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Maharaj:
You must realize first of all that you are the proof of everything, including
yourself. None can prove your existence, because his existence must be
confirmed by you first. Your being and knowing you owe nobody. Remember, you
are entirely on your own. You do not come from somewhere, you do not go
anywhere. You are timeless being and awareness.
Questioner: There is a basic difference between us. You know the
real while I know only the workings of my mind. Therefore what you say is one
thing, what I hear is another. What you say is true; what I understand is
false, though the words are the same. There is a gap between us. How to close
the gap?
M: Give up the idea of being what you think
yourself to be and there will be no gap. By imagining yourself as separate you
have created the gap. You need not cross it. Just don't create it. All is you
and yours. There is nobody else. This is a fact.
Q: How strange! The very same words which to
you are true, to me are false. 'There is nobody else'. How obviously untrue!
M: Let them be true or untrue. Words don't
matter. What matters is the idea you have of yourself, for it blocks you. Give
it up.
Q: From early childhood I was taught to think
that I am limited to my name and shape. A mere statement to the contrary will
not erase the mental groove. A regular brain-washing is needed -- if at all it
can be done.
M: You call it brain-washing, I call it Yoga
-- levelling up all the mental ruts. You must not be compelled to think the same
thoughts again and again. Move on!
Q: Easier said than done.
M: Don't be childish! Easier to change, than to
suffer. Grow out of your childishness, that is all.
Q: Such things are not done. They happen.
M: Everything happens all the time, but you must
be ready for it. Readiness is ripeness. You do not see the real because your
mind is not ready for it.
Q: If reality is my real nature, how can I ever
be unready?
M: Unready means afraid. You are afraid of what
you are. Your destination is the whole. But you are afraid that you will lose
your identity. This is childishness, clinging to the toys, to your desires and
fears, opinions and ideas. Give it all up and be ready for the real to assert
itself. This self-assertion is best expressed in words: 'I am'. Nothing else
has being. Of this you are absolutely certain
Q: 'I am', of course, but 'I know' also. And I
know that I am so and so, the owner of the body, in manifold relations with
other owners.
M: It is all memory carried over into the now.
Q: I can be certain only of
what is now. Past and future, memory and imagination, these are mental states,
but they are all I know and they are now. You are telling me to abandon them.
How does one abandon the now?
M: You are moving into the future all the time
whether you like it or not.
Q: I am moving from now into now -- I do not
move at all. Everything else moves -- not me.
M: Granted. But your mind does move. In the now
you are both the movable and the immovable. So far you took yourself to be the
movable and overlooked the immovable. Turn your mind inside out. Overlook the
movable and you will find yourself to be the ever-present, changeless reality,
inexpressible, but solid like a rock.
Q: If it is now, why am I not aware of it?
M: Because you hold on to the idea that you are
not aware of it. Let go the idea.
Q: It does not make me aware.
M: Wait. You want to be on both sides of the wall
at the same time. You can, but you must remove the wall. Or realize that the
wall and both sides of it are one single space, to which no idea like 'here' or
'there' applies.
Q: Similes prove nothing. My only complaint is
this: why do I not see what you see, why your words do not sound true in my
mind. Let me know this much; all else can wait. You are wise and I am stupid;
you see, I don't. Where and how shall I find my wisdom?
M: If you know yourself to be stupid, you are
not stupid at all!
Q: Just as knowing myself sick does not make me
well, so knowing myself foolish can not make me wise.
M: To know that you are ill must you not be well
initially?
Q: Oh, no. I know by comparison. If I am blind
from birth and you tell me that you know things without touching them, while I
must touch to know, I am aware that I am blind without knowing what does it
mean to see. Similarly, I know that I am lacking something when you assert
things which I cannot grasp. You are telling me such wonderful things about
myself; according to you I am eternal, omnipresent, omniscient, supremely
happy, creator, preserver and destroyer of all there is, the source of all
life, the heart of being, the lord and the beloved of every creature. You
equate me with the Ultimate Reality, the source and the goal of all existence.
I just blink, for I know myself to be a tiny little bundle of desires and
fears, a bubble of suffering, a transient flash of consciousness in an ocean of
darkness.
M: Before pain was, you were. After pain had
gone, you remained. Pain is transient, you are not.
Q: I am sorry, but I do not see what you see.
From the day I was born till the day I die, pain and pleasure will weave the
pattern of my life. Of being before birth and after death I know nothing. I
neither accept nor deny you. I hear what you say, but I do not know it.
M: Now you are conscious, are
you not?
Q: Please do not ask me about before and after.
I just know only what is now.
M: Good enough. You are conscious. Hold on to
it. There are states when you are not conscious. Call it unconscious being.
Q: Being unconscious?
M: Consciousness and unconsciousness do not
apply here. Existence is in consciousness, essence is independent of
consciousness.
Q: It is void? Is it silence?
M: Why elaborate? Being pervades and transcends
consciousness. Objective consciousness is a part of pure consciousness, not
beyond it.
Q: How do you come to know a state of pure
being which is neither conscious nor unconscious? All knowledge is in
consciousness only. There may be such a state as the abeyance of the mind. Does
consciousness then appear as the witness?
M: The witness only registers events. In the
abeyance of the mind even the sense 'I am' dissolves. There is no 'I am'
without the mind.
Q: Without the mind means without thoughts. 'I
am' as a thought subsides. 'I am' as the sense of being remains.
M: All experience subsides with the mind.
Without the mind there can be no experiencer nor experience.
Q: Does not the witness remain?
M: The witness merely registers the presence or
absence of experience. It is not an experience by itself, but it becomes an
experience when the thought: 'I am the witness' arises.
Q: All I know is that sometimes the mind works
and sometimes it stops. The experience of mental silence I call the abeyance of
the mind.
M: Call it silence, or void, or abeyance, the
fact is that the three -- experiencer, experiencing, experience -- are not. In
witnessing, in awareness, self-consciousness, the sense of being this or that,
is not. Unidentified being remains.
Q: As a state of unconsciousness?
M: With reference to anything, it is the
opposite. It is also between and beyond all opposites. It is neither
consciousness nor unconsciousness, nor midway, nor beyond the two. It is by
itself, not with reference to anything which may be called experience or its
absence.
Q: How strange! You speak of it as if it were
an experience.
M: When I think of it -- it becomes an
experience.
Q: Like the invisible light, intercepted by a
flower, becoming colour?
M: Yes, you may say so. It is in the colour but
not the colour.
Q: The same old four-fold negation of Nagarjuna:
neither this nor that, nor both, nor either. My mind reels!
M: Your difficulty stems from the idea that
reality is a state of consciousness, one among many. You tend to say: "This
is real. That is not real. And this is partly real, partly unreal", as if
reality were an attribute or quality to have in varying measures.
Q: Let me put it differently. After all,
consciousness becomes a problem only when it is painful. An ever-blissful state
does not give rise to questions. We find all consciousness to be a mixture of
the pleasant and the painful. Why?
M: All consciousness is limited and therefore
painful. At the root of consciousness lies desire, the urge to experience.
Q: Do you mean to say that without desire there
can be no consciousness? And what is the advantage of being unconscious? If I
have to forego pleasure for the freedom from pain, I better keep both.
M: Beyond pain and pleasure there is bliss.
Q: Unconscious bliss, of what use is it?
M: Neither conscious nor unconscious. Real.
Q: What is your objection to consciousness?
M: It is a burden. Body means burden.
Sensations, desires, thoughts -- these are all burdens. All consciousness is of
conflict.
Q: Reality is described as true being, pure
consciousness, infinite bliss. What has pain to do with it?
M: Pain and pleasure happen, but pain is the
price of pleasure, pleasure is the reward of pain. In life too you often please
by hurting and hurt by pleasing. To know that pain and pleasure are one is
peace.
Q: All this is very interesting, no doubt, but
my goal is more simple. I want more pleasure and less pain in life. What am I
to do?
M: As long as there is consciousness, there must
be pleasure and pain. It is in the nature of the 'I am', of consciousness, to
identify itself with the opposites.
Q: Then of what use is all this to me? It does
not satisfy.
M: Who are you, who is unsatisfied?
Q: I am, the pain-pleasure man.
M: Pain and pleasure are both ananda
(bliss). Here I am sitting in front of you and telling you -- from my own
immediate and unchanging experience -- pain and pleasure are the crests and
valleys of the waves in the ocean of bliss. Deep down there is utter fullness.
Q: Is your experience constant?
M: It is timeless and changeless.
Q: All I know is desire for pleasure and fear
of pain.
M: That is what you think about yourself. Stop
it. If you cannot break a habit all at once, consider the familiar way of
thinking and see its falseness. Questioning the habitual is the duty of the
mind. What the mind created, the mind must destroy. Or realize that there is no
desire outside the mind and stay out.
Q: Honestly, I distrust this explaining
everything as mind-made. The mind is only an instrument, as the eye is an
instrument. Can you say that perception is creation? I see the world through
the window, not in the window. All you say holds well together because of the
common foundation, but I do not know whether your foundation is in reality, or
only in the mind. I can have only a mental picture of it. What it means to you
I do not know.
M: As long as you take your stand in the mind,
you will see me in the mind.
Q: How inadequate are words for understanding!
M: Without words, what is there to understand?
The need for understanding arises from mis-understanding. What I say is true,
but to you it is only a theory. How will you come to know that it is true?
Listen, remember, ponder, visualize, experience. Also apply it in your daily
life. Have patience with me and, above all have patience with yourself, for you
are your only obstacle. The way leads through yourself beyond yourself. As long
as you believe only the particular to be real, conscious and happy and reject
the non-dual reality as something imagined, an abstract concept, you will find
me doling out concepts and abstractions. But once you have touched the real
within your own being, you will find me describing what for you is the nearest
and the dearest.
