M: The real is meaningful and the meaningful relates to reality.
If our relationship is meaningful to you and me, it cannot be accidental. The future affects the present as much, as the past.
Q: How can I make out who is a real saint and who is not?
M: You cannot, unless you have a clear insight into the heart of man. Appearances are deceptive. To see clearly, your mind must be pure and unattached. Unless you know yourself well, how can you know another? And when you know yourself — you are the other.
Leave others alone for some time and examine yourself.
There are so many things you do not know about yourself —
what are you, who are you, how did you come to be born, what are you doing now and why, where are you going, what is the meaning and purpose of your life, your death, your future? Have you a past, have you a future? How did you come to live in turmoil and sorrow, while your entire being strives for happiness and peace? These are weighty matters and have to be attended to first. You have no need, nor time for finding who is a gnani and who is not?
Q: I must select my guru rightly.
M: Be the right man and the right Guru will surely find you.
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Q: You are not answering my question: how to find the right Guru?
M: But I did answer your question. Do not look for a Guru, do not even think of one. Make your goal your Guru. After all, the Guru is but a means to an end, not the end itself. He is not important, it is what you expect of him that matters to you. Now, what do you expect?
Q: By his grace I shall be made happy, powerful and peaceful.
M: What ambitions! How can a person limited in time and space, a mere body-mind, a gasp of pain between birth and death, be happy? The very conditions of its arising make happiness impossible. Peace, power, happiness, these are never personal states, nobody can say ‘my peace’, ‘my power’ — because ‘mine’ implies exclusivity, which is fragile and insecure.
Q: I know only my conditioned existence; there is nothing else.
M: Surely, you cannot say so. In deep sleep you are not conditioned. How ready and willing you are to go to sleep, how peaceful, free and happy you are when asleep!
Q: I know nothing of it.
M: Put it negatively. When you sleep, you are not in pain, nor bound, nor restless.
Q: I see your point. While awake, I know that I am, but am not happy; in sleep I am, I am happy, but I don’t know it. All I need is to know that I am free and happy.
M: Quite so. Now, go within, into a state which you may compare to a state of waking sleep, in which you are aware of yourself, but not of the world. In that state you will know, without the least trace of doubt, that at the root of your being you are free and happy. The only trouble is that you are addicted to experience and you cherish your memories. In reality it is the other way round; what is remembered is never real; the real is now.
Q: All this I grasp verbally, but it does not become a part of myself. It remains as a picture in my mind to be looked at. Is it not the task of the Guru to give life to the picture?
M: Again, it is the other way round. The picture is alive; dead is the mind. As the mind is made of words and images, so is every YOUR GOAL IS YOUR GURU
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reflection in the mind. It covers up reality with verbalization and then complains. You say a Guru is needed, to do miracles with you. You are playing with words only. The Guru and the disciple are one single thing, like the candle and its flame. Unless the disciple is earnest, he cannot be called a disciple. Unless a Guru is all love and self-giving, he cannot be called a Guru.
Only Reality begets reality, not the false.
Q: I can see that I am false. Who will make me true?
M: The very words you said will do it. The sentence: ‘I can see that I am false’ contains all you need for liberation. Ponder over it, go into it deeply, go to the root of it; it will operate. The power is in the word, not in the person.
Q: I do not grasp you fully. On one hand you say a Guru is needed; on the other — the Guru can only give advice, but the effort is mine. Please state clearly — can one realize the Self without a Guru, or is the finding of a true Guru essential?
M: More essential is the finding of a true disciple. Believe me, a true disciple is very rare, for in no time he goes beyond the need for a Guru, by finding his own self. Don’t waste your time on trying to make out whether the advice you get flows from knowledge only, or from valid experience? Just follow it faithfully. Life will bring you another Guru, if another one is needed. Or deprive you of all outer guidance and leave you to your own lights. It is very important to understand than it is the teaching that matters, not the person of the Guru. You get a letter that makes you laugh or cry. It is not the postman who does it. The Guru only tells you the good news about your real Self and shows you the way back to it. In a way the Guru is its messenger. There will be many messengers, but the message is one: be what you are. Or, you can put it differently: until you realize yourself, you cannot know who is your real Guru. When you realize, you find that all the Gurus you had have contributed to your awakening. Your realization is the proof that your Guru was real. Therefore, take him as he is, do what he tells you, with earnestness and zeal and trust your heart to warn you if anything goes wrong. If doubt sets in, don’t fight it. Cling to what is doubtless and leave the doubtful alone.
Q: I have a Guru and I love him very much. But whether he is 432
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my true Guru I do not know.
M: Watch yourself. If you see yourself changing, growing, it means you have found the right man. He may be beautiful or ugly, pleasant or unpleasant, flattering you or scolding; nothing matters except the one crucial fact of inward growth. If you don’t, well, he may be your friend, but not your Guru.
Q: When I meet a European with some education and talk to him about a Guru and his teachings, his reaction is: ‘the man must be mad to teach such nonsense’. What am I to tell him?
M: Take him to himself. Show him, how little he knows himself, how he takes the most absurd statements about himself for holy truth. He is told that he is the body, was born, will die, has parents, duties; learns to like what others like and fear what others fear. Totally a creature of heredity and society, he lives by memory and acts by habits. Ignorant of himself and his true interests, he pursues false aims and is always frustrated. His life and death are meaningless and painful, and there seems to be no way out. Then tell him, there is a way out within his easy reach, not a conversion to another set of ideas, but a liberation from all ideas and patterns of living. Don’t tell him about Gurus and disciples — this way of thinking is not for him. His is an inner path, he is moved by an inner urge and guided by an inner light.
Invite him to rebel and he will respond. Do not try to impress on him that so-and-so is a realized man and can be accepted as a Guru. As long as he does not trust himself, he cannot trust another. And confidence will come with experience.
Q: How strange! I cannot imagine life without a Guru.
M: It is a matter of temperament. You too are right. For you, singing the praises of God is enough. You need not desire realization, nor take up a sadhana. God’s name is all the food you need. Live on it.
Q: This constant repetition of a few words, is it not a kind of madness?
M: It is madness, but it is a deliberate madness. All repetitiveness is tamas, but repeating the name of God is sattva- tamas due to its high purpose. Because of the presence of sattva, the tamas will wear out and will take the shape of complete dispassion, detachment, relinquishment, aloofness, immutability.
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Tamas becomes the firm foundation on which an integrated life can be lived.
Q: The immutable — does it die?
M: It is the changing that dies. The immutable neither lives nor dies; it is the timeless witness of life and death. You cannot call it dead, for it is aware. Nor can you call it alive, for it does not change. It is just like your tape-recorder. It records, it reproduces — all by itself. You only listen. Similarly, I watch all that happens, including my talking to you. It is not me who talks, the words appear in my mind and then I hear them said.
Q: Is it not the case with everybody.
M: Who said no? But you insist that you think, you speak, while to me there is thinking, there is speaking.
Q: There are two cases to consider. Either I have found a Guru, or I have not. In each case what is the right thing to do?
M: You are never without a Guru, for he is timelessly present in your heart. Sometimes he externalizes himself and comes to you as an uplifting and reforming factor it your life, a mother, a wife, a teacher; or he remains as an inner urge towards righteousness and perfection. All you have to do is to obey him and do what he tells you. What he wants you to do is simple, learn self-awareness, self-control, self-surrender. It may seem arduous, but it is easy if you are earnest. And quite impossible if you are not. Earnestness is both necessary and sufficient. Everything yields to earnestness.
Q: What makes one earnest?
M: Compassion is the foundation of earnestness. Compassion for yourself and others, born of suffering, your own and of others.
Q: Must I suffer to be earnest?
M: You need not, if you are sensitive and respond to the sorrows of others, as Buddha did. But if you are callous and without pity, your own suffering will make you ask the inevitable questions.
Q: I find myself suffering, but not enough. Life is unpleasant, but bearable. My little pleasures compensate me for my small 434
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pains and on the whole I am better off than most of the people I know. I know that my condition is precarious, that a calamity can overtake me any moment. Must I wait for a crisis to put me on my way to truth?
M: The moment you have seen how fragile is your condition, you are already alert. Now, keep alert, give attention, enquire, investigate, discover your mistakes of mind and body and abandon them.
Q: Where is the energy to come from? I am like a paralyzed man in a burning house.
M: Even paralyzed people sometimes find their legs in a moment of danger! But you are not paralyzed, you merely imagine so. Make the first step and you will be on your way.
Q: I feel that my hold on the body is so strong that I just cannot give up the idea that I am the body. It will cling to me as long as the body lasts. There are people who maintain that no realization is possible while alive and I feel inclined to agree with them.
M: Before you agree or disagree, why not investigate the very idea of a body? Does the mind appear in the body or the body in the mind? Surely there must be a mind to conceive the ‘I-am-the-body’ idea. A body without a mind cannot be ‘my body’.
‘My body’ is invariably absent when the mind is in abeyance. It is also absent when the mind is deeply engaged in thoughts and feelings. Once you realize that the body depends on the mind, and the mind on consciousness, and consciousness on awareness and not the other way round, your question about waiting for self-realization till you die is answered. It is not that you must be free from ‘I-am-the-body’ idea first, and then realize the self. It is definitely the other way round — you cling to the false, because you do not know the true. Earnestness, not perfection, is a precondition to self-realization. Virtues and powers come with realization, not before.
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‘I am’: The Foundation of all
Experience
Questioner: I hear you making statements about yourself like: ‘I am timeless, immutable beyond attributes’, etc. How do you know these things? And what makes you say them?
Maharaj: I am only trying to describe the state before the ‘I am’
arose, but the state itself, being beyond the mind and its language, is indescribable.
Q: The ‘I am’ is the foundation of all experience. What you are trying to describe must also be an experience, limited and transitory. You speak of yourself as immutable. I hear the sound of the word, I remember its dictionary meaning, but the experience of being immutable I do not have. How can I break through the barrier and know personally, intimately, what it means to be immutable?
M: The word itself is the bridge. Remember it, think of it, explore it, go round it, look at it from all directions, dive into it with earnest perseverance: endure all delays and disappointments till suddenly the mind turns round, away from the word, towards the reality beyond the word. It is like trying to find a person knowing his name only. A day comes when your enquiries bring you to him and the name becomes reality. Words are valuable, for between the word and its meaning there is a link and if one investigates the word assiduously, one crosses beyond the concept into the experience at the root of it. As a matter of fact, such repeated attempts to go beyond the words is what is called meditation. Sadhana is but a persistent attempt to cross over from the verbal to the non-verbal. The task seems hopeless until suddenly all becomes clear and simple and so wonderfully 436
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easy. But, as long as you are interested in your present way of living, you will shirk from the final leap into the unknown.
Q: Why should the unknown interest me? Of what use is the unknown?
M: Of no use whatsoever. But it is worthwhile to know what keeps you within the narrow confines of the known. It is the full and correct knowledge of the known that takes you to the unknown. You cannot think of it in terms of uses and advantages; to be quiet and detached, beyond the reach of all self-concern, all selfish consideration, is an inescapable condition of liberation. You may call it death; to me it is living at its most meaningful and intense, for I am one with life in its totality and fulness —
intensity, meaningfulness, harmony; what more do you want?
Q: Nothing more is needed, of course. But you are talking of the knowable.
M: Of the unknowable only silence talks. The mind can talk only of what it knows. If you diligently investigate the knowable, it dissolves and only the unknowable remains. But with the first flicker of imagination and interest the unknowable is obscured and the known comes to the fore-front. The known, the changing, is what you live with — the unchangeable is of no use to you. It is only when you are satiated with the changeable and long for the unchangeable, that you are ready for the turning round and stepping into what can be described, when seen from the level of the mind, as emptiness and darkness. For the mind craves for content and variety, while reality is, to the mind, contentless and invariable.
Q: It looks like death to me.
M: It is. It is also all-pervading, all-conquering, intense beyond words. No ordinary brain can stand it without being shattered; hence the absolute need for sadhana. Purity of body and clarity of mind, non-violence and selflessness in life are essential for survival as an intelligent and spiritual entity.
Q: Are there entities in Reality?
M: Identity is Reality, Reality is identity. Reality is not a shapeless mass, a wordless chaos. It is powerful, aware, blissful; compared to it your life is like a candle to the sun.
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Q: By the grace of God and your teacher’s you lost all desire and fear and reached the immovable state. My question is simple — how do you know that your state is immovable?
M: Only the changeable can be thought of and talked about.
The unchangeable can only be realized in silence. Once realized, it will deeply affect the changeable, itself remaining unaffected.
Q: How do you know that you are the witness?
M: I do not know, I am. I am, because to be everything must be witnessed.
Q: Existence can be also accepted on hearsay.
M: Still, finally you come to the need of a direct witness. Witnessing, if not personal and actual, must be at least possible and feasible. Direct experience is the final proof.
Q: Experience may be faulty and misleading.
M: Quite, but not the fact of an experience. Whatever may be the experience, true or false, the fact of an experience taking place cannot be denied. It is its own proof. Watch yourself closely and you will see that whatever be the content of consciousness, the witnessing of it does not depend on the content.
Awareness is itself and does not change with the event. The event may be pleasant or unpleasant, minor or important, awareness is the same. Take note of the peculiar nature of pure awareness, its natural self-identity, without the least trace of self-consciousness, and go to the root of it and you will soon realize that awareness is your true nature and nothing you may be aware of, you can call your own.
Q: Is not consciousness and its content one and the same?
M: Consciousness is like a cloud in the sky and the water drops are the content. The cloud needs the sun to become visible, and consciousness needs being focussed in awareness.
Q: Is not awareness a form of consciousness?
M: When the content is viewed without likes and dislikes, the consciousness of it is awareness. But still there is a difference between awareness as reflected in consciousness and pure awareness beyond consciousness. Reflected awareness, the sense: ‘I am aware’ is the witness, while pure awareness is the 438
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essence of reality. Reflection of the sun in a drop of water is a reflection of the sun, no doubt, but not the sun itself. Between awareness reflected in consciousness as the witness and pure awareness there is a gap, which the mind cannot cross.
Q: Does it not depend on the way you look at it? The mind says there is difference. The heart says there is none.
M: Of course there is no difference. The real sees the real in the unreal. It is the mind that creates the unreal and it is the mind that sees the false as false.
Q: I understood that the experience of the real follows the seeing of the false as false.
M: There is no such thing as the experience of the real. The real is beyond experience. All experience is in the mind. You know the real by being real.
Q: If the real is beyond words and mind, why do we talk so much about it?
M: For the joy of it, of course. The real is bliss supreme. Even to talk of it is happiness.
Q: I hear you talking of the unshakable and blissful. What is in your mind when you use these words?
M: There is nothing in my mind. As you hear the words, so do I hear them. The power that makes everything happen makes them also happen.
Q: But you are speaking, not me.
M: That is how it appears to you. As I see it, two body-minds exchange symbolic noises. In reality nothing happens.
Q: Listen, Sir. I am coming to you because I am in trouble. I am a poor soul lost in a world I do not understand. I am afraid of Mother Nature who wants me to grow, procreate and die. When I ask for the meaning and the purpose of all this, she does not answer. I have come to you because I was told that you are kind and wise. You talk about the changeable as false and transient and this I can understand. But when you talk of the immutable, I feel lost. ‘Not this, not that, beyond knowledge, of no use’ — why talk of it all? Does it exist, or is it a concept only, a verbal opposite to the changeable?
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M: It is, it alone is. But in your present state it is of no use to you.
Just like the glass of water near your bed is of no use to you, when you dream that you are dying of thirst in a desert. I am trying to wake you up, whatever your dream.
Q: Please don’t tell me that I am dreaming and that I will soon wake up. I wish it were so. But I am awake and in pain. You talk of a painless state, but you add that I cannot have it in my present condition. I feel lost.
M: Don’t feel lost. I only say that to find the immutable and blissful you must give up your hold on the mutable and painful. You are concerned with your own happiness and I am telling you that there is no such thing. Happiness is never your own, it is where the ‘I’ is not. I do not say it is beyond your reach; you have only to reach out beyond yourself, and you will find it.
Q: If I have to go beyond myself, why did I get the ‘I am’ idea in the first instance?
M: The mind needs a centre to draw a circle. The circle may grow bigger and with every increase there will be a change in the sense ‘I am’. A man who took himself in hand, a Yogi, will draw a spiral, yet the centre will remain, however vast the spiral.
A day comes when the entire enterprise is seen as false and is given up. The central point is no more and the universe becomes the centre.
Q: Yes, maybe. But what am I to do now?
M: Assiduously watch your ever-changing life, probe deeply into the motives beyond your actions and you will soon prick the bubble in which you are enclosed. A chick needs the shell to grow, but a day comes when the shell must be broken. If it is not, there will be suffering and death.
Q: Do you mean to say that if I do not take to Yoga, I am doomed to extinction?
M: There is the Guru who will come to your rescue. In the meantime be satisfied with watching the flow of your life; if your watchfulness is deep and steady, ever turned towards the source, it will gradually move upstream till suddenly it becomes the source. Put your awareness to work, not your mind. The mine is not the right instrument for this task. The timeless can be 440
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reached only by the timeless. Your body and your mind are both subject to time; only awareness is timeless, even in the now. In awareness you are facing facts and reality is fond of facts.
Q: You rely entirely on my awareness to take me over and not on the Guru and God.
M: God gives the body and the mind and the Guru shows the way to use them. But returning to the source is your own task.
Q: God has created me, he will look after me.
M: There are innumerable gods, each in his own universe. They create and re-create eternally. Are you going to wait for them to save you? What you need for your salvation is already within your reach. Use it. Investigate what you know to its very end and you will reach the unknown layers of your being. Go further and the unexpected will explode in you and shatter aII.
Q: Does it mean death?
M: It means life — at last.
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the Real
Questioner: Who is the Guru and who is the supreme Guru?
Maharaj: All that happens in your consciousness is your Guru.
And pure awareness beyond consciousness is the supreme Guru.
Q: My Guru is Sri Babaji. What is your opinion of him?
M: What a question to ask! The space in Bombay is asked what is its opinion of the space in Poona. The names differ, but not the space. The word ‘Babaji’ is merely an address. Who lives under the address? You ask questions when you are in trouble.
Enquire who is giving trouble and to whom.
Q: I understand everybody is under the obligation to realize. Is it his duty, or is it his destiny?
M: Realization is of the fact that you are not a person. Therefore, it cannot be the duty of the person whose destiny is to disappear. Its destiny is the duty of him who imagines himself to be the person. Find out who he is and the imagined person will dissolve. Freedom is from something. What are you to be free from? Obviously, you must be free from the person, you take yourself to be, for it is the idea you have of yourself that keeps you in bondage.
Q: How is the person removed?
M: By determination. Understand that it must go and wish it to go — it shall go if you are earnest about it. Somebody, anybody, will tell you that you are pure consciousness, not a body-mind.
Accept it as a possibility and investigate earnestly. You may discover that it is not so, that you are not a person bound in 442
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space and time. Think of the difference it would make!
Q: If I am not a person, then what am I?
M: Wet cloth looks, feels, smells differently as long as it is wet.
When dry it is again the normal cloth. Water has left it and who can make out that it was wet? Your real nature is not like what you appear to be. Give up the idea of being a person, that is all.
You need not become what you are anyhow. There is the identity of what you are and there is the person superimposed on it.
All you know is the person, the identity — which is not a person
— you do not know, for you never doubted, never asked yourself the crucial question — ‘Who am I’. The identity is the witness of the person and sadhana consists in shifting the emphasis from the superficial and changeful person to the immutable and ever-present witness.
Q: How is it that the question ‘Who am I’ attracts me little? I prefer to spend my time in the sweet company of saints.
M: Abiding in your own being is also holy company. If you have no problem of suffering and release from suffering, you will not find the energy and persistence needed for self-enquiry.
You cannot manufacture a crisis. It must be genuine.
Q: How does a genuine crisis happen?
M: It happens every moment, but you are not alert enough. A shadow on your neighbour’s face, the immense and all-pervading sorrow of existence is a constant factor in your life, but you refuse to take notice. You suffer and see others suffer, but you don’t respond.
Q: What you say is true, but what can I do about it? Such indeed is the situation. My helplessness and dullness are a part of it.
M: Good enough. Look at yourself steadily — it is enough. The door that locks you in, is also the door that lets you out. The ‘I am’ is the door. Stay at it until it opens. As a matter of fact, it is open, only you are not at it. You are waiting at the non-existent painted doors, which will never open.
Q: Many of us were taking drugs at some time, and to some extent. People told us to take drugs in order to break through into higher levels of consciousness. Others advised us to have THE UNKNOWN IS THE HOME OF THE REAL
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abundant sex for the same purpose. What is your opinion in the matter?
M: No doubt, a drug that can affect your brain can also affect your mind, and give you all the strange experiences promised.