Free From Ahankar—Work On It

This is from my side—whether you know it or you do not know it. I am saying that each one of you has to know that whoever is born and has been given a name knows name and form. It is not only you who know name and form—the whole world does. As long as name-and-form remains with you, you must know that you are born and you will die. In between, you will remain ignorant of the fact that is unborn and, after death, deathless. Deathlessness does not mean I am including that death is not. Rather, I am including what is before, or birthlessness—and there I am including deathlessness. These are Guru’s words. … Suppose a couple of you have come to meet Guru. Daily you listen to Guru saying, “Pure Free Forever, Self, Me, ever Eternal Existence.” But it does not go to your head, because before hearing it you are already name and form. … If you identify as the Knower, you are totally free from everything. That is where the Knower has never left you, Unborn has never left you. … Out of the Knower, if anything has come out, that is the world and it is changing. So the very Being has made this world out of its own imagination. Our authentic scriptures say to the children, “Just listen. At one time, there was absolutely nothing. Then, something arose. That was sankalp, kalpana, or imagination. That imagination said, ‘Let me be many.’ It became many—the whole of prakriti (nature).” Now, to children, like all of you, how can I approach you when you are a part of that many? Yet you sit before me thinking, “He is Guru, and he will tell me the truth.” And whenever I tell you the truth, in the heart of hearts you get offended—or else you have a hypocrite inside that lets me know that you are not offended. You do not like hearing that you do not exist. Yet, as a hypocrite, you say, “Yes, yes, Swamiji, you are right, I do not exist.” But, at every moment, you are maintaining your sense of your Self as your individual existence. … Sometimes I speak to you the truth—but only sometimes. [Laughter] Why? Because you know the word “truth,” and you know that the truth is unchanging. That is why I picked up the word “unchanging.” Then you use “unchanging” against “changing.” For you, it is its pratiyogi (opposite, competitor), so you are still fighting. … You are Pure Free Forever. I use the English word “Me” for Pure. But you understand “Me” as meaning that “Swamiji is speaking to me, this individual body.” Pure is not that. Who is Pure in you? Check. The one who never sleeps and is. That is not the intellect. The intellect is only there when you are awake. The moment the intellect comes, “mine and thine” has to come—duality. Your mother becomes thine and you become mine. What else can you do? So this knowledge cannot be given to those persons who are tuned in to their birth-and-death idea, to name and form. No. It is given to the jigyasu (the inquirer). The jigyasu questions himself, “Am I a name?” He knows he is not. Yet he has to accept his name. … Unmixed means that duality is not. Duality is mixed. Everybody is name and form mixed; birth and death mixed; health and disease mixed; me, a person, and the world mixed; eyes and the scenes before them mixed. That is your responsibility—whether you like to be unmixed, or to remain mixed. Either way, it is fine. I appreciate you, because appreciation leads you to become pure. That way, purification goes on. Thus, if somebody comes, we appreciate them; if somebody goes, we appreciate them; if somebody talks, we appreciate them; if somebody complains, we appreciate them. Then, at least you are going upwards. If I do not appreciate you and instead I start chiding you, you will go more down, and down and down. Luckily, all of you, from many different countries, have come because you have been dropped here from the Sky. You have no mother and no father: your earth is your mother, your sky is your father—and you are not the son or daughter of either the earth or the sky. I say this, thinking if I can fill you with that awareness, then your unawareness glass will be filled. It goes on, goes on, goes on, goes on—and then, only Pure Awareness remains.

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First of all, I say I exist and you are there. Being Guru, if I do not exist for you to hear, and I begin to say that you do not exist, you will be confused. Therefore, as soon as you are in front of me, I have to say, “Well, you are the one who is born to listen to Guru about the truth.” Then I say to find out how much your knot of ahankar (individual I-sense, or ego), of chitt and jar (consciousness and matter), has been opened in you. I continue saying to everyone that as long as ahankar exists, you will never realize the Self. Why? That which appears to be ahankar or its non-existence is in truth Shuddh Satta (Pure Existence), or unborn. In English, I can use these words. You have learned English, Hindi, Sanskrit and all their words, so you became word-full. Thus, how can you say that you are not your name? As far as your name is concerned, it is one without a second—that is your name. You are name and form. I continue expecting you to at least know the fact that your name was never born. You say, “Yes, yes, yes.” Then I am convinced that you have known it. But this hypocritical state works against you, and you think it is alright. I can say the truth to you in one word: Free from ahankar. Work on it! Akar (form) and ahankar (I-form) are there for you. So free from ahankar is equal to Shuddh (Pure). Either you can know Shuddh, then you are free from ahankar—or if you are free from ahankar, then you are Shuddh. Now, for intelligent persons, this is enough. Intelligent means “Pure Intelligence.” But Pure Intelligence is lost by birth. Nobody accepts this, and still they are in front of me. But I know that for which I have been made. I have been made only to speak. That is all. You came in front of me only to hear me. But your reaction should be there, only then I will know. If you do not speak, and you say, “Yes, yes, yes, whatever you say is right,” then I am convinced that all of you have realized. When you ask me, then I answer: Free from ahankar. You have the power to work on it. I give you the clue—ahankar means akar the form, which you see with your eyes. If you finalize it, then only Shiv (Bliss, Self) remains. … Guru, from the very beginning, is like a dead person; he is not a person, he is Unborn. Then he is Guru. Otherwise, he can be a daddy, he can be a mummy, he can be a brother, he can be a sister—Twamayva Mata cha Pita Twamayvo (Guru, you are my mother and you are my father). We keep saying all these things. But it is said in one verse [the first verse of the Guru Stotram], Gurur-Brahma Gurur-Vishnur Gurur-Dayvo Mahayshwarah, Guruh Sakshat Parabrahm… Who will say this? Who will know Guru? Gurur-Brahma—if Guru becomes Brahma (the creator of this world of imagination), then Brahma is not Guru. Gurur-Vishnu—if Guru becomes Vishnu (the maintainer of this world of imagination), then Vishnu is not Guru. Gurur-Dayvo Mahayshwara —Guru is that who is unborn Shiv. Then, when the one who speaks this verse has come to know Guru, now he says, Sakshat (realization). Sakshat is no word. Realization does not fall in any category of the descriptions made by a human being. He says, Guruh Sakshat. Then, what is Sakshat? Parabrahm (Beyond Oneness) He is not Brahm (Oneness), he is Parabrahm. If Brahm is not there, then what remains? What remains? It can be spoken, so that it is heard. Now, you tell me. Inquirer: Shuddh. Swamiji: That is all.

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“Both” cannot be: if you see the tree, you will forget its source-seed; and if you know the seed, you will forget the tree. That is human. A human cannot know both. Unless he gives up what is human, he will never become Unborn Source. The Source is never born. All human beings know the source—but in words. A one-year-old child does not know what is “source” or “not source.” So you know that. Now you are big, and now you know it. You know big, so you hold big and you leave the child. You were that child, so you were the Source. When a human being is born, he forgets. Thus, we say that the Atma (Self) is equal to Unborn. A human being has forgotten this. The Atma has no name, no form. The Paramatma (Supreme Self) has no name, no form. Guru has no name, no form. As long as you see your Self with the eyes, you will never know it. The eyes are deception. Seen with the eyes, everything is deception. If I say, remove deception, how can you remove it? Because you are born, and by birth you have forgotten. When I say such things, somebody in you knows. To that Knower, I am appealing. That is the Source. Yet you think it is the mind. … I never deal with anybody. Why? If I did, I would first have to accept him as the body, and then I would think I should improve him. But I am nobody to improve anybody. When I say, “I am nobody to improve,” you must know with your Knower that I am saying “unborn.” But this is not being listened to. That is why it is said that if at all by chance you find a Guru, you have to listen to him. You have to. But human beings say, “Tomorrow I can listen, or the day after I can.” They just justify. They say, “The Self is already maya (deception, duality),” so they finish the Self by saying it is maya. They say, “Well, maya is me. As long as maya is there, it will come out any time.” You justify yourself, so that you can commit your wrongs easily, by saying, “What can I do?! It is maya!” Here in satsang we want you to be a satsangee (united with the truth), not an asatsangee (its opposite). A satsangee is whoever realizes Unborn. And you will do this by yourself. That is the whole thing. Thank you.

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Mind is one knife. And it cuts the mind, another knife. Gyan (knowledge) is one knife. Agyan (ignorance) is another knife. The same knife has two sides, gyan-agyan. That is a human being. When the branches of gyan-agyan strike each other and produce fire, both are not; then the bamboo bush does not remain. As fire arises from the bamboo, gyan arises from a person. And it stays. As long as it stays, the bamboo is burning, the bamboo is burning. When gyan and the bamboo both are not, then whatever remains, that is shuddh. That is all. This can be talked about unending. Unending means that the word “Om” has made all the words of the world, include the sentient chirping of birds and the speaking of animals. When Om has gone inside Omkar (the Source of Om), it is Shiv, and that is Shuddh. … Shiv is where birth is not, where death is not. That is Shiv. All the objects, the forms are birth and death. All the words are birth and death. Now how can you, as a person, get out of words and forms? Many people think “I should get rid of words, so I should be maun (silent).” But they must be knowing—by Swa samvayd (known to one’s Self)—that words are still coming, that the mind is still for and against, for and against, for and against, mayra tayra (mine and yours), mayra tayra, mayra tayra. However he remains quiet, maun is not. Many people, hearing about non-doership, think “I will not do.” But inside, doing is going on. That is why a human being, as a human being, has to listen, again and again, that “You are Pure Free Forever, Immortal Blissful Self, Me, Eternal Existence.” These are words that can be used in English too, although they are Sanskrit words. When you sleep, why would you not be knowing this? You have not to worry about who speaks and what happens. You can refer to that who always remains with you in all three states—the waking state, dream state and sleep state. These three remain with every human being. Then there is turiya, or, in English, the fourth state. But turiya is not yet turiyateet (beyond the fourth), for in turiya, ahankar remains. In Brahm, ahankar remains: in Aham Brahm Asmi (I am Oneness) ahankar is still there, in the subtlest body. We have three bodies, which you can hear for name’s sake, because you know name, which is sthool, or gross; you know name, which is mind, or subtle; and you know the antavahak (inner vehicle) which is still innermost, the subtlest body. They are three. After these three, you cannot listen, and nobody can tell you. Now, I say, work on that. Up to turiya, there is ahankar. In jeevanmukti (freedom in life), there is still ahankar. When jeevanmukti is turiyateet, when even the sense of body is not, then ahankar is not. It was said earlier, that is the Space. But she said “Space” with the intellect—because, with the intellect, if Space is known as there, then this world is not there; and if this world is there, then the Space is not there. That is why she said there are both. That is a human being. But you are Shuddh Anand (Pure Bliss), that is all. Thank you.