Talks mar 24

422

D.: Cannot gold be imagined to say that it has become an ornament? 

M.: Being insentient, it does not say so. But the individual is sentient and cannot function apart from consciousness. The Self is Pure Consciousness. Yet the man identifies himself with the body which is itself insentient and does not say “I am the body” of its own accord. Someone else says so. The unlimited Self does not. Who else is he that says so? 

A spurious ‘I’ arises between the Pure Consciousness and the insentient body and imagines itself limited to the body. 

Seek this and it will vanish as a phantom. That phantom is the ego, or the mind or the individuality.

 All the sastras are based on the rise of this phantom, whose elimination is their purpose. The present state is mere illusion. Disillusionment is the goal and nothing more. 

D.: The mind is said to be a bundle of thoughts. 

M.: Because it functions on account of a single root the ‘I-thought’.

Manasantu kim margane krte naiva manasam marga arjavat. It has no real existence as a separate entity

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imp Talk 428. 

Sri Bhagavan has selected 10 stanzas from the famous work of Sri Sankara - Sivananda Lahari - describing devotion (bhakti): 

(1) What is bhakti? Just as the ankola fruit falling from the tree rejoins it or a piece of iron is drawn to magnet, so also thoughts, after rising up, lose themselves in their original source. This is bhakti. 

The original source of thoughts is the feet of the Lord, Isvara. Love of His Feet forms bhakti. (61) 

(2) Fruit of bhakti: 

The thick cloud of bhakti, formed in the transcendental sky of the Lord’s Feet, pours down a rain of Bliss (ananda) and fills the lake of mind to overflowing. Only then the jiva, always transmigrating to no useful end, has his real purpose fulfilled. (76) 

(3) Where to place bhakti? Devotion to gods, who have themselves their origin and end, can result in fruits similarly with origin and end. In order to be in Bliss everlasting, our devotion must be directed to its source, namely the Feet of the ever blissful Lord. (83) 

(4) Bhakti is a matter only for experience and not for words: 

How can Logic or other polemics be of real use? Can the ghatapatas (favourite examples of the logicians, meaning the pot and the cloth) save you in a crisis? Why then waste yourself thinking of them and on discussion? Stop exercising the vocal organs and giving them pain. 

Think of the Feet of the Lord and drink the nectar! (6) 

(5) Immortality is the fruit of Devotion: 

At the sight of him who in his heart has fixed the Lord’s Feet, Death is reminded of his bygone disastrous encounter with Markandeya and flees away. 

All other gods worship only Siva, placing their crowned heads at His feet. Such involuntary worship is only natural to Siva. Goddess Liberation, His consort, always remains part of Him. (65)

 (6) If only Devotion be there - the conditions of the jiva cannot affect him. However different the bodies, the mind alone is lost in the Lord’s Feet. Bliss overflows! (10) 

(7) Devotion always unimpaired: Wherever or however it be, only let the mind lose itself in the Supreme. It is Yoga! It is Bliss! Or the Yogi or the Bliss incarnate! (12) 

(8) Karma Yoga also is Bhakti: To worship God with flowers and other external objects is troublesome. Only lay the single flower, the heart, at the feet of Siva and remain at Peace. Not to know this simple thing and to wander about! How foolish! What misery! (9)

 (9) This Karma Yoga puts an end to one’s samsara: Whatever the order of life (asrama) of the devotee, only once thought of, Siva relieves the devotee of his load of samsara and takes it on Himself. (11) 

(10) Devotion is Jnana: The mind losing itself in Siva’s Feet is Devotion. Ignorance lost! Knowledge! Liberation! (91)

..........

Talk 429. 

A few ladies had come from Bangalore. One among them asked: The world is composed of differences, from our point of view. How shall we able to get over these differences and comprehend the One Essence of all things? 

M.: The differences are the result of the sense of doership (kartritva). The fruits will be destroyed if the root is destroyed. So relinquish the sense of doership; the differences will vanish and the essential reality will reveal itself. In order to give up the sense of doership one must seek to find out who the doer is. Enquire within; the sense of doership will vanish. Vichara (enquiry) is the method.

....

A Marathi gentleman asked: I have read much about Self-Realisation; I do japa, puja, etc.; nothing seems to satisfy me. Can Sri Bhagavan kindly guide me? 

M.: What is that you seek to gain? Everyone seeks happiness. Happiness is one’s lot in everyday sleep. Bring about that state of happiness even in the waking state. That is all.

D.: I do not follow. How is it to be done? 

M.: Atma Vichara is the way. 

D.: It seems too difficult to adopt, being so intangible. What shall I do if I feel unfit for this method of enquiry? 

M.: Guidance is there. It is for individuals to avail themselves of it.

.......

On his return the same man asked: Self-realised jnanis are seen to take food and do actions like others. Do they similarly experience the states of dream and of sleep? 

M.: Why do you seek to know the state of others, maybe jnanis? What do you gain by knowing about others? You must seek to know your own real nature. Who do you think that you are? Evidently, the body.

D.: Yes. 

M.: Similarly, you take the Jnani to be the visible body whereon the actions are superimposed by you. That makes you put these questions. The Jnani himself does not ask if he has the dream or sleep state. He has no doubts himself. The doubts are in you. This must convince you of your wrong premises. The Jnani is not the body. He is the Self of all. The sleep, dream, samadhi, etc., are all states of the ajnanis. The Self is free from all these. Here is the answer for the former question also.

D.: I sought to know the state of sthita prajnata (unshaken knowledge). 

M.: The sastras are not for the Jnani. He has no doubts to be cleared. The riddles are for ajnanis only. The sastras are for them alone. 

D.: Sleep is the state of nescience and so it is said of samadhi also. 

M.: Jnana is beyond knowledge and nescience. There can be no question about that state. It is the Self.

......

M.: Dvaita and advaita are relative terms. They are based on the sense of duality. The Self is as it is. There is neither dvaita nor advaita. I am that I am. Simple Being is the Self.

D.: Does Bhagavan give diksha (initiation)?

 M.: Mowna (silence) is the best and the most potent diksha. That was practised by Sri Dakshinamurti. Touch, look, etc., are all of a lower order. Silence (mowna diksha) changes the hearts of all. There is no Guru and no disciple. The ajnani confounds his body with the Self and so he takes the other’s body for the Guru. But does the Guru think his body to be the Self? He has transcended the body. There are no differences for Him. So the ajnani cannot appreciate the standpoint of Guru and of sishya.

....

In the course of conversation, Sri Bhagavan said that upasana and dhyana are possible so long as there is the mind and they must cease with the cessation of the mind. They are mere preliminaries to final eradication of thoughts and the stillness of mind.

.

430

Another man asked: Can Sri Bhagavan help us to realise the Truth? 

M.: Help is always there. 

D.: Then there is no need to ask questions. I do not feel the ever present help. 

M.: Surrender and you will find it

D.: May I come near, Sir? (for blessing). 

M.: Such doubts should not arise in you. They contradict your statement of surrender. Sadguru is always on your head. 

D.: Surrender comes after effort. 

M.: Yes, it becomes complete in due course. 

D.: Is a teacher necessary for instructions? 

M.: Yes, if you want to learn anything new. But here you have to unlearn. 

D.: Yet a teacher is necessary. 

M.: You have already got what you seek elsewhere. So no teacher is necessary. 

D.: Is there any use of the man of Realisation for the seeker? 

M.: Yes. He helps you to get rid of your delusion that you are not realised. 

D.: So, tell me how. 

M.: The paths are meant only to de-hypnotise the individual. 

D.: De-hypnotise me. Tell me what method to follow. 

M.: Where are you now? Where should you go? 

D.: I know ‘I am’; but I do not know what I am. 

M.: Are there two ‘I’s then? 

D.: It is begging the question. 

M.: Who says this? Is it the one who is, or is it the other who does not know what he is? 

D.: I am, but do not know what or how? 

M.: ‘I’ is always there. 

D.: Does the ‘I’ undergo any transformation, say in death? 

M.: Who witnesses the transformation?

D.: You seem to speak Jnana yoga. This is Jnana yoga. 

M.: Yes, it is. 

D.: But surrender is bhakti yoga. 

M.: Both are the same After some time the man continued: Then I have to conclude that I am Consciousness and that nothing occurs except by my presence. 

M.: It is one thing to conclude it by reasoning and another thing to be convinced. 

The other man continued: I shall wait three months and see if help is forthcoming. Now, may I have the assurance? 

M.: Is this what is asked by one who has surrendered?

.......

Two ladies and two gentlemen from Ceylon. 

D.: Have you realised God? If so, in what shape? 

M.: Who remains there to see God? The question might well be if one has known oneself. 

D.: I have known myself. 

M.: Is the ‘I’ different from the Self that you say you have known the Self? 

D.: I know the Self as identical with the body. If the Self be different from the body let Bhagavan tell me how to see the Self separate from the body. He has realised God. He can teach me. 

M.: Why should the Self be separated from the body? Let the body remain as it is.

D.: The soul when disembodied can see through all bodies. 

M.: Are there others then? Or is there even your own body? Consider your sleep - You do not know your body then. But still you are there all the same. Did you then perceive the world through this or other bodies? Nevertheless, you cannot deny your existence then. There must be a subject to see the world and the subject must also be limited. If unlimited how can there be others beside the unlimited Self?

 D.: Does God have any limits? 

M.: Leave God alone. What limits were there for your Self in your sleep? 

D.: Death must then be the highest state. 

M.: Yes. We are now living in Death. Those who have limited the unlimited Self have committed suicide by putting on such limitations. 

D.: Concentrate on the Self, you say. How to do it? 

M.: If that is solved everything else is solved. 

D.: Know thyself, you say. How to know the Self? 

M.: You now know that you are the body. 

D.: Raja yoga realises through the body, senses, etc., and Sri Bhagavan advises realisation by thinking. This is jnana yoga. 

M.: How can you think without the body? 

D.: God does not think. 

M.: Why then did you start asking, “In what shape did you see God?” 

D.: God must be felt through the senses. 

M.: Are you not feeling God? 

D.: Is everybody feeling God always? 

M.: Yes.

 D.: Then what is realisation? 

M.: Realisation is to get rid of the delusion that you have not realised. 

D.: I don’t catch the point. They left, having taken a snapshot.

D.: Vasanakshaya (total end of all predispositions) - Mano nasa (annihilation of mind) - Atma-sakshatkara (Realisation of the Self). They seem to be interdependent.

M.: The different expressions have only one meaning. They differ according to the individual’s stage of progress. Dispassion, Realisation, all mean the same thing; 

also they say ‘practice and dispassion’. Why practice? Because the modes of mind once subside and then rise up; again subside and rise up, and so on.

.........

D.: Beginningless predisposition makes one do wrong. Without jnana this predisposition cannot vanish. But jnana looks almost impossible. Expiation alone cannot undo all the karma; for how much expiation will be needed! Look where we will! Everything looks difficult, even impossible. Association with the wise seems to be the only cure of all ills. 

M.: What is to be done? Reality is One only. How can It be realised? Realisation is thus an illusion. Practice seems to be necessary. Who is to practise? Looking for the doer, the act and the accessories disappear. Moreover, if Realisation is not present here and now, how can It, newly got, be of any use? What is permanent must be eternally present. Can it be newly got and be permanent also? Realise what is present here and now. The sages did so before and still do that only. Hence they say that it looks as if newly got. Once veiled by ignorance and later revealed, Reality looks as if newly realised. But it is not new.

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