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Questioner:
You were saying the other day that at the root of your realization was the
trust in your Guru. He assured you that you were already the Absolute Reality
and there was nothing more to be done. You trusted him and left it at that, without
straining, without striving. Now, my question is: without trust in your Guru
would you have realized? After all, what you are, You are, whether your mind
trusts or not; would doubt obstruct the action of the Guru's words and make
them inoperative?
Maharaj:
You have said it -- they would have been made inoperative -- for a time.
Q: And what would happen to the energy, or
power in the Guru's words?
M: It would remain latent, unmanifested. But the
entire question is based on a misunderstanding. The master, the disciple, the
love and trust between them, these are one fact, not so many independent facts.
Each is a part of the other. Without love and trust there would have been no
Guru nor disciple, and no relationship between them. It is like pressing a switch
to light an electric lamp. It is because the lamp, the wiring, the switch, the
transformer, the transmission lines and the power house form a single whole,
that you get the light. Any one factor missing and there would be no light. You
must not separate the inseparable. Words do not create facts; they either
describe them or distort. The fact is always non-verbal.
Q: I still do not understand; can the Guru's
word remain unfulfilled or will it invariably prove true?
M: Words of a realized man never miss their
purpose. They wait for the right conditions to arise which may take some time,
and. this is natural, for there is a season for sowing and a season for
harvesting. But the word of a Guru is a seed that cannot perish. Of course, the
Guru must be a real one, who is beyond the body and the mind, beyond
consciousness itself, beyond space and time, beyond duality and unity, beyond
understanding and description. The good people who have read a lot and have a
lot to say, may teach you many useful things, but they are not the real Gurus
whose words invariably come true. They also may tell you that you are the
ultimate reality itself, but what of it?
Q: Nevertheless, if for some reason I happen
to trust them and obey, shall I be the loser?
M: If you are able to trust and obey, you will
soon find your real Guru, or rather, he will find you.
Q: Does every knower of the Self become a Guru,
or can one be a knower of Reality without being able to take others to it?
M: If you know what you teach, you can teach
what you know, Here seership and teachership are one. But the Absolute Reality
is beyond both. The self-styled Gurus talk of ripeness and effort, of merits
and achievements, of destiny and grace; all these are mere mental formations,
projections of an addicted mind. Instead of helping, they obstruct.
Q: How can I make out whom to follow and whom
to mistrust?
M: Mistrust all, until you are convinced. The
true Guru will never humiliate you, nor will he estrange you from yourself. He
will constantly bring you back to the fact of your inherent perfection and
encourage you to seek within. He knows you need nothing, not even him, and is
never tired of reminding you. But the self appointed Guru is more concerned
with himself than with his disciples.
Q: You said that reality is beyond the
knowledge and the teaching of the real. Is not the knowledge of reality the
supreme itself and teaching the proof of its attainment?
M: The knowledge of the real, or the self, is a
state of mind. Teaching another is a movement in duality. They concern the mind
only; sattva is a Guna all the same.
Q: What is real then?
M: He who knows the mind as non-realized and
realized, who knows ignorance and knowledge as states of mind, he is the real.
When you are given diamonds mixed with gravel, you may either miss the diamonds
or find them. It is the seeing that matters. Where is the greyness of the
gravel and the beauty of the diamond, without the power to see? The known is
but a shape and knowledge is but a name. The knower is but a state of mind. The
real is beyond.
Q: Surely, objective knowledge and ideas of
things and self knowledge are not one and the same thing. One needs a brain,
the other does not.
M: For the purpose of discussion you can arrange
words and give them meaning, but the fact remains that all knowledge is a form
of ignorance. The most accurate map is yet only paper. All knowledge is in
memory; it is only recognition, while reality is beyond the duality of the
knower and the known.
Q: Then by what is reality known?
M: How misleading is your language! You assume,
unconsciously, that reality also is approachable through knowledge. And then
you will bring in a knower of reality beyond reality! Do understand that to be,
reality need not be known. Ignorance and knowledge are in the mind, not in the
real.
Q: If there is no such thing as the knowledge
of the real, then how do I reach it?
M: You need not reach out for what is already
with you. Your very reaching out makes you miss it. Give up the idea that you
have not found it and just let it come into the focus of direct perception,
here and now, by removing all that is of the mind.
Q: When all that can go, goes, what remains?
M: Emptiness remains, awareness remains, pure
light of the conscious being remains. It is like asking what remains of a room
when all the furniture is removed? A most serviceable room remains. And when
even the walls are pulled down, space remains. Beyond space and time is the here
and the now of reality.
Q: Does the witness remain?
M: As long as there is consciousness, its
witness is also there. The two appear and disappear together.
Q: If the witness too is transient, why is he
given so much importance?
M: Just to break the spell of the known, the
illusion that only the perceivable is real.
Q: Perception is primary, the witness --
secondary.
M: This is the heart of the matter. As long as
you believe that only the outer world is real, you remain its slave. To become
free, your attention must be drawn to the 'I am', the witness. Of course, the
knower and the known are one not two, but to break the spell of the known the
knower must be brought to the forefront. Neither is primary, both are
reflections in memory of the ineffable experience, ever new and ever now,
untranslatable, quicker than the mind.
Q: Sir, I am an humble seeker, wandering from
Guru to Guru in search of release. My mind is sick, burning with desire, frozen
with fear. My days flit by, red with pain, grey with boredom. My age is
advancing, my health decaying, my future dark and frightening. At this rate I
shall live in sorrow and die in despair. Is there any hope for me? Or have I
come too late?
M: Nothing is wrong with you, but the ideas you
have of yourself are altogether wrong. It is not you who desires, fears and
suffers, it is the person built on the foundation of your body by circumstances
and influences. You are not that person. This must be clearly established in
your mind and never lost sight of. Normally, it needs a prolonged sadhana,
years of austerities and meditation.
Q: My mind is weak and vacillating. I have
neither the strength nor the tenacity for sadhana. My case, is hopeless.
M: In a way yours is a most hopeful case. There
is an alternative to sadhana, which is trust. If you cannot have the
conviction born from fruitful search, then take advantage of my discovery,
which I am so eager to share with you. I can see with the utmost clarity that
you have never been, nor are, nor will be estranged from realty, that you are
the fullness of perfection here and now and that nothing can deprive you of
your heritage, of what you are. You are in no way different from me, only you
do not know it. You do not know what you are and therefore you imagine your
self to be what you are not. Hence desires and fear and overwhelming despair.
And meaningless activity in order to escape.
Just trust me and live by trusting me. I
shall not mislead you. You are the Supreme Reality beyond the world and its
creator, beyond consciousness and its witness, beyond all assertions and
denials. Remember it, think of it, act on it. Abandon all sense of separation,
see yourself in all and act accordingly. With action bliss will come and, with
bliss, conviction. After all, you doubt yourself because you are in sorrow.
Happiness, natural, spontaneous and lasting cannot be imagined. Either it is
there, or it is not. Once you begin to experience the peace, love and happiness
which need no outer causes, all your doubts will dissolve. Just catch hold of
what I told you and live by it.
Q: You are telling me to live by memory?
M: You are living by memory anyhow. I am merely
asking you to replace the old memories by the memory of what I told you. As you
were acting on your old memories, act on the new one. Don't be afraid. For some
time there is bound to be a conflict between the old and the new, but if you
put yourself resolutely on the side of the new, the strife will soon come to an
end and you will realize the effortless state of being oneself, of not being
deceived by desires and fears born of illusion.
Q: Many Gurus have the habit of giving tokens
of their grace -- their head cloth, or their sticks, or begging bowl, or robe,
thus transmitting or confirming the self-realization of their disciples. I can
see no value in such practices. It is not self-realization that is transmitted,
but self-importance. Of what earthly use is being told something very
flattering, but not true? On one hand you are warning me against the many
self-styled Gurus, on the other you want me to trust you. Why do you claim to
be an exception?
M: I do not ask you to trust me. Trust my words
and remember them, I want your happiness, not mine. Distrust those who put a
distance between you and your true being and offer themselves as a go-between.
I do nothing of the kind. I do not even make any promises. I merely say: if you
trust my words and put them to test, you will for yourself discover how
absolutely true they are. If you ask for a proof before you venture, I can only
say: I am the proof. I did trust my teacher's words and kept them in my mind
and I did find that he was right, that I was, am and shall be the Infinite
Reality, embracing all, transcending all.
As you say, you have neither the time nor
the energy for lengthy practices. I offer you an alternative. Accept my words
on trust and live anew, or live and die in sorrow.
Q: It seems too good to be true.
M: Don't be misled by the simplicity of the
advice. '\very few are those who have the courage to trust the innocent and the
simple. To know that you are a prisoner of your mind, that you live in an
imaginary world of your own creation is the dawn of wisdom. To want nothing of
it, to be ready to abandon it entirely, is earnestness. Only such earnestness,
born of true despair, will make you trust me.
Q: Have l not suffered enough?
M: Suffering has made you dull, unable to see
its enormity. Your first task is to see the sorrow in you and around you; your
next to long intensely for liberation. The very intensity of longing will guide
you; you need no other guide.
Q: Suffering has made me dull, indifferent even
to itself.
M: Maybe it is not sorrow but pleasure that made
you dull. Investigate.
Q: Whatever may be the cause; I am dull. I have
neither the will nor the energy.
M: Oh, no. You have enough for the first step.
And each step will generate enough energy for the next. Energy comes with
confidence and confidence comes with experience.
Q: Is it right to change Gurus?
M: Why not change? Gurus are like milestones? It
is natural to move on from one to another. Each tells you the direction and the
distance, while the sadguru, the eternal Guru, is the road itself. Once
you realize that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road, not
to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a
task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy.
Q: So, there is no need to worship, to pray, to
practice Yoga?
M: A little of daily sweeping, washing and
bathing can do no harm. Self-awareness tells you at every step what needs be
done. When all is done, the mind remains quiet.
Now you are in the waking state, a person
with name and shape, joys and sorrows. The person was not there before you were
born, nor will be there after you die. Instead of struggling with the person to
make it become what it is not, why not go beyond the waking state and leave the
personal life altogether? It does not mean the extinction of the person; it
means only seeing it in right perspective.
Q: One more question. You said that before I
was born I was one with the pure being of reality; if so, who decided that I
should be born?
M: In reality you were never born and never
shall die. But now you imagine that you are, or have a body and you ask what
has brought about this state. Within the limits of illusion the answer is:
desire born from memory attracts you to a body and makes you think as one with
it. But this is true only from the relative point of view. In fact, there is no
body, nor a world to contain it; there is only a mental condition, a dream-like
state, easy to dispel by questioning its reality.
Q: After you die, will you come again? If I
live long enough, will I meet you again.
M: To you the body is real, to me there is none.
I, as you see me, exist in your imagination only. Surely, you will see me
again, if and when you need me. It does not affect me, as the Sun is not affected
by sunrises and sunsets. Because it is not affected, it is certain to be there
when needed.
You are bent on knowledge, I am not. I do
not have that sense of insecurity that makes you crave to know. I am curious,
like a child is curious. But there is no anxiety to make me seek refuge in
knowledge. Therefore, I am not concerned whether I shall be reborn, or how long
will the world last. These are questions born of fear.
