The Celebration Of Amaram Light

Sing Mangal Sat Guru Roop Naam Hai. … Whenever you are in the womb of your mother, you don’t speak. [Laughter] So, it is a ceremony. Now the word “ceremony” is not a material form, so a human being cannot understand what a ceremony is. Those who are sitting here are not children, who do not know what a ceremony is. All of you know, so we can understand that you are not children. A ceremony is not a material form that you can see. Therefore, you find in yourself, and in everybody, that which should be able to know what a material form of a ceremony is. Unless a mother sees her child in front of her eyes in the form of a body, there is no ceremony for her. Therefore, a ceremony is always in connection with form. A form is considered to have come on earth. Before the form came into manifestation in front of people’s eyes, there was no form. So a human being is one who has forgotten that which is formless, nameless, soundless and free from manifestation. …

As soon as we came here, you were not in the mood for a ceremony. Yet, you are compelled to follow your tradition—to observe some ceremony, maybe of a birthday, maybe of Guru’s birthday. That which is never born, you want to celebrate! [Laughter] Maanav Mangal Roopa, which means that a human being is never in the state of Mangal, or Bliss. You have just sung this. Where is Bliss? What is the name of Bliss? A human being is someone who always wants to have happiness, to have the knowledge of happiness. A happy being wants to have the knowledge of happiness! How ridiculous would it be: when you are happy, why would you like to have the knowledge of happiness? So you would not actually like the knowledge of happiness; rather, you want to unfold the knowledge of Bliss. Bliss is that which is Mangal Sat Guru Roop Naam Hai. Bliss is the name of that who is not born. And that who is not born is Sat Guru Space: Sat, Pure Existence, and Guru, Pure Consciousness. Sat Guru means Pure Existence and Consciousness.

What are we as human beings? Like our mothers and parents: form. Thus, by birth a human being is handicapped from getting the knowledge of Bliss. He only gets the knowledge of what he can see with his eyes, so he wants to know the names of forms. Anybody will give him their names. All that a human being has learned is the knowledge of name and form. From childhood onwards, he has only succeeded in the unfoldment of the knowledge of names, forms and their qualities.

This shows that a human being is in the state of no Mangal, or no Bliss. Yet he wants to have Bliss. For that, he wants to observe any kind of activity. With celebration or no celebration, shows or no shows, movies, theatre, dancing, music or anything, he wants to know the knowledge of Bliss. But he is at a wrong place to observe the activity, performing which he will get the knowledge of Bliss. Whatever he is, he is a form. Whatever is in the form, such as the senses, is form. His activities in the body are form. Therefore, this state of a human being—all over the world, at all times, in all the ages—this state of mind, or of existence and consciousness, is not a blissful state. And he wants to have a blissful state. We call it Aanand, or Mangal.

So Guru tells him, “Well, you are seeking Mangal at a wrong place, at a wrong time, with a wrong body.” For a human being, the body is the only existence. Guru wants to say that if you want to have the knowledge of Bliss, then you will never find it in the world, however hard you try. May you make clothes from the sky and succeed in wrapping up your body with them, but you will not have the sense of Bliss from the world. With your efforts, you may succeed in grinding sand and bringing about oil, which is not possible; but even if this impossible is made possible, still you will not get the sense of Bliss without Gyan [knowledge of the Self]. Without Gyan, you will always have the sense of no Bliss, which means the sense of death—the sense of fear, the sense of death, or the sense of loss, either your own or of somebody else. And that state is of no Bliss.

All human beings are born on earth for the purpose of unfolding the power which may bring the Bliss in their sense. But they are not following the course of activity with which they may succeed in getting the knowledge of Gyan, Aanand, Praym [Love], Sat Chit Aanand, the Space. That Space is not found in deep sleep, in the dream state or in the waking state. Therefore, we are advised to do that kind of activity which allows you to be completely joined, which means pooja—that is the meaning of ceremony. But we ignore that and make all kinds of efforts. The mind is not dropped in the ocean of Bliss. As a drop gets dropped in an ocean of water and becomes the very ocean, in the same way the human sense, with his mind, is supposed to be immersed in the ocean of Bliss, which is Gyan, or Knowledge. That is called Guru. So it is Guru Pooja Day. It is the birthday of Guru. Start singing songs, and enjoy. [Applause]

All our ceremonies, all our work, all your activities lead you to unfold that which is the no form state, the no sound state. That is Gyan. It is knowledge. It is love. That is why we have gathered together, observing this ceremony. We experience and participate in any occasion which brings in the joining, or unity, of one’s own individual sense with the sense of universal Existence and Consciousness. That is called a ceremony.

Now you have come to know that a ceremony is not only of forms. Yet we, as human beings, are left with no alternative but to do that which we can see with our eyes, hear with our ears, and understand to the maximum with our minds. That is where today is the birthday of Guru. That who is unborn is born. That who is not seen is seen. That who is not heard is heard. That who is not there is there. That is where you have to know such contradictory statements. That which is not, it is yes. That which is yes, it is not. That which is there, it is here. That which is here, it is there. So this is the ceremony of Oneness. Thank you very much. [Applause] I had told you that one who is not born cannot speak. Yet he spoke. … [Songs and the giving and receiving of flowers and garlands with Swamiji were interspersed with the following satsang from him.]

We have talked about knowledge of the highest sense. But whenever we get in the state of love, joy and playfulness, Aanand comes. … I have just said [in Hindi] that if you become a human being and become big, but you only study books and talk all the time about knowledge, thinking and philosophies, if you only sit at home reading books, you will have no joy. But when you get into the state of playing and seeing nature, when you have the sky above your head, then you will not have to worry about asking, What is the philosophy of the sky? You just look at it and see its blueness and vastness, and enjoy. In the same way, when you see mountains, which are higher and covered with snow caps, and you just go there and be with them, then you will have delight and joy. In the same way, even when you have incarnated as a higher being, like Raam and Krishn, then you just play with nature, with people, children and friends. Raam and Krishn sang songs and went to the river and played over there. All this brings about joy and love at your heart. And what is a human being for? He wants to have joy forever.

Since joy does not remain forever, because a flood comes and takes away your friends and people, then we become sad and begin to condemn nature. So there is something for which Guru should come on earth and tell us that we are human beings, and human life is chequered. Yet life is all-permeating. So we should be with life, and enjoy, seek and have the experience of it. If life comes in a child and he becomes knowledgeable, playful and big enough and he enjoys life in all its aspects, why and how does he do so? We have to know life is there. When life is there, then why do you worry that forms grow and become big like trees, and when the fall season comes, the leaves are gone—does life go with them? Then you will not have trouble with the things to which you had gotten stuck and attached, seeing the greenery of life and becoming attached to it.

Knowledge is given to a human being to remain detached and watch life the way the sky remains detached and watches life under it. Under its own form, everything is there, but the sky remains forever pure, free, uninvolved and ever the same. The sky does not worry because sheep and goats die. The sky does not worry because a lion kills a buffalo. The sky does not worry because an accident takes place. Life does not worry because of all the people coming and going. So be tuned in to life—which a human being forgets. …

It is the incarnation or birth of a human being which is very, very important. Even a god, who must be in the sky without any form, would like to become a human being with the awareness of the Self, where there is delight and always oneness and love. That love is so secret and sacred that human eyes are not able to perceive it, because human eyes only see forms, and there is discrimination in the intellect—sometimes forms are according to its liking, and sometimes they are not. Therefore, a human being divides love while seeing forms. Similar is the case with sounds. When a human being became a listener, he likes any sound which is likeable, and that which is not likeable, he does not like. So in love, division is created. Whereas love is representative of something which is not a form. Therefore, if form is not and sound is not, then what is that which is love? A human being is not ordinarily prepared to grasp it. Therefore, when sounds stop and the seeing of forms stops, when the eyes are closed and the ears do not hear, what remains? You come to know that love, that knowledge, is invisible, pure, free forever.

That alone has become the sky. That alone has become the sun. So whenever daytime comes, you can watch, the whole universe has a tilak, [a symbolic mark placed on the third eye], or coronation in the form of the sun. When night comes, that very night queen has a wonderful tilak as a moon. And all this is visible to the human eyes. A human being sees the sun become hot and intolerable, and sometimes the moon comes and becomes less and is not liked by him. So he hankers to see that which is his own Self, to see the real attraction, which is called love.

… [In this song it is said] “Love alone is permeating the whole world.” But the attention of one who hears this goes on the world, on all the planets and forms as the “all” which has been permeated, as if they have been saturated in love. But love alone is—which means, when all the forms are shrunk on that bindu, on that point, where you watch your breath and close your eyes, then what happens? The breath stops at one time. What is that? No form, no sound, no whisper, no breath. That is the space of love.

How subtle and most minute, or anuraniyan, is the space of love. But who can feel it? Only those people who are developed. Those whose attention is not fully developed are only seeking those things which are either in the form of sounds they hear or in the form of forms they see. But what is that which is busy watching the sight and hearing the sound? From where do sound and sight come? That is the space of love. That is what Oneness is. …

I see forms because I have eyes. I have heard the songs and sounds because I have ears. But that who is hidden behind the forms and sounds is not visible to these eyes and ears. So why is it a human being’s fault? When the eyes are opened, they see forms. When they are closed, they see that which is no form. How can a person see that which is hidden in no form, as well? A human being’s awareness of the mind knows only to the extent that he can see form and welcome someone, such as a child who was born and it is his birthday. His mother has seen his form. She also saw him sleeping in his cradle. And she has gone to the market, where there was no child in her lap, so she knows him as formless. But what is the way for a human being to understand the one who is hidden in the formless and the form?

If anybody knows the secret, then he does not depend on the eyes, which see forms in the waking state. He also does not depend on the eyes of the dreamer, in the dream state. And he does not depend on the eyes that remain closed in deep sleep. Then what does he have to do? He has to use his intelligence only for that which sees all the forms and knows them after seeing, which sees all the forms in the dream and knows all its forms, and which sees the deep sleep and knows that the deep sleeper exists. But when all these three states are gone, still something remains.

Check. Even if a human being is not there in these three states, then what remains? That was never born with the three states. That is why the Being remains hidden. We began to call that God or Self—sometimes Aatma, Parmaatma, I, you, the seed, seedless, samaadhi or Pure Intelligence. But a human being remains helpless as long as he depends on the eyes and mind of the three states. What does he have to do? He has to meet that Guru who was never there, so he knows what he was. He has to meet that Guru who remains the same, yet who came on earth as a human being, and who knows what a human being is missing: himself. Each one is missing that One which was there. From the moment his body is born, a human being is in the three states. A child sleeps, dreams and is in the waking state, and he never, never gets into the fourth state.

That is why this is the work which all these persons have done. They have the knowledge of the fourth state: you are beyond the elimination of the dream figures, beyond the elimination of the waking state, and beyond the elimination of deep sleep. Yet you are. That is where Bhakti starts. Bhakti reaches there. It starts as a human being. Gyan, or knowledge, starts as a human being. But when it reaches the climax, then it is like today, where you have seen that after forty years’ time, everybody is in that state. Whatever I say, you are knowing—but not knowing with the help of the mind. You are seeing with the eyes, but not really knowing with these eyes. You are hearing with the ears, but you are not understanding sounds with them. It is the very Being who is hidden in every being.

When all of you, like great devotees, came to grasp that Being who kept hidden for so long, for so many years and for so many millions of years, then God feels shy. [Laughter] Because he could not remain hidden anymore, he could not hide. Realization has come this year, after you have devoted forty years. We kept very quiet. Because those people who are only in three states don’t understand what this work is and what is being done. That is why for them and for communication, we just continue acting on the level of the third state, the waking state; sometimes we also watch the dream, but we know.

The stage has come for many of you, or all of you, that you see a dream and you know who you are; you see the waking state and you know who you are; you are in deep sleep and you know who you are; you are eating and you know who you are; you are drinking and you know who you are; you are talking, singing and playing and you know who you are. That is where I am I. I is that I who is hidden in the form of the world, the planets and all. But when as a human being you make efforts—and your efforts are of examining not with the mind, not with the eyes or senses, but with the same Self who knows himself—then the Self knows the Self.

When you reach that stage, then there is nothing else but to receive garlands and to give garlands and to know that all the flowers have the same sap, the same thread. All the forest has the same sap. All the mountains, the land and earth have the same sap. That sap is called essence. That has become very clear when you have seen in your head and heart the birth of the Self today. Thank you. Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum. [Applause] Sing Om Poornam Idam. …