I Have Never Been Bound;
The Knower Has No Sense of Contradiction

Sameepta: In Gita chapter eighteen, it speaks about a sannyaasi as a person who has renounced the state of separation and who knows the solution, the Self. I was wondering if you could speak about this?

Swamiji: This is being spoken to persons who have not yet known what Liberation or the Self is, what Krishna, Space, God, or Purity is. These are the persons who are hearing. The one who is speaking knows what it is. These people who do not know also do not know what he knows. The one who is the knower—whether it be Krishna in the Gita, the speaker, or a few other persons—is not saying anything on this point. Rather, he is taking the question of these unknowing persons into consideration and is talking to them with a view to let them unfold the knowingness which he has.

The first question with regards to this body, which is engaged in karm or action and which remains in action, is answered so that the listener can have a sense of freedom and then can start working. Otherwise, he is already sitting and thinking, "Shall I do this work or not? Shall I accommodate my friend or drop him? Shall I possess this car or not? Shall I maintain this house, or if I need money should I sell it? If I get money, how should I invest it? If I have an investment, then how should I protect it?" All this thinking goes on.

On this level of thinking, this man is not feeling comfortable. The one who knows the Reality and the problem of this unknowledgeable one speaks to him that "Your action will not yield the result of knowledge." For there must be the result for him in terms of knowledge—and knowledge is not action. But the man responds, "Without knowledge, I cannot act. So knowledge and action must be one." The knower knows that this man is confused and doubtful about the states of knowledge and action. In the man’s mind, he has two ideas: knowledge is there and action is there. So the knower suggests, "You should think about and know who is doing action. Can a dead body act?" The man answers, "No." Yet when his body is alive and he is asked, "Who is doing the action?" he answers, "I am doing it." He has the answer for when he is alive, but when somebody is dead, there is no answer for him. So the man simply responds, "Well, I don’t know. He is not there."

The knowledgeable one is wanting this man with a mind to be "There," from where the mind appears. When the mind appears, it is not the Source; it is an iceberg, not water. The iceberg is being spoken to, "You should get melted. Why and how should you get melted? You should have the fire of knowledge." So a human being is being advised, "Have the fire of knowledge, which will reduce your iceberg, your frozen mentality, because it is not allowing you to know that it is all Oneness."

Oneness is not being experienced, known, or realized because of the frozen mind, because of the foggy, ignorant mind, which does not know Oneness. And the man is in need of knowing Oneness. He will know Oneness if something will happen to him so that, on the mind level, he will not join all the time to things and forms, to the body, bones, and blood. Rather, his mind will now join that which is the Source of the mind. Then it will be called Sat-nyaas [union with Existence]. The Source is Sat [Existence] and the mind is asat [non-existence, or changing, temporary existence], although it is the same. A human being can understand that a seed is a seed and a sprout is a sprout, but he is not able to understand that the seed and sprout both do not have to be taken into consideration, because they are both not there. If both are not there, then he does not understand what is there.

So the questioner returns back saying, "I’ll ask tomorrow." Until then, he feels like doing other things, like eating, drinking, and everything else—whatever he can do, he does. The struggle is where somebody has to make him know that which he does not know. He wants to know, but he does not have the capacity of understanding to be able to. So he presents his own problems: "Well, I have done this and I do that. I felt peace at that time when it was not like that, and I do not feel peace when it is like this." He just goes back and forth.

But the knower is wanting him to know what is that which is in deep sleep, hoping that this man, who has the experience of deep sleep, should know what is there. If you can join with that which is in deep sleep, then it is sannyaas. If you join that with action so that action does not exist and only That is there, then it is nishkaam karm yog [the Yog of action-less action, or action tuned into Oneness]. Then it becomes Yog. Yog means that neither the world is nor the self is. That is Yog.

But this is a trial, a methodology, where we are using language on the basis of human understanding, so that a human being can understand. That much we know—because there is no other language. When there is no other language, at that time we start meditating. The linguist says that there is no language in meditation, that it is maun [silence], and the one who is recommending it to him answers, "That is the only basis of language." But the one who is in the mind does not know this. So he is left alone and is told, "Look, you continue. Accept the method and unfold that you are a sannyaasi." In meditation, everybody is a sannyaasi, and after meditation is over, everybody is a karm yogi, or one who does action of any kind: knowledge and action are both action.

So, what to do now? How are you to be free from that which you have known up to this time? Freedom does not mean that you have to take the quilt along with you; because you became warm and you are feeling free, therefore when there is sun, you are still having a quilt. It’s not that freedom should be like the sky—you are a human being and you have a tool. But you thought, "That is I, and that is bound." Having heard this, you should work on "I have never been I, and I am not bound." That is sannyaas.

The Knower Has No Sense Of Contradiction, Because The Knower Alone Is

Gangadhar: One point of ignorance which I find in my system—perhaps it is a characteristic of the human waking state—is that it feels very uneasy in the presence of contradiction. … On the one hand I can see that there is no cause and effect, and on the other hand I can see a very definite cause and effect, and I don’t know how to reconcile these two truths.

Swamiji: If you seek reconciliation, yet there is cause and effect or contradiction, then this method, or this awareness of seeking reconciliation, will not balance your sheet. There will be no balance. Reconciliation will never happen. Why? Sunlight has never seen darkness and darkness has never seen sunlight. But the word "Light" has nothing to do with either sunlight or with dark light. For Light, there is no contradiction. So if contradiction is there, then Light is not—either you are siding with light or you are siding with darkness, either you are siding with consciousness or you are siding with matter. For consciousness, matter will be viewed as matter; and if matter had some knowledge, then consciousness would not be matter. But the one who is the Knower, for him, he is not in contradiction. He is knowing darkness and he is knowing light. But if somebody comes and says, "When you are knowing darkness, then you have become dark," the Knower will smile and say, "You do not know this fact, that I am—as it is. When I see darkness, at that time darkness is seen by me and I say that it is darkness. When I see light, then light is seen by me and I say that it is light. But when light is not and darkness is not, I am the same. If I am the same and I know that I am the same, why should I become anything else when I see darkness or when I see light?"

That Oneness is to be reached. You should call That as I, which means, you should identify yourself as That. This I will not have any sense of contradiction, because I alone am That. When I see darkness, I am darkness, when I see light, I am light; so for I, there is no such thing as it became light other than I, or that it became darkness other than I. It is like the sap of a tree—if it became a leaf and then a flower, then you cannot think that the sap is the mind’s contradiction, because the sap alone is.

In this way, when you analyze and know where you are at, then you will see that you are in the field of contradiction, and that is why you do not relish it—because, according to Swamiji, you are Forever, as it is. You are neither this nor that; nor are you I, nor are you you; nor are you your left leg, nor are you your right leg; neither are you your left eye nor your right eye. At the same time, you are That who is the Knower of all that which is right and left. And you are the same when right and left are not there. It is, as it is. It is just as air is air when it blows fast, when it blows slowly, and when it blows in the middle speed. It is air. It does not mean that when air became three kinds, so air has been contradicted. When air does not blow at all, it does not mean that air has died. In the same way, your Self, your I, your Being, is forever the same.

Human consciousness, as it is made in the waking state, is such that a human being has a mind with which he thinks that he is not deep sleep and he is not the dream state; and, at the same time, he says, "I am deep sleep" and "I am the dream state." You contradict this. While in the dream state, he does not say, "I am the waking state," and while in deep sleep, he does not say that "I am the dream and waking states." So anybody who is a victim of these three states of consciousness is confused—because he is none of them. Somewhere he retains this originality, but he does not know this unless somebody like me says, "Look, you are That in whom there is no deep sleep, no dream, and no waking state. You are forever the same."

This is what has yet not taken place to a human being in the waking state. So saadhana is the knowledge in every state of the sameness. Read any book or Research Finding, hear any song or talk, see any video or anything, you will find that You are forever the same. You can go anywhere, You never change. The circumstances change, the places change, but You never change. So we began to say that you are Unchanging. But then you ask, "What about this changing?" as if you are unchanging as against changing. There is no way for you to describe your reality except by "You"—just You. You. A human being understands You to be Pure Consciousness. So it comes again and again in our terminology, that That alone is, That is forever just the same, and That you are.

In this way, our I—which is the body-I, which we began to call our I—is always questionable, because it is only one part of the Whole. All three states have an I. But then you think that you have three I’s. You will ask, "Well, how come I could be in the dream state and I could be in deep sleep?" So I say, "No. I alone am." Then it gets contradicted. But that is not to be worried about. You can listen to it, and if you can relish it, fine. And if you don’t relish it, you can still ask. When it will happen that you will relish it—I say this because you are still in the field of relishing or not relishing, of giving up or picking up, of what is the cause of something or what is its effect. You must be understanding this fact. I’ll close by saying that in the dream state, who is the potter? And who is the wheel of the potter? And who is the mud in relation to the potter and the wheel? And who is the dreamer in relation to the wheel, the potter, the pots, and the mud? Let me know?

Gangadhar: It’s all one Consciousness.

Swamiji: That’s all. So then, where is the contradiction? Now, you should not contradict anymore. [Laughter.] It’s not that once you have said this you should not ask a question later on. I know that You are forever the same. But saying that you are the same, if you snatch the freedom of the same to not make this and to not make that, and to make this and to make that, then what is it to you? It is the Freedom—You. Whatever it wants to make, it makes. A small child takes play dough and makes hundreds of toys. Why does the father have to worry about it? It’s his choice. Some of the things are there which you understand. But You alone are. Thank you.

December 12, 2003