Swamiji: … In English, you can never say anything which has no meaning, you only speak with meaning. They all say that a thing is only that which makes sense. That is why if, from birth, a human being only hears this, he will never grow into that which is Space, because Space has no meaning [which the intellect, or meaning-maker, constructs].
Aparajita: … In the car, you were talking about imagination being the bhoomi (ground) into which whatever seed you sew grows. When you talk about the burnt seed, is it the imagination that gets burned?
Swamiji: As long as the seed is there, it can grow in the bhoomi, or field, of imagination, or in the head or mind of a person. The gardener will plant that seed in the earth and let it grow into a tree, or tree form. But if the seed is burned, then there is no imagination. That is the Space. Then the birth of the sprout will not take place, so there is no question of its death. The burnt seed is described in this way, which means the burnt seed is not known to the seed. The seed has to be burned, and for that the seed is not capable—it will be the fire. The seed is the grower of the tree, its flowers and its fruits. But fire is not the seed. If fire touches the seed, then the seed will be burned. So agyan (ignorance of the Self) is the seed, which sees that things, and forms, and flowers, and human thoughts can continuously grow. But the fire is Guru—Guru fire. Guru fire knows how to burn the seed and when to burn the seed. He cannot burn the seed when it is too unripe. Green wood cannot be burned, so first the wood has to be dried. For wood to be dried, it should renounce the water in it. That will be the drying of the wood. When the wood will be dry, then put it in the fire and it will be burned quickly. Then the seed is burned, or the wood is burned, and so many examples can be given. …
Aparajita: Swamijii, when you say that if the seed is burned, then there can be no imagination…
Swamiji: No imagination. Then you will have to prepare imagination for others, because others know imagination, but you are not imagination at that time, you are the Space. The Space can create imagination, but imagination cannot create the Space. Imagination will create a movie, or a movement of the sprout.
Aparajita: Thank you, Swamiji.
. . . .
Swamiji: A child has been trained by somebody else’s mind, by his teachers’ or parents’ minds, into thinking, which the child did not have. Every human child has been processed through actions and activities, and through hearing, or shravan, into a knowledge which decides, as his intellect, or buddhi, what is good and what is not good. The child is trained into good, that when he eats he should eat food which will be digested. He is not trained that he should eat leaves and wood and chew them and think he’ll be satisfied. Rather, every child is taught having knowledge in which “good or bad” is the seed. In the seed, there will be two sprouts, one can go this way and one can go that way—into two branches, good or bad. Those children who are sitting on the good branch will say anything which is good, so they are not disillusioned. That which is not disillusioned is illusion. So the good branch illusion or the bad branch illusion, both are illusion.
You are trying to be disillusioned, or to be free from illusion, and then you say you are disillusioned. To you “disillusioned” means the light is coming to you that “Anything I do that is good, people appreciate it; and anything I do that is bad, they don’t appreciate it.” So you are into your sense which is the buddhi (dualistic intellect), which says, “I should be good. Everything, anything I am should be good. Wherever I am, I should be appreciated.” But you began to know, suppose, “I can do anything good, but people don’t appreciate it.” Then you are disillusioned. Disillusioned means you were having the illusion that “Everybody speaks good, and everybody appreciates me as good, but now I am coming to know that in the world nobody is there who appreciates me.” This is disillusionment. It is neither good nor bad. Being disillusioned means you are growing into your own Self, the Space. The Space has nothing to do with birth being good or death being bad: this is disillusionment. So if disillusionment comes to you, then you are getting freer from both sides—good, or appreciation, and bad, or depreciation.
Alka: It seems like the catch for a human being is the very sense of “I” as a form, or Alka.
Swamiji: Yes. When you came to know the catch, you should not catch it. But you have already been made to catch it. You have been made ahankar (individual I-sense, ego), or akar (form). Alka is akar under all circumstances, as soon as you wake up. You have also been taught that you were never born. But that does not go to a man who knows, “I am born,” and that is the catch.
Alka: So the freedom from the sense of “I” as Alka, to be disillusioned from that…
Swamjii: … will only be when you know that Alka was never there, therefore the world and worldly people in front of Alka are never there. That is freedom. Till then, freedom will never come. You think that the relations are “my” relations. Why? “My body, my mind.” The moment in the waking state “my mind” came, then “My food, my hunger came, so let’s go to the Apple Valley.” In this way, it is the Self who is making use of the “I” which is forgetful of the Self. The nature of “I” should be known to all the “I’s”, that all the “I’s” are ahankar. But Guruji says, “No, no. Reach the stage of I as That, catch that I which is never akar (form).” “Never akar” means that whatever you see your eyes will explain as akar, whereas it is only space, or akash. You cannot say space is akar, you can say it is blueness. You can make an akar, but it is blueness. What is the source of blueness? There is no seed for it. It is akaran (causeless). There is no cause of the blueness, it is just an imagination.
That is why the idea we are all with bodies is imagination. Imagination says akar. Imagination has four forms: man (mind), chitt (mind lake), buddhi, and ahankar. The first imagination is that “I am a born individual, a jeev, a soul, a self.” In English, there are only the ideas of body and soul, body and spirit. Here we speak of sharir (body), buddhi, man, ahankar, and jeev. Even if you become a jeev, you’ll come to know, “How am I known as a jeev, and how do I know I am a jeev?” Because the jeev is forgetful of the Self, so it says, “I am a jeev.” It is being exposed in our company that the whole world, as the collective jeev, is ignorant: each one, as the jeev, is ignorant of the Self, of their swaroop, or true nature, as Space. If you know the Space, you will not really pay attention to all these people. You will just excuse. You will become such a great kshamawan (one who is forgiving). …
All people are agyanis. Some of us came to know, “We are also agyanis. But how to deal with this agyan?” So early in the morning, as soon as you wake up, the first thing to know is, “I am not Rekha. I am Wahee ka Wahee (Pure Existence), I am the Self.” Hum to shaligram hain (I am a shaligram, a rock symbolic of the Absolute Self.) But now the shaligram wants to eat, so we should feed the shaligram, then puja karo (do worship).The one in whom the sense of puja (worship of the Self) has arisen is the one who has been united with that Self. That is called disillusionment. Disillusionment is not that you are saying that somebody said something, so you came to know that somebody said some dig. No. Once you know that nobody was born in the world, then it is disillusionment. Who will know this? The Knower. If you do not attend the Knower, if you have not realized the Knower, then you really are the mind to know things. If you are knowing things and forms but assuming to be the Knower, then that is a maha murakh (a great fool)! [Laughter] It is not the mistake of anyone, it happens like this because everybody is an agyani. Never think that anybody has burned their house. Everybody is slowly, slowly burning it. [Laughter] …
Dinesh: Many times you say the purpose of understanding is to reach where there is no understanding, and the purpose of studying the mind is to realize there is no mind. In the practice of reaching that state of consciousness, one is wanting to reach the Space, where he is knowing he is Pure Free Forever. But it feels that what I’m knowing is I’m reaching somewhere, but I’m not completely familiar with where I’m reaching. How to become known to That, or feel I’ve reached That?
Swamiji: Just by listening to someone who knows that there is no place you have to reach. A human being, a human nervous system, is made like that, that he knows that the Being has become Dan, the Being has become Dan-body. Dan is born, but Dan had no name and Dan had no body. The body is born, but each child is trained that he is born and he has a body. If you can know this fact that “No, I am not born and I have no body,” then you have reached. That is the place.
It is not that the Being came, it is that. So you are removing—“I have not been a body and I have never been a name. I never have any relation of the eyes with things and forms, and the eyes have no relation with the body, things, and forms.” Because of the dim light of the eyes, you are seeing two moons, and you want to reach to catch that second moon. It is not there. Only the first moon is there. The first is Being, the Guru, the Awareness, Pure Free Forever. That is the only way. You never try to reach by your efforts.
Dinesh: So you are recognizing that you are already that?
Swamiji: Yes, you are already that. And after that people say you are born. Let them say that Dan is born. But you are already that who is never born and who will never be there. You don’t want to remain ignorant until you die and are burned. You are not even born, why would you be burned? Why would you reach anything? Why would you use your legs to reach somewhere? You are already there.
Dinesh: So when people say to you, “Well, when I open my eyes and I see,” and you say, “Well that is your stand, that you have vision”…
Swamiji: … “That is your stand” means you have rejected their version that they are saying you should become a body.
Dinesh: Right. So it is just a matter of reconfirming you are that?
Swamiji: Yes. If it is reconfirmed, which you have heard, then it is shravan (hearing about the Self), manan (turning the mind into what you’ve heard), nididhyasan (meditating on it), and turiya (the fourth state, which, as Self, perceives Self). But people just remain busy in shravan, manan, and nididhyasan and think scriptures must have said something. Scriptures said, “Do shravan, do manan, do nididhyasan, do dhyan (meditation), do gyan (knowledge), come here, go there, do this, do that.” You should have such a Guru who knows you are the same as he is. Guru should know that as he is so you are the same. Then that is Oneness. When that Oneness is there, then you are ready to go with Guru, or Guru with Guru, so there is nothing there. Like all of you came here, it is not that you were sleepy. Immediately, when you heard to come, Guru came. It was my voice. My voice came, but it looks like it is in so many forms. It is my harpoon, but it looks like each one is a hole in that. You just listen, that’s all. And ask any question, but ask.
Jaya. Swamiji, these days I’ve been thinking of the point you make about akaran (causelessness). If there is no cause to something, then there cannot be an effect. Such as in a dream, how much does the dream weigh? Where is the mountain in the dream? So Swamiji, if one always takes that approach, is that proper?
Swamiji: That is very correct, because then there is no cause of the mountain in the waking state also. When you have come to know, when you became enlightened that the mountain does not exist in the dream, then why would the mountain exist in the waking state? Your great grandparents do not exist now, so why should Mummy and Daddy exist? That is where the whole thing is. And why would you exist without Mummy and Daddy? This is called complete enlightenment. But if complete enlightenment has not happened, till then you have to believe that the things and forms of the dream were real. You cannot say that they were not. If you are saying that in the dream, trees, mountains, and hotels come, a listener like me knows that you are left with no alternative but to use the same imaginative mind, which is now seeing a hotel, mountains, and trees. Your memory will go to the dream and become the dream. It is memory that is appearing in the dream as these forms. The same memory is making this form in the waking state, from the very childhood. When you were a child, you never knew these things and forms. Who knows this? The True Being. The True Being knows the world was never in existence. The world came into existence when the True Being forgot his truthfulness and became Jaya. Then he forgot. Why do you worry about it? Let him be worried! [Laughter]
Jaya: Thank you so much, Swamiji.
Veena: …You sometimes also call it “sense,” that the sense is independent and stands by itself. You said the human being can never imagine that he also exists outside of the body. Then I was thinking, “Well then, even the idea of ‘in the body’ and ‘outside of the body’ is also just an idea, because if That alone is, where is inside and outside?”
Swamiji: Yes, correct. Because an idea does not exist. [Laughter]
Juhi: Swamiji, that day you were talking about that story of Narad and his ahankar. Once you had said to me that every action that comes from a place of Knowledge is correct action. I wanted to understand that sometimes with open eyes the discrimination between Knowledge and ahankar gets a little blended, so how do you know that this is ahankar? Does it come automatically by meditating upon Pure Free Forever, or do you have to be conscious about it?
Swamiji: No, you have to make efforts, which means you have to be conscious. Such as, without reading any Upanishad you always know that you are Juhi, a girl. In which Upanishad is this written? [Laughter] When you have just heard me, it made such an impression that you have never been Juhi. When you were born, how did you come to know immediately after hearing it that your name was never Juhi? You came to know. That is non-ahankar. But ahankar will say, “No, I am Juhi.” That is the sense of difference, which distinguishes. And the one who does not say that any word or any form exists and is real, that is the Self, that is Knowledge. This knowledge of name and form is for working with knowledge in the world. As long as your body is there, you have to deal with name and form. But keep knowing you are the Self, without name and form, so you are without birth and death. Therefore, with bravery you can live the life. Anytime you think death is coming, get aside. Anytime birth is coming, if somebody is making you born, get aside. Because you already know that you are already that which gets aside, you are never born and never became death.
Yet you are working. The whole world is of agyanis, it is the field of agyan, but without money you won’t get food. You know that “Although without money I cannot get food, why am I earning so much money?” Then you will say, “Well, I’m knowledgeable enough that I can only eat this much, but some other persons can get some money and also can share, they can buy certain things and be happy.” Thus, you are doing a good job helping the world. Always emphasize on, “I am working to help the world. I am doing to help the world.” Even if somebody says, “You are helping yourself,” you can say, “I’m helping the world because I am the world, and I’m helping you because you are the world. Therefore, you should not be stupid and be angry.” [Laughter]
Now it has become my turn to speak. I have decided to wash off all your ‘true knowledge.’ [Laughter] I am speaking to these many persons, who are alive, who are intelligent, who are aware, who have relations, who have kindness, who have sympathy, and who want to raise the Knowledge in the world. All of you are doing the work of lifting the ignorance of the world. Of course, I have told you it is Me who has made this world ignorant, and I have told you that you should take brooms in your hands and brush it away. [Laughter] So you are obeying the order, or the Space, or Guru, who says, “Look, you can live in the world when you have brushed off the world altogether, when you have brushed off your existence from your feet, when you have brushed off your body and mind in the waking, dream, and deep sleep states, and you became clear sky.” Thank you very much. [Applause]
This you can remember—any thought which your mind is thinking, is it clear sky? Immediately the knowledge will come, “No, it can’t be clear sky. It will be changing and dying.” Suppose you are living in Mumbai, how can you explain to anybody that you have learned this? You are not too old yet, yet you have learned it. You are talking like a granny. [Laughter] Keep the company only of that person who is for this purpose, only of those persons who can understand you. Still, you will have one or two persons. If not, then you can phone these people. That’s all. …
That is the subject matter, imagination. Keep knowing you have the best imagination, better than others, so when something comes, you are always one step ahead. Give such a thing that can happen. If people say, “Sit down, let us make a plan that people should be helped,” you can say, “Yes, I am ready. What kind of help do you want to extend?” What do I mean? I have given you the value of your imagination. You can say, “Well, I have studied enough that people do not want to die. Do you want to invest in that?” [Laughter] You can say, “I have gone to the Himalayas, and everywhere, wherever I went, I found that there is a need in every being that they do not want to die. Invest in that.” Thank you!
