Purify the Intellect

From their childhood, all human beings have been compelled to unfold the mind, which was not there in them at birth. Therefore, the mind entity is not real. The child is real, his body is made of material elements so that is alright, but it has been observed that for a child, the conscious mind is not there. Yet the potentiality is there for it in his body, we see it. That’s why out of that potential power, the child has been compelled to hear words spoken by his mothers, friends, and relations. The power was there in potential form, so whatever he heard, the result was that the knowing power of things and forms arose in him. When the child’s name was given and he was called again and again by that name, through the association of the sound or name with his form, he unfolded a power that this body is that name.

But the power which was knowing, out of which the child was born, is not seen by his parents or by anybody. The knowing power or Knowingness was there before all the elements came into existence. It is not earth, not water, not fire, not air or breath, not sound. Where did the knowing power come from? It was earlier than these five elemental materials, which we know as human beings. Everybody knows them, so we use them. As human beings, we do not know exactly how they came about, but we see that they are. Yet however hard we try, we are unable to know where the knowing power came from.

The knowing power will start knowing, “I am.” A human being can understand this, because he knows “I am.” You will say “I am” yet he will say “you are,” and for his “I am” you will say “you are.” So “I am” depends on the power of knowing. Now the knowing power is not any material. As I have described, from ether right down to the earth there is no knowing power, yet a born human being has it. How did it enter in a human child? This should be inquired into and known—where it is.

When a human being dies, it is not found; when he sleeps, it is not found; and when he is unconscious, it is not found. Then, consciousness is that power. A child is made conscious of things and forms. So the purity of the Knower of consciousness is missing. It is there in a human child—but it is missing from his “I am this body”—which means it is missing from a human being’s intellect, which arises sometime after his birth. That becomes the intellect existence, the understanding, mind, or ego existence. We know these words, and this is what we conceive of—that it is there, it is felt.

So human life is dependent upon the intellect. Without the intellect, no one will say, “I am this body.” As a child, when this intellect was not there, he could not say, “I am this body.” But it was made to appear out of Knowingness, because Knowingness was there, and it was there so much that it made the body—it made all the bodies. So Knowingness has not been lost at all. It is still there, even while extending the body. If you extend your knees, it does not mean that your legs or feet are born. It is the same. So Knowingness extended, and it became form, a child.

This mechanism is also not known to very highly evolved, intelligent beings. That is why unless you find a Guru, you will never know that your need is to refine your intellect, which is meant for seeing “I and you,” for knowing “I am this body and you are that body, I know things and forms and bodies,” and all that. The intellect says this. Now if the intellect is not reformed, if its view and understanding are not transformed, throughout it will remain knowing “I am born and I am going to die.” Whereas the knowing power is neither born nor is it going to die—because it is made prior to when the body came into existence. That Knower is before all the five elements. But when in that Knower, consciousness appeared—when out of Pure Consciousness, consciousness appeared—and it says “I am,” that became your ahankaar [ego] and the ahankaar of all the beings; whether they are sentient or insentient, they know “I am.”

The moment “I am” came into existence, then the very Pure Being—in language it is said—forgot himself as Pure. What does he say? “I am ahankaar.” Ahankaar became a form, as if an object, and that was a subject. So the subject, Pure Free Forever, has now appeared to have been forgotten and says, “I am this ether, I am sound.” Sound or ether is not enough, it wants to touch it. So then desire keeps coming. And all the desires are imaginary. So imaginary consciousness started coming. It was not imaginary before, when it was Pure Consciousness. Pure Consciousness kept extending imagination: first sound, then air, fire or sun, water, earth, and all the things and forms on earth. They are all based on imagination. So they are vrittis [waves of consciousness] of imagination, or forms of imagination. All the forms appear to be concrete, but they are imagination, for which we use many examples.

Such as an artist sees a totem pole, a kind of tree, and imagines how many murtis [statues representing God] can be made, and then he carves them out. It’s all a totem pole, yet they are called statues in wood, stone, silver, brass and all such materials. But all are murtis. The whole world is nothing but a big murti based on imagination. Therefore, imagination and the world are just the same. If you can reduce the world forms, it’s imagination. What is to be done to remove the world? Remove your imagination: then the world will not be there and imagination will not be there. What will remain? The Knower.

A human being, who is developed and inquisitive, now needs to have the power of purifying the intellect, which does not want to get back to the Source from where Knowingness has been taken by it. It says, “I am the intellect, and I am full and perfect, and whatever I say is correct—that I am this body. Therefore, I am this body.” Now as masters or aware beings, we know that we have never been bodies: because we are not born. Therefore, on the day of celebration of your birth [it is Kamla’s birthday tea], it is possible for you to know you are not born. Because you think “I am born,” therefore we use your intellect for the purpose of unfolding the power which knows that “I am born, but I was never born.” That means, I was there as the Knower. And when I am born, then the Knower became an object. When it became an object, then it became intellect existence, and on the basis of intellect existence, the whole life is being lived. Then a human being dies and says, “I am this body to die.”

The Knower has never been the body, has never been the elements. The Knower is still there in a human being. The Knower wants to clamour and urge upon the mind and intellect, “Well, leave me, leave me.” But he cannot find time to be left alone. Therefore, when he meets the master, the master tells him, “Well look, that which you call ‘I’ was never born.” Then, what will happen? This ego-intellect-mind will be dissolved—if you can understand this. If you do not dissolve it, you will remain victimized as a human being.

So the process is to be known that we, as human beings, have come on earth to realize our own Self, the Pure Knower. But the Pure Knower is not found in the picture because of the intellect. The intellect creates a defect in the eyes, which say “I only have sight.” It creates a defect in the ears, which know “I only have sound.” Yet the ears and eyes came from that Knowingness. So Knowingness has been usurped by the intellect. The intellect has the store of Knowingness and releases it to this, to this, to that, and becomes senior, a great master, the intellect, and that’s called the mind of everybody.

All the scriptures must be alright, because that Knower alone is. So anyone can say anything and it sounds good, but ultimately when you die without getting to know, then it sounds like nothing has been realized properly. Therefore, at this time all of you have come on earth with that awareness that says,“Well look, I really want to know what I am. I’m saying ‘I am this,’ and this was not born. If this was not born, then what were we?” The intellect does not know. Then you hear from Guru intellect, who knows that that was Pure Free Forever Awareness: Knowingness. It is Pure Knowingness, Pure Consciousness. We know Pure Consciousness as existing things, so we say Pure Existence, and we see the delight and joy out of things, so we say Pure Bliss. Then it becomes that which we have come to know in India as Satchitaanand: Pure Existence, Pure Consciousness, Pure Bliss—which is You, for which we say “your true nature.” And you can’t get it, because the moment we say “your true nature,” it’s as if true nature is something and you are different. Actually, you are that Satchitaanand.

So Saakshaatkaar [direct realization of the Self] will be that every I sitting over here should know “I am That, I am Saakshaatkaar.” If you know that, then the functioning of the mind will be dissolved. It will be completely dissolved. If it is dissolved, then you will know, “I am the Self, I am Pure Consciousness.” If I am the Self, I am Pure Consciousness, then Pure Consciousness alone has come through imagination: through imagination the ether, air, fire, water and then earth appears. Yet it appears that these are big entities and I am small, whereas I am the first one, who is the highest, and these are all my extensions—my arms, ears and things like that.

In this way, when anybody realizes, then he can retain it with confidence, that “I am That, I am Pure Free Forever.” At the same time, if by chance somebody asks, “Who are you?”  then you have already said, “I am Pure Free Forever.” Why does he want to give you the idea that you should say “I am Shiv Nath,” or “I am Brijendra,” or “I am this”? “You call me Brijendra or Shiv Nath, but I have come to know I am That, and I am still That.” Therefore, all this has never changed. Even while making all this machinery, it is That. Therefore, there is nothing but That, which alone is. That’s called Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum, Pure Free Forever. That is the greatest thing, if you can understand this and repeat it again and again. …

Everybody is a selfish body, because the intellect says, “I am the body.” And I am saying, “Look, it is the work that you cannot enhance and increase the capacity of the same intellect. So purify the intellect, which means transform your intellect, so the intellect should know, ‘I am the Pure Knower, Free Forever.’ ” I have talked about samyak darshan [Vision of the Whole]. Samyak means that the Whole is the Whole. There’s no world then, it’s only That. And That became all this. “Became all this” does not mean That died and this became. You can make drawings, but it does not mean that you died; your imagination remains just the same. You can have further use of imagination and make other drawings or other forms, other sculptures, or everything made by an architect, such as houses and all that, but it does not mean that you have died. So that Knower has never died. That’s Amaram and that’s Madhuram. So Amaram Hum, that Knower, Madhuram Hum, that Knower. And Maranam tan dukhanam tan [The body dies, the body is painful]. [Laughter.] Time and space changes, not Me. Thank you. [Applause] …

It’s not that we’re developing the intellect, we’re purifying it. Developing the intellect means that you can make a good cell phone or airplane. But the purified intellect will not function the way the ordinary intellect functions for birth and death, appearance and disappearance. The intellect makes the cell phone appear and disappear; it makes the body appear and disappear, it perpetuates birth and death, the birth and death wheel. Purifying the intellect means the intellect is no more the intellect of this type: it is dissolved. We do not leave the intellect, so we say to purify it—because a human being only understands the intellect, whereas there has never been intellect: that’s Pure. …

We have the power to know why imagination is real. We are still unrealized, so we make a drawing, and the drawing and colours become real—while the artist, whose imagination was producing these colours and drawings, becomes nil. Yet the artist is still there. The art piece can go anywhere, it can even be burned, but imagination is not burned—it is there with the Being, with the artist. The artist is Pure Free Forever. So the artist is Pure Free Forever rather than imagination. Imagination is like the thread of a spider: if the thread is burned, the spider is not burned. … So you should know who you are. That is Aatma Saakshaatkaar [Self Realization].

All the forms are yours, but it doesn’t mean the forms are you. All the forms have appeared and disappeared, they have died, but it does not mean you are a dead body. You are never dead. You have never appeared, so you are never dead. But your mechanism is such that through consciousness you made this leela [sport], and this leela continues it as a kind of maaya [illusion], and it goes on. This is the field of maaya, we call it the field of agyan [ignorance of the Self]. Through agyan you lose your Pure Free Forever, and through agyan you call the intellect real, which is imagination. …

You can understand that if the ego-intellect-mind was not there as a child, then it appeared from somewhere. And if it appeared from somewhere without reason, then it is not science. Science says that an effect must have some reason. So the ego-intellect-mind is unreasonable—akaaran kaaran [unreasonable reason]. The whole world is akaaran—no reason. And it is. Then we give the examples used in the scriptures of water seen in the sun’s rays in a sandy desert. There is no water over there, yet imagination makes water. A snake is seen in a rope: there is no snake, only rope.

Then, how should a human being be able to have a breakthrough from this intellect, when it does not want to be broken? Its functioning is to create the sense of duality, that “I am the body and you are the body, I am the Knower and my bones are not the Knower.” It is one field, but the intellect can’t understand that it must be that the whole thing is one: how can there be two things, the body one and the Knower another, the world one and the Knower another? So I mean Pure. Since people do not understand what Pure is, so we say Pure Consciousness. Then they understand something like consciousness comes out of Pure. It is forever Pure! Nothing came out of Pure. [Laughter.] … We have used these words very cautiously—Pure Free Forever. Because you cannot say either Pure Consciousness or Pure Existence, it’s only Pure. Free: then free what? And Forever: forever what? This is because the human intellect functions in time and space; and a human being doesn’t want to leave it because of the very intellect. … If the intellect is pure, then you will attain it. …

You remain forever Pure. You are Pure, so imagination is your consciousness. Consciousness itself in the waking state is illusory, that’s why nothing works in the waking state, whatever you try, just as in the dream state nothing works—which means it doesn’t work for your attainment of Perfection. Everything works no doubt, you can make a house and this and that, but that Perfection, that Delight which you want, that does not come. So it is simply necessary for a human being to have Aatma Saakshaatkaar, Self Realization, not the realization of making things on the basis of imagination and the formation of things on the basis of imagination. If you possess all that it will not work, because they will all change and they will all die. But you are the one who remains forever the same, even when changes appear and changes disappear. This means changes are not—if they disappear, then the changes’ appearance are also disappearance. It’s not, it’s one reality. …

Objects, persons, sentient and insentient beings are the field of avidya [ignorance of the Self]. Avidya denotes the meaning of that which is not vidyamaan, that which is not present. So the human intellect is avidya, it is never present in the womb of the mother, or even when a child is born. But when avidya comes—that which is never present yet it comes—it becomes his intellect existence. So the whole world is based on intellect existence, which is never there. If you can know it is never there, then why will its making, its construction, its art, its music ever be there? It is all avidyamaan. But to unrealized persons, the whole sport sounds real. Yet he ultimately finds that the concert is over, the art is over, the game is over, and he wonders, “What happened to it? I came here to see it. It should be permanent.”

Permanent is vidya, vidya is that which is forever, about which I have indicated in the beginning: the Knower, Forever Pure Free. That is earlier than the ahankaar, and then the making, by the ahankaar, of the five elements. So all the five elements, including ahankaar, is avidya—which means it is there, but it only appears to be there, so we say it is illusory. If you can retain this, then just perhaps you will know the Knower, that the Knower alone is. And you will not hate anybody, because everybody is in deep sleep. Although they are described as being in the waking state, yet it is waking state moh [illusion], it is moh nidra [the sleep of illusion], which means they do not know their own true nature, what that Pure Truth is, or Pure Love is, or Pure Being is.

That is where the waking state will not give the answer. The dream state will not give the answer. The deep sleep state is already dumb, it will not give the answer. Imagination will not give the answer. It is Guru Consciousness, which is Knower Consciousness, that will. Knower Consciousness alone is. Guru has come to know this. Therefore, he will not distinguish between one person and another, it is all sunshine. The person whose attention is on sunshine will say that sunshine alone is and will not include the sun. But the moment he realizes that sunshine comes from the sun, then it is all sun. Then he is tuned in to the sun. In the same way, if people who have the intellect see that the intellect, things, forms, persons, time and space are real and leave out the Knower, they will never know the Truth. So all this belongs to the Knower, just as sunshine belongs to the sun. In this way, the whole world belongs to the Knower. That Knower is You. Then you can say, “I alone am everywhere just the same.” That’s all your love and joy. …