See Whether The Intellect Knows Unborn Or Not

…This knowledge does not fall in the category of words. But from the very childhood, a human being has been given a word—his name—and that became the source of all the words to follow. So a human being is a word, a name, or a form. When I say he is Unborn, then he is neither a word nor a form. This, you can understand. Then you must be thinking, “Would it not be nice if I knew Unborn?” So I say, “Yes, you know Unborn. Have you not seen that 72 years before, you were not born? You know that.” You are convinced and say, “Yes, I know Unborn.” But if you know Unborn, why can you not behave like Unborn?

So a human being remains just the same. However hard you try, after using words to let him know Unborn, he is wordful, so he does not give up words. If words are given, then numbers can also be given. A number is a word: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. He has learned this. Words. He has learned A B C D E F. Words. He cannot get out of them. In order to let him to have a practical experience, we say, “Close your eyes, apply the might and main of your intellect, and see whether the intellect knows Unborn or not; see whether the intellect has the power to know it or not.” A couple of days later, you come to know, “When I close my eyes, the intellect, mind, ego and senses have no power to know what Unborn is.” This experience does not fall in the category of words. Then it does not fall in the category of form. And that is Truth.

But you think truth is that which you see with your eyes. Anything that is seen, that is the truth for you. This is a cloth, a paper, food, or truth sitting over here [pointing to the prasad]. That becomes sat (truth, existence) for you. And for you asat (untruth, nonexistence) is when it is empty here. A human being passes his lifetime of a hundred years being the recipient, through his intellect, of sat and asat. But when he sleeps, why does he not know sat or asat? That’s all. When your intellect cannot explain this, you come to know the intellect has no power to explain it. Then why would you continue trying to use the intellect to know who you are?

Why we take birth and death into consideration is because you know birth and death. But then I ask, “Do you yourself know when you were born?” Again you are exposed—your intellect is exposed. I mean, you and your intellect are the same. Without  the ego, intellect or mind, you cannot be a human being. It is not that you have the intellect only now. When a human being is made, he is made by the intellect, by ignorance of the Self. So he remains ignorant. But all of you are interested in that which you are. And you think you are a human being. I cannot say you are not a human being. I can say you are born as a human being to know that you are not a human being. But you never know this.

So it goes on, unless, by itself, it becomes certain for you—without using words. If words are used, you will be in words, or meaning. I had asked, “Explain one without a second (adwait).” What is one? That you know as 1. What is without? It is neither one nor is it two, a second. Without. I am saying “one without a second” to lead your attention towards that one which is ever-present. Neither is he without nor is he a second. Thus, it has been called adwait (non-duality). But then adwait is interpreted as if it must be opposite to dwait (duality). So the one who said adwait did not succeed in communicating what it is.

Whenever words are used, you cannot know your true nature. That is why we say, “Now you are sitting, you are settled, you have heard, thought and seen. Now drop it.” But you cannot drop it. You say that memory comes, whereas memory has never been there in you, Unborn. Memory has only been of things you have seen once, and your intellect either knows they are or they are not. I say, “Well, your eyes do not see that now.” But you respond, “The eyes may not see it, but I know the Taj Mahal, I have seen it once.” If I say, “The Taj Mahal never existed,” you answer, “No, no. I remember it.” Memory only comes of that which exists in front of your eyes. That which never exists in front of your eyes, you cannot know. Here, we give an example for you, because you are a human being and you know earth and you know sky. We reach up to the sky, that is all. And you are convinced of the sky. But the sky becomes yellow and the sky becomes blue. Yet you are happy with this idea, saying, “I close my eyes and I am in the sky space.”

Questioner: … To me, one without a second will be freedom from the sense of “I am.”

Swamiji: No. “I am” will only come when you are a body. Without a body, you cannot say “I am.” So “I am” and the body are one and the same. Through “I am this body,” you came to know what you are. That knowledge does not fall in any category except anubhav, or experience. You cannot explain “experience.” The intellect experiences a thing which the eyes have seen. So the intellect is dependent on the senses, although the intellect is by itself. Before birth, it was the intellect, it was ignorance. It is not that a child is born or not born. The very intellect, or ignorance, has made the child appear, like a bubble. Again, we come onto your understanding—a bubble in the ocean, a wave in the ocean, a bubble in water—for “water” and “bubble” are again the same words which are being used about nature. When I say there are no words in deep sleep, who knows this? That is you. That is gyan, that is knowledge, that is the Knower.

Even the word “Knower” leads you towards that. But I cannot say whether you are knowing that which I know, or you are using the word “Knower” for the intellect. It is very confusing, so we do not get into whether you know this or I know that, because then it is “this” and “that.” Many people say, “Thou art That. I am That. All is That,” but it does not convey anything. At least it makes you free that you are not this, so the impact of “this” is reduced. But still it remains, for because of “this” you know “that.” …

There is no “I am,” and there is no body, and there is no cause of the body. You cannot figure out the cause of the body. When you say it is the mother, we accept it, because conventionally we have to accept it. Father, we accept. Father and mother both, we accept. But how would you know when father and mother were not, when the first man and woman on earth were not? You have heard the words “the first man and woman,” but do you think the words are becoming them? This is the greatest difficulty for a human being, because he has become a human being, whereas he has never known that he was born as a human being. In this way, we lead the attention. If something happens, well and good. If nothing happens, it is still well and good. …

You were very close to expressing one without a second, but you had no words for it. I can give you the words, it does not matter if you copy them or not. A person says this. The same person says that. But neither has he known this, nor has he known that. He has known the Knower. The Knower is forever. Forever means this also. That also is the Knower.

But “this and that” confuses you, and you wonder, “What is this Knower?” You think, “If the Knower knows this and the Knower knows that, then they both must be, so then there are three, a trio.” Again, you are the same human being.

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We, as human beings, know the changing. Anything that appears is growing and changing; sometimes it is decreasing and changing. It is only a human being who can be talked about, who can be informed that “You know the changing, but you actually like the unchanging.” He is convinced. This is the method, or way, of teaching him, by taking the words “changing and unchanging.” But when he was not born, he was neither changing nor unchanging. To the changing person, who has the view that reality is changing, it is said “Look at the unchanging, because you know the unchanging.” But you do not know the unchanging. Yet people say, “You are 71 years old, you can know that 71 years before, you were not.” Hearing this, you are convinced you know the unchanging. But you only know that you were not, you do not know the unchanging.

We take two words, changing and unchanging, or asat and sat, to communicate that a person can know he is that free Being, Shuddh (Purity), who was not born and who was not seeing the world born. That Being is neither changing nor unchanging. We say it is the Self, because everybody knows his self. It is not necessary for me to say Self. It is not necessary for me to say God. It is not necessary for me to say the individual who is born. If the world was not, and the human being was not, and nature was not, then, as a human being, you are not supposed to know that.

That is what Guru is leading your attention towards. So it takes time. And you only reach up to unchanging. When you grasp unchanging, then again I have to work. I say, “Look, unchanging is in relation to change. And change is in relation to unchanging. Both do not exist. That you are.” I can say words, but you only know changing or unchanging. So we continue living life and telling you that you are changing and unchanging.

You feel good when you know something better than other human beings do. [Laughter] Then you want to teach them, saying, “I know this. You should know that you are Pure Free Forever.” Pure Free Forever has nothing to do with changing or unchanging. A human being cannot get to understand it with the help of the intellect. But he cannot leave the intellect. Because he is a human being, and a human being means the intellect or mind. It is very important for a person to at least start from somewhere, to know what he is up to. But nobody knows what he is up to.

Then we communicate to him that he seems to be up to not dying. He does not want to die. You get convinced. I do not say, “You will have to die,” because it has never been that anybody lived for two hundred years. Why would you not hear me saying that you will die? But I never say it. Rather, I say you are undying. And you get confused. You should know that I have to use all kinds of methods which are closely related to you. That which you have never seen or known, how can I use that?

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A realized being will have pain and suffering, but he will not be influenced by them, because he has come to know he is not a human being, he is Pure Free Forever. A human being is only identified that he is a human being, so it is his very incorrect way of being identified. He should not be identified with a human being. Why? Because he was not a human being at one time. He is born, but he himself has not seen that he was born. That shows how ignorant human beings are about their birth, which has not been seen by any human being. When I say this, you are exposed, “Yes, it seems to be true.” If it seems to be true, then you are ignorant of the Self. Thus, identification is based on ignorance. Therefore, when ignorance is removed, you are not a human being identified with a human being. Right?

When you are realized, all that happens to all other human bodies will happen to your human body. You will become aged, with all it brings. … But you will not feel it as others do—who feel bound by it, who think that they are very bad now, and are very much influenced and affected. A realized one will not be affected. He will know that he is dying, but he will not be affected by death. …At any time when someone is realized, he will not do those things which unrealized people do. That is the advantage of realization. Unrealized people will act to avoid death, and the realized one will also do all the things that can avoid death as others do, but he will not be affected. If death comes today, tomorrow, or at any time, he does not mind, nor does he want to be very happy that he is living for realization. That is where he is deidentified. …

I say both things. I never only say realized things, or sit here and talk about realization and how a realized person acts—because all of you are unrealized. We have to identify. I have to take your brain in me, your thought in me, your mind in me, your ego in me, your intellect in me—which I know, because I had all of them. Even now, I have all of them.

Questioner: But you are not affected by them.

Swamijij: It is you who came to know that it must be that I am not affected, so then you are deidentified. If you know I am deidentified, you must first be deidentified, only then can you know it. Without your being deidentified, you can never know I could be. Because I am the same form, as you are a form. There is no change. Many people who are 91 years old have a beard and a moustache, I have a beard and a moustache. Many people have hair, I have hair—it is growing. At this age, many people have a denture, I have a denture. So there is no difference between you and me. [Laughter] Except that I come to satsang daily. You don’t. …

A realized person can say that even an unrealized person is the very same Being, but those persons who are unrealized cannot say this. For unrealized people, people are all unrealized; they are all human beings; they cannot know that people are other than that. But for the last 46 years, every single day you have been hearing me say that you are unique, you are a jigyasu, you are an inquirer, so you are able to observe and absorb the meaning of the words I speak. And you laugh at the meaning of the words when I speak on your behalf. [Laughter] In this way, you are happy on both sides. And happiness is your true nature.

Happiness cannot be the nature of a human being. A human being is happy, but he wants to be more happy—which means he is not happy. An unrealized being, a human being, wants to avoid unhappiness at any cost, and he wants to live a longer life, as long as he can. For him, others are dying, but he will never die. That is a human being and how he thinks.

Here, you hear me exposing a human being who is unrealized. The result is that you began to identify that you are not an ordinary human being. This much has taken place. But because you have been living with unrealized people, you have to be unrealized, or ignorant—because you think that that which they are doing you also have to do; maybe under compulsion, but you have to do it. But the realized one is free not to do or to do. He can take either side. Whenever he needs, if it will be very nice for him, then he accepts whatever others are doing and he does the same thing. And whenever he does not want to do it, he does not. So this is one extra power that you can have. … This is where you are: you are doing the same thing that unrealized people have to do, and you are doing the same thing which a realized person does. Both the things. I never expose anybody who is realized, because God knows who is realized among you. [Laughter] But to let you know, I know it. Then, we can work with you. …

Without getting a birth as a human being, you have no chance to listen to the realized state. Otherwise, you will never listen to the words of realization. So it is your birth which is worthy of appreciation. …Thanks everyone. [Applause]