The Road from Finite to Infinite

Kritarth (Kim): At one point you said of me "She says 'infinite', but written all over is 'finite'." I wanted to ask you what you meant by that.

Swami-ji: If you say 'mountain' and see only the sand particles all over it, but not the mountain itself—that’s what I meant. It means that while you say ‘infinite,’ you still call yourself individual and others individual, and not only with respect to persons, but individual objects and individual forms as well. 
    You say 'infinite.' You say 'garden.' Yet you keep giving numbers and names to each of the flowers

Kritarth: I have a real desire to be able to say 'infinite' and be the infinite. Even though inside I am an individual—finite—outside there is the desire to be the infinite. 

Swami-ji: So then make the individual infinite and call it infinite. Then it will be the infinite voice and not the individual.
    Who is it who speaks? Who is it who says I have a desire to call the infinite 'infinite?'  It is not the voice of a little flesh contained within your ribs. It is the same infinite. So if you know this, there is nothing to figure out. You just know it and call it infinite.

Infinite is infinite. People such as mathematicians might know something about the word 'infinite' and what it is. But the word 'infinite' is used as being opposite to 'finite.' So it is not really infinite. Because infinite is by itself. It doesn't need any polarity—good or bad, small or big—to describe it. 
    Finite is seeing the particles of sand instead of seeing the mountain. 
    Seeing you, Kim, we cannot say "America." Seeing America, we cannot say "world." Seeing world, we cannot say it's the only planet. 
    Infinite you are already. And even before you uttered the word 'infinite,' you were that. 
    Let someone say you are finite or let someone say you are infinite: You are neither of them. That is infinite.

Kritarth: If I try to know infinite with my mind, I just can't get it. But if I feel it, then I can say I have infinite appreciation for you or infinite love for you . . .

Swami-ji: Those are just words that  we use. You do not have infinite love or appreciation for me. You are me. There is no difference.
    If a wave says to the Atlantic Ocean, "I have infinite love for you," it is really wanting to say, "I am you." But when using language, there is no way to say 'I' so that the ocean is able to hear. The ocean has no way to hear just ‘I,’ so it has to say 'you' and 'I.' 
    Somebody said to me, "Guru-ji, I like to listen to you, but I want to keep myself as 'I am' so that I can listen to you." 
    I said there is no harm, because both are 'I am.'
    Keep knowing that there is no duality. There are no two persons. There are no finite particles. It it is all one mountain. There are no finite objects. It’s one sky. There are no five tattwas. It’s all Me. 
    So if you give the name ‘Me’ to the sky, the sky does not feel small, and ‘Me’ does not feel big, because there is no difference, no duality.
    That's our target And if you have reached there, Dikpal can give you a certificate! [Laughter]
    So this is infinite and finite. They are just words in the language of human beings. And human beings can only evolve human language. 
    If this were the world of horses, and one of the horses came to know infinite, he would not say the word 'infinite' he’d say, "Hmmmh!" [Swami-ji makes a whinny sound—uproarious laughter] And all the horses would come to know because it is not the horse that speaks, it is the infinite.
    I hear words, but I never, never grasp that it is your body speaking or your mind speaking or your tongue speaking—it’s always me. 
    Having reached that state, you use any words. They are all the expression of that state. 

There is no way to jump from the finite to the infinite except through using the Knower. I do not say Knower is infinite, because your Knower is always at the back of your forehead, so it is always finite.
    But if ‘I’ is written and you leave it somewhere, millions of people will come and pick it up. And it will always be 'I.' Millions of particles or leaves of the tree will come and pick up 'I' and they will all become 'I'
     And you as a human being will say, "Oh, these many individuals are kept in this ‘I’." Or people will say, "These many children are God's children." 
    If such thoughts makes people love each other, then use the language. But that doesn’t solve the problem. You are trying to know infinity. But if infinity turns out to be infinity, there is nothing to know. 
    You, as a human being, have an opportunity in this body to use your tongue, to use your conceptual knowledge, which is based on ahankar (ego). But you don't have to worry about infinity to know you. Infinity knows infinity.
    The word ahankar or ego is used in two ways—cosmic ego and human ego. You have to see that whenever  you say "I am" there are two spaces involved in it—conscious (chaytan) and unconscious (jhar), or 'I am.' 'I am' is this body—jhar—but the one who says 'I am' is the conscious part. Your jhar-mind does not reach there. 
    So in the human form, we use the language because that’s the only medium we have to know things. We know things, we know forms, we know situations, we know emotions, we know all that which is on the Discovery Channel or the National Geographic Channel. All kinds of things are being known and given names. But that which 'is' and never ‘am’—that is infinite. If you say 'I am,' that is finite, which means it changes. But that ‘is’ never changes.
    Who knows this? That is infinity.

Kritarth: Thank you Swami-ji.

'I am' versus 'is'

Dikpal: Recently, Swami-ji has been using the phrase 'I am' as a synonym for 'ego.' I find that very interesting because what we are trying to do is to realize the Self, and the word for Self is 'I'. So the idea that 'I am' is ego, which means that it is an obstruction, and the idea that what I am trying to realize is the 'I,' makes me think a lot.
    What I am guessing, Swami-ji is that when you say 'I am' you are meaning 'I am' with something after it, such as 'I am body' or 'I am man' or 'I am something,' because the sense of 'I am' without any object after it is the sense of existing, and existence is what we are. And I wanted to ask you about that.  

Swami-ji: ‘I am’ became existent but in deep sleep it was nothing that we could perceive. 'I am' will arise only when something else is going to be, like 'body,' or 'happiness' or 'unhappiness' or 'rich' or 'poor,' to which ‘I am’ will be associated. In the light of that, 'I am' comes.

Dikpal: I would describe 'I am' as signifying a state of consciousness.

Swami-ji: So then it stands for something—that which it signifies. At that point, it becomes two. We use words for those people who are full of ‘I am.’ When ‘I am’ comes, the phrase signifies that Self appears to have forgotten itself. Then it sys, "I am ready to realize the Self." Otherwise, it will always be 'is.' Otherwise, why does the Self have to realize the Self?

Dikpal: So then the sense or awareness of 'I is' . . .

Swami-ji: I will never say 'I is,' because 'is' is first. Out of 'is,' this 'I' is built. The moment ‘I’ is built, I became seen (object), and ‘is’ became seer or drishta. So drishta, drishti and drisht (seer, seen, seeing) is the human trio through which concepts are made. Whatever is free from this trio is existence. There, we don't say "I am."
    It can be understood. You have understood. That’s enough. That is realization.
    But now, because your intellect is not certain that you have realized this, it will try to find ways to describe that which is. It may say 'is' is existence or 'is' is consciousness. But then you are not saying anything, because consciousness or existence is not a table, is not an umbrella. Existence means ‘is.’ Consciousness means ‘is.’  ‘Is’ means existence. ‘Is’ means consciousness. If at all we give meaning to this it is because we use words and language and, through words, we have come to know that this body exists 
    But existence doesn’t need to know that ‘I am’. That’s why it is mukt, freedom. Otherwise it will remain bound forever.
    What kind of 'I am' (are you referring to)?

Dikpal: Unqualified 'I am.'

Swami-ji: You are convincing me, or what? [Laughter] 
    When you say 'unqualified,’ again you are qualifying. I am neither qualified nor unqualified. You are using the same tool to define that which is achint, that which cannot be brought about through thinking.
    Thinking gives concepts and a concept is made when you are ‘I.’ In deep sleep you never make a concept, yet in deep sleep you still are. This is called the unqualified state and you understand it. But we don't need to describe that, because it is indescribable.
    It is not that we cannot talk about it. But suppose you come you know, why would you then struggle to describe it when you find you will never be able to describe it? 
    When it is reached, there is no question remaining that needs describing. 

Dikpal: Thank you very much.

Connecting the intellect to the Source

Bhakti Bhaavana: You said at one point that jeev aatma (individual consciousness) gets separated from the intellect. I wanted to ask you about that.

Swami-ji: In the dark night you do not see things. That means you do not know things. Suppose in the night, a guest comes and the electricity is off. He will not see where the window is, where the kitchen is. It is pitch dark. That means no knowledge of your house will take place. So knowledge and light are very similar for the purpose of dealing with things and forms. So if things and forms are to be known, sun is needed, light is needed. 
    So how do you know about your body if sun is not there, lamp is not there, torch is not there? But you do know the body, so that 'I am' must be light—the light that sees the intellect and gives intellect light of its own. So intellect become light. And that light is then carried to mind and mind in turn gives that light to the senses. Senses become lit and come to know the things and forms. 
    It is the light of 'I am' or jeev aatma.  Without light, a dead body has no intellect. So we come to know then that we all have jeev aatma. We don't see it, because it doesn't have any form. But it is there as Knower and knowingness. 
    As long as that 'I am' is in the body, it is not dead. When 'I am' is not connected, then slowly, like a tree whose root is cut off, the leaves fruit and branches all become dry. So if the intellect is not connected to the root, it may appear to be functioning, but it is not really understanding anything. 
    So we have found the way of getting your intellect connected to the root, the source of 'I am,' and 'I am' connected to the light, the consciousness.

The essence of enlightenment

Knower is that Self which is beyond all states of consciousness. When that light is known, then it is all light. And that is called 'enlightened.' 
    Your individual consciousness is to be taken and fixed in the heart of God.