The Year Of Ananya Bhakti:
Devotion To Oneness

Swamiji: I wish you all Happy New Year.

Everyone: Happy New Year, Swamiji!
 
Swamiji: Blessings and a prayer to the Supreme Being for bringing about knowledge, love, happiness, peace and harmony—and, this year, freedom from the mind. [Applause] …

This new year, 2011, January 1, should be lived with complete devotion to that Oneness—Ananya Bhakti. We have lived many years with knowledge, with nishkaam action, or karm,or selflessness, with love and devotion to our work, business and study, and we have found ourselves always running into certain doubts, scepticism, questions and the sense of imperfection. But this year, we have advanced over many years. Forty-five years have gone by doing our saadhana. And the conclusion is that we must get united completely with that Oneness, which is representative of the Space. Space is Poorn Aanand, Perfect Bliss, because the Space cannot be involved by earth; it cannot be involved or touched by the ocean water; it cannot be involved by fire, the sun, trees, mountains or things and forms; the Space cannot be involved by storms; the Space cannot be involved by the blueness or yellowness of the sky. It is completely free. That is why it is called Param Aanand, Supreme Bliss.

Since we have worked on this all these years, we have reached the knowledge that the Space has not gone anywhere else. It has always been, it is always and it will always be. Every individual being is nothing but the Space. Since it was not possible on the level of the mind for us to figure out how Space turns out to be a form, so we remained confused or in doubt that, “It cannot be possible when our eyes see forms that the conclusion is and should be that there are no forms, it is all Space.” So we have questioned all these years, and, still, some of the persons must be having the same doubt how it is that Space turns out to be a form.

Guruji says, “Space has remained forever Space.” It is only otherwise to those people who think they are born, and born solid. Parents forget their child was never solid. The child was not even the exhibit of DNA, not even a thought-expression. The child was Pure Bliss. So in the early stages, they couldn’t give him the information that he is the Space. When that same child has grown up, like all of you, you came to know that the Space turns out to be the form because of illusion, just like in a dream. In a dream, it becomes clear that it is because of the dream. People do not know what a dream is, yet they experience that in it a child is. The child is born, the child is going to school, the child is going to work, the child is going to raise a family, the child is becoming Pa and Grandpa and the child is dead—because of the dream. And when the dream is over, it is concluded that that was the Space. But what kind of Space was it? It was Pure Free Forever. So that very Pure Space makes the dream, and a human being does not know what the dream is. That dream is illusory mind, maayaa or ahankaar.

So there has been one Space, Param Purush, Perfect Being, in the beginning. The same Perfect Being emanated a wave of thought, which is not a wave of water. A wave of thought is not any material form. It is the same Pure Being, who became a conscious wave. Though the Space has been the same, the moment it became a conscious wave, it became an object, and the Space became a subject as well as the object. So the Space remained Space, but it forgot that it has been the Space, so now it says it is the Space object or consciousness. That became our illusion. That is the mind. That is the dream.

In a dream, it is whatever the dreamer is making: the dreamer is making his eyes, ears, mouth, arms, stomach, legs and the whole form. He began to see the sky, sun, water, earth and all kinds of objects. It is the same Being, but with the consciousness of the dream, he has made the whole world. And when the dream is over, it means that he has turned the dream into Space again; and from the Space, again there is the waking state—which is also a dream, another kind of dream, which is longer, prateeti, of longer feelings. And it began to do the same thing: some five bhootas, or material objects, are there; the senses, mind, ego, intellect and consciousness and all the experiences are there—millions of forms and things, millions of times. It is the same Being who is doing this. That means the Space has never become anything else but the Space.

This has been concluded now, 2010 years passed, and we all have worked. Now, it’s a new year. We all came to know that dream figures will continue, and dream figures for the dreamer are the waking state—for the dreamer sees everything as the waking state, and he suffers and has happiness. And when the same dream is over, another dream starts, maybe a longer one, but the same thing starts again. All the senses function, all the material objects appear, and, when it is gone, then again it is the Space.

So this is the Space year. It is the year of perfect devotion to that Space, which is Oneness. Oneness has never become anything else. Yet, because of the dream, because of the waking state, because of the deep sleep in between, it appeared to be that there were three states, and every human being under illusion thinks that there are three states. Whereas when you had met Guruji, he told you, “Don’t see the dream now. Don’t see the waking state. Don’t be in deep sleep. Be in the Space.”

So when you have closed your eyes, just now, it is the Space, the fourth state. The three states are gone—they are gone for the Self-realized being. They cannot be gone for the one who is still in a short dream, or in a longer dream, or in various, different parts of the dream or in deep sleep. No. It’s only for people like you, who have realized the Space, which means the Self. In the Self-realized state you are closing your eyes and there remains nothing but the nature of Space, which is Absolute Bliss Consciousness Space, Pure Free Forever, eternal Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum, Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum.

Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum is the name of that Space, which the eyes cannot see. You are checking, observing. The eyes are not able to see it. The ears are not hearing any sound that it is creating, because it’s not creating. The nose does not smell it, as it is not creating any fragrance. The tongue does not taste it, for it is not any stuff of food or water. And the sense of touch cannot reach there. Action is not found to be there. When the Space is forever free and you have realized it, it cannot be attacked by any of the formed reality. It cannot be involved by any other objective, relative form. So why would it be reasonable for you to have raag, or attachment, for that or for this, when the Space is neither this nor that? It is indivisible. That Space is complete, perfect devotion to Oneness. Why? It is Oneness itself. It is the Self itself. It is Guru itself. It is Sat, Truth itself. It is Gyan, Knowledge itself. It is Aanand, Bliss itself. And when I do not describe it by using any word, it is wordless. Therefore, there was—not the word. When I say there was the word, then the word became something other than That.

So that original Space, having been realized by all of you, you are able to know that all is that. Space alone is. Therefore, wherever you go, whether walking on a solid road or on earth or flying in the sky, it’s all one Space. Since Space is indivisible, it cannot be divided by the mind. It cannot be thought of by the division of the mind. It cannot be decided upon by the intellect. It cannot be conscious that “I exist other than the Space.” It cannot be. It’s all Space.

So you’re free from the mental functioning that sees matter and knows consciousness, which remains always functioning as either sentient or insentient. The realization of Space is Space Realization. It’s called Gyani, or the Knower. When the Knower is there, when Space is there, then that which is known is also the Space, and that which is knowing is also the Space. Therefore, it is freedom from the trio. It is not bound by sleep, where there are only two—some action or breath and some knowingness. It’s not bound by three in the dream—by subject, object and knowingness. It’s not bound by the waking state—by subject, object and knowingness. It is free, the fourth state. It is total Oneness. It’s called Ananya Bhakti. A person who has been seeing the world will continue seeing the world, with raag and dwaysh, with love and attachment and hatred and the sense of duality or non-duality. But the one who has realized is free. The one who has not realized, for him earth exists as solid and the sky exists as a vacuum, or void. But for the gyani, for the one who has realized, there are no two things, it’s all Oneness.

Thus, you can differentiate. Whenever your mind comes, and if it becomes mind and mind alone, then you are an agyani. When the mind has gone and you are in the Space, then there is no division, no trio, it’s all Space. If a human being has that Space in his heart, then he knows Space alone is. Therefore, there is no division of disciple and Guru, or bhakt and Bhagwaan [devotee and God]. Yet, being a human existence, you are a human existence with Space—and that is Pure Space without human existence. Thus, there is existence as space in the jug, the existence of space out of the jug and the jug—which has never been earth, it has always been Space. It is like in a dream, where you see a jug, but no earth goes over there, it’s all Space.

But because of illusion, because of imagination, because of delusion, every human being suffers. “He suffers” means that he knows there are two things: one is a friend, one is an enemy; one is male, one is female; one is a body, one died; one is a seed, one is a tree; one is happy, one is unhappy. You have come out of this sense of duality in the year 2011. It’s a most significant year. It’s the year of Ananya Bhakti, the year of the devotion to Oneness, where Oneness alone is, unity alone is, love alone is, knowledge alone is and selfless action alone is.

… [Meditation, speeches and songs]

In the last verse of the Gita—in Chapter 18, after all eighteen chapters had been sung by Lord Krishna, who was the indestructible Param Brahm, Akshar—he speaks to his devotee, who was a very highly-evolved intellectual, or a mental being, or a worried person, but who was a great warrior. He was pitted against a situation where his intellect did not work, because his archery teacher and his grandpa, who had supported him his whole life and had made him big, whom he had known since a child, were found to be in the enemy ranks, fighting against him. All his relations were there. When Arjun saw them, as well as his relations on his own side, immediately his declaration of war got into that space of confusion where he could not know whether he should fight or not fight. He thought, “If I fight, they’ll be killed. And if they are better, then we will be killed. There will be nobody, it will be a massacre, all over.” And millions of people were there.

So then he came to his friend Krishna and asked for his advice, “What to do?” Krishna gave a lecture, “You should do this, you should do this, you should do that,” and all that. So Arjun said, “Well look, I’m diseased and sick, and you are diagnosing the correct disease, but you are mixing poison in the medicine: that which I don’t want to do, you are wanting me to do.” So then Krishna came to know, “This man needs a lot of work.” [Laughter] All of you know in the Gita there are eighteen chapters, and, in the end, Krishna said to Arjun, “Have you listened to me?” Because he was his Guru, he was his teacher, so Krishna had to make sure of this. For if he had not listened to the eighteen chapters, to so many lectures, then Krishna was again ready to give him eighteen chapters. So he asked Arjun, “Have you listened to me?”

Arjun answered, “My moh, my attachment to my thinking, to my mind, is over. It is by your grace, by the knowledge with which you have made me aware that there is nobody who is born on earth, there is nobody who is going to die on earth, it’s only one Space.” And you are that Space. If that is the case, that Space is one, then there must not be any doubt and duality. When Arjun came to know this, Arjun surrendered his thinking. That is called Ananya Bhakti, where you are not exerting “I am going to take it in my hands to find out the end of this world, the ins and outs of the world, the sense or nonsense of this world, the idea of birth and death of this world.” You will never find them.

Therefore, whatever you were born on earth for, you just do that. Everybody is born on earth for the purpose of utilizing the awareness that is sitting in the heart of everyone. But he has covered it by mental thinking, by intellectual thinking, by his I or ego-thinking, and by the functioning of the senses. So that Being, who is Space, is covered. It is like in a jug. If you make a jug and cover the space, if you cover it completely, what can the space do at that time? This has happened to every human being. He is that very Space before birth. But as soon as his jug is made, or his form is made, the Space has been covered by it.

That’s why everybody is wanting to be free. Why? In reality, he is free. But he himself finds that with the use of the senses and mind he gets bound, he gets affected. Whereas you have heard me saying that you are that one who is in between two trees, so the trees cannot affect you; who is in between two houses, so the houses cannot affect you. You are between two persons, so the persons cannot affect you. You are between two words, so the words cannot affect you. You are between two thoughts, so you cannot be affected. You are between the inner and outer breath, so breathing cannot affect you. And you are seeing from this side and that side, you are in between, so seeing cannot affect you.

That means if nothing affects you, then nothing binds you. Who are you? Pure Free Forever. Thank you. God bless you. Sing Om Poornam Adah …

Thank you for having the bright, sunny year in front of you. And the whole year is of joy. [Applause] The year started with a great success. So the whole year will be success and success. Success is that you are the Space. [More applause]