Disturbance and Freedom

Brahm Prakaash (Bruce): You have said that when we try to perceive  through the intellect, it is as if there is a disturbance in the consciousness. How can we cultivate perception without there being any disturbance?

Swami-ji: What is it that perceives and what is it that disturbs?

Brahm Prakaash: In the process of perceiving, as I understand it, the Knower is there and it is pure and constant and, at the same time, it is the agent of perception, and when it perceives anything that is changing, that purity gets disturbed . . .

Swami-ji: Mixed. Disturbance here means that that purity appears to be mixed with the instrument of perception. 
    Suppose someone is using a camera and he begins to associate with the camera, and then begins to think, "I am camera." The purity of the person has become changed or mixed with the object: camera. 
    Camera is an object, a form of nature, but the person, the seer, the Knower does not form a part of the nature. So it is pure, free, and uninvolved. But suppose the person begins to associate with the nature, the camera, with which he has to film your face. So he says, " I am seeing Bruce." It is the camera, the eyes, who are seeing Bruce. Just by being mixed with the instrument, the 'eyes' assume that it is I who am seeing.
    So why will the eternal presence, who is forever pure, become mixed and say "I am seeing?"  That purity has become disturbed and has become impurity. The one who is unmixed forever and who can never be mixed begins to see that he himself got mixed.
    We call this disturbance or identification.
     But you are that Shyam who is forever free, who is pure awareness. Just as with sunshine falling on a flower, its light has not become flower. Light remains light. Awareness cannot be mixed with a flower and become flower.
    You are that type of free light, free love, free vision, free seer, free Self who has no form that can be blended or mixed or disturbed or caught in the instruments (of perception).

What are these instruments? In the waking state, they are the whole body, including the inner body. You cannot conceive that your mind, or Knower can ever be separate from body, so your nature is that when you wake up, you say "I am body." 
    Your body may be busy acting, but you—the 'I'—is nowhere to be found, unlike the hair on the head, or the tongue in the mouth, or the intellect in the brain, or the ego sense.
    How does this 'I' turn into form or camera or instrument and become ahankar (ego)? That which you call 'I' is only ahum (I am). That ahum is always pure. But the person seeing the flower says 'I,' and this is ahankar. 
    How did ahankar become mixed with prakriti— nature—when its very quality is self effulgent and can never be mixed? Why would free being become mixed with bound being?

Upon waking up, a person will say, "I am in this body  and I woke up." 
    But check. Legs got up, shoulders got up, the body got up, but where is this 'I' that got up?   
    The body can get up and begin to function only because of the presence of pure consciousness. In the body, it is like a light of the sun: even when sun is not visible, its light is visible. 
    When light is mixed with the flower and has becomes separate from the sun, it becomes disturbed. When 'I' is separate from the sun—the absolute Being—'I' became division, 'I' became disturbed.

The human consciousness is trapped in the three parts of the body:  external, internal and causal—mal, vikshayp and aavaran. 
    Mal is removed when you have indrawn from the physical side of the body and you begin to say 'I am pure mind.' At that point, the body will not touch you. 
    And vikshayp—I am agitated, I am upset, I am happy, I am unhappy—will be purified if you reach the causal body, aavaran, where you say only 'I.' 
    There the mix is removed, but you say that 'I am' is still there. Now, I say 'you are for ever pure,' so why do you say, 'I am' and become impure? You say that because you are supposed to be acting in the world and in the relative field, you hve to say, 'I am.' Fine! Many actors play the role, but they know their true nature. So why would you not be able to know that you are ever pure and yet act and interact within the cover, within the trap, of causal body, mental body and physical body?  
    You have become aware that you are forever free, and you feel it, you know it, you realize it. But, if you keep laying a trip on others, saying, 'I am free and you are not,' you won't be able to interact. You will have so many drawbacks because you are mixed, or disturbed. 

The one who is transcended and has become absorbed in the light of that Supreme Being, the Guru, is no longer impure, no longer a victim of the prakriti (nature) which is always moving and always dying. 
    A human being thinks that the physical body is going to die, and that is why disturbance takes place. It is a big fear. Such a person is not free—not free from the dualistic impact on that 'I' which is now trapped as mind, trapped as causal body. 
    Check: if it was not free to begin with, it could not have become trapped! 
    So it is forever free! 
    It has never been bound! 
    It is not bound now! 
    It cannot be bound!
    But why does this conviction not arise? Because in the waking state, this purity thinks that 'I am' is the reality. This is impure intellect or mind. You are still bound because you say that 'I am mind.' If you don't say that, you are already free. 
    That power you have.
    Now, what did you understand from that?

Brahm Prakaash: You brought the attention to that eternal 'I' that is there no matter what, that is just the eternal reality  . . .

Swami-ji: Now all of you  can feel good. What happened to him that he understood? A few minutes ago, he was asking how it got disturbed and how it got mixed. 
    So there is a possibility, through hearing, that someone can know where the all permeating reality is.
    Each person has to see how his thoughts and vrittis are functioning. It is a personal work, a personal effort.  

19 January 2000