God Alone Is

Kaanti: Until the real knowledge that God is everywhere is unfolded, it is just a concept. How can you be influenced by the sense that God is everywhere?

Swami-ji: No matter where a person goes, he doesn’t find anything in his vision other than God. If somebody talks to him and it goes against his concept or idea, he is affected, but he has already known that the person couldn’t speak to him if God was not within him.

If an apple hanging on a twig of the tree affects him and he wishes to pluck it, he knows that the apple couldn’t have the shape of an apple if God was not there. If a cat appears before him crying, "Meow, meow, meow," and he has some bread in his hand, he knows that the cat cannot cry if God did not want to eat bread. He knows a person as a person, an apple as an apple, a cat as a cat. He is not affected by any of them. He is affected by God. He knows that he is alive because of God and so he is getting affected.

In the Gita and the scriptures, God says, "Whatever is made is made by Me. Whatever place there is, the place is made by Me. Whenever anybody goes, the speed and power is made by Me. Whatever one acts, that action is made by Me."

Everything is made by God.

God alone is.

Without God nothing can happen. But one does not know why he was not knowing this. When he knows that God alone is [but hasn’t grasped it], he thinks that God wanted him not to know, so he is ok.

Whatever you are affected by, that is your stronghold of knowledge.

Someone may say that their praan is 'here and there.' What saadhana [practice] will be given to him? Hatha Yog, so that he can check which way his praan is moving, and then he will reach there, because everything is from there.

Those who are affected by the minds of others are told to go towards gyaan. Many people are affected when an earthquake comes and buildings and people are dissolved. We tell them that their path is Pralaya Yog, where everything is dissolved.

All persons are nothing but the manifest form of the same Being, the same God. If someone says, "It is the same God, but I am a human being," then he is recommend to go to a human Guru.

It is the buddhi [intellect] that doesn’t understand where action comes from or where knowledge comes from. Action and knowledge [karm and gyaan] are what a man is. These two paths are very important. Mostly, man knows action.

Through Gyaan Yog you get to the source of all kinds of gyaan.

Through Karm you get to the Existence from where all actions emanate.

When I say that you reach there, you means man, woman, boy or old man. You are person whom you call jeevaatma, a part of God. You may not say God, but you cannot be a person if you don’t think, and you cannot think if you don’t have knowledge. You cannot have knowledge if you are not alive. You cannot have life if your mum and dad are not there, Your mum and dad cannot be there if their mum and dad were not there.  Who created the first Adam and Eve? There cannot be two persons before them. At that point, you get to that Oneness.

The main saadhana is how to get your dualistic apparatus and ego sense dissolved into that which is egolessness, Oneness.

What is it that you are up to? You are up to transforming the functioning of your ego. That is all. Transformation means that it should not function in this, its present way. It should function with devotion where there are not two realities. It is all God. One doesn’t worry that he should become aware of God. No such sense exists.

Where are you at? You say, "I am here, the world is out there, and God is certainly out and out there!" This gives you a clue to know who you are. You can figure out that you are a person who knows these three things. You grasp, "I am here, the world is there, and God is someone who made the world." When you are asleep you don’t grasp this. When you wake up you will question, "In deep sleep why don’t I know that the world is out there and I am here?"

Knowledge will come and you will move further.

The depth and power of understanding

In meditation, the depth and power of understanding lies.

On the surface level you have only these there gunas and nothing else. If you don’t meditate and make your friends meditate and let them move further, then they will come back. They will say, "I did a three months course."

I say, "In six months your saadhana will be over."

Somebody should say in your ear that this is your ego, be egoless. But they say, "I got hurt because a friend said something."

I say, "Move further." The ego is the legs on which you stand. You have to move in the direction of egolessness. Keep moving and moving and you become more and more egoless. One day you will become perfectly egoless and you will have realization of God.

It is most simple to get God realization.

To do other things is very difficult.

Wherever your 'I' arises, put God on it and you become God Consciousness. Does God get insulted? You will say, "Well, God cannot be insulted. But I am a little cockroach and get insulted."

In every situation, you have 'I.' When you are travelling, 'I' doesn’t leave you. This is the vehicle. Always put God in it. Have Krishn in your chariot. You will win and the result will be one [won].

We are made as human beings so questions and concerns will come. Donkeys never ask questions. Even if you compare yourself to animals or a papaya but you will get such a great joy knowing, "Lord, you made me like this." You can taste six tastes—sweet, pungent, bitter, sour, salt, astringent.  Donkeys have only one taste for salt. Nobody gives donkeys dinners.

Bhakti Nath: They say to be free from the duality that the waking state puts you in, you have to remember God, Aatma, the Self. I cannot sit and say that I am God every moment. That is not what remembering can mean. I know that wherever I go I am Canadian, but I am not always consciously thinking it.

Swami-ji: Why do you interpret remembering as a recollection of something that you made? Remembering means know. Know that you are That. You know that you are Canadian. Wherever you go, you are Canadian.

You don’t have to' remember.' You don’t have to say, "I remember God." Without God, you cannot exist, therefore why are you not God? The difficulty arises because of the information that you have been given. People give you God of the religious brand, as someone sitting in heaven on a chair with a secretary or accountant who is looking after your good deeds and bad deeds. If you have done good deeds, you go to heaven. If you have done bad deeds, you are in the nether land or down below. That is your type of image of God.

You are wrongly informed of God. This shows that you are wrongly informed of your own Self, so neither do you know your own Self nor do you know God. You know bookish knowledge like a learned man from Benares who shouts whatever he has read and crammed. But you never realize from where you speak the word 'I.'

Check and know that 'I.' When you close the eyes, that gets opened. You know 'I.' So you have already realized that, but you are afraid to call yourself God or announce that God exists somewhere, so there is no mention of God anywhere. Religious people are all scientists, but because of business they included the word ‘God’ in their teachings. They don’t believe in God, they believe in business because it pays them. If they really believed in God, they would have become God Realized!

Check. You have faith in your intelligence. How does food turn into blood? Who does it? You have the knowledge of physical things. How do x-rays scan your colon? You have lost the thinking apparatus. You may say, "I think. I think," but you never think. This whole mess is all over the world.

Now the Lord has sent me over here. I knew he was sending me to a mess, so I told him, "Give me some power."

He said, "What kind of power?"

I said, "To have the sense of accommodation for these people!" I know that you are totally mistaken, but I cannot tell you this because you are identified. You think that mistake is a crime because you will have less status, you will be thrown away. You are afraid to hear the words, 'you are mistaken.'

So I use a gentle language "You are forever free, but somebody entered in your head in deep sleep and woke you up in the morning and you forgot that you are forever free." This language you relish.

Meditation and saadhana work and one day you will come to know that you were never bound, so what is the use of seeking freedom. Lecture is over. But you are waiting for something more.

Bhakti Nath: The use of the word ‘God’ will create some concept in my head.

Swami-ji: You have the ability given by God to make this concept. You don’t have to appreciate God. God doesn’t need your appreciation. He knows what He is.

It is as if the space which is sitting in the computer began to identify that it is the computer chip. What can you do to that space, except keep shouting so that one day it may evolve a vision, an ear, a heart and will know, "I am Pure Consciousness. I am Space?" Religious people call it God, but it is Space.

You ask, "Do you mean formless?"

Yes!

You ask, "Do you mean body-free?"

Yes!

You ask, "Do you mean mind-free?"

Yes!

You ask, "If the body is broken, that Space won’t be broken?"

Yes.

You ask, "Is that forever?"

Yes!

You ask, "If it is forever, then it never comes from anywhere?"

Yes!

You ask, "If it has not come from anywhere, then it will never go anywhere?"

Yes!

My 'Yes' and your inquiry meet together and nava-sarjan [new creation] takes place; a new form of intelligence appears like a flower, like a flame, like a light, like love. Until then, continue with whatever you know.

Check. When did you start to have a relationship with this body? Your father dropped a few germs and you are still the same germs that germinated. Why did you forget the germs? In that germ, life is there. Why are you not life? Why are you not these bones and skinny body or speaking box or seeing torch? You began to identify. Cloth was once cotton. Cotton was once a plant, root, and earth. A tailor made a pooh bear. Now the cloth says, "I am pooh bear." That is what happened to you.

You say, "I am Bhakti Nath," and Prayma [his wife] accepts this because she loves pooh bear. She identifies as "my pooh bear." But you were never in her life. You were playing somewhere and she was playing somewhere else. When did you begin to say, "My wife," or "My body, the husband"? That is wrong knowledge. It is a mistaken belief. You want to make it permanent. Better are those who get married and then divorced. Many people think that once hooked, hooked forever. Aatma says, "I am the right hand," and the body says, "I am he left hand." Both are hooked.

Bhakti Nath: Isn’t that hooking imperceptible?

Swami-ji: Yes. Why isn’t imperceptible knowledge? You are oriented to the senses. Beyond the senses, your life doesn’t exist.

'Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum' is not your perception. It is beyond indriyaas [senses]. Dream is beyond senses because the senses are lying in the bed. You have not been trained to recognize that 'That' exists. Better Freud, who made up something—at least he recognized something. You don’t recognize non-perception. Up to ego, you can perceive. With some tools you can ultimately perceive up to quark. Beyond quark you know nothing, but you cannot declare that you are seeing nothing. You should believe in it. But that nothing doesn’t serve your purpose, because it doesn’t give you food, it doesn’t give you water. You refer to nothing as nothing, whereas everything is coming from that nothing!

You began to say, "Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum," knowing that it is the Self speaking. You are a daring spirit, not that you are a wrestler. Daring spirit means that you came to know the truth. Abide by the fact that what you call ‘I’ cannot be uttered by a table. It can be uttered by a system which is not an ordinary machine. It is not of iron or steel. It is consciousness.

Knowing that, the job is done.

But you never know the fact of who you are. You are trapped in the machine, like a spider in the web. Who taught the spider to get caught? Who taught us, as jeevaatma, to get trapped in the body? Hearing this you get awakened. A new happening happens. After hearing me, whatever happens is a new one.

You never learned the right things, so change the course of your understanding, sit in the seat of saadhana, gather friends and say, "Let us consider who we are." Meet daily and talk about who is talking. Terminate your session with the answer, "We do not know." You as the chairman know that they have the answer. The answer they give, "We don’t know," is the right knowledge to the question. It is a wrong question to ask who you are. Traditionally, to the question, "Who are you?" you will reply, "I am a chap from Halifax. Who are you? "I am Canadian" Who are you? "I am Israeli." Then the questions, "What is your name? What is your family? What do you do? What do you eat?" will arise. You never sit in the laboratory and check who speaks for thirty years or who listens for thirty years. Is it electricity? Is that a tape recorder? Is it a television?

You may not get the answer, but you got It. Words don’t fit in with our findings.

Self is free. Mind and body are just tools. You will be successful if you know, "Mind never recognizes me, but I never mind. Then you will know that you are carrying a kind of 'friend' who you never knew, yet who holds you like a parasite and tells you to do this and do that. Never listen to it. Those who don’t listen to it are saved. But you listen to it daily and think, "Today I want spaghetti. Tomorrow, cheese. The next day, coconut cookies." That is mundane, which means the mind [man-mind, dayn-given].

Praapti: What is the nature of raag [attraction] and dwaysh [repulsion] and how do we overcome it?

Swami-ji: [Swamii-ji holds a sheet of blank paper.] If you have a white piece of paper, it is pure paper. That is me.

[He picks up a yellow flower and holds it up to the paper briefly, then moves it away.] This flower is seen [by the paper] and is now gone. In the same way, I am not attached. No raag.

[Swami-ji now rubs the flower on the paper and where he has rubbed, the paper turns yellow.]  This is raag.

[Swami-ji now rubs a red flower on the white paper and a red spot appears.] You see the red flower again and again. This is raag.

[He picks up a leaf and rubs the paper until there is a faint green smudge] You see this person, this is less raag.

The colours stay in my heart and mind. If anybody comes and snatches these colours from me, I will have dwaysh. If somebody is stronger than me and takes the colours away, I will have a fear. If the person is weaker than me, I will be angry. I will beat him. Raag, then fear, then anger. If someone succeeds in taking them away I will have dwaysh and will avenge and fight.

Raag and dwaysh are spaces. If you are asleep, raag and dwaysh will not be imprinted. Raag-dwaysh won’t happen if you are busy registering votes and marking the hands of those who have cast their vote. If you are male and a beautiful young woman comes, you will hold her hand and miss putting the ink on the right finger. Raag is like an electric shock that stays. The initial shock is over, but you still look for that beautiful woman because she is imprinted in your head.

Raag is a colour of the things, forms, and persons who appear to be likeable; and dwaysh is a colour of those who appear unlikeable

Your question is how to overcome raag-dwaysh when they have taken place or how to save yourself from them. Know that you are the one who is Pure Consciousness and are not a coloured umbrella or a fragrant flower or a beautiful person or a business magnate. You are none of these. Since you know that you are not a stone, not a table, earth or a tree, you know that you are not a beautiful male of female. If you have this knowledge, you will not be identified. The coloured paper becomes identified. White paper is no longer white. It has become yellow, red, green. That is identification [adhyaas], attachment.

Young people interpret raag as when they begin to love someone. You don’t have raag for your sister. You love her. You have raag when desire is there. Desire is there when you are not self-sufficient, when you lack something and you think that a person will fulfil you. Then desire will come and you want to possess someone. When there are not many persons, even the worst person becomes likeable. Raag is not outside in a person. Raag is within—vaasana, kaamana—desire. When desire becomes stronger and stronger, that is trishna [hankering].

In this way your attachment, your raag develop. Raag is a sense. If you don’t care for this sense and sensible things and you know that you are the Space, then anything that comes is the Space. White paper will not have raag for white paper. Raag arises because of the sense of duality. The sense of duality is your mind or heart. That heart which is free from all these things is the central heart, God’s heart.

The moment you become a body—a person—and have need, raag is a must. You are taken advantage of and put in a mess, travelling to wrong places. Raag leads you towards the graveyard.

Many people interpret raag as love or love affairs. Affairs involves action, and that is raag. To overcome that, be God. God is only knowledge. Who knows that you have a scarf, you have eyes? This Knower is called God. It is very close. It is always there. When you look at someone, when you don’t look at someone, the Knower is there. Anything that is touched, tasted or presented, Knower is always there. Knower is God. The one who knows this is called Guru. Then we love God which means we love the Knower.

Knower is free from raag and dwaysh. Nothing will happen to the Knower. But Knower has a writing paper or canvas of mind and on the mind the forms are printed and then the mind becomes coloured and the Knower identifies with it and says, "I am coloured." This is attachment you should not have. Then you will be free.