I, As the Knower, Am — Forever

Swamiji: … Suppose you have understood that the Essence is one and the same as the form, then how would you like to say this? Since you never examine or try to speak about it, so it never comes to your tongue to communicate the fact that it is one Reality. You just say the same thing as the Gita verses say, which Nayanam chhindanti shastraani is saying—that weapons do not cut it [Chapter 2, verse 23]. But when this is said, a human being immediately thinks that that which can be cut by weapons is a human being. Then he says, "No, a human being is the Essence, and it cannot be cut by weapons." Hearing this, the listener is thrown away from his understanding and does not want to understand what is being said.

I am saying this to you because this is the difficulty and you are not trying to remove it. You always know that "I think like that." So for you, I is a body. If you examine, you will find that I is not a body, rather it is Essence. But the moment you speak of the Essence or subtlest Reality, then you do not include the gross body in it. Why? The gross body changes and dies, whereas it is said that the Essence does not die. Therefore you never understand that if somebody has died, then the Essence never died. So it is pretty difficult for you to grasp this. …

Meditation is Essence. But you think that meditation is something that you can gain from, or that something should come from meditation. You think that in meditation, a body is there, the object of meditation is there, and some power of gaining something is there. Whereas meditation is just Space. But if I say that you are Space, then you immediately divide. … You don’t say, "Well Swamiji, I really don’t understand how it is that Essence and the form are just the same." Even if you give me the clue that, "Swamiji, I have understood that Essence alone is the form—that it is One, whether I say form or I say Essence," then at least I can be assured that you have come to know. But you don’t speak, so I have to guess that "Perhaps he has understood," or "Perhaps he didn’t understand." Then, what do I do? I leave it completely. I know that if I have understood, then that’s enough.

Shiv Priya: I was exactly thinking about what you have just been talking about. I saw that when I had described what had happened, I had said, "The body was lying, and Munishwar was not there." The whole time, I was talking as if about the soul, which had left the body. Whereas all the time, I also know the Self. Yet it was as if I was not understanding what I was talking about. I was talking about Munishwar, who was not in the body—but Munishwar as a soul, as a personality that had left. I saw that nothing had happened to that personality, because it really had left the body. But then, if the Self is here and now, the Self is all-permeating, the Self is never coming and going, then— I’m not sure what I am asking, but there is something there which I did not understand.

Swamiji: I got your point. I reached there, when she was a baby. As a baby, she would have never thought that Munishwar was not there. I remember when I was three years old and my grandpa was lying. He was pretty old, ninety-two or something like that. He was alright lying there. People were reading the Gita and other scriptures, because here they only read the Gita when somebody dies, or if there is a havan [a purification ceremony], or anything like that. This aspect that we are doing is totally ignored. [The essence of the Gita in Chapter 2, particularly the Seven Gita Verses (19 - 25), have been read and discussed daily since the news about Munishwar.] We are doing it because I am totally different from what everyone is. That is why we are doing it. Otherwise, you could not sit here for this purpose. I would tell you some stories, and then satsang would be over and some prasaad or food would be given to you. Then, after a year, we’d meet again. But that is not what I’ve come to know.

I’ve come to know, personally, that I am a baby of three years old. For a three year old baby—suppose she is one—then why would she say that Munishwar was not there but his form was lying? For a baby, where is Munishwar’s name and where is his form? My grandpa was in a room with two doors, people were there, and I was going back and forth—coming in and going out, seeing people, and all that. Some people were weeping, others were sitting, and Grandpa was lying over there, just as he used to lie. I said, "Why is it that you say that Grandpa is not lying there?" He was lying there. So why would you say that Munishwar was not lying there? Because you have heard me say, or you have read in religious books of your own, that the soul had left. That is our training. You cannot explain what you have heard. You say, "That’s what I’ve heard, that a person dies and his ghost, or soul, leaves, and the body remains like a paper or bag." At that time, people say things like that. So tell me, if you are three years old, then what would you say? This question would not come before you regarding whether Munishwar had died or did not die.

Shiv Priya: No.

Swamiji: That’s all. But you are not three years old, so you are a crystallized person of the type that for you Munishwar was alive as long as he was speaking,. … Why can’t you become that child? You say, "I cannot." If you think that you cannot, then you will never realize. But if you have understood that, "Oh, I’m the same child,"—and not maybe—then you will realize. That is where for a child, Munishwar was never there as Munishwar. For a child, Munishwar was never present. And for a child, Munishwar never died. This is the ultimate speech that you can say. …

The moment that you say, "I love you," I understand what you are saying. But I never tell you. Sometimes I say, "I too love you," or something like that. But if you analyze it, then whenever you say "I love you," the meaning is that You became three: I, one form, you, another form, and love, something somewhere, which is neither this form nor that form. That is where we have found human limitation to be. That’s all. Now if I can succeed in breaking this limitation, then, as I had said, you are a three year old child. … If you are just the same as society is, forget that you have done this work. That is where I want to make you firm that Munishwar was never born, thus never seen and never died. But you are explaining your side—not Munishwar’s side. Munishwar will never speak now. You are speaking your side of ignorance, that "I saw Munishwar." …

How would you understand God? So we don’t talk about God. Instead, we talk about politics, economics, persons, food, parties, birthdays, and all those things. But we never talk about God. Why? You are never interested in the Knower. Yet he’s with you all twenty-four hours—rather more than twenty-four, he is with you twenty-five hours. Your whole life, the Knower is with you. Then you say, "Swamiji, if the Knower is the Essence, then why should the Knower not die?" So for her, the Knower as Munishwar has died. But she heard me enough, so she says, "Well, Swamiji, I was reading the Gita verses, but Munishwar didn’t hear them." That shows that your approach is only up to the body—the senses, the body, and the life. You even call the life as God. She was also asking for the definition of life, but I didn’t get into it. Because life is not God. Life is the tree also—tree life, flower life, the bird’s feathers. And they make quilts out of feathers…

If you start with the premise that "I don’t really understand the Self," then we can both sit together and dig what you can understand. Then slowly and slowly, we can reach that point that it is not necessary for you to understand—ever. We don’t want to understand death, because it cannot be understood. There are certain things which you will never understand, such as how your teeth came in your mouth. Even the dentist is there [Amrit], and she can say, "I can deal with your teeth. I can make the whole of India free of toothache, but I don’t know how your teeth come." You can say that a child comes and so the teeth come. Then Satyam will say that DNA makes the teeth. What necessity does DNA have to make teeth? If it makes them, then why does it not make them in the stomach, or why are there no teeth on the tongue? [Laughter.]

Such questions will let you know that it is unintelligent to think that your intellect can understand certain things. That’s all. Whatever the intellect can understand, we do. We teach people, we teach doctors and scientists, we offer our children to go to the moon, and we send Kalpana Chowla [who died on the Space Shuttle], and feel high that she is a scientist in America. A little girl from Panipat, just because she was brilliant, has died. Many unintelligent persons like Balayatee Raam [a local man] are still there. [Laughter.] …

Why do you have to understand what happened to Munishwar? That’s all. You expressed yourself. As a human being, you did sayva [service]. Sayva means sa-iv: you are the same as Munishwar, Munishwar was the same as Osnat [Shiv Priya]. But our intellect can understand that one is alive and one is not alive. And one will never be alive—that body will never get up. Our intellect can understand this. But our intellect cannot understand who was speaking as Munishwar. It was never the body which spoke. Why would you not understand that it was the Knower? The Knower is not DNA. Then you understand God. Then God is not DNA. Then God is not your head, nature, the sun, or the moon. So you cannot say that God is everywhere. You befool people by saying that God is everywhere. Then they say, "Why can’t we have a piggery, since God is everywhere?" That is the argument. To those people it is said, "To teach and speak to undeserving is like… " That is not what Guru does. Guru says things to those people who can understand or who are ready to understand. Those who are stubborn and fail to listen are not to be talked to. …

You say, "Swamiji, many things do not make any sense." Why should I not accept your intelligence? If you say, "Swamiji, I’m in the world, but it actually does not make any sense," I accept it. Why? It did not make any sense to me, and I’m the oldest one among you. But if it didn’t make any sense, then why do you do everything good yet you are insulted at every step? You cannot understand. You tried to save Munishwar, you did everything, but Munishwar got out of our hands. We don’t understand. But at least we should remain alive—that’s what the Gita says [Chapter II, verse 11]: You are talking like a learned person, but a learned person never grieves … [about living people or about someone lying dead]. So when someone is alive, like Osnat, why should I express my grief and think that she will die when she is a hundred years old, and then weep from now until then? …

Now you have understood. Your concern has been solved, that you were not unintelligent and it was not expected of you to know what had happened to Munishwar. He just passed. The doctors declared it. We accepted the doctors’ advice and Guru’s advice at that time, that "This is what is to be done." So we did it honourably. At that time you were intelligent enough that you were not weeping, crying, and becoming helpless and unable to do anything. You were able to sing, to say Amaram Madhuram, to phone everyone. That is wisdom.

So a wise one does not feel sorry over alive people. It is not that all of you came and you should start weeping that "Oh, they all came. What is happening now? What should I say? I have nothing to say today. I have to learn. I have to prepare my speech, otherwise what would they say?" Just nothing. So neither does the wise one weep and express grief over people with life, nor does he spend his life weeping, crying, and being helpless. Both Gangadhar and Osnat, if they were not wise, not learned, they could not have done this job. … A wise one lives in the world when people are alive, and he lives in it when people are dead, and he never worries about either, thinking. The arrow had not been shot by Arjun [in the Gita], yet he was making himself miserable. Death has not come to anyone, so why should I say "Who is the next person whose number is coming?" and have an astrologer and all that? That’s all useless. …

Human beings are the most brilliant species. There is great intelligence in the form of the Knower sitting with them, but it is not being opened to know itself, that "I, as the Knower, am—forever. Never do I fall and become a child in the womb of a mother." … Clear sky has no division. If you hear and understand this, well and good. You don’t have to ask a question about it, that "Swamiji, is clear sky blue or white?" If I’m ready to answer that, then I must be the most unintelligent person. That is there. Thank you.

May 28, 2004