Without the Formless, Forms Do Not Exist

Satsang taken from the celebration of Swami-ji’s Amaram Light

In the womb you do not know how old you are. When you are born you do not know how old you are. It means you do not know the age of your Self. Self is first. It is birthless, formless. But Self is also with birth, so it is birth-full and form-full. Self grows as a baby, as a child. So Self is also grown-up in age and time. And Self works through the senses and body organs, so Self is a working situation. And Self becomes old. Yet Self is uninvolved, because Self was never born.

Whether there is an eighty-eight-year-old man with understanding of this world and forms or no understanding, it is the same bodiless Being—it is called vidayh mukti [liberated from the body and world]. Jeevan mukti [liberated while in the body] you live because your life is free, but your body is not free. So you have to discriminate between Life and body. And when you discriminate you come to know that you have always been Life—body came, body goes, body changes, and body will not be there.

Thank God, the Almighty, who himself brought all these people. Yet each has forgotten that he is the very Being. Here we are to remind you that we are just the same forever—Pure Free Forever, Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum. …

Now we have some songs and we are certainly endowed with the capacity to talk about Life, thinking about the gift of Life. We are alive. As long as we are alive we like it and whatever is not alive we do not discard but we know that life is not there. So whom do we love? Life. And I wish you eternal Life that is forever even while body is changing, coming, going, and growing. That eternal Being, Life, is forever.

The celebration is always of the form—we celebrate any kind of form that appears. Soon spring is coming and every flower, every leaf is just coming out and we get delighted and we celebrate. But, by seeing the form and celebrating the occasion of the coming of the form, we forget the Formless.

It is very difficult for every human being to remember what Formless is. Because with eyes we cannot see the Formless. Eyes can only see forms. Even sound is a form. Flowers and fragrances are there—they are forms. Vegetables and the taste of food are there—forms. Water—form. Walking on earth—form. Grasping things—forms.

A human being is a symbol of that entity-existence that celebrates the forms only. That form is called body. Even the bud of a flower is a buddy, body. And the human flower is a body. And all flowers, all human beings are bodies.

What will a human child get? He will get the awareness of bodies. And he was never a body. So it is not really easy for anybody to communicate—or for anybody to get the communication. But each one is seeking that which is unchanging and is not like the body, because the body changes and the body disappears. Because of the body we get attached—we call it “love,” “knowledge.” And this attachment is dependent on human consciousness arising in the waking state, which is ignorant of that Self that is formless.

We cannot tell people they are ignorant because they all know that anything that is seen is knowable—eyes are knowledgeable and the things are the objects of knowledge. So we seek those people who are opened in their awareness and have the wider awareness that if something is born, then there must be some cause. If tree comes out, then seed must be the cause. If child comes out, then mother and father must be the cause. So is the case with everything.

However, in the middle of the consciousness that is cause and effect, we are seeking that which is causeless. Sleep—you will never know what is its cause. But when sleep comes and dream forms appear and the dreamer appears, then so does cause and effect.

A person who is born as a human being is aware of cause and effect. Why is he effect? Because he calls his mother and father his cause. But he does not know what is the cause of them. And they do not know what is the cause of their fathers and mothers.

That which is causeless must not be an effect. We have analyzed this. Why? Because all of you are attentive and brilliant enough to understand that the world, which appeared at one time, there was no cause of it. That causeless is the Being, which exists forever.

If truth exists forever, then truth has to have its expansion. So the world is nothing but the expansion of the truth. But the moment it is expanded, becomes visible, man thinks—birds and animals we don’t take into consideration—that the visible world alone is, although it was not once and it will not be. Therefore, human consciousness is in the middle—after birth and before death. And he says, I am the effect and there is a cause. If it is true that effect needs a cause and cause is not there, then effect must not be there.

Find out what is the cause of your own existence. Guru has come to know that each body, each set of parents, each manifestation is a manifestation like the dream figures, of which there is no cause but they exist. They exist for whom? For the agyani [the ignorant one], for that one who does not realize the Self.

Self is causeless. And that causeless is truth. Causeless is love. Causeless is knowledge. Causeless is Sat [Existence]. Causeless is Chaytan [Consciousness]. Causeless is Anand [Bliss]. Causeless is param [supreme].

If the human being has come on earth and he is causeless, then he somehow should know he cannot be effect. He is made to know that he is effect, although he is that which is akaran, has no karan, or cause.

It is the senses that are the causes of all the manifestation. Manifestation and senses are in one line, one existence. But when the child was not born his senses were not in existence, his organs were not, and his body was not. So the child came into existence, a manifestation without any cause, akaran.

Now, a human being has no ability to know an effect without any cause. It is only Guru who says there is a place that is totally causeless. And the disciple says, What is that?

It is a kind of north and south—Guru is north and disciple is south [laughter]. And the disciple says, Tell us what that is? So the Guru introduces to the Pure Consciousness the direction of north, the direction of the highest, the direction of higher than the highest. And that direction is not the North Pole, it is Pure Free Forever, Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum—it is causeless.

If that is causeless, then if any person comes to know the causeless, he will have no attachment to this effect of birth and death. He will be free. That is the knowledge, information and the message. …

Music you hear, it is very pleasant. Words you hear, they are also not unpleasant. But unless you know the meaning, the Joy, which is the absolute Being and your true nature, does not come through.

You, the one who knows, can see the forms. They do not know you, but you know the forms. Your body or your coat does not know you, but you know your body and coat and shoes. In the same way, the forest as a whole does not know you, but you, the forest keeper, know it. So the world forms as a whole do not know you, but you know the world.

If you forget You, then what will happen? The result will be that that forgetfulness will immediately become a body. And Guru-ji says that the body does not know you. If you become the body, then you become body consciousness, not Self Consciousness. So Self Awareness is, as I said at the beginning, pretty difficult to come to know, because in front of our eyes and ears and senses there is only form, which does not know you.

Thus, when you become the Knower of you, then everybody pleases you, every sound pleases you, every form pleases you. Why? Because you alone are permeating the whole. Without the Knower, nothing can be known. Thus, the Knower and the things are one.

The message always will be from your side to others who do not know: become aware of the Self, the Knower. Then you will see the Knower in every being. And whatever a mouth speaks, it has nothing to do with that—it is the language of the objects and people. But the Self is that which is always one with you as the Knower.

Since the Knower has no form, the difficulty for the mind is how to know. The Guru has come to know that you are the Knower—each one of you is the Knower—so he respects you and loves you and thanks you. And, again and again, he leads your attention towards your own Self, the Knower. Knower is in existence, and if you know that, then you are also the Knower. …

Every year, I have been saying that I was born in 1924. I do not know actually what one–nine–two–four is, but [it is said as] 1924. Eighty-eight years have passed and I have practised that I was born in 1924, then how can I forget it? A man practises for eighty-eight years that “I am born.” And for eighty-eight years he has been celebrating the form’s appearance, experiencing joy, giving others joy, and sharing joy with everyone.