dd mar 5

96

5-1-46 Afternoon 

When I entered the hall Bhagavan was answering some question saying, 

“There is no difference between dream and the waking state except that the dream is short and the waking long. Both are the result of the mind. Because the waking state is long, we imagine that it is our real state. 

But, as a matter of fact, our real state is what is sometimes called turiya or the fourth state which is always as it is and knows nothing of the three avasthas,

 viz., waking, dream or sleep. 

Because we call these three avasthas we call the fourth state also turiya avastha. But it is not an avastha, but the real and natural state of the Self. 

When this is realised, we know it is not a turiya or fourth state, for a fourth state is only relative, but turiyatita, the transcendent state called the fourth state.”

.........

The same visitor asked, “I do Omkara puja. I say ‘Om Ram’. Is that good?” 

Bhagavan: Yes. Any puja is good. ‘Om Ram’ or any other name will do. The point is to keep away all other thoughts except the one thought of Om or Ram or God. All mantra or japa helps that. He who does the japa of Ram, for example, becomes Rama-maya. 

The worshipper becomes in course of time the worshipped. It is only then that he will know the full meaning of the Omkar which he was repeating. Our real nature is mukti. But we are imagining we are bound and are making various strenuous attempts to become free, while we are all the while free. This will be understood only when we reach that stage. We will be surprised that we were frantically trying to attain something which we have always been and are. An illustration will make this clear. A man goes to sleep in this hall. He dreams he has gone on a world tour, is roaming over hill and dale, forest and country, desert and sea, across various continents and after many years of weary and strenuous travel, returns to this country, reaches Tiruvannamalai, enters the Asramam and walks into the hall. Just at that moment he wakes up and finds he has not moved an inch but was sleeping where he lay down. He has not returned after great effort to this hall, but is and always has been in the hall. It is exactly like that. If it is asked, why being free we  imagine we are bound, I answer, “Why being in the hall did you imagine you were on a world adventure, crossing hill and dale, desert and sea? It is all mind or maya.”

.........

99

Bhagavan: Where are you now? Where is the goal? What is the distance to be covered? The Self is not somewhere far away to be reached. You are always that. You have only to give up your habit, a long-standing one, of identifying yourself with the non-self. 

All effort is only for that. By turning the mind outwards, you have been seeing the world, the non-Self. If you turn it inwards you will see the Self. 

..........

Mr. Mahtani again asked Bhagavan about his question (found recorded under 7-1-46). 

Bhagavan replied, “The very sentence you quote says that mind is a superimposition, that it has no reality but is like the appearance of the snake in the rope. The text also says the Supreme Self, when identified with the mind, appears changeful. To the seer, the ego, the Self seems changeful. But the Self is the same ever, unchanging and unchangeable. 

It is like this: There is a screen. On that screen 100 first appears the figure of a king. He sits on a throne. Then before him in that same screen a play begins with various figures and objects and the king on the screen watches the play on the same screen. The seer and the seen are mere shadows on the screen, which is the only reality supporting these pictures. In the world also, the seer and the seen together constitute the mind and the mind is supported by, or based on, the Self.”

...

Mr. P. Bannerji asked Bhagavan, ‘What is the difference between jivanmukti and videhamukti? Bhagavan: There is no difference. For those who ask, it is said, ‘A jnani with body is a jivanmukta and he attains videhamukti when he drops off this body.’ But this difference is only for the onlooker, not for the jnani. His state is the same before and after the body is dropped. We think of the jnani as a human form or as being in that form. But the jnani knows he is the Self, the one reality which is both inside and outside, and which is not bound by any form or shape. 

There is a verse in the Bhagavata (and here Bhagavan quoted the Tamil verse) which says, 

“Just as a man who is drunk is not conscious whether his upper cloth is on his body or has slipped away from it, the jnani is hardly conscious of his body, and it makes no difference to him whether the body remains or has dropped off.” 

Mr. P.B. asked, “What is the difference between a devotee and a disciple? A friend here told me I should not call myself a disciple of Bhagavan and that I can only be a devotee.” 

Bhagavan: If we worship an object or person then we are devotees. If we have a Guru then we are disciples. I added that his friend must have told him so, for the reason that Bhagavan takes no disciples, i.e., formally initiates none, and so it may be misleading if any one says, ‘I am Bhagavan’s disciple.’ 

 P.B.: But what if I accept his teaching and regard myself as his disciple because I try to follow his teaching? 

I replied, “Of course you may do that, as Ekalavya learnt archery from an image of Drona.”

 Bhagavan then added, “After all, as in the above case everything comes from within. First the man feels that he is bound, in the bondage of samsara, that he is weak and miserable and that unless he leans upon and gets help from God who is all-powerful and can save him, he cannot get out of bondage and misery. Thus he makes bhakti to Ishwara. When this bhakti develops and the intensity of his devotion is so great that he forgets his entire self and becomes Iswaramaya and complete surrender has been achieved, God takes human shape and comes as Guru and teaches the devotee that there is but one Self and that That is within him. 

Then the devotee attains jnana by realizing the Self within him and then he understands that

 the Ishwara or Lord whom he worshipped and had bhakti for, 

the Guru who came in human shape, 

and the Self are all the same.” 

Mr. P.B.’s first question led Bhagavan to speak further about realisation and he said, 

“There are no stages in realisation or mukti. There are no degrees of jnana. 

So that there cannot be one stage of jnana with the body and another stage when the body is dropped. 

The jnani knows he is the Self and that nothing, neither his body nor anything else exists, but the Self. 

To such one what difference could the presence or absence of body make? 

“It is false to speak of Realisation. What is there to realise? The real is as it is, ever. 

How to real-ise it? All that is required is this. 

We have real-ised the unreal, i.e., regarded as real what is unreal. We have to give up this attitude. That is all that is required for us to attain jnana. 

We are not creating anything new or achieving something which we did not have before. The illustration given in books is this. 

We dig a well and create a huge pit. The akasa in the pit or well has not been created by  us. We have just removed the earth which was filling the akasa there. The akasa was there then and is also there now. Similarly we have simply to throw out all the age-long samskaras which are inside us, and when all of them have been given up, the Self will shine, alone.” 

He also said, “Mukti, jnana, dhyana is our real nature. They are other names for the Self”. 

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