The Inestimable Value of Satsang

Questioner: If someone I love isn’t interested in Satsang, should I entice them to come, or should I just give them their freedom?

Swami-ji: Each one thinks that whatever they are aware of, their acquaintance, relation or other person in their contact will also be aware of that.

If you are interested in chess, you will believe that all these people sitting here are also interested in chess. That is the human function of the mind. Why? Because the mind is a material force and everybody is material, so matter understands that matter is significant.

You think that everybody’s mind is just the same. But the function of the mind isn’t like that, because residing in the mind is the combination of the senses, and the senses have their own knowledge. The mind remains with the senses and the senses remain with a particular job repeatedly, again and again, again and again.

That mentality is responsible for making a person interested in something. Therefore, a person who has not attended Satsang will not be able to know the value of Satsang. Those who never attended Satsang in their pervious lifetime won’t show any inclination this lifetime, because their mind carries those forms, sanskaars, which they experienced through the action of their senses in relation to their objects in the past lifetime.

You are a person who came through your mother. You have nothing of your mother except her food-body. The body is built from the mother’s body. But you are not a body. What are you? You are the inner body.

Now the inner body cannot be equated with the outer body. The outer body is gross substance. The inner body is the ethereal substance, the knowing body. Therefore, the mind of each person differs from that of another, and mind is a human being.

When somebody wakes up he is the mind. He is a container going here and there, but he is a mind. Every mind differs. Your relation or friend is a friend on the level of the body. Wherever the commonalty of the body is concerned, you will meet, but wherever mentality meets, it will not match with your mind and thinking.

If you think that Satsang is important, then in interacting with that person you have to inspire and 'dig' the awareness of why Satsang is important. The body, intellect, and mind get food, and the ego has its status as its food. But the soul part—the deepest part—never gets food in the realm where the ego, intellect, mind, senses, and body function. Therefore, there is a hunger, a desire on that deepest level. The nature of that deepest level is indestructible, unchanging, Amaram Madhuram. The indestructible soul hungers for the company of that which is indestructible, unchanging. If that doesn’t get any food for itself, it will not be satisfied.

The body is hungry for food. The mind is hungry for experience, the senses is hungry for the objects, the intellect is hungry to function, and the ego is hungry for its food. But the soul is hungry for listening to the glory of its Self which is indestructible, unchanging, immortal, undying. If that [hunger] has not already been opened and one is unable to get that food in Satsang, then one will not like to be in Satsang—they are not open to it. If you don’t talk about sports to those who are open to sports they will not be around after ten minutes. If you talk about Satsang to that soul who is hungry for Satsang, he will be interested. If you bring him to Satsang, he will know, This is it!"

It takes years and years and incarnations to be open to what Satsang is because the very soul, which is indestructible, finds itself mixed with the mind, ego, body, and other bodies and objects which are all changing. Therefore, the very nature of the soul which is immortal, becomes destructible, changing, mortal, and it feels harmony with the things and objects which are presented to the Being, who at that time is the mind.

If you give food for the mind to such a person—even Satsang—he will not be interested because he has become objective and feels that he is the body, intellect, and mind. He is not open to the knowledge that he is indestructible.

People observe that whatever they have done in the past has changed or slipped away. They find that that which is always changing has the status of impermanence, and one feels that they should be tuned in to that which is permanent, indestructible, and unchanging.

The one who pursues that which is always changing wants to know what is left for him to do when everything changes.

But what is that which is not changing? You mix with the objects, toys, and people, identify with them, and think that you are also changing.

I use the word ‘changing’, but a better word is that it is dying. Whatever you pick up, the next day it starts dying. If a person thinks that he is changing with the changing things, he will flow with the relative field which changes.

But a human being’s truth is that he is indestructible, unchanging, immortal, Amaram, undying, and one day he will come to know that whatever he pursued, no matter how nice at the time, didn’t give him total satisfaction and fulfillment, because satisfaction for a indestructible soul is that which is indestructible.

If you expect your relation to come to Satsang, you have to prepare the ground for him to come. He has to become aware, and if that awareness doesn’t awaken, then, for his mind, his thinking is true.

Your thinking is favourable for you. If somebody interferes with that, it is unfavourable for you. Then you will be annoyed because someone else’s favourability is that which he thinks. He thinks because he became a thinker. When he sleeps, he is not a thinker. When he wakes, he became a thinker and whatever he decides is the solid truth for him. Mental favourability is how a person has prepared himself. Whatever he thinks is the truth for him.

Many people can come together to share food, happiness, and a mayla [festival] on the sense level, but people think differently.

For that you have to prepare a person. Ask them what they think about their life. Nobody has an answer. Perhaps they will answer, "I want to be a writer. I want to be a film director. I want to build a house."

Nobody will answer, "I want to have that which I don’t have!" What don’t you have? Indestructibility. You don’t have Amaram Hum. You don’t have Madhuram Hum and your true nature is Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum. You think that Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum is jumbo-mumbo or a parrot’s words or a phrase you repeat, such as:" Zing, zing, zing," and that something will then happen to you.

I say that you are immortal and blissful. Have you ever thought of that which doesn’t change or which remains stable?

Childhood changed. Youth became old. Everything is changing, which means that everything is leaving you. Only You is not leaving you.

Do you know who that You is? You are the one who never changes. Through the impact of the body and bulk and the knowledge of experiences, you began to think that you are that who is changing. Everybody thinks they are changing and they are aware that they are going to die one day. They know they are fifty years old, so fifty years lifetime has died, so they think they are half-dead already. That is why you are never happy on your birthday unless somebody gives you a present, because you came to know that fifty years life has died!

Everything is changing. All your experiences of things, forms, professions, and relations change, which mans they are speaking out loud, "I am not yours, so don’t’ try to grab me. I am not yours. I am running in my own rhythm. If you have raag [attraction, attachment], then follow me." The whole changing field attracts you and then you put on the nature of change. Then you can never think that Satsang could be useful because it talks about your reality which is indestructible, deathless. You think that death is a must. Why, when you are immortal, would you plunge in the lake that is daily drying, where the water is changing?

Your friend or relation will not be convinced to come to Satsang unless they reach an utter sense of frustration, pain, suffering, disillusionment.

Someone with cancer daily waits for his death. Here, we talk about Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum, deathlessness, but they come with their cancer and say, "Any day now I am going to die." Why don’t we like such things? Because it is ignorance.

Whenever ignorance is presented to you in any situation you get annoyed because that is not your 'favourability.' Your 'favourability' is to hear Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum because you know that is your true nature. You came to know this, but young ones don’t know this. They are youthful. They want to do what they have not yet done. Let them do that. When they become sixty years old, like you, then they will sit down and mutter the mantra.

Those who are highly aware you can attract, but those who are in the middle, which means the body and mind, you cannot attract. They will only be attracted on their own conditions.

A person who has never known what Satsang is, such as a politician, doesn’t know what is happening here. But if you tell him, "We have two hundred votes for you. Attend Satsang for two hours on Sunday and we will give you two hundred votes," he will say, "Swami-ji, you are the only one who interests me."

People in the world want only that which changes. Their inner desire is not to die, but it has been so eclipsed that they never think that their turn to die will come. The falsity of their body-existence is forgotten, and even if it is talked about in Satsang, they think they are being lectured. They think they are healthy, they are perfect—so why are you giving them a lecture and expressing your need to them when they are fulfilled?

You express to them that you are needy: nobody goes to a needy person. They go to someone who is fulfilled. But if you don’t bother the person and don’t make them feel unfavourable, he will say, "I live with her. I am her friend. She gives me what I need and never forces me to do anything. That means she is pure love and totally needless."

In need. pure love is destroyed. Everybody knows pure love. Pure love knows pure love. If you express your need, your friend will say, "You are not my lover. You drag me to a place where I will be bored, where I will sleep." If there is no drama being shown, they won’t want to come.

The yogi is united with his Self which is immortal, indestructible, but he is caught in the body and by so many relations and ideas. You also appear to have a body, but nobody knows that you don’t care for the body.

Don’t bring anybody to Satsang unless they are damn miserable. Misery brings you to Satsang. Someone’s father who has cancer will never want to go to Satsang. He will want to ride in his Rolls Royce. He will ask, "Why are you going to Satsang? I don’t need any Satsang. God is within me."

It is an interesting movie. Movie means the mind. A human being is a movie and you think that he is stationary. That is a wrong concept: he is not stationary. Everybody is a movie. A human being is not immortal. He cannot even sit. He is a movie. A person is attracted by the nature which is moving. From ahankaar [ego] up to death, annihilation, that is movement. Movement matches with movement. But that which is immobile, indestructible—Absolute Bliss—doesn’t attract the mind conditioned into movies.

You have to know what a person needs. Does he need food or sleep? Have an eye on that. Keep providing him with the food he needs. One day he will come to know that he has eaten all of it—scenes for the eyes, music for the ears, the fragrance of flowers for the nose, tastes for the tongue. You have produced a child, lived in a big house, all that which you wanted you have lived.

Now that doesn’t interest you because, through meditation, you have seen a great Self Effulgent sun, light, bliss, so now all the tastes of the senses have become below standard.

What attracts you? Your own Self. When you meditate, you meet your Self and that is indestructible. Meditation or Satsang is for those who are open to Sat. Sat means that which never dies. When you come to know that you have something in your hand that will not allow you to die, that will be your herbal root, your Sanjeevani-bhooti [life-giving herb]. Don’t try to bring those who don’t want to come to Satsang. That is the greatest favour you can do for them.

The Truth Has No Name

Samdarshan: I see that Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum is the only reality.

Swami-ji: He has assimilated, accepted, and recognised this. He is not expected to explain it, but it is very obvious that Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum is God.

That which is the reality, the truth of one’s own Self has no name, but it is Self Effulgent. It doesn’t need any result of activity or any achievement to prove that Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum is your reality.

The one who has meditated has come to know that, in the field belonging to the senses, everything is separate, separate, separate, and the sense of separation is the criterion for a person not to be able to know Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum.

When you are fingers, you are not you. When you are shoulders, you are not you. When you are things, relations, food, stomach or intestines, you are not you. All of those are the material assistance and are essential for the body to survive. As a human body you see a variety of things which are good for your living. This body is supposed to live with the help of things, so things are in harmony with the body. They are changing, they are in variety, multiplicity; your body is also changing and is in varieties.

Where is Oneness?

In a havan [fire ceremony] there are different materials—rice, sesame seeds, ghee, wood pieces and fire. They all mix together. Everything is different.

Where is Ayk [one]? Where is one without a second? Where is Oneness in relation to your activities, modes of actions, and the function of the mind with its vrittis [See definition ]?

When everything goes into the havan fire, including the coconut in the end, everything turns into Oneness. That Oneness, Aykattwa, is God, Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum.

When you meditate and your thoughts come, surrender them to the fire or space. You surrender your concern about somebody’s backbiting, somebody’s emotions and thoughts. Just keep doing havan and you will reach the state of Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum.

There remains nothing else but Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum. When somebody assimilates: I am That, Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum, it is not necessary for him to keep impressing others, but one just has to know: This is it!. That is the only thing which is not a thing. That is the only existence that is not multiplicity, that is not I or you, he or she, long or short, gain or loss, or any kind of multiplicity.

When it ends in Oneness, that is God.

Follow any path

You can follow any path—action, knowledge, devotion or love—if you come to know God without whom no action can take place. Therefore, in all actions Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum is.

No service can take place without Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum, so in all modes of service Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum is.

No result of action can happen if Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum is not there. Nothing can happen if Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum isn’t there.

There is no mind because even if you say there is mind, Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum is permeating.

There is no intellect without Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum.

There is no ego without Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum which is all-permeating.

If you take a breath, Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum is permeating.

If you think a thought, Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum is permeating.

Aykta [Oneness], unity is the result. You have not to define it. When you put saamgree [havan materials] into the fire, you have not to define where it has gone. It has turned into Oneness. That is Samdarshan. It is Sam [Beingness].

There can be no liking [raag] without Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum.

There can be no bad thinking [dwaysh] without Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum.

There cannot be any kind of happening without Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum.

Wherever you go, keep knowing God

Wherever you go, whatever you think, keep knowing God because God alone is.

But when the intellect is not refined, it doesn’t grasp that way. I am speaking it, and it is just possible that some of you, or one of you, have come to know that Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum is all that there is—one without a second. I gave you that mantra which you are. When you got tuned in, you came to know that there has never been anything separate from you.

Aatma: When the body is in a condition of change, undergoing a process of repair so much of the time, the attention has to go to the changing field. I see that as a distraction when I want to attend that which is indestructible.

Swami-ji: It is not your fault that your attention goes to repairing the changes that take place in the body. Without the body you would not be able to realize what I have just said. The attention has to go to the body, especially when the very attention, and Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum, is permeating the body. Why and how would it remain separate?

Aatma: When my attention goes to the body, it covers my direct experience of that part which is unaffected, unchanging.

Swami-ji: That is your style of interpretation because you have heard that God is that which is impractical, so your attention is somewhere in the absolute, and when the body exhibits pain, your attention gets ousted from where you want to keep it. You think that the body is hell, the body is nonsense, the body is of no use and is to be burned. You think that you have a conch shell on your Being and your Being is very pure. That is your interpretation.

For the one who is Self, Amaram Hum as a whole, where will Amaram Hum not be? Attention is Amaram Hum. At the point where you have pain, it is Amaram Hum. You cannot have pain without Amaram Hum. So why divide? But you are trained by the intellect and the intellect is meant to divide. You think that when you are asleep you are in Sat Chit Aanand and when you attend the body in the waking state, you are in the field of mud and it is very bad and sinful. That is your misinterpretation and you get the result of it.

Swami-ji: Don’t worry about experiencing the changes. Changes also have life, attraction, and the power for you to get into them. Watch your attention—friend, fruit, frame—all things are there and they have the power to attract you. Why blame yourself that your attention goes there? Attention has to go. We have tons of things and they attract. When the candies came I was lost in them. I am not interested in them. If your body attracts your attention, what is wrong? Your attention goes to the body and you think that you have committed a mistake.

I couldn’t look at Jonty when the candies came. I explain this because I know who I am. I am as a whole. You think you will leave your body. You think that you entered in your body. That is what you are taught. When you build a house and go through its door, you say that you entered the house. You are in the same space. Things come to you. The body comes to you. It comes to you because you and the body are one and the same.

In teaching children, we make up wrong stories. We say to the child the letters 'ASS' and show him a picture of a donkey. The letters 'ASS' are not a donkey. Your attention is not the body, but that happened to you. 'ASS' is a sound, not a donkey. But the child identifies it as a donkey. The child got identified that Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum is the body. Therefore, you are seeking 'ASS' without donkey. You say that your attention doesn’t go on 'ASS,' it is always on donkey. What is wrong with that? Your attention is all-permeating.

That which you will never have you are wanting. Everybody is wanting. So many things you were wanting, and you didn’t get.

You are wanting that which you will never have. Ultimately you came to know that your want is wrong.

Swami-ji: Yes, of course. You are already free. Why would you identify yourself as 'ASS?'' ASS' is free from donkey, but you make a donkey out of it and put the attention, the body, into bondage and then you say you want to be free.

You are Aatma, you have never been bound. Why would you like to have freedom when free you are? Sunshine will ask, "Can you give me freedom from being sunshine?"

What would you do? You would put a little box on it and say, "This is your freedom and you will be safe in it." That is the type of freedom you want. You want freedom from the body. It is incorrect because you are already free, with body or no body.