If I Am Creating Illusion, I Can Withdraw It

… I will put before you the human dilemma. A human being is, and he knows so many things because of his senses. Still, he is missing something—which he himself is. But he cannot figure out what that is. So in all situations, under all circumstances, the purpose of a human being is to be able to possess the kind of knowledge which enables him to know he is That who is never born, never changing and never dying—and that he is always in the body, in all the bodies, in all forms of existence. That is the knowledge he is seeking. …

Everybody has sense. How did this sense become Oneness? And how has it become the sense of otherness? The sense of otherness is that you see a rope and call it a snake, you see an oyster and call it silver, you see the Divine Self as a human being, as a body. This illusion is a human being. He is under illusion—and you think that illusion is real.

Every morning, you come to know that in the night, when you were sleeping, illusion was not there. So, who gave it to you? Your father never gave you illusion. Your father never gave you hunger and thirst. He never gave you thinking. What happened to you? You think the whole society is making you miserable, that they are giving you this and that. When you were not born, where was society? So the moment you were born, the world came. That means the world and you must be the same. When you are the same as the world, then you now have to find out why you do not see it as the same. …

So you do not have the grasp of life. Seeing its forms, you give it many names. You see it as this person’s life, that person’s life, that it is Sita’s life, Vikram’s life. Vikram is not there; neither is his name there, nor is he breathing, nor is he talking, nor is he remembering his relations. But what happened to you, that you are missing him? It’s not just one Vikram whom you miss. You are missing your grandfather and grandmother. You are missing this person and that person. But are you not alive? So, why are you missing? No one reasons this out. That’s why I say that first you have to do shravan: first you have to hear what life is. As soon as I came I said that a human being is born such that he does not know what life is. He has not seen how his body functions, even how he takes his breath, how his eyes function. You never cared for that. You became sixty or seventy years old, and then somebody told you, “Come on, some of the problems which you are having will be removed if you come before Swamiji.” So, what is your problem?

Gayatri: The idea that there is an illusion that makes me feel separate.

Swamiji: Who told her there is illusion?

Gayatri: You did. [Laughter]

Swamiji: Yes, I did. It is Me who created illusion. And if I am creating illusion, then I can withdraw it. That I is what you are missing. The only difference between all of you and me is I am not missing I, the Whole, while you are missing I and calling this individual person as I, and then the world as separate from you. You see the sky, earth, water, fire and space as separate. You see eating separate, joy separate, marriage separate, children separate, pain separate, death separate, birth separate. Why should you now not understand that the sense of separation is a human being? Which means he is not a human being, yet he calls himself one. …

What is the purpose of a human being before death? His purpose is to become ready to examine that he exists forever. This he is missing. … You are missing that who is ever-present—who you say is born and is going to die. So then you began to call this illusion. It is not illusion, it is a real thing. You are born for this purpose, to know this. So we salute a human being and humanity as a whole, that, “Look, you are that being who has been sent to work to unfold the power that ‘I am That who is ever-present, unborn, unchanging, undying.’ ” Then you will be free from the ongoing thought of people, who say that you are born, you are changing and you are dying. They say, “If you don’t work, you will die; if you don’t meditate, you will die; if you don’t eat, you will die.” Everywhere there is death and death. Whereas nobody has even actually seen death. …

That is the human system. And you can’t get out of it. It’s only me who is making you aware that are you not the victim of the system. Yet you can’t get out of it. You’ll say, “Then, what should I do?” You feel that you are helpless. So it’s not the question of “How should I know that I am the body or not the body?” You should remove your helplessness. That is the work over here. … I’m taking you there where everywhere is. I have no sense of separation. I am leading you there. There is a sense in you which has no separation at all. Yet you became helpless, you were made forgetful, and so you think that that which is ever-present is not and only your body is there to live a hundred years. …

But you have never thought of this. That is your weakness. I’m making you aware of thinking, about where your thinking comes from. You can know this, where thinking comes from, rather than saying, “I am not the body, I have no thinking, I have no mind.” Know, “I am that Space.” You spoke of that Space, as if you conceive of its freedom. So you said that if Space comes, then you are free. Even in sleep, without any instructions, you are happy—much better than Space. [Laughter] So the work over here is that we are making you more aware of your power of understanding, reasoning and intelligence. I call it supreme brilliance. … I say you can also do that which is brilliant. Every child has to be brilliant. Nobody understands that this is the necessity of every country, whether America, England, India, China or Australia. In all countries, brilliance is needed. …

The whole game in the world is going on and you have never paid attention. So you do the same thing. I say, Continue doing the same thing, but there is a possibility that you can eat knowledge. This is what is happening here. You are sitting eating knowledge and getting satisfaction much deeper than food gives you, much deeper than your questions give. If you make that knowledge part of you, you will learn that “I am ever-present Reality, Pure Free Forever, unborn, undying, unchanging, ever the same. Shaanti, shaanti, shaanti.”

But you hear this and say, “Swamiji, you say this, but I don’t.” So I respond, “Then say Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum. Attend it.” But your brilliance is not even that much that you can attend Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum a thousand times incessantly. The moment you do it, you say, “Amaram Madhuram, today I go to Delhi. Amaram Madhuram, I have to give a dinner. Amaram Madhuram, I should go to the Span. Amaram Madhuram, my mother is angry.” [Laughter] This is scattered consciousness, and that is the trouble. Concentration is not there. For the last forty years, I am trying to bring in concentration, but I could only succeed this much with which you have become concentrated. …

It is not your fault. The human system is made like that. You have to understand that you are not at all ever at fault, you are never mistaken. You are born Pure Free Forever. And you will remain Pure Free Forever. But whatever you have learned, you have become. In India, you became Indian; in America, you became American; in Canada, you became Canadian. And all the things which they have given you, you think are real. Since it did not help you, then the knowledge came, “Let me go to Swamiji. Many friends are there, and they want to say something to me about it. Let me find out what I need and what he gives.” So you found out about avidya, agyan [ignorance], because I must have said that agyan is there in the whole world. But I have also said that gyan [knowledge] alone is. Why don’t you get that? You only get that which you think is right. So each person is an individual thinker knowing that his thought is the only right thought, that “Only I am and only I know.” That much individuality! …

Shuchita: … I don’t think I had ever realized how much all this is just imagination. Then, who is left? There has to be something, which is the Being. …

Swamiji: … In whose eyes is there imagination? In whose ears? Who has eaten imagination in their stomach? So, where is imagination? Yet she says, “There is nothing but imagination,” because that is what she has heard. … No one hears me. Each one wants to hear himself, what he has decided. So whatever you have decided, say that.

Shuchita: When you asked, Where is imagination sitting…

Swamiji: I’ll discuss this with you, and then all these people will say that there is no imagination. That’s the problem: I have to talk to everyone at once, and everyone is different. I have made each person, so I know [Laughter]—even a little dog, or a cat, or a bird or anything. So, tell me what you want to know? Now you’ll see how this dialogue happens.

Shuchita: I got to the point that there is no imagination, but then I am not knowing what is?

Swamiji: When there is no imagination, why would you know? Suppose nobody is born. How would you make a figure? She asked the question, “What is imagination?” That which has never been, I should be that intelligent not to answer about, and not take it as her imagination that she questions what is imagination, because she wants to know. And all of you know that imagination means that imagination is not there. … When imagination is not there, then why should I accept it? When death is not there, why should I imagine that it is coming? …

I say that you have never become the body to those people who are afraid of the death of the body. To them I say, “Why are you afraid of the death of the body, because you never became the body?” If you became the body, then you would be frightened. So I led your attention—which is sometimes not one hundred percent alright, which is feeble—to check: who is that who is not born? Who has not come into the body? Who has never become in the body? That’s my purpose, again and again, every single day, for the last forty years. It is to make you more brilliant than you are, just to examine and try to find out why you think, “I am afraid” when I is never even there. If you say that Obama is afraid of all of you, it is wrong: he’s not here. So if you—the ever-present Reality sitting in the body, for everything is that Ever-present—say, “I am afraid of death,” then I will say, “Well, check: I has never landed in the body.” Why? Only your body came in the womb of your mother. But that who is free is still watching after having made it. He has never become the body.

If I lead your attention and make it expanded to know you are That, then identify with That. But you say, “No, no, I’m fixed over here. I am this.” Then naturally, after some time, death will come. So I say this also. Why? I create a fright in you, that before death comes, you should realize. And I know death never comes! As through teachings and words you have become ignorant, so through teachings and words you are supposed to be intelligent. And that will become awareness. That’s why I talk. …

It’s a very simple technique: unfold more and more power of understanding out of the intellect-ego-mind. If that power is only used in the waking state, then it is intellectual power, mental power or ego power. With that, you become more of a human being, a good human being, the best human being, maybe a super human being. But with this intellectual thought, you still die.

But when you meditate and close your eyes, there is no field of intellect, no obvious field perceived by the intellect, no understanding of your body colour, shirt or scarf. It is not there. It is as if that which you make every single moment—the world forms, including your own—is not there. In that peace, in that silence, something happens to your intellect that it does not function to make the sense of separation, that “I am separate and my body is separate; you are separate and your relations are separate; the world is separate and my family is separate.” Something happens to the intellect that it does not do this. Since you do not have the background for this, I have to inform you that whatever remains, that is You—which you call just your hands and feet, nose and ears. Close your eyes. …

That you is of the type which now remains. That never dies. That is ever-present. That is not touched by time, by the clock, by day or night. That is not touched by space, by mountains or plains, by river or forest. It is free from any kind of attachment. It is free from any kind of pleasantness of things, forms and persons. It is free, where there is no hatred of any kind. I say some words, and then I leave you to make your own experiment: Whatever Swamiji has said, is it not ever-present? At what time does it sleep? At what time does it die? At what time does it become the past? At what time does it become the future? At what time does it become free of the past and future?

These are words, which you know. But the Knower is there. And that Knower is the substance, the essence of life. That is the source of every form, sentient and insentient. That is the whole world. And That you are. That is your Self. That is the source of every human being who calls his self the body, it is the source of every thing, of every form. If you have realized That, you will come to realize that the evolution of your friendly intellect to this Space will bring miracles of happiness and joy. Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum. …

You can meditate and examine that that which remains there is your Knower. Having the knowledge of the Knower on the level of the mind, unity will take place between person and person, country and country. For that Knower is the same in every being—whether human, animal, bird or creature. If that Knower is there and the Knower is important for children to know, then you can give them this information through their schooling or teachings, so that they come to know that that which they call I is the Knower. In English, we say the Self. So it’s not that children will not know the Self.