Man’s Faith Is In His Own Illusion

Bhakti Nath: … I would guess that of all the yogas described in the Gita, probably more verses are devoted to action than to any of the others. … We want to act and be free. Non-doership brings up the question of who is doing and who is not doing. If I think that I as the body am doing, then non-doership would mean to place my attention on being the Self. If I think that prakriti or the gunas are acting, then the body is free and the Self is non-doer. But then there’s also the other possibility that the Self is doing everything and nature is just an instrument of That. My question is, where do I go from here?

Swamiji: You have just read the Gita, and it appears you are wanting to understand it. If you had not read the Gita, you would have been doing your work. So I begin with you and others and me, not with the Gita. He has said that in the Gita, the major part is of action. But in the Gita, the major part is of Krishna. [Laughter] Now, Krishna is deleted and we, as human beings, began to see and talk to each other. We do not know where Krishna is, what Krishna is, what Arjun is and what the Gita is. So he wants to remain free while doing action. That means he has concluded that whatever actions he does, the meaning or sense of their results is always that which does not satisfy him. That means he gets involved, so he wants to do action again to get a better result. Getting a better result means that when the result of the activity is known to him, he should feel completely satisfied and no result should bind him. In this light, he wants to know how he should act. All human beings are acting. When you ask, “How should I act?” it means that you are unique and you are knowledgeable. For you began to see that the result of activity either involves a man or makes him free. So he wants to do that action which should result in the sense of freedom, which he should get.

If you know action, then you can do good action. If you know arms, then arms can do something. If you know eyes and ears, they can do. But do you know action? Have you ever seen it? Here you can be exposed that you do not know action, yet you are talking about it. You have seen hands shaking [he shakes his hand]. You have seen feet walking, eyes seeing, ears hearing, a man riding a bicycle or driving a car, or anything like that. But where is action? You have never seen action.

Bhakti Nath: No.

Swamiji: You accept this?

Bhakti Nath: I accept it, yes.

Swamiji: Then why would you like to do action when you do not know what action is? [Laughter]

Bhakti Nath: I say I’ve never seen action, yet I have seen the results of action. You used the example of an arm moving.

Swamiji: Then the result of action is what?

Bhakti Nath: The movement of the arm.

Swamiji: No. The result of action is the sense of happiness or unhappiness—not movement. Movement is not action, it’s movement. But where is action? It’s neither gold nor silver, nor your head, hands or feet.

Dikpal: Swamiji, why isn’t movement action?

Swamiji: Because action is not seen and not known, and you only know those things which you see. You can see hands.

Dikpal: So then you’re letting us know that you are speaking about something called action and that action by definition is something which is not seen.

Swamiji: Yes.

Dikpal: Okay, great, now I understand why movement is not action.

Swamiji: Thank you. [Laughter]

Dikpal: Normally, if a car is going along, you see that it is in action.

Swamiji: That’s a normal human being and normal life. Everybody sees something, but not the Life. So if you see action, why do you not see it in a dead body? The body is there and not moving. So who moves the body? That is action. That you miss, and that you don’t want to accept.

Dikpal: So action is like the power of movement, or the impetus to move.

Swamiji: Yes, but where is the power?

Dikpal: Right, that is unseen.

Swamiji: That unseen you miss, and you don’t want to get it, nor do you want to examine it. That is a human being—not you, I mean everybody is like this as a human being. He sees a child—especially a mother, who sees a child in her womb. Now, what does she see? She sees that the child is, and everybody says that the child is. This is because she came to know that form is, she does not know that action is. She does not know who is moving the action, yet she says, “It’s my child.” Why? She has decided that “This is my body, me.” She is not making the child, still she says, “It’s my child.” You think this is normal, so you never pay attention to it. I’m digging that which you are able to understand and that you do not know. A human being does not know who is making the child. Satyam has come and she will say that “DNA is making the child, and that’s all.” You agree, because she is a professor and she will say, “You have not known DNA, I have seen DNA, DNA makes the child.” Now, you are blocked. Who makes the child? … [Pause] You don’t want to accept that, so you are quiet.

Dikpal: Who makes the child is the consciousness in which the child is conceived.

Swamiji: But then you should know what consciousness is; you don’t even know action.

Bhakti Nath: Then a human being cannot know who makes the child, and a human being with his mind cannot know action.

Swamiji: Yes.

Bhakti Nath: Then action is something that you could say is the source of movement, the source of creating the child. If we come to know that source, how does that produce freedom from action, how does that create non-doership?

Swamiji: Because it depends on the Source.

Bhakti Nath: If the Source is the action…

Swamiji: The Source is not action, the Source can move the action, like the water of the ocean moves the wave. How would you explain this?

Bhakti Nath: You see the wave, but you don’t know who creates it.

Swamiji: If you do not know, then why do you not accept, “I don’t know”?

Bhakti Nath: I don’t know.

Swamiji: That’s all. So then it has been settled: you don’t know action. A wave is there, and you know it because you see the form moving up and down. But up and down makes you create a difference between the water and the wave. About that you conceive it is the air that is moving it. This is being explained by me as being like a snake seen in a rope. In the night, a man sees a rope—which I say it is, but he sees it as a snake, he calls it a snake. What has happened to him?

Dikpal: He’s under illusion.

So his question is being answered that if the body is performing action and you say, “I am performing it,” then you have to know, “Does performance belong to I, or does it belong to the body?” So then you have to bring the light, or that “I never perform action, because I have never become the body.” You have understood I as the Self. If the Self does not perform action, why would you get its result? You will be non-doer if you know the Self. So the Self is missing.

Bhakti Nath: Which means remove the illusion, shine the light, and there is Self.

Swamiji: Just that. So illusion is not being removed, and a human being, by birth, has illusion. How would he be able to remove it? He cannot. He tries hard, but he cannot. Therefore, what is needed? Light. The grace is needed. But grace is not of a fool. Grace does not belong to the one who is stupid. That you don’t want to understand, that grace belongs to God, and God is Krishna. So Krishna is doing everything, God is doing everything. Why does a mother have to be worried that “I produced a son and my son is like this, so I am worried”? She has to remove all this illusion, which means the meaning is to be changed. Mostly, people say, “Change your view, change your illusion, change this, change that.” So you should change the meaning: you have never been a mother.

But all the people in the world say you are a mother. Even a cow-mother is a mother. The cow never made the calf. But animals cannot know this. It’s a human being who is supposed to move further from humanity to that which has produced him. He has assumed, “I am a body,” and forgot himself, that the Self is first, that That has made him appear.

Many times you open your mouth and say, “Shhhhh.” [He exhales] To whom does it belong? Not to a dead man. It will belong to you. And you are who? The body. [He exhales again] From where does this come? From the body. That is the illusion. It was already there, the body never made it.

This mechanism is not being understood. It is Shuddh Chaytan, Pure—only Pure, for chaytan is also consciousness. So Pure is doing action, but you say, “My body is doing.” Pure means one without a second. Pure means adwait [non-duality]. Pure means Self. Pure means before Brahm: Brahm [Absolute] and jeev [soul] are two names, two upaadhis [qualifications] of Shuddh Chaytan. So man is just an upaadhi, name and form. Since it is not being understood, you want to understand it. But when there is no hole in the pearl, what can Guru do? He cannot put a thread in it. So you have to bring a hole, you have to work for yourself.

You have to understand that “Well, if my mother has not made me, then some other Being is there who made me.” That you don’t want to accept. Because you have been completely hypnotized as a human being that “I am this, and I’m making my body by food”—as if food makes your body. Food never makes your body. But where did this I come from? That is where the problem is. I is nowhere that you make: I is everywhere, ever-present, that Guru knows. That is the difference. The agyani [unknowledgeable one] is struggling, and agyani means “illusioned.” And you don’t want to be disillusioned—because you want to keep your illusion intact and know the result of being disillusioned. [Laughter] It cannot be..

It is not a mistake, it is not a crime, it is made like that. Naaham prakaashaha sarvasya, Yogamaayaasamaavritaha… [Gita 7:25—“I am before the manifestation of the world. Human beings have not been given the power to know Me as the Source, because I am not seen by their eyes. …”]  That is why the Gita is essential, or anybody is essential. Maaya, the illusion, has been introduced in a human being while making him. A human being is not made by his mother and father. Still, the mother and father say, “I have made my child.” Here it’s clear to you that “Yeah, Swamiji seems to be right. But I’m also right.” [Laughter] That’s the problem. I’m stretching your illusion, your imagination, which means I’m purifying it. But you don’t want to get purified, because you don’t want to accept. Jigyaasu is the one who has the capacity to accept the answer. Otherwise, he is not a jigyaasu, he’s a questioner. Among millions of people, a jigyaasu could be one. And each one of you is a jigyaasu among seven billion people. But you don’t want to accept, you want to copy the majority

Aatma Shakti: Swamiji, you said that Pure is doing action, and that’s Shuddh Chaytan.

Swamiji: Yes.

Aatma Shakti: So previously when you had said that all action is coming from the Source, but the Source isn’t doing anything…

Swamiji: The Source is the cause of everything. When I say that the Source is not doing anything, it means that the Source alone is. Why is the Source understood to have been doing anything when the Source alone is? For the seed of a tree, the seed alone is. But you say, “No, the branches are doing, because fruit is coming in the branches.” I say the seed alone is, and the seed is the source. This much you can understand. But the seed is also not there. That is adwait.

Bhakti Nath: If the seed is not there, then ultimately there is no action, there is only the seed—not the seed, only Purity.

Swamiji: Correct. It’s only Purity. So you have understood Purity. Then why is Purity the world? Why is Purity a man?

Bhakti Nath: Just Purity, period. [He leaves the seat. Applause]

Swamiji: If you know Purity, then worry will not come. Pain will not come. Suffering will not come. Dr. Gaurav will not be worried about who dies. He will act as long as he can act. He has a certificate that says he is uninvolved. But he is involved; the certificate is uninvolved. [Laughter] Human beings have to evolve something to run the show—of the family, of people, of the body and all that. That is not being known.

Therefore, it takes time for a child who has a brain and who has just to accept whatever the schoolteacher says to him, and so he learns ABC. That is the right type of consciousness of a child. The teacher says, “Make an ‘A’ like this,” and the student says, “No, I don’t want to make it like this, I want to make it like that.”
The teacher says, “No, that’s an ‘O.’ ” The child says, “No, I think it’s like this.” This will not work. That’s why they’ve evolved many things like faith and trust. But man’s faith and trust is in his own illusion. So why will illusion work? Illusion takes him to death. Then he says, “I’m dying now. Come on, my family members, it’s ten days before I’ll die. Come on, sit down over here, I should see that my family is.” Your family was never there. Such things are not told, because they appear to be absurd. So we talk only that which seems to be “surd”—not abstract. [Laughter] …

Awareness is the reality, it is your truth. It is called Shuddh Chaytan, Pure Being. If Pure Being can be grasped by you, treat it grace has showered. If it has not been grasped, treat it grace has not come—because you were not putting your attention on grace, you were putting your attention on objects and persons. But we say grace is always there, it never leaves you. Grace will always be with you. Grace and Guru and God is all one Being, and it is there with you. But how would you know it? Guru says this clearly: Close your eyes and know. You received the grace. But you are not accepting. You say, “Well, that is nothing. I don’t want grace, I want good marks.” When you know you are That, then you are nirgun-niraakaar [Absolute], you are not sagun-saakaar [form]. Krishna is not sagun-saakaar, although he is talking about bhakti [devotion] and all those things. He says the bhakt [devotee] is one who understands his Self. The bhakt means the one who does not understand that the body is the body, he understands that that which is Awareness is Krishna—only Awareness. As long as Awareness is there, nobody can destroy the world, nobody can destroy you. You will always be there, because you are Awareness. Awareness is self-effulgent. You use the words, but, as I said, change your meaning and have the meaning that is being spoken to you.

I do not say that you hear that which I say, because immediately you have a faultfinding habit. Immediately, you say, “He is a person and I am a person, so how can he say anything else that I do not understand?” Then Guru speaks, “Try to capture sound in your hand. Can you do it? Try to capture meaning in your head. Can you do it?” Pure Free Forever. The one who understands Pure Free Forever is the same Me. That is Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum,Pure Free Forever. [Applause]