Dialogues with Your Self

The pull and push of raag and dwesh

Archana: Your talk on raag (attraction) and dwesh (repulsion) yesterday was amazing, especially the question, "why would you want to separate yourself from your own creation?" When you explained it, it became clear there’s no need for you to do anything about raag and dwesh. But for me it would seem to be a good idea to separate myself from them.

Swami-ji: How can you even have the power to separate them? To separate from the whole? How can you separate when there is no separation?

Archana: With the power of discrimination?

Swami-ji: Do you mean discrimination from oneness?

Archana: I don’t think it’s totally opposite from the sense of oneness.

Swami-ji: Then through discrimination it is possible to know that it is all one field of consciousness, or one field of existence, or one field of bliss.

These three aspects are known to a human being. A human knows he exists and is conscious he exists. And he is comfortable with this existence, consciousness and bliss. He is already knowing that reality. So if he wants to separate from this, to gather some discrimination to separate from existence, consciousness and bliss, from where will he bring in the thought that "I am separate" when existence alone is, consciousness alone is, and this is bliss? From where will he separate so that then he may say, "Let me have some raag for someone who is separate from me, or let me have some dwesh"? What would this discrimination be? It would be opposite to the knowledge of oneness.

If you have this thought that you can separate, then you aren’t following your original sense of oneness. You aren’t managing your sense of oneness. As a human being you are already separate. So on that level, raag and dwesh will never be finished.

You have to cultivate some discrimination. Many people, so as not to look as if they hate, act as if they love all and never express that they don’t like something. So they seem to be loving everyone. They feel that if they do not like certain things, they aren’t speaking the truth of their awareness. "How," they will say, "can I  like or dislike when it’s all one?"

Human beings have the sense to feel that they should like some person, space or situation as compared with not liking some person or situation. Only with this sense can liking happen. If it is all oneness and bliss, from where does the extraordinary power come with which a person says, "I like this"?

Raag and dwesh as birthright

All humans are endowed with the power of raag and dwesh by birth. You can check the children. If you give a child a toy, he may either like it and pick it up and play with it, or he may throw it away. So like and dislike, raag and dwesh, are ingrained in the sense of a human being, even as a child. So raag and dwesh are an individual human faculty. You can’t plan to have extra raag and dwesh.

Archana: If I cease to identify with it, I’ll be free.

Swami-ji: You are swimming in the same lake—sometimes on this side, sometimes on that side of the lake. Discrimination is needed when you don’t have it.

But you are unfolding the sense of oneness. It is not that you are going to gain vivek khyati (discrimination) as to what is matter—material existence—and what sees and knows the material existence. It’s already there. But humans are such that they do not have the discrimination by birth to know that "I have a body, and I am free from materiality." They say instead that the whole body, matter and consciousness, is all one body.

Discrimination is being evolved, knowledge is being evolved, however, by giving the child things and forms so that he may come to know that one thing is worth using and another is not.  This discrimination is being slowly and slowly evolved.

Not this bundle of bones

In this way, Ssatsang is developed so you may know what is matter and what is consciousness. When this reaches the extreme evolution, you come to know that "me" cannot be compared to this bundle of bones. But all human beings think the bundle of bones is "me". They all think that "me" is my body. This is called ignorance: deep-rooted ignorance. An individual mixes his "me" so thoroughly, that he is a body. At this point, he cannot know what consciousness is.

But in Satsang, the student is being guided.

We know that the human being thinks mind is "me". At least the exalted human being can think this much. [Laughter] An animal doesn’t think.

When an individual is told that there is something which is going to create trouble or which is already creating trouble, he asks, "What is creating trouble for me?"

The answer is the mix-up; the mixed-up body; that which should not be mixed up with the body. The mix-up is what a human being identifies with. He will say, "My ancestors came from Norway, so my ancestors were Norwegian bodies." But bodies are not. So what were these "Norwegians?"

This consciousness is so ingrained that we need to study how to bring in the discrimination to know that ancestors never died. How can this be? If you are eternal then ancestors are eternal. If ancestors are eternal then progeny are eternal. If God is eternal then his progeny—we the human beings—must be eternal.

So what information does this give us? That there is vivek khyati. Even if you have forgotten completely, it can be unfolded from your mind. That mind belongs to the field of nature. Self does not belong to the field of nature and cannot be compared with it. Self is forever free and chitt or mind is forever bound.

Deepening the knowledge

So how would you now bring in further knowledge?

Raag and dwesh are just like birth and death which do not exist. A human being knows only that when someone is born we love him, but when a human being dies we do not hate him. At this point there is no chance to ether love or hate. So is love and hate not just the functioning of the human mind? Yes. Raag and dwesh exist in the human mind.

So that which is not on the level of the human mind is what we should bring in. And there is a power that can be poured into the human mind to know that "I" am not this mind.

If two people want to join in human partnership, what is wrong in it? They should fully imbibe the knowledge of raag and not dwesh.

Dikpal: But then it seems that raag and dwesh are not obstacles to knowing the space.

Swami-ji: Yes. But human beings have not reached that stage. Raag and dwesh are the functioning of the human mind. Purity is one and the same forever. Many waves may rise in the lake, but water is one forever. It’s like the North Sea. When it rises – Unmukt. When it falls – Nikolai. [Laughter: Unmukt and Nikolai are two Norwegians attending.] So this is what leads us to know the knowledge part of our play.

The lake and the waves

Abhaya: When you say you have raag and dwesh yet you say it’s one lake and the waves rise and fall, I understand that the realised one is knowing it’s all one. Then there is no rise and fall.

Swami-ji: Your imagination is correct. But if it is all one lake then why should the waves not rise and fall? One who has the knowledge of oneness has all the emotions, all the waves. He has everything. If someone brings a flower he is delighted that somebody offered a flower. He knows that it is all one reality so whatever people are able to rejoice in, they should be given every opportunity to rejoice in it. All the waves will rise in the North Sea. You just try to understand. Avidya is one wave in the same North Sea.

According to you, you see me as someone who is not Abhaya. This is your human standpoint. For me, Abhaya does not exist. It’s "me" who exists. So I appreciate me in any way you act. Abhaya’s emotions—it’s all me. I have all the emotions, all the raag, all the dwesh of humanity as a whole. And for me there is no division. It’s all me. It’s all my creation. So if I am the canvas and the canvas is painting by itself, why would the canvas say that the North part of the canvas is not me, that the South part of the canvas is not me, that only the centre part of the canvas is me? In that analogy, raag and dwesh can be appreciated. But for you, if someone lays a little trip, you are upset for months.

Individuality is no obstacle

Archana: That’s why you’ve said individuality is not an obstacle.

Swami-ji: Yes. Individuality is a must. Otherwise, how will you go and buy your tomato and eat it? With individuality we work, we progress. If India has no individuality, how will its soldiers fight against an enemy which also has its individuality? And both individualities are in conflict.

You question should be, "What do I actually want?"

What do you want?

Archana: I want that sense which you just described.

Swami-ji: Then I pray to the Lord who should be kind enough when he hears om bhoor bwaha swaha [the Gyatri mantr cahnt] that he should give you that power of oneness.

Archana: Thank you very much Swami-ji.

Swami-ji: Without it you will never be free. But when you think of Karuna [Archana's daughter], raag and dwesh will start. Raag for mum, and raag for daughter. So you have to see where your awareness actually is. You want this oneness, this state where you see every leaf, green or dry, but are settled. You want this power of oneness, this peace of oneness.

[CNN Talk Show Host] Larry King arranged a show with two girls and asked if they would be interested in marrying Kennedy Jr. [Laughter] One said no, that she was married. The other said yes, why not. Better those people who are unconscious! You would never have arranged this show! Larry is just a free guy!

But you are human beings placed in various situations. Some people are placed in the householder’s life – like Basant, like Mohini. It’s alright. No raag or dwesh. Even when her son goes to Canada, Mohini is free.

The great storymaker

The human mind is a storymaker. It's imaginative. It has been making one great story for ages: birth and death, raag and dwesh. You don’t need to plan how to get into raag and dwesh. You’re already there! [Laughter]

You should rejoice. What more can you do? If you have knowledge of oneness you don’t need extra discrimination. It works. If you are young, you don’t have to plan. If you are old, you don’t have to plan. The stages of life, they just happen.

But the realisation for which you hope, for which you came over here . . . For the sake of attaining the knowledge of freedom which is your true Self, you have done everything. In vivek khyati you came to know that the mind part is bound, the skin part is bound. But the knower is free. And the one who knows that everything is the manifestation of that freedom is the knower, the Self.

Close your eyes for five minutes . . .

Rejoice and enjoy

One day body was not, and one day it will not be. If it is now, you should use it for joy’s sake. Thank the supreme reality who has manifested in your form over here. Keep eating. Keep drinking. Keep travelling. And enjoy your freedom. You are the Self. You are the free being. When you are healthy, never be sorry that tomorrow will be death. No abhinivesh to you. Keep smiling. There is no division in your oneness.

Whether sorry or sad or happy, it is all the game of the knower.