From OrganicDesign Wiki
Questioner:
Before one can realize one's true nature need not one be a person? Does not the
ego have its value?
Maharaj:
The person is of little use. It is deeply involved in its own affairs and is
completely ignorant of its true being. Unless the witnessing consciousness
begins to play on the person and it becomes the object of observation rather
than the subject, realization is not feasible. It is the witness that makes
realization desirable and attainable.
Q: There comes a point in a person's life when
it becomes the witness.
M: Oh, no. The person by itself will not become
the witness. It is like expecting a cold candle to start burning in the course
of time. The person can stay in the darkness of ignorance forever, unless the
flame of awareness touches it.
Q: Who lights the candle?
M: The Guru. His words, his presence. In India
it is very often the mantra. Once the candle is lighted, the flame will
consume the candle.
Q: Why is the mantra so effective?
M: Constant repetition of the mantra is
something the person does not do for one's own sake. The beneficiary is not the
person. Just like the candle which does not increase by burning.
Q: Can the person become aware of itself by
itself?
M: Yes, it happens sometimes as a result of much
suffering The Guru wants to save you the endless pain. Such is his grace. Even
when there is no discoverable outer Guru, there is always the sadguru,
the inner Guru, who directs and helps from within. The words 'outer' and
'inner' are relative to the body only; in reality all is one, the outer being
merely a projection of the inner. Awareness comes as if from a higher
dimension.
Q: Before the spark is lit and after, what is
the difference?
M: Before the spark is lit there is no witness
to perceive the difference. The person may be conscious, but is not aware of
being conscious. It is completely identified with what it thinks and feels and
experiences. The darkness that is in it is of its own creation. When the
darkness is questioned, it dissolves. The desire to question is planted by the
Guru. In other words, the difference between the person and the witness is as
between not knowing and knowing oneself. The world seen in consciousness is to
be of the nature of consciousness, when there is harmony (sattva); but
when activity and passivity (rajas and tamas) appear, they
obscure and distort and you see the false as real.
Q: What can the person do to
prepare itself for the coming of the Guru.
M: The very desire to be ready means that the
Guru had come and the flame is lighted. It may be a stray word, or a page in a
book; the Guru's grace works mysteriously.
Q: Is there no such thing as self-preparation?
We hear so much about yoga sadhana?
M: It is not the person that is doing sadhana.
The person is in unrest and resistance to the very end. It is the witness that
works on the person, on the totality of its illusions, past, present and
future.
Q: How can we know that what you say is true?
While it is self contained and free from inner contradictions, how can we know
that it is not a product of fertile imagination, nurtured and enriched by
constant repetition?
M: The proof of the truth lies in its effect on
the listener.
Q: Words can have a most powerful effect. By
hearing, or repeating words, one can experience various kinds of trances. The
listener's experiences may be induced and cannot be considered as a proof.
M: The effect need not necessarily be an
experience. It can be a change in character, in motivation, in relationship to
people and one's self. Trances and visions induced by words, or drugs, or any
other sensory or mental means are temporary and inconclusive. The truth of what
is said here is immovable and everlasting. And the proof of it is in the
listener, in the deep and permanent changes in his entire being. It is not
something he can doubt, unless he doubts his own existence, which is
unthinkable. When my experience becomes your own experience also, what better
proof do you want?
Q: The experiencer is the proof of his
experience.
M: Quite, but the experiencer needs no proof. 'I
am, and I know I am'. You cannot ask for further proofs.
Q: Can there be true knowledge of things?
M: Relatively -- yes. Absolutely -- there are no
things. To know that nothing is is true knowledge.
Q: What is the link between
the relative and the absolute?
M: They are identical.
Q: From which point of view are they identical?
M: When the words are spoken, there is silence.
When the relative is over, the absolute remains. The silence before the words
were spoken, is it different from the silence that comes after? The silence is
one and without it the words could not have been heard. It is always there -- at
the back of the words. Shift your attention from words to silence and you will
hear it. The mind craves for experience, the memory of which it takes for
knowledge. The jnani is beyond all
experience and his memory is empty of the past. He is entirely unrelated to
anything in particular. But the mind craves for formulations and definitions,
always eager to squeeze reality into a verbal shape. Of everything it wants an
idea, for without ideas the mind is not. Reality is essentially alone, but the
mind will not leave it alone -- and deals instead with the unreal. And yet it is
all the mind can do -- discover the unreal as unreal.
Q: And seeing the real as real?
M: There is no such state as seeing the real.
Who is to see what? You can only be the real -- which you are, anyhow. The
problem is only mental. Abandon false ideas, that is all. There is no need of
true ideas. There aren't any.
Q: Why then are we encouraged to seek the real?
M: The mind must have a purpose. To encourage it
to free itself from the unreal it is promised something in return. In reality,
there is no need of purpose. Being free from the false is good in itself, it
wants no reward. It is just like being clean -- which is its own reward.
Q: Is not self-knowledge the reward?
M: The reward of self-knowledge is freedom from
the personal self. You cannot know the knower, for you are the knower. The fact
of knowing proves the knower. You need no other proof. The knower of the known
is not knowable. Just like the light is known in colours only, so is the knower
known in knowledge.
Q: Is the knower an inference only?
M: You know your body, mind and feelings. Are
you an inference only?
Q: I am an inference to others. but not to
myself.
M: So am I. An inference to you, but not to
myself. I know myself by being myself. As you know yourself to be a man by
being one. You do not keep on reminding yourself that you are a man. It is only
when your humanity is questioned that you assert it. Similarly, I know that I
am all. I do not need to keep on repeating: 'I am all, I am all'. Only when you
take me to be a particular, a person, I protest. As you are a man all the time,
so I am what I am -- all the time. Whatever you are changelessly, that you are
beyond all doubt.
Q: When I ask how do you know that you are a jnani, you answer: 'I find no desire in
me. Is this not a proof?'
M: Were I full of desires, I would have still
been what I am.
Q: Myself, full of desires and you, full of
desires; what difference would there be?
M: You identify yourself with your desires and
become their slave. To me desires are things among other things, mere clouds in
the mental sky, and I do not feel compelled to act on them.
Q: The knower and his knowledge, are they one
or two?
M: They are both. The knower is the
unmanifested, the known is the manifested. The known is always on the move, it
changes, it has no shape of its own, no dwelling place. The knower is the
immutable support of all knowledge; Each needs the other, but reality lies
beyond. The jnani cannot be known,
because there is nobody to be known. When there is a person, you can tell
something about it, but when there is no self-identification with the
particular, what can be said? You may tell a jnani anything;
his question will always be: 'about whom are you
talking? There is no such person'. Just as you cannot say anything about the
universe because it includes everything, so nothing can be said about a jnani, for he is all and yet nothing in
particular. You need a hook to hang your picture on; when there is no hook, on
what will the picture hang? To locate a thing you need space, to place an event
you need time; but the timeless and spaceless defies all handling. It makes
everything perceivable, yet itself it is beyond perception. The mind cannot
know what is beyond the mind, but the mind is known by what is beyond it. The jnani knows neither birth nor death;
existence and non-existence are the same to him.
Q: When your body dies, you remain.
M: Nothing dies. The body is just imagined.
There is no such thing.
Q: Before another century will pass, you will
be dead to all around you. Your body will be covered with flowers, then burnt
and the ashes scattered. That will be our experience. What will be yours?
M: Time will come to an end. This is called the
Great Death (mahamrityu), the death of time.
Q: Does it mean that the universe and its
contents will come to an end?
M: The universe is your personal experience. How
can it be affected? You might have been delivering a lecture for two hours;
where has it gone when it is over? It has merged into silence in which the
beginning, middle and end of the lecture are all together. Time has come to a
stop, it was, but is no more. The silence after a life of talking and the
silence after a life of silence is the same silence. Immortality is freedom
from the feeling: 'I am'. Yet it is not extinction. On the contrary, it is a
state infinitely more real, aware and happy than you can possibly think of.
Only self-consciousness is no more.
Q: Why does the Great Death of the mind
coincide with the 'small death' of the body?
M: It does not! You may die a hundred deaths
without a break in the mental turmoil. Or, you may keep your body and die only
in the mind. The death of the mind is the birth of wisdom.
Q: The person goes and only the witness
remains.
M: Who remains to say: 'I am the witness'. When
there is no 'I am', where is the witness? In the timeless state there is no
self to take refuge in.
The man who carries a parcel is anxious
not to lose it -- he is parcel-conscious. The man who cherishes the feeling 'I
am' is self-conscious. The jnani
holds on to nothing and cannot be said to be conscious. And yet he is not
unconscious. He is the very heart of awareness. We call him digambara
clothed in space, the Naked One, beyond all appearance. There is no name and
shape under which he may be said to exist, yet he is the only one that truly is.
Q: I cannot grasp it.
M: Who can? The mind has its limits. It is
enough to bring you to the very frontiers of knowledge and make you face the
immensity of the unknown. To dive in it is up to you.
Q: What about the witness? Is it real or
unreal?
M: It is both. The last remnant of illusion, the
first touch of the real. To say: I am only the witness is both false and true:
false because of the 'I am', true because of the witness. It is better to say:
'there is witnessing'. The moment you say: 'I am', the entire universe comes
into being along with its creator.
Q: Another question: can we visualize the
person and the self as two brothers small and big? The little brother is
mischievous and selfish, rude and restless, while the big brother is
intelligent and kind, reasonable and considerate, free from body consciousness
with its desires and fears. The big brother knows the little one. but the small
one is ignorant of the big one and thinks itself to be entirely on its own. The
Guru comes and tells the smaller one: 'You are not alone, you come from a very
good family, your brother is a very remarkable man, wise and kind, and he loves
you very much. Remember him, think of him, find him, serve him, and you will
become one with him'. Now, the question is are there two in us, the personal
and the individual, the false self and the true self, or is it only a simile?
M: It is both. They appear to be two, but on
investigation they are found to be one. Duality lasts only as long as it is not
questioned. The trinity: mind, self and spirit (vyakti, vyakta, avyakta),
when looked into, becomes unity. These are only modes of experiencing: of
attachment, of detachment, of transcendence.
Q: Your assumption that we are in a dream state
makes your position unassailable. Whatever objection we raise, you just deny
its validity. One cannot discuss with you!
M: The desire to discuss is also mere desire.
The desire to know, to have the power, even the desire to exist are desires
only. Everybody desires to be, to survive, to continue, for no one is
sure of himself. But everybody is immortal. You make yourself mortal by taking
yourself to be the body.
Q: Since you have found your freedom, will you
not give me a little of it?
M: Why little? Take the whole. Take it, it is
there for the taking. But you are afraid of freedom!
Q: Swami Ramdas had to deal with a similar
request. Some devotees collected round him one day and began to ask for
liberation. Ramdas listened smilingly and then suddenly he became serious and
said: You can have it, here and now, freedom absolute and permanent. Who wants
it, come forward. Nobody moved. Thrice he repeated the offer. None accepted.
Then he said: 'The offer is withdrawn'.
M: Attachment destroys courage. The giver is
always ready to give. The taker is absent. Freedom means letting go. People
just do not care to let go everything. They do not know that the finite is the
price of the infinite, as death is the price of immortality. Spiritual maturity
lies in the readiness to let go everything. The giving up is the first step.
But the real giving up is in realizing that there is nothing to give up, for
nothing is your own. It is like deep sleep -- you do not give up your bed when
you fall sleep -- you just forget it.
