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Questioner:
There are so many theories about the nature of man and universe. The creation
theory, the illusion theory, the dream theory -- any number of them. Which is
true?
Maharaj:
All are true, all are false. You can pick up whichever you like best.
Q: You seem to favour the dream theory.
M: These are all ways of putting words together.
Some favour one way, some favour another. Theories are neither right nor wrong.
They are attempts at explaining the inexplicable. It is not the theory that
matters, but the way it is being tested. It is the testing of the theory that
makes it fruitful. Experiment with any theory you like -- if you are truly
earnest and honest, the attainment of reality will be yours. As a living being
you are caught in an untenable and painful situation and you are seeking a way
out. You are being offered several plans of your prison, none quite true. But
they all are of some value, only if you are in dead earnest. It is the
earnestness that liberates and not the theory.
Q: Theory may be misleading and earnestness --
blind.
M: Your sincerity will guide you. Devotion to
the goal of freedom and perfection will make you abandon all theories and
systems and live by wisdom, intelligence and active love. Theories may be good as
starting points, but must be abandoned, the sooner -- the better.
Q: There is a Yogi who says that for
realization the eightfold Yoga is not necessary; that will-power alone
will do. It is enough to concentrate on the goal with full confidence in the
power of pure will to obtain effortlessly and quickly what others take decades
to achieve.
M: Concentration, full confidence, pure
will! With such assets no wonder one attains in no time. This Yoga of
will is all right for the mature seeker, who has shed all desires but one.
After all, what is will but steadiness of heart and mind. Given such
steadfastness all can be achieved.
Q: I feel the Yogi did not mean mere
steadiness of purpose, resulting in ceaseless pursuit and application. He meant
that with will fixed on the goal no pursuit or application are needed. The mere
fact of willing attracts its object.
M: Whatever name you give it: will, or steady
purpose, or onepointedness of the mind, you come back to earnestness,
sincerity, honesty. When you are in dead earnest, you bend every incident,
every second of your life to your purpose. You do not waste time and energy on
other things. You are totally dedicated, call it will, or love, or plain
honesty. We are complex beings, at war within and without. We contradict
ourselves all the time, undoing today the work of yesterday. No wonder we are
stuck. A little of integrity would make a lot of difference.
Q: What is more powerful, desire or destiny?
M: Desire shapes destiny.
Q: And destiny shapes desire. My desires are
conditioned by heredity and circumstances, by opportunities and accidents, by
what we call destiny.
M: Yes, you may say so.
Q: At what point am I free to desire what I
want to desire?
M: You are free now. What is it that you want to
desire? Desire it.
Q: Of course I am free to desire, but I am not
free to act on my desire. Other urges will lead me astray. My desire is not
strong enough, even if it has my approval. Other desires, which I disapprove of
are stronger.
M: Maybe you are deceiving yourself. Maybe you
are giving expression to your real desires and the ones you approve of are kept
on the surface for the sake of respectability.
Q: It may be as you say, but this is another
theory. The fact is that I do not feel free to desire what I think I should, and
when I seem to desire rightly, I do not act accordingly.
M: It is all due to weakness of the mind and
disintegration of the brain. Collect and strengthen your mind and you will find
that your thoughts and feelings, words and actions will align themselves in the
direction of your will.
Q: Again a counsel of perfection! To integrate
and strengthen the mind is not an easy task! How does one begin?
M: You can start only from where you are. You
are here and now, you cannot get out of here and now.
Q: But what can I do here and now?
M: You can be aware of your being -- here and
now.
Q: That is all?
M: That is all. There is nothing more to it.
Q: All my waking and dreaming I am conscious of
myself. It does not help me much.
M: You were aware of thinking, feeling, doing.
You were not aware of your being.
Q: What is the new factor you want me to bring
in?
M: The attitude of pure witnessing, of watching
the events without taking part in them.
Q: What will it do to me?
M: Weak-mindedness is due to lack of intelligence,
of understanding, which again is the result of non-awareness. By striving for
awareness you bring your mind together and strengthen it.
Q: I may be fully aware of what is going on,
and yet quite unable to influence it in any way.
M: You are mistaken. What is going on is a
projection of your mind. A weak mind cannot control its own projections. Be
aware, therefore, of your mind and its projections. You cannot control what you
do not know. On the other hand, knowledge gives power. In practice it is very simple.
To control yourself -- know yourself.
Q: Maybe, I can come to control myself, but
shall I be able to deal with the chaos in the world?
M: There is no chaos in the world, except the
chaos which your mind creates. It is self-created in the sense that at its very
centre is the false idea of oneself as a thing different and separate from
other things. In reality you are not a thing, nor separate. You are the
infinite potentiality; the inexhaustible possibility. Because you are, all can
be. The universe is but a partial manifestation of your limitless capacity to become.
Q: I find that I am totally
motivated by desire for pleasure and fear of pain. However noble my desire and
justified my fear, pleasure and pain are the two poles between which my life
oscillates.
M: Go to the source of both pain and pleasure,
of desire and fear. Observe, investigate, try to understand.
Q: Desire and fear both are feelings caused by
physical or mental factors. They are there, easily observable. But why are they
there? Why do l desire pleasure and fear pain?
M: Pleasure and pain are states of mind. As long
as you think you are the mind, or rather, the body-mind, you are bound to raise
such questions.
Q: And when I realize that I am not the body,
shall I be free from desire and fear?
M: As long as there is a body and a mind to
protect the body, attractions and repulsions will operate. They will be there,
out in the field of events, but will not concern you. The focus of your
attention will be elsewhere. You will not be distracted.
Q: Still they will be there. Will one never be
completely free?
M: You are completely free even now. What you
call destiny (karma) is but the result of your own will to live. How
strong is this will you can judge by the universal horror of death.
Q: People die willingly quite often.
M: Only when the alternative is worse than
death. But such readiness to die flows from the same source as the will to
live, a source deeper even than life itself. To be a living being is not the
ultimate state; there is something beyond, much more wonderful, which is
neither being nor non-being, neither living nor notliving. It is a state of
pure awareness, beyond the limitations of space and time. Once the illusion
that the body-mind is oneself is abandoned, death loses its terror, it becomes
a part of living.
