that principle? So where is the question of
nursing that principle?
Is the manifest world real? You make a mountain of a molehill, is it real? Here is the world and you are
told to behave accordingly and time passes by. Get to know your true identity and everything will be
clear. All the scriptures are addressed to the mind, while I am talking of finding out what you truly are.
The root of the world is absolute ignorance, only ignorance. Nevertheless, you follow codes to happily
pass your time, miseries come with attachment, become entire, total, and then there is no misery.
Inquiring about the illusion is to go in search of a child born of a barren woman. So your whole life will
not be enough to find it. People go to the moon; they search for the end of the cosmos. Life of Brahman
too is an illusion; there is the end of the cosmos. This illusion (Maya) sends you to find the cosmic
boundary, see its mischief; it does not send you to the centre!
In deep sleep, you awaken and cry out, who creates the illusion? Its consciousness, ‘I woke up’ you are
the basic illusion, you are married to beingness. Whatever the outcome, you will know that beingness
itself is an illusion. Honestly, the knowledge ‘you are’ is the most dishonest principle, you are married
to Brahman. I plant you in the beingness that ‘you are’, then you may go. Understand yourself and all
the riddles will be solved. I am giving you a capital, invest it, investigate and find the truth, investigate
the Self.
Is the dreamworld real or unreal? The incident ‘I awoke’ is itself unreal. Similarly, is your beingness
real or unreal? Even when you think ‘you are’, is that too not a concept?
All along I was telling Joseph to go but now I say, wait and record. After my departure, publish a book,
they (people) will ask, did you come across such a man? A Kohinoor diamond!
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6. Unborn Children
11th December 1979
Maharaj: In sleep consciousness is dormant, when you get up consciousness says, ‘I had a good sleep’.
You can give it any name you like – body, mind but it is an attribute that was dormant in sleep, it is not
the senses telling you. The food-body will always have desires; beingness is the fragrance of the same
body. Prior to it I did not know myself; it was an experienceless state, suddenly the eight clues (five
elements and three gunas) of experience and knowingness were fed lots of information – birth, body
and so forth, with all this I started suffering. My Guru initiated me into an inquiry about myself. Did I
experience my birth and parents? I hadn’t, so I rejected it. In the process I started investigating my own
beingness, it was a temporary state, so I have disposed it off. I am free from fear now as I know this
state will go. I have no fear of my beingness because I will experience the same (the going of
beingness). Because of concepts I considered myself a personality and due to this conceptual state my
true state suffered.
Just as I admonish you, I listen to my friends, their thoughts talk to me, even visions appear, I tell them
to shut up. I admonish thoughts and visions. Will anybody quarrel with his thoughts? When these
foreign or alien thoughts are kept aside, the Self starts sprouting and imparting knowledge. Then it is
the realized principle that prevails which was never created, but behaves as though created. Who
observes or witnesses then? ‘I the Absolute’ If there are no thoughts the there is no fear, and then the
Self sprouts.
In the absence of beingness, what have I been doing? My unborn children, what are they doing? The
same that I did prior to the appearance of this beingness. World, mind and all are expansive, how did
this calamity occur with the arrival of beingness? So I must investigate the cause of the trouble that is,
beingness. Think how you came into this body complex instead of investigating the world.
The body falls down but what happened to me? For that principle for which you get no reply, is perfect,
whatever answer you get is wrong. If I think of this world, why should I not inquire about prior to
consciousness? If I tackle this question, I must investigate what is this principle of ‘I am’? I would
prefer to play with that child not born because eternal Parabramhan and unborn children are alike.
You want to have knowledge. What do you mean by that? Hold on to that principle which understands,
recognizes thoughts and be quiet. For your sake, what are you? Investigate that. Forget who is torturing
whom; stabilize in your most confidential being as ‘you are’. What are you? Investigate the problems
of manifest world can be solved later. There is no right answer to ‘who are you?’ no answer is the most
correct one; any reply you get is not eternal. That eternal, unborn principle is now talking which has
been accused of birth. ‘I feel I am guilty’. Whatever guilt you accept you have to suffer. In a country
not visited a robbery occurs, the Police arrest you here. If you accept you suffer, maybe a lifeterm. I
don’t accept the charge; I have not visited that place. I am not a robber. I plead that – ‘my only guilt is
that I accept that I am born’. Give it up! I was not born on my own with my knowledge; I had no
knowledge of my beingness. The Absolute has no scope, it’s unborn. Prior to my appearance
( beingness) it never occurred to me that I was, so where is the scope for feeling guilty either? If you
had wisdom, you would reject beingness. No body means no knowingness, no consciousness, in the
original state the five elements and the three gunas are not there.
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The one, who assimilates what I say now, has no reason to be unhappy. The world is full of emotional
unhappiness. A worm spawns out of decomposed food. I am not that worm, although made of food,
beingness is product of food.
In order to realize the Self, catch hold of the knowledge that ‘you are’. Do so at the feet of your Guru.
Your beingness means ‘Iswara’ that is Guru too, that is the Self. Feet means ‘charan’, char – to movethat
gives you movement, that principle [beingness] starts movement. The merging of the individual
with the universal comes to be by Sadhana (practice).
The five senses of action and five senses of knowledge do they act on their own? The five elements
give rise to the five senses of knowledge. For manifestation, eight of them – the five elements and three
gunas produce the essence. The Sattva guna produces the manifest world of forms, the knowledge that
‘I am’ is simultaneously created. What is created is the knowledge of existence; the individual assumes
that this knowledge belongs to him. There is individual existence in this room. But the whole manifest
world is Ishwara, Ishwara is like a city, He is there. As you believe that you are an individual, you die,
the difference is that the individual dies while Ishwara, the entire manifestation, does not die; it has no
limitations like those of the individual.
I am experiencing the manifest world but prior to it I experience the ‘Bindu’, the point. When I am that
Bindu, everything is, the world also is. The Bindu and the world are not two. ‘Bin’ means without and
‘du’ means two, so, no duality. Bindu – the point of ‘I amness’, I experience that. What is it? It is the
very experience of the five elements and the three gunas – the whole universe. That is my intimate
relationship with that ‘I am’ only – Bindu only.
You go on pilgrimages so that good should happen to you as an individual. But you are not an
individual, you are the manifest world. That ‘you are’ means the entire world, whatever manifestation
you enjoy is universal. This knowledge is for the few rare ones, but instead of that manifestation (‘you
are’), you hang on to individuality.
Whatever is observed in the manifest world is your own Self, The observer is ‘I am’, It is a receptacle
of the five elements and three gunas. The entire universe is in activity because of the three gunas. The
play of the entire world is based on the five elements and three gunas. But you cling to your body; the
body is also a play of the five elements and three gunas. The whole universe is in full play, it is like
urination. You are one drop if you consider yourself to be an individual. A drop of ocean is salty and
the salty taste is the knowledge ‘I am’. Suppose that drop dries, the ocean does not care – a drop of
ocean drying on the rock. Similarly in the five elemental play you are a drop, either survive or die, the
elemental ocean is unconcerned. But how to understand this manifest nature? Be the taste, understand
the taste. Millions of drops dry up but the ocean is unconcerned. Millions die but how the five elements
are concerned? Because you limit yourself to the body, you suffer.
The realized one can entertain no idea of good to himself, for him even if the entire world is destroyed,
nothing happens. The realized one is, of course, no more a person. There is nothing else except the core
of your Self – Bindu, nothing else is. Only Krishna said there is nothing else. You meditate incessantly
to achieve Samadhi but this knowledge will sprout from you only. Since I am prior to that
(consciousness) I talked of Bindu. Now what happens to consciousness, when you are prior to it? In the
waking state, how do you find out as though you are asleep? What do you do in deep sleep?
13
Visitor: just be
M: do you enjoy that ‘just be’
V: No
M: Your beingness is not enjoying being is deep sleep. Are you aware of being male or female in deep
sleep? Find out what you are, you know ‘you are’, find out, then, whatever are its requirements you
will know. The subtle food essence is life; Subtler still is the quality of knowingness. The knowledge
‘you are’ is like a particle of the sky, it is more subtle than space, and it can recognize space.
V: what connection has it with life?
M: The whole life is endured and sustained by the knowledge particle, ‘I am’. Without ‘I am’ there is
no life. They are interdependent, not one without the other. I am prior to the ‘I am’, which is true,
eternal and immutable. Beingness, world and body are time bound, your life is not for ever, it rises and
sets like the waking and sleeping states alternate. The totality of manifestation thrives as long as the
beingness is there. Rainwater has no taste, but out of it you get so much, you add ingredients to it and
drink. I give you pure food but you find it tasteless so you pollute it, you add salt to the food for taste’s
sake.
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7. Beyond Concepts
13th December 1979
Maharaj: I belong to the nature of everything and yet nothing. I take my stand not in the movement, but
in the original. Whatever you say can only be in the movement, in the consciousness. I take a stand
prior to consciousness, the movement. I am not concerned with your reactions, the positive and the
negative will depend on your reactions, but I am unconcerned. I have no means of demonstrating my
true nature; words come out from the condition in which I am. To accept these words or not is your
problem, I talk because you have come.
Visitor: You are the destroyer of body-mind.
M: I am not concerned with reactions.
V: But there are physiological effects.
M: I respect them, but I am not concerned with reactions. It is according to your attitude, right or
wrong, incomplete or complete, that results would correspond and the reactions would affect you.
Words come to me because you are here, in relation to my words who says what, I am not concerned. I
am like space. You come and go, I am immovable, eternal, I am not involved in the actions of the five
elements. Nothing touches me; I am immutable, try to understand. The suffering will be yours if you
take any sample, as it will relate to the five elements; I am not in that realm. In the manifest state, the
five elemental play has shape and design, I have no shape, if at all I embrace the elements, it is because
everything is myself, the design is of the elements, not mine. Rajneesh gives various concepts; I cannot
be grasped by those concepts. Concepts are yours; I am not involved in the conceptual world. So when
you look at me, I am not a person, I am the manifest, not individual. If you want to attribute form to
me, it will relate to the five elements and three gunas. The five elements disintegrate but I don’t
disappear.
For instance, I am invited to some place to stay. The room in which I stay becomes my room, but does
it belong to me? All belongs to the five elements. The essential contribution of the five elements is the
‘I am’ the five elements disintegrate, the ‘I am’ goes and a person is declared dead. Wherever I go to
stay I always know my permanent abode.
Rajneesh expounds knowledge about concepts. They (many) speak on the basis of concepts, not from
the stand prior to consciousness. Presently, my true state is different; you are devoted to my form as the
five elements, once you understand that all this is an illusion, you too are there where there is no going,
no movement. So long as you need yourself you are important, if not, then not. Whatever you observe,
you don’t require, that principle through which ‘you are’ is greater. In the waking state ‘you are’ so you
have needs, in the absence of ‘I amness’ where are the needs? In spite of being, not having the
knowledge of being is non-being, that state is a source of peace. Complete relaxation is forgetting
oneself, then, no suffering. All needs emanate from when ‘you are’; you have wants (for material
objects) as long as beingness is there.
The sense of taste comes from the element earth, perception emanates from air and sound from space,
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but the primary concept is ‘I am’. First without sound you know ‘I am’ (as when you awaken from
deep sleep), then you say ‘I am’, with this comes the need ‘to be’. With the departure of the vital
breath, there is no sound, no language, no warmth – its death, death is also a concept. Nevertheless,
everything dwells in food essence quality (‘I am’), when this disappears – it is all over. To sustain
beingness, the product of food, we eat food, but that is not your identity.
V: What is the use of striving for realization? If one is realized…
M: If you have the urge to go to the toilet, you will run. Similarly, the need of the ignorant is the urge
to have knowledge, he will rush towards it. In the ignorant state, if you keep quiet, then the principle
will keep quiet. Why do you claim credit for your waking and sleep states? They happen quite
naturally, what authority you have on them? Even the ‘I amness’ identity, can you claim to retain it
perpetually? In the ignorant state you come and talk here. Until there is a firm conviction about oneself,
something or other has to be done.
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8. Beingness
16th December 1979
Visitor: Is it possible to know how we are with and without body?
Maharaj: For a Jnani, yes, the reality is known to him and he dwells in non-duality. But all that is, is his
form only. Even Lord Rama had to take help of the five elements, but he was not an individual. Now in
this (Maharaj), you see form because of the limits of the five elemental forms, if you come here (where
Maharaj is) you will be finished! You will see the universe as a whole. So long as your beingness is,
there is form; there is no individual, only the elements. Whatever originates from earth is itself
ignorance, so everything is ignorance.
V: This earth is knowledge or ignorance? Whatever emanates is ignorance?
M: The Jnani transcends knowledge; all forms are from the earth and back to the earth. As to how they
(the Jnanis) are without form, only they know.
V: What is Aum? Is Aum Maya?
M: The Aum and beingness are same, whatever occurs, you just give it a name. My inner reality is
quiet, fire is flame but quiet. So long as individual personality is there, you have pain and pleasure, no
individual and it’s all over. Fire in this napkin is unseen; there is a flame in it but quiet. From your
consciousness come space, air and fire, once you know the truth, then it doesn’t matter whether Maya
exists or not. The intellectual people will not know me a hundred percent whereas a simple,
uncomplicated person will. Even with the slightest intellectuality, it is difficult; however simple,
uncomplicated people will easily meditate.
V: Is there knowledge in any word?
M: The One, who is Eternal, is making use of words to talk. Once I know what I am and what I am not,
I need not worry about other things. I am the Eternal with no end, no beginning.
V: The simple one has the knowledge to know what he is not, thereafter nothing else is needed.
M: One has to look at oneself as to what one is, it’s not necessary to worry about others. If somebody
says, for instance, you are this or that, you investigate, and you find out that you are greater, you are the
Eternal principle. All words are just rice and curry! Ultimately, it’s the Sattva that is born, the same
entity, rest are all just names, father, mother and so on, extended existence through beingness. Animals,
plants and the rest, all Sattva, consciousness is born. Womb means hidden, ‘Hiranya garbha’ (the
golden womb) means hidden like fire in the womb of the towel. The towel is earth, the food sheath is
vital and so is the breath. Where are all of you heading for? Nowhere, this is a ditch of concepts. The ‘I
am’ is objective, it is the ‘I am’ that investigates and it is the ‘I am’ that disposes itself off and
stabilizes in Eternity. The test tube baby has been created out of the juices of human beings, can they
create one out of vegetation? Hold a torch and there is a beam of light, how can you run beyond the
beam of light it? ‘Near’ and ‘far’ are qualities of what?
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V: In sugar there is sweetness, Beingness is in what? What contains it? What is the cause of beingness?
M: The food-body is the cause of beingness, syrup’s sweetness is out of sugar. The body is made up of
elements; the quintessence or quality (guna) is the ‘I am’. You replenish the food-body or ‘I amness’
with water and food. Listen to what I am saying.
V: The ‘I amness’ appears first?
M: Out of the Consciousness, the five elements, three gunas and the world come by. Beingness means
the cosmos, the universe. Where are you before birth and after death? You are in that Consciousness, in
the layers of cosmos.
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9. Worship the ‘I am’
17th December 1979
Maharaj: I have separated myself from the food-body. Flowers come in different colors, but they are
made up of the same five elements. Why should I worry about differences?, from the same five
elements arise all the forms with different time limits, no one has control over that time limit. Different
forms, as per their thinking have different activities.
About you all, you have a liking for truth; it has arisen from your individuality, so you are after it.
Visitor: Maharaj had worshipped Ishwara.
M: What is Ishwara? My Guru told me that the one who is listening is Ishwara itself. The ‘I am’ is
Ishwara, there are various names given to that ‘I am’ but that ‘I am’ is not your body. Your knowledge
‘I am’ contains the whole universe, presently it is difficult for you to believe, so for the moment
worship it. Beingness contains everything, worship that and all your requirements will be met.
Ultimately the knowledge is yours. (Note: Worshipping for Maharaj was in the ignorant state, now his
state is different. At the moment he sees you as himself, he contains everything. There is no
individuality anymore, whatever you see is he, and you are also contained in him. He is not an
individual with form, he is all pervasive. There is no involvement in him when he does the bhajans, his
Guru asked him to do bhajans, so he is chanting them.)
All forms have the five elements and water is there in all forms. The ignorance is yours because you
believe that you are an individual, not mine. As for me there is no birth, no death, creation, destruction
and suffering will go on.
(Note: Maharaj is all pervasive, he is totality, and that’s his Nisarga (nature). The five elements, three
gunas, and Purusha and Prakriti go on to make the nature, all forms arise and merge in it, Buddha too
merged in nature. There is no individual, no manifestation without the elements and Purusha and
Prakriti, the male and female aspects. You think in terms of male and female, but for Maharaj, Purusha
and Prakriti have no forms.)
Because of your body-mind you cannot understand Purusha and Prakriti. Because of their activity,
creation goes on, in reality there is no male and female. There is steel and there are so many products
made out of it, it depends on the use as to which we want to put it. Consciousness is the same in all
forms, but the behavior of each is different, which is decided at the time of birth, the differences last as
long as the form is there.
Forms disintegrate, but there is no difference in my experience. There is no difference between the
quality of the born and the unborn child, this is the great news of enlightenment. One is born or unborn,
the difference is only of birth or no birth, in reality, there is no difference. The born vanishes and again
becomes identical with the unborn. The difference is temporary, my body is similar to the unborn, and
so I am happy. This existence is momentary, why give it importance? We believe it to be a long period,
but it is momentary like a dream. A five minute dream, but a hundred years of life is contained in it. A
movie depicts a life story, but it is the writer’s skill, is it real? Life is like that.
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All creatures, the world and Brahman are the result of your beingness. Although it is difficult to
believe, but do believe it. Only Krishna has expounded this knowledge, everything is me and I am
everything. When I talk to you, Joseph, I am giving you information about yourself. You may think I
am talking about somebody else. My guru said, I am talking about yourself and that is how I came to
know, Joseph, you have that knowledge. Prior to death, will you say with conviction that all beings, the
world and Brahman are me? Can you say that with conviction? This world is a dream, but it is I,
whatever information I heard is information about myself, who can say this with confidence? It’s very
difficult to hear such confidence anywhere.
We take ourselves to be a man or woman. It is a blunder that we commit because of our identification
with our body. Brahman is neither a man nor woman. Having received this knowledge, by your own
experience you shall become all expansive, pervasive. This body or man-woman experience is a
sickness. Don’t talk to people about others but get hold of yourself. Be established in the Knowledge,
don’t talk about it, have a firm conviction. When you understand, get established then you don’t need
words, words are superfluous. Only a rare one will say all this, Krishna said, ‘I saw myself, not the
world, whatever I see, is myself.’ Once established in this knowledge, you can die any moment you
wish. Prophet Mohammed and Christ were like this; my nature too is like that. They behaved like that,
their nature is my nature. Make use of this knowledge, assimilate it and you will lose this habit to
criticize others, Krishna said, when you are that, who will criticize whom?
Nisarga knows no rules of behavior, nature is like that, death is inevitable, so follow your Guru and die,
the Guru says you are everything, be that. Whatever knowledge I give is what flows spontaneously, I
quote no one. Whatever I do not know directly, I do not believe. My knowledge is not knowledge of
Brahman or Ishwara, Brahman and Maya are natives of my nature only. Whenever I never felt any
need, that state was perfect. When I felt needs, demands grew and I was imperfect. Death is inevitable
so why not die with abidance in the Guru’s words, ‘I am Brahman’. This ‘Brahman’ as an individual
consciousness is of course unreliable!
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10. It’s kept in your Palm!
18th December 1979
Maharaj: You are shouting in wilderness by which you can bring about no change individually.
Observe, be, enjoy, and don’t try to bring about a change in manifestation as it is. The best state is,
desirelessly just being. You are talking as an individual, taking fragments into consideration, hence, the
misery. Can you bring about any change in the nature of water? As individuals in ignorance, you fear
death and get destroyed by it. There is no death if you go to the source from where you emanate. With
accumulated knowledge, you want to possess that, so there is misery. Whatever you have accumulated
as knowledge let it flow out and just be. When you give up everything, people will fall at your feet, just
watch. From the moment of beingness, to the starting of everything, including what you are today is all
spontaneous.
You have taken this disguise (Ochre robe), in your true nature, you don’t belong to it. When you realize
such a state everything will be done, don’t participate, just watch the happenings effortlessly. Rajneesh,
Muktananda and the rest are doing nothing, everything is happening effortlessly. I am telling you from
the standpoint of my own understanding. It is the logic of spiritualism that gives satisfaction; spiritual
discrimination helps you not to be unhappy. As individual, you tend to compare and thus become
unhappy. The One who has merged with is Guru is not afraid of any calamities.
Worlds are created and destroyed, how did I survive and observe all this? Only the One who has
transcended everything can employ such discrimination. I have appeared spontaneously without my
knowing and everything is happening spontaneously. Having realized this do what you like, even if you
sit in a desert, it will become a place of pilgrimage.
My Guru said ‘The source of the entire world is kept on your palm, here it is, you are not that
beingness’. Out of sheer providence or good luck someone is inclined to understand all this, in the
process his own being gets pleased with him and provides him all the knowledge.
This sickness of beingness is the outcome of the five elemental chaos. Your own concepts make you
suffer, ‘I amness’ makes you suffer. People call me a Jnani, just observe. Saint Tukaram said ‘watch
with appreciation, admiration and no involvement’. You entertain concepts and they make you suffer
internally and externally. Can you by employing any means of yours limit manifest nature? The Ramas
and Krishnas have come and gone, but nature plays by itself, unconcerned. When you die, die with
totality, you are everything, die with it. How do you understand yourself? It is better to say ‘I have not
understood’, rather than saying ‘I understand everything’.
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11. A Wound
19th December 1979
Maharaj: Can you ever complete anything in a lifetime? Various studies, spiritual practices like japa,
tapa and so forth? All are of no avail. It was only when I met my Guru who was beyond beingness, the
Absolute that did the trick happen in a fraction of a second.
The food-body is the essence of beingness, that gone, beingness goes, you are not the beingness. For
the one who is convinced, there is no need or necessity for meditation. So long as beingness is there
meditation will go on. In the book ‘I AM THAT’ the method was shown, had Maurice Frydman been
alive, I'd expound it. Now the book ‘I AM THAT’ has been transcended, presently I have no form or
name. Hold on to the knowingness, not words, whatever you are, be there effortlessly, absolutely
without effort, affirm what you have heard, the listener and the listened matter is ultimately useless.
The five elemental essence, activated by three gunas, is beingness. When you know you are not the
beingness, let be the beingness, you are not concerned. All talk is because of beingness, the beingness
is doing all the talking, not you.
Take the example of the Banana plant, it is planted, it grows, bears fruits and then weakens and dies,
although some sprouts of the plant will still be there. After the age of forty to forty-five, strength
diminishes, finally there is death. Like the plant, we have birth, strength and then diminishing. But
what is now giving the talk? That birth-principle – ‘I am’, the beingness (the child root). Finally, the
child-consciousness principle also disappears; eat what you like, still that child-consciousness principle
weakens, body weakens. A dead body is heavy, that little touch (consciousness) has gone out, with that
touch it moved. The root is then reborn, but whose birth? There are so many births and so many forms,
all is the play of beingness, the primary illusion, the mool-maya.
All talk pertains to my death, which I am experiencing. A dead person is cremated, why think of him?
After listening to my talk, why think of it again, because we are all ultimately disposed off.
Visitor: It is difficult to get conviction.
M: Meditate, beingness is the essence, but you are not that. Why strive for conviction? Dead means
dead, once ‘I am the body-conviction’ is gone, do you remind yourself again that – ‘I am not the body’,
let the body scream, shout or die. Intellectuality or conceptualization is very strong; it holds onto us
very strongly, that is the trouble. I have understood this; hence it has no control over me. This talk
should be like a wound to you, a continuous pain, go on thinking about it.
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12. Nisargadatta
20th December 1979
Maharaj: Nisarga means natural, nature, no birth no death, just there. In this universe, species take birth
and return back to nature, they go nowhere. Sattva, Rajas and Tamas (the three gunas) are the limbs of
nature, the five elements and three gunas are inherent in nature. This body (deha) is born in nature and
nature only, nothing else and is without identity.
The world is created out of dirt, natural physical emissions turn into beautiful human forms. I am going
to sign – NISARGADATTA – nature itself. Any stance has limitations but I am beyond that, nature
only, vast nature, no shape or form and no limitations. If you want to be Nisargadatta, do only one
thing, be in that state of harmony which is consciousness, being in natural harmony, all the puzzles will
be solved. After one has accepted this state (the knowledge of one’s just being), many kinds of things
can happen. Some will have long life; others will have a glimpse of what is generally known as heaven,
that state (beingness) will itself create heaven. Beingness is the cause and lord of all manifestations -
Vishnu, Ishwara. When this food-body disappears, this beingness will also disappear. In nature –
Nisargadatta – there are millions of years and lives, what has happened to them? What are they doing?
Reincarnation and the rest are all just concepts to while away time.
There are millions of fish, can you have kundalini for them? Because of identification we have created
trouble. Fish have no trouble, since they have no identity; concepts help only to pass time. Everybody
wants things when alive, we do this and we do that, after death, when breath is gone, consciousness
gone, what is of oneself that remains? Nature knows no end, no beginning, all concepts are only
moments in consciousness; one considers oneself as an individual and suffers.
What is the process in meditation? I and the universe are one, this concept is the same as mind and
breath, no breath, therefore no mind. Can I then say I want anything? Therefore, tell me what do you do
exactly in meditation?
Visitor: Not expect anything or I try to be one with Ramana. What is efficiency in meditation?
M: After reading books, what have you found about yourself as yourself for yourself? You may do
anything, what you are at the moment is consciousness, the ‘I am’ is your only capital. I have had milk
now, on the strength derived from milk, I sit here and talk, the milk sustains beingness. Do I not depend
on the essence of food? If knowledge is not fed by food, breath disappears, consciousness to will
disappear. If the supply is cut, where is the ‘you’? How ephemeral is beingness? At the same time,
beingness is the lord of the universe. Therefore, all the time, be with the lord of manifestation and all
your problems and puzzles will be cleared. This knowledge that ‘I am’ makes perception possible,
make it you own. Whatever you may want, just do this and you will have everything. In this knowledge
‘I am’ is the entire universe. Consciousness is the lord of all manifestation, only because of the body
that we consider this consciousness as a bodily principle.
This body of mine is dead, I myself will never know death or that I was. All this knowledge is of
tremendous use but once acquired it is no use. Accept this, be with your beingness, no need to give up
anything, continue doing what you are doing, but just keep this (beingness) constantly in mind. A girl
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comes of age, she marries and her old relationships recede, but all this happens when she comes of age.
She is the result of her parents, duality (dvaita) born, the ‘I am’ in search of a husband, duality (dvaita).
Whatever you enjoy, will be unsatisfactory so long as there is beingness. What is the core? How long
do you require the other? We agree on one thing, that beingness, the product of duality is godly (for it
would lead you back to non-duality, advaita). Be devoted to yourself, I am That (Atman), be one with
your beingness, only then the knowledge will sprout. The Male and the female merge for a few
moments and all sufferings begin, why? Just to sustain their beingness. The matter (Sperm) is small but
the problem huge; it is just a drop of semen that goes to the root of all the mischief.
V: Don’t you feel that some good should happen out of our meeting Maharaj?
M: Realization has no color, no shape; your true identity has no shape, no needs. That principle is not
understood by the mind. Because of five elements all the creation suffers. Without the intake of food,
there is no opportunity to say ‘I am’, out of the essence of the earth sprouts vegetation and out of that
sprouts the ‘I am’, realize this without eyesight or intellect. That principle likes to cry, enjoy, and
laugh, but you are not that, realize this only. Become one with the ‘I am’, then you can transcend it,
then ‘I the Absolute’ am not the ‘I am’.
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13. Take it (‘I am’) as Destiny
22nd December 1979
Maharaj: The ‘I am’ makes you step away from the reality. To realize, don't take the body as yourself,
no body, no name. Try to just be; that is your true self. At this moment without taking yourself as body
and name, can you describe yourself? This body is because of the five elements, the words flow and
you say, ‘my mind’, this body and mind are not you, it is because of the five elements and three gunas
and Purusha and Prakriti. In all they are ten and with the advent of these ten comes about your
beingness, the knowledge that ‘you are’, but you are not these ten. The five elements make up the body
while the three gunas make activity possible. When you know that they exist and you are separate from
them, then you lose body and mind.
Visitor: When there is no body and mind, is one everything?
M: Taking yourself to be the I amness (as an individual entity) is misery, this gone, you are all
pervasive and not confined to the body.
V: No effort needed to understand?
M: No effort, but because of your tendencies, you cannot remain without making efforts, where is the
effort required? You know that ‘you are’. You take food to sustain the body and its activities, that you
came to know that ‘you are’ is the misery, but the food cycle goes on, so unknowingly the effort goes
on, although you may not want it to. This beingness is because of the five elements, you have no
control although you take food ‘to be’. Beingness comes spontaneously and will go spontaneously, yet
you protect it and so it continues. How did this beingness appear? This has appeared unknowingly, did
you make effort? What are you then? Because of the five elements, you know ‘you are’, without them
you are not, so what are you? At the moment, take yourself to be the beingness, don't separate it from
the world. You, beingness and the world are one, but you are not the body, you are because of your
beingness (Sattva) if it goes, the world goes.
V: I have created the world?
M: Yes, unknowingly you have created it, unknowingly and effortlessly will it go, both are
simultaneous – with beingness the world is. This beingness itself is the ‘Bhagvan’, the God. Why do
you want to make effort? Why? It is because of Maya, the primary Illusion. Your love for yourself is
Maya, hence all the activities. All activities take place because you know ‘you are’; that itself in Maya,
self-love.
V: What is the difference between an ignorant man's activities and the activities of the sage?
M: Self-love is the motivating factor in case of the ignorant while in the case of a Jnani, in the absence
of self love, Maya or the knowledge ‘I am’, there is no world. The Jnani, who knows this reality, sees
the world as a useless illusion, that’s all. For a Jnani knowledge has no form, no name while the
ignorant one considers himself as real. Because of your knowledge, all activities and all suffering will
happen. All suffering is out of self-love, you love yourself so you do hatha yoga.
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V: Does a Jnani suffer?
M: A Jnani has no name or form, so who is there to suffer? Self-love is spontaneous; you cannot have
control over it, yet you do everything for it. How have you come in this world? It is because of selflove,
you cannot avoid it. You may think that you are the doer but you are not.
V: In reality, I don't suffer, so is it that I just think that I am suffering?
M: Yes, you are not suffering, but you only think so. So long there is this primary illusion, self-love or
Maya, you cannot avoid it. Pain and pleasure are because of beingness, in its absence do you have
them? All experience is because of the beingness, whatever it likes it will do, it comes spontaneously
and goes spontaneously.
V: There is no control over suffering?
M: No, as long as you consider yourself as the body.
V: But I have no control over it.
M: When you know that you are not the body; then you will not suffer.
V: I will not suffer but activities go on?
M: The activities are not yours but of the five elements. Even the manifestation of ‘you are’ is because
of that.
V: Ignorance is also because of five elements, so what control do I have? How do I get rid of
ignorance?
M: Don't try to get rid of it, understand it and it will go. Everything is spontaneous once you have the
urge to be with yourself. Even the urge to understand ignorance should come spontaneously. The urge
to come here too is spontaneous, though you think that you volitionally came. Spontaneously, you will
understand that you are the Absolute; there is no doubt about of it.
V: All this is ignorance and everything is spontaneous, but in order to understand, it requires some
effort?
M: The urge to come here is spontaneous; it drove you here, though you may think that you came here
through volition. So what happens here? All this talk clicks to you, so you say 'I have understood.'
V: Do I have no effort to make to get rid of ignorance?
M: Nevertheless, you have the ‘you are’, you are not whatever you take yourself to be, you are all
pervasive.
V: I do have a part to play, what is it?
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M: Only be convinced that you cannot do anything, but your nature is such that although you have no
choice, you will continue activity.
V: Do sages have beingness?
M: No
V: So when they do not know that they are, what can they do for others?
M: Can ‘you’ do anything?
V: So the beingness is my suffering.
M: Yes. Worship the beingness, which is nothing but suffering. Worship misery and it will become less
and less. It will also help you to get rid of misery; this ‘I am’ is itself misery, make any use of it as you
like. If you like you may take it as Prarabdha (Destiny).
V: Does Maharaj have a sense of ‘I love’ 

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24. The self-annihilator’s cry (‘Har Har Mahadev!’)
3rd January 1980
Visitor: All activity is meaningless, so should we just sit ?
Maharaj: Once you realize that you are not an individual, do everything, everything is your work.
Within the range of the five elements, everything is you. Till then (unless and until you realize) carry
on your work; but don’t think you are the body.
V: The body cannot enjoy ice-cream? No food value?
M: Who eats? Plants here consume water, the flame (Maharaj lights his lighter) eats gas, absorbs air,
similarly things get done. Eating is done by the five elements, when you eat food, after you swallow it
down the throat, who digests it? Beingness comes out of the five elements. Who eats then? Who dies?
Who lives?
V: I see!
M: Attention also is in beingness; it too will dissolve. When you repent about actions, only then you
change; otherwise not. The great sinner Valmiki repented and he meditated thereafter, then whatever he
wrote became the truth (Valmiki wrote the Ramayana)
V: So the Sattva quality must prevail.
M: Yes, in meditation the Sattva is prominent, worship of God, attraction towards spiritual practices
follow. Habits change with time and one should understand individual and universal life, this is
possible only when one knows oneself. (Note: Since 1921 Maharaj is in Bombay, a period of almost
sixty years. Prior to 1921, he was in a village where then were few houses, everyone knew everyone
else, now the village has changed). In the process of devotion and association with Sattva, you start
thinking for yourself. You shed off many things, dropping associations, these are remunerations. This
you understand with meditation. The developing village where I lived has changed, the trees went
missing there was a change of sea, now, nobody recognizes me. So similarly, in the process of Satsang
or meditation, developments occur, you start changing. You are talking to me through the body sense,
but I don’t accept you as that which could be defined by words. As a matter of fact you have no form,
identity or color. You yourself are creating your trap by your word-concepts. Once you realize cause of
beingness, birth, you are liberated. From what point you recognize yourself?
V: ‘I am’
M: Since when?
V: Since my parents told me.
M: So long as you depend on hearsay, you will not be liberated.
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V: What is the cause of birth?
M: Parents told you a lot, but did they tell you the secret of your birth? Because you are, the Lord is,
and because the Lord (Ishwara) is ‘you are’, the ‘you are’ is proof that parents were there. Sanatana
Dharma, from time immemorial the parents have been there; you have been there. This beingness is
proof of eternity, the Sanatana Dharma, the Infinity. When do you call me a Jnani, or why do you use
the word Jnani?
V: Because our questions are out of ignorance.
M: Have you recognized ignorance?
V: Yes
M: Then how could there be fear, anxiety or worry for you? It’s simple, first is the Ajnani (ignorant)
stage when you believe ‘I am not knowledge’ or ‘I am not beingness’. Next the Mumukshu (inclined to
learn) stage where there is only an inclination to learn. Then you come across a Guru, you become a
Sadhak (earnest seeker), one who earnestly seeks, the Sadhak sticks like a leech to the profound talks
of the Guru, it’s the borderline stage. So long as the body identification is there, one is a Mumukshu,
not completely spiritual yet. Finally one becomes a Siddha (the liberated one) and gets liberated.
Politics is the last resort of a scoundrel; the spiritual one has no resort. Lastly, dispose off Harihar, the
highest of the Gods of the Hindus is dismissed, disposed off. The self-annihilators cry of ‘Har Har
Mahadev’ means kill and get killed, so in the end Har Har Mahadev goes too.
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25. You are Limitless
4th January 1980
Maharaj: This form just happened to come, until I became conscious, I took no part, did nothing. Until
this form and beingness came, what did I do for myself?
Visitor: One question on terminology. Atma Jnana (Self-knowledge) and Brahman Vidya (Brahmaknowledge),
are they the same?
M: There is no difference, knowledge is Brahman and Brahman is knowledge. All creatures are
contained in it, it is just one word talking about another word, all this has no meaning, and knowledge
is limitless. It is because we identify and limit to this cursedness of individuality that we have inherited
difficulties. But if we accept knowledge as total, limitless with no identifications, there will be no
problems. Because of our concepts, we are limited. I am limitless, knowledge is limitless.
V: Concepts are nails.
M: Don’t bother (about) what you should do or not do. Think that you are limitless, unborn and not
going to die. This identification with the body makes you think that you are born. Until I had form I
had no worries, I didn’t even know that I had a form. Did I have suffering before identification with the
body? No, it all began after the identification that I am this form. You have now come to know the
truth, are you certain that all your experiences are false? Are you not aware that what you have is timebound?
An untruth? Life is limited; whatever is limited is not the truth. You know life is limited and
the one who knows this has the truth. The only capital you have is the knowledge ‘I am,’ be with the
beingness and it will solve all riddles.
V: That you exist is a conviction? One should be with it only and not look elsewhere?
M: What is your idea about yourself?
V: I am not the body; I am something else that the senses cannot grasp.
M: This conclusion, what makes this understanding possible?
V: (A French women practicing Zen) I like to be related to everyone, I feel relationship. Relationships
that are universal and individual. My feeling is of unity with people.
M: Basically, Is not your understanding because of the beingness that tells you that you exist? It is that
which makes you understand everything, it is the knowledge that ‘you are’. Something tells you that
‘you are’, leave everything and hang on to it. Until you had this knowledge, did you have needs?
Before consciousness were there any needs?
V: I don’t know about it.
M: Even saying so (I don’t know about it) is only because of the knowledge that ‘you are’ that is all; be
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one with that which tells you that you exist.
V: Don’t we need a relationship of unity with others?
M: No need to talk about unity, everything else will be clear, just be with it. Go wherever you like, but
be one with this knowledge that ‘you are’ forget the rest. It tells you that you exist and it will solve all
your riddles.
V: The ‘you are’ will undo selfishness?
M: Until that voice (‘I am’) of consciousness came, I was not concerned. Once it left, I went too, so be
with the consciousness (the ‘I am’), all the teachings are based on this. This concern for the world is
because of consciousness; it will be there as long as consciousness is there.
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26. Annihilate yourself by your own identity
5th January 1980
Maharaj: Just give attention to yourself and everything else will be alright.
Visitor: We work hard to basically remember this and with a great intensity, rather than using the
Japamala (counting of rosary beads), it also sounds easy, but I’d appreciate more from you, in your
words.
M: The ‘I am’ is all, the God, just know that the ‘I am’ is God, this is the first step, the knowledge ‘I
am’ is yourself. All other activities will follow, you just get established in the knowledge. ‘I am’, it is
the sun, and all other activities are rays.
V: Everything is spun out of ‘I am’?
M: The knowledge ‘I am’, without memories and concepts, is everything. The idea ‘I am the body and
mind’ is not that knowledge. No effort is required, the main thing is that ‘you are’ (or ‘I am’) when you
listen to me and stay there, you’ll understand that the knowledge ‘I am’ is independent of body-mind.
Frydman has described Self-knowledge as factually as possible. Do I depend on you about what I
know? Remember this, that there thousands of experiences, but what is prior to all experiences? You
are that.
V: If we are just aware of ‘I am’, is that enough?
M: When you were a child did know that you were there? What did you do?
V: Nothing
M: Have you understood that the experiences of the world and yourself are without doing anything?
V: Yes
M: Go to the source and be established there, then, there is no change. You might have read the Gita,
who is there to judge its soundness? The knowledge ‘I am’ has to approve whatever is said there.
Establish yourself in the Self, whatever you are prior to the ‘I am’, get established there. When this
abidance in the Self is achieved, all talks will sound gibberish. I lost my shyness to talk; all that I spoke
was profound. The knowledge, in common parlance, is professed in ignorance, like the child out of
ignorance. So I know that worldly knowledge is a product of ignorance and all true knowledge is prior
to Jnana – The Absolute. Surrender to the Guru and meditate on the Self. The reminder that you had
parents is the reminder that ‘you are’. The reminder that parents were is the basic material, the primary
source material. The primary ingredients of the consciousness are the same. Get rid of the pride that
you are a Jnani. Although you try to catch that state, the border of beingness and the Absolute, it is
ephemeral.
Normally even sages have no knowledge of the actual state of affairs. How did the union of the
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beingness and the five elements come by from the Absolute? Your parents explain themselves to you
but do you really have the knowledge that they were your parents? What you have to drive at is, ‘Am I
such a puny principle that is just a product of parents?'
Which pose, stance or word is truthful? Even the four Vedas exclaimed ‘Neti, Neti’ (not this, not this),
but based on which on-going activities of the world did the Vedas say this about the reality? It is
beyond us. Therefore, with me also no honesty is left, whatever the experiences, even the Gods are
limited up to words only. There is no story of Gods beyond words. If Krishna were to listen to me, he
would say ‘I am blessed by his (Maharaj’s) words’.Truth has no form and no name, while religions go
by rules and rituals. Words cannot be true, nevertheless, you must find out with what words you’d like
to identify? With what identity would you like annihilation?
In search of the Self, Prophet Mohammed and other sages could not come to any conclusion in regard
to their identity and say: ‘I am Parabrahman’ or anything else and how could they? Have Christ,
Prophet Mohammed and other Sages said anything about the truth? Where is the proof for
Parabrahman or the truth? In all worldly activities, you are compelled to suffer and enjoy, can you
provide a proof of the Parabrahman? Who will accept the proof furnished and by which authority?
Form and name have been forcibly imposed on me, the primary concept is beingness, I have no name
and form; only emotional understanding. Annihilate yourself by your own identity. Don’t dabble in
what others say, which is your most honest identity? No consciousness, no world. Investigate about
your identity, the one who has realized his identity will not consider anything else more honest than it,
because this identify of beingness is a fraud.
V: Should we not investigate spiritual experiences? We have experiences, but no truth.
M: Have experiences, but inquire about the experienced, are they honest? In the first rainy season there
was birth, in the second there was death, who was born? Was it the rainy season or the person? Only
the realized one can tell as he is nothing, a void. Whatever is, is gone, whatever is not, is not, both are
disposed off, only the truth prevails. After the departure of both, beingness and no-beingness, whatever
remains is the truth. Prior to this accident of the occurrence of body-formation, everyone knows it (the
truth). Only he, who knows that there is nothing, can say that there is the infinite and plenty. All our
thoughts are about others but don’t bother about what others say. It is only because of this accident of
birth that I suffer, but as a matter of fact I have no birth.
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27. The Soundless Sound
6th January 1980
Maharaj: The waking and the sleep state combined is the beingness, because of it, the world is. The
beingness depends on the food essence, so what are we then?
Visitor: What is the path to follow?
M: Meditate on the Self, not on anything else; the beingness itself will tell you how it arose and will
disappear. Meditation on something is easy, but meditation on the Self is rather difficult. Did Buddha
say all this?
V: The very same.
M: Buddha's directives, are they followed?
V: All the codes of conduct, but not the essence. Millions have no idea beyond the codes of conduct
like, eat this or eat that.
M: Is this is knowledge or just ways to pass time? Finally, people are slaves to time; they follow the
dictates of time. I know nothing about rebirth, only this birth and having known it, I know it is not.
With the body’s association, the so called knowledge is received and accordingly, people behave. What
knowledge have you apart from the information collected from the outside?
V: That’s all what we get.
M: What is it you get?
V: Not much.
M: After the stamping of birth is done, what knowledge do you have then? You are told about birth,
what other information?
V: None
M: This knowledge (‘I am’) is for each man to understand and be still in it. By understanding the Self
you understand the world, what else is there? You are as large as the world, if you are; the world is,
otherwise not. With what, identity of yourself did you read books? Were you reading it as a woman?
Knowledge is neither male nor female.
V: No, not female or male.
M: What about the reader?
V: Me?
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M: While reading, you know yourself as a woman?
V: No
M: After reading?
V: Female
M: God or heaven is momentary; nothing after that and for me it is nothing at all. All these Gods,
where are they? What is their promise? How do they exist? In which state are they? Presently I am in
that state where beingness has been forcibly imposed, the longer it stays, longer is the suffering, but it
is going to disappear. Sustenance is for moment, understand the moment, the moment since when?
How long and due to what? All the paraphernalia of this world is its expression. The one, who realizes
this, grows knowledgeable in the process of gathering this information. Thus you came to the root of
knowledge; you realize it and transcend it, stabilize yourself prior to intelligence.
V: The knowledge expounded here is valuable, but people are not mature enough to understand it, in
due course they may. Many do penances and have a deep urge, yet knowledge is not available to them.
M: Do you think you understand?
V: Memories, words…
M: There are two types of sounds, the one that you hear and the primordial, unstuck, soundless sound.
The moment you feel when you wake up, that is the unstuck sound. Later, you know that you are and
all other sounds follow. The ‘You are’ or ‘I am’ all sounds are based on it, it is a language without
words; unstuck, soundless. It is nothing.
V: Is there a parallel state between the waking and sleep states on one hand and the consciousness on
the other, which is so called born?
M: Yes, there is a very subtle state, presently it is rather gross, but in childhood it is a very fine subtle
state. The ‘I am’ is employed like an instrument, like vision for the eye, whenever there is vision, there
is the world; the actual observer has no color, no design. The trap of birth and death is because of the ‘I
am’, dwell on it, realize it and transcend it, that one has knowledge. All experience is time-bound, what
would you call that which witnesses the disappearance of thought? Think if you like; but the thought
process will disappear. You may gather a lot of knowledge but you are still trapped in bodyconsciousness.
V: Knowledge gathering is a trap.
M: Just like the web of a spider the birth concept is a source of suffering. As long as you hold on to that
idea, you will not be liberated. When liberated you are Nirguna (without qualities), the ever liberated.
Nirvana means no sample, the Saguna (with qualities) Brahman attains Nirvana. Beingness is the
quality to be, Nirguna mean no quality and Nirvana too means no quality.
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28. Just be, to realize No-beingness
8th January 1980
Visitor: How do things happen around a Jnani? In the case of a child the development takes place
because of the parents.
Maharaj: Because of the beingness body-formation in the world is spontaneous, while a Jnani is nature
himself, so it is nature’s problem to look after him.
V: Some yogis live for hundreds of years, upside down, without water and what not
M: They do so for the prolongation of their lives, for personal satisfaction and as out of a sense of duty
towards the spiritual field. Beingness depends on what? You try to prolong you life but when
something goes wrong, death results. The confidence and knowledge that ‘you are’, on what does it
depend? Beingness becomes no beingness and no-beingness spontaneously becomes beingness, so
whom should we question? You should yourself investigate it; what is the support of the ‘I am’? On
what does the faith that ‘you are’ depend? Why is there beingness? Why am I? How am I? People only
think of the body and mind, then, come death and the faith ‘I am’ disappears.
V: Some want to prolong life, they have self-love, are they caught in Maya?
M: Once they transcend the ‘I am the body’ idea, longevity does not matter, for their existence they
don’t depend on anything. Without depending on anything, you must find out yourself. Whenever you
think, you think on something else that you are not, how to think on your self? You cannot, you only
have to be thought free. You may think that there is no Ishwara, but you cannot think of your self.
What were you doing eight days prior to conception? Do you or I know? Eight days prior to entering
the womb, only you can tell about that state. What about beingness before conception? If you were
aware of beingness, would you care to enter the womb?
V: I don’t remember.
M: It’s not possible, because it is a non-attentive state. With beingness attention starts, in the womb it is
dormant. The border of beingness and no-beingness, that point is a glorious state, the non-attentive
state. What was the name of this lighter (Maharaj holds up his lighter) before it was manufactured?
When sick, one takes medicine, there is beingness therefore we meditate and strive for knowledge,
otherwise, where is the need? There is no need for knowledge prior to beingness. Even Vishnu closed
his eyes in Samadhi and disappeared.
V: And doing nothing?
M: What can they do? Presently you feel ‘you are’ because of the association with the vital breath,
When that association is not there, can you do anything?
V: Can I do anything to get knowledge?
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M: Do nothing except hold on to yourself, be in Beingness. Just be and you will realize how it will turn
into no-beingness. Catch hold of, dwell and contemplate on the beingness. Just be.
V: The whole day?
M: Who says ‘Whole day’? Who else can say except the beingness? Beingness can capture everything
in its contemplation, but beingness cannot capture itself.
Translator: Sound can cut everything except itself.
V: Is it because of Karma that I came back?
M: There is no Karma in the state of ‘Parabrahman’.
V: Why is it necessary to come back in body-form?
M: In this room, space is there, why has it extended? Why and how? Space out and space in, only space
exists, always. Where is the question of how and why?
V: Why do we come back in body form?
M: This is relevant to you as long ‘you are’. As long as the body has energy there are the world
experiences. Eight days prior to conception, whatever was, it prevails even now. What are you
presently suffering? It’s the name and association of the body form and the beingness. Ponder over it
(prior to conception) and you will get an instant solution.
V: What is the relationship between ‘That’ state and Karma? Karma is what we create?
M: Who creates you? Whoever creates you, creates Karma, Karma is the movement or activity. (To
Elaine, a disciple) I am trying to keep you trapped as though you are in a womb. Just listen carefully
and everything will sprout.
V: ( Elaine) I can’t bear a wrong question.
M: It’s a small blunder that we go and identify with the body form, the first and the last mistake.
Remember the seed which created the body, its life; you experience the world due to it, the seed gone
and you are in eternal state. Just like the tree out of a seed is the beingness and this entire manifested
world.
V: My ego, other egos, whatever I hear, is all in the beingness?
M: Yes, your dreams. Questions sprout according to one’s level and they are correct. Presently, if at all
you have to be interested in anything, it is the eight days prior to conception; ‘Parabrahman’ state. The
‘ego’ is used today but to what is this label attached and when? Everything is most sacred and
everything is most unsacred. All this is as long as beingness is there, self-love itself is an illusion.
Everyone wants beingness, ‘I love’ is an illusion yet other sages praise it. Prior to eight days how were
you? An intellectual person would say ‘I was in a dormant condition in the essence of my parents’, this
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is a conventional reply. Try to trace your parent, go to eternity, this principle in the dormant form goes
into eternity. There are two approaches, either you get established in the state prior to beingness, or you
get caught in diverse concepts and fail to investigate your true nature. As such conventional knowledge
is not destroyed and there is no reason for its destruction because basically it is an untruth.
Another basic concept is that of the ‘Purna Purusha’, the perfect (or complete) man. The perfect
principle is that which existed prior to anyone’s birth. There is some similarity between the ignorant
child in the cradle and the Jnani, the child does not differentiate between urine and fecal matter, only
the child knows as to how it knows itself, so is for the Jnani.
V: Then should we give up everything and become a child?
M: Where is the question of denominating everything? It has spontaneously come, only understand that
you suffer because of the beingness. Did you go and catch hold of it? No, it has come spontaneously.
The child doesn’t have any concepts, ideas and ego. The Jnani, having understood the state of affairs,
transcends all these, and abides eternally in the state prior to beingness, irrespective of whether the
beingness is better or not. With what identity will you now go about it?
V: None
M: Are you sure? If so, then, is there any necessity or purpose for spiritual pursuits?
V: Actually no-No reason at all.
M: What is ignorance? From the waking to sleep to the beingness state all means ignorance. This
ignorance, called birth, is the waking, sleep and the beingness state, once you know this, and you are
convinced about it, you are free. Only see the false as false. Then, doership goes too; your doing this or
finding that will not affect you. Prior to the appearance of beingness, for ages, you were perfect and
complete as the Parabrahman. A Jnani gives no importance to the waking, sleep and beingness states.
No rope, no serpent. To say all this is false, do you need any effort Paul? Once you know, no effort is
involved, you dismiss it off as ignorance, and there is no registration.
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29. The Telescope
9th January 1980
Maharaj: The five elements are in full activity without any selfish motive. Similarly, everything is
happening here, there is no self-identity. With beingness gone, there is complete fulfillment of the Self,
which means I have transcended it too. The space is everywhere, all the other elements – air, fire, water
and earth are the aspirant where the three Gunas are working, but there is no self-interest. With the
beingness the self-interest arises through vegetation. All the disputes, wars and conflicts are in the five
elemental world, but the five elements have no interest in them. There is no use of good thoughts or
had thoughts, this is all a play of the five elements.
Visitor: Is man always subject to the five elements, until the body dissolves?
M: What is this object called ‘Man’? When dead, he is cremated, how is he apart from five elements?
V: Is there a man who has control over the elements? M: It happens spontaneously, if there is fire here,
I shall immediately rush to extinguish it. So long as the five elemental juice, the essence, prevails, that
is the touch of ‘I am’ – there activities will happen.
V: A realized man is not subject to the five elements while in body? Translator: His beingness and
body will be subjected.
M: But today where are the miracle makers? Where were they prior to the body-form?
V: Gautama, The Buddha said ‘Look upon me whither in old age’, this is the nature of Nisargadatta,
nature itself.
M: Do I say anything different? Miracles happen; but what is the meaning of that? What difference
have they made in the five elements? With all this play, the moment-to-moment changes, could they
challenge that arsenal of nature? Krishna, Christ and the others have come and gone. I am referring to a
state prior to their beingness and how and when they appeared in the manifested world, it was because
of the essence of the five elemental juices, the knowledge ‘I am’ that they appeared, where are they
now? How did you happen to be? Assuming that the world exists, what is the cause of your
appearance? You have a telescope; it is an object through which you observe the cosmos but the
observer is apart from the telescope. You will not get peace through worldly knowledge; this telescope
(body) has innumerable nuances and titles. To fabricate it with the raw material of the five elements, it
took nine months and through it you observe everything but the observer is not in the telescope.
V: What were we doing eight days prior to conception?
M: To say ‘I was observing’ prior to the conception stage is incorrect, at that stage does it (beingness)
know itself? No being and beingness is a form for Brahman, prior to conception it is oblivious to itself.
What is the telescope embodied in the body? Is it not the beingness that you preserve? But you the
Absolute are not the beingness.
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You will not get peace through worldly knowledge; this telescope has innumerable nuances and titles
fabricated with the raw material of the five elements it took nine months. Through it you observe all,
but the observer is not the telescope.
V: Was there ever a time when I was not embodied?
M: Because of the telescope there is observation of the manifest, when the telescope goes, is the
observer also destroyed? The observer has no qualities.
V: The observer cannot be defined without telescope?
M: Once you understand the five elemental play, you are unaffected by it; you stand apart from it. I
experience the world due to what instrument? How did this instrument happen to be? What is the cause
of it? The dead don’t interfere with the live men. The one who has understood and realized the
beingness – the observer – has no connection and no interest in it. You throw out all worldly talks and
concepts totally. The mind goes on chattering and you want to be one with it, just keep out of it and
you wake up. The chattering mind synchronizes with the vital breath, it tells you about spiritual
pursuits. Remember, you are prior to the chattering mind. Breathing goes on, chattering goes on – the
chattering mind has brought you here in the name of spirituality, but prior to it, you were.
From deep sleep you wake up, that border is Paravani, beyond words. When you move, become
conscious, you feel ‘I am’, then mind takes charge, words take over and you are embroiled in the
world. Paravani is other than language, ‘Para’ means ‘other’ or ‘transcend’ – the language of just being
without words, but I, The Absolute, am not that. Paul’s Psychic experiences are spontaneous.
V: What stirred them? The five elements and then Kundalini gave a shock?
M: The main point is know the ‘I am’ and just be there.
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30. You are not whatever you Experience
10th January 1980
Maharaj: The Jnani, who is apart from body identification, is not affected by the sorrows that bodymind
bring. Joseph, from what stand point will you write to me?
Visitor: (Joseph) From ‘I am’
M: She has been writing for about a month here. From what standpoint will you write?
V: Do I have to reply?
M: Will you be writing in the same state? The one, who tries to abide in the Self, loses identity with his
ego. The very identity that ‘I am’ gets dissolved. Your true identity – The Absolute – is prior to the ‘I
am’. How can you provide a uniform (the ochre robe) to it?
V: We accept every person’s view of life, earlier it was more intolerable than now. Now I tolerate so
many things, that one is looking through his telescope.
M: Yes, but playing with concepts is not abidance in the true Self.
V: To find the Self, one must go to silent places, I like that. But when one has the insight, it is not
necessary.
M: Who says that he seeks silence? Earlier I presumed that I was created, later, after listening to my
Guru, I understood that the experience was created or appeared, but not me. The creation of this
beingness, this experience, is a result of the five elements and their interactions. With the view ‘I was
created’ come the fears of life and death. I just prevail as a result of the five elements and this
experience of beingness is created for no reason. I, The Absolute, am not the created, it excludes The
Absolute. The observer (behind the telescope) is not the created, the object has been created. You want
to be in silence without meditation, which you are not doing. What are you doing? From where do you
know that ‘you are’? In the ‘knowingness’ lies everything. You have presumed that you are behind the
telescope, but you have not understood, whatever you understand is something else, you don’t
understand yourself.
V: I cannot understand, he said
M: Whatever you understand you cannot be that. You are putting a question like this: a donkey is going
by the road and you inquire about him, how are you concerned with that? You know that you are not
the donkey. Whatever you experience is not you. In this matter, you will not satisfy your itch by
talking; elsewhere you may talk and be satisfied. What is meditation? Meditation is to reject all
experiences, to be in a experienceless state. To realize this trick you have to be in meditation. What is
the experience? The experience ‘to be’, suppress that also. The one who observes both, the no-being
and being state is in the true state. You only get experiences of what you are not, beingness is also an
experience merge it with no-beingness. Beingness goes into no-beingness, The Absolute does not know
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that it is, it only prevails. To turn beingness into no-beingness, assiduously follow meditation or else
you will be like a calf frisking. Be in meditation and you will stabilize, and then stop there or else you
will be like a calf whose ear has air in it.
V: To meditate is to realize that we do not experience.
Translator: The primary experience ‘you are’, that too should also be negated.
M: Experience has to become invisible together with the ‘I love’ beingness.
V: What about noise in meditation?
M: Your senses and limbs are still active; they are not under your control. By meditation this weakness
of your mind should be overthrown. How intensely should one meditate? While Kabir meditated, a dog
bit him, someone came and told him ‘a dog has bitten you’ Kabir replied ‘the dog knows and the skin
knows’. A deep yearning must be there, like when you are worried about something, you will be
thinking about it: ‘next morning something must be done for money’ because of it there was no sleep,
you’d go straight for the money, you need it desperately and so you keep thinking about it. In the
spiritual field you need to progress so intensely that you keep thinking it (your true identity), with
persistence, you reach, but you must want it badly.

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31. How you met your Parents?
12th January 1980
Maharaj: So long as the breathing goes on the mind flow goes on. If you take yourself to be the body,
the mind will have effect on you. Knowledge means to get rid of all concepts, not acquire, but get rid of
concepts like birth. Even of this birth, you have no experience. Don’t accept anything told, you need
not consult sages either, you know that ‘you are’, so the world appears. With this knowledge, give
attention to this knowledge, then knowledge will tell you what you are. When you came to know that
‘you are’, you knew it on your own, like nourishment in the womb is automatic. Parents usually don’t
know, the real birth is prior to nine months, then the so-called birth. Only at the age of three or so, the
child recognizes the mother and starts learning, which is ignorance.
Visitor: There is one consciousness, but there are so many forms, why?
M: This is the quality of the consciousness to appear in variety, the soul is one, from the five elements
arise the various forms. It is because of wrong identification with the body that this knowledge (‘I am’)
is required. Atman is self-love; it has brought you here safely, worship it as the Lord, Ishwara. Take
yourself as Ishwara, and then you know what you are and once you know what you are, all desires will
be fulfilled. The knowledge, ‘I am’ is like sweetness, it has no form. You eat fish, one body is food for
another, this body is the food for the ‘I am’. People ask questions, I look upon them as at ignorant
children, at the age of three they started learning this so-called knowledge. (Note: Maharaj is prior to
beingness, he knows that state, so they, that is people, are all children for him.)
Your identity is in a continuous flux, as an old man you are spoon-fed, you have no memory, no
identity is faithful and honest. After Self-knowledge, your faith and your selfishness drop away.
Because of identification with the body, you say that you are a man or a woman, if there is no body,
how can you say you are a man or a woman? You have no birth or experience of birth, but the ignorant
one is very much afraid at death. For the one transcending this beingness, while the vital breath is
leaving, he has no fear, no concept, only great joy.
Please, all those gathered here are selfish, they are interested in the Self only. Real knowledge is to
know that you have no identity.
V: Is effort necessary for Self-knowledge?
M: What questions did you ask before meeting your parents? Silence means no activity, total cessation
of activity. Why come to a place of activity? When there is no need for words and their meanings, then
there is silence, ‘I am Brahman’ (AhamBrahmasmi) means The Absolute. If there is no body, there is
no guna (quality), my teaching is simple, I am not the body, and I am not the beingness, beingness
being a product of food essence.
There are no rules for consciousness; a king’s experience in the womb is no different from an ordinary
person’s. There is no beingness in The Absolute and no rules for the beingness. With my Guru’s grace,
I know how the beingness has appeared. ‘I am like what I was prior to beingness’, I am not born. There
cannot be a witness to my experience, if there is a witness, then it cannot be true. Constant meditation
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is required to grasp this knowledge.
V: Are relatives Mithya?
M: Yes, can the sun see his dead rays? That is the standpoint of a Jnani. So long as you take yourself as
body, problems will arise; a Jnani has transcended this illusion. Just forget everything and dwell on,
how you met your parents? If doubts are not cleared, go to the moment when your acquaintance, got
acquainted with your parents.
V: If nothing is really there, how can a Jnani make others feel the need of a Jnani?
M: Everyone, from plants to creatures, want and know the ‘I am’ to be there, once we have existence,
we want it to continue. Your experience is because of the beingness, the world depends on beingness, is
it happy or miserable? When your beingness is not there, is it happy or miserable?
V: Why did Ramana work on his mother to realize before death?
M: The reality, what his mother was, he knew, but he did that out of love.
V: Affection for what?
M: When there is no beingness, are you concerned with anything? The knowledge ‘I am’ is whole
universe, not only body.
V: So Ramana has no mother?
M: He himself does not exist, a Jnani is The Absolute. If someone worships a Jnani, he does not know
it. In the worshipper the beingness is still there and the Jnani, although he does not know him, yet he
helps him. The field of Consciousness is a mystery, be humble, don’t be proud, make friendship with
the Self and it will tell you all. The seed has the complete photo of the plant; a seed of rice will not
produce wheat, how? Go there to the source. A great tree comes from the seed, it contains the complete
tree, similarly the beingness contains the whole universe.
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32. The ‘I am’ is the Primary Illusion
13th January 1980
Maharaj: I talked a lot of topsy-turvy in the morning but unless that happens, the creation of Ishwara
will not come by. I talked about secretions, without which Ishwara will not be created. I said I am
Rama, Krishna Mohamed and so on, but since when? Until you abide in your actual state, these things
(black magic) are going to happen. Just as you explain how departing Lamas tell about their future
births, it’s because they like to be and are fond of rebirth. Some siddhas even have the powers to
reincarnate or enter into someone else’s body, like Shankaracharya did.
Visitor: How can you reincarnate when you don’t incarnate?
M: Yes, that is my understanding too. When did one come to know that his parents were or are? Only
in the dream world of his birth dream, ‘gati’ means movement and ‘sruti’ means memory, these are
simultaneously created. You are not an ordinary person, you are cunning and smart and asking me
questions out of that. You have handled the world and then come here, while others are the ordinary
types. You are a great spy, trying to extract secrets in spirituality.
V: Secrets are for development, not for publishing.
M: ‘Pragati’ means progress and it also means movements towards somebody. Do movements towards
someone else help us to understand the Self?
V: Depends who the ‘somebody’ is.
M: The ‘somebody’ is a concept.
V: No
M: Become free from concepts, no concepts, including the ‘I am’
V: The ‘I am’ is Moolmaya?
M: The ‘I am’ is the primary concept, the primary illusion.
V: Simultaneously with it is birth?
M: The primary concept itself, for its sustenance, created so many substances, like wheat flour and
wheat products. Out of the touch of ‘I amness’ arose so many concepts and various names.
Second Visitor: He (Maharaj) is before God?
V: Yes
M: The primary concept develops so many skills like ‘Chaya Shastra’ (A ‘Chaya’ expert predicts, past,
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present and future from the Chaya or Shadow or a photograph) I am not amazed by them.
Second Visitor: He doesn’t want to be bothered?
M: Why should I be bothered? My ego is obliterated, wiped out. Although it is felt, it is actually erased
out. Whatever image is conceptualized by any concept, could it be honest or permanent? Anybody
visiting (me) will be having great energy, he’d be challenging, but the moment be comes here, he will
get diffused.
V: Is it sacrilegious to describe one’s teacher?
M: Your friend will insist on you telling him.
V: I would share with him on the level he is. It’s hard to say, now.
M: There are many Self-realized people, but they don’t use words only silence! They might be lying in
dirt, but lying in a exalted state.
V: Some people lying in the gutter in India may be in that state.
M: You listen to talks, but you don’t dwell on the essence of the five elements. There is no destruction
of the ‘I am’. Water evaporates, but it becomes plenty, similarly, beingness, when it disappears,
becomes plenty.
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33. Meditation means merging with Beingness
15th January 1980
Maharaj: The birth of the gunas (qualities), the beingness and the realm of beingness are being used,
but I am not that. People Salute here, such is the quality of the Sattva guna. Of the three accepted
gunas, Sattva guna is at the core of Self-knowledge.
Beingness is not the ultimate Self-knowledge, although it has high titles like Brahma, Vishnu and
Mahesh, the creator, preserver and destroyer. The One who witness appearance and disappearance
observes without eyes.
Visitor: Does the Jnani think?
M: For the purpose of communication he has to use words.
V: In reality there is nothing?
M: Yes
V: Is there a difference between feelings and emotions?
M: The expression of emotions and feelings is the traditional outflow of the three gunas. Beingness is a
guest, it will go, it is a guest of The Absolute. All your worldly knowledge is futile yet play of the
beingness and three gunas will continue and you are not these When everything goes in meditation,
what remains is that which prevailed prior to10000 years, a state which prevailed in the absence of
waking, sleeping and beingness.
V: How to avoid going into Samadhi in meditation?
M: Don’t try to restrain Samadhi, it will come and go, Samadhi is natural play of three gunas.
V: My Guru said, don’t go into Samadhi.
M: Meditation means merging with beingness, abiding in beingness is ‘Dhyana’.
V: Beingness is its own object?
M: Yes, like gold is the object of gold, water is the object of water, so beingness is the object of
beingness. Did your Guru tell you, where you are meeting the knowledge, ‘I am’ or at what point did
you meet your beingness?
V: It can’t be answered.
M: Only a Jnani can say what ignorance is.
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V: Everything that comes and goes is ignorance.
M: the waking and sleep states come and go, these two form the beingness, without these three how are
you going to raise questions?
V: No, so use them.
M: The process of attaining pertains to three the gunas, but the destination is beyond them. The
meditation too is not real.
V: It’s the last obstacle.
M: The destination of meditation is real. A book will be more useful to the one who is more ignorant
then another. Another writes in a grand style all about his ignorance, and the reader gets engrossed. Did
you ever see the moon and all before the appearance of the beingness, Brahma or this illusion?
Although the ‘I am’ is ample and plenty, it is an illusion that induces multiplicity. This manifest world
is a dynamic play of the five elements and there is no scope for an individual. Just as a diamond
radiates from all sides, similarly in deep meditation you will realize that you are this entire
manifestation.
V: ‘Lila’, a restaurant in Paris, has one light reflected in 1000 mirrors.
M: You will realize that the principle, the beingness itself, illumines the entire world, the world is its
body. On the television, a drama goes on, that is a play of light. Similarly the manifest world is your
play, the play of beingness, so having realized this, you go into quietude. In the beingness a number of
universes are playing around, all people, including Europeans and the rest are products of the play of
the five elements.
V: It is a beautiful play.
M: Great incarnations have come and gone, but they have not been able to arrest this play of the five
elements. One life form is food for another, is there any change in that? There is a society for
compassion to animals, they just prolong their life and make them suffer longer. Has anybody arrested
creation? Has there been any progress in family planning – human or animal? No one has the authority
to stop the play of the five elements.
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34. Swallow the Beingness
16th January 1980
Maharaj: In the form is the beingness, in beingness is the ‘I love’.
Visitor: Once you are a witness, not a thinker, how long does it take to go beyond that?
M: Stop asking stupid questions. Out of that fluid drop has emanated the entire beingness, so where is
the question of beyond? Out of wetness it has come spontaneously, I didn’t ask for it. How this
question of witnessing arose? I am telling you about what ‘you are’, you are created from the
emissions, from the beingness, and this beingness is indeed despicable. Have you understood? It is your
egoism that has to be thrown out. When you are a witness, you are not this or that, what is your present
condition? I am telling you that. I indicate labels attached prior to your beingness, they are not real,
only indicative.
V: Beingness is a witness, so I ask.
M: Witnessing at level of beingness relates to the expressed gross world. I am telling you how
beingness emanated. People are carried away by miracles but the greatest miracle is the beingness, the
entire world is an expression of it. I am explaining my condition, what am I? Simultaneously, with the
world, I got my form that is the biggest miracle. After I met my Guru, I have only been investigating
only myself. I paid no attention to anything else; I paid attention only to myself. My presence is the
biggest factor before me; I have no need of other sages and all. My Guru taught me what ‘I am’, I
pondered only on that. My consciousness appeared along with my body form. My original state is to be
in that state where there is no ‘I am’. I am explaining my state of affairs, from my standpoint you must
realize yourself. As the ‘I am’, you are witnessing of what?
V: Everything is and is not.
M: For that the beingness must be there. Then where is the question of witnessing? Witnessing what? I
have indicated how incarnation takes place. Besides that fluid, what are you? So where is the question
of good or bad? I can reserve my judgment about the fluid drop, wherein the whole would is contacted.
It’s a simple approach, how did this happen that I observe the world and I feel ‘I am’. In deep
meditation my Guru indicated how this form and beingness came together and also, the world. That
was indicated to me in deep meditation. Krishnamurti will never break open that shell of secrecy, he
will disclose this only in private.
V: Does the knower know himself?
M: Yes, although what my Guru said, I realized, the most important is my state prior to the beingness,
when beingness was not there. If the message beingness is not there who would have witnessed this
miracle?
V: Who would have created them?
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M: It’s spontaneous creation; there is no creator for the beingness. A seed sprouts and we have a plant,
we say God has created, but it is all spontaneous. Out of a small seed, sprouts a large banyan tree.
Because of the fear of death, people worship God; it is because they have accepted death.
V: That which is prior to beingness, is it Maharaj’s conscious experience?
M: That is the eternal state. I have talked about the conscious state, where beingness is ephemeral and I
am not that. Whatever prior to that is eternal.
V: Does Maharaj know from experience?
M: Because I prevail prior to anything, Parabrahaman or Parmatman are my titles prior to
consciousness. In that state, I have no association of anything.
V: Is this true for all? Some know, while others know not?
M: I am not concerned with others, who else could be except ‘I’? When you swallow the beingness,
whatever remains, is that state. I have no associations in that state; I am alone in that state, alone
without words, prior to words. There is a sentence, ‘I am alone, let me be many’, this is Maya.
V: Didn’t you feel lonely in Parabrahman.
M: This sentence occurred when beingness appeared, when there was vibration. I reject the
Upanishads, they do teach profoundly, but they don’t touch me, Upanishad means ‘get out’. Whatever
is written in the name of Philosophy, the raw material used, is nothing but ignorance. The three Gunas
are the emotions and they are not the truth. This great fraud, this fraudulent world is created from the
spit. They (people) are instinctively ashamed, that’s why they want to hide it (the private parts).
Considering this aspect, how can you have an ego? It’s a most despicable state, where from emanated
and where to proceeding!
V: From nowhere to nowhere.
M: That fluid, would you care to show the public? Dancing girls have boy friends in every village. One
such girl came across a great man and she lost her identify to him, with this great one she had no
identify. On meeting him, all the sins of her past births were burnt to ashes. Kabir said that he recited
the sacred name millions of times, he did penance, but there was no realization until he met a perfect
Guru who threw him beyond all worlds into perfection. The beingness is not true, the world too is not
true, it’s just an expression of the unwanted beingness. How can anyone attain peace by mere
experience? All experiences are false, is there anyone who has led the ‘I am’ to quietude by recourse to
experiences? You can go into quietude only when the beingness is fully satisfied and forgets itself, for
only in non-beingness lies peace.
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35. Body identity is an Illusion
17th January 1980
Maharaj: Krishnamurti talks about the total manifestation, while I point out that which brought the
manifest into existence. Whatever is being done, if you think you are the doer, it’s the vanity in you.
Krishnamurti is not a person; he is in that state which I describe. The Supreme being is in everyone, a
Jnani accepts this, only one in a million will realize it. Intellectual experiences apart, most people only
want some benefit through the body. Instead of only deriving benefit through the body, stabilize in
yourself, if your true identify is not realized, you will die with the body identity and name.
The knowledge ‘I am’ is at the very centre. From where do you experience the manifest world and
body? Is it not because of the centre? If the centre ‘I am’ did not exist, would you experience the body?
Give up the identity that you are a woman; attachment to male or female forms is itself an illusion.
Visitor: Intellectually I know that femininity is an illusion but the predicament is that I am separate and
yet…
M: Once you understand, then you are not caught up in the predicament, you are liberated.
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36. The ‘I am’ is temporary in the Infinite
16th January 1980
Visitor: Ramana Maharshi has spoken about the grace of the Guru, what would your Maharaj say about
it?
Maharaj: In India, grace of the Guru is of great importance. Grace is always there, it depends on the
disciple, he benefits according to his own beliefs. In the scriptures the Guru has been mentioned as the
supreme reality, so the disciple worships the Guru. Krishnamurti says Guru is not necessary, he is also
right.
(Note: There are the so-called Gurus, but Maharaj is the Absolute. There are Gurus who may be cheats,
among them there is a competition for disciples. But you can understand the ratio, In 10 million there is
one rare possibility of a Guru and most of them are inaccessible, they are not interested in imparting
knowledge).
My everlasting property is my Guru, the Sadguru, all else is perishable in the realm of the five
elements. So many dissolutions of universes and chaos have occurred, but my Guru is not affected.
Whatever the disciple understands the Guru to be, he becomes that; the difference vanishes, they
become one. In the first meeting the Guru says, ‘you are not the body or name’, as long as you are
without these, you are the reality.
My existence is of no use to me, I have become useless from my point of view, and I am beyond
concepts now. People receive the concepts they like and accordingly they would benefit.
(Note: He doesn’t like to talk; if there is a question, he will answer. Earlier he used to create problems
and solve them. Now he has no interest, he will talk from the point as view of what he understands the
questions to be. Any question still based on ‘I am the body’ idea will not be answered. The
identification with the body is death, identify with the knowledge (‘I am’) and there will be no death.
But people still cling to the body).
V: Does he consider ‘I amness’ to be similar to realization?
M: The ‘I am’ consciousness is the advertisement of The Absolute. The Absolute is unknown, what
you call Ishwara, Brahma and so forth are hoardings of The Absolute.
V: The one who is free of ‘I amness’ is a Jnani?
M: It is not necessary to be free from the ‘I am’ touch for the Jnani. The Self-realized state is subtler
than space, the Jnani has transcended consciousness. One who has no waking, sleeping and beingness
is a Jnani. Just as Paul Brunton gave publicity to Ramana Maharshi, similarly Ishwara or Brahma is the
publicity department of The Absolute.
V: Two men are walking on the street; one free of ‘I amness’, another self-realized…
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M: Self-realized means a firm conviction of the ultimate knowledge of the Self, then there is no
deviation from The Absolute.
V: What is the process of Self- realization?
M: The first one is a seeker, once the conviction (about the Self) is there, you are on the other side. Do
you commit suicide with a concept or spontaneously?
V: Suicide is self-inflicted, do you commit suicide spontaneously?
M: In the true eternal state no proof is called for unreality. In unreality you seek a proof, that’s the
chaos of unreality.
V: Realization can be had only in the body, the one who is disembodied and floating in heaven cannot
have realization.
M: Absolutely correct, in realization, there is no color, no design, no from, this conviction must
stabilize.
V: What happens when one dies with concepts?
M: According to the concept, it will take concrete shape, that particular concept will take a tangible
shape.
V: When the food body dissolves, conceptualization goes with it?
M: Whose concept dissolves?
V: Body’s
M: When the Jnani drops his body, he has transcended beingness.
V: If a person is involved in the concept of beingness, then the touch of ‘I amness’ is not dissolved?
M: The eternal message ‘I am’, whatever it maybe, that is being cooked up in the moment. The
message ‘I am’ – chemical – identifies with body and says ‘I am’. A child born has no name, you give
it title.
V: John Smith has idea at death that he is going to be neutron, the ‘I am’ dissolves, now where has the
concept hung?
M: It will be hanging about in the realm of the five elements. This is your concept that John Smith will
enter a womb; it is all the five elemental play.
V: But you said…
M: This is a play of words.
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V: But I am presenting Nisargadatta to the world, the concept of John Smith is in the five elements.
M: The one who has the itch of a concept will enjoy or suffer the image of it. What about you? The one
who has no itch will not suffer, you don’t move away from the Self, don’t go into all that, Inquire about
yourself, you have the replies, you already abide in the ultimate, yet you ask questions? Give replies to
your readers from your true stand point; otherwise keep your month shut. I have told you, you are not
the chemical and its qualities, so why bother? But you are dancing to the tune of questions; you are the
truth, this ‘I amness’ has only appeared temporarily. I know that this manifest Brahman or Cosmos is
unreal, time-bound and unstable. The message ‘I am’ has spontaneously come and is the root of the
manifested world. The message ‘I am’, caught hold of the body as its identity and suffering started. The
‘I am’ happened and the world was cooked up. Even this information, you got later, when the ‘I am’
came into friction, recognized the body, mother and so on, prior to that you did not have the message ‘I
am’, you existed, but you did not know. In that non-subjective state, the subject started. In the infinite
state, the ‘I am’ state is temporary; don’t give up your true standpoint otherwise you will be fooled. To
whatever extent you would conduct your search, it would still be in the realm of ‘I amness’. Don’t
retain it (‘I am’) in memory, then you will be happy. I know how the confluence came about between
my true state and the ‘I amness’, so now, in what way am I concerned with Krishna and Arjuna? Once I
came to know about the message ‘I am’, the drama was over.
Shiva worshipped Rama even when he had not incarnated, he said that Rama was ‘Parabrahma’. Rama
did not know this when he was born, his Guru told him. In the Parabrahman state there is no
knowingness, did Rama, the Parabrahma, know that Shiva was worshipping him?
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37. Transcend the ‘I am’
21st January 1980
Visitor: Who says ‘I am the consciousnesses’? And is it the ‘I am consciousness’ that traces the
question to memories?
Maharaj: Don’t just disown the body and name as you are, but see that you focus your attention on the
‘I am’ and all the questions will be answered.
V: What prevents us from receiving grace?
M: The quality of your faith should be intense, firm and lasting.
V: Is the desire to be free also that of the body-mind?
M: No, it is not in a bodily sense. As you get identified with the ‘I am’, devoid of the body, you have
only to abide in the Self
V: Is that also desire?
M: No, It is a very strong conviction that you are not the body mind.
V: Krishnamurti said that desire breeds disorder. This daily life, hard work and study can it be a
hindrance in Self-knowledge?
M: Who is asking this?
V: I am.
M: Catch hold of that ‘I am’ only and all obstacles will evaporate. If you correctly understand me, you
will be beyond the realm of body-mind. Many a times it happens that teachings are misunderstood.
Because the ‘I am’ is there, these questions arise, If the ‘I am’ is not there, no questions can arise. In
the realm of ‘I am’ anything is possible, but if I were alert enough, do you think I would have been in
this body? The Jnani is the one who knows that beingness, the world and Brahman are unreal. Having
understood the ‘I am’, I transcend it and came to the conclusion that all the three entities are unreal, and
then what more remains to be liquidated? The ‘Parabrahaman’ is without attributes and I am
‘Parabrahaman’, I am not the beingness, the world nor Brahman

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48. Guru means, not an individual
3rd February 1980
Maharaj: The ‘I am’ is in a dormant condition in the womb, it is an ignorant condition. How could it
know itself? At three years or so the knowledge ‘I am’ comes spontaneously with the formation of
body. Around middle age it is at a climax, while in old age the quality of ‘I amness’ is diminished.
Then finally the ‘I am’ disappears, and identity too is gone. Wherefore are you proceeding? There are
two apertures of receiving and discharging.
The ideas that have been there in the process of seeking the Self are such that be it a beggar or a king,
in a hermitage both will get self-knowledge. The time factor sets paths according the results of
interactions in the Cosmos. The resultant activity on earth and in vegetation then gets planted in the
womb of the mother; space of earth is in the womb. Parents are gross matter; their resultant action is a
part of the five element play. The child comes out and finally the ‘I amness’ sprouts spontaneously.
When ‘you are’, ‘you’ are not asking but it is your thought meaning that is asking. Whatever thoughts
occur accordingly you frame questions, it is thought that forms questions.
Whatever concepts I give blast your concepts. I have presently no abundance thoughts, but only those
pertaining only to the ‘I am’. A common man he feels that his hopes and desires would be fulfilled so
life is important to him. After listening to the talks here all hopes and desires are not fulfilled, but you
transcend them. Why have bad thoughts like those of competition, jealously or hatred? You alone are
affected by them.
(Note: Somebody here asks about Maharaj: will he die? The translator replies: don’t try to judge him
from your standpoint; it is more important to find what you are.)
Actually there is nothing, something becomes the ego so the mind starts its activity, the source is
nothingness. With what destiny of yours are you propitiating your identity? According to that benefits
will accrue. If you think this body is your identity, animals also think so and death is certain. I have
talked to you like this because you have lost your way (like animals do) and have come here, now since
you have come here, take a vow to find your true identity, then you need not see me again.
These flowers can they survive on sugar? No, they are nourished on dirty manure. Similarly the ‘I
amness’ is nourished by the food body, when it starts decomposing, or when food is consumed and
digested, then can you imagine its smell? The doctor will rush to you if that food is not made dirty by
the process of digestion, the secrets of nature, at times, are not worthy of disclosure.
Go to a family man he will talk about others, but not about himself. When the two such men meet, they
just gossip, that’s all; they will never have praiseworthy word for others. To get rid of such a situation,
abide in the grace of Guru and try to imbibe his words. Guru means not an individual; the knower and
witness of that principle, the consciousness, which appears and disappears, is the Guru.
Who is a Sadguru? He is that ever prevailing principle which witness appearance and disappearance of
the unreal. My talks lead to subtle knowledge, which difficult to register and retain in memory. Rama
didn’t know that he was Parabrahman until his Guru told him ‘you are Parabrahman’, even
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Parabrahman has to be reminded In the process of understanding in this way I (Maharaj) got
annihilated.
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49. There is no other Brahman greater than you
4th February 1980
Visitor: Nature of mind is desire, how to go beyond that?
Maharaj: It is not necessary to go beyond or transcend. Watch whatever comes and goes, mind,
thoughts and so forth, you be where you are. The Atman or Self does not come and go, it is there only,
and everywhere, only thoughts come and go.
V: What can we do more than surrender?
M: Who surrenders? The one who surrenders has he a name and form? A person with a name can
surrender, but actually one does not have name and form. Your question indicates identification with
body.
V: She (pointing to someone) has made hundred Gurus.
M: Let her understand that what others have told her is ignorance. Do no thing and it will dissolve, in
spite of many Gurus you remain one?
V: Yes
M: Remove the Gurus and be with that one ‘you are’.
V: I do nothing, yet nothing is happening.
M: You know ‘you are’? That is enough, more than enough.
V: Sometimes the witness is there, but sometimes there is no witness at all for months. How does it
come to stay longer?
M: In the waking state, the witnessing state is always there. There is no other Brahman greater than
you, accept this and go, you are the greatest.
In that small round cell is contained all the space, in it the Cosmos and earth are there, that small cell is
the principle of ‘I am’ The moment it is there, space is manifested, the womb is space started from the
small cell ‘I am’. Whatever you have had from other Gurus is ignorance, this judgment of knowledge is
for you to accept and be quiet.
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50. The touch of ‘I amness’ is unreal
5th February 1980
Maharaj: That very God, whom you believe will solve your problems, can’t solve his own problems!
Isn’t it sacrilegious? There is only Nisarga, The Absolute, out of that the five elements and three gunas
(qualities) play out, but no stigma of that play react on that principle. Science deals with the five
elemental matter, with it, it assess age of any material. No one will be able to judge the age of Nisarga,
The Absolute, it is beyond measure I am beyond mind, in human beings the Godly principle is
indwelling, when he propitiates it, it manifests itself, otherwise you cling to body identity. There is a
plant of gold images, but gold knows nothing about them. I always prevail without depending on the
touch of ‘I amness’.
Visitor: The ‘I am’ is there, and the world is there from Absolute state, is there a process of witnessing
even though ‘I am’ is not there?
M: Beingness must be there, because beingness is the world. I am knowingness means the world. I am
knowingness is like an illumination; it is the focal point of sprouting of the world. All multiplicity is
manifested from the Ishwara principle; it is sprouting from the ‘I am’ principle. Ishwara, or ‘I am’ is
the manifest principle, it can’t solve its own riddles. People say I am son of God, yet God has not been
able to solve his own problems. Once you stabilize in The Absolute, world and its meanings disappear;
they cannot be started there anymore. So called sages say I supported this or that god, yet that god has
its own problems. Why am I told that I am indifferent? I am Nisarga, beyond time, I am Nisarga which
is attached to nothing. In common parlance Nisarga means ‘indifferent’. So many eons and dissolutions
have come by, but I remain untouched by them I know no addition or subtraction.
V: When one is in The Absolute, and looks at the world, it would seem, there is no centre or no value?
M: The whole manifest world is witnessed by a Jnani in the drop of ocean. What is it that you
understand?
V: Seeing through ‘I amness’?
M: But there must be materials to sustain the ‘I amness’ like the flame requires gas as fuel. In this
world there are plenty of things, but for your own sake, what are you? Talk from that standpoint, the
body you are not, finally time will consume it. Once you happen to recognize the ‘I amness’ as the
entire universe, you will be liberated. Maximum good can be done when one realizes that the touch of
‘I amness’ is unreal.
V: After death the ‘I amness’ disappears?
M: Have you experienced death directly?
V: There is no body sense; you relax, in that case are you dead. In sleep are you dead?
M: With what aid you use the world?
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V: Body.
M: Why not inquire into the beginning of body and beingness? You are worried about death; why not
go to the beginning of the body and beingness? If you want to be Nirguna (without qualities), go to the
source of beingness, go to the point of confluence of guna (qualities) and Nirguna. Nirguna means
absence of ‘I amness’ and Saguna means presence of ‘I amness’.
V: One can’t conceive Nirguna.
M: It is beyond concepts.
V: Not even experienced?
M: Where is the need for experience in Nirguna?
V: If Nirguna can’t be experienced what’s the use of The Absolute?
M: Guna means ‘I am’, Nirguna no ‘I amness, who is there to enjoy Nirguna state?
V: When I work I forget myself.
M: If you don’t forget yourself for four days, you will die. You did not know you were, suddenly you
felt ‘you are’ and with ‘I amness’ you started counting age. When exactly you felt that ‘you are’?
Dwell there, ponder over it. To what extent can you dispute? How will any scholar dispute it? How,
why and where the ‘I amness’ appeared? Investigate and realize, once you realize everything is over.
People have a strong faith in the body, that’s why they entertain a concept of another body as well.
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51. ‘You are’ has no form
6th February 1980
Maharaj: A good mind should be there as an aid for worldly activities, but you are not the mind. You
are in a position to witness the mind and vital breath; this realization should be gradually developed in
you. You have limbs as tools for the activities they do, and the mind helps to conduct these activities.
Mind absorbs impressions and is an expression of vital breath, both have no design or form. In the body
there is already that self-accomplished principle ‘I am’ which is witnessing mind and body, it is neither
mind, body nor the vital breath. It has to be gradually realized that this principle has no form; it is
subtler than the mind. After it you have the organs of activity and understanding, and that principle is
not the activity mind, vital breath and limbs. It also observes departure of breath from the body, it does
not go anywhere, it just disappears. By mistake the ‘I am’ accepts the body as itself, it is an exclusive
principle apart from the body, mind and vital breath.
Visitor: How to correct this blunder?
M: Think that, this (body and mind) is mine, but I am not that. I witness it as mine, but I am not that.
V: Is it a technique?
M: You witness the mind, so you are not the mind, is there any further principle of this logic? I am
sitting here, is it necessary to say ‘I am sitting here’? You know something, why? Because you know
‘you are’, if you are not, then there is no question of something, you are not trying to know, you just
know it. Whatever ‘you are’, is the world or Brahman, the manifest principle. Then you will realize that
you are not dying but the vital breath is quitting and you are not that.
V: How soon?
M: Right now you are that manifest Brahman principle; remember that only, that is remembering me as
well. If you want to remember me remember that you are not the form or vital breath but you are the
manifest Brahman. This knowledge is good enough for you, it will lead you further. Do you understand
words when you absorb meaning?
V: Yes
M: No knowledge will have any form. I got a slapped, I have knowledge of it, has it any form? Has
sweetness form?
V: No
M Knowledge can never have form, how can there be form for the knowledge that ‘you are’ there and
‘I am’ here.
V: The ‘I’ knowledge is there, one of an intellectual, the second of a king.
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M: There might be varieties of containers of knowledge, but itself it has no form.
V: Yes
M: If petty worldly knowledge has no form, then can the knowledge ‘I am’ or Ishwara state have any
form? If you accept this, then accept it and go and don’t go elsewhere, just dwell there. Let any activity
happen through your knowledge ‘I am’, which has no form, but is its witness only. The knowledge
‘you are’ has no form, so also for other knowledge. ‘You are’ is the primary knowledge. How do you
enjoy life? You know exist, but because of what you feel you enjoy, how?
V: Because of my eternal principle.
M: Throw that eternal principle overboard! You enjoy life because of the knowledge ‘you are’ or ‘I
am’. The knowledge ‘I am’ is the indwelling principle, this all pervading principle ‘I am’ is all.
V: Is it pure being, beyond knowledge and ignorance?
M: Don’t involve yourself, presently just dwell in the ‘I am’. Who is judging pure and impure? Is it not
the knowledge ‘you are’?
V: Is it necessary to know that ‘we are’?
M: I am talking about knowledge, whatever knowledge the ‘I am’ is, it’s the knowledge. You are living
to sustain that knowledge ‘I am’, hence you struggle. If that knowledge is gone, what interest could you
have? You are like a doctor taking care, the knowledge ‘you are’ is nourishing and protecting the body.
Remember this, if you want to remember me, remember the knowledge ‘I am’. Ancestors told us to
meditate on me, remember me, but they also said that the knowledge ‘I am’ is me too.
V: Consciousness, is that of being and mind?
M: I have told you enough, whatever is, is the ‘you are’. This knowledge merges into consciousness or
‘I am’ which merges in the eternal principle which may be called ‘awareness’ It is the abode for ‘I am’
to take rest and it goes into oblivion. You will not be able to recognize awareness because there will be
no ‘your consciousness’ when knowledge merges with the highest, only knowledge will be deriving
benefit. If you remember me, which means ‘you are’, you will be complete and total, and you will spill
over and be useful to others.
V: We will remember this.
M: Does the ocean remember a mouthful of water? ‘You are’ means all pervading knowledge, the ‘you
are’ is everywhere. I remember my Sadguru and therefore all talks flow out easily, that knowledge
never drops down dead, if people die would knowledge drop down dead? Do what you like, but never
forget yourself or the knowledge ‘I am’.
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52. The fish out of water
7th February 1980
Maharaj: Consciousness is subtle like light, it does no action, all activity is through mind and vital
breath.
Visitor: How to reach?
M: Don’t try, just be. When you are in an experiencing state, did you do anything? How did you enter
in consciousness?
V: I don’t understand.
M: Go into quietude, do Meditation.
V: Should we take the name of God?
M: No doubt you have to recite in your mind. Through mind, another principle is observing this
recitation in mind, you are prior to mind. By recitation the mind, body, five senses through the vital
breath become purified.
V: Any particular mantra?
M: You may recite whatever sacred name you like, something I may also gives. By its recitation the
purification process starts.
V: World creation is mysterious, so many souls of people, is it really so? Or we only see it so?
M: You have reached this stage because ‘you are’, your world is you, but you are beyond name and
form, ‘you are’ is the manifest would.
V: Because of ‘Shuddha Chaitanya’ (pure consciousness) everything is.
M: They are created from your ‘I am’.
V: Is it from mind.
M: When sun rises, the world is perceived with its light, similarly when the ‘I am’ (you are) rises, the
world is created.
V: What happens when we sleep?
M: When you wake up, because of the ‘I am’ your world is.
V: When is one desireless?
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M: Don’t try to suppress and be without desires, like people coming and going, just observe or don’t
get involved. The Self is the observer and whatever seen is the world.
V: Are Self and God identical?
M: Primarily because of your identification with your body, you have polluted God. Because of your
association with body, you have fear of death. There is no death only the vital breath departs and ‘I am’
disappears. Body is the sustenance of ‘I amness’ or Atman.
V: Because of what I did in past births?
M: You dare talk of past birth! Have you knowledge of the present one?
V: Why birth then?
M: It never happened
V: Is it an illusion?
M: To say ‘I am the body’ is an illusion. You are saying a child is born, but what about you? Until you
get to know your source, take it that you have no knowledge. When in the womb nature took care of
you, you did nothing. Even today nature takes care, you arrogate all by associating with the body.
V: No special effort is require?
M: Talking of efforts, up to the age of three did you make any effort? The record of birth is ten month
after conception; you were carefree for ten months. What is your idea of knowledge? It’s whatever
ideas you start collecting as a child.
V: How to give it up?
M: Where is the need to throw? Whatever you feel is appropriate because you have entered into this
sickly state of identifying with the body.
V: How to get rid of it?
M: Understand that body-mind is food and water but you are not matter.
V: Why then is there man and woman?
M: Because your yardstick is the body or identification with body and form.
V: Is it because of desires that there is identification?
M: Because of ignorance you are identifying with body, so there is female and male, and then any
amount of devotion is fruitless.
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V: Is there no use going to temples without ‘Atma Vichara’ (Self-inquiry)?
M: This is the temple, if ‘you are’ then others are.
V: Why is there ignorance?
M: It is just ignorance, you see a film, is it the truth?
V: So just let the desire come and go? But with desire is effort. If it is not fulfilled there is anger.
M: Don’t try to focus attention on desire; you are not the manifestation of mind in the form of desire.
V: Why is there thought?
M: You have the incense stick, if the spark is there, fragrance is natural. Is it my fault that desires and
thoughts come?
V: I need grace to realize.
M: That grace is always available. He who has a strong yearning will have it, nobody is devoted to the
Self, all are devoted to the body only.
V: By the will of God all is happening?
M: So long you have not realized your Self you will have the concept that God is doing. It is doesn’t
matter, If ‘you are’ God is.
V: God and you are one?
M: When you realize, you will know that you are God.
V: Everything is an illusion?
M: Yes, prior to deep sleep, waking and ‘I am’ what are your needs?
V: I don’t know.
M: Who is saying? Some principle must be saying?
V: Some individual or universal soul?
M: When you are the manifest principle, there is no more body.
V: Once every channel is open, can it be shut down?
M: Where is the necessity?
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V: How do your words come?
M: Space is the nature of words; words are products of space, does space move?
V: It is the same everywhere.
M: That light there is dull, here it is bright, the one who says so, is he not the witness of the quality of
light? If you can judge the quality of both, what should be your quality? By just stamping with words
like ‘Poorna-Prakash’ (full or complete light), the highest state cannot be understood.
V: Does it come flooding?
M: Yes, it is known as Purusha, pure flood. In meditation it will come like a flood. Purusha is the male
aspect of activities happening while Prakriti is the female aspect, both have no from. Shiva-Shakti is a
mere title, I take them just as words, but you take them as individuals, you the have habit of stamping
with words.
V: That’s the common way.
M: All understand the same way; all are there because you are there. God is great; if you are there then
God is great, you are the proof that God exists.
V: What is death?
M: You have only heard the concept; you have no experience of death.
V: Why fear then?
M: Have you knowledge of death or you have only heard? You have no knowledge of birth, so also of
death, but death will catch up with you because of identification with the body.
V: I am not body then?
M: Tell me your information when body is not you?
V: I cannot give.
M: Do that only.
V: Why is there duality?
M: It’s never there, this body contains so many juices, each atom is talking but you think you are
talking.
V: Why body becomes being, I see that.
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M: Quite naturally, in the womb you have grown naturally.
V: Why it happens?
M: It’s spontaneous.
V: Creation is also spontaneous?
M: Yes, who has made this flower to grow?
V: Why is there creation?
M: Who says this? Be God and find out. When you are ten years old can you know how to become
father? You get married and then understand. In ignorance how can you get married and understand, in
ignorance how can you get maturity?
V: How maturity comes?
M: A small banyan tree becomes a magnificent one, how?
V: By itself.
M: The same way.
V: Maturity and Jnana are necessary?
M: Yes
V: Why make an effort then?
M: Effort is your concept, you need some occupation. When I talk to you I know you have no
knowledge although you may be a scientist.
V: How be got rid of ignorance?
M: By self-effulgence.
V: How?
M: How the Sun drives away darkness?
V: Is it Guru’s grace?
M: Your demand for Guru’s grace must be intense, like fish out of water.
V: How is all desire trouble?
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M: It’s a quality of food body. A person comes and talks big, he has had extra drink. It is a
manifestation of drink.
V: So body is also trouble?
M: Body is food essence, therefore all qualities of the world matter.
V: So, I am not the body?
M: Don’t just reject the body, understand that you are not limited and reject identity with it.
V: When the boss shouts, there should be no anger?
M: Get angry with double intensity, but say you are neither body nor its quality. Firstly you are not its
quality, secondly the ‘I am’ is all manifestation and thirdly, I The Absolute, am not the manifestation.
V: You can guide?
M: Where is the path? There is no going. If I teach the path, you will come to abusive knowledge; at
the most I can say follow the path from the room from which you have come. Can space in one room
and the other meet?
V: Just remember?
M: One Jnani or another can’t give form to the space. With your body identity tell me your name?
V: Ramchandra
M: Tell me your name discarding body and form. If there is no name, can there be form? Can there be
activity? You have heard that Parmatman is beyond quality, but what is Nirguna? Guna means
beingness, food sustains beingness without words, which is Guna. Sat is to be with existence which
neither good nor had. The closer you approach the ‘I am’ the more you will be annihilated.
V: Guru is what?
M: Guru is the knowledge ’you are’? When you go to the sage, you surrender to that indwelling
knowledge; the body is not the Guru. If knowledge is not self-effulgent then what is the difference
between a butcher and carcass?
V: Knowledge can be delivered to others?
M: Extended, the Guru shows you, there it is, and it’s already there. I say, if you want to remember this
visit, remember the knowledge ‘I am’, or remember the knowledge ‘you are’.
V: By Guru’s grace we have come?
M: You may employ any words for your satisfaction, but has this knowledge any form? No form, no
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yardstick.
V: If knowledge is beyond understanding, how to understand?
M: Who says that knowledge is in you? It’s because you embrace the body. Be in beingness, just be
and forget that a self realized person is sitting before you talk. Talking about death, vital breath quits
the body, it drops and beingness disappears. Go back to the womb, prior to conception there is no ‘I
am’, in the womb ‘I am’ dos not know itself. Can deep sleep know deep sleep? There is no duality. Can
Absolute know the Absolute? This duality came with ‘I am and it came by itself, no cause is itself a
major cause. You call on me, but I have no knowledge, all comes for the ignorance, I have no
knowledge. Krishna played the flute and made Gopies dance. Only waking and sleep states are born
and it is a quality of the food-body which is nothing but essence of the five elements and food that we
eat. Body arises out of emissions and emissions are the essence of food, thus this body is nothing but
food. Within it is beingness or existence which is an outcome or a result; both body and beingness are
therefore temporary
V: Does the infinite have desire?
M: Just repeat ‘Om’ and reach the highest. All is correct once you realize your primary blunder, until
then recite ‘Om’. The moment there is a stance there is rigidity.
V: You have no stance?
M: There have been no disciplines either.
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53. Awakened Knowledge is Meditation
8th February1980
(Note: Maharaj is talking of the small speck of beingness, which has various names; he is not talking of
individuals. Millions of names may be given, but what is that speak of consciousness? The trouble is
that we think of individuality only, but whatever exists, speaks, which is in all and which pervades the
entire universe.)
Maharaj: Ask anything and you’ll get a prompt answer, but you will not be able to use it because it
comes from the universal consciousness and we expect to use it as individuals. On the Jnani, any
knowledge, whether worldly or unworldly, has no effect. You may be most intelligent in the world, but
the knower of that knowledge will never come and meet you. That is why knowledge has no effect on a
Jnani, he neither exist nor can he die as an individual. Any kind of knowledge that is made to be
perceived through things is Jnana, not the Jnani.
Visitor: What is the deepest significance of Kum Kum [vermillion]?
M: Easy, that symbol of light within you, keep it.
V: Light is in the heart.
M: That is even in the mind. You have ornaments of gold; can you say gold is in one segment only?
V: Why red.?
M: It is just one color, but basically knowledge has no color.
V: In the South they apply three strips of Vibhuti (ash).
M: It is a symbol of an individual who is supposed to have burnt his individuality to ashes.
V: The three bodies?
M: Yes, yes, if that satisfied you, you can say it. Having heard these answers, what will you put in your
pocket as your identity? Most important thing is yourself, If ‘you are’ they are. We assume that we are
acquiring spiritual knowledge, but we don’t give up our identity. If there is no beingness, there is no
world as far as I am concerned. What is the seed of the entire world? Is there meditation in knowledge
or knowledge in meditation?
V: All is knowledge, is that true?
M: Yes, but if you don’t have the knowledge ‘you are’ who will meditate and who will say it? When
knowledge is awakened it is meditation.
V: Buddha said ‘Now I know all Gods and all the Karmas’, but when his pupil asked him about his
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Karma, he said ‘don’t bother’. My question is, all these manifestations, Gods and Karmas are they
observations of a Jnani? Or are they only concepts? And a Jnani just observes them grow?
M: What Buddha meant was that it (his Karma) was equivalent to excrement, but that was after he had
knowledge, it is not meant for us. (Note: what knowledge Buddha got? Buddha got the knowledge that
Maharaj has, that’s all. He understands what he is and what he has been, if you have understood what
body, mind and consciousness are made of, and you are none of these, then everything is clear).
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54. Nothing…. ‘Something for sometime’…. Nothing
11th February 1980
Visitor: I have pain in the hip, it is difficult for me to say, I am not the body.
Maharaj: There is no alternative presence; gradually you will have a clear feeling that this pain is a
movement in consciousness. You are different from that which moves in the consciousness and
consciousness itself. For example if you dip cotton in scent and keep it closed, fumes of the scent
would come. But we are clear that we are neither the cottoned scent nor the smell of perfume, this
conviction will gradually come.
The tree seeds one maybe watered, but in many cases a seed sprouts without water because it already
contains the necessary wetness. What is born is this beingness, along with it is born waking and
sleeping states. Consciousness is the seed of not merely the waking and sleeping state, but also of the
entire universe. Out of nothingness is something that is just happening for some time.
This ‘I amness’ quality is the Sattva guna (food essence quality). I am The Absolute, I am not that
touch of ‘I amness’, so long ‘I am’ is there witnessing will happen to The Absolute spontaneously. The
dawn and sunlight depend on time, but their observer does not depend on time.
The ‘I am’ in a child is dormant, it does not know itself, but it is there, in due course it knows itself and
as a one knows ‘I am’. Go to the root, the beginning of the child, when you understand that you are not
consciousness, stabilize there; understand and get out. There is no need for The Absolute to go into
Samadhi; it does not go anywhere it’s always there, while Samadhi is a changing state. ‘I amness’
becomes no ‘I amness’ in Samadhi, waking and deep sleep are phases of ‘I am, not of The Absolute.
All relationships relate to Maya or illusion, but instead of Maya, it is said to be God, Godly or Ishwara.
The experiencing state is Ishwara, and in experiencing, whatever activities that take place, are called
Maya. The highest is not an experiencing state, it is without words and meaning, The Absolute is your
dwelling place while your vocations are in the ever changing state. Whatever you know is unreal and
wherever you say you know is also unreal.
V: So I should say ‘I don’t know’?
M: But by now, do you know or not?
V: Mind understands, but the transformation has yet to be.
M: Whatever is getting transformed will not remain, any transformable state will not remain. If you
have accomplished knowledge correctly, you will never know that you are dying.
V: I will see the corpse dying, like Frydman was so happy dying.
M: The very tool by which you observe will itself disappear. After so called death where is the tool of
observation? The very instrument or consciousness will not be there.
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V: Most great sages seem to say that they return to light.
M: In that total light or illumined state, there is no question of rising and setting of light.
V: At a lower level, we choose our incarnation. The present birth is my doing, so no need to grumble.
M: This, others have said, and you accept it, what is your direct experience?
V: None.
M: Then why do you accept it?
V: An ignorant person goes by concepts.
M: Where is the question of faith when the validity of ‘I amness’ is disproved? When everything is
over, one says it doesn’t matter where I die because when you conclude that death is itself false, what
dies? And does it matter where it happens?
V: I remember with joy the truth that I have heard.
M: You are a witness of what you remember.
V: I have a hut which I call ‘Achal’ (immovable)
M: Why did you not name it ‘Parabrahman Sadan’ (the abode of Parabrahman)?
V: The Postman would be troubled.
M: Did you build it of stone?
V: Stone.
M: What are the dimensions?
V: Four hundred and fifty square feet
M: After you, who?
V: I don’t know
M: It is vacant.
V: Has Maharaj spoken about beauty?
M: That by which you are attracted is beauty.
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V: When I am near Maharaj, I feel attraction.
M: Yes
V: I see beauty in his eyes; I have to speak about it.
M: The quality of sight in each person would be different.
V: So there no definition of beauty?
M: Yes, whatever definition given in words is always incomplete. Abide in whatever you become after
listening to my talks, whatever may happen, ‘just be’. Finally what is left over about you as ‘you are’,
be there. (Note: In the morning Maharaj said that after listening to these talks, you will not be in
position to meditate, because no object is left to meditate on. The no object state is meditation, there is
no something left).
V: Any time meditation is internal, not a stance. I ask Maharaj about his experience?
M: I started meditation in the night period, but this tapered off because the meditative mood stabilized,
no-mind stabilized (Note: All stages that Maharaj has gone through are described in the ‘Bhajans’ or
devotional songs). What is caste and community of the waking and sleep states? Is it Jew, Christian or
Muslim? Or is it male-female? All these differences are only because of identification with the body.
V: Yes
M: Could there be beingness in the absence of waking and deep sleep? With this cycle ‘you are’,
otherwise how can you be?
V: My experience is of waking and sleep state.
M: ‘I amness’ is there provided these stages are there, by itself it cannot be. Simultaneously, all these
three stages are a product of food essence. In the absence of body sense, is there any community of
waking and sleep states? Have this affirmation, forget spirituality and dwell there (in the ‘I am’).
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55. The Color of The ‘Seer’
12th February 1980
Maharaj: There is no ‘I amness’ for me, with it, I can talk anything, but it in my realm it has no value.
Since when did you start to recite ‘I amness’? Can you take a word photograph of the meaning of the
words? Did you photograph the meaning of words?
Visitor: I try to print in them in my understanding.
M: If you say it is really registered, then, whatever you may have gathered in your mind, you must
throw out like old clothes. Did you throw out all the concepts?
V: I have clung to them.
M: The body identity cannot get this knowledge, the knowledge ‘I am’ must get this knowledge ‘I am’,
when knowledge abides in knowledge there is transcendence of knowledge. Most of the time while I
am sitting, it is a mindless state. How can one with an occupied mind expound knowledge? If I am
involved with concepts and mind, how can I pass on knowledge to you? If you are slave to concepts,
they will fool you outright. I don’t accept any rigid stance for myself, I never get conditioned by any
conceptual standing, yet I do ‘Bhajans’ (devotional songs). My Guru initiated me and asked how you
are going to repay? He said, ‘you do Bhajans for the ignorant, not for yourself’, the Bhajans must be
regarding the Guru. Today’s activity is for today, tomorrows for tomorrow, there are no limitations, no
carrying forward. You feel that today is similar to yesterday, but it is not like that, everyday is fresh.
Yesterday’s sun is set, today there is another.
V: One should not be caught in thought and feeling but to go beyond the light of perception?
M: These thoughts and concepts are still harassing you.
V: I get peace of mind, I am not being harassed.
M: The movement of your progress should stabilize in you, in the Self.
V: We come back to changeless witness.
M: Nothing will happen, the very idea that something will happen or not to somebody should go. Great
sages have given the location where one has to dwell, without seeking you should be in that state, the
dark blue homogeneous (Krishna) ‘Megh-Shyam’, dark grey blue cloud but without seeking, without
eyes.
V: The color of the face of Krishna?
M: That is known as Lord Krishna, which is sight without sight of your original identity, the identity at
the source. By closing your eyes you will see Krishna, means ‘Gopal’, that which nourishes the senses,
the principle beyond senses. You close your eyes and you see that principle, the very color, deep dark
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blue, is the color of the ‘See’r from which comes everything.
V: Yesterday you spoke about flowers and fragrance.
M: It only illustrated the symbol, the sign of your birth happening.
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56. Everything happens in the Knowledge ‘I am’
13th February 1980
Maharaj: So long as one has the sense of involvement, only then is there desire for liberation, once that
goes who or what is there to seek enlightenment? Now you exist because of consciousness, before this
did you have any ideas or the need of God until this sense of beingness had dawned?
Visitor: The very fact of coming, reading, listening is the obstacle.
M: This desire to come and have knowledge is not the obstacle, but the transcending of the ‘beingness’
is, when you had no consciousness, was there any obstacle?
V: No
M: All manifestation depends on consciousness, on consciousness that ‘you are’, find out what ‘you
are’. You can’t understand your nature, but there is consciousness that you exist, that is enough.
Through your consciousness you know the world exists. But that consciousness exists only in your
body or is expressed through your body for living. Keep one thing in view, what ‘you are’ exists in you
as consciousness, get to know what is that ‘you are’ in your body? Supposing one keeps a male and
female lamb, they multiply to five hundred, think about that principle which has created two plus five
hundred. It is an identical principle which works in all creation, it creates everything. Even if you roam
around for years you will not understand the principle of liberation. That consciousness, which one has,
its resting place is within the body. The lambs were eating natural food and their progeny was a result
of the food the two ate. All the mystery will be solved if you think on that principle which through the
food the lambs ate, and produced more and more. The principle which created through food and
through lambs, consider that principle and the whole mystery will be solved.
This consciousness or ‘beingness’, which is a result of food essence, that is what you love and want to
protect at all times. If that food essence which is you body dries up, this ‘beingness’, the feeling that
you exist will also dry up. Then when body perishes, whatever remains, is it free or in bondage?
V: Free
M: That is hearsay; you have no experience of it. Through what instrument you know that ‘you are’?
Free this consciousness which identifies with the body or considers itself as body and is in bondage, the
one who wants to know without this identification, will know. No one has anything under control, from
the rotten food come worms, in what way are those worms different from human form? We attach
importance only to the human forms.
V: The worms did not know of their birth.
M: Did you know of your birth?
V: I am aware of unhappiness, so I search, I am conscious.
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M: Yes, but separate this pleasure and pain from the food essence, who wants liberation then?
V: Reincarnation is humbug then?
M: Yes, it is all hopes and fears given to gullible people so that they work on all life and then die.
(Turning to a doctor, Maharaj asks) What is it exactly that you are trying to save? The one, who thinks
he is going save them, does so because he expects returns. But who remains to enjoy the fruits? So
much advice is given, do this or do that, after dying, the food essence goes, then who claims merits of
good deeds?
V: What is the difference between animals and man?
M: No difference, not even in the sun and moon, everything is just happening. Someone listen to you
and says you are a fool, it is right because small drops of existence know of their separate existence.
They will be calling the body a fool, which is a drop of water, I The Absolute am not that
Consciousness. Medicine is also food, in it this knowingness is in an inert condition, when it goes into
a human form human identity comes to the force, if it goes into a woman, it is the women identity.
V: Beyond the Self, there is nothing?
M: It is infinite, but in the absence of consciousness who worries? What could be the worry of that
principle? What could be the need of that principle? It is like the need of God for the child of a barren
woman. ‘Swaroop-siddha’ (stabilization in self-identity or the Self), what is that exactly? Many people
visit here and they want to be happy, but those who visit here will not require happiness, they will be
beyond it. When a sage stabilizes in his centre, he goes into quietude. You talk when food essence is
there, but having understood both he transcends knowledge and ignorance. That Absolute principle
does not know itself; clear all your doubts about your own self.
V: Is it necessary to know the ‘charkas’ (spiritual centers) for going beyond body identification?
M: When the consciousness is extinguished where is the question of beyond? Since you have urge to
understand, do what you like. Whenever you are quiet, hold on to yourself, meditate on the Self only
that knowledge itself will give you all knowledge
V: But I do so for a short while.
M: Start with shorter periods and in due course you will realize what ‘you are’. Stay in the ‘you are’
only, then you will realize that everything happens in the knowledge ‘I am’.
********
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I humbly bow to my Guru for the completion of this work

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