Transcending Subject-Object, or Jarh-Chaytan

Bhakti Nath: Swamiji, this morning you defined the one who has reached the sky as the one who is no longer involved with jarh [insentience] and chaytan [consciousness]. I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately, especially about the fact that the mind is jarh. You said that the mind is just as much jarh as bones are. That really made an impression on me. I’ve been trying to put that in context with understanding a sutra [aphorism] from Patanjali in the fourth paad [chapter] [4:18] that goes, Sadaa Gyaataashchittavrittayastatprabhoho Purushasyaaparinaamitvaat. Basically, what I understand this to mean is that the mind is full of chitt vrittis [mental waves]. All of that is not known to the mind, because it's limited to what it knows through the senses. But the Purush, who is called the Lord, knows all the vrittis all the time.

So, in connection with jarh and chaytan, what I understand is that the mind is called jarh because it is known by Purush, and therefore it is no better than bones because it has no seeing power, no chaytan, no consciousness — without that which Purush grants it. It sees what Purush allows it to see. Therefore, is the mind called jarh so that we won’t take it to be our real Being and just say that our being ends there, that we have to go beyond that to know that the Purush is knowing-power, that the Knower is knowing-power?

Swamiji: Jarh and chaytan is the mind, or the human being. When it is jarh and chaytan, then you cannot separate jarh from chaytan and you cannot separate chaytan from jarh, because it's one Reality. It is just as a bone is not a bone, because it was never there before a child came into its mother's womb. But now a human mind is that which will say that a child has bones and flesh, and then a mind, or then we became the mind. The human mind: that’s our description. We have to see why this person — who became a person, a good person, a wonderful person — is not satisfied and wants to know more. That more is nothing but Purush, Param Purush [the Supreme Being]. So he knows that he's Param Purush, but at the same time he's asking for the awareness that will enable him to know that he's Param Purush.

So all these teaching devices — jarh and chaytan, karm yog [the path of action] and gyan yog [the path of knowledge], dhyaan yog [the path of meditation] and so on — belong to the human mind. And because the human mind never thinks, "I am other than the mind," he keeps understanding everything, [laughter] whatever he can do, that's all. That is the Purush's difficulty. So it is the Purush who is already involved and who says, "I see myself as the chitt [the mind]." The chitt became his object, the mind became the object of the Seer, of the Knower. So the Knower has divided itself into subject and object, and that is why it cannot be straightened. Without Guru, you cannot hear, "I am. I alone am." Somebody will say, "Then, what about your mind?" You have to be emphatic in your awareness that, "Well look, I alone am. That's all." The person will say, "No, no. Give me an answer." He will try to persuade you in multiple ways. And you will say, "Well look, once I have said that I alone am, then treat it that I can write it, and you can carry the paper." [laughter] That is Param Purush. So Param Purush is Gyan [Knowledge]. If Gyan is still doubtful, then it is involved in the mind, and that is human being.

Bhakti Nath: So, Param Purush in the doubtful state…

Swamiji: Is the mind.

Bhakti: It thinks it is the mind.

Swamiji: It thinks it is the mind and it is the subject. It has forgotten it is Param Purush — which I say. The mind will not say this.

Bhakti: So the Purush is then subject to an object, which is the mind.

Swamiji: Yes, yes.

Bhakti: The object is the mind.

Swamiji: So then the subject is also the mind, because the subject and the object both are the mind.

Bhakti: Because otherwise there's just Param Purush, Pure and Free.

Swamiji: That's all. So either you succeed in transcending subject-object, or jarh-chaytan. It's called raag-dwaysh [attraction-aversion]. It's called duality. Duality is like the rays of the sun in the desert in which river water is seen. That is the mind, which says, "There is water." It is the collectivity of the rays of the sun, but he says it is water. This explains the human mind. The human mind says, "There is Param Purush, and this is [indicating the body] a pig." [laughter] So he falls, the Param Purush falls on that level. You have known this. But now it is your own trip. Suppose I talk, you must be thinking that I must be knowing. But if I know, then I know that I say pig, but this is not a pig. I say man, but this is not a man. I say guru, but this is not a guru. I say speaker, but that's not a speaker. I say you are a listener, but you are not a listener. That is Param Purush. That's called Pure Knowledge. Then we started calling Knowledge as Pure Consciousness, though it is just to create more doubt about it. It's Gyan, that's all. Like the sky — you cannot say it is jarh or chaytan. But you will be able to understand. [tape side ends]…

So there's no jarh and chaytan. It's said only then. But if an ordinary man says, "Am I jarh or chaytan?" then I’ll say, "No, you are chaytan, a more superior chaytan than any stump." [laughter] See the human mind. When I say, "You are wonderful, you are beautiful, you are lovely, you are joyful, you are just pure delight," you feel good. If I say, "Neither lovely is in you, nor beautiful is in you, nor joy is in you, nor delight in you," you like it. Because if a half-dead man is there who has been in an accident, what is the joy in it?

So all the time, you are never, never given the right information, because it's constituted in such a way that Gyan and the body is one reality. Such as, the heater is there. The heater only now is gyan; up to this time it was a dead heater. When it happens, then this heater will never know that I am dead. This is the complication. This complication is removed by yourself — nobody else can do it. When I say your-Self, then I’m included in You, because that is where the transformation of a human being is. A human being is such that he wants to remain a human being and at the same time he wants to become divine. [laughter] Then it doesn’t happen. He's either divine or a human being, that's all. The Divine Being has its own style. …He's alone. But if he's alone and you think that alone means single, or a bug alone somewhere in a room, that’s not the meaning of alone. Alone means the Whole. The whole summed up will be alone. Yes.

Bhakti Nath: When you said that a human being wants to be divine and at the same time doesn’t want to be divine, I was reading this morning that the one who has great mumukshutwa [desire for liberation] is the one who when they just hear the idea of liberation, their eyes fill with tears and the hair on the back of their neck stands on end — you have to want liberation that much.

Swamiji: If liberation comes, then it comes, that's all. Then it cannot be very inferior. If in between you interpret, "Liberation seems to be inferior, because then I will not be the body," this is a concept, all mind-made. So mostly the mind is being defined. Even if you understand the functioning of the mind — that it doesn’t remain the mind in deep sleep — then you have known it. Then you will not say, "Today, my mind came." Just that. Thank you.