Swamiji's Amaram Day

Arrangements for Swamiji’s Amaram Day started very early in the morning, with teams of us helping to prepare–for two hundred people–a delicious meal, cooked over open wood fires, under Krishna’s expert guidance. At eleven, we gathered on the fully decorated roof to celebrate. Many from the Kullu community came to honour and appreciate Swamiji and have his darshan. We all brought flower garlands or fresh flowers for him, and Swamiji garlanded us with them in return. Beautiful songs were sung, each with an exquisite musical arrangement, which culminated in Jai Jai Guruji Jai Jai, for which Swamiji played his chamitas. That ended the first day, but the celebration continued on the 1st, when more celestial songs were sung, inspiring speeches given, and incredible satsang revealed to us by Swamiji. The following are the main excerpts of Swamiji’s talks from the 31st.

… Happy Amaram Day to everyone! It is the Amaram Day of everyone. As Consciousness is one and the same, therefore it never changes into an individual, a second or third person, or millions of people. Those parents who have their children born in front of them think that every child is born. That is why we celebrate birth–just to let them and the person who is born know that they are Pure Free Forever Unborn. In this way, they may not become the victim of the knowledge taught by those who have forgotten their true nature and have begun to say, “This is your name, because you have a form. This is my name, because I have a form. These are the names and forms of your relations. This is your house, this is your cradle, and these are your toys. This is your world and your desire to cater your hunger with the supply of food, from whatever is made available.” This is the knowledge that has made every child knowledgeable he is born. Then he sees elders dying. Many of you have lost grandmas and grandpas, at least great-grandmas and great-grandpas, so you know the tradition of human beings: those who are born will die.

Every human being, although he appears to be a child, is never worried about time, space, age, food, thirst, disease, and destruction, but they are to be taught to him. This means that out of him such ignorance is to be unfolded that he is an individual and stands for himself–to look after himself and later on the whole world. So human beings are not like animals or birds. Those who are in the forest are much freer and not bound, because they don’t have human consciousness, which can be unfolded and trained by all the ideas and thoughts into which parents, in every society and country in the world, are training their children. So when I say it is your Amaram Day, it is totally against the current knowledge of human beings, who think that because someone is born, so he should be respected. If he’s not born, there’s no need to take his form into consideration, to love, respect, or show affection to him, or to help him–because there is no form. Therefore, I’m talking to the people who have the knowledge of forms and who get confused if it is said to them, “You are unborn, you are immortal, and you will remain forever the same.” The human mind is not trained for this.

You have come over here to the one who is celebrating this Amaram Day. It is a name, Amaram Day, but you are the same. You are observing the birthday of a person whom you have seen has become older. Perhaps this year he is eighty-four years old. You have respect for age. If someone is young, there is no respect given. If he’s older, then there is respect. Not to the body, rather to the age, to time. So when you hear me saying, “Happy Amaram Day,” at that moment your knowledge is tuned in to Immortality, your basic nature, the essence of your existence. Why? Because you have been hearing me. Just as you have received knowledge by hearing others, so you have also received knowledge by hearing from me that “Your essence is Immortal. Your hair, fingers, toes, nails, or clothes can be cut or burned, but you are forever the same. That which is forever the same is not born.”

What is that which is not born in the world? A human being cannot understand this. Yet he wants to know his own true nature. Because daily he has had the awakening that people with their forms get perished. And he feels, “I don’t want to.” He doesn’t care for his body, how old he has become. But he cares that “I should not change or perish into dust.” Who is that I? The one who truly feels “I should not perish, because I am unborn. So, I am undying. Rather, I am unchanging.” But people don’t have time to examine their I.

I stands for the Immortal Being. And that Immortal Being is you. So, you. I didn’t say that Immortal Being is your shirt, coat, pants, or hair. I’ve used the word “you.” Who came over here? You. But each one thinks that “you” is the body. Now, you cannot say that this is not the birthday of a person. You can identify with that. So your Amaram Day is just a kind of celebration, as you hear that “The Sky is immortal, Space is immortal, God never dies.” But a human being cannot have the sense that he is immortal. So I say that this is the day of the immortal moment. A moment can appear and disappear, but that moment which is immortal is forever the same. …

People know the names of months, the names of time. Thus, they are celebrating time, not a person. And the person was never there. So we bring about the knowledge that that which is no person is all Immortal Existence. This is the moment in which you can associate with time immemorial, or time-present. That Spirit is forever the same. When I came I had said, “Happy Amaram Day to every-one”—one without a second. So you can know it is immortal. For the last forty years, it has been the work of all of us to alter your consciousness, which has been established in time and space to know names and forms which are spoken through persons who are born in time and space. To alter this, we cannot use our senses, because they are all in time and space. They function. Therefore, how can it be altered so that you can know your Immortality? By allowing the senses to take rest from their functioning.

I request you to know: That is immortal. Realize that this Space is immortal. The Space you are watching with the inner eye is immortal. The Space which you watch with your eyes open is changing. Therefore, it has been our opportunity to hear someone who has been gifted or graced by God to know himself as Knowingness, the Knower-Space, forever. It is so subtle that it permeates the sky. It permeates air, fire, water, earth, things and forms, and makes them so. When a human being has come on earth with a very limited capacity of the senses, he has no ability to ever call what he’s watching with closed eyes as his own Self: Immortal Amaram, Madhuram Indivisible, forever the same, delightful, likeable, happy, joyful. That is he himself.

We have taken forty years to let you have the sense of transformation from the idea of body-born, that the individual body will die individually, and transfer this idea to “This Space is. No weapons can cut it, no fire can burn it, no water can make it wet, no wind can make it dry or evaporate it. That thou art. That I am.” This is what is you. This is what is I. So this I and you are two sounds for the same which has no form, sound or name. And you are watching it. You relate to the one who watches as the mind, whereas when the eyes are closed, the mind cannot watch. Then, who is the one who is knowing? That is your Amaram Being. And what is being known? Your Amaram Being. And with what is it being known? Your Amaram Being.

But man uses his trio: that which is known, or name and form; that with which it is known, or name and form; and that which knows, or name and form. So the trio is the knower-mind, the object-known, and the knowledge or means. And a human being is made such, for no fault of his own, that he cannot transcend this trio. If he does somehow, it becomes like a sleep; later on, when the trio arrives, he concludes that it was sleep. Whereas all of you are sharing a great space, a great moment, here and now, as the Self–essentially the same, pure, and forever free of ego. So ignorance—which has been involving millions and millions of people for millions and millions of ages–cannot ride over you, cannot get you attached, cannot get you involved. How lucky and fortunate we are at this time in this way that somebody has come on earth, along with all of you, who has reached the climax of their ambition, of what they had wanted to know, or what is that which is Me, undying, unchanging, immortal, blissful. …

Now you have become aware–especially on this day when you had a great sense of enthusiasm, celebration, participation, oneness, love and affection–that if you were many, then there could be many kinds of ideas of love. But how is it that love became one, knowledge became one? Because the Pure Light, Awareness, is one and the same. And that is your celebration. I’m very happy to see you participating and allowing your presence to let me participate and share with you and feel one and the same forever. We have known the results of the illusion which the mind says, or that we are all separate–separate thinkers, separate speakers, separately related. But the Being, as the Knower, remains forever the same.

The Knower never became a dreamer in the dream, it never became a mountain in the dream, it never became a mind that knew the mountain, it never became happy or unhappy. It is forever the same Pure Existence, forever the same Self. And you have understood and realized that “Yes, when I wake up, I know it is the same, that there is no birth, no death, no interactions, no happiness, no unhappiness, no prize or punishment, no victory or defeat.” When you know that the dream figures are just the same as the waking state figures, then at this time, when the waking state figures have gone, you have come to know: the waking state figures are not Me, the figures in the dream are not Me, forms are not Me, relations are not Me, objects are not Me, diseases are not Me, mental waves are not Me, emotions are not Me, earth and sky are not Me. This became your realization: Me is Me alone, one without a second. In other words, Self is Self alone, without a second which an ignorant person could make into anything.

This is very much appreciated by me. I’m delighted and love that you have taken care to express your sense of Oneness, your sense of realization, and have exhibited that when you have reached this, then everybody is accommodated in your love, in your knowledge, and whoever is needy at this time, you are always ready to help as your own Self. You never take anyone as another creature, or as another bird or animal, nor a person as a foreign existence, nor even matter as other. It’s all one reality. This sense of Oneness is being sought by everyone. But not many people dare to examine their sense of Oneness, which is very close to them in the form of I. But you did it. And you came to know that I is never the form of the body. No limbs, no parts. I is the Whole. If you do not say I, you say “Am the Whole.” If you do not say “the Whole,” you can say I. But it is not an individual or a plurality. It is beyond figures, numbers and words, beyond the functioning of the human intellect. That’s why you became unique. Your children and friends are unique, and your deeds and doings in meditation are unique. You do not have the regular symptoms as relative figures. You are unique. Neither material earth and its objects can match with you, nor can space, clouds, or colours match with you. You are matchless Amaram, matchless Madhuram. … [Meditation.] You appear to be in that space which is called Guru. You have met Guru, you have seen Guru, you have known Guru, and you have known Guru power, the subtlest possible power, which can be given to the sky, to the sun, to fire, to the ocean, earth, trees and birds, to conscious beings and unconscious elements. It is only Guru. That is what the celebration of the Guru Space of Consciousness is. And Guru welcomes every Guru to share. I thank you for all your doings. Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum. [Applause.] …

The result of this science–the celebration of your sense of Immortality–will be that you will be the best divine human beings, you will be ideals to humanity as a whole. Wherever you are, Guru is within you, Guru you are. So Guru will not be separate. Someone had told me, “I love you, I’ve seen you and known you, and I’ve known your effect. But I’m afraid that away from you, what will happen?” I said, “No, you can never go away from the sky. Wherever you go, sky will be on your head and in your heart. That is Guru Being.” … A stage appears in which you become like the existence of sky. Your heart becomes like sky, which has no wrinkles and is always indivisible. There remains no existence of worry, turmoil, or any kind of shyness. You become totally free. …

It’s Me, the mirror. Guru is like that–who sees the mountains, and mountain-like people like Pierre, Valdis, Girdhar, and Gagan, but he sees they are Me. That is Self Realization. The Self is such a mirror that when it sees, its eyes are open. You call it the inner eye. It sees all the forms of the world and of all the universes as its Self. That realization is very rare. Our sages and saints have spoken about it. People have heard, but cannot get it. Why? They have no time to practise or examine where their heart is–that heart which can love each and every thing. If there are a thousand petals in a flower, your heart loves every single petal. It is not that the heart becomes a thousand and then it loves. It remains forever one. It has thousands, infinite numbers of universes in it, and it sees that “It is Me, my Self.” Why? It is egoless. That is the ego-free heart, the ego-free mind, the ego-free senses, the ego-free being. Ego is ignorance of the heart that is pure, free, forever just the same.

It is not a human being’s fault. It has been introduced in him as the very being that has come out of the mirror. Just being in the mirror, he became a scene of a rabbit. Now the mirror sees that a rabbit is there. The mirror has forgotten, “How can there be a rabbit in me? It’s always Me. Me-form has appeared as this rabbit.” In the same way, your infinite heart as the Self sees the whole universe and ultimately realizes, “It is all Me.” So Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum. We have sung songs. Singing and singing, we have come to know “This is what I am, this is what you are.” So we will begin with songs, and after we will have food. Thanks to everyone, those who have cared to spend time, to get garlands and to see that they may be small or big, but their neck is my neck, their heart is my heart. They bow down, I bow down. Thank you very much. [Applause.] …

I appreciate not only the singers and musicians, but also the audience, which is of a very high order or heart that they can sing and recognize the meaning of the songs as coming from that Being who is prior to this universe and who has an infinite number of atoms from which he can make millions and millions, innumerable universes. They are all his songs. Each atom is his song. How great a gift humanity has been given that their whole life they can sing–and still the ocean of songs is so great that the songs are inexhaustible and there will still be people singing. …

It’s called new light, the freshness of Awareness. It is the victory to the consciousness of Love, which means Oneness. As a human being, you can only have love recorded in your heart when you have the sense of Oneness, that this universe is nothing but you, you are the Whole. Whereas the knot of the ego, mind, intellect, body and consciousness is that which says, “No, I am conscious, and the mountain, water and fire are unconscious.” This is called a knot, duality. This knot is opened only when the love consciousness, or newness enters. Such as today, everyone who has participated has attained the sense where their knot of time, space, food, sitting, and tiredness has gone. You are still sitting. You’d like to continue more. But I’ve decided to take off and give you time, being one with you, knowing that you are also human beings. I congratulate and appreciate you, that you are born just for the knowledge of Oneness. Thank you very much, everyone. God bless you.