Satsang  –   Volume 7, Number 10: July 30, 2004
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You Are Only Knowledge

Swamiji asked Anandi to tell him about some of her activities.  She talked about a school trip to Costa Rica during which she and her friend Ashley saved turtle eggs from poachers. Swamiji gave the following satsang just after hearing Anandi’s story.

Swamiji: Seeing all of you, it is the moment of welcome.  We can see each other and hear each other, even though the things that you describe are in the past; they are not here.  But because it never happens that in the present moment there is something to describe, so we meet together and in the name of a welcome we say something and we hear something.  Why?  Because we are always eager to know something.  And if knowing is worthwhile, you would like to hear, and I would like to let you know one thing, which will always be retained by you.

 If you have an individual egg, which has no mouth, no eyes, no face, nothing—it’s  just an egg, but that egg has life—then you can break it and see the yellow yolk, which is not like the shell. It is yellow stuff, but how is it that in that yellow stuff the life is there?   A tortoise can come, or a bird can come. And see, a tortoise comes and he never flies— he goes towards the ocean.  It means that in the yellow yolk, not only is there liquid, but there is some knowingness.  According to its nature, the egg which has been produced by a tortoise has the originality, in its awareness, that it goes to the ocean.  And the bird, when it has wings, flies to the sky or trees.  But a duck, which is also a bird, goes towards a pond or a lake.  It means that even when an egg is not produced or is not visible, knowledge exists.  Without knowledge a tortoise cannot meet another tortoise.  So it is not actually the tortoise’s physical being, or that their meeting is physical—it is knowledge which is meeting knowledge.  And knowledge is indivisible.  If it is indivisible, then when knowledge becomes a form, why should the characteristics of knowledge be lost?  It will still be knowledge.

It is only a human being, who is said to have a very great nervous system, with the functioning of all the senses, who forgets this thing—that he is knowledge.  And this forgetfulness is not his creation.  It is also hidden in that very yellow yolk, or in the womb of the mother, or in the semen, that knowledge and forgetfulness are there together.  When knowledge sprouts, then knowledge comes.  When ignorance sprouts, then ignorance comes.  Therefore, a human being is both knowledge and ignorance, but ignorance can be called knowledge because even though a man is ignorant of the original Self, he knows things and forms. So knowledge is there. We cannot say he has ignorance or is in complete darkness, because knowledge is there, but in this case, his knowledge is of things and forms.  Why?  Because an individual form is visible, an individual form is produced or made.  Therefore, it should be known to anyone who is seeking Self-knowledge that he is not a form.  You say you are a form, but this is your mistake.  Nobody told you that you are knowledge itself.  And being a form or having a form, you think knowledge is when you see a cup of tea and drink it.  We do not see that this is knowledge of the Self, or that water is knowledge, or tea is knowledge, or my lips are knowledge. So a man has a concept, an idea, and an awareness of knowledge that knowledge must be that which cannot be a form.  And that is why Guru is helpless and the disciple is helpless.  Guru keeps saying, “You are only knowledge,” and the disciple says, “No, it is not possible.”  But the disciple does not deny it, because he thinks that if Guru knows, then his words must be knowledge, so let me try to find out where it is when he says this.

Then when Guru becomes ready he lets you know about what happens when you have a dream.  How is it that in a dream, you do not take earth, you do not take the pieces of wood, you do not take a carpenter, masons, and you do not take an architect; but a house is visible?   So how is the house visible to a dreamer?  The house is not solid, of the type that a man in the waking state sees. In the waking state he goes though the process of building, and then he sees the house.  But in a dream the house is already there and the dreamer knows it.  You will say, in the waking state, that the dreamer’s knowledge is not the house, and even the knowledge of the dreamer is not the dreamer himself.  Therefore knowledge is separate, the dreamer is separate, the house is separate, and the people living in the house are separate.  This sense of separation is illusory.  And it is known to be illusory only when the dreamer wakes up. Guru knows that a human being is a gross form of illusion, but a man only knows that he is there, and he must be made from earth, fire, water, air, and all that; so he must be a formed combination of the tattwas, or elements, and he cannot be made of knowledge.  But when he sees that knowledge is there, the mind is there, and the senses are there, then he gets confused.  But because his system works and it doesn’t give him any kind of problem, then he doesn’t question and he just continues working.  He never examines.  He never sits down and tries to figure out what it is, or how it is, that everything is known.  If everything is known, and in deep sleep it is not known, perhaps we can guess that for a person in deep sleep the world must have died by now – it must not be there.  If a man sleeps for six hours and dissolution takes place—all kinds of things are dissolved and are not there, they are all gone—then in six hours the world was not there for him.  But when he wakes up he sees everything just as it was yesterday, so he thinks it was not dissolved.  But in the deep sleep state it all was dissolved.  So the knowledge works both ways.  Things are dissolved in deep sleep and there is no knowledge, and things are visible in the waking state and there is knowledge.  And it cannot happen that knowledge should be called ignorance and ignorance should be called knowledge by a human being.   It’s only Guru—for him knowledge is knowledge, there is no ignorance.  Even if people say ignorance, he hears it, but he says, “How would you say I am ignorant of some fact.  It is a knowledge with which you say I am ignorant.”  But it is not possible for a human being to figure this out, so he remains confused throughout his life.

I would like to let you know how the knowledge should be perceived so that it should be all knowledge.  The dream state is a very clear example for you.  But because sometimes dreams come and sometimes they do not, people do not think that a dream is a fit example.  But these days everything is modern, and you know about television.  On a television show a person speaking is there, a room is there, tables are there, and a partner is there who listens to the speaker.  Things are there on the television, forms are there, and all the world: mountains, and windows, and rivers, and a ferry are there and even traveling takes place in the scene; all seen by a man watching television.  Now, while watching the television he has a remote control in hand, and when he uses it, in a split second all the scenes are gone.  He should know what happened.  It is all gone because it was light.  And again, when he turns it on, there are the same figures and all of the previous scene, so it was light. If a human being sees it, his eyes will delude him into thinking that there is a television set, and on the program there is a sentient being and there are insentient mountains or trees or rocks. 

But if television’s light sees the man, then light is the man, the man is light.  Light sees the mountain, then the mountain is light, and light is the mountain.  Light is the home and the home is light.  And light is action, by which he speaks and moves, and action and speech are light.  The war scenes are light, and light is the war scenes.  There’s nothing else—only light.  So when I say it’s only knowledge, all of you are so intelligent, that through this example you can figure out why it is that you understand that in the television set it’s all light.  You know that on television this is a light man, and a light girl, a light boy, a light drama, a light dance; everything is light and you understand it.  But unintelligent people do not understand this.  They say, “Oh, what a wonderful scene, what a wonderful drama.” And they say, “Come on and I’ll show you.” But for you, there’s only light; therefore, many times you are not interested in television.  Why?  Because the reality is known to you…therefore you have no raag (liking or attachment) for the television.  Why?  Because you have reached the state that you are light.  So then you know that anytime I see, I’ll see myself as light, all the figures as light, and then, my figure is also of light.  But it will be only when your vision or I is enlightened—then all this is light.  As long as your light, your awareness, is not enlightened you will always be a person with bulk, and there will be other persons with bulk, and this goes on.  And then for you things will be changing, persons will be changing, and if you do not grow in your awareness, you will not be able to say it’s one reality, one knowledge, one time, one space, and that it is all Oneness.

Therefore, when we meet now, we feel joyful because I see that you are there, and you see that I am here.  But if somebody knows that it’s all knowledge, he will be much more delighted.  But you think that if I say “much more knowledge,” then there will be no forms.  There are persons who say that there are no forms because there is only light, as if on the television you see light, so it is only blue light, and you can’t see forms.  So there is something that has to be understood. That with which you are not able to understand makes you see the clouds, or the sun, the moon, or the stars on the screen of the television set, and makes you think that they are separate and you are separate. This sense is called the sense of separation.  This sense of separation is a definite eye, e-y-e, and as long as that eye is functioning as the sense of otherness, you will never have the sense of Oneness.  And because the time, or dimension, of this eye is in the sense of otherness, then you have to reach that time where your eye remains opened and it sees vision as vision, where there’s nothing but vision.  And that is possible if somebody tells you, and you hear it and figure it out; but it depends on the individual nervous system and head as to what is heard and understood.   I am saying these words and you are hearing them, but with regard to understanding, everybody has his own different timing, or dimension of understanding.  Somebody’s understanding is in the deep sleep timing.  Somebody’s understanding is in dream timing, and somebody’s understanding is in waking state timing.  But somebody’s understanding is in enlightened timing.

As long as I have this enlightened timing, I’ll be letting you know that love is one.  We are sitting and we are figures of love.   This you can understand.  Figures you can understand, but through the figures you cannot understand love. You can say, “it’s a kind of nice word, ‘love,’ but I don’t see where love is. I can see a cup and I can drink tea.  But love?”  So love is one light, knowledge is one light, and all the forms, wherever a person is seeing them—whether he is an agyaani or a gyaani (unknowledgeable or knowledgeable)—it’s only one vision, one light.  And you have understood this on this day, which is the evening of the 11th of July, 2004.  You have come from different, different places, and you think the places were there.  I think it’s all knowledge.  Then how will knowledge be distance?… It’s all the field of knowledge…    So this will be the enlightened state—it will be knowledge that will see knowledge.  But those persons who are forms will see only forms because the senses are made so…  And here I say there is a possibility that you are able to see that it is all knowledge.  It has been knowledge, it is knowledge, and it will always be knowledge.  I say this so that you can understand that the past has been, the present is here, the future is there, but in knowledge where is present, where is past, and where is future?  It’s all one reality, in one time…so anybody who goes, after hearing me in this enlightened time, is also in enlightened time, and knows that Swamiji is saying a correct thing – that it is all Knowledge.  Thank you very much.

July 11, 2004





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