New Year's Message 2009
Don’t Become The Victim Of Illusion

On New Year’s Eve, Swamiji came out on the roof and watched a video with us of his New Year’s message from 1985. He had the conch blown three times at the strike of midnight, and then gave this talk.

I wish you a Happy New Year, 2009. [Applause.] I love you all. I extend my love to all those persons who know me and who have love in their hearts to express to their fellow beings. I am very much aware that you were born realized, you are realized, and you will remain the same Pure Free Forever realized Being. Therefore, you should live long with your realization. Thank you. [Pause. Laughter and applause.]

Actually, after hearing him [his own talk from 1985], I forgot everything. [Laughter.] For one hour, he continued. It’s such a joy to see all of you. Almost everyone has been with me for the last forty years; those who have come new were born at that time. [Laughter.] A few more things I can say, because you have cared to come and have sat here in this chilly winter. It was a very clear day, so the night is very cold, yet all of you have reached that state of awareness that you don’t mind. Because you have attained bodilessness, worldlessness, and mindlessness too, so you are able to sit for a while.

I wish you to maintain your practice of meditation. So we close the eyes. You were very attentive this past hour, as well as at this time, when he heralded in the new year, 2009. It’s a very important year. Why? Because you have heard me for so long and have practised the realization of your own Self, which is Pure Free Forever. Nothing much is needed for me to say, because you are already well equipped with all the necessary information for your life, regarding what you are supposed to do. You have your intellect, body, mind and ego, and you have been told that the body is very important, which I too say. It’s very, very necessary for you to maintain good health, to serve your immediate supporters, your parents, and you have to share your strength, love and knowledge with all your friends, your family, and with humanity as a whole, whenever you meet anyone in the world.

But the main message which I’d like to say is: Don’t become the victim of the illusory state of consciousness. This is not known to many people, but you, the participants, have become clear about it. Whatever is in the dream state is all an illusory state. Whatever is in the waking state is also not less than illusion. How to understand this? In the dream, that which was not there you say is there. And in the waking state, you say that which was never there is now here. Without the body, deep sleep will not be known. We do not have to define it and call it illusion, because it is none of them. In deep sleep, you do not have this illusory knowledge which makes the Real as non-existence and that which is unreal, which is changing every moment, as real. That is the waking state. It is illusion, because that which is Forever Pure Free, eternally just the same, you do not know, and you are sure about that which is changing, that it is there and it exists forever—even though everybody’s observation is that it is changing, dying and very short-lived.

Every human being is born such, having illusion. So nobody has to tell him that he has to commit mistakes. Just by birth, he is a human being. By now you have studied that you became young enough to understand that you call yourself ignorant. Sometimes you hear people calling you sinful. Sometimes they say you have committed mistakes, you commit mistakes, and you should learn from your own mistakes, improve upon your main mistakes, and learn knowledge. So all the time you are hearing that you are not knowledgeable. This is simply because of the illusion. Those who have no illusion, they are not the subject matter of my listening. They are Free Pure Forever—disillusioned, enlightened. …

When you open your eyes, everything is an objective form and phenomenon. Everything that you hear is the sound heard by you as a subject. So whenever all your senses in the body function, they do so in the field of the sense of otherness. That sense of otherness is the fundamental illusion or mistake, which was never there when you were not born and which will never be when people will not be. In the middle, there is the illusory knowledge that “I am born and one day I will not be alive.” This illusion is not to be entertained as true. If at all you think it comes, then give it up.

How to give it up is very easy and simple. Just by giving it up, all that which you want to give up, because of pain and suffering and all that, will be given up. It will be given up if you know the formula which I am telling you. Just retain it from now onwards. …It is the year 2009, and nine is the highest number. There are nine powers. You know the first power, the sky, the second air, the third fire or sun, the fourth water, the fifth earth, the sixth the senses and among them the ego, the seventh consciousness, the sense of duality as against existence, the eighth your mind, and the ninth your intellect. These nine powers constitute the whole body and the world. So the world is the whole body, and the body, mind and world are made up of these five gross, objective, material realities and the subtlest four which I have told you, the inner side of your existence—the ego, consciousness, mind and intellect. They are nine. Everybody has them. All this is changing, or changeable in time and space. Up to this time, up to 2008, you have realized that these are changing.

My message this year is a repetition for you to hear the same, that there is one Being, who is not zero. He was not zero before he was one. It is Pure. Pure has no number, so it does not change. It is unchanging Being. And that is You, that is I, that is all that there is. So the message is if every day you know “I am that Pure Free Forever, you are that Pure Free Forever, he or she is that Pure Free Forever, and all is that Pure Free Forever,” then unchanging happiness will be witnessed by you every single day, rather every moment whenever you are in the waking state. Thus, purification is that which is the realization of this Pure Existence, Pure Consciousness, which means only Pure, which is always with you in the form of Pure Experience. All is Pure Experience. Even when you meditate with closed eyes, you will know Pure Experience. With open eyes you will have nine powers with you, and they will all be changing. But the Seer and Knower, that is you, I, he or she will forever be with you, as Unchanging.

I think this is very significant for you to just repeat every day. We call it practice. Why? Because many people forget —maybe not you, but many others. And you never care for those who forget. But I’m speaking to you, who I suppose never forgets, because I is always there. You just have no way to forget it. But it is not found on the level of your mind, intellect, ego or consciousness, nor on the level of your material things. …Pure Experience is your Knower, your Knowingness. You will never be without Knowingness. Even if the forgetfulness of Knowingness comes, yet Knowingness is there. That helps. So I am talking about that power which everybody has. But somebody succeeded in its unfoldment, somebody didn’t. When you are hearing me, I’m sure you have the ability with which you have unfolded it.

It gets forgotten because of the nine powers, which are meant to make you forget—all nine powers make you forget. Why? The nine powers cannot know zero. Even one cannot know zero—which means Pure. Zero is pure. It’s before one and after nine. All the nine which constitute your body will not know. Why? Because this is itself Knowingness. Only this knows. I’m sure it is there with you, so you are the Knower. And all else you will learn through your books, your friends, your teachers, your masters. But this is a kind of very pure awareness or knowledge that you are hearing from me.

We are very lucky that we have entered into a most wonderful year, 2009, and I wish you this new year all good, all love, all joy, all happiness. My wishes for you to abide by is: Never act with such actions or activities that make you miserable, which bring pain and suffering, and cause death and destruction. If you can do it, you will remain even physically, body-wise, happy, joyful and blissful. So my blessings are for you, and to the world as a whole through you. I salute you, the One who dwells within every single person. Therefore, my salutations are to the whole world. Because that Being is my Self, so I am not saluting anything else but Me. Me is saluting Me. The duality is bowing down to salute somebody else, but Me is Me. It’s called the sense of Oneness.

I close by saying, maintain this Oneness sense. It is the happiness sense. It is the sense beyond time and space. And That Thou Art. Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum is the byword, mantr or phrase, which can be translated very easily: Pure Free Forever. Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum. … [Meditation and songs.] I wish you a Happy New Year again. [Applause.]

Swamiji again joined us in the morning for satsang, songs, and speeches. Here are a few excerpts from those talks.

I, the Infinite Whole, am wishing a Happy Fresh New Year 2009 to the very Self, who is in the heart of everyone. On behalf of that, I wish you a Happy New Year, 2009. You, who are brilliant and studious, all know that yesterday 2008 ended. At twelve o’clock 2009 began, the first day of a very happy, prosperous new year, which will bring you the sense of your own Self, Pure Free Forever, which all of you have realized. Why? Because you are That already. Even now, you are That. And you will remain forever That. So we celebrate the Purity, Freedom, that Foreverness, that Supreme, that Guru. …

This is the day of the unfoldment of spirituality. Up to this time, the end of 2008, you have been in the field of your understanding, which is tuned in to matter. So your understanding has been material. Today, you are sitting at a place which is only one Being, the Spirit. It is reality, spirituality. Materiality begins and changes, it evolves and dissolves. But spirituality is not described as beginning or ending. That is the true nature of every being. … You become miserable at every step because every thing changes. In order to remove this misery, there is only one way for a human being: to be tuned in to the spirit of his own, which is Pure Free Forever, the Space. Space you are. But Space you have neglected, and matter you have acquired and possessed. …

The result of the practice of Space is Space. Since you do not get convinced by yourself, so I say Space is your own Self. If you seek it somewhere else, you will commit mistakes and mistakes and mistakes. You are That. It has been already. When you close your eyes and use the Knower, the Experiencer, you are watching the Knower and Experiencer. The same is Pure Consciousness, Knowingness, the same is Pure Existence, the Space, the same is your Experience, where there is no subject, no object. That is why it is called Oneness. It is Sense. Since you make sense either this or that, so I say it is the sense of Oneness. The sense of Oneness means where there is no subject, no object, only Knowingness.

You will experience this Knowingness in all beings, maybe creatures, birds, animals and human beings, who have all appeared in time and space. A human being only sees that the world exists when he is born. So your human form is very valuable. I salute it a hundred times, because it has the power of Knowing, it has Knowing as its source. That is the same source as the body and the same source as when the body will be dissolved. That source is forever. Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum, Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum, Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum. I am Immortal, I am Blissful. I am Immortal, I am Blissful. I am Immortal, I am Blissful. I am. I. I. I. I. I. I [He speaks this quieter and quieter, finally in a whisper.] There remains no matter. That exists beyond space, beyond matter. It permeates matter and it remains forever.

This became a talk of blessings, of welcoming the new year, a new time, new persons, and a new life. It became the introduction of meditation. Wherever you are, you are the Examiner, the Knower. Just know the Knower—which is not possible for the mind to know. Because the mind knows things and forms, from the body born till the body ends. But the Knower knows when you got birth, when the Knower made your body in the womb, when the Knower made you to breathe in, to see, to hear, to have a desire, to feel insufficient, to feel unfulfilled, when the Knower made you get association and have temporary fulfillment and to again have the desire to get fulfilled again. It is the Knower’s creation. …

I wish you well and a very prosperous, happy new year, including your health and happiness, and the generosity, greatness and love at heart with which you cannot divide. So indivisibility is the Knower. Check. Whenever you are material, your mind has a desire, a sense of duality attached to the body. That is attachment. Since the body changes, attachment changes. It brings you disappointment, frustration, anger and greed, it brings you your pride, your ego, your ownership and your owning power. If you are attached to the body, it is not love, it is attachment to the body.

But then your mind meets the mind. At this time, your mind met the body. Since the body changes, so all the troubles of the bodies as they are and the joys of the bodies as they are will come to you—because you are attached to the body. So you are hankering to love. Love will only be when your mind meets the mind: then it is love. This love lasts a little longer. When the mind does not come, then love is not. If some object has a mind, maintains the mind, and with the mind knows that you exist, then love is there. So the love of the body is temporary, changing and dying. The love of the mind is a little longer, but it is also temporary, changing and dying.

The third thing which I offer you, by way of knowledge in the year 2009, is for the mind to be in tune with the Spirit. That is bhakti, devotion. If you are devoted to the Spirit, attached to the Spirit, in love with the Spirit, it is forever, permanent, and keeps you high forever. The first kind of love for the body is painful and brings death and destruction. The second kind of love is of the mind to the mind, or a human being to a human being. It creates friendship, love, cooperation, assistance and help, and it changes in time and space. But unchanging love is bhakti, devotion, devotion to the Spirit. It’s called devotion to the Self. The Self is Pure Free Forever Eternal. …

Our attention has been led to that Space where there remains no heart and mind. When your heart is there and you are missing someone, it is very uneasy. If your mind is there and you are thinking of someone, it is very uneasy. If you are thinking about something and that thing is not available, you feel very uneasy. So as long as your mind is not taken out to the Space from where it has come, a human being will always be desiring to get there where the mind rests and sleeps, in the same way as a river is very fidgety, mobile and keeps moving. It gets flooded, but it keeps moving until it reaches the ocean, where there is no river.

So we use the technique or knowledge to attain that peace, that blessed state, which is the Self. As long as your mind is in the waking state or in the dream state, you can check, what happens to you? You are always with the things that appear. You are always dealing with the things that are. You are always disappointed with the things that have ended—in your dream, and the same is also the case in your waking state. So now, how would it be possible for you to get that which you have been wanting for ages and ages? …

It is only the human body where we want everything that we want; it must be available. It will be available only when the mind is absorbed. But the mind does not get absorbed, because in the morning it again gets up. It remains in the evening and you like to sleep, because then the mind is not there. But it is not absorbed, because it again gets up. There is the possibility that your mind can be transformed, transformed at a place where there is no mobility, no movement. The air moves and slowly and slowly it becomes not only a breeze, it becomes a storm. But when a storm or breeze subsides, what happens? There is stillness. The same is the case with the mind. It’s either mobile like the ocean waves, all the time wavering, or all the time like the wind, the praanic energy. But in meditation, it is the science of the unfoldment of the Space, about which you say, “Open your mind, open your heart.” They sang, “My mind has been stolen,” which means it is not there. That Space does exist in a human being, beyond his heart and beyond his mind.

In the waking state we want to meet the mind with the mind. So the same type of thinkers get together. And the same type of body-consciousness wants to embrace together. But they cannot meet, because on the body level you just cannot meet. So you go a little deeper. You study, and with the mind you meet the minds. Then, you feel a little bit of comfort. You call it love. But that love just ends up in the production of more minds. That’s actually not real meeting. Real meeting is where your Absolute Bliss Consciousness remains the oceanic Space, forever just the same, without wavering, without appearing, without disappearing. …

In satsang, you are lit. Lit means your mind is not there and your heart is not craving something. That’s the Space you are just now. But you cannot describe it. That’s why I don’t ask you to let me know what happened to you. We just leave you as you are. Sometimes we say close your eyes for two minutes and watch. …You are Me. Therefore, Me and Me became. So there are no two persons, devoted one to the other. All the waves subsided. All the bubbles got opened. All the storms subsided. All the ideas stopped. This is the Space which you will examine yourself and realize. I never expect you to listen to me and be That. Don’t believe in me. Believe always in You, because you are the first, the waking state next, deep sleep is later on, and the dream state next. But you are always there before you were born and became asleep. You were there before you woke up and cried. You were there before you began to be quiet, to think, to have imagination and images. But you were there before.

Therefore, we the human beings have been hankering to get to our true nature, which is just Oneness. That is what we love. We call it happiness. We the human beings began to know that when we begin to love our friends, we like, we eat and drink, but they go away after two days. Because on the body level our minds can meet, I can talk and they can listen, and it feels very good. But it is impossible that we two persons will ever be together. Therefore, what is that which is togetherness, which goes with you whether you are born alone or are ended on the level of the body? You remain forever the same. The nature of that is Pure Free Forever.

I am glad you are realizing That. I hope to see you once again. With eyes, we see forms, but you hear me saying that it will be nice to see you again. As everyone has said for the last 2009 years, “I’ll see you again, I wish you health and happiness, no worries and no tension.” But it’s your observation that concern and question comes, doubt comes and scepticism arises. Why? Because we are human beings. And we want to be at the Source. I’ll be quiet. Inside, repeat with your Knower. I’ll sing and you listen. You have not to sing with me. Just be there in the Space and listen: Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum. Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum. Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum. Hum Hum Hum. Hum Hum Hum. Hum Hum Hum. …