"Number 1—Without a Second!"

The evolution of evolution

Jyoti Punj (tells Swami-ji about a music video which portrays the evolution of the world for the past three million years, ending with images of life and, finally, a picture of a man in a T-shirt that reads, "I am already number one, so why try harder?"): We are practicing saadhana so that we can know that we are Self continuously. We see you sitting here, an apparent form, who has reached that ultimate state of knowing the Truth entirely, of being number one...

Swami-ji: One stage further—being number one without a second.

Jyoti Punj: There is an understanding that evolution is in stages up to one point.

Swami-ji: That is all right because evolution is described as being from fish to apes, but we as human beings do not appear in the process of evolution. We don’t fall in that category. Once people use the word evolution, they have to justify its meaning. They did one wrong and now have to call it right. Now they want to prove that they are right in describing evolution. Since there were not right, the evolutionary process will never give them the right answer.

Human beings are not evolved. My mother produced me. Does she produce me as Ganesh and then make me some higher entity like Brahma? I am what she is. Where is the evolution here?

You call evolution training a monkey for two years into a child. We are not in the line of evolution. If evolution is ongoing, in thirty-five years [of your life] you would be taller than Dada-ji.

You have to know where the word evolution began and what was its meaning. The first meaning was wrong. One day you will say that the mountain will evolve and that these rocks will be Swami Shyam’s disciples.

Do dream figures evolve? They appear. That is not evolution. They stay. The world forms appear. When they appear, cause and effect comes. We don’t understand why a seed of an apple tree develops so many leaves and branches. Is the tree evolving? It grows in the power of producing fruit. When it evolves we say that the seed evolved into producing a fruit, but it is always an apple tree. I don’t treat it that we are in a process of evolution. We are in the process of dismantling forgetfulness.

The basis of all manifestation is the matrix which is ahankaar [ego]. In ahankaar, all the happenings have taken place. If they become concretised, for example, into earth, water, fire, air, and aakaash, this is not evolution. It is by ahankaar that a human being also manifests and through that manifestation he can know, "I am beyond ahankaar. I am the one who is the ultimate reality, and from Me all is happening the way dreams happen in Me."

When it is ‘I alone,’ why do you make a distinction between I and I?

The world evolution has been used in a wrong manner. The world has never been born, let alone evolved. It doesn’t even exist. A child grows. Do you call 'growth' evolution? Cancel this idea completely. Be free and look after the man.

Dismantling forgetfulness

Jyoti Punj: You say that we are dismantling our forgetfulness. That process is an improvement in the individual.

Swami-ji: Improvement in the individual, but not in the way that a bull will be improved, taking our example.

The human being has a system. The system of eyes, ears, and brain forgets. If it remembers, then it is an improvement.The one who has forgotten will remember that he was the one who has never forgotten. He is the same Being. He forget that he is eternally the same. That is what can be improved. Improvement can be made in the power of awareness. That is possible.

We need the company of human beings for growth. In that company, we are daily enlightened, which means that we remember that we are not this dead body that clings to us.

Swami-ji: (After someone had quoted him as teaching us that we are not the body): Why have you put those words in my mouth and quoted me saying, "You are not the body, you are Self?"

I have been saying that Self alone is. You call Self 'body,' and that is a wrong term. The life of a tree has a variety of happenings in it, but it is one tree. If you say that a tree has two branches, a child will understand the tree. If you say a tree has one branch, the child will understand the tree. The sprout is the tree. When did body become body? In the womb of your mother, the body was not. Before it was gradually constituted out of substances, it was not a body. It was assembled like a car with varieties of iron, nuts and bolts, welding and the ingenuity of an engineer, and so the body-car was built.

You hear me say that you are not the body. When Swam-ji says that you are Self, did he say that Self alone is beyond the clouds, beyond the sky and has nothing to do with your frame of the body? You say that you are not the body. I say, "You already know the body, but do you know Self?" Do you know the awareness which doesn’t match with the qualities, characteristics, and behaviour of the body? That is what I want to remind you of.

You say, "I am 'That' and not the body, so you think that Swami-ji must mean that I am not the body," but you are expressing this from your side.

Why would anyone say, "I am not the body?" Why would Swami-ji say something that was unnatural, unpalatable and unreasonable? Swami-ji harmonizes with everybody's perception that your body was called by Chaytana’s body to come and speak in front of Swami Shyam who is seated in a chair as a body. Have you ever seen anything without a body?

You have to exercise your brain to know what I mean. When I say that as long as you are body identified, you will not be happy, I am reminding you of your ongoing saga of understanding that when body becomes hot, you say that you are hot; when the body becomes cold, you say that you are cold; but when you say that you are neither hot nor cold it doesn’t mean you have not recognized the body.

Where did that power come if not from the nervous system. The body is cold—fine. The body is hot—fine. I do not become hot. I do not become cold. There I say you are. Where did I deny the body? You are the body through which you have come to know that you are that which never becomes hot or cold. Why do you discard this car which leads you to the Whole? Why wouldn’t bodies be accepted by Swami Shyam?

You can say that you are not a dead body, but you say that you are not a body. I will be quiet. How many times should I plead that I am not guilty?

Where does the mistake lie? When you dream, the body is lying in the bed, but the dreamer is moving all over. With what power does the body lying in the bed see the dream?

Dikpal: With the power of chaytan, conscious power.

Swami-ji: Yes, the power of consciousness. Then why would you think that I am not the body? If the body, which is the basis, is not, then how will you know that it is the power of chaytan? Chaytan can know chaytan through the body. That is why the body is important. So keep it healthy and then healthy chaytan will come.

Short inspirations

To know that God is you is marriage.

I have forgotten what everyone has done before today. I have forgotten yesterday. What happened in the night? What happened an hour ago? Forgetfulness works for me. It helps me to remain uninvolved in unnecessary wondering about who is what and what happened where. What do I remember? I remember you. I remember me. I remember the underlying reality. All that which people call ‘all,’ is one without a second.

If we remove confused thinking sattwa will be evolved.

Take it as one and one alone and then there will be no shok (pain), no moh (attachment).

Why is it that when someone tells you that you are not good you feel insulted? If you know the answer you will feel exalted in your awareness. When someone’s relation dies they say, "He was so useful, but now he is no good." Why isn’t the dead person upset? Through Satsang you succeeded in magnifying your ability not to call yourself such a body who is insulted over a body that is dead and is not insulted. You should not be insulted because you are alive. Because you are alive you have more power than a dead body who doesn’t feel insulted. There is no cause of being insulted.

I will not compare myself to anybody. Each one is a star. Each one should get the glory of its name and the light that it gives.

The world is one, but in Nicaragua volcanoes are flowing. Nearby earthquakes have come. In Orissa floods have come. Everywhere differences are going on. As human beings we accept differences in all the things, but when differences come in our head we get stuck because we are made like that. If we don’t transform above this stage, then it will be unending compromise with the unending human problematic situation. Yet some people want to get through. Those are aware who know that everyone is perfect at their place.

When vairaagya comes then you know not to buy unnecessary things. Unnecessary things will create a headache for a person. Then you will start calling unnecessary things 'necessary' and that will accentuate the trouble. That which is useless and will never benefit your health or friendship, don’t keep. Renounce that, including unnecessary thoughts. Vivek means: Gyaan alone is Truth, Eternal, Unchanging Awareness that permeates your head and heart and cells. But when Gyaan leaves your body, only dead cells remain.

For the one who is established in the seat of Aatma [Self] there is no wave of any kind, yet the machinery is moving. The ocean waves are moving, but the bottom of the ocean never moves.

Your wish is to have one person in the world who knows you, who loves you, and in whom you have faith that you can say anything to and he will not betray you. If you have such a friend your life is successful. That means that friend is not a person.

Who is that one good friend? That is your highest Self whose name is Me. If somebody knows that Me, that is always eternal Oneness. It is nice to say that you are grateful and honoured, but it is one reality. Me honours me. Me salutes Me. I am your eternal friend. I will remember you forever because there is no division.

If you recognize your Self you recognise the Self in every being as the same Self. If many recognise that Self, you will be in a paradise. It won’t be called an enclave of inmates of an ashram. You are intimate.

The person who says, "All are bad," he is bad. The person who says, "No one is bad," he is good.