From OrganicDesign Wiki
Questioner:
We have a long history of drug-taking behind us, mostly drugs of the
consciousness-expanding variety. They gave us the experience of other states of
consciousness, high and low, and also the conviction, that drugs are unreliable
and, at best, transitory and, at worst, destructive of organism and
personality. We are in search of better means for developing consciousness and
transcendence. We want the fruits of our search to stay with us and enrich our
lives, instead of turning to pale memories and helpless regrets. If by the
spiritual we mean self-investigation and development, our purpose in coming to
India is definitely spiritual. The happy hippy stage is behind us; we are
serious now and on the move. We know there is reality to be found, but we do
not know how to find and hold on to it. We need no convincing, only guidance.
Can you help us?
Maharaj:
You do not need help, only advice. What you seek is already in you. Take my own
case. I did nothing for my realization. My teacher told me that the reality is
within me; I looked within and found it there, exactly as my teacher told me.
To see reality is as simple as to see one's face in a mirror. Only the mirror
must be clear and true. A quiet mind, undistorted by desires and fears, free
from ideas and opinions, clear on all the levels, is needed to reflect the
reality. Be clear and quiet -- alert and detached, all else will happen by
itself.
Q: You had to make your mind clear and quiet
before you could realize the truth. How did you do it?
M: I did nothing. It just happened. I lived my
life, attending to my family's needs. Nor did my Guru do it. It just happened,
as he said it will.
Q: Things do not just happen. There must be a
cause for everything.
M: All that happens is the cause of all that
happens. Causes are numberless; the idea of a sole cause is an illusion.
Q: You must have been doing something specific
-- some meditation or Yoga. How can you say that realization will happen
on its own?
M: Nothing specific. I just lived my life.
Q: I am amazed!
M: So was I. But what was there to be amazed at?
My teacher's words came true. So what? He knew me better than I knew myself,
that is all. Why search for causes? In the very beginning I was giving some
attention and time to the sense 'I am', but only in the beginning. Soon after
my Guru died, I lived on. His words proved to be true. That is all. It is all
one process. You tend to separate things in time and then look for causes.
Q: What is your work now? What are you doing?
M: You imagine being and doing as identical. It
is not so. The mind and the body move and change and cause other minds and
bodies to move and change and that is called doing, action. I see that it is in
the nature of action to create further action like fire that continues by
burning. I neither act nor cause others to act; I am timelessly aware of what
is going on.
Q: In your mind, or also in other minds?
M: There is only one mind, which swarms with
ideas; 'I am this, I am that, this is mine, that is mine'. I am not the mind,
never was, nor shall be.
Q: How did the mind come into being?
M: The world consists of matter, energy and
intelligence. They manifest themselves in many ways. Desire and imagination
create the world and intelligence reconciles the two and causes a sense of
harmony and peace To me it all happens; I am aware, yet unaffected.
Q: You cannot be aware, yet unaffected. There
is a contradiction in terms. Perception is change. Once you have experienced a
sensation, memory will not allow you to return to the former state.
M: Yes, what is added to memory cannot be erased
easily. But it can surely be done and, in fact, I am doing it all the time.
Like a bird on its wings, I leave no footprints.
Q: Has the witness name and form, or is it
beyond these?
M: The witness is merely a point in awareness.
It has no name and form. It is like the reflection of the sun in a drop of dew.
The drop of dew has name and form, but the little point of light is caused by
the sun. The clearness and smoothness of the drop is a necessary condition but
not sufficient by itself. Similarly clarity and silence of the mind are
necessary for the reflection of reality to appear in the mind, but by
themselves they are not sufficient. There must be reality beyond it. Because
reality is timelessly present, the stress is on the necessary conditions.
Q: Can it happen that the mind is clear and
quiet and yet no reflection appears?
M: There is destiny to consider. The unconscious
is in the grip of destiny, it is destiny, in fact. One may have to wait. But
however heavy may be the hand of destiny, it can be lifted by patience and
self-control. Integrity and purity remove the obstacles and the vision of
reality appears in the mind.
Q: How does one gain self-control? I am so weak-minded!
M: Understand first that you are not the person
you believe yourself to be. What you think yourself to be is mere suggestion or
imagination. You have no parents, you were not born, nor will you die. Either
trust me when I tell you so, or arrive to it by study and investigation. The
way of total faith is quick, the other is slow but steady. Both must be tested
in action. Act on what you think is true -- this is the way to truth.
Q: Are deserving the truth and destiny one and
the same?
M: Yes, both are in the unconscious. Conscious
merit is mere vanity. Consciousness is always of obstacles; when there are no
obstacles, one goes beyond it.
Q: Will the understanding that I am not the
body give me the strength of character needed for self-control?
M: When you know that you are neither body nor
mind, you will not be swayed by them. You will follow truth, wherever it takes
you, and do what needs be done, whatever the price to pay.
Q: Is action essential for self-realization?
M: For realization, understanding is essential.
Action is only incidental. A man of steady understanding will not refrain from
action. Action is the test of truth.
Q: Are tests needed?
M: If you do not test yourself all the time, you
will not be able to distinguish between reality and fancy. Observation and
close reasoning help to some extent, but reality is paradoxical. How do you
know that you have realized unless you watch your thoughts and feelings, words
and actions and wonder at the changes occurring in you without your knowing why
and how? It is exactly because they are so surprising that you know that they
are real. The foreseen and expected is rarely true.
Q: How does the person come into being?
M: Exactly as a shadow appears when light is
intercepted by the body, so does the person arise when pure self-awareness is
obstructed by the 'I-am-the-body' idea. And as the shadow changes shape and
position according to the lay of the land, so does the person appear to rejoice
and suffer, rest and toil, find and lose according to the pattern of destiny.
When the body is no more, the person disappears completely without return, only
the witness remains and the Great Unknown.
The witness is that which says 'I know'.
The person says 'I do'. Now, to say 'I know' is not untrue -- it is merely limited.
But to say 'I do' is altogether false, because there is nobody who does; all
happens by itself, including the idea of being a doer.
Q: Then what is action?
M: The universe is full of action, but there is
no actor. There are numberless persons small and big and very big, who, through
identification, imagine themselves as acting, but it does not change the fact
that the world of action (mahadakash) is one single whole in which all
depends on, and affects all. The stars affect us deeply and we affect the
stars. Step back from action to consciousness, leave action to the body and the
mind; it is their domain. Remain as pure witness, till even witnessing
dissolves in the Supreme.
Imagine a thick jungle full of heavy
timber. A plank is shaped out of the timber and a small pencil to write on it.
The witness reads the writing and knows that while the pencil and the plank are
distantly related to the jungle, the writing has nothing to do with it. It is
totally super-imposed and its disappearance just does not matter. The
dissolution of personality is followed always by a sense of great relief, as if
a heavy burden has fallen off.
Q: When you say, I am in the state beyond the
witness, what is the experience that makes you say so? In what way does it
differ from the stage of being a witness only?
M: It is like washing printed cloth. First the
design fades, then the background and in the end the cloth is plain white. The
personality gives place to the witness, then the witness goes and pure
awareness remains. The cloth was white in the beginning and is white in the
end; the patterns and colours just happened -- for a time.
Q: Can there be awareness without an object of
awareness?
M: Awareness with an object we called
witnessing. When there is also self-identification with the object, caused by
desire or fear, such a state is called a person. In reality there is only one
state; when distorted by self-identification it is called a person, when
coloured with the sense of being, it is the witness; when colourless and limitless,
it is called the Supreme.
Q: I find that I am always restless, longing,
hoping, seeking, finding, enjoying, abandoning, searching again. What is it
that keeps me on the boil?
M: You are really in search of yourself, without
knowing it. You are love-longing for the love-worthy, the perfectly lovable.
Due to ignorance you are looking for it in the world of opposites and
contradictions. When you find it within, your search will be over.
Q: There will be always this sorrowful world to
contend with.
M: Don't anticipate. You do not know. It is true
that all manifestation is in the opposites. Pleasure and pain, good and bad,
high and low, progress and regress, rest and strife they all come and go
together -- and as long as there is a world, its contradictions will be there.
There may also be periods of perfect harmony, of bliss and beauty, but only for
a time. What is perfect, returns to the source of all perfection and the
opposites play on.
Q: How am I to reach perfection?
M: Keep quiet. Do your work in the world, but
inwardly keep quiet. Then all will come to you. Do not rely on your work for
realization. It may profit others, but not you. Your hope lies in keeping
silent in your mind and quiet in your heart. Realized people are very quiet.
