You Have the Power of De-Identification

Swamiji: [To Dhritti] … The Knower is the closest to a human being. You are a human being, and whatever you identify with, whether the body or your relations, is fine. You know that Kaanti Prakaash [her son] is. In deep sleep, you cannot know this. So the Knower appears to be awakened in the waking state. But when it gets awakened, then it gets awakened in the body-I, the Dhritti, or Dodie. It has been the practice of the body that this [indicating her] is a mother. But another girl is there, maybe Poornima or Shaarda. She wakes up, but she never wakes up with this I that knows "I am a mother." Right? That means that neither is she alright nor are you alright insofar as identification is concerned. There will be a difference between the I of these two persons: one wakes up and says "I am a mother" and the other wakes up and says "I am not a mother." But the I has nothing to do with being a mother or not.

From whatever relation or qualification you are identified with—whether a businessperson, an engineer, an ambassador, a girl, a boy, or anybody—I lead your attention. I say, "Well look, it’s alright that we are human beings who have to deal with things, forms, and the body, and that we call ourselves I. It’s OK." In your passport, there is no such thing that the passport photo says I. Right? So if the passport photo does not say I, then why has this picture [pointing to her] begun to say I? That is where a human being is. A human being is a conscious human being, and in his nerves there is the ability that produces this kind of awareness or knowledge that "I am this body." So it is very natural, because those nerves are there. According to Aatma Shakti, if the doctors were to cut those nerves, then there would be the possibility of not saying this. When a lobotomy is done, then there is no "I am the body." There is only a cabbage. So we have to accept that the nerves say I.

But now having those nerves, we have to know that if they can be functioning like this, then they can also be trained otherwise. They need the training which is hearing. Just by hearing, your name became Dodie, and those nerves picked it up. If it had been said that you were only I and not a mother, then you would not have been this. But when you had produced Kaanti Prakaash, all around you people began to say that "You are a mother." Kaanti Prakaash has never become your child. But now you have bound him in such a way—all people have, whether the police, the mayor, the county, or people anywhere—that he is his name and form, that he’s an American boy, that he’s the son of Dodie. If he is the son of Dodie, then why was he not a son nine months before he was born? Right? But when he was born, then the form-identification came. Now he is always the son of Dodie. He cannot be the son of Shaarda. Even if Shaarda says, "He’s my son," he’ll not be.

So this is to be accepted as a human nervous system. It works like that, and it gets perished with this awareness and knowledge, which was its training. A French-speaking person will die as a French-speaking person, an English-speaking person as English-speaking, and a Hindi-speaking person as Hindi-speaking. Is Hindi, English, or French a person? No. This is ability in a human being, who can understand that "I am not words or language. I am not a form. I am not a name." He has that power. But there is no one to tell him such things as, "Look, you have the power to think like that." They completely eliminate your human system and say, "You are nothing. You are space," or "You are God. You are beyond," or "You are knowledge. You are love," or something like that. They completely efface and finish that you are a human being.

Now having accepted that you are a human being, when you read my letters, with that ability you came to know that "No doubt I am identified as a mother. I am a mother." Very good. You deal with him and he deals with you. But when you are asleep, you never say this. And half of your life, which is sleep, is you. So we meditate on such things as "I am That who has never been a body, who has never been a name the way I am supposed to call myself." We are bodies, because without them we do not recognize or understand each other. So we are bodies—but the way you think you are a body, that you are not.

So your thinking is evolved or unfolded. In a wolf-boy [a boy who was lost and had been raised by wolves], thinking was not evolved. All human beings became the way they are because of language and thinking. It could be alright that they became like that—but they became confused, miserable, concerned, and agitated and began to think "I should be free from all this." There my turn comes. I say, "Well look, you really are able to become free." So I remind them of their power—the power of de-identification.

At one time, a child was not identified. When you know this, then I show you your own photograph of when you were a child and say, "What is the difference between this and this?" You say, "I am a child there." I say, "But why did you not say I at that time?" You become quiet. Immediately that came out, or that "Swamiji seems to be knowing Me, that I am actually not this which I have made myself, or as someone qualified who has worked in the film world, as an editor, and all that. Those were things meant for earning money, being in society, having all that, and running, because we are alive." Alright.

But then you will see your childhood when it was one day old. And then you will see the woman who has died. Right? That child is a small picture and that child who became the woman lying over there in a coffin is a big picture. Now, is that coffin-woman Dodie? Is the small child Dodie? None of them. This can be evolved, it can be unfolded—such as this is a bud [indicating the flower in his hand], but a flower unfolded. A flower is not born because of the bud: it is the same bud. The plant is a plant and the bud is not there, so the bud is not born. In this way, you have the capacity to know that "I am this body-Dodie—I." You understand that I. That is being de-identified. It is called Pure, Free, and Forever. That is what you are. Thank you. [Applause.]

April 28, 2004