We Are Never Separate

Swamiji was in Chandigarh and Kasauli for a week. He had gone to have a cataract removed, but while he was away he also visited many people and even addressed a meeting of professors at Panjab University. As his car pulled up to the ashram in Kullu on Thursday evening, people greeted him on the stairs with flowers and a welcome song, and then proceeded to the roof for satsang.

Swamiji: As soon as we entered Aut, it started raining [there had just been a long period of drought]. So it seems that God is so pleased to see us all together again. [Applause.] I can well understand when you say, "Swamiji, I’m missing you." [Laughter and applause.]

Rest and action or excitement, and rest and excitement or happiness, and rest and joy and delight, and rest: this is the order of a human being in the process of his growth. A little child acts (as even that little Fraya [Lars and Maria’s baby] was there welcoming us), and when action emanates, we have no clue where it comes from. When a wave of delight arises in a human heart, we have no sense where it comes from. As we see waves in the ocean water but do not know when they arose, the same thing is with the action of a human being. … [Swamiji greets a visitor.]

So a human being is a bubble, a wave, or a vibration. The one who knows this says it. But a human being ordinarily only takes the help of the mind and of his eyes. He does not find his Self, as it is forever or pure, while he is a manifest bubble, wave, flower, or a human child. So the human journey is always in the field of action, so much so that a human being cannot get out of that field of action and thinks that he himself is action—that he is the body, the senses, the mind, and the sense of division. But the one who knows, knows that it is never like that.

There has never been any division between knowledge—which people say is Pure, Free, and Forever, and action—which they say is active and dynamic, or changing, resting, and changing. When a human being reaches the climax of his seeking, then he gets the result of his examination: when he closes his eyes, there remains no action of the vision. Then what remains? In an instant, the vision is in rest. That is what is recommended, whether you say by me or by yourself. The vision, which remains active because of the functioning of the eyes and of the forms which are seen, needs rest. The moment the vision is restful, Pure Awareness is experienced.

I can realize how much you have waited for the last one week. It shows the intensity of your love and delight, and the love of the vision—because you have been seeing me for the last thirty-five years, yet the eagerness to see has never become less. Why? Because you are never separate from me and I am never separate from you. That force of Oneness has made itself each form of you and the form of me. Then it began to search for That which is unseen, indivisible, and full of joy, delight, or supreme Aanand. I say that it is the unfoldment of Oneness from the field of action. But the originality is only the Purity. I’ll be quiet for a few minutes. …[Meditation, a song, and a few people gave welcome speeches.]

Since Friday when I reached Chandigarh, I’ve been talking and talking and talking. Gyaan will know many of the situations, which she has recorded on video, and you will come to know them. Therefore, I do not have the wish to inform you about how the time of five days has passed. Till this moment, I was active, I was busy. And now I see that all of you have created such a state of restfulness that as soon as I came over here, there was no activity, no sense of speeches, no sense of doctors, no sense of friends. When we experience and realize that Space, it enhances our confidence and conviction that whatever we have been doing has been a most wonderful process. The result of this is great delight. I’m finished. [Laughter and applause.]

All the people who had accompanied Swamiji then spoke. The following contains excerpts from some of their speeches. For the sake of brevity and clarity for the purpose of this website, editorial license has been used to condense and juggle the various accounts into a readable whole.

Dan: … Dr Lakshmi Narayan and Dr. Santosh opened their home to us. They were so thrilled and overwhelmed that they asked Swamiji if they could create a meeting at the university. So suddenly there were about thirty professors there, who were the deans and heads of the departments. After Swamiji had talked and everybody was dissolved into the Space, one professor had stood up and said, "But Swamiji, have you ever met a realized being?" Swamiji just looked at him, smiled, and answered, "I’m looking at one right now." [Laughter.] The whole audience just burst out laughing. Everyone got whatever it took to make them childlike again. The meeting went on from five until seven, and then everybody at the meeting went back to Lakshmi’s house, and that went on until eleven o’clock. So Swamiji spoke from five until eleven. Everybody had just dropped whatever programs they had and wanted to sit, interact, and meditate with him. … You could never think that Swamiji was going to have surgery or that he had just had it. I never saw a change anywhere at any stage. …

Rekha [Swamiji’s daughter, who had lived with him and the rest of her family in Chandigarh for many years]: … Swamiji met all his old friends at the university, and they are now kind of really old folks [laughter.] The professors said, "We are welcoming Swamiji back to Chandigarh after forty years." They all kept saying, "Swamiji cannot be eighty plus—the way he speaks, the way he walks." We said, "Yes, he outdoes all of us. He just goes on for twenty hours a day." That is what he was doing in Chandigarh. They were so inspired and were just like little kids following him around. They just did not want to leave him. Everyone was telling so proudly, "I knew Swamiji fifty years back," "I knew Swamiji forty years back." Even then they knew who he was, he always had such a special place for them, because he really sees that Self everywhere. …

Kamla: … When he came out of the O.T. [the Operation Theatre], he was singing! [Laughter.] Swamiji is the only person I have ever seen come out of surgery singing [she is a nurse]. All through the hall you could hear him. He had this little hat on from the operation, and his kourta pajama, and he just came striding along, as if he were going down Badah Road for a walk. Then he lay down and sang for three hours and made the most beautiful tape. He even wrote a song for the doctor who had done the surgery. At the hotel, there was a big balcony which looks out over the grounds, and in the mornings there would be a hoopoe there that would sing. Swamiji went out and taped the hoopoe singing, and then he sang like the bird, and the bird sang back to Swamiji. He got it all on tape, and then he wrote the most beautiful song around that bird. …

Krishna: … Swamiji came back after his surgery and went for a walk at the lake, where he was giving satsang. Kamla would say, "Swamiji, it’s time for your eye drops [he had to take them every hour after surgery]," and Swamiji would stop in the middle of his full flow of talking and walking and put his head back, and get his drops, and then continue on like nothing had happened. [Laughter.] …

Alka: … As soon as Swamiji had reached the Mountview, he phoned Lakshmi Narayan. … The whole trip had appeared to be for what Swamiji had called his cat-rat operation [laughter]—he had said, "I have no cat, I have no rat,"—but it was really only to see his own devotees, like Lakshmi Narayan, who cannot come up to Kullu because of his health. It was very, very touching. Swamiji also took an incredible detour through the winding, winding roads to Kausali and all the way back only to see Munshi. That is what Swamiji is. … The whole theme of the trip was the song, Meiⁿ To Hooⁿ Ghan Shyam, Boonda Dayna Mayra Kaam, which says that "I am that infinite cloud of Shyam whose purpose is just to shower, and shower, and shower." And that is what Swamiji did everywhere. …

Swamiji: … It’s direct experience for you. In modern times, we are blessed with all the know-how of information—how to record it, capture it, make use of it, and express it. Since there is no time without you, that means that if you express in time, then time begins. If you continue expressing in time, then it occupies space, and so space begins. When you begin to experience the occurrences in time and space, then you know that you exist. But at that very moment, a doubt arises, a duality arises, a sense of covering arises, as to "How is it that I know all that and it is so much?" Libraries after libraries are filled with books, words after words are filled in the space, and all the expression of love and joy is contained in the heart infinite—and when you close your eyes, you have a pause and you directly realize that "I know all that." You say this, because that is your human experience of all that. Otherwise, it would be enough for you to say "I know." Small little Fraya is not expected to express, "I know all that." But all of you know this fact that she knows it. Only she is so small that she cannot say it.

There you can examine that there is no such thing as I, and so Swamiji can say, "I did this, I did this, I did this." That’s why I prefer not to express much, because in your view, immediately the sense of I will come, and then collectively you will be thinking that you have welcomed some form, so the sense of otherness will arise. Whereas you must have checked, I especially did, that so many persons, who had flowers in their hands, had their eyes open, their faces were smiling, and they were saying "Welcome," or singing Aa--ay Aaj Shyam Ghar Aa-ay [Today Shyam came to my home]—but they were not there. The type of people who appear to be living in houses, talking to their friends, and eating in their kitchens, they were not that. It was the Whole. Since there are no words for that, so I say "It was Shyam sang [company], it was Shyam rang [colour], it was Shyam Being."

Now, after hearing all this and getting established in that pause, you are left with the Knower alone. That is what our satsang will be tomorrow: How is it that we have to add "alone" to the Knower, when the Knower is? Then you will ask certain questions and I will speak about it, and both will share the same Being through your questions and through my answers, through your hearing and through my speaking. We will definitely be gratified and will have a sense of satisfaction that what a great joy it is that we are human beings. The highest joy is that we are here. And higher than the highest is that you know the Knower. Thus you can well understand that the Knower knows you, knows me, knows Fraya, and knows all the persons. Yet the Knower knows that when they sleep, the Knower is pure, self-effulgent Effulgence. … [Meditation, followed by the Seven Gita verses.] I express my sentiments that you have extended enormous love—so much so that I am emptied. [Laughter.] I’ll wait for that again. Thank you very much. [Applause.]

April 8, 2004