dd mar 4

 86

Mr. P.C. Desai introduced Mr. P.C. Dewanji (Retd. Sub-Judge) who was returning from Trivandrum, where he had presided over a section of the Philosophical Conference. 

Mr. Dewanji asked Bhagavan, “What is the easiest way to attain one-pointedness of mind?” 

Bhagavan said, “The best way is to see the source of the mind. See if there is such a thing as the mind. It is only if there is a mind that the question of making it one-pointed will arise. 

When you investigate by turning inwards, you find there is no such thing as the mind.” 

Then Mr. P.C. Desai quoted Bhagavan’s Upadesa Sara in Sanskrit to the effect, 

“When you investigate the nature of mind continuously or without break, you find there is no such thing as the mind. This is the straight path for all.” 

The visitor again asked, “It is said in our scriptures that God it is that creates, sustains and destroys all and that He is immanent in all. If so and if God does everything and if all that we do is according to God’s niyati (law), and had already been planned in the Cosmic Consciousness. is there individual personality and any responsibility for it?”

 Bhagavan: Of course, there is. The same scriptures have laid down rules as to what men should or should not do. If man is not responsible, then why should those rules have been laid down? You talk of God’s niyati and things happening according to it. If you ask God why this creation and all, He would tell you it is according to your karma again. 

If you believe in God and His niyati working out everything, completely surrender yourself to Him and there will be no responsibility for you. 

Otherwise find out your real nature and thus attain freedom. 

..

First about the jnani’s doing work, without the mind: “You imagine one cannot do work if the mind is killed. Why do you suppose that it is the mind alone that can make one do work. There may be other causes which can also produce activity. Look at this clock, for instance. It is working without a mind. 

Again suppose we say the jnani has a mind. His mind is very different from the ordinary man’s mind. He is like the man who is hearing a story told with his mind all on some distant object. 

The mind rid of vasanas, though doing work, is not doing work.

 On the other hand, if the mind is full of vasanas, it is doing work even if the body is not active or moving.”

........Question 2: Is soham the same as ‘Who am I?’

 Answer: Aham alone is common to them. One is soham. The other is koham. They are different. Why should we go on saying soham? 

One must find out the real ‘I’. In the question ‘Who am I?’, by ‘I’ is meant the ego. 

Trying to trace it and find its source, we see it has no separate existence but merges in the real ‘I’.

....

89

Question 3: I find surrender is easier. I want to adopt that path. 

Answer: By whatever path you go, you will have to lose yourself in the One. Surrender is complete only when you reach the stage 

‘Thou art all’ and ‘Thy will be done’. 

The state is not different from jnana.

 In soham there is dvaita. In surrender there is advaita. In the Reality there is neither dvaita nor advaita, but That which is, is. 

Surrender appears easy because people imagine that, once they say with their lips ‘I surrender’ and put their burdens on their Lord, they can be free and do what they like. 

But the fact is that you can have no likes or dislikes after your surrender.

 Your will should become completely non-existent, 

The Lord’s Will taking its place. 

Such death of the ego is nothing different from jnana.

 So by whatever path you may go, you must come to jnana or oneness.

.......

90

 Each man’s first duty is to realise his true nature.

..........

Visitor: Is renunciation necessary for Self-realisation? 

Bhagavan: Renunciation and realisation are the same. 

They are different aspects of the same state. 

Giving up the non-self is renunciation. 

Inhering in the Self is jnana or Self realisation. 

One is the negative and the other the positive aspect of the same, single truth. 

Bhakti, jnana, yoga — are different names for Self-realisation or mukti which is our real nature.

 These appear as the means first. They eventually are the goal. So long as there is conscious effort required on our part to keep up bhakti, yoga, dhyana, etc., they are the means. When they go on without any effort on our part, we have attained the goal. 

There is no realisation to be achieved. 

The real is ever as it is. What we have done is, we have realised the unreal, i.e. taken for real the unreal. We have to give up that. That is all that is wanted.

......

Visitor: How has the unreal come? Can the unreal spring from the real? 

Bhagavan: See if it has sprung. There is no such thing as the unreal, from another standpoint. The Self alone exists. When you try to trace the ego, based on which alone the world and all exist, you find the ego does not exist at all and so also all this creation.

......

92

When I entered the hall Bhagavan was already answering a question which, I gathered, was to the effect 

“Is the theory of evolution true?” and Bhagavan said, 

“The trouble with all of us is that we want to know the past, what we were, and also what  we will be in the future. We know nothing about the past or the future. We do know the present and that we exist now. Both yesterday and tomorrow are only with reference to today. Yesterday was called ‘today’ in its time, and tomorrow will be called ‘today’ by us tomorrow. Today is ever present. What is ever present is pure existence. It has no past or future. Why not try and find out the real nature of the present and ever-present existence?”

...........

Question 1: Should I go on asking ‘Who am I?’ without answering? Who asks whom? Which bhavana (attitude) should be in the mind at the time of enquiry? What is ‘I’ the Self or the ego? 

 Answer: In the enquiry ‘Who am I?’, ‘I’ is the ego. 

The question really means, what is the source or origin of this ego? 

You need not have any bhavana in the mind. All that is required is, you must give up the bhavana that you are the body, of such and such a description, with such and such a name, etc. 

There is no need to have a bhavana about your real nature. 

It exists as it always does. It is real and no bhavana.

......

Question 2: I cannot be always engaged in this enquiry, for I have got other work to do, and when I do such work I forget this quest. 

Answer: When you do other work, do you cease to exist? You always exist, do you not? 

Question 3: Without the sense of doership — the sense ‘I am doing’ — work cannot be done. 

Answer: It can be done. Work without attachment. Work will go on even better than when you worked with the sense that you were the doer. 

Question 4: I don’t understand what work I should do and what not. 

Answer: Don’t bother. What is destined as work to be done by you in this life will be done by you, whether you like it or not. 

Question 5: Why should I try to realise? I will emerge from this state, as I wake up from a dream. We do not make an attempt to get out of a dream during sleep. 

Answer: In a dream, you have no inkling that it is a dream and so you don’t have the duty of trying to get out of it by your effort. But in this life you have some intuition, by your sleep experience, by reading and hearing, that this life is something like a dream, and hence the duty is cast on you to make an effort and get out of it. However, who wants you to realise the Self, if you don’t want it? If you prefer to be in the dream, stay as you are. 

With reference to question 4, Mrs. P. C. Desai quoting the Bhagavad Gita asked Bhagavan, “If (as Arjuna was told) there is a certain work destined to be done by each and we shall eventually do it however much we do not wish to do it or refuse to do it, is there any free will?” 

Bhagavan said, “It is true that the work meant to be done by us will be done by us. But it is open to us to be free from the joys or pains, pleasant or unpleasant consequences of the work, by not identifying ourselves with the body or that which does the work. 

If you realise your true nature and know that it is not you that does any work, you will be unaffected by the consequences of whatever work the body may be engaged in according to destiny or past karma or divine plan, however you may call it. You are always free and there is no limitation of that freedom.”

..

4-1-46 Mor 4-1-46 

Morning Among the letters etc., received was a small pamphlet called Divine Grace Through Total Self-Surrender by Mr. D.C. Desai. Bhagavan read out to us a few extracts from it, viz., the following quotation from Paul Brunton: 

“I remain perfectly calm and fully aware of who I am and what is occurring. Self still exists, but it is a changed, radiant Self. Something that is far superior to my unimportant personality rises into consciousness and becomes me. I am in the midst of an ocean of blazing light. I sit in the lap of holy bliss”; and also the following:

 “Divine grace is a manifestation of the cosmic freewill in operation. It can alter the course of events in a mysterious manner through its own unknown laws, which are superior to all natural laws, and can modify the latter by interaction. It is the most powerful force in the universe.”

“It descends and acts, only when it is invoked by total self-surrender. It acts from within, because God resides in the heart of all beings. Its whisper can be heard only in a mind purified by self-surrender and prayer.” 

Paul Brunton describes its nature as follows: “Rationalists laugh at it and atheists scorn it, but it exists. It is a descent of God into the soul’s zone of awareness. It is a visitation of force unexpected and unpredictable. It is a voice spoken out of cosmic silence . . . . . . . . . . It is cosmic will which can perform authentic miracles under its own laws.”

.

With reference to Bhagavan’s answer to Mrs. Desai’s question on the evening of 3-1-46, 

I asked him, “Are only important events in a man’s life, such as his main occupation or profession, predetermined, or are trifling acts in his life,  such as taking a cup of water or moving from one place in the room to another, also predetermined?” 

Bhagavan: Yes, everything is predetermined. I: Then what responsibility, what free will has man? 

Bhagavan: What for then does the body come into existence? It is designed for doing the various things marked out for execution in this life. The whole programme is chalked out. 

‘@Y]u± JWÔÜm @ûNVôÕ’ (Not an atom moves except by His Will) expresses the same truth,

 whether you say @Y]u± @ûNVôÕ (Does not move except by His Will) or LoUªu± @ûNVôÕ (Does not move except by karma). 

As for freedom for man, he is always free not to identify himself with the body and not to be affected by the pleasures or pains consequent on the body’s activities.

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