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Questioner:
I am a painter and I earn by painting pictures. Has it any value from the
spiritual point of view?
Maharaj:
When you paint what do you think about?
Q: When I paint, there is only the painting and
myself.
M: What are you doing there?
Q: I paint.
M: No, you don't. You see the painting going on.
You are watching only, all else happens.
Q: The picture is painting itself? Or, is there
some deeper 'me', or some god who is painting?
M: Consciousness itself is the greatest
painter. The entire world is a Picture.
Q: Who painted the picture of the world?
M: The painter is in the Picture.
Q: The picture is in the mind of the painter
and the painter is in the picture, which is in the mind of the painter who is
in the picture! Is not this infinity of states and dimensions absurd? The
moment we talk of picture in the mind, which itself is in the picture, we come
to an endless succession of witnesses, the higher witness witnessing the lower.
It is like standing between two mirrors and wondering at the crowd!
M: Quite right, you alone and the double mirror
are there. Between the two, your forms and names are numberless.
Q: How do you look at the world?
M: I see a painter painting a picture. The
picture I call the world, the painter I call God. I am neither. I do not
create, nor am I created. I contain all, nothing contains me.
Q: When I see a tree, a face, a sunset, the
picture is perfect. When I close my eyes, the image in my mind is faint and
hazy. If it is my mind that projects the picture, why need I open my eyes to
see a lovely flower and with eyes closed I see it vaguely?
M: It is because your outer eyes are better than
your inner eyes. Your mind is all turned outward. As you learn to watch your
mental world, you will find it even more colourful and perfect than what the
body can provide. Of course, you will need some training. But why argue? You
imagine that the picture must come from the painter who actually painted it.
All the time you look for origins and causes. Causality is in the mind, only;
memory gives the illusion of continuity and repetitiveness creates the idea of
causality. When things repeatedly happen together, we tend to see a causal link
between them. It creates a mental habit, but a habit is not a necessity.
Q: You have just said that the world is made by
God.
M: Remember that language is an instrument of
the mind; It is made by the mind, for the mind. Once you admit a cause, then
God is the ultimate cause and the world the effect. They are different, but not
separate.
Q: People talk of seeing God.
M: When you see the world you see God. There is
no seeing God, apart from the world. Beyond the world to see God is to be God.
The light by which you see the world, which is God is the tiny little spark: 'I
am', apparently so small, yet the first and the last in every act of knowing
and loving.
Q: Must I see the world to see God?
M: How else? No world, no God.
Q: What remains?
M: You remain as pure being.
Q: And what becomes of the world and of God?
M: Pure being (avyakta).
Q: Is it the same as the
Great Expanse (paramakash)?
M: You may call it so. Words do not matter, for
they do not reach it. They turn back in utter negation.
Q: How can I see the world as God? What does it
mean to see the world as God?
M: It is like entering a dark room. You see
nothing -- you may touch, but you do not
see -- no colours, no outlines. The window opens and the room is flooded with
light. Colours and shapes come into being. The window is the giver of light,
but not the source of it. The sun is the source. Similarly, matter is like the
dark room; consciousness -- the window -- flooding matter with sensations and
perceptions, and the Supreme is the sun the source both of matter and of light.
The window may be closed, or open, the sun shines all the time. It makes all
the difference to the room, but none to the sun. Yet all this is secondary to
the tiny little thing which is the 'I am'. Without the 'I am' there is nothing.
All knowledge is about the 'I am'. False ideas about this 'I am' lead to
bondage, right knowledge leads to freedom and happiness.
Q: Is 'I am' and 'there is' the same?
M: 'I am' denotes the inner, 'there is' -- the
outer. Both are based on the sense of being.
Q: Is it the same as the experience of
existence?
M: To exist means to be something, a thing, a
feeling, a thought, an idea. All existence is particular. Only being is
universal, in the sense that every being is compatible with every other being.
Existences clash, being -- never. Existence means becoming, change, birth and
death and birth again, while in being there is silent peace.
Q: If I create the world, why have I made it
bad?
M: Everyone lives in his own world. Not all the
worlds are equally good or bad.
Q: What determines the difference?
M: The mind that projects the world, colours it
its own way. When you meet a man, he is a stranger. When you marry him, he
becomes your own self. When you quarrel, he becomes your enemy. It is your
mind's attitude that determines what he is to you.
Q: I can see that my world is subjective. Does
it make it also illusory?
M: It is illusory as long as it is subjective
and to that extent only. Reality lies in objectivity.
Q: What does objectivity mean? You said the
world is subjective and now you talk of objectivity. Is not everything subjective?
M: Everything is subjective, but the real is
objective.
Q: In what sense?
M: It does not depend on memories and
expectations, desires and fears, likes and dislikes. All is seen as it is.
Q: Is it what you call the fourth state (turiya)?
M: Call it as you like. It is
solid, steady, changeless, beginningless and endless, ever new, ever fresh.
Q: How is it reached?
M: Desirelessness and fearlessness will take
you there.
