Bhakti Nath: … A few days ago, Swamiji, you were talking about Eternal
Presence – I think that is the term you were using – and you said, “You
can’t see it or taste it or touch it, yet all human beings know that that
Eternal Presence is within them.” I was wondering, how would they know
that? I mean, it’s not an obvious thing, and I have found that without
Guru it is something I probably wouldn’t have known. Is that something
that people …
Swamiji: We talk of Eternal Being to those people who have no clue of
it and who have the eyes to see whatever is present before their eyes;
so they think this is present before them, this is present before them,
this is present before them. They hear the words “Eternal Present” or
“Presence,” but they are like a bird. A parrot can hear, “I am David,
who are you? I am David, who are you?” The parrot says, “I am David, who
are you?” He has learned it.
So a human being is, among all the sentient beings. No doubt he is a
different species than a four-legged animal, a two-legged bird, or a feather-full
bird. They are different, but they are all sentient beings. Animals do
not know this sentient being. This means that human beings are the kind
of species which has a nervous system with a brain to unfold this power
of understanding with which they know that a heater does not feel and
talk, a rock does not feel and talk – they can think like that. And they
know sentient beings, or those who know they exist. A human being knows
that they exist, and with the presence of every single animal, or any
object, or any bird or spider or snake and all those things which Kim
has just spoken about, a human being knows they are all there. This means
that human vision knows that this is here, this is there, this is there,
a bird is flying there, that is there.
So human vision is expanded vision, which is not confined to one little
body that is present before him. Yet still he has individual vision and
sense, thus he does not know Eternal Presence and eternal representative
figures of the Eternal Being. Therefore, he wants to know. And while wanting
to know, he is very uneasy, because time is running out and he wants to
know as early as possible. So his system become tense, and pain is the
result, suffering is the result, which again only a human being feels
in such a way as to express, “I have uneasiness.” Animals also have, but
they don’t express this the way a human being can express.
So Eternal Presence is an idea for a human being who knows there is no
Eternal Presence. Right? So he [Bhakti Nath] must have heard that it is
only a human being who knows Eternal Presence. I must have said this.
I gave you a hope, a sense, and a possibility that if all beings have
Eternal Presence in them, then you also have Eternal Presence in you.
Then he came to know this fact that, “Yes, I have Eternal Presence, but
I do not myself know it.” So he has said, “Unless Guruji speaks, I do
not know,” or “Unless he spoke, I would not have known.”
Eternal Presence, if it is in you – whatever you say, such as “It is
in you, around you, with you, or wherever you go it is you,” or “This
time in the evening it is, in the morning it is, and before morning and
evening it is” – then you have come to know this. You have said, “It is
Guruji who has told me, so I have come to know.” But suppose you had no
ears and you had no Eternal Presence, or Knowledge, or Knower, then you
could not have heard and concluded that Eternal Presence is there.
So now you are realizing that Eternal Presence is there. But a human
being has no ability to express it. That’s why he expresses only that
which is present in time and in space. A human being can only understand
that which is Eternal as that where time is not, where body is not, where
place is not, where space is not, that there it could be. So he guesses
that is Eternal Presence, which you also have come to know by your guess.
You still do not know where Eternal Presence is, otherwise why would you
ask?
So you have come to know now, “Eternal Presence I feel, I know.” Now
you have to check feelings. Feelings are not eternal: they arise and they
subside. And “I” is not eternal: with feelings, with the waking state,
it arises and it goes away. So you say that “I feel Eternal Presence is
there.” You could not know what Eternal Presence is, because through Eternal
Presence your “I” says that “I feel there is Eternal Presence.” So “I
feel” is the very Eternal Presence. “I know” is the very Eternal Presence.
“I think” is the Eternal Presence. “I don’t know” is also the Eternal
Presence. “I know it is within” is the Eternal Presence. “I know it is
without and it is everywhere” is the Eternal Presence. In this way, hearing
and hearing and hearing, a human being comes to know that it’s all Eternal
Presence. But when he conceives that Eternal Presence is within him, then
he thinks his body is not Eternal Presence.
That is why through Guru you come to know Eternal Presence – call it
all, call it single, call it none, call it sleep, call it ignorance– anything
you say, it’s all Eternal Presence. That’s the meaning.
Bhakti Nath: So the mistake is that…
Swamiji: The mistake is prior to realizing this realization– this could
be called a mistake. But the one who has realized, he does not say this.
For him, your mistake is also Eternal Presence.
Bhakti Nath: Such a vision of Oneness, Swamiji. Oneness alone is. It’s
beautiful.
Swamiji: So if you do not meet a person like this, you just keep quoting
John Dunne, Shakespeare, Tulsi Das, Kabir, Raam, or Rahim – all those
things you quote. For the intellect is to be used, and through quoting
them you feel satisfied, because it is as if you have understood and so
someone else should also understand. But it never happens that he [Bhakti]
is talking about Eternal Presence and he is smiling, and what do you know
about Eternal Presence? Dan?
Dan: Self alone is.
Swamiji: That’s all. So he knows that Self alone is. He knows Eternal
Presence alone is. And you?
Unknown voice: I want to realize it.
Swamiji: And her Eternal Presence is her question, “I want to know Eternal
Presence.” So the one who knows, for him everything – every coming, every
going, the presence of forms and of no forms, the presence of birth, the
presence of disease and sickness, the presence of death and destruction
– it’s all Eternal Presence. He can say this, and you can feel that it
is alright Why? Because you are that Eternal Presence with which you are
understanding and knowing it. But soon (Eternal Presence), after you go
away from here, if your neighbour immediately says, “Well look, Shyam
Lochan is about to come,” then your Eternal Presence got divided. Shyam
Lochan became a person and you became a person. You became a born-person,
“I,” Bhakti Nath, and she became another person-born, Shyam Lochan, and
then Eternal Presence cannot be said. Therefore, the words “Eternal Presence”
are only for when Eternal Presence is speaking or knowing. When it is
that which everybody as a human being thinks, that “I am born now,” then
he hasn’t got Eternal Presence. The very moment he is born, he has lost
Eternal Presence.
So we wait for a person to develop and expand in his awareness, capacity,
or ability, so that he will have the ability, and then you release the
information, and he will understand. A child in tenth class cannot know
the mathematics of an M.Sc. class, because his intelligence has not yet
developed. But if you take two, three, or four years and then you release
him, then he stands first. So that is where Eternal Presence is hidden,
just because a human being is born, or anybody is born. This is what we
can communicate. But the one who knows that nobody is born, for him what
is Eternal Presence and what is non-eternal presence? There’s no such
thing as Eternal Presence and non-eternal presence for him.
So to break the non-eternal, or to break the individual, time-bound consciousness
completely, the words “Eternal Presence” are used. In your language, “Here
and Now” is being used, but for you “here” is Kullu, and “now” is this
time, when it is 11:42. And this is a human being.
So through these words, and through the forms of sound and the form of
a human being who is enquiring about Eternal Presence, talk is taking
place. He is talking and I am talking, and everybody is listening. It
is by talking in this way that the capacity or ability of the intellect
is evolved to understand Eternal Presence. But if you remain in the same
standard of consciousness, then it will not be understood. You can talk,
you can read about it your whole life, but vichaar [enquiry]
has to come.
Like you know that if you give a glass of milk to a child, he will drink
it. He will not know that the milk can be made into curd. Why does he
not know that curd can be made? In you, vichaar has come. That’s
called vichaar, which knows further truth, which is deeper. Somebody
knows curd but has never seen butter. Give him milk and he only knows
milk. But when you give him butter and explain the whole process, then
vichaar comes in him. Then he knows, “Oh yeah, this is the way
of getting butter.” And then, up to butter he is eating and drinking,
but he can never think that butter is light. But when you show him the
process, then slowly and slowly… [he comes to know]. That’s called science.
A-B-C-D, all the facts are given to a child, to a human being, he becomes
a scientist, and he knows that it is light. The way I have talked about
it, he came to know Light, the Eternal Presence.
But for an ordinary human being, light is only when the sun rises; otherwise,
it is darkness. That is not the meaning of light. So you have seen some
religious people. They say, “Light is God. It’s God’s Light, and that
is sunlight.” Vichaar came in them, so they make the distinction
that the light of the sun is different from the Light of God. They know
the sun, and they have heard about the Light of God, but they do not know
God. Then again vichaar is needed, which I call expanded vision,
or the expanded capacity of the intellect, which is pure. So purity is
God. When I say, “Pure, Free, Forever,” you are a human being, and a human
being will understand, according to his ability, what could be pure, what
could be free, what could be eternal.
Thus he thinks that pure means a non-killer, non-harming (ahinsa),
free, one who never gets up from bed and remains lying down over there,
one who doesn’t do anything, who forever thinks, “My nails are OK, long,
long, long, long, and they are forever; from my very childhood, my nails
are there forever.” That is a human brain, which means the limited capacity
of a human being. To that, Eternal Presence is given in understanding
and in hearing, and then he has to figure out what that Eternal Presence
is.
So if you have come to know Eternal Presence, then I am very happy.
Bhakti Nath: Thank you Swamiji. I am very happy too.
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