You Are the Self to Whom No Difficulty Reaches

Kevin: I notice that, with meditation, life gets easier, but because I then feel more comfortable, I find that I sometimes fall away from meditating regularly, and then things become more difficult again.  

Swami Shyam: Things become difficult only when you are unable to retain the knowledge of your Self. f you are meditating more, yet things are getting difficult, then you have to get the right information and knowledge. 
    The key is that if you meditate less, you become like everybody else—those who don't meditate. So without using the word "more," you should not meditate less and remain unaware of the Self, your true being.
    Difficulties arise when you are not realizing the Self to whom no difficulty comes. This is not known to you. And this is what is to be unfolded. 
    The being in you is Me, The Self, to whom this body, with its difficulties and diseases, never reaches. It is that which is original—this body is put on later on. 
    This is to be added to your awareness. You may not get it, but let me continue saying that you are the Self to whom no difficulty will ever reach.

Kevin: It is when I don't meditate enough that more difficulties come. So I am realizing more and more how essential it is to meditate regularly and for a long enough time every day, because otherwise, eventually, it starts slipping and there is more chaos, more troubles. 

Swami-ji: You are very correct in your perception. So continue meditating. 
    Whenever you complete your meditation, know that your eyes will be able to see things, but they will not be able to see 'You.' The eyes and the senses are the body—they assist the body—and body is keeping them. But body is not keeping You. Body is ungrateful. [Laughter]

Sneaking the light of the Self into your intellect 

Komaltaa: I like your statement that, 'The Self needs no improvement.' The dilemma that I've been examining is: what does need improvement? I always seem to want to present to you the idea that if you could fix something, then I would understand the Self, so obviously I am thinking that there is something that needs to be improved upon in order for me to get what I really want which is the Self. 
    I've been looking at what it is I can offer you that purely comes from my heart and that would let you know what it is I need to do so that I could know the Self eternally. 

Swami-ji: I would say that your dependence on this or that in the realm of time does not allow you—the Self—to sprout or unfold or sneak its light into your intellect. So the truth has not been able to come to you on the level of intellect and act as sattwa, the ability with which you are able to see the Self  in all the forms, everywhere, the undivided Self.
    This sattwa knowledge has not yet dawned. So you have to bring it in again and again. 
    You have come to know the Space as Space. But Space turns into a person or a thing and you conclude that Space became a thing and a form.  Treat it that you have at that point divided that which is undivided. It is due to prakriti [nature], and the rajogun- and tamogun-based intellect. 
   So the purification of the intellect is said to be when you, whoever you are in this body, are able to perceive that Self is everywhere Self. Self never divides itself into Self this and world that, Self this and Komaalta that, Guru this and Komaalta that. 
    The same sunlight falls on everyone, in every house, in every heart. That sunlight remains forever. This is the expression of sattwic intellect or knowledge and this is to be gained—this improvement is to be made.

The waking state makes you forget. Yet you are hearing the Master or Consciousness or Guru say that You are not the waking state. Eventually this knowledge will appear. The same waking state which you use to know that 'I am Komaalta' can be used to know that you have never been. 
    Why did it happen that you began to say 'me' or 'mine' for the thing that was never yours? Why is that you put on something that walks on two legs and has a head and eyes and eyesight and ears and an engine inside—the stomach—whirling all the time, and you began to call this thing 'Me?'  In deep sleep, you don't call it 'Me.' The utterly ignorant person does not call it 'Me.' 
    After hearing me, something happens—I cannot say what—but you will know that somewhere, Swami-ji is getting you relaxed from the intensity of body consciousness.
When you are awake, you are body conscious. In deep sleep you are not. 
    Check: at this time, the waking state is being watched having a thought. And immediately it begins to say, 'I am thought.' But you are quick and smart enough not to identify with that which is not you. 
    Seed thinks that seed is sprout. On the basis of this example, the knowledge is being given that "Self is all that there is." But people are getting befooled. In the case of seed, seed is seed and not sprout. The emanation of seed may be called sprout but it is still seed.  
    It has been heard in the scriptures—even in my songs—that 'I am this, I am sky, I am air, I am fire, I am water, I am You, I am all That.' Hearing this and hearing that Self is Guru and Guru is Self and Guru alone is everything, you are getting caught in the things! 
    I have written that all the things that you know are the Self. So give up the idea of things—of the tree and the sprouts and all that—and know the Self, be the Self, be tuned in to the Self. 

The nature of Self is free. It is just possible that you might get it! But you have heard that Self is manifesting in the variety of things and forms, and that what ever you see is You, and therefore you have to love it all. This philosophy is heard and comprehended and even loved. If this is so, why does the body, which you love so much, not remain with you when it is dead? 
    But there is among humans an inherent, automatic quality of identifying or acknowledging the existence of body as Me. From that perspective, if I say you are Me, and someone dies, it means that 'Me' died.
    So you come to know that dead body cannot be you. That is a point worth making research on.
    You use the body—it's a brilliant vehicle. We are happy and grateful and admire this incarnation—this vehicle. 
    Check: It is the body that perishes. It is the nature that becomes old. It is the nature that becomes sick. It is the nature that dwindles. It is the nature that disappears. But not Me!    
    Realizing Me, your job is done! 

Sifting freedom from dependence

Shivnath: You said earlier that we become dependent on things and forms as opposed to merely using them. How do you determine when your use of things and forms becomes dependence?

Swami-ji: You are able to see that objects are going to make you happy or give you health, or get you relaxed from your sense of desire or need. When objects, persons or situations such as wealth and prosperity, status, name and fame are given great importance, you say  that with them, you will be happy. 
    In this process, the very happiness which is your nature, your truth which is independence, freedom, life, love, joy, your undivided nature, got neglected. And you became 'I am this object' and then began to think that your very survival depends on this or that. If it is not available, you say, 'I am upset, I am small, I am uneasy, I can't work, I can't meditate, I can't learn, I cannot  go anywhere.' This is dependence. 
    Daily you feel you are not OK, and you feel that if you can just get some object or thing to come to you, you will be OK. This is the ongoing saga of dependence. Whereas I am saying that you are already free—nirvikaar—beyond. 
    You think that if you can get the object, you will have improved happiness, or more happiness, or infinite happiness. Whereas I am saying you are already infinite. You have never become finite. 
    Human beings even make division out of infinite—infinite is one thing and finite is another. Whereas infinite means there is no finite. Undivided means there is no division.  The dependence is due to the consciousness of the waking state which says 'I am this.'    

Shivnath: Is there a field of action which does not function in this way?

Swami-ji: Yes, yes of course. When you have realized the Self, you come to know 'That.' And why should 'That' not function just as well as 'this' functions? [Laughter]
    Nikta karm we have to do. Nikta karm means action belonging to body. Body will always need action because it is made of action. Daily you have to go to bathroom! You have to have breakfast. You have to dress. You have to comb your hair. You come to Satsang—nikta karm. You read something—nikta karm. This is daily karm and must not be ignored.
    Any karm that brings in a division state, that is nikta karm.
    Where is the ultimate goal? The knowledge of the Self! Independence! Freedom! When you have come to know the state of freedom, then there is no problem. That is the only non-problematic area. All of that which is outward and external, all that which can be seen by the senses is problematic. You call it changing, changeful, decaying, dying. You are not supposed to be picking up that which is dying. But you do it all the same. 
    To know that, you need a Guru.
    If you cannot retain a sense of oneness, you get divided and cannot see the Self  as free being, all permeating, without division. 
    I am emanating the words. And you could say that the words are separate from me because they are emanated, they are manifested.    Somehow, this sense of duality is to be reduced or absorbed in the Oneness, and that is the saadhana.

The boat, the ocean, the guide, and the Space

Alisa: I recall you recently using the phrase: 'Sansaar mayaa parivaar jitosi'—the dream of this world can never touch you. And I've been thinking about it since. 
    When you said that, you also said that human vision is world vision, and the world is like an ocean made up of waves. We, as human beings in the waking state, struggle against those waves. And we need someone who has a boat and is a great guide for us to tell us to get into the boat and cross the ocean to a beach where we are transcended and just living as the Self , above the sansaars. 
    In that talk you also said that detachment is the practice, because when we are struggling against the waves of the world-ocean, Self and world are mixed. And what I understood when you said that detachment is the practice is that the attention should be on the boat, on traveling with you and on rising above the waves of the ocean. 
    Is that where you are trying to lead my attention? And why is it that I sometimes think that I can get back in the water of the world and swim around and still do my saadhana—still get back in the boat?  

Swami-ji: You are understanding at every stage the words that I used, and you get the meaning. 
    Take the example you have used—boat and guide and you as a traveler remaining in the boat and being with the guide, and the guide telling you how to have patience and go across. You have understood this example from the perspective of you, in this space and this setting, and you, in this setting, are in a boat. Boat is your body and Me is the Space. And you have become somebody who now does not know or who has forgotten that you are the Space and not the body. 
    If you are sitting in the body, then you have to be with Me, the Space. Knowing the Space that you are, you have not to be afraid of the ocean or the wooden boat or the waves. For Space has always been free—above the ocean, around the ocean, everywhere. That being is forever free. Having known that, it is not that you are tempted to go towards the ocean or towards the things or forms or achievements. It is all right. You do not have to be in a particular boat with a guide or Guru.
    But if the meanings of the words are to be understood, you are a body, and I am the Space. And you want to be close to me so that you will know that Space you have been all along. You have never been a body sitting in the boat. If this perception evolves, then the evolution is being perfected. Otherwise it is the evolution of the senses. Or mental evolution. Or intellectual evolution. Or ego evolution. 
    Unless this perfection of evolution takes place, you will not know that I am the Space undivided. When you know I am the Space undivided—infinite Space—then there is no necessity of talking about how many boats and passengers are on the ocean and all that. 
    There remains no world. There is no boat. There remains nothing to cross. It is all Space. That's what y words mean. 
   So you will not have to sit and be bound and dependent. You are independence, not an objective, independent person, a body reality. There is a difference. Independence is freedom, the Self. Independent is a person, an objective reality. And this person is seeking independence which can never be broken, can never be bound by the idea of birth and death. That is independence. That is the knowledge of the Self. That is the param vigyaan—the supreme science, and there you will be knowing yourself as the Space, not as person sitting in a boat or becoming part of the boat. Space sits in the jug; Space is found in the boat, but this does not mean Space has become boat. 
    As long as you are tagged to human consciousness—body consciousness—you will not be freed. You will never be able to cross the ocean, because for you, the ocean is material, substantial. The example of ocean is given to those people who seek guidance and are tuned into the question of 'who can guide?' The guide can guide you. The one who has been unable to get the essential knowledge that he is one with the guide-consciousness is made to sit in the boat and to keep listening to the guide saying 'You are free, you are free.' 
    How many times have I said, 'You are free.' 
    Through Space, you reach the Space. Through Space, you come to know the Space and become one with it. Space is the dearest, dearest, most attractive existence for all human beings. Towards that we are going. And you are that Space. Already free. I say these things because I know them. You interpret them according to the level of your own evolution.  
    This evolution has to take place. Yet for this, there are no schools, no universities, nothing.
    So you are not supposed to be sitting in the boat. Boat is just a wooden boat. And water is water, a material substance. 
    But Space is You. 
    Undivided. 
    Just knowing this, you are free.

9 February 2000