Satsang  –   Volume 12, Number 7: May 29, 2009
Back to List of SatsangsPrevious Satsang Next Satsang

I Am Talking To The Knower: Know Your Self

… For all these years, each person, as an individual on earth, has left his childhood. Now, you have come to know this. And you know that you cannot get back, you cannot become a child. So why would you copy a child? You cannot copy an old person, because you are in the middle. And you are alive, so you cannot become dead.

A human being is supposed to have grown up in the unfoldment of the awareness that that which has no vikaar—no modification, no formation, no form—also exists. As well, he sees forms with his eyes, such as seeds and branches, sprouts, leaves, flowers, fruit and unending birds coming and going. All forms are vikaar. That which is nirvikaar [without modification] can only be given to the person whose understanding is such that he understands vikaar. Milk was not in a cow when it was a child cow. Now you see vikaar. In that milk, you see the vikaar of curd, where milk is not. Curd cannot become milk. Also, butter is not curd and butter cannot become curd. Butter produces light through a mechanism, and that light cannot become curd, milk, the cow or the grass that the cow has eaten.

This is a human being. A human being only knows this: he is born. This is vikaar. It is prakriti [nature].So all prakriti is vikaar. And your training has been that prakriti is natural, and that that which is natural, or vikaar, we have to accept. All the garbage is lying in front of your door—vikaar—and you should accept that vikaar is good because it is natural. So a human being is not fully developed. …

Yesterday someone said, “I want to execute it.” How can you execute it, when you are the mind, the asmi [I or I-sense]? It is said, “Forget about asmi. Say Brahm [Self], not asmi. Know that asmi is Brahm. Brahm asmi, I am the Self. Aham asmi, I am I. Mein hoon, I am.” Hoon [am] is the body: I am the body. If you want to execute “I am the body,” then execute, “ ‘Am the body’ is aham”—which is not a form of any kind. If this is realized, then what will the result be for such a person? He will never feel any sense of fear about death, disease or old age. And a human being is afraid of these three things. …

If you see the human predicament, you will really be laughing all the time. It is most ridiculous. Animals are not worried about anything. Birds are not worried. The carpet is never worried. Earth, fire, water and the sun do not worry. It is only a human being who worries. Then why do you have to study the whole geography? Study one human being, who is not seven billion people, rather who is the first one—you—minus the other seven billion.

Now you think, “My eyes were little, tiny ones when I was seven days old. They did not conclude about any forms, what they were. And the same eyes are here now. I could drink the milk of my mom, although I was one day old. So that Knower who knew to drink milk is the same Knower who now knows where and what milk is.” So the Knower is ever the same, and all else laid on it is garbage, or layers after layers, like a banana tree has. The Space is ever the same, it is the Knower. But you became the bulk of a human being. What happened? The intellect became gross. To that intellect of a human being we everyday address, “Look you have power, you can be the subtlest. Why are you only stuck on the mountain, that the mountain is good but not the river? Or that the river is good, but not the glass of water, which you drink?” So, this is the study. Those who have not done this study, they will remain as they are. …

We are the victim of our memory, the victim of our intellect, which decides and thinks, “This is right.” … But you are the Space: no intellect, no mind, nothing. That you don’t grab, that you don’t accept. I say, you are the Space, or gyan vigyan [the science of knowledge of the Self]. There is nothing on earth except gyan vigyan. Names and forms are added to it. But gyan is your reality. …

Human agyan [ignorance of the Self] works for this purpose that he knows one flower, and he sticks to that. He says it is beautiful, and he keeps it. He says the flower vase, the container of the flower, is beautiful; and then the table that contains the flower vase also is; and then the podium on which it rests, the earth that contains the table, also is. So he wants to possess the earth. If he has no land, where will he stand? So he needs that which is gross, and he should have the knowledge of the gross. The knowledge of the gross is called agyan. You call it the ego-intellect-mind, or the senses: vaani. This collective group is called vaani. So a man’s vaani speaks agyan, and Guru’s vaani speaks gyan. That is the meaning of Guru’s vaani speaking. … Guru wants to open the agyan door—and then your space is already there, the gyan. But a human being is made such that however hard he tries, he does not get it, he does not get the point. Therefore we do saadhana, we practise all the time. …

Aatma Shakti: … When we sit with you, then I feel, “Right, this is what I want.” I think as soon as we see you, we feel, “This is what I want.”

Swamiji: If you want this, then why do you leave it? Why do you drop it? So you have the use of your mind to want something: grehen, possession. And then when it doesn’t work, you want to give it up: tyaag. [He laughs] All minds do this. It’s the functioning of the mind, and it has been given to a human being. Like a poor dog gets a tail to wag. What’s the necessity, when the tail does not eat, does not drink, does not work, does not attain anything? [Laughter] Yet it is there. So the mind is a human tail. And now, it is not seen where it is, otherwise you could cut it. But that’s where the human mind is. So Guru is always speaking to the human mind, which means to agyan, and he’s giving gyan. There are only two things. That’s all.

Aatma Shakti: How then can I know more clearly that which I want?

Swamiji: You are made such that you should not know. So why do you go against the mind? The functioning of the mind is such that it should compel you, it should keep you bound so that you should not know. Whatever the mind does, however hard he tries, he does not know. And for him, the schooling is, “Through books you can know, through teachers you can know. Through jar [insentience] you can know, through chaytan [consciousness] you can know.” Why? Because that is the system. So a human being is a system. But gyan is not a system. If you don’t have a Guru, the information will not be available that the gyan that you have is not a system. Now you want to know, “I want to see in which pot the system is.”

Aatma Shakti: No. But I want to be free of my mind’s confusion that covers You.

Swamiji: That confusion is the functioning of the mind. The mind will never give up its nature. The functioning of the eyes is to see forms. So you should find out the one who is asking for that which is You, or which is Guru. The eyes cannot see without form. Suppose a human being wants to open his eyes and see no form. If such a person wants to use the mind to see no form, it will not work.

What has worked at this time is that which Guru has said. When you got it, that is gyan. But your mind is accustomed to covering the gyan in a split second. So again you ask, again you get, again you ask, again you get. In this process, if the mind’s functioning gets dissolved, then whatever remains, that is gyan. Thus, we give you the answer: practise. …

When you hear, I become sure that you got it. But it is not me, the mind, who has made your mind, or who has produced you as a child. So I cannot succeed. I can give you the information of how to walk, how to catch, how to see, how to think, how to drop. This information I can give. But it remains for you to drop the sense which creates duality, which thinks that “I am Pure and the body is impure”—which means “I am Unchanging and the body is changing.” Both these senses have to be dropped, because this is duality—that one is permanent, one is temporary. I say these two ideas are based on illusion. And illusion is that which is not there. Then these ideas are not there. So I reach you to be convinced that you understand. But you again pick up that something is permanent and something is temporary.

Aatma Shakti: So is this the sense that occurs at the bottom of the stairs at the end of satsang when I begin to take up a different sense, that “I have to look after this and that,” and that’s where I’ve left the permanent?

Swamiji: Permanence is that which is neither permanent nor temporary: that I call permanent. It is param [beyond]—through the mind, it can’t be known. The mind thinks permanent is that which is a steel house, because a steel house lives longer in time. Girdhar said that scientists want to inject something in a man so that he should remain up to a thousand years old. Their approach is only up to a thousand years, because they are human beings. People are satisfied that a thousand years is a lot. [He laughs] And I’m saying, Everlasting!

It’s a great joy just to watch all this. But each individual—which means you—you have to see what you are. That’s all. You have to see where you are caught. I say Pure Free Forever is Space. And it is caught in the cavity of the heart. The heart is all around, and it is in between. Now, the heart is to be broken. [He laughs] Yes. Thank you. …

I am talking to the Knower, “My dear Knower, know your Self”—which I say to people is indescribable, because your vaani, your collective senses, cannot reach there to understand it. Thus it is called paravaani [beyond vaani]. Vaani stands for the collective senses of knowledge, but you translate it as “voice.” Voice is just from the mouth, but all the senses collectively are called the being who speaks. That is man, or the mind, who conducts the whole show. …

Now, what can you describe about praan? You can say, “The mind is not there.” This is your description. If praan is not there, you don’t hear it saying anything. When it moves back and forth, you say it is breath. Breath is not praan. Yet they made praanaayaam as breathing in and out. Praan is that which is in existence by itself. … Whatever water is moving, it is praan. Whatever sun is moving, it is praan. Whatever sky is blue, it is praan. With what power do we know this? That’s also praan, which can unfold knowingness, chitt. If praan is not there, then consciousness cannot function. And if chitt is not there and praan is there, then there is only Space.

Up to this point, a human being can understand. But when you are meditating, how can you describe what you are doing for one hour? Neither praan is known, nor the mind is known, nor the functioning of the senses is known, and you were deep. We can say deep. For a human being, deep is when you dig deep, when something is serious, profound or grave—again the world. So language is not capable. Therefore, we introduce meditation. After talking so much every day, there must be a few minutes of meditation. It doesn’t matter if it is two, three or four minutes, but meditation must be introduced. Who gets the introduction? The very praan. If praan and the mind are together, then hearing can take place. If one of them is missing, hearing will not take place, although the ears will remain there. So what is it? The whole system of a human being is made such that it should not know the Space, the originality, the truth.

Now a human being knows the world as a whole, the geographical, physical world. A small child does not know it, especially one in the womb of his mother. But you never identify that that is you. You have forgotten it, because change has taken place. You are not milk, you are curd. You are not the rose plant, you are a flower. That is where a human being is. He became a visible flower with all the petals, all the senses and organs. Fragrance is there, but all the petals together, or the flowers, do not know fragrance, although fragrance is making them petals. So the source is fragrance. Our fragrance of this flower is praan, praan-aatma, param-aatma. Praanaatma is the only reality.

A human being can know this. He can conceive that there must be something. When the world forms are not there, there must be the Space, or one reality. But then immediately the mind says, “What is it to us if I have that one reality? You can tell me that when the world is dissolved, it is one reality, and that the world came from one reality. But what about in the middle?” The one who thinks about the middle is the mind. As long as the mind functioning has not been coloured by Guru mind, who knows that it is the Space, you cannot be free. Guru mind knows that out of the Space all the grass is coming, trees are coming, the mountain is rising, the volcano is happening. Then the human mind can understand, so such words are used. Otherwise, there is no necessity of words. You sit down quiet, I can sit down quiet, but you cannot be free from knowing. …

Yuktaanand: … Is it that ego is just the sense of body, and as long as it’s body, there is ego?

Swamiji: Suppose I say yes, what do you get out of it?

Yuktaanand: That then tells me that any sense of me being a body, a human, will interfere with me understanding Space.

Swamiji: What else will you have, other than the body and ego?

Yuktaanand: That’s why I asked the question. In meditation, I have a sense of it, because there is no mind there, yet there is a presence.

Swamiji: That presence is not a sense. It is here and now, forever. That is what is aimed at, to identify that you are That. So if you identify that you are That, then it is ever-presence, it is not ego. The ego will interfere, it will not allow you to identify, That I am. That is the ego.

Yuktaanand: Given that the mind always has to work in opposites, is that the functioning of the ego?

Swamiji: Ever-present reality is ever-present, but the ego does not accept it. That is the ego. So we want to let the ego be neutralized or reduced to that where the ego is not functioning. Then the ever-present reality is already functioning. That has made itself the body. The whole mechanism is made by that ever-present reality. But the ever-present reality does not now know, “I am without a body.” It says, “I am the ever-present reality, with the body, in the body, permeating the body.” That is the ego. Knowing this, you can succeed in sieving it, that the ever-present reality is reality, is ever-present. It can make the whole world and all the films, yet it will remain free from all the drawings, pictures, sounds and things like that. Then you got it. That is ever-present reality. That you are. Having known that, you will not be victimized or caught by the ego. That will be the result of our realization.

Yuktaanand: So there is no refining ego at any point?

Swamiji: No. What do you refine in the eyes? The eyes see forms, that’s all. At the most, you can put some ointment or kajal on them. Or the ears—you can have a little stick and clean them. The ego is not to be refined. The ever-present reality is, the ego is not. The ever-present reality, Paramaatma, is and the world, which means the ego, is not. Why do I say this? Because a human being is only a material body-ego, the whole thing, and the world.

If I leave the world as it is, it will never hear me. If I leave you as you are, you have no chance to hear me. You will meet so many people, and they will talk about all that which you want to have. An insurance man will come to you, an arrangement of marriage man will come to you, and an arrangement of death man will come, saying that you can buy a plot over there. You will meet all such things. Wherever you go, you get all that.

But here it is totally different, because I am different. “I am different” means I am not part of ignorance. Yet I am the one who is permeating ignorance. I planted flowers, why am I not the flowers? So I know I am all-permeating, but in the evening I go home and I am in the cave. … I’m everything. If I’m defeat and victory, then I can know it, otherwise not. I project something which you are. You project only that which you think you are. So your basis is thinking, and my basis is That. …

It makes no sense—who is doing and what is that. And the whole world is going on. You only understand when somebody dies. Then you say, “It never made sense to me.” … As long as one is alive and you are around, it makes no sense to you. You fight and quarrel, and you say, “He’s like this, he’s like that.” His mother died. If he knew she would die, why did he have to get involved in so many problems? If he knew he was not born, why did he have to go here and go there? …

A human being does not know why he’s born. If you knew why you were born, at that very moment you would become alert: Don’t waste time. Immediately, you would come to know, “I am lying in the bed of my mother’s womb.” How long would you be lying over there? You had to come out. But you cannot. There, you were very comfortable. And now you have the same habit. You are lying in the womb of the earth. And you are asleep. For how long will you sleep? If you come to know you are here to attain enlightenment, then you will listen to Guru and will come to know, Who am I?

… You are united with Aanand [Indivisibility, Bliss], you are Aanand. But you think, “I get joy because of this, I get joy because of that.” This is where a man is caught, when he does not know that his nature is Aanand—unending. That which is unending must be un-beginning. Before birth, there is Pure Space, here and now. After death, there is Pure Space, here and now. If here and now is everlasting, then why is it not here and now in the middle? That is missing.

That has been maaya, or the mind of a human body. In the middle, it is the body. So many people say, “Well, there is no possibility, because of the body.” Aatma Shakti says, “I’m the body, and I want to see You.” Now, that must not be the body’s eyes, nor the body’s mind. Each one wants to see Me. Me is not a form. Even when you say Guru, then Guru means gyan. It’s called Guru gyan. Guru means Brahm. Guru means Pure Being. Guru means gyan vigyan. Guru means science only—no subject, no object, no physical thing. That’s called Me. When you got to know Me, the ever-eternal reality, that is your end of knowledge. Thank you very much everyone. God bless you. [Applause]




Previous Satsang
          Next Satsang   
 
Copyright © 1999-2009 International Meditation Institute. All Rights Reserved