Somehow, If “I Am” Goes Out Of Your Body, You Are Pure Free Forever

September 22, 2013

Questioner: I am continuously trying to pinpoint what the dimension of Pure Free Forever is, or else when I am in the ego-intellect-mind. Even when the satsang inside my being is only of the intellect and my I is only on my body, rather than be in the dimension of the waking state while thinking I am in the field of gyan (Knowledge), I would like to know how to shift to experience the dimension of the Self. Do you have any suggestions?

Swamiji: All these people who came over here, including you, are familiar with that dimension. When you were not born, That existed. But as soon as we took birth and became a human form, something took place to the same dimension. That very dimension forgot itself—because “I am” came in it, ahankar (ego) came. That was such an infinite Being, but the moment he said “I am,” he became an atom, or anu, a small anu, a small drop ready to become a human being.

Many times I mentioned a fig fruit. In a fig, how many small anu are there? In a papaya, how many anu are there? In many fruits, how many seeds are there? A pomegranate looks like it is one, but how many seeds are there? How can you say it is one? Each seed cannot say it is total, including all; rather, each seed thinks, “I am only one seed.” So “I am” took place. The moment “I am” took place, then it became conscious of “I am,” and it became the individual ahankar.

It was all Infinite Being, but a thought came in it which makes form. A thought of the sky, or shabdh (sound) appeared, so then it became akash (space). Then a thought came to appear as air. How has it been that the little anu began to think, “Let me be sky” and so sky came? It was never sky, it was Self, but now it appears to be “I am sky.” Then “I am air.” They both rubbed together and the same became “I am fire.” That rubbing became such a heat that it became fire. When fire became too hot, it became water. Then it became earth. Then it became all the herbs on earth, which are the result of the rays of the moon and sun. Then a human being came on earth—because of these five tattwas (elements, or space, air, fire, water and earth), which became the body. . . .

Being has never become anybody else but Being. But now, as an individual, each one says, “I am.” “I am. . . [he names people in front of him.]” It is one pomegranate, it is one room, and each one is here with the mechanism that has been created by himself of “I am.” Then I created the mind, created the intellect and created the ego, the ego-intellect-mind. It created the senses, so shabd, sparsh, roop, ras, gandh (sound, touch, form, taste, fragrance) came. Then, it created shabd (sound), or the ears, for space; it created sparsh (touch), or the skin, for air; roop (form), or the eyes, for light; ras,taste, or the tongue, for water; and gandh (fragrance), or the nose, for prithvi (earth). And it is all one anu!

I am saying anu because nobody knows what that could be. Everybody knows the individual. The individual now is “I am ahankar.” As long as “I am ahankar,” whatever I am thinking with the intellect, I become that. You think of your father, you’ve become your father. You think of your mother, you’ve become your mother. You think of Madhuri, you’ve become Madhuri. You think of Sita, you’ve become Sita. You think of Swamiji, you become Swamiji. Whatever you think, you become.

You are still the same Being, but now your thinking has become viparya buddhi (the intellect which is opposite to the Self), or totally opposite to what you were. You were Pure Free Forever. If you do not think “I am Pure Free Forever,” then you will remain this individual—forever. Then there will be time and space and causation. There will be birth and death, yours and everybody’s. This will happen, and the world will continue. Sleep will happen, dream will happen, the waking state will happen.

I am saying this now, at this time, because all of you became aware that you are not this body: seeing your fathers and mothers pass, you came to know, “I cannot be this body, because they cannot be those bodies.” But what were they? You do not understand that they were Space and they have become Space, but your eyes deluded you that they were a form in between. So I am saying, “No, you are Pure Free Forever, that Space.” Even when you are born, you are Pure Free Forever; even when you have five tattwas, you are Pure Free Forever; with shabd, sparsh, roop, ras, gandh, you are Pure Free Forever; when the end takes place, or time is, you are Pure Free Forever; when time changes, you are Pure Free Forever; when space changes, you are Pure Free Forever. Everything changes, so much so that the world is dissolved. If the world is dissolved, how is it that you know what remains? That which remains, you have been. That which is, you have been. That which will be, you have been. So there is nowhere any other thing except Oneness.

In that Oneness, we welcome our own Self. When I see that, then Self you are, Self you are, Self you are [he points to the people before him]. I know you are very beautiful forms, faces and thinking, happiness and unhappiness. But I know you are the Space. If I am a miser and do not talk to you, you will never know that you have the ability to think “I am the Space.” Instead you will think “Well, I could be my father, I could be my mother. I could be better than three, four or five generations before, better than somebody who was.” But you cannot think that you have always been the Space. . . .

If you can think now [he hits his hand for emphasis], “I am Pure Free Forever,” there is a possibility that you can do abhyas (practice), meditate, and know it personally. When you close your eyes, “Pure Free Forever I am.” You can identify, “That I am” and practise it, as against daily becoming the body, eating and drinking and all that—for that will never remain. In this way, somehow if “I am” goes out of your body, then you are Pure Free Forever.

That is where human beings, or all sentient beings, cannot do it by themselves. It is only a human being, and an enlightened one, who can say, “My goodness, what have I been thinking?!” It is either “I am a little lad,” or “I am a little girl,” or “I am learning this or that.” The whole mechanism is so deluded that you are always thinking “How is it that if I am Space, I became this?” That is why we say, “You don’t have to worry how you became this. Now, you can have the power to become That.” If you say, “I am That,” then where is this? I remain that Space. This is the crux of the whole knowledge.

But it can only be given to those persons who are jigyasu (who do inquiry), who have the intellect which says, “I am the body.” But some people do not have the intellect, they do not say, “I am the body.” They say, “Well, this is something.” How did it become “I am the body”? Who says this? The intellect. And the intellect is viparya buddhi, which means it was never there—yet it became intellectual knowledge, the intellect, or imagination. Everybody has imagination.

Now, in the light of what I have said, you can try to imagine. You cannot imagine anything but forms—either of dreams, or the forms of the waking state, or no form of deep sleep. All three were not there. In the dream, there is nothing but sky, in your head there is nothing but sky, yet you think, “No, the dreamer is there, and I am the dreamer.” You forget your waking state person and become the dreamer. When you get into deep sleep, you are not even a dreamer. When you come into the waking state, you are this. And all three you remain.

But I talk about the fourth, and you know three states of the intellect. They are not a person, they are three states of the intellect. Each person is intellect, intellect, intellect—one intellect. But now, whoever has that type of intellect can know, “Well, this intellect is meant for ‘I am the body and they are the body.’” But when they sleep and you sleep, the intellect is not there. What is that? Shuddh buddhi (pure intellect) comes. In pure intellect, there is no division, no pain, no suffering, nothing—no age, no person, no elder. It is all pure intellect.

I say that you are already pure intellect. See, when the world is dissolved, try to find out anything: any time, or space, or causation, or things and forms, or your ideas and the world, or many worlds, or the whole earth, or sky or sea. This is when dissolution takes place. You cannot say that dissolution does not take place, because every night your body is dissolved, so the world is dissolved. What remains? That, only Guru knows. That is Me. That is Self.

If that is the Self, if that is the Space, then, having realized this now, why would you not admit to yourself for the last forty-five years that “I am That,” as against “I am this”? No one says you should obey me or obey him. You yourself know, I am That.

Then you continue, “Nobody can know ‘I am That’ unless he is informed.” When he is informed, then his ears hear. But the ears are the physical body, so they get the result of their hearing as only the body: sound, and all the names of things and forms. The ears cannot hear that nameless. The eyes cannot see that formless. The nose cannot know what is free from smell, or breath, or free from air. Free from the ocean, the ocean water cannot know. Free from earth, the earth will not know. All that which is on earth, whatever is, is avidya, or ignorance of the Self. That I has been forgotten. When that has been forgotten, there must be something with which you have forgotten. So we say it is avidyamaan, non-present: that which was non-present, or your body, you say is present; and that which has been forever vidyaman, forever present, has been forgotten.

If you can hear this, it becomes shravan (hearing about the Self). After shravan, it is in your court. In your court is the whole thing. In shravan, you have heard, “Yes, I am That. But why am I this?” Then you say, “I am this because I am made as a body, and I have learnt it. People say, ‘This is your name and your form,’ but I am That.” If you remain “I am That,” then wherever you go “I am That,” which means, “That alone is.” Then you can say, “That alone.” That alone is one word and not two—that and alone. Otherwise, you will be lonely. You will say, “That, and lonely me.” It is all That.

This has been your shravan. Then, there is the practice of manan (assimilation, or reflection). Manan means the ego-intellect-mind is the tool. But if you continue using the ego-intellect-mind, you will never become That, because all three will make a form—of the dream, of deep sleep, of the waking state, or of the imagination of somebody. So you have to leave it. When you meditate, you leave it. . . .

You are living with people, and they are all ignorant. All your family members, who are very near and dear ones, do not know you have reached That. And you cannot speak about it to them, because it is very hard to break a nut with your fingers. When it is a coconut, how can you do it?! In this way, the human intellect is a kind of nut. It is called a knot. What is the knot? A human being says, “I am the mind and I am the body.” Chaytan (consciousness) and jar (matter). He cannot say, “I am the Whole.” If you are chaytan, then everything should be chaytan; if you are jar, then everything should be jar. But no.

This is the difficulty of the mechanism. That is why—without blaming anyone, without saying they are good or bad, small or big, long or short—we bring in that awareness which is Infinite Awareness, Pure Free Forever Self. There I say, Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum. Because it is never born, so it never dies. It never has become anything. But there is this mechanism. Nobody told you in university that at least you can know from where the eyes came, if not from roop (their subtle element—light, or form).  Roop came from Swaroop (True Nature). Swa is the Self. So when you close the eyes, you have nothing of the type that you can think of.

I say it is Siddhant Kal (time of maturity, beyond time). In all possible ways, we are making you aware you are That. But because in the waking state the intellect works, you always think, “I think like that. I should be like that. I am sick. I am happy. I heard this—somebody laid a trip on me. Somebody has played out loud. Somebody has done this.” All these things, all these concerns, are all imagination. And you live with this imagination. You conclude according to your intellect, and because it has come from the same Source, so your intellect also looks like it is true. Whenever you open the eyes and see the pomegranate, you cannot say it is a mouse. It is a pomegranate, because that is what has been filled, as a kind of computer object, in you.

At this time, watch. We have welcomed this Space. Neither is it blue, nor is it black; neither is it zero, nor is it whole; neither is it space, nor the nether land, nor is it the ocean; neither is it sky, nor sun, nor moon. But it is. It is that Space which is Pure Free Forever. After you become the intellect, then I say, Thou Art That.

Because you are trained into the world is there, it is as if you are going to make the world worthwhile. When you are not there with the body, what is worthwhile? So why not use your body for this purpose, in which nothing is needed, only you yourself. I say if you are asleep, the whole world that you see does not exist. But then your mind says, “No, no. When I open the eyes, it exists.” So this takes a lot of time. There is nobody who can work with you, because nobody has the time. They all lead your attention to the senses, because they are made of senses. . . .

Every human being is breathing, working, speaking and thinking only to achieve that space of Freedom which is unborn, unchanging, undying. But that is now so far before, that it has been left. You are here. How can you remove earth, water, ocean, fire, sun, air, sky? But I say no, you are the same Being now. If you can be the same Being, then you are automatically one with That. Only you have forgotten. So I say now, “Remind yourself.” Guruji says, “Look, I know you are Pure Free Forever.” Whatever you know, that is not correct. You think you are rekha (a line on a rock). The whole rock you are, not one line. The whole shila (rock), the whole sky, the whole awareness you are, and each one is. See the rock—how many atoms are in it? And each atom has its own whirl. Now, the space of Oneness. I will be quiet for twenty minutes.

It is called Sarvatma  (All Self), Sarvashakti  (All Power), Sarvadhyan (All Meditation), Sarvagya (All Knowledge), Sarvathaa (Always), Sarvakal  (At all times). These are words used as a teaching device so that people can associate with the abstract One. It has been proven by now that your intellect will never call the abstract something real. Whatever the eyes see, that will be pratyaksh (direct perception), which means it exists in front of the eyes. That which does not exist in front of the eyes, the intellect considers to be dead. We see it. For when bodies pass, what can you say except to follow the same as everybody is saying and doing—weeping, crying, being sorry, hoping this, hoping that; and, on the other side, trying to possess this, trying to live that. Again the ego-sense comes, which means, ignorance of the Infinite Self comes.

When you are yourself infinite, you will not have the desire for petty little things, you will not feel insulted by petty little words, because forms and words do not ever exist. Guru says this, and you have great regard for Guru. But that regard is not enough, because you have it only according to your brain, or power of understanding, that whatever he is saying comes from his mouth, or from books he read, or from his learning, or from his experiences. No! He is the same as you hear from. You never hear from the body. If the body could hear, it could hear in deep sleep, or in the state of unconsciousness, or in the state which is ended. It is the same Being.

Once you have come to know this, you became That. You can check That. We do not add words— “What a joy! What happiness!”—we are just That. Then utilize the body. Do karm yog, or action which will purify your intellect, and you will be left as Yog (Unity, Oneness). Practise chittvrittinirodhah, where all the vrittis (waves of knowledge of the intellect) will become purified. Then, what remains? That we began to call Yog or Gyan, Knowledge or Self Realization.

All that I have said is one hundred percent correct. It is only that each person has to follow it in this lifetime, when you are young enough. If you do not follow this, you have wasted your lifetime and you will fall in the category of that which is called pashu (animal). Amaram Madhuram. [Laughter]

You, each one, are on one side, maybe that of a person. In front of your eyes, every happening is on the other side. Wherever you turn your face to look, everything is on the other side. Since you cannot look with your eyes towards you [he points to his body], you never include yourself and know that you are also other. If you take this body here [he demonstrates putting his body in front of himself], you will see that you are also other. This illusion has become the natural unfoldment by birth—that birth which was never there. Now, how is it that it became so important and is called “I am”? Whereas for the very birth of the one in the womb of the mother, there is nobody as “I am.”

There is a body which, from the side of the physical body, is the third body. From here [pointing to his own body], the first body is this physical body and the second body is the mental body. These two bodies you are familiar with. The third one, which is in the womb of the mother, is also a body, but it has no arms, no legs, no eyes, nothing, yet the body is there. The pomegranate is from a seed, which has no legs, eyes or arms, so you say it is a seed. But you don’t call yourself a seed, because all the time you are seeing arms and this and that. But that seed has everything you now have in the second body and third body—it is all there in the first body. The first body is Antavahak (Inner Knower), which means it still knows, in the child in the womb of the mother, that “I am the Self.” But the moment the child comes out, he immediately forgets, and then he is a fish out of water and he cries. Because he was knowing, and as long as he was knowing “I am the Self” he was pretty good, he was lord of lords. But that was before “I am” appeared in the Space.

This is so abstract that you cannot imagine it with your intellect. So we say that when everything is dissolved, the intellect is also dissolved. Yet who remains? Who hears that it is dissolved? It is not that you have gone there along with the dissolution. It is dissolved. In one shot, the whole thing is dissolved. It doesn’t take much time. Who remains? That is everywhere just the same. That same Self suddenly appears through no cause of it. Cause only comes when you are the body, and you begin to think and make a cause, and then an effect—cause and effect. It is like in the dream. You never make the dream. You are lying in bed and a dream appears. It appears without any cause.

You can know now when I am speaking, “Yes, it seems to be that Swamiji is telling me that which I have never thought of.” Why? The intellect can think only this. Yet he thinks, he boasts, “I am this. I can think like that.” But he never thought. That is why I say that whatever a man is thinking about himself, that he is this [he points to his body], he is not this. He should know this also which I know—that you are Pure Free Forever. Nobody can communicate this to the intellect in the waking state.

Therefore, this fact is to be fully realized. You can read books and you can hear people, but it will not happen without you realizing your Self, which was in the womb of the mother. When you close the eyes, where you are? You are in the womb of Brahm (the Whole, Oneness). Brahma (the creator, the mind) is not there. It means you are before Brahma, the creator. A human being can know such things—creator and creation, this and that, then Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh (the Creator, Maintainer and Dissolver), then the Father, Son and Holy Ghost— they say all kinds of things.

All this language which man has evolved has become a preventive force to getting there. That is why we meditate. So that you should not become the victim of the same intellect, we take a few minutes in meditation, five or ten minutes. Then you are settled, and slowly and slowly the intellect does not remain. Then, who remains? That has been the first, so we call it Purushottam (First Being). Sometimes we call it Krishna. Sometimes we call it Ram. Sometimes we call it Space. Sometimes we call it Atma (Self). Sometimes we call it Paramatma (Supreme Self). Sometimes we call it Brahm Satyam (Oneness is Truth). When it is Brahm Satyam, what is the value of your intellect making the statement that jagat, the world, is so much there? It is not there. The moment I say it is not there, again you come on to the human being and say, “Well, you say it is fictitious. But I am seeing all this!” Then the intellect comes. The intellect is playing such a great part for everyone— every relation, every person—that everyone thinks, “You are wrong. You do not think right. I am right.” And sometimes you think, “Oh yes, you think right. I am wrong.” This goes on. Thus, time passes, and one day such a precious body does not remain there.

It is not that you made the body. The very Self made it. The Self made it just to know “Somebody should remind me that when I am making it I am going to forget.” So the Self made Guru before he made the world. He said, “Well, you remind me. I will forget.” [Laughter] That is the time now that you have come. It is called Siddhant Kal. When we are sitting together, we just see each other and know we are That. [He snaps his fingers.] Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum. My love and affection to all those people who are hearing this. . . .

Whatever is happening and has happened is just the manifest world—which never existed. But how can I appeal to you that it never existed? Even your body was never in existence. But when it exists, it is a dream. As long as you are seeing the dream, it is real. In the dream you cannot say, “It is a dream, and I am not the elephant in this dream.” You are an elephant and you are agreeing with it. You are a lion, and you are agreeing with it. You are seeing the world.

We have examples of the kind that you know, but you think otherwise. You think the dream is real, that all the forms in the dream are real. Many times in the dream the dreamer himself dies, and he sees his death; if he sees his death, he should die in his bed. But he never dies, he gets up. In the same way, he sees the death of people in the waking state; they never die, yet he is seeing it. That is the intellect. That is illusion. A human being thinks illusion is right, when it is not. . . .

But now, because everybody’s eyes are open and they are in the waking state, every little thing is so important that they have to do. Thus, we have to remind only those people who are ready to learn, or to hear, what was me, what is now me, and what will be me. It will be Me the Space—forever. All those clothes were not there; they will go to the laundry. All the bodies are not there; they are like clothes, they will change. Your bodies, at least after that, will be ashes. But when the world is dissolved, there are no ashes. When the world is dissolved, do you think ashes will be there? So you know that your Truth is pure, avinashee (indestructible), ajar (unborn), amar (undying). It is Eternal Existence. You are never born, you are never living this way that you think, and you will never die. Why? The one who is living is avinashee. Bodies change, but avinashee never changes.

Still we are human beings, so we think, “It should be together, and it should not be anything else but this.” That is the intellect. Let it be the intellect. Fine. But you have come to know it is imagination. Each one knows how he sleeps. Why in sleep are your thoughts of your existence and your language, things and forms not there? Suppose somebody cleverly takes a sleeping man and puts him over there in Halifax. Then you say, “What happened?! I had gone to Delhi. How did I come to Halifax?” I have led you to be in Halifax. Your attention has gone to Halifax, and you are lying in your bed, you are sitting with your mother, and all that. But now, you are here. Nobody knows how this happens. But it is the Self, which is prior to the space. That you are. It is very big. You continue listening. If it is your good luck, you will become That. Well and good. Otherwise, we will meet again. [Laughter] . . .Thank you very much. God bless you. Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum.