Satsang  –   Volume 9, Number 5: March 20, 2006
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Eternal Presence

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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