The Knower Is Everywhere

In any experience that takes place as a human being, we learn something. We have grown after learning. In learning, you need that which can make you learn, but you also need that one who learns.

If you put a towel in school, it will not learn; a pot will not learn; a tie and suit will not learn; a satchel will not learn. If you put books on the desk and they will not learn. A dead man will not learn, and if you put any mannequin there, it will not learn; nor will a computer. You came to know who learns.

The one who learns, he learns that which he is. He does not learn anything other than that which he calls himself. So, we the intelligent, aware, well-educated people came to know that through eyes we see. We see the trees, the mandala, Guruji, but eyes do not see. They see the forms, whatever reflects in them, like a mirror or a camera. The camera takes a photograph, but it does not learn anything, though the photograph is there. The mirror does not learn anything.

This means that the one who learns is not the mirror, is not the eyes. So, we came to know through eyes, the one who is the seer. The seer learns that the trees are there, the fans are there, the whole audience is there. Who knows? The seer.

But the seer is not these eyes. Because these eyes do not learn. They are instruments. They are like two small mirrors. The mirror is insentient, so forms, however they appear, are insentient when they go to the eyes. You call them reflections, we call them pratibimbh.

Then, the learner is not the eyes, which means seer is not the eyes, though it is connected to the eyes. Why is it called seer? Because it knows.

Now, up to seer, you can guess: that there must be somebody behind the camera or the eyes, who knows if the photograph is good or bad. The eyes can take a “photograph” of anything—a thorny bush or a bush without thorns or with or without flowers—because eyes are insentient. In the seer, who knows that that is a tree, is the Knower. The seer’s quality is Knower.

If the seer knows the form of the flower, after seeing it through the eyes, then the flower became one object, eyes became another object, and the seer became another object. But who is the one who is making the seer know the flower? That is Shuddh Chaytan, Shuddh Gyaan [Pure Consciousness, Pure Knowledge]. It has no name, but I have phrased it, made it Pure Gyaan [Knowledge]. Why? Because its opposite, agyaan [ignorance], you know.

The person who hears, hears with the help of his ears and he concludes and interprets that ears are hearing, but ears do not have the capability of knowing. If knowing is missing from the ears, they are deaf. If the Knower is missing from the eyes, they are blind. If the Knower is missing from the nose, it cannot smell the flower. In the same way, if Knower is missing from the tongue, it will not be able to taste. If the Knower is not in the hands, they cannot clap. If the Knower is not in the feet, they will not move.

So what is the source of these senses and organs? The Knower. And the Knower is not a sense, so a human being, with his ability, calls the mind the Knower. In order to decipher the existence of the Knower and the significance of the mind, Guruji says that you should examine.

You should make an experiment: if the mind is the knower, then why does mind not know in deep sleep? Why does mind not know when your eyes are closed? Why does mind not know when it has left the company of the senses? Such as, if it has gone to the Niagara Falls [in imagination or a daydream]. It knows Niagara and it knows also. So, Knower cannot be limited to Niagara or limited to here or in between.

Knower is not limited, but mind goes to sleep at night and wakes in the morning and the whole day it works fitfully—even though people try to concentrate to make it work alright, and use all kinds of means that they should be able to remain knowing.

So, the Knower is not known, but it is everywhere. The Knower is all the senses. The Knower is all the organs. Whatever the Knower falls on, it knows that—on vegetables, on the kitchen, on the stove, on kitchiri, on rhododendron squash, on children, on speaking.

But how can the Knower know, if it has no gyapti [knowingness]? If the Knower has gyaan, then it should have a knowingness, gyapti. If the Knower is gyaan, then gyaan will be able to know the object, a flower. But it cannot know the object, the flower, if the Knower is separate from the eyes and the flower is separate from the eyes, because gyapti is not there, which means knowingness is not there, consciousness is not there.

How does knowledge take place? A small child has eyes and a body, but if he does not see the flower or his mother and father or Pooh bear, then he will be pure—or free from the knowledge of these kinds of things and forms. Knower is called pure. Pure is that which has nothing to do with the knowledge of the things and forms.

It means the Knower has nothing to do with mind and the relative things and forms—related to bodies, related to mother, father, brother, sister, and all this. The Knower has no mamata or attachment, no moh or darkness or blankness. The Knower is pure, so we do not need to teach the Knower.

The human being has observed that the Knower does not leave him. And when he uses the Knower he needs the body and senses. When it uses the mind and senses, the Knower can function and it will become gyaan. After you have learnt everything, then the Knower takes off in the night, because the Knower is all alone and free. The Knower is so free that whenever it likes, it gives itself to the waking state, so you become awake and all the senses begin to work.

And because the Knower is free it can withdraw at any time. So, you can remember so many dreams and things and forms, but when the Knower withdraws, with its freedom, you are blank. People are sitting here, but you do not know their names, because the Knower is not there—although your mind and the senses are there.

If the Knower is not in the mind, then the mind will not function. If the Knower is not in the intellect, the intellect will not function. If the Knower is not in the ego, the ego will not function. If the Knower is not in the hands and feet, they will not function. And, suppose, the Knower is not in the body, it will not function.

So, nobody dies. It is the Knower’s choice, it withdraws. And nobody can control the Knower because it is prior to everything that is in our hands. Ego, intellect and mind are in our hands, but they work only due to the presence of the Knower. The Knower’s presence is Pure, Free, Forever. And Guru says that you are That, and the human being says, “No, I am not That.” What does he say? He says, “I am this body; I am male; I am female; I have senses; I have a brain; I have a mind; I have a heart.”

As long as you are “I am,” you are conditioned as a human being. And whatever a human being has learnt, you say: “That is my village; that is my country; those are my relations ...” all the geography and history. “I am loyal to my country; I am loyal to my countrymen; I am loyal to my language; I am loyal to my culture. And my country is East and whatever Easterners say that is me.” They say Eastern philosophy … what is Eastern philosophy?

We came to grasp the fact that we are human beings and human beings have the sense of duality, not of the Knower. The Knower is the one and the same everywhere—whether it is a scorpion or a snake; whether it is a cauliflower, tomato or potato; whether it is mashed into a pickle; whether it is a swan or a crow or an elephant.

The Knower is everywhere. And everywhere the forms are like sprouts and the Knower is the seed. But the human seed is agyaan or illusion. So the whole of humanity’s working knowledge is based on agyaan or illusion. It is illusion that we see the flower and begin to say, “This is a flower.” It is not a flower. If you melt it, it is not the form of a flower. If you burn it, it is not a flower form, but we say “flower.” The same is true for any thing or any form.

Even a person in a village if his house is burning and he gets burnt, then neither he is there nor his house is there. Nor are his things there. And if the whole village burns, then it is not there, and nor are the people of the village. And, on a larger scale, a city burns and the city is not there; a country burns and the country is not there. And when the world gets dissolved or burns, then it is a volcano not a world. Dissolution takes place and there is no world.

But who remains after dissolution? You might not know, but the information is that it is the Knower. The Knower is so independent that no fire can burn it, no water can dissolve it, no wind can dry it, no sword can cut it, no bomb can kill it.

A human being is conditioned only by that which he has learnt. Therefore, they said that East and West will never meet, but there must be someone who can unite them. That is the Knower, the Guru. And the aim and object of the human being is to know that birthless existence is the Knower, that deathless existence is the Knower. Those people who know only birth and death will never succeed in knowing and realizing their own Self, the Knower.

People do not want to budge an inch from wherever they are stuck. They say, “I am born and I will die.” But somebody came to know that if you must die, then you are not born. That which perishes, how is it alive? And if something is born and it came, then there can be no death for it—neither previous nor to come.

So, Guruji says all the time, go and project from agyaan to gyaan. That gyaan makes you free, knowledgeable of your freedom. It makes you peaceful, knowledgeable of your peace and harmony. And it also makes you knowledgeable that whatever you want to do you can do—you are not bound by any agyaan. Because when agyaan is removed you are free.