The Answer, through the Development of Ability

Swamiji: …There's not a single person who is just the same as someone else and who should be called similar to another person. If you doubt me, then see the formation of the teeth of one billion people. Something will happen that you will come to know that everybody's face and teeth are different. If everybody is different, then why do you try to make unity and think that everybody should be united? United with what? You have to bring in some element. You say they should be united with Israel, India, England, or America, that everybody should say, “I’m American, and because I’m American my teeth are not different than those of somebody else. So, my teeth are American.” What I’m saying is just to give some ability to you so that you can grab it and try to analyze whether I’m saying a right thing or a wrong thing, whether I am confusing or I am straight. You are not unintelligent persons, so you can try and come to know, is each person not different from others?

Shiv Priya: Yes.

Swamiji: She says that it is true. At that time we have to say that the faculty of mind or intellect is different in the head of every person who has a body. So why would you say that space and body are one and the same? If she decides that body and space are one, then she has a reason for that, that she's that body and the body and the space are one. She has concluded that when she is dreaming, the body of a jug and the space are one and the same. When you wake up, they are neither space nor jug. You have not yet decided that there is no space and no body in the dream, but that in the waking state there are. That's all. So why should I talk further? [laughter] We have concluded that that's what you are. Anybody else takes a chance to come?

Shiv Priya: But then, ah, [she laughs]…

Swamiji: Yes, that's right, this is the way — continue saying something.

Shiv Priya: But then I listen to you and I know that you are not confused and you know the Truth and you are…

Swamiji: Then you conclude that I am different from you.

Shiv Priya: Oh, totally different! [laughter]

Swamiji: So you can conclude that. Yes, then?

Shiv Priya: I want to have the knowledge that you have, I want to grasp it.

Swamiji: Yes, yes. That is our relationship. Without the two of us, you cannot have it. I must be there. That's why in scriptures they say, “Without Guru, you cannot realize.” And the Guru should be a realized one. If the Guru is dumb, then the disciple will be double dumb. [laughter] It will be dumb-dumb — in Bihar, there is an airport called Dum Dum. Now, again we begin, because she is inquisitive and I have to be that which is shaant [peaceful]. Fighters do not like what is shaant or shaanti [peace], because when you do not fight they call it shaanti. And we are fighting. She is saying that I want to be that which you appear to be, which means not confused. This is everybody's inquiry and question. Why? Everybody is confused. What is wrong with it? Everybody has two legs, so what is wrong with it? Abhaya, who does not have two legs over here? In this way, everybody is confused. Who is not confused?

Someone from the audience: You.

Swamiji: Well, how did you, being confused, conclude that I’m not confused? [laughter] At this time, there has been a change. At the moment that you have understood that I’m not confused, all of you are no longer confused. In this way, Guru and disciple grow together. If you know that I am not confused, you will ask questions, because then you are not afraid of me and you will not think that I’ll belittle you, chide you, or say that you are ignorant, stupid, or unintelligent. You are sure enough that he is one with me because he is not confused. The unconfused and the unconfused state are one. But the confused state of every single person is different in ratio and in measurement: someone is 100% confused, somebody 99%, somebody 1%, somebody ½%, and somebody ¼%. That is the human head of everyone. Yet see, each one does not want to be confused. What is that? They’re all one on that level.

If you have known that they are all one, then why do you make differences? You’ve heard from me that they’re all one, but you’re not convinced. We have just decided a couple of minutes ago that all the billions of people who have different teeth and faces are all different. When you have known that they’re all different, how would you conclude that they’re all one? What is your requirement? The unconfused state means Oneness. Then, what is the head of a person if it is not Oneness? Human. A human being is such that he has to inquire and then grow in knowledge; then inquire and then grow in knowledge; then inquire millions of times and then get millions of answers and millions of times his knowledge. Yet he's still confused, because his inquiry remains. What does he want? “I should not be confused,” which means, “I should be free from this inquiry.”

Many people pose not to be inquiring, thinking they are not confused, but they are confused in their heads. They can be quiet; they can ask or not ask questions about any inquiry or anything; they may desire inside and outside, yet remain quiet and think that they are very knowledgeable (as people think that if you remain quiet, you are very knowledgeable). Many people don’t inquire, thinking that they will be exposed. Now, from where did this fear come? The fear came because man thinks that he is imperfect. Whose mother made her child imperfect? None. Then why, after a few days or years, would a person, a child who was all right, be declared imperfect? You call imperfect stupid. When a child was born, he was never stupid. He was a little flower. Everybody wanted to love him, to carry him, to put him on their shoulders, in their hands, to kiss him. You do not do kiss the stupid. That means a child is all right, and you were once all right. What happened to you that now you have become not all right? Anybody? Why do you think you are not all right, especially when Swamiji thinks you are OK? You are never sinful, you are never mistaken, you are never stupid, you are never unintelligent. In you, all these things do not exist. So, why are you intelligent? That is just like saying you are unintelligent. If you understand this, then you can understand that I’m talking about You, who are Pure. You cannot make the meaning of Pure. Try. Mary?

Mary: Pure is Awareness, or the Knower.

Swamiji: You can say Awareness, provided I understand. I understand Pure is Pure. Why is it Awareness?

Mary: Awareness has no form — it is undivided and pure.

Swamiji: Then why do you have to use a second word, “Awareness.” Why is Pure not enough? That's all. Pure is Pure, like I is I. I is forever. Why do you think, “I am stupid. I am unintelligent. I am small. I am big. I am very rich. I am poor”? I is I. So, Pure is Pure. Why does it not go to your head that you are Pure? The reason is that you say that you are the one who has drunk coffee, and coffee is not very pure and it is sitting in your stomach…You just cannot say that you are Pure. Why? You have never heard me saying that you are Pure. You heard — from here my voice went, and there you thought the body is not pure and Swamiji is talking about a body. And I’m talking about You. You are Pure. You cannot be cut by anything. You are Free, as free as Space. You are not even born, you are Forever. But you do not leave your stand of understanding that you are the one who is thirty years old, now forty-four years old. You are forty-four [to Shaarda]? Yes. When you came here you were fifteen years old. In between, where have your years gone? In Purity. Because Purity is that — we conceive as a human being, we have the capacity to imagine and conceive — where years are not, which means where time is not, where teeth and head are not. So, you are That.

It will take millions and millions of years for you to understand this with this head. Therefore, what is essential? Ability. Engagement for Ability Development [saying this he points to the sign behind him]. If you have come here and the ability has not been developed, you just cannot get the answer, because you are full of question. And you say that your question is very intelligent, and because it is intelligent you don’t want to ask another question. See the human being. I never try to expose him, but he is exposed material. [laughter] Therefore, he has to thank the Almighty, or his mother and father — whoever it is that made us and whatever way they have done so — that we are human beings and we have the full power.