Chintamani Saadhana:
Recognizing You Are the Space

Swamiji: We have realized, but we do not know what we have realized, because we have not been able to recognize it the way that we recognize faces, forms, and things. We are always so grounded that we are in existence as that which our mind has known. Our mind has known things, forms, and situations, and their style of changing, appearing, and going away, or anything like that. As long as the mind does not grasp the Self, it is grasping things, forms, persons, situations, and gain and loss. It looks like our sense of “I” and “you” is “body-you” and “body-me.” We never discard this body, but we can find that the Self exists in it. If the Self exists, then why do we have to discard the body when it is with this very body that we are going to realize the Self? Where does the Self exist? That is what the Guru, the informer, asks. When he asks this, then you will not have a small identification of your own as separate from That and separate from this, or as separate from any object.

What the informer wants you to know is that when you close your eyes, you are That. Why would this be difficult for anyone? Then where is there change in it? Where is the knife that can cut it? Where is the fire that can burn it? Where is the water that can make it wet? But we always remain in the field of the five tattwas [elements], and this field is very clearly this body. We recognize and see this body, but we have the ability to close our eyes and recognize our Self. That is where the saadhana [practice of the Self] is.

Saadhana is to produce that chintamani [jewel of realization] with which whatever you think, that happens, whatever you hear, that happens, whatever you see, that happens. What is that chintamani? That is you, the Self. And that saadhana is our lifestyle. We are doing chintamani saadhana. What is chintamani saadhana? Do you recognize that you are Space? If you have recognized this, then you are doing chintamani saadhana. Again and again you become somebody; and again and again you can close your eyes, and you become That.

This will be very easy and simple, provided we, the informers, succeed in letting people know in five minutes, or even in one minute, that you are That. But why did you not recognize That? You recognize your eyes, mind, ears, shirt, pain, and suffering. But that with which you are recognizing, that is Space, and That Thou Art. I said everything.

It is good that we continue saying, “I see and I hear. I’m sitting and you are sitting. And I am fortunate enough to share with you.” This will continue. But what is the result of our sharing? Space. [To Shiv Shankar, who is sitting on the speaker’s seat.] That is Shiv Shankar. Shiv does not have snakes. Shankar has no Parvati. This Space is neither male nor female. This Space remains forever, whether your body is burned or put in a tomb. That is the Space. Now if I ask "Do you not recognize it?" everybody will say "Yes!"

If you have said, yes, you recognize it, then let me know what the trouble could be to you, that Space? But it is such a sort of individual, complicated confusion that we cannot recognize it and identify with it as our identity, because our identity is of hands and feet and nose and ears. This is so strongly in fixed in our heads. But that which is there, which is all-permeating, close your eyes and see it. Do you think that has come from Rohtang Pass? It's already there. Only these eyes, with their open petals, did not see it. So your senses delude you. Your mind deludes you. Your actions delude you. Your achievement deludes you. And I see this. I know that delusion is rampant, but I never say that you are deluded. Why? I know you are That. There delusion, illusion, ignorance, foolishness, and forgetfulness do not reach. It's forever: Pure, Free, and Forever. Thank you. Somehow you have to have some special, unique energy to observe that "My goodness, it's always there, and I never recognize it!"...

You just have to find out what is there, that this very relevant information does not get heard. What is that? You should remove it, that's all. That is aavaran [the power that covers the Self]. It's like with a blind man – however great the sun is that you try to show him, although he's alive and he hears you, although he knows that the sun is there and even says, "The sun is bright and things are visible," but he does not get it. It's not his fault. His eyes are not open; they have no sight in them. Human beings are born without that sight. Guru produces sight. Guru does not say that the sun is there or the sun is not there, or that this is high and that is low, and all that. He just thinks, "However much time it needs to take place, but your sight should be opened."