Questions and Answers

More than mental repositioning

Niranjan: It seems that "being the space watching the mind" should be deeper than just a mental repositioning.

Swami-ji: It is not the intellect that sees and watches. Therefore it will deny the actual experience. It will say "I am stationing myself as a watcher from the Space side," but for the intellect, Space is never the watcher of the Self because for the intellect, Self doesn’t exist.  If intellect knows, then it is not Self.

The art of feeling easy

Leah: I was checking how independent I feel and was noticing the great ease in my system. But because I’m not fully matured, certain insecurities or fears arise, especially when I’m alone. What I’d like is to feel completely at ease. How is it for you, Swami-ji, when you are alone?

Swami-ji: I have changed my sex! [Laughter]

Leah: What exactly is that?

Swami-ji: It doesn’t need any answer. In oneness there is no sense of insecurity, no female, no superiority, no male. And you are oneness already. The space and nature of oneness do nott relish the sense of insecurity which is dualistic in nature. As long as chit or intellect is there, the sense of insecurity, doubt and the need to grow further has not been abolished. So use the same vehicle called awareness or human mind to keep recognising that which does not change.

Whenever the thought comes that the body will be in trouble, a sense of insecurity arises. The body is not going to stay around permanently, and the permanent being knows that. But if bodies are to perish, then I should keep remembering that I am the one who never perishes. When you have this knowledge on the intellect level, then the intellect will be transformed into the level of the Self. And Self is never insecure. For this you must practice.

You have the ability to know what abhyaas means – that intellect should know that the place called "I" is not the true abode, not me. Rather, Space is my abode, my home, my true nature. This is your abhyaas. The intellect will come to know that it does not get born and does not die.

My reality is the unchanging reality, and this must be practised.

Leah: How can I feel easy in this?

Swami-ji: You cannot feel easy, otherwise you will not practise. There is no permanent intellect, so what is the source? There is no permanent imagination of your being, so what is the source? Just fill your intellect with the knowledge of your own true nature and it will happen.

When I hear that people become happier, that is my greatest happiness. But when the chit vritti entertains the thought that it is the vritti and not the Space, then pain starts. So whenever you are uneasy, transform your previous knowledge into knowledge of the Self. You have a body, and you cannot neglect it. But learn these things and be a good yogi.

Turiya: [Turiya described how during a meditation, Swami-ji had given the suggestion that the hammering of the workers nearby had caused no disturbance. He had simply counted the hammer blows in meditation. And she noticed that today she had remembered Swami-ji’s words and also had not felt affected by the sounds of the workers nearby.]

Swami-ji: It is not in the description. It is in the state of being. In dayh shareer, everything becomes obvious or clear, and the senses function. When the Knower is there, it is affected. But in deep sleep, the hammering does not affect the being.

People who are in the realm of being affected must get affected. So we speak of transcendence. But who must transcend? The chit that is closest to the senses. But you are not that chit. Even the hitting of the hammer doesn’t bother you, so how will Leah’s cry that she is uneasy affect you? You are turiya [the fourth state of consciousness], not the waking state. So you are not uneasy, you are not affected.

Nikolai: Yesterday you spoke of a dream or a revelation about how, in the human mind, what we call gyaan [knowledge of the Self] is actually kriya [practice or action] and is not the real gyaan. How does practice lead to true gyaan?

Swami-ji: Suppose you are sitting here and in an instant you become aware of Norway. That is not kriya. It is the oneness, gyaan. The functioning of the senses is kriya. The functioning of the intestines is all kriya. The functioning of hands and feet is kriya. But people began to call the functioning of mind and body 'gyaan', but it is agyaan [absence of knowledge, ignorance]. The human being is not born with gyaan. So he has to transcend the place where his aatma [pure Being] is stuck in the field of forms.

There may be dynamism in my hair, in my mustache also, but it is not gyaan! It was revealed to me that that which moves is not gyaan; it is kriya. In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjun is in the field of kriya in which his mind functions. But Krishna says, "Be free of the three gunas," which are kriya. As long as you are in the grip of the three gunas you are mobile, you are in action, you are kriya. Whereas in reality you are the Self.

Human beings are brought up thinking that kriya is gyaan. And then they want to remain unaffected! The leaf is affected by the sun. The leaf and the sun are all in the field of kriya. Leaf has no knowledge and sun has no knowledge. But they have action, kriya. And it is said that action should be nishkaam [non-doership]. So people misinterpret this and drop action by sitting in a corner. How did you start to call this gyaan? The intellect functions like that.

So intellect is kriya. People call it gyaan because they say, "I know this."

But the person who gives the knowledge is just Self, gyaan, and is not in the field of kriya. And the person who receives this knowledge is in the field of gyaan, not kriya. It is not a functioning. But the functioning of the mind is kriya, movement, not gyaan.

Self is awareness. So awareness is the source and basis of kriya. The air moves and the air is still. I am saying that kriya should not be recorded as gyaan. So the happening should not be recorded as aatma. The sprout should not be recorded as the seed. That is what I’m saying.

The functioning of the mind is kriya. But you call mind a mixture of some gyaan and some aatma. It is not gyaan. See? The air begins to move but the power is Self. 

There’s a good word in your vocabulary for this - dynamism - as when the air moves or a fan moves. And if you are brilliant you will know there is no movement, there is only Self. All "knowledge" is just kriya, not gyaan.

With dull intellect, man thinks that dynamism became concretized into rock. So Self became concretized into mind. Mind concrete began to ooze out its functioning. This is dull intellect.

Correct intellect is when the correct atmosphere for intellect arises. Until then, you are handicapped. Pure intellect will be there only when pure intellect comes. Self will be there when pure intellect comes. Until then, well, the instrument is as it is.

Nikolai: What do you call that part of the intellect that imitates gyaan?

Swami-ji: The part that imitates gyaan is agyaan, or lack of awareness. We call disease or sickness a "lack of health". And there is no sickness in a healthy person. In the same way we have practised knowledge. Some people think that the workings of the intellect is knowledge, but it is just movement. The intellect moves and appears to have knowledge, but this is just the waking state.

It all begins when you are puzzled. In the beginning there was no human body, just a little flesh. You could be twisted like a Chinese shoe. But we grew and  while we grew, we never had the chance to ask, "Why did we become human beings? Why has one become Gaurav and another Bhakti Bhavana?"

When we see the death of someone, we don’t understand. Through that, the spark of a thought is introduced that this is not really what I wanted.

Gautama also asked, "Am I also going to be like this?" And his charioteer said, "Yes, of course. It is inevitable." And Gautama said, "I am not!" He didn’t want to own death. He didn’t want to own old age. So he became the Buddha.

Therefore, a human being begins to ask, "Why am I uneasy now?" Why is Leah uneasy now? It is the human mechanism. You may be a king, but you will be stuck one day in the big machine of death.Gautama said, "Well, I have to find out when this is!" It is tapasya that makes that crack. Paying attention, with vivek, to "Space I am", and with vairaagya to "Bones and blood I am not," nirodh will become stronger.

So in this way we move, we grow.

The mystery of the third element

Hirdaya Priya: I've been thinking about purush and prakriti, and how you say they are two eternal realities. Then what is this mysterious third element that you’ve called the sanyog? If purush is like the sun and prakriti is like water, then the third thing is like the random light patterns on the water. It became apparent that this universe is nothing but random light patterns. Then I started wondering what is this mysterious third thing called the sanyog. It seems that the intellect cannot understand it.

Swami-ji: When you understand it, the old patterns, the old ways of the functioning of the intellect, become surrendered.

The human phenomenal perceptive mechanism sees the sun’s reflection on the surface of the water and says it is real and that it is moving in the surface of the water.

Why does this happen? You came to know that it doesn’t happen. It is the foolishness of the intellect that interprets this phenomenon as real. Mind says water is there and when sun shines, the reflection moves. But it doesn’t happen. This is just the incorrect functioning of the intellect.

So having known this, why would you now say it is there? If intellect has known it is not there, it should not then conclude it is there. But the intellect is not interpreting correctly. It says it is there. This is what the maya, the intellect, is.

I am saying that the intellect that is not interpreting correctly. A photographer can understand this. A camera never sees my face outside. It sees my face on the film plate, where my face is not. The jahr lens of the camera, the jahr intellect of a human being, interprets like that. So in saadhana we are trying to understand the intellect, and, just as I was trying to tell Leah, the thinking vehicle needs to be overhauled.

The purush and prakriti mystery is solved – it is not there. But we don’t want to say this before the right stage because you are likely to then conclude that nothing is there. But that is not correct either. How can something come out of nothing?

Since you see the reflection of the sun on the wwater, should I say that it exists?  Notice I am not saying it is not appearing, I am saying it doesn't exist. My emphasis is on correcting your intellect because it misinterprets everything.

Hirdaya Priya: When I look at you, you appear to deal with the forms and the world more adeptly than I could ever conceive of, even though they are not real….

Swami-ji: No. In the heart of hearts I say everything is. So I can deal with it. But to you,  I say it does not exist so that you can deal with it. Only existence is.

There is absolutely no shoonya, no zero. It is all oneness, Self.