dd mar 13

 337

This afternoon a visitor from Shimoga asked Bhagavan, 

“How to still the tossing mind?” 

Bhagavan replied, “Who asks this question? Is it the mind or you?” 

The visitor said, “The mind.” 

Bhagavan: If you see what this mind is, it will be stilled. 

Visitor: How to see what the mind is? 

Bhagavan: What is your idea of the mind? 

Visitor: My idea is, it is thought. 

 Bhagavan: The mind is a bundle of thoughts. But the source of all thoughts is the I-thought. So if you try to find out who this ‘I’ is, the mind will disappear. The mind will exist only so long as you think of external things. But when you draw it from external things and make it think of the mind or ‘I’ — in other words introvert it — it ceases to exist.

.....

The following is the English translation of Kannan’s letter as made by Mr. T.P.R, and myself the next day: 

“Oh Emperor Supreme, Ramana, who rules the world under the canopy of universal sovereignty, seated on the throne of the Heart! That day you graciously said: ‘Oh child, you being our beloved son, we bestow kingship on you. Assuming this sovereignty, be you happy!’ “I am seated in the audience hall. There have gathered the Prime Minister, mind, the assistant ministers, viz., the five sense organs, and the heads of executive authority, viz., five organs of action. Before me, they are making noise as they please. They daringly defy my authority. Often and suddenly, they darken the audience hall. If I say, ‘Enough. Leave me alone, all of you, and get away’, they are indulging in obstructive tactics and say that they will not go. I am having endless trouble. Enough for me, this kingship devoid of power. I have surrendered this kingship unto the Lotus Feet of Ramana who is my father and Master. “Bhagavan should release me and give his gracious protection or else teach me the secret of sovereignty, granting the necessary power. “Oh King, Refuge, Refuge, Refuge I-crave. Kannan. “You gave me refuge, saying, ‘Child, when the bell of extroversion rings, the assembly will gather. In the audience  hall, be ever raising the incense of vichara or enquiry. Mind, the minister, is a drunkard. Confusing himself with the intoxication of thought, he will keep confusing the assembly as well. This incense of vichara will clear the intoxication of thought. The assembly will function in order. As this incense of vichara increases more and more, those assembled will take leave. When the bell of ‘abidance’ rings, mind will finally disappear. All that incense of vichara transformed into light, you will abide as yourself, alone and blessed. “‘Therefore, you should not give up even for a moment this ‘Self-Enquiry’ of ‘Who am I?’ 

With the progressive increase of vichara, jagrat and swapna will merge in sahaja nirvikalpa samadhi. 

All sleep will become kevala nirvikalpa samadhi.

 The vichara will merge in swarupa.’

Prayer “Ramana, my mother and father, you gave me the sword of jnana, termed vichara. 

Grant to this humble self, that has sought refuge at your feet, the necessary desirelessness to lay low and destroy the demon of ‘thought’ as and when it arises, with determination, and without any pity or compassion. 

“Lord, I surrender myself. Kannan.” Mr. Thiagaraja Iyer, Official Receiver of Madras, who was in the hall, asked Bhagavan, “Is this all imagination, the creation of the writer’s fancy, or real?” 

Bhagavan replied, “We don’t know. How can we say anything?”

......

346

About 10-30 a.m. today a visitor asked Bhagavan, 

“The realised man has no further karma. He is not bound by his karma.  Why should he still remain with his body?” 

Bhagavan replied, “Who asks this question? Is it the realised man or the ajnani? 

Why should you bother what the jnani does or why he does anything? You look after yourself.” 

A little later he added, “You are under the impression you are the body. So you think the jnani also has a body.

 Does the jnani say he has a body? 

He may look to you as having a body and doing things with the body, as others do. The burnt rope still looks like a rope, but it can’t serve as a rope if you try to bind anything with it. 

So long as one identifies oneself with the body, all this is difficult to understand. That is why it is sometimes said in reply to such questions, 

‘The body of the jnani will continue till the force of prarabdha works itself out, and after the prarabdha is exhausted it will drop off. An illustration made use of in this connection is that of an arrow already discharged which will continue to advance and strike its target. 

But the truth is the jnani has transcended all karmas, including the prarabdha karma, and he is not bound by the body or its karmas.” 

The visitor also asked, “When a man realises the Self, what will he see?” 

Bhagavan replied,

 “There is no seeing. Seeing is only Being. 

The state of Self-realisation, as we call it, is not attaining something new or reaching some goal which is far away, but simply being that which you always are and which you always have been. 

All that is needed is that you give up your realisation of the not-true as true. 

All of us are realising, i.e. regarding as real, that which is not real. 

We have only to give up this practice on our part. 

Then we shall realise the Self as the Self, or in other words, ‘Be the Self’. 

At one stage one would laugh at oneself that one tried to discover the Self which is so self-evident. 

So, what can we say to this question? 

“That stage transcends the seer and the seen. There is no seer there to see anything. The seer who is seeing all this now ceases to exist and the Self alone remains.”

......................

349

24-11-46 Mrs. Chenoy (from Bombay) asked Bhagavan this evening (after reading Who am I?) whether it was the proper thing to do if she asked herself “Who am I?” and told herself she was not this body but a spirit, a spark from the divine flame. 

Bhagavan first said, “Yes, you might do that or whatever appeals to you. It will come right in the end.” But, after a little while, he told her: 

“There is a stage in the beginning, when you identify yourself with the body, when you are still having the body consciousness. 

At that stage, you have the feeling you are different from the reality or God, and then it is, you think of yourself as a devotee of God or as a servant or lover of God. This is the first stage. 

The second stage is when you think of yourself as a spark of the divine fire or a ray from the divine Sun. Even then there is still that sense of difference and the body-consciousness. 

The third stage will come when all such difference ceases to exist, and you realise that the Self alone exists. 

There is an ‘I’ which comes and goes, and another ‘I’ which always exists and abides. So long as the first ‘I’ exists, the body-consciousness and the sense of diversity or bheda buddhi will persist.

 Only when that ‘I’ dies, the reality will reveal itself.

 For instance, in sleep, the first ‘I’ does not exist. 

You are not then conscious of a body or the world. Only when that ‘I’ again comes up, as soon as you get out of sleep, do you become conscious of the body and this world. 

But in sleep you alone existed. For, when you wake up, you are able to say ‘I  slept soundly.’ You, that wake up and say so, are the same that existed during sleep. You don’t say that the ‘I’ which persisted during sleep was a different ‘I’ from the ‘I’ present in the waking state. 

That ‘I’ which persists always and does not come and go is the reality. 

The other ‘I’ which disappears in sleep is not real. One should try and realise in the waking state that state which unconsciously everyone attains in sleep, the state where the small ‘I’ disappears and the real ‘I’ alone is.” 

At this stage, Mrs. C. Asked, “But how is it to be done?” 

Bhagavan replied, “By enquiring from whence and how does this small ‘I’ arise. The root of all bheda buddhi is this ‘I’. It is at the root of all thoughts. If you enquire wherefrom it arises, it disappears.” 

Mrs. C. then asked, “Am I not then to say (in answer to my own question ‘Who am I?’) ‘I am not this body but a spirit etc.’?” 

Bhagavan then said, “No. The enquiry ‘Who am I?’ means really the enquiry within oneself as to wherefrom within the body the ‘I’-thought arises. 

If you concentrate your attention on such an enquiry, the ‘I’-thought being the root of all other thoughts, all thoughts will be destroyed and then the Self or the Big ‘I’ alone will remain as ever. 

You do not get anything new, or reach somewhere where you were not before. When all other thoughts which were hiding the Self are removed, the Self shines by itself.” 

Mrs. C. then referred to the portion in the book (Who am I ?) where it is said, “Even if you keep on saying ‘I’, ‘I’, it will take you to the Self or reality” and asked whether that was not the proper thing to be done. I explained,

 “The book says one must try and follow the enquiry method which consists in turning one’s thoughts inwards and trying to find out wherefrom the ‘I’, which is the root of all thoughts, arises. If one finds one is not able to do it, one may simply go on repeating ‘I’, ‘I’, as if it were a mantram like ‘Krishna’ or ‘Rama’ which people use in their japa. The idea is to concentrate on one thought to exclude all other thoughts and then eventually even the one thought will die.” On this, Mrs. C. asked me, “Will it be of any use if  one simply repeats ‘I’, ‘I’ mechanically?”

 I replied, “When one uses ‘I’ or other words like ‘Krishna’, one surely has in one’s own mind some idea of the God one calls by the name ‘I’ or anything else. When a man goes on repeating ‘Rama’ or ‘Krishna’, he can’t be thinking of a tree as the meaning behind it.” 

After all this, Bhagavan said, “Now you consider you are making an effort and uttering ‘I’, ‘I’ or other mantrams and making meditation. 

But when you reach the final stage, meditation will go on without any effort on your part. You can’t get away from it or stop it, for meditation, japa, or whatever else you call it, is your real nature.”

.......................

28-11-46 

This evening just before parayana, a Telugu gentleman wrote a few questions and presented them to Bhagavan. Bhagavan replied to him. 

The questions in effect were: “They say that jivanmuktas are always having brahmakara vritti. Would they be having it during sleep? If they have it, then who is it that sleeps in their case?” 

Answer: “Of course, the jivanmuktas are having brahmakara vritti always, even during sleep. The real answer to the last question and the whole set of questions is that the jnani has neither the waking, dreaming, or sleeping avasthas, but only the turiya state. It is the jnani that sleeps. But he sleeps without sleeping or is awake while sleeping.”

...............

Bhagavan: People put various interpretations on the same texts, according to their pet theories. 

You quote for instance from Manikkavachakar and say he used the way advocated by your teacher, the way in which the soul  is to be made to leave the body by the tenth gate (and not by the nine gates). Can you point out a single line in that saint’s works where the phrase (tenth gate) occurs? 

You said the great ones used this yoga. What is the viyoga (separation) from? Who got that viyoga, and who wants to achieve yoga (union) again? That must first be known. 

The visitor also asked in the course of his long talk: “How else is the jiva (individual soul) to join sivam (God), how is the jivatman to become one with the Paramatman?” 

Bhagavan said, “We do not know anything about Siva or the Paramatman. We know the jiva. Or, rather, we know we exist. ‘I am’ is the only thing that always abides, even when the body does not exist for us, as for instance, when we are asleep. Let us take hold of this, and see wherefrom the ‘I’ sense or ahamkara, as you put it, arises.” 

The visitor asked Bhagavan, “I am asked to go the way by which I came. Then what will happen?” 

Bhagavan replied, “If you go, you go away. That is all. There is nothing more. You won’t come back. Because you asked ‘which way?’, I said ‘The way you came’. But who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to go, that one may show the way? All these questions will have to be first answered. So the most important thing is to find out who you are. Then all else will be solved.”

.......

356

Thereupon Bhagavan said, “It is said so in books. Who denies that good conduct is good or that it will eventually lead you to the goal? Good conduct or sat karma purifies the chitta or mind and gives you chitta suddhi. The pure mind attains jnana, which is what is meant by salvation. 

So, eventually jnana must be reached.

 i.e. the ego must be traced to its source.

 But to those to whom this does not appeal, we have to say sat karmas lead to chitta suddhi, and chitta suddhi will lead to right knowledge or jnana, and that in its turn gives salvation.

..........................................end of dd .............................................

dd mar 12

288

4-8-46 

This morning Yogi Ramiah arrived. About 9-30 a.m. Bhagavan was looking into the Tamil paper Hindusthan and read out to me the following dialogue from it. 1st man: It is only if sorrows or troubles come to us that we think of God. 2nd man: Ah, you fool. If we are always thinking of God, how can any sorrows or troubles come to us? Why Bhagavan drew my attention to this, I do not know. I wonder if it is because I generally argue with him that it should not be necessary for an all-powerful and all-loving God to make us pass through pain to turn us towards Him

294

Afternoon Yogi Ramiah gave his notebook to Bhagavan and said, pointing to Muruganar, 

“People like him would write verses on occasions like the forthcoming Jubilee. But people like me can do no such thing. Instead, I want Bhagavan to write something in my notebook.” 

Thereupon Bhagavan wrote on the back of the front page in the notebook, which he found blank, the Telugu version of the Tamil song which Bhagavan had composed when the late Somasundara Swami requested Bhagavan to write an ‘FÝjÕ’ in his notebook. The Sanskrit word for FÝjÕ being both a character in the alphabet and an imperishable thing, Bhagavan wrote punningly:

 @dLWU úRôùWÝj RôϪl ×jRLjúRô WdLWUô UKùRÝR Yô£jRô—VdLWUôm JùWÝjùRu ßkRôö Ùs[j ùRô°oYRôm AùWÝR YpXô WûR. 

Here in this book I write For you to read An akshara, But who can write The Akshara For ever shining in the heart? 

.......

298

Later, on a visitor’s request, Bhagavan said, 

“Concentrating one’s thoughts solely on the Self will lead to happiness or bliss. 

Drawing in the thoughts, restraining them and preventing them from going outwards is called vairagya.

 Fixing them in the Self is sadhana or abhyasa.

 Concentrating on the Heart is the same as concentrating on the Self. 

The Heart is another name for the Self.”

.....

17-8-46 

This morning, a number of Gujerati visitors arrived here, evidently returning from Pondicherry, after darshan there on the 15th. 

One of them asked Bhagavan, “What is meant by Self-realisation? Materialists say there is no such thing as God or Self.” 

Bhagavan said, “Never mind what the materialists or others say; and don’t bother about Self or God. Do you exist or not? What is your idea of yourself? What do you mean by ‘I’?” 

The visitor said he did not understand by ‘I’ his body, but something within his body. 

Thereupon, Bhagavan continued, “You concede ‘I’ is not the body but something within it. See then from whence the ‘I’ arises within the body. 

See whether it arises and disappears, or is always present.

 You will admit there is an ‘I’ which emerges as soon as you wake up, sees the body, the world and all else, and ceases to exist when you sleep; 

 There is another ‘I’ which exists apart from the body, independently of it, and which alone is with you when the body and the world do not exist for you, as for instance in sleep.

 Then ask yourself if you are not the same ‘I’ during sleep and during the other states. Are there two ‘I’s? You are the same one person always. 

Now, which can be real, the ‘I’ which comes and goes, or the ‘I’ which always abides?

 Then you will know that you are the Self. This is called Self-realisation. 

Self realisation is not however a state which is foreign to you, which is far from you, and which has to be reached by you. You are always in that state. 

You forget it, and identify yourself with the mind and its creation. 

To cease to identify yourself with the mind is all that is required. 

We have so long identified ourselves with the not-Self that we find it difficult to regard ourselves as the Self. 

Giving up this identification with the not-Self is all that is meant by Self-realisation. 

How to realise, i.e. make real, the Self? 

We have realised, i.e. regarded as real, what is unreal, the not-Self. 

To give up such false realisation is Self-realisation.”

......

In the evening, after parayana, a visitor asked Bhagavan, “How to control the wandering mind?” 

He prefaced the question with the remark, “I want to ask Bhagavan a question which is troubling me.” 

Bhagavan replied, after laughing, “This is nothing peculiar to you. This is the question which is always asked by everybody and which is dealt with in all the books like the Gita. 

What way is there, except to draw in the mind as often as it strays or goes outward, and to fix it in the Self, as the Gita advises? 

Of course, it won’t be easy to do it. It will come only with practice or sadhana.” 

The visitor said, “The mind goes after only what it desires and won’t get fixed on the object we set before it.” 

Bhagavan said, “Everybody will go after only what gives happiness to him. Thinking that happiness comes from some object or other, you go after it. See from whence all happiness, including the happiness you regard as coming from sense objects, really comes. You will understand all happiness comes only from the Self, and then you will always abide in the Self.

...............

312

12-9-46 

Casually going through T.P.R.’s notebook I came across an entry there — Mithya=Jagat; Brahma bhavam=Satyam. As I remembered Bhagavan occasionally saying mithya means satyam, but did not quite grasp its significance, I asked Bhagavan about it. 

He said, “Yes. I say that now and then. What do you mean by real or satyam? Which do you call real?” 

I answered, “According to Vedanta, that which is permanent and unchanging, that alone is real. That of course is the definition of Reality.” 

Then, Bhagavan said, “These names and forms which constitute the world always change and perish. Hence they are called mithya. To limit the Self and regard it as these names and form is mithya. To regard all as Self is the Reality. The Advaitin says jagat is mithya, but he also says ‘All this is Brahman’. So it is clear that what he condemns is regarding the world as such to be real, not regarding the world as Brahman. He who sees the Self, sees only the Self in the world also. To the jnani it is immaterial whether the world appears or not. Whether it appears or not, his attention is always on the Self. It is like the letters and the paper on which the letters are printed. You are wholly  engrossed with the letters and have no attention left for the paper. But the jnani thinks only of the paper as the real substratum, whether the letters appear on it or not.”

.....

322

imp

This evening, D.S. Sarma, asked Bhagavan: 

“In Western mysticism three definite stages are often spoken of — viz., Purgation, illumination and union. Was there any such stage as purgation — corresponding to what we call sadhana — in Bhagavan’s life?” 

Bhagavan replied, “I have never done any sadhana. I did not even know what sadhana was. Only long afterwards I came to know what sadhana was and how many different kinds of it there were. It is only if there was any object or anything different from me that I could think of it. Only if there was a goal to attain, I should have made sadhana to attain that goal. There was nothing which I wanted to obtain. I am now sitting with my eyes open. I was then sitting with my eyes closed. That was all the difference. I was not doing any sadhana even then. As I sat with my eyes closed, people said I was in samadhi. As I was not talking, they said I was in mauna. 

The fact is, I did nothing. Some Higher Power took hold of me and I was entirely in Its hand.” 

Bhagavan further added, “The books no doubt speak of sravana, manana, nididhyasana, samadhi and sakshatkara.

 We are always sakshat and what is there for one to attain karam of that? 

We call this world sakshat or pratyaksha. What is changing, what appears and disappears, what is not sakshat, we  regard as sakshat. We are always and nothing can be more directly present pratyaksha than we, and about that we say we have to attain sakshatkaram after all these sadhanas. Nothing can be more strange than this. 

The Self is not attained by doing anything,

 but remaining still and being as we are.”

329

Bhagavan: You yourself concede, it is the direct method. 

It is the direct and easy method. When going after other things, alien to us, is so easy, how can it be difficult for one to go to one’s own Self?

 You talk of ‘Where to begin’.

 There is no beginning and no end. You are yourself the beginning and the end. 

If you are here and the Self somewhere else, and you have to reach that Self, you may be told how to start, how to travel and then how to reach. 

Suppose you who are now in Ramana Asramam ask, ‘I want to go to Ramana Asramam. How shall I start and how to reach it?’, what is one to say? A man’s search for the Self is like that. He is always the Self and nothing else. 

You say ‘Who am I?’ becomes a japa. It is not meant that you should go on asking ‘Who am I?’ In that case, thought will not so easily die. All japas are intended, by the use of one thought, the mantra, to exclude all other thoughts. This, japa eventually does for a man. All other thoughts, except the thought of the mantra, gradually die and then even that one thought dies. Our Self is of the nature of japa. Japa is always going on there. If we give up all thoughts, we shall find japa is always there  without any effort on our part. 

In the direct method, as you call it, by saying ask yourself ‘Who am I?’ you are told to concentrate within yourself where the I-thought (the root of all other thoughts) arises. As the Self is not outside but inside you, you are asked to dive within, instead of going without, and what can be more easy than going to yourself?

 But the fact remains that to some this method will seem difficult and will not appeal. 

That is why so many different methods have been taught. Each of them will appeal to some as the best and easiest. That is according to their pakva or fitness. But to some, nothing except the vichara marga will appeal. They will ask, ‘You want me to know or to see this or that. But who is the knower, the seer?’ Whatever other method may be chosen, there will be always a doer. That cannot be escaped. Who is that doer must be found out. Till that, the sadhana cannot be ended. So eventually, all must come to find out ‘Who am I?’. You complain that there is nothing preliminary or positive to start with. You have the ‘I’ to start with. You know you exist always, whereas the body does not exist always, e.g., in sleep. Sleep reveals that you exist even without a body. We identify the ‘I’ with a body, we regard the Self as having a body, and as having limits, and hence all our trouble. All that we have to do is to give up identifying our Self with the body, with forms and limits, and then we shall know ourselves as the Self that we always are

332 imp

Sarma quoted “abhyasakale sahajam sthitim prahurupasanam” (Ramana Gita).

 What is sahaja state is known as upasana during practice.

Bhagavan again repeated much of what he told Prof. Sarma and said, 

“What is obvious, self-evident and most immediate to us, the Self, we say we are not able to see. 

On the other hand, we say that what we see with these eyes alone is pratyaksha (direct perception).

 There must first be the seer before anything could be seen. 

You are yourself the eye that sees. 

Yet, you say you don’t know the eye that sees, but know only the things seen. 

But for the Self, the Infinite Eye (@kRªXôdLi), referred to in the stanza in Ulladu Narpadu (Reality in Forty Verses), what can be seen? 

You want sakshatkaram. You are now doing karam of all these things, i.e. real-ising these things, regarding as real all these things, making real what is not real. 

If this karam is given up out of your present sakshatkaram of the unreal, then what will remain is that which is real or sakshat.”

.......

 Dr. Roy was asking Bhagavan, 

“In the case of persons who are not capable of long meditation, will it not be enough if they engage themselves in doing good to others?” 

Bhagavan replied, “Yes, it will do. The idea of good will be at their heart. That is enough. Good, God, Love, are all the same thing. If the person keeps continuously thinking of anyone of these, it will be enough. All meditation is for the purpose of keeping out all other thoughts.” 

After some pause, Bhagavan said,

 “When one realises the Truth and knows that there is neither the seer nor the seen, but only the Self that transcends both, that the Self alone is the screen or the substratum on which the shadow both of the ego and all that it sees, come and go, the feeling that one has not got eyesight, and that therefore one misses the sight of various things, will vanish. 

The realised being, though he has normal eyesight, does not see all these things.” 

He sees only the Self and nothing but the Self.

..................................

After further discussion with Dr. Roy, Bhagavan added, 

“There is nothing wrong in seeing anything, this body or the world. The mistake lies in thinking you are the body. There is no harm in thinking the body is in you. The body, world, all  must be in the Self; or rather nothing can exist apart from the Self, as no pictures can be seen without the screen on which the shadows can be cast.” 

In answer to a question as to what is the best way to the goal, Bhagavan said, 

“There is no goal to be reached. There is nothing to be attained. You are the Self. You exist always. Nothing more can be predicated of the Self than that it exists. Seeing God or the Self is only being the Self or yourself. Seeing is being. You, being the Self, want to know how to attain the Self. It is something like a man being at Ramanasramam asking how many ways are there to reach Ramanasramam and which is the best way for him. All that is required of you is to give up the thought that you are this body and to give up all thoughts of the external things or the not-Self. As often as the mind goes out towards outward objects, prevent it and fix it in the Self or ‘I’. 

That is all the effort required on your part. The different methods prescribed by different thinkers are all agreed on this. The Advaita, Dvaita, Visishtadvaita schools and other schools all agree that the mind must give up thinking of external things and must think of the Self, or God as they may call it. That is called meditation. 

But meditation being our nature, you will find when you realise the Self that what was once the means is now the goal, that while once you had to make an effort, now you cannot get away from the Self even if you want.”

...........................336................end...........................

dd mar 11

274

3-7-46 

A visitor said: I am told that according to your school I must find out the source of my thoughts. How am I to do it?’ 

Bhagavan: I have no school; however, it is true that one should trace the source of all thoughts. 

Visitor: Suppose I have the thought ‘horse’ and try to trace its source; I find that it is due to memory and the memory in its turn is due to prior perception of the object ‘horse’, but that is all. 

Bhagavan: Who asked you to think about all that? All those are also thoughts. What good will it do you to go on thinking about memory and perception? It will be endless, like the old dispute, which came first, the tree or the seed. Ask who has this perception and memory. That ‘I’ that has the perception and memory, whence does it arise? Find out that. Because perception or memory or any other experience only comes to that ‘I’. You don’t have such experiences during sleep, and yet you say that  you existed during sleep. And you exist now too. That shows that the ‘I’ continues while other things come and go. Visitor: I am asked to find out the source of ‘I’, and in fact that is what I want to find out, but how can I? What is the source from which I came? 

Bhagavan: You came from the same source in which you were during sleep. Only during sleep you couldn’t know where you entered; that is why you must make the enquiry while waking. Some of us advised the visitor to read Who am I? and Ramana Gita and Bhagavan also told him he might do so. He did so during the day and in the evening he said to Bhagavan: 

“Those books prescribe Self-enquiry, but how is one to do it?” 

Bhagavan: That also must be described in the books. 

Visitor: Am I to concentrate on the thought ‘Who am I?’ 

Bhagavan: It means you must concentrate to see where the I-thought arises. 

Instead of looking outwards, look inwards and see where the I-thought arises. 

Visitor: And Bhagavan says that if I see that, I shall realise the Self? 

Bhagavan: There is no such thing as realising the Self. How is one to realise or make real what is real? People all realise, or regard as real, what is unreal, and all they have to do is to give that up. When you do that you will remain as you always are and the Real will be Real. It is only to help people give up regarding the unreal as real that all the religions and the practices taught by them have come into being. 

Visitor: Whence comes birth? 

Bhagavan: For whom is birth? 

Visitor: The Upanishads say “He who knows Brahman becomes Brahman.” 

 Bhagavan: It is not a matter of becoming but being. 

Visitor: Are the siddhis mentioned in Patanjali’s sutras true or only his dream? 

Bhagavan: He who is Brahman or the Self will not value those siddhis. Patanjali himself says that they are all exercised with the mind and that they impede Self-realisation. 

Visitor: What about the powers of supermen? 

Bhagavan: Whether powers are high or low, whether of the mind or super-mind, they exist only with reference to him who has the powers; find out who that is. 

Visitor: When one attains Self-realisation, what is the guarantee that one has really attained it and is not under an illusion like the lunatic who thinks he is Napoleon or some such thing? 

Bhagavan: In a sense, speaking of Self-realisation is a delusion.

It is only because people have been under the delusion that the non-Self is the Self and the unreal the Real that they have to be weaned out of it by the other delusion called Self-realisation.

 Because actually the Self always is the Self and there is no such thing as realising it. 

Who is to realise what, and how, when all that exists is the Self and nothing but the Self? 

Visitor: Sri Aurobindo says the world is real and you and the Vedantins say it is unreal. How can the world be unreal? 

Bhagavan: The Vedantins do not say the world is unreal. That is a misunderstanding. If they did, what would be the meaning of the Vedantic text: “All this is Brahman”? They only mean that the world is unreal as world, but it is real as Self.

 If you regard the world as not-Self it is not real. Everything, whether you call it world or maya or lila or sakti, must be within the Self and not apart from it. 

There can be no sakti apart from the sakta. 

 Visitor: Different teachers have set up different schools and proclaimed different truths and so confused people. Why? 

Bhagavan: They have all taught the same truth but from different standpoints. Such differences were necessary to meet the needs of different minds differently constituted, but they all reveal the same Truth. 

Visitor: Since they have recommended different paths which is one to follow? 

Bhagavan: You speak of paths as if you were somewhere and the Self somewhere else and you had to go and reach it. But in fact the Self is here and now and you are that always. It is like you being here and asking people the way to Ramanasramam and complaining that each one shows a different path and asking which to follow.

..............

“Deathlessness is our real nature, and we falsely ascribe it to the body, imagining that it will live for ever and losing sight of what is really immortal, simply because we identify ourselves with the body. 

It says in the Upanishads that the jnani looks forward eagerly to the time when he can throw off the body, just as a labourer carrying a heavy load looks forward to reaching his destination and laying it down.” 

....

A visitor asked Bhagavan what one should do for the betterment of atma. 

Bhagavan: What do you mean by atma and by betterment? 

Visitor: We don’t know all that; that is why we come here. 

Bhagavan: The Self or atma is always as it is. There is no such thing as attaining it. All that is necessary is to give up regarding the not-Self as Self and the unreal as Real. When we give up identifying ourselves with the body the Self alone remains. 

Visitor: But how is one to give up this identification? Will coming here and getting our doubts removed help in the process? 

Bhagavan: Questions are always about things that you don’t know and will be endless unless you find out who the questioner is. Though the things about which the questions are asked are unknown, there can be no doubt that a questioner exists to ask the questions, and if you ask who he is, all doubts will be set at rest. 

Visitor: All that I want to know is whether sat sang is necessary and whether my coming here will help me or not. 

Bhagavan: First you must decide what is sat sang. It means association with sat or Reality. One who knows or has realized sat is also regarded as sat. Such association with sat or with one who knows sat is absolutely necessary for all.  Sankara has said (Bhagavan here quoted the Sanskrit verse) that in all the three worlds there is no boat like sat sang to carry one safely across the ocean of births and deaths.

...

S.P. Tayal: From about 5 o’clock every morning I concentrate on the thought that the Self alone is real and all else unreal. Although I have been doing this for about 20 years I cannot concentrate for more than two or three minutes without my thoughts wandering. 

Bhagavan: There is no other way to succeed than to draw the mind back every time it turns outwards and fix it in the Self. 

There is no need for meditation or mantra or japa or dhyana or anything of the sort, because these are our real nature. 

All that is needed is to give up thinking of objects other than the Self.

Meditation is not so much thinking of the Self as giving up thinking of the not-Self. 

When you give up thinking of outward objects and prevent your mind from going outwards and turn it inward and fix it in the Self, the Self alone will remain.

..........

S.P. Tayal: What should I do to overcome the pull of these thoughts and desires? How should I regulate my life so as to attain control over my thoughts? 

Bhagavan: The more you get fixed in the Self, the more other thoughts will drop off by themselves. The mind is nothing but a bundle of thoughts, and the I-thought is the root of all of them. When you see who this ‘I’ is and whence it proceeds all thoughts get merged in the Self. Regulation of life, such as getting up at a fixed hour, bathing, doing mantra, japa, etc., observing ritual, all this is for people who do not feel drawn to Self-enquiry or are not capable of it. But for those who can practise this method all rules and discipline are unnecessary

At this point K.M. Jivrajani interposed, “Has one necessarily to pass through the stage of seeing occult visions before attaining Self-realization?” 

Bhagavan: Why do you bother about visions and whether they come or not? 

K.M. Jivrajani: I don’t. I only want to know so that I shan’t be disappointed if I don’t have them. 

Bhagavan: Visions are not a necessary stage. To some they come and to others they don’t, but whether they come or not you always exist and you must stick to that. 

K.M. Jivrajani: I sometimes concentrate on the brain centre and sometimes on the heart — not always on the same centre. Is that wrong? 

 Bhagavan: Wherever you concentrate and on whatever centre there must be a you to concentrate, and that is what you must concentrate on. 

Different people concentrate on different centres, not only the brain and the heart but also the space between the eyebrows, the tip of the nose, the tip of the tongue, the lowermost chakra and even external objects.

 Such concentration may lead to a sort of laya in which you will feel a certain bliss, but care must be taken not to lose the thought ‘I Am’ in all this. 

'You' never cease to exist in all these experiences. 

K.M. Jivrajani: That is to say that I must be a witness? 

Bhagavan: 

Talking of the ‘witness’ should not lead to the idea that there is a witness and something else apart from him that he is witnessing. 

The ‘witness’ really means the light that illumines the seer, the seen and the process of seeing. 

Before, during and after the triads of seer, seen and seeing, the illumination exists. It alone exists always. 

K.M. Jivrajani: It is said in books that one should cultivate all the good or daivic qualities in order to prepare oneself for Self-realisation. 

Bhagavan: All good or daivic qualities are included in jnana and all bad asuric qualities are included in ajnana. When jnana comes all ajnana goes and all daivic qualities come automatically. If a man is a jnani he cannot utter a lie or do anything wrong. It is, no doubt, said in some books that one should cultivate one quality after another and thus prepare for ultimate moksha, but for those who follow the jnana or vichara marga their sadhana is itself quite enough for acquiring all daivic qualities; they need not do anything else.

......

281

19-7-46 

Again today a visitor put questions: I do not understand how to make the enquiry ‘Who am I?’ 

 Bhagavan: Find out whence the ‘I’ arises. 

Self-enquiry does not mean argument or reasoning such as goes on when you say, “I am not this body, I am not the senses,” etc. 

All that may also help but it is not the enquiry. 

Watch and find out where in the body the ‘I’ arises and fix your mind on that.

.....

Visitor: Will gayatri help? 

Bhagavan: What is gayatri? It really means: “Let me concentrate on that which illumines all.” 

Dhyana really means only concentrating or fixing the mind on the object of dhyana. But meditation is our real nature. If we give up other thoughts what remains is ‘I’ and its nature is dhyana or meditation or jnana, whichever we choose to call it. 

What is at one time the means later becomes the end. 

Unless meditation or dhyana were the nature of the Self it could not take you to the Self. 

If the means were not of the nature of the goal, it could not bring you to the goal.

.....

In the afternoon the following two questions were put by Mr. Bhargava, an elderly visitor from Jhansi in U.P.:

 (1) How am I to search for the ‘I’ from start to finish? 

(2) When I meditate I reach a stage where there is a vacuum or void. How should I proceed from there? 

Bhagavan: Never mind whether there are visions or sounds or anything else or whether there is a void. Are you present  during all this or are you not? You must have been there even during the void to be able to say that you experienced a void. To be fixed in that ‘you’ is the quest for the ‘I’ from start to finish. In all books on Vedanta you will find this question of a void or of nothing being left, raised by the disciple and answered by the Guru. It is the mind that sees objects and has experiences and that finds a void when it ceases to see and experience, but that is not ‘you’. You are the constant illumination that lights up both the experiences and the void. It is like the theatre light that enables you to see the theatre, the actors and the play while the play is going on but also remains alight and enables you to say that there is no play on when it is all finished. Or there is another illustration. We see objects all around us, but in complete darkness we do not see them and we say, ‘I see nothing’; even then the eyes are there to say that they see nothing. In the same way, you are there even in the void you mention. You are the witness of the three bodies: the gross, the subtle and the causal, and of the three states: waking, dream and deep sleep, and of the three times: past, present and future, and also of this void. In the story of the tenth man, when each of the ten counted and thought there were only nine, each one forgetting to count himself, there is a stage when they think one is missing and don’t know who it is; and that corresponds to the void. We are so accustomed to the notion that all that we see around us is permanent and that we are this body, that when all this ceases to exist we imagine and fear that we also have ceased to exist. 

Bhagavan also quoted verses 212 and 213 from Vivekachudamani, in which the disciple says: 

“After I eliminate the five sheaths as not-Self, I find that nothing at all remains,” and the Guru replied that the Self or That by which all modifications (including the ego and its creatures) and their absence (that is the void) are perceived is always there. 

Then Bhagavan continued speaking on the subject and said: “The nature of the Self or ‘I’ must be illumination. You perceive all modifications and their absence. How? To say that you get the illumination from another would raise the question how he got it and there would be no end to the chain of reasoning. So you yourself are the illumination. The usual illustration of this is the following: You make all kinds of sweets of various ingredients and in various shapes and they all taste sweet because there is sugar in all of them and sweetness is the nature of sugar. And in the same way all experiences and the absence of them contain the illumination which is the nature of the Self. Without the Self they cannot be experienced, just as without sugar not one of the articles you make can taste sweet.” 

A little later Bhagavan also said: “First one sees the Self as objects, then one sees the Self as void, then one sees the Self as Self, only in this last there is no seeing because seeing is being.” 

Mr. Bhargava also said something about sleep, and this led Bhagavan to speak about sleep as follows:

 “What is required is to remain fixed in the Self always. 

The obstacles to that are distraction by the things of the world (including sense objects, desires and tendencies) on the one hand, and sleep on the other. 

Sleep is always mentioned in books as the first obstacle to samadhi and various methods are prescribed for overcoming it according to the stage of evolution of the person concerned. First, one is enjoined to give up all distraction by the world and its objects or by sleep. But then it is said, for instance in the Gita, that one need not give up sleep entirely. Too much and too little are alike undesirable. One should not sleep at all during the daytime and even during the night restrict sleep to the middle portion, from about ten to two. But another method that is prescribed is not to bother about sleep at all. When it overtakes you, you can do nothing about it, so simply remain fixed in the Self or in meditation every moment of your waking life and take up the meditation again the moment you wake, and that will be enough. Then even during sleep the same current of thought or meditation will be working. This is evident because if a man goes to sleep with any strong thought working in his mind he finds the same thought there when he wakes. It is of the man who does this with meditation that it is said that even his sleep is samadhi. A good way to reduce the amount of sleep needed is to take only sattvic food and that in moderation and to avoid work or activity of any kind.” 

..................................

285

After a slight pause Bhagavan replied, 

“Faith is in things unknown; but the Self is self-evident. 

Even the greatest egoist cannot deny his own existence, that is to say, cannot deny the Self. 

You can call the ultimate Reality by whatever name you like and say that you have faith in it or love for it, but who is there who will not have faith in his own existence or love for himself? That is because faith and love are our real nature.”  

A little later Ramamurti asked, “That which rises as ‘I’ within us is the Self, is it not?” 

Bhagavan: No; it is the ego that rises as ‘I’. 

That from which it arises is the Self. 

.......

Ramamurti: They speak of a lower and a higher atman. 

Bhagavan: There is no such thing as lower or higher in atman. Lower and higher apply to the forms, not to the Self or atman.

...........................................285.........end...........................................

dd mar 10

 243

Today again Bose reverted to the subject of maya and asked Bhagavan, “What is Hiranyagarbha?” 

Bhagavan replied, “Hiranyagarbha is only another name for the sukshma sarira or Ishwara. The books use the following illustration to help explain creation. The Self is like the canvas for a painting. First a paste is smeared over it to close up the small holes that are in any cloth. This paste can be compared to the antaryami in all creation. Then the artist makes an outline on the canvas, and this can be compared to the sukshma sarira of all creation, for instance the light and sound, nada, bindu, out of which all things arise. Then the artist paints his picture with colours etc., in this outline, and this can be compared to the gross forms that constitute the world.”

......Bhagavan was silent for a while and then replied. “Your worry is due to thinking. Anxiety is a creation of the mind. Your real nature is peace. Peace has not got to be achieved; it is our nature. To find consolation, you may reflect: ‘God gave, God has taken away; He knows best’. But the true remedy is to enquire into your true nature. It is because you feel that your son does not exist that you feel grief. If you knew that he existed you would not feel grief. That means that the source of the grief is mental and not an actual reality. There is a story given in some books how two boys went on a pilgrimage and after some days news came back that one of them was dead. However, the wrong one was reported dead, and the result was that the mother who had lost her son went about as cheerful as ever, while the one who had still got her son was weeping and lamenting. So it is not any object or condition that causes grief but only our thought about it. Your son came from the Self and  was absorbed back into the Self. Before he was born, where was he apart from the Self? He is our Self in reality. In deep sleep the thought of ‘I’ or ‘child’ or ‘death’ does not occur to you, and you are the same person who existed in sleep. If you enquire in this way and find out your real nature, you will know your son’s real nature also. He always exists. It is only you who think he is lost. You create a son in your mind, and think that he is lost, but in the Self he always exists.”

.....

In the evening Bose asked, “Is it good to do japa and puja and so on when we know that enquiry into the Self is the real thing?” 

Bhagavan: All are good. They will lead to this eventually. Japa is our real nature. When we realize the Self then japa goes on without effort. What is the means at one stage becomes the goal at another. When effortless, constant japa goes on, it is realisation.

.....

Bhagavan: Yes; so long as there is the feeling ‘I’, it must have a source from whence it came.

.....

249

Why should your occupation or duties in life interfere with your spiritual effort? For instance, there is a difference between your activities at home and in the office. In your office activities you are detached and so long as you do your duty you do not care what happens or whether it results in gain or loss to the employer. But your duties at home are performed with attachment and you are all the time anxious as to whether they will bring advantage or disadvantage to you and your family. But it is possible to perform all the activities of life with detachment and regard only the Self as real. It is wrong to suppose that if one is fixed in the Self one’s duties in life will not be properly performed. It is like an actor. He dresses and acts and even feels the part he is playing, but he knows really that he is not that character but someone else in real life. 

In the same way, why should the body-consciousness or the feeling ‘I-am-the-body’ disturb you, 

Once you know for certain that you are not the body but the Self? 

Nothing that the body does should shake you from 

Abidance in the Self. 

Such abidance will never interfere with  the proper and effective discharge of whatever duties the body has, any more than the actor’s being aware of his real status in life interferes with his acting a part on the stage. 

You ask whether you can tell yourself: “I am not the body but the Self”.

 Of course, whenever you feel tempted to identify yourself with the body (as you may often have to, owing to old vasanas) it may be a help to remind yourself that you are not the body but the Self. But you should not make such repetition a mantram, constantly saying: “I am not the body but the Self”. By proper enquiry into the Self, the notion ‘I am this body’ will gradually vanish and in time the faith that you are the Self will become unshakeable.

........

K.M. Jivrajani: In the early stages would it not be a help to man to seek solitude and give up his outer duties in life? 

Bhagavan: Renunciation is always in the mind, not in going to forests or solitary places or giving up one’s duties. 

The main thing is to see that the mind does not turn outward but inward. 

It does not really rest with a man whether he goes to this place or that or whether he gives up his duties or not. 

All that happens according to destiny. All the activities that the body is to go through are determined when it first comes into existence. 

It does not rest with you to accept or reject them. 

The only freedom you have is to turn your mind inward and renounce activities there.

...........

K.M. Jivrajani: But is it not possible for something to be a help, especially to a beginner? Like a fence round a young tree. For instance, don’t our books say that it is helpful to go on pilgrimage to sacred shrines or to get sat sang. 

Bhagavan: Who said they are not helpful? Only such things do not rest with you, as turning your mind inward does. Many people desire the pilgrimage or sat sang that you mention, but do they all get it? 

 K.M. Jivrajani: Why is it that turning inward alone is left to us and not any outer things? I answered: Nobody can answer that. That is the Divine scheme. 

Bhagavan: If you want to go to fundamentals, you must enquire who you are and find out who it is who has freedom or destiny. Who are you and why did you get this body that has these limitations? 

.......

In the afternoon G.V.S. asked, “What is the difference between manasa japa and dhyana?” 

Bhagavan: They are the same. In both, the mind is concentrated on one thing, the mantra or the Self. Mantra, japa, dhyana — are only different names. So long as they require effort we call them by these names, but when the Self is realized this goes on without any effort and what was the means becomes the goal.

....

Dr. Haridas, a disciple of Swami Madhava Theertha and a relative of Mahatma Gandhi by marriage, asked Bhagavan, 

“If ajnana is also Brahman, why is Brahman not visible but only ajnana or the world?” 

Bhagavan: Brahman is not to be seen or known. It is beyond the triputis (triads) of seer, seen and seeing or knower, knowledge and knowing. 

The Reality remains ever as it is; that there is ajnana or the world is due to our moham or illusion. Neither knowledge nor ignorance is real; what is beyond this, as all other pairs of opposites, is the Reality. It is neither light nor darkness but beyond both, though we sometimes have to speak of it as light and of ignorance as its shadow.

G.V.S.: It is said that the Self cannot be realized by reading books but only by anubhava (personal experience). 

Bhagavan: What is anubhava? 

It is only going beyond the pairs of opposites or the triputis.

...............

In the evening Bhagavan said with reference to a question somebody had asked:

 “During sleep there is both the Self and ajnana — ajnana because we knew nothing and the Self  because we existed, and when we wake we say, ‘I slept well’, although we knew nothing. If one asks how the Self and ajnana can exist together, any more than light and darkness, the answer is that to one who realises, the Self is all light and there is no such thing as darkness at all, but to one who has not realised we say that there can be ajnana in the Self like the seeming shadows on the moon.”

.........

Another visitor said to Bhagavan: I want to have darshan of God. What should I do? 

Bhagavan: First we must know what you mean by ‘I’ and ‘God’ and by ‘darshan of God’. The visitor dropped the matter and said no more.

.....

G.V.S.: Is it stated in any book that for ultimate and final Self-realization one must ultimately come to the Heart even after reaching sahasrara, and that the Heart is at the right side? 

Bhagavan: No. I have not come across this in any book. But in a Malayalam book on medicine I came across a stanza locating the heart on the right side and I have translated it into Tamil in the Supplement to the Forty Verses. We know nothing about the other centres. We cannot be sure what we arrive at in concentrating on them and realizing them. But as the ‘I’ arises from the Heart it must sink back and merge there for Self-realization.

...........

265

Then, turning to Khanna, Bhagavan said, 

“Why distress your mind by thinking that jnana has not come or that the vasanas have not disappeared? Don’t give room for thoughts. 

In the last stanza of Sukavari by Thayumanavar, the Saint says much the same as is written on this paper.” 

And Bhagavan made me read the stanza and translate it into English for the benefit of those who do not know Tamil. 

It goes: “The mind mocks me and though I tell you ten thousand times ....you are indifferent. 

So how am I to attain peace and bliss?”

......

Then I said to Khanna, “You are not the only one who complains to Bhagavan like this. I have more than once  complained in the same way, and I still do, for I find no improvement in myself.” 

Khanna replied, “It is not only that I find no improvement but I think I have grown worse. The vasanas are stronger now. I can’t understand it.” 

Bhagavan again quoted the last three stanzas of Mandalathin of Thayumanavar, 

Where the mind is coaxed as the most generous and disinterested of givers, to go back to its birthplace or source and thus give the devotee peace and bliss. 

And he asked me to read out a translation of it that I once made. Khanna then asked, 

“The illumination plus mind is jivatma and the illumination alone is paramatma; is that right?” 

Bhagavan assented and then pointed to his towel and said, “We call this a white cloth, but the cloth and its whiteness cannot be separated, and it is the same with the illumination and the mind that unite to form the ego.” 

Then he added: “The following illustration that is often given in books will also help you. The lamp in the theatre is the Parabrahman or the illumination, as you put it. It illumines itself and the stage and actors. We see the stage and the actors by its light, but its light still continues when there is no more play. Another illustration is an iron rod that is compared to the mind. Fire joins it and it becomes red-hot. It glows and can burn things, like fire, but still it has a definite shape, unlike fire. If we hammer it, it is the rod that receives the blows, not the fire. The rod is the jivatma and the fire the Self or Paramatma.”

.....

As often as one tries to surrender, the ego raises its head and one has to try to suppress it. Surrender is not an easy thing. Killing the ego is not an easy thing. It is only when God Himself by His grace draws the mind inwards that complete surrender can be achieved. 

But such grace comes only to those who have already, in this or previous lives, gone through all the struggles and sadhanas preparatory to the extinction of the mind and killing of the ego.” 

Bhagavan added, “In the old days these Vaishnavites used to come and advise me to undergo a samasanam but I used to keep silent.” Bhagavan continued to speak of the Dvaitism of the Vaishnavites and quoted the Nammalvar song beginning...

 ‘ the gist of which is: 

“not knowing myself, I went about saying ‘I’ and ‘mine’. 

Then I discovered that ‘I’ was ‘You’ and ‘mine’ was ‘Yours’, oh God.” 

He said: “This is clear Advaita, 

But these Vaishnavites would give it some interpretation to make it accord with their feeling of duality. They hold that they must exist and God must exist, but how is that possible? It seems that they must all remain for ever doing service in Vaikunta, but how many of them are to do service and where would there be room for all these Vaishnavites?” 

Bhagavan said this laughing, and then, after a pause, he added, 

“On the other hand, Advaita does not mean that a man must always sit in samadhi and never engage in action. Many things are necessary to keep up the life of the body, and action can never be avoided. Nor is bhakti ruled out in Advaita. Shankara is rightly regarded as the foremost exponent of Advaita, and yet look at the number of shrines he visited (action), and the devotional songs he wrote.” 

Bhagavan then gave further quotations from the eighth decad of Tiruvoimozhi to show that some of Vaishnavite Alwars had clearly endorsed Advaita. He particularly emphasised the third stanza where it says: “I was lost in Him or in That” and the fifth, which is very like the Thiruvachagam stanza that says the ego got attenuated more and more and was extinguished in the Self.

.......

In the afternoon Khanna’s wife appealed to Bhagavan in writing: 

“I am not learned in the scriptures and I find the method of Self-enquiry too hard for me. I am a woman with seven children and a lot of household cares, and it leaves me little time for meditation. I request Bhagavan to give me some simpler and easier method.” 

Bhagavan: No learning or knowledge of scriptures is necessary to know the Self, as no man requires a mirror to see himself. All knowledge is required only to be given up eventually as not-Self. Nor is household work or cares with children necessarily an obstacle. If you can do nothing more, at least continue saying ‘I, I’ to yourself mentally all the time, as advised in Who am I?, whatever work you may be doing and whether you are sitting, standing or walking. ‘I’ is the name of God. It is the first and greatest of all mantras. Even OM is second to it. 

......

Khanna: The jiva is said to be mind plus illumination. What is it that desires Self-realization and what is it that obstructs our path to Self-realization? It is said that the mind obstructs and the illumination helps. 

Bhagavan: Although we describe the jiva as mind plus the reflected light of the Self, in actual practice, in life, you cannot separate the two, just as, in the illustrations we used yesterday, you can’t separate cloth and whiteness in a white cloth or fire and iron in a red-hot rod. The mind can do nothing by itself. It emerges only with the illumination and can do no action, good or bad, except with the illumination. But while the illumination is always there, enabling the mind to act well or ill, the pleasure or pain resulting from such action is not felt by the illumination, just as when you hammer a red-hot rod it is not the fire but the iron that gets the hammering.

........

Khanna: Is there destiny? And if what is destined to happen will happen is there any use in prayer or effort or should we just remain idle? 

Bhagavan: There are only two ways to conquer destiny or be independent of it.

 One is to enquire for whom is this destiny and discover that only the ego is bound by destiny and not the Self, and that the ego is non-existent. 

The other way is to kill the ego by completely surrendering to the Lord, by realizing one’s helplessness and saying all the time: ‘Not I but Thou, oh Lord!’, and giving up all sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ and leaving it to the Lord to do what he likes with you. 

Surrender can never be regarded as complete so long as the devotee wants this or that from the Lord. 

True surrender is love of God for the sake of love and nothing else, not even for the sake of salvation. 

In other words, complete effacement of the ego is necessary to conquer destiny, whether you achieve this effacement through Self-enquiry or through bhakti-marga.

Khanna: Are our prayers granted? 

Bhagavan: Yes, they are granted. No thought will go in vain. Every thought will produce its effect some time or other. Thought-force will never go in vain.

.................271....................end..............................

dd mar 9

221

A visitor asked, “I have been visiting various shrines in a pilgrimage, and worshipping various images. What exactly is God’s true form?”  

Bhagavan: The only thing to know is that there is an entity who is in all these forms, but who is not these forms. 

We see the One in the many. We see the One as many, the Formless in the forms.

..............

226

Bhagavan has said the same on previous occasions also. He continued to speak about mukti and said, 

“Mukti is not anything to be attained. It is our real nature. We are always That. 

It is only so long as one feels that he is in bondage that he has to try to get released from bondage. 

When a man feels that he is in bondage he tries to find out for whom is the bondage and by that enquiry discovers that there is no bondage for him but only for the mind, and that the mind itself disappears or proves non-existent when turned inwards instead of outwards towards sense-objects; it merges into its source, the Self, and ceases to exist as a separate entity. 

In that state there is no feeling either of bondage or liberation. So long as one speaks of mukti he is not free from the sense of bondage.” 

The visitor who had asked about yoga in the morning now pursued his questions further. 

Visitor: I did not quite grasp all that Bhagavan said this morning. What am I to do when the mind strays in various directions during dhyana? 

Bhagavan: Simply draw the mind back each time it strays and fix it in dhyana. There is no other way. (Bhagavan also quoted Chapter VI, Verse 26 from the Bhagavad Gita which says the same thing). 

Visitor: Then is there no use in pranayama (breath control)? Should I not practise it? 

Bhagavan: Pranayama is also a help. It is one of the various methods that are intended to help us attain ekagratha or one-pointedness of mind. Pranayama can also help to control the wandering mind and attain this one-pointedness and therefore it can be used. But one should not stop there.  After obtaining control of the mind through pranayama one should not rest content with any experiences which may accrue therefrom but should harness the controlled mind to the question ‘Who am I?’ till the mind merges in the Self.

.....

Sadhu: I don’t know what all these terms mean. 

Bhagavan: Then never mind what the Arya Samajists tell you. You don’t know about God and other things, 

but you do know that you exist. You can have no doubt about that. So find out who you are. 

Sadhu: That is what I want to know. How can I find out? 

Bhagavan: Keep all other thoughts away and try to find out in what place in your body the ‘I’ arises. 

Sadhu: But I am unable to think about this. 

Bhagavan: Why? If you can think about other things you can think about ‘I’ and where in your body it arises. 

If you mean that other thoughts distract you, the only way is to draw your mind back each time it strays and fix it on the ‘I’. 

As each thought arises, ask yourself: “To whom is this thought?” The answer will be, “to me”.

Then hold on to that “me”. 

Sadhu: Am I to keep on repeating “Who am I?” so as to make a mantra of it? 

 Bhagavan: No. ‘Who am I?’ is not a mantra. It means that you must find out where in you arises the I-thought which is the source of all other thoughts. 

But if you find this vichara marga too hard for you, you can go on repeating “I, I” and that will lead you to the same goal. 

There is no harm in using ‘I’ as a mantra. It is the first name of God.

God is everywhere, but it is difficult to conceive Him in that aspect, so the books have said, “God is everywhere. He is also within you. You are Brahman.” So remind yourself: “I am Brahman”. 

The repetition of ‘I’ will eventually lead you to realise “I am Brahman”.

.............................

232

Jivrajani: Bhagavan has said that when the ego is submerged or killed something else arises within us as ‘I-I’. Will Bhagavan please tell me more about that? 

Bhagavan: Everyone has to find that out by his own experience. It cannot be described. In the same way, you say, “something goes up”; can you describe that?

........

Jivrajani: It is only by developing the intellect that intuition can be attained; in fact perfection of intellect is intuition, is that not so? 

Bhagavan: How can that be? The merging of the intellect in the source from which it arose gives birth to intuition, as you call it. The intellect is of use only to see outside things, the outside world. Perfection of the intellect would lead only to seeing the outside world well. But the intellect is of no use at all for seeing within, for turning inwards towards the Self. For that, it has to be killed or extinguished, or in other words it has to merge in the source from which it sprang.

....

Jivrajani: Has closing the eyes during meditation any efficacy? 

Bhagavan: The eyes can be closed or open as one finds convenient. It is not the eyes that see. There is one who sees through the eyes. If he is turned inwards and is not looking through the eyes they can be open and yet nothing will be seen. If we keep our eyes closed it is the same to us whether the windows of this room are open or shut.

.......

233

Jivrajani: Suppose there is some disturbance during meditation, such as mosquito bites, should one persist in meditation and try to bear the bites and ignore the interruption or drive the mosquitoes away and then continue the meditation? 

Bhagavan: You must do as you find most convenient. You will not attain mukti simply because you refrain from driving away the mosquitoes, nor be denied mukti simply because you drive them away. The thing is to attain one-pointedness and then to attain mano-nasa. Whether you do this by putting up with the mosquito bites or driving the mosquitoes away is left to you. If you are completely absorbed in your meditation you will not know that the mosquitoes are biting you. Till you attain that stage why should you not drive them away?

...........................

243

Bose: When the Upanishads say that all is Brahman, how can we say, like Shankara, that this world is mithya or illusory? 

Bhagavan: Shankara also said that this world is Brahman or the Self. What he objected to is one’s imagining that the Self is limited by the names and forms that constitute the world. He only said that the world does not exist apart from Brahman. Brahman or the Self is like the screen and the world is like the pictures on it. You can see the picture only so long as there is a screen. But when the seer himself becomes the screen only the Self remains. 

Kaivalya Navaneeta has asked and answered six questions about maya. They are instructive. 

The first question is: What is maya? And the answer is: It is anirvachaniya or indescribable. 

The second question is: To whom does it come? And the answer is: To the mind or ego who feels that he is a separate entity, who thinks: ‘I do this’ or ‘this is mine’.  

The third question is: Where does it come from and how did it originate? And the answer is: Nobody can say. 

The fourth question is: How did it arise? And the answer is: Through non-vichara, through failure to ask: who am I? 

The fifth question is: If the Self and maya both exist does not this invalidate the theory of Advaita? The answer is: It need not, since maya is dependent on the Self as the picture is on the screen. The picture is not real in the sense that the screen is real. 

The sixth question is: If the Self and maya are one, could it not be argued that the Self is of the nature of maya, that is illusory? 

And the answer is: No; the Self can be capable of producing illusion without being illusory. A conjuror may create for our entertainment the illusion of people, animals and things, and we see all of them as clearly as we see him; but after the performance he alone remains and all the visions he had created have disappeared. He is not a part of the illusion but is real and solid.

........................243.........end.....................................

 

dd mar 8

184

Swami said, “I think our Bhagavan has attained Self realisation. Such beings are walking Upanishads. So I want to hear, from his own lips, his experience of Self-realisation. Why are you all butting in and distracting us from the point and purpose of my question?” 

After all this, Bhagavan said, “You say you think I have attained Self-realisation. I must know what you mean by Self realisation. What idea do you have in your mind about it?”

 The Swami was not pleased with this counter-question, but added, after some time, “I mean the atman merging in the paramatman.” 

Bhagavan then said, “We do not know about the paramatman or the Universal Soul, etc. We know we exist. Nobody doubts he exists, though he may doubt the existence of God. So, if one finds out about the truth or source of oneself, that is all that is required.” 

The Swami thereupon said, “Bhagavan therefore says ‘Know Thyself’.” 

Bhagavan said. “Even that is not correct. For, if we talk of knowing the Self, there must be two Selves, one a knowing Self, another the Self which is known, and the process of knowing. 

The state we call realisation is simply being oneself, not knowing anything or becoming anything. 

If one has realised, he is that which alone is and which alone has always been. He cannot describe that state. He can only be that. Of course, we loosely talk of Self realisation, for want of a better term. 

How to ‘real-ise’ or make real that which alone is real? 

What we are all doing is, we ‘realised’ or regard as real that which is unreal. This habit of ours has to be given up. All sadhana under all systems of thought is meant only for this end. When we give up regarding the unreal as real, then the reality alone will remain and we will be that.” 

The Swami replied, “This exposition is all right with reference to Advaita. But there are other schools which do not insist on the disappearance of triputi (the three factors of knowledge) as the condition for Self-realisation. There are schools which believe in the existence of two and even three eternal entities. There is the bhakta, for instance. That he may do bhakti, there must be a God.” 

Bhagavan replied, “Whoever objects to one having a God to worship, so long as he requires such a separate God? Through bhakti he develops himself, and comes to feel that God alone exists and that he, the bhakta, does not count. He comes to a stage when he says, 

‘Not I, but Thou’; ‘Not my will, but Thy will.’ When that stage is reached, which is called complete surrender in the bhakti marga, one finds effacement of ego is attainment of Self. 

We need not quarrel whether there are two entities, or more, or only one. 

Even according to Dvaitis and according to the bhakti marga, complete surrender is prescribed. Do that first, and then see for yourself whether the one Self alone exists, or whether there are two or more entities.”  Bhagavan further added, “Whatever may be said to suit the different capacities of different men, the truth is, the state of Self-realisation must be beyond triputis. The Self is not something of which jnana or ajnana can be predicated. It is beyond ajnana and jnana. The Self is the Self; that is all that can be said of it.” 

The Swami then asked whether a jnani could remain with his body after attaining Self-realisation. He said, “It is said that the impact of Self-realisation is so forceful that the weak physical body cannot bear it for more than twenty-one days at the longest.” 

Bhagavan said, “What is your idea of a jnani? Is he the body or something different?

 If he is something apart from the body, how could he be affected by the body? 

The books talk of different kinds of mukti, videha mukti (without body), and jivan mukti (with body). There may be different stages in the sadhana. But in realisation there are no degrees.” 

The Swami then asked, “What is the best means for Self realisation?” 

Bhagavan: 

‘I exist’ is the only permanent, self-evident experience of everyone. 

Nothing else is so self-evident (pratyaksha) as ‘I am’. 

What people call ‘self-evident’ viz. the experience they get through the senses, is far from self evident. 

The Self alone is that. Pratyaksha is another name for the Self. 

So, to do Self-analysis and be ‘I am’ is the only thing to do. 

‘I am’ is reality. I am this or that is unreal. ‘I am’ is truth, another name for Self. 

‘I am God’ is not true. 

The Swami thereupon said, “The Upanishads themselves have said ‘I am Brahman’.” 

Bhagavan replied, “That is not how the text is to be understood. It simply means, “Brahman exists as ‘I’ and not ‘I am Brahman’. 

It is not to be supposed that a man is advised to contemplate ‘I am Brahman’, ‘I am Brahman’. 

Does a man keep on thinking ‘I am a man’ ‘I am a man’? He is that, and except when a doubt arises as to whether he is an  animal or a tree, there is no need for him to assert, ‘I am a man.’ Similarly the Self is Self, Brahman exists as ‘I am’, in every thing and every being.” 

The Swami remarked, “The bhakta requires a God to whom he can do bhakti. Is he to be taught that there is only the Self, not a worshipper and the worshipped?” 

Bhagavan: Of course, God is required for sadhana. But the end of the sadhana, even in bhakti marga, is attained only after complete surrender. 

What does it mean, except that effacement of ego results in Self remaining as it always has been? 

Whatever path one may choose, the ‘I’ is inescapable, 

the ‘I’ that does the nishkama karma, the 

‘I’ that pines for joining the Lord from whom it feels it has been separated, 

the ‘I’ that feels it has slipped from its real nature, and so on. 

The source of this ‘I’ must be found out. 

Then all questions will be solved. 

Whereas all paths are approved in the Bhagavad Gita, it says that the jnani is the best karma yogi, the best devotee or bhakta, the highest yogi and so on.”

 The Swami still persisted, “It is all right to say Self analysis is the best thing to do. But in practice, we find a God is necessary for most people.” 

Bhagavan: God is of course necessary, for most people. They can go on with one, till they find out that they and God are not different. 

The Swami continued, “In actual practice, sadhakas, even sincere ones, sometimes become dejected and lose faith in God. How to restore their faith? What should we do for them?” 

Bhagavan: If one cannot believe in God, it does not matter. I suppose he believes in himself, in his own existence. Let him find out the source from which he came. 

Swami: Such a man will only say the source from which he comes are his parents. 

 Bhagavan: He cannot be such an ignoramus, as you started by saying he was a sadhaka in this line already. 

...

Bhagavan said, “He wants to know how to turn the mind from sense enjoyments and realise that bliss which is said to be so much above sense-enjoyments. 

There is only one way, making the mind merge in That which is not sense enjoyment. 

As you concentrate on That, the sense attractions will fall of their own accord. 

Again, he asks, ‘When can I attain that bliss?’ He is daily enjoying that bliss in sleep. There, no sense object is present, and he still enjoys great bliss. 

We don't have to attain bliss. We are bliss. 

Bliss is another name for us. It is our nature. 

All that we have to do is to turn the mind, draw it from the sense objects every time it goes towards them, and fix it in the Self.

 He asks whether he will attain bliss after death. There is no need to die to attain bliss. 

Merging of the mind alone is necessary. 

Death is also another name for us. For what is death but giving up the body? 

Our real nature is to be without the body.”

.....

194

..................Whether, when you transcend these three kinds and cease to be the ordinary purusha, there is any vritti still left is a matter with which you need not concern yourself now. Attain that state and see for yourself what that state is and whether there is any vritti in it. 

To speak even of brahmakara vritti, as we sometimes do, is not accurate. 

If we can talk of the river that has merged in the ocean as still a river and call it samudrakara river, we can talk of the final stage in spiritual growth as having Brahmakara vritti. 

When people from Sri Aurobindo’s Ashram come here and ask about the differences between our school and theirs, I always tell them, 

‘There, complete surrender is advised and insisted upon before anything further could be hoped for or attained. So, do it first. I also advise it. After making such surrender, i.e., complete surrender and not any partial or conditional surrender, you will be able to see for yourself whether there are two purushas, whether power comes from anywhere and gets into anywhere, etc.’ For we know nothing about God or any source from which power comes and gets into us. All that is not known. 

But ‘I exist’ is known beyond all dispute by all men. So let us know who that ‘I’ is. 

If, after knowing it, there still remain any doubts such as are now raised, it will be time enough then to try and clear such doubts.”

......

Mr. Nanavati of Bombay asked Bhagavan, “In the fifth stanza of Arunachala Pancharatna reference is made to seeing ‘Your form in everything’. What is the form referred to?” 

Bhagavan said, 

“The stanza says that one should completely surrender one’s mind, 

turn it inwards 

and see ‘you’ the Self within 

and then see the Self in ‘you’ in everything.

 It is only after seeing the Self within .......that one will be able to see the Self in everything. 

One must first realise there is nothing but the Self .....and that he is that Self, 

And then only ....he can see everything as the form of the Self. 

That is the meaning of saying, ‘See the Self in everything and everything in the Self’, as is stated in the Gita and other books. 

It is the same truth that is taught in stanza 4 of Ulladu Narpadu:

If you have the idea that you are something with form, that you are limited by this body, and that being within this body you have to see through these eyes, then God and the world also will appear to you as form. 

If you realise you are without form, that you are unlimited, that you alone exist, that you are the eye, the infinite eye, then what is there to be seen apart from the infinite eye? 

Apart from the eye, there is nothing to be seen. 

There must be a seer for an object to be seen, and there must be space, time, etc. 

But if the Self alone exists, it is both seer and seen, and above seeing or being seen.”

...........................

220

 29-4-46 Afternoon 

Mr Nanavati asked Bhagavan, “What is the heart referred to in the verse in Upadesa Saram where it is said ‘Abiding in the heart is the best karma, yoga, bhakti and jnana’?” 

Bhagavan: That which is the source of all, that in which all live, and that into which all finally merge, is the heart referred to. 

Sam; what is heart?

A:  That which is the source of all.

Nanavati: How can we conceive of such a heart? 

Bhagavan: Why should you conceive of anything? You have only to see wherefrom the ‘I’ springs. 

Nanavati: I suppose mere mauna in speech is no good; but we must have mauna of the mind. 

Bhagavan: Of course. 

If we have real mauna, that state in which the mind is merged into its source and has no more separate existence, 

then all other kinds of mauna will come of their own accord, 

i.e. the mauna of words, of action and of the mind or chitta. Bhagavan also quoted in this connection, the following from Thayumanavar. 

 If I get pure mauna,  then I shall have mauna of chitta, mind, word and deed. 

Bhagavan added, “Such mauna is not inertness but great activity. It is the most powerful speech.”

...................................220.........end............................

dd mar 7

121 

138

Question: What is sahaja samadhi? 

Answer: It is our svabhava sthiti. It is being in our natural state. 

Nirvikalpa samadhi  means merely giving up our vikalpas.

 Samadhi is our natural state, if we give up the vikalpas.

158

Some young men who had come with an introduction from the Ramakrishna Mission at Madras asked Bhagavan, 

“Which is the proper path for us to follow?” 

Bhagavan: When you speak of a path, where are you now? and where do you want to go? If these are known, then we can talk of the path. Know first where you are and what you are. 

There is nothing to be reached. You are always as you really are. But you don’t realise it. That is all.

,.....

Bhagavan remarked, “Mantra japa, after a time, leads to a stage when you become Mantra maya i.e. you become that whose name you have been repeating or chanting. First you repeat the mantra by mouth; later you do it mentally. 

First, you do this dhyana with breaks. Later, you do it without any break. 

At that stage you realise you do dhyana without any effort on your part. 

That dhyana is your real nature. 

Till then, effort is necessary.”

......

Next the talk drifted to the Self being pratyaksha (self evident) and Bhagavan then related how the song Atma Vidya  was composed. 

He said, “Any vidya is for the purpose of knowing something. If it is so self-evident as to render the well known classical example of hastamalakam or a gooseberry on the palm a false analogy, as Muruganar had put it, where was the need for Atma Vidya, whether you call it easy or not? 

What Muruganar meant to say was: ‘In the classical example, a hand is necessary, a hand that will and can feel a fruit on it, a fruit, an eye that can see, a person that has already known what fruit it is, and so on and so forth. 

But for knowing the Self, nothing at all except the Self is needed.’ In sleep for instance nothing at all exists for us except ourselves and we admit we existed during that sleep. 

On waking we say, ‘I slept and none of us believes there are two ‘I’s, the one that slept and the one that is awake now. 

In the classical example all these must exist to make the fruit self-evident. All these depend on or derive from the Self and make the fruit self-evident. How much more self-evident must the Self itself be? Anyhow there it was, Muruganar had written the pallavi and anupallavi and wanted the charanams. 

He said he could not possibly complete the song, as somehow no more lines would come to him, and so requested me to complete it. Thereupon I wrote this song. First I wrote only one stanza or charanam, but Muruganar wanted at least four, thereupon I made three more. Finally I recollected, I had not made any mention of Annamalai and so made a fifth charanam also and made mention of Annamalai in it, as Ponnambalam is mentioned in the stanzas of the song in Nandanar story on which our song is modelled.”

.....

167

Dr. Syed asked Bhagavan, “Does not total or complete surrender require that one should not have left in him the desire even for liberation or God?” 

Bhagavan: 

Complete surrender does require that you have no desire of your own. 

That God’s desire alone is your desire. 

And that you have no desire of your own. 

.......

Dr. Syed: Now that I am satisfied on that point, I want to know what are the steps by which I could achieve surrender. 

Bhagavan: There are two ways; one is looking into the source of ‘I’ and merging into that source. 

The other is feeling “I am helpless by myself, God alone is all-powerful and except  throwing myself completely on him, there is no other means of safety for me,” 

and thus gradually developing the conviction that God alone exists and the ego does not count.

 Both methods lead to the same goal. 

Complete surrender is another name for jnana or liberation.

.........

169

Balaram also quoted from some other book a passage which says, ‘We, people of the world, have to make great efforts to draw the mind from the objects of sense or from the world and to fix it in the heart, on God. But you, Radha, in whose heart God is fully caught, you have to make effort to get away from God.’ 

On this Bhagavan remarked, “That is the stage of the jnani. He can’t escape the Self or go away from it. Where else to go, as all that he knows is the Self which he himself is?”

.........................

174

’ God, Guru and the Self are the same. 

After your bhakti to God has matured you, God comes in the shape of Guru and from outside pushes your mind inside, while being inside as Self he draws you there from within. 

Such a Guru is needed generally, though not for very rare and advanced souls. One can go to another Guru after his Guru passes away. 

But all Gurus are one, as none of them is the form. Always mental contact is the best.

.......

175

Bhagavan: You may continue in your present method. 

When the japa becomes continuous, all other thoughts cease and one is in one’s real nature, which is japa or dhyana. 

We turn our mind outwards on things of the world and are therefore not aware of our real nature being always japa. 

When by conscious effort or japa or dhyana as we call it, we prevent our mind from thinking of other things, then what remains is our real nature, which is japa. 

So long as you think you are name and form, you can’t escape name and form in japa also.

 When you realise you are  not name and form, then name and form will drop off themselves. 

No other effort is necessary.

 Japa or dhyana will naturally and as a matter of course lead to it. 

What is now regarded as the means, japa, will then be found to be the goal. 

Name and God are not different. See the teaching of Nama Dev on the significance of God’s name, extracted in the September, 1937, issue of the Vision. (This was read out in the hall).

..........

Question: Is liberation to be achieved before the dissolution of the body or can it be had after death? What is the meaning of a verse like II, 72 or VIII, 6 of the Gita? 

Bhagavan: Is there death for you? For whom is death? The body which dies, were you aware of it, did you have it, during sleep? The body was not, when you slept, but you existed even then. When you awoke, you got the body and even in the waking state you exist. You existed both in sleep and waking. But the body did not exist in sleep and exists only in waking. That which does not exist always, but exists at one time and not at another, cannot be real. You exist always and you alone are therefore real.

..

Liberation is another name for you. 

It is always here and now with you. It has not to be won or reached hereafter or somewhere. 

Christ has said, “The Kingdom of God is within you” here and now. You have no death. Thayumanavar has sung, 

.... even when living in the world those who are always in nishta do not think there is such a thing as death). 

The Gita verse only means in the context of the whole Gita (Ch. II, for instance) that you must achieve liberation during your lifetime. Even if you fail to do it during your lifetime, you must think of God at least at the time of death, since one becomes  what he thinks of at the time of death. But unless all your life you have been thinking of God, unless you have accustomed yourself to dhyana of God always during life, it would not at all be possible for you to think of God at the time of death.

177

A visitor from Poona, who has been here for the last two or three days, asked some questions, and 

Bhagavan told him, “Mukti or liberation is our nature. It is another name for us. Our wanting mukti is a very funny thing. 

It is like a man who is in the shade, voluntarily leaving the shade, going into the sun, feeling the severity of the heat there, making great efforts to get back into the shade and then rejoicing, ‘How sweet is the shade! I have after all reached the shade!’ 

We all are doing exactly the same. We are not different from the reality. 

We  imagine we are different, 

i.e. we create the bheda bhava (the feeling of difference) and then undergo great sadhana to get rid of the bheda bhava and realise the oneness. 

Why imagine or create bheda bhava and then destroy it?”

....

Bhagavan remarked on this, “Somebody has told him so. I do not teach only the ajata doctrine. I approve of all schools. The same truth has to be expressed in different ways to suit the capacity of the hearer. The ajata doctrine says, ‘Nothing exists except the one reality. There is no birth or death, no projection or drawing in, no sadhaka, no mumukshu, no mukta, no bondage, no liberation. The one unity alone exists ever.’ 

To such as find it difficult to grasp this truth and who ask, ‘How can we ignore this solid world we see all around us?’, the dream experience is pointed out and they are told, ‘All that you see depends on the seer. Apart from the seer, there is no seen.’ This is called the drishti-srishti vada or the argument that one first creates out of his mind and then sees what his mind itself has created. To such as cannot grasp even this and who further argue, ‘The dream experience is so short, while the world always exists. The dream experience was limited to me. But the world is felt and seen not only by me, but by so many, and we cannot call such a world non-existent’, the argument called srishti-drishti vada is addressed and they are told, ‘God first created such and such a thing, out of such and such an element, and then something else, and so forth.’ That alone will satisfy this class. Their mind is otherwise not satisfied and they ask themselves, ‘How can all geography, all maps, all sciences, stars, planets and the rules governing or relating to them and all knowledge be totally untrue?’ 

To such it is best to say, ‘Yes. God created all this and so you see it.’” Dr.M. said, “But all these cannot be true; only one doctrine can be true.” 

Bhagavan said, “All these are only to suit the capacity of the learner. The absolute can only be one.” The letter further said, “Avyabhicharini bhakti is the only necessary thing.” 

As Dr.M. did not understand what avyabhicharini bhakti meant, Bhagavan explained that it only meant bhakti to God without any other thought occupying the mind. 

Bhagavan said, “This word, ananya bhakti, ekagrata bhakti, all mean the same thing.” The letter continued, “In the mind two things do not exist at the same time. Either God or samsar. Samsar is already there. That is to be reduced little by little and God is to be entered in its stead.”

 Bhagavan remarked on this. “God is there already, not samsar. Only you do not see it on account of the samsar rubbish you have filled your mind with. Remove the rubbish and you will see God. If a room is filled with various articles, the space in the room has not vanished anywhere. To have space we have not to create it, but only to remove the articles stocked in the room. Even so, God is there. If you turn the mind inward, instead of outward on things, then you see the mind merges in the one unity which alone exists.” 

Bhagavan also agreed with the writer when he said that to see God, Guru’s grace is necessary, for which again God’s anugraha is necessary, which in its turn, could be had only by upasana. The letter conveyed the writer’s namaskar to Bhagavan. Thereupon, 

Bhagavan said, “The mind merging in its source, the one unity, is the only true namaskar.”

.........179...................end.........................