The ocean of life contains all, not only humans.

So, first of all abandon all self-identification, stop thinking of yourself as such-and-such, so-and-so, this or that.

Abandon all self-concern, worry not about your welfare, material or spiritual, abandon every desire, gross or subtle, stop thinking of achievement of any kind.

You are complete here and now, you need absolutely nothing.

It does not mean that you must be brainless and foolhardy, improvident or indifferent; only the basic anxiety for oneself must go.

Q: I respond to what you say, but I just do not see how it is done.

M: If you know how to do it, you will not do it.

Abandon every attempt, just be; don't strive, don't struggle, let go every support, hold on to the blind sense of being, brushing off all else.

This is enough.

Q: How is this brushing done?

The entire universe is at his disposal.

M: If you believe so, act on it.

Abandon every personal desire and use the power thus saved for changing the world!

Q: All the Buddhas and Rishis have not succeeded in changing the world.

M: The world does not yield to changing.

Your constant flight from pain and search for pleasure is a sign of love you bear for your self, all I plead with you is this: make love of your self perfect.

Deny yourself nothing -- glue your self infinity and eternity and discover that you do not need them; you are beyond.

82: Absolute Perfection is Here and Now.

Questioner: The war is on.

What is your attitude to it?

From the summit all roads lead downwards.

Societies are like people -- they are born, they grow to some point of relative perfection and then decay and die.

Q: Is there not a state of absolute perfection which does not decay?

M: Whatever has a beginning must have an end.

In the timeless all is perfect, here and now.

Time cannot take us out of time, as space cannot take us out of space.

All you get by waiting is more waiting.

Absolute perfection is here and now, not in some future, near or far.

The secret is in action -- here and now.

It is your behaviour that blinds you to yourself.

What difference did it make to him?

M: None.

What he was, he is -- the Absolute Reality.

Q: But to the common man death makes a difference.

M: What he thinks himself to be before death he continues to be after death.

Q: My questions are typical of the West.

There people think in terms of cause and effect, means and goals.

They do not see what causal connection can there be between a particular word and the Absolute Reality.

M: None whatsoever.

But there is a connection between the word and its meaning, between the action and its motive.

The world of my own creation may be quite unlike the ultimate, the real world, just like the cinema screen is quite unlike the pictures projected onto it.

Nevertheless, this absolute world exists, quite independent of myself.

M: Quite so, the world of Absolute Reality, onto which your mind has projected a world of relative unreality is independent of yourself, for the very simple reason that it is yourself.

Q: Is there no contradiction in terms?

How can independence prove identity?

83: The True Guru.

Questioner: You were saying the other day that at the root of your realisation was the trust in your Guru.

He assured you that you were already the Absolute Reality and there was nothing more to be done.

You trusted him and left it at that, without straining, without striving.

Now, my question is: without trust in your Guru would you have realised?

Q: Does every knower of the Self become a Guru, or can one be a knower of Reality without being able to take others to it?

M: If you know what you teach, you can teach what you know, Here seership and teachership are one.

But the Absolute Reality is beyond both.

The self-styled Gurus talk of ripeness and effort, of merits and achievements, of destiny and grace; all these are mere mental formations, projections of an addicted mind.

Instead of helping, they obstruct.

My Guru told me -- 'Trust me.

I tell you; you are divine.

Take it as the absolute truth.

Your joy is divine, your suffering is divine too.

All comes from God.

You will dream some other dream at that time.

Do realise that it is not you who moves from dream to dream, but the dreams flow before you and you are the immutable witness.

No happening affects your real being -- this is the absolute truth.

Q: Cannot I move about physically and keep steady inwardly?

M: You can, but what purpose does it serve?

The Absolute can be reached by absolute devotion only.

Don't be half-hearted.

Q: I must begin with some absolute truth.

Is there any?

M: Yes, there is, the feeling: 'I am'.

My sense of being proves only that I am; it does not prove anything which is independent of me.

I am relative, both creature and creator of the relative.

The absolute proof of the absolute truth -- what is it, where is it?

Can the mere feeling 'I am' be the proof of reality?

M: Of course not.

The disciple is given full freedom of thought and enquiry and encouraged to question to his heart's content.

He must be absolutely certain of the standing and competence of his Guru, otherwise his faith will not be absolute nor his action complete.

It is the absolute in you that takes you to the absolute beyond you -- absolute truth, love selflessness are the decisive factors in self-realisation.

With earnestness these can be reached.

Q: I understand one must give up one's family and possessions to become a disciple.

The state which sprouts suddenly and without cause, carries no stain of self; you may call it 'god'.

What is seedless and rootless, what does not sprout and grow, flower and fruit, what comes into being suddenly and in full glory, mysteriously and marvellously, you may call that 'god'.

It is entirely unexpected yet inevitable, infinitely familiar yet most surprising, beyond all hope yet absolutely certain.

Because it is without cause, it is without hindrance.

It obeys one law only; the law of freedom.

Within that framework adjustments to the personality of the disciple are made.

The disciple is given full freedom of thought and enquiry and encouraged to question to his heart's content.

He must be absolutely certain of the standing and competence of his Guru, otherwise his faith will not be absolute nor his action complete.

It is the absolute in you that takes you to the absolute beyond you -- absolute truth, love selflessness are the decisive factors in self-realisation.

With earnestness these can be reached.

To be free in the world, you must die to the world.

Then the universe is your own, it becomes your body, an expression and a tool.

The happiness of being absolutely free is beyond description.

On the other hand, he who is afraid of freedom cannot die.

Q: You mean that one who cannot die, cannot live?

Q: Is there a way to end these horrors?

M: When more people come to know their real nature, their influence, however subtle, will prevail and the world's emotional atmosphere will sweeten up.

People follow their leaders and when among the leaders appear some, great in heart and mind, and absolutely free from self-seeking, their impact will be enough to make the crudities and crimes of the present age impossible.

A new golden age may come and last for a time and succumb to its own perfection.

For, ebb begins when the tide is at its highest.

Nobody can deny it.

But structure and pattern, imply constraint and compulsion.

My world is absolutely free; everything in it is self- determined.

Therefore I keep on saying that all happens by itself.

There is order in my world too, but it is not Imposed from outside.

It is as it is, because the world is as it is.

Every cause in its ramifications covers the universe.

When you realise that you are absolutely free to be what you consent to be, that you are what you appear to be because of ignorance or indifference, you are free to revolt and change.

You allow yourself to be what you are not.

You are looking for the causes of being what you are not!

Uneducated though the Master is, his conversation is enlightened to an extraordinary degree.

Though born and brought up in poverty, he is the richest of the rich, for he has the limitless wealth of perennial knowledge, compared to which the most fabulous treasures are mere tinsel.

He is warm-hearted and tender, shrewdly humorous, absolutely fearless and absolutely true -- inspiring, guiding and supporting all who come to him.

Any attempt to write a biographical not on such a man is frivolous and futile.

For he is not a man with a past or future; he is the living present -- eternal and immutable.

M: By my trust in my Guru.

He told me 'You alone are' and I did not doubt him.

I was merely puzzling over it, until I realised that it is absolutely true.

Q: Conviction by repetition?

M: By self-realisation.

All is because you are.

Grasp this point firmly and deeply and dwell on it repeatedly.

To realise this as absolutely true, is liberation.

Q: If I am the seed of my universe, then a rotten seed I am!

By the fruit the seed is known.

I do nothing of the kind.

I do not even make any promises.

I merely say: if you trust my words and put them to test, you will for yourself discover how absolutely true they are.

If you ask for a proof before you venture, I can only say: I am the proof.

I did trust my teacher's words and kept them in my mind and I did find that he was right, that I was, am and shall be the Infinite Reality, embracing all, transcending all.

Maybe you are giving expression to your real desires and the ones you approve of are kept on the surface for the sake of respectability.

Q: It may be as you say, but this is another theory.

The fact is that I do not feel free to desire what I think I should, and when I seem to desire rightly, I do not act accordingly.

M: It is all due to weakness of the mind and disintegration of the brain.

Collect and strengthen your mind and you will find that your thoughts and feelings, words and actions will align themselves in the direction of your will.

The real does not die, the unreal never lived.

Set your mind right and all will be right.

When you know that the world is one, that humanity is one, you will act accordingly.

But first of all you must attend to the way you feel, think and live.

Unless there is order in yourself, there can be no order in the world.

Your every action will be beneficial, every movement will be a blessing.

Q: It is all very tempting, but how am I to proceed to realise my universal being?

M: You have two ways: you can give your heart and mind to self-discovery, or you accept my words on trust and act accordingly.

In other words, either you become totally self-concerned, or totally un-self-concerned.

It is the word 'totally' that is important.

Q: I can act according to my will.

M: You know your will only after you have acted.

Q: I remember my desires, the choices made, the decisions taken and act accordingly.

M: Then your memory decides, not you.

Q: Where do I come in?

You are the Supreme Reality beyond the world and its creator, beyond consciousness and its witness, beyond all assertions and denials.

Remember it, think of it, act on it.

Abandon all sense of separation, see yourself in all and act accordingly.

With action bliss will come and, with bliss, conviction.

After all, you doubt yourself because you are in sorrow.

What I take myself to be, becomes my body and all that happens to that body becomes my mind.

But at the root of the universe there is pure awareness, beyond space and time, here and now.

Know it to be your real being and act accordingly.

Q: What difference will it make in action what I take myself to be.

Actions just happen according to circumstances.

Can you exist without knowing?

A lapse in memory: is it a proof of non-existence?

And can you validly talk about your own non-existence as an actual experience?

You cannot even say that your mind did not exist.

Did you not wake up on being called?

Even the little description of reality that is given is through denials -- 'not this, not this', (neti, neti).

All positives belong to the inner self, as all absolutes -- to Reality.

Q: How are we to distinguish the inner from the outer in actual experience?

M: The inner is the source of inspiration, the outer is moved by memory.

The source is untraceable, while all memory begins somewhere.

Q: You say that in our real being we are all equal.

How is it that your experience is so different from ours.

M: My actual experience is not different.

It is my evaluation and attitude that differ.

I see the same world as you do, but not the same way.

Q: If the self is not the body nor the mind, can it exist without the body and the mind?

M: Yes, it can.

It is a matter of actual experience that the self has being independent of mind and body.

It is being -- awareness -- bliss.

Awareness of being is bliss.

It is being -- awareness -- bliss.

Awareness of being is bliss.

Q: It may be a matter of actual experience to you, but it is not my case.

How can I come to the same experience?

What practices to follow, what exercises to take up?

By remembering what I told you you will achieve everything.

I am telling you again: You are the all-pervading, all transcending reality.

Behave accordingly: think, feel and act in harmony with the whole and the actual experience of what I say will dawn upon you in no time.

No effort is needed.

Have faith and act on it.

It is the sum total of all my experiences.

M: All?

Q: Well, all actual experiences.

I admit I cannot know what did not happen.

M: If the manifested is the sum total of all actual experiences, including their experiencers, how much of the total do you know?

Q: Well, all actual experiences.

I admit I cannot know what did not happen.

M: If the manifested is the sum total of all actual experiences, including their experiencers, how much of the total do you know?

A very small part indeed.

And what is the little you know?

Q: What does it mean -- time will cease?

M: Past and future will merge in the eternal now.

Q: But what does it mean in actual experience?

How do you know that for you time has ceased?

M: It may mean that past and future do not matter any more.

Q: I am quite willing to learn.

M: Learning words is not enough.

You may know the theory, but without the actual experience of yourself as the impersonal and unqualified centre of being, love and bliss, mere verbal knowledge is sterile.

Q: Then, what am I to do?

M: Try to be, only to be.

And it is in the very nature of a mistake to cease to be, when seen.

Q: The Yoga of living, of life itself, we may call the Natural Yoga (nisarga yoga).

It reminds me of the Primal Yoga (adhi yoga), mentioned in the Rig-Veda which was described as the marrying of life with mind.

M: A life lived thoughtfully, in full awareness, is by itself Nisarga Yoga.

Q: What does the marriage of life and mind mean?

Q: Krishnamurti too speaks of living in awareness.

M: He always aims directly at the 'ultimate'.

Yes, ultimately all Yogas end in your adhi yoga, the marriage of consciousness (the bride) to life (the bridegroom).

Consciousness and being (sad-chit) meet in bliss (ananda).

For bliss to arise there must be meeting, contact, the assertion of unity in duality.

Verbal self-surrender, even when accompanied by feeling, is of little value and breaks down under stress.

At the best it shows an aspiration, not an actual fact.

Q: In the Rigveda there is the mention of the adhi yoga, the Primordial Yoga, consisting of the marriage of pragna with Prana, which, as I understand, means the bringing together of wisdom and life.

Would you say it means also the union of Dharma and Karma, righteousness and action?

M: Yes, provided by righteousness you mean harmony with one's true nature and by action -- only unselfish and desireless action.

Would you say it means also the union of Dharma and Karma, righteousness and action?

M: Yes, provided by righteousness you mean harmony with one's true nature and by action -- only unselfish and desireless action.

In adhi yoga life itself is the Guru and the mind -- the disciple.

The mind attends to life, it does not dictate.

Life flows naturally and effortlessly and the mind removes the obstacles to its even flow.

A seed, in course of time, becomes a forest.

The mind is like a forester -- protecting and regulating the immense vital urge of existence.

Q: Seen as the service of life by the mind, the adhi yoga is a perfect democracy.

Everyone is engaged in living a life to his best capacity and knowledge, everyone is a disciple of the same Guru.

M: You may say so.

It is only when the observer (vyakta) accepts the person (vyakti) as a projection or manifestation of himself, and, so to say, takes the self into the Self, the duality of 'I' and 'this' goes and in the identity of the outer and the inner the Supreme Reality manifests itself.

This union of the seer and the seen happens when the seer becomes conscious of himself as the seer, he is not merely interested in the seen, which he is anyhow, but also interested in being interested, giving attention to attention, aware of being aware.

Affectionate awareness is the crucial factor that brings Reality into focus.

Q: According to the Theosophists and allied occultists, man consists of three aspects: personality, individuality and spirituality.

Beyond spirituality lies divinity.

It cannot be contacted, unless there is unity and love and mutual help between the person and the witness, unless the doing is in harmony with the being and the knowing.

The Supreme is both the source and the fruit of such harmony.

As I talk to you, I am in the state of detached but affectionate awareness (turiya).

When this awareness turns upon itself, you may call it the Supreme State, (turiyatita).

But the fundamental reality is beyond awareness, beyond the three states of becoming, being and not-being.

M: For exchange of information -- yes.

But real communication between people is not verbal.

For establishing and maintaining relationship affectionate awareness expressed in direct action is required.

Not what you say, but what you do is that matters.

Words are made by the mind and are meaningful only on the level of the mind.

M: Every sensation is contemplated in perfect equanimity.

There is no desire for it, nor refusal.

It is as it is and then he looks at it with a smile of affectionate detachment.

Q: He may be detached from his own suffering, but still it is there.

M: It is there, but it does not matter.

M: Not at all.

There will be marriage, there will be children, there will be earning money to maintain a family; all this will happen in the natural course of events, for destiny must fulfil itself; you will go through it without resistance, facing tasks as they come, attentive and thorough, both in small things and big.

But the general attitude will be of affectionate detachment, enormous goodwill, without expectation of return, constant giving without asking.

In marriage you are neither the husband nor the wife; you are the love between the two.

You are the clarity and kindness that makes everything orderly and happy.

Life goes on, but it is spontaneous and free, meaningful and happy.

Maharaj most lucidly describes this natural, spontaneous state, but as the man born blind cannot visualise light and colours, so is the unenlightened mind unable to give meaning to such descriptions.

Expressions like dispassionate happiness, affectionate detachment, timelessness and causelessness of things and being -- they all sound strange and cause no response.

Intuitively we feel they have a deep meaning, and they even create in us a strange longing for the ineffable, a forerunner of things to come, but that is all.

As Maharaj puts it: words are pointers, they show the direction but they will not come along with us.

M: In death only the body dies.

Life does not, consciousness does not, reality does not.

And the life is never so alive as after death.

Q: But does one get reborn?

M: What was born must die.

What he was, he is -- the Absolute Reality.

Q: But to the common man death makes a difference.

M: What he thinks himself to be before death he continues to be after death.

His self-image survives.

Q: The other day there was a talk about the use by the jnani of animal skins for meditation etc.

Q: I am sorry, but I do not see what you see.

From the day I was born till the day I die, pain and pleasure will weave the pattern of my life.

Of being before birth and after death I know nothing.

I neither accept nor deny you.

I hear what you say, but I do not know it.

The jnani does not need your prayers.

He is himself the answer to your prayers.

Q: How does the jnani fare after death?

M: The jnani is dead already.

Do you expect him to die again?

Find the spark of life that weaves the tissues of your body and be with it.

It is the only reality the body has.

Q: What happens to that spark of life after death?

M: It is beyond time.

Birth and death are but points in time.

Consciousness is an attribute while awareness is not; one can be aware of being conscious, but not conscious of awareness.

God is the totality of consciousness, but awareness is beyond all -- being as well as not-being.

Q: I had started with the question about the condition of a man after death.

When his body is destroyed, what happens to his consciousness?

Does he carry his senses of seeing, hearing etc.

M: Senses are mere modes of perception.

As the grosser modes disappear, finer states of consciousness emerge.

Q: Is there no transition to awareness after death?

M: There can be no transition from consciousness to awareness, for awareness is not a form of consciousness.

Consciousness can only become more subtle and refined and that is what happens after death.

Q: Is there no transition to awareness after death?

M: There can be no transition from consciousness to awareness, for awareness is not a form of consciousness.

Consciousness can only become more subtle and refined and that is what happens after death.

As the various vehicles of man die off, the modes of consciousness induced by them also fade away.

Q: Until only unconsciousness remains?

In reality I may be most acutely conscious, only unable to communicate or remember.

Q: I am asking a simple question: there are about four billion people in the world and they are all bound to die.

What will be their condition after death -- not physically, but psychologically?

Will their consciousness continue?

And if it does, in what form?

M: What proof have you that your present state is beginningless and endless?

How were you before you were born?

How will you be after death?

And of your present state -- how much do you know?

You do not know even what was your condition before you woke up this morning?

M: What change do you expect?

When the film projection ends all remains the same as when it started.

The state before you were born was also the state after death, if you remember.

Q: I remember nothing.

M: Because you never tried.

When the source and ground of everything is the only cause of everything, to speak of causality as a universal law is wrong.

The universe is not bound by its content, because its potentialities are infinite; besides it is a manifestation, or expression of a principle fundamentally and totally free.

Q: Yes, one can see that ultimately to speak of one thing being the only cause of another thing is altogether wrong.

Yet, in actual life we invariably initiate action with a view to a result.

M: Yes, there is a lot of such activity going on, because of ignorance.

The self is the source of all, and of all -- the final destination.

Nothing is external.

Q: When the body idea becomes obsessive, is it not altogether wrong?

M: There is nothing wrong in the idea of a body, nor even in the idea 'I am the body'.

But limiting oneself to one body only is a mistake.

The mind does not grasp the whole -- its focus is very narrow.

It sees fragments only and fails to perceive the picture.

Just as a man who hears sounds, but does not understand the language, may accuse the speaker of meaningless jabbering, and be altogether wrong.

What to one is a chaotic stream of sounds is a beautiful poem to another.

King Janaka once dreamt that he was a beggar.

You see my body behaving the habitual way and draw your own conclusions.

You will not admit that your conclusions bind nobody but you.

Do see that the image you have of me may be altogether wrong.

Your image of yourself is wrong too, but that is your problem.

But you need not create problems for me and then ask me to solve them.

M: Its name and shape it draws from memory.

The energy flows from the source.

Q: Some desires are altogether wrong.

How can wrong desires flow from a sublime source?

M: The source is neither right nor wrong.

Is there any hope for me?

Or have I come too late?

M: Nothing is wrong with you, but the ideas you have of yourself are altogether wrong.

It is not you who desires, fears and suffers, it is the person built on the foundation of your body by circumstances and influences.

You are not that person.

Consciousness is not all.

So many things happen beyond its reach.

To say that what I am not conscious of does not exist, is altogether wrong.

M: What you say is logical, but actually you know only what is in your consciousness.

What you claim exists outside conscious experience is inferred.

M: Were you not present at your birth?

Will you not be present at your death?

Find him who is always present and your problem of spontaneous and perfect response will be solved.

Q: realisation of the eternal and an effortless and adequate response to the ever-changing temporary event are two different and separate questions.

You seem to roll them into one.

Q: I can see now that sat and chit are one.

But what about bliss (ananda)?

Being and consciousness are always present together, but bliss flashes only occasionally.

M: The undisturbed state of being is bliss; the disturbed state is what appears as the world.

In non- duality there is bliss; in duality -- experience.

But it cannot be described in the terms of a mind that must separate and oppose in order to know.

The world is like a sheet of paper on which something is typed.

The reading and the meaning will vary with the reader, but the paper is the common factor, always present, rarely perceived.

When the ribbon is removed, typing leaves no trace on the paper.

So is my mind -- the impressions keep on coming, but no trace is left.

Q: If you do not mind my asking a personal question...?

M: Yes, go ahead.

Q: I see you sitting on an antelope skin.

How does it tally with non-violence?

M: All my working life I was a cigarette-maker, helping people to spoil their health.

In this violent world how can one keep away from violence of some kind or other?

Q: Surely all avoidable violence should be avoided.

And yet in India every holy man has his tiger, lion, leopard or antelope skin to sit on.

M: Maybe because no plastics were available in ancient times and a skin was best to keep the damp away.

Rheumatism has no charm, even for a saint!

Rheumatism has no charm, even for a saint!

Thus the tradition arose that for lengthy meditations a skin is needed.

Just like the drum-hide in a temple, so is the antelope skin of a Yogi.

We hardly notice it.

Q: But the animal had to be killed.

To go beyond the mind, you must be silent and quiet.

Peace and silence, silence and peace -- this is the way beyond.

Stop asking questions.

Q: Once I give up asking questions, what am I to do?

M: What can you do but wait and watch?

Peace and silence, silence and peace -- this is the way beyond.

Stop asking questions.

Q: Once I give up asking questions, what am I to do?

M: What can you do but wait and watch?

Q: What am I to wait for?

M: Your question contains the answer: a conscious living being is a conscious living being.

The words are most appropriate, but you do not grasp their full import.

Go deep into the meaning of the words: being, living, conscious, and you will stop running in circles, asking questions, but missing answers.

Do understand that you cannot ask a valid question about yourself, because you do not know whom you are asking about.

In the question 'Who am I?

'What is real and what is momentary?

' No memory will persist, if you lose interest in it, it is the emotional link that perpetuates the bondage.

You are always seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, always after happiness and peace.

Don't you see that it is your very search for happiness that makes you feel miserable?

Try the other way: indifferent to pain and pleasure, neither asking, nor refusing, give all your attention to the level on which 'I am' is timelessly present.

Did you ever try?

Do try and you will find in pain a joy which pleasure cannot yield, for the simple reason that acceptance of pain takes you much deeper than pleasure does.

The personal self by its very nature is constantly pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain.

The ending of this pattern is the ending of the self.

The ending of the self with its desires and fears enables you to return to your real nature, the source of all happiness and peace.

The problem arises only when the memory of past pains and pleasures -- which are essential to all organic life -- remains as a reflex, dominating behaviour.

This reflex takes the shape of 'I' and uses the body and the mind for its purposes, which are invariably in search for pleasure or flight from pain.

When you recognise the 'I' as it is, a bundle of desires and fears, and the sense of 'mine', as embracing all things and people needed for the purpose of avoiding pain and securing pleasure, you will see that the 'I' and the 'mine' are false ideas, having no foundation in reality.

Created by the mind, they rule their creator as long as it takes them to be true; when questioned, they dissolve.

The 'I' and 'mine', having no existence in themselves, need a support which they find in the body.

Of course, you can only learn what you are not.

To know what you are, you must go beyond the mind.

Q: Is not awareness beyond the mind?

M: Awareness is the point at which the mind reaches out beyond itself into reality.

In awareness you seek not what pleases, but what is true.

Q: Is not awareness a form of consciousness?

M: When the content is viewed without likes and dislikes, the consciousness of it is awareness.

But still there is a difference between awareness as reflected in consciousness and pure awareness beyond consciousness.

Reflected awareness, the sense 'I am aware' is the witness, while pure awareness is the essence of reality.

Reflection of the sun in a drop of water is the reflection of the sun, no doubt, but not the sun itself.

Questioner: Who is the Guru and who is the supreme Guru?

Maharaj: All that happens in your consciousness is your Guru.

And pure awareness beyond consciousness is the supreme Guru.

Q: My Guru is Sri Babaji.

What is your opinion of him?

Just stop thinking you are the bodies and the problems of love and sex will lose their meaning.

With all sense of limitation gone, fear, pain and the search for pleasure -- all cease.

Only awareness remains.

51: Be Indifferent to Pain and Pleasure.

Questioner: I am a Frenchman by birth and domicile and since about ten years I have been practicing Yoga.

M: It is like washing printed cloth.

First the design fades, then the background and in the end the cloth is plain white.

The personality gives place to the witness, then the witness goes and pure awareness remains.

The cloth was white in the beginning and is white in the end; the patterns and colours just happened -- for a time.

Q: Can there be awareness without an object of awareness?

Give up the idea that you have not found it and just let it come into the focus of direct perception, here and now, by removing all that is of the mind.

Q: When all that can go, goes, what remains?

M: Emptiness remains, awareness remains, pure light of the conscious being remains.

It is like asking what remains of a room when all the furniture is removed?

A most serviceable room remains.

2: Obsession with the body.

Questioner: Maharaj, you are sitting in front of me and I am here at your feet.

What is the basic difference between us?

Maharaj: There is no basic difference.

Q: Still there must be some real difference, I come to you, you do not come to me.

Questioner: Maharaj, you are sitting in front of me and I am here at your feet.

What is the basic difference between us?

Maharaj: There is no basic difference.

Q: Still there must be some real difference, I come to you, you do not come to me.

M: Because you imagine differences, you go here and there in search of 'superior' people.

You do not come from somewhere, you do not go anywhere.

You are timeless being and awareness.

Questioner: There is a basic difference between us.

You know the real while I know only the workings of my mind.

Therefore what you say is one thing, what I hear is another.

M: But where are your scientists with their sciences?

Are they not again images in your own mind?

Q: Here lies the basic difference!

To me they are not my own projections.

They were before I was born and shall be there when I am dead.

Q: So you say I should try to stop thinking and stay steady in the idea: 'I am'.

M: Yes, and whatever thoughts come to you in connection with the 'I am', empty them of all meaning, pay them no attention.

Q: I happen to meet many young people coming from the West and I find that there is a basic difference when I compare them to the Indians.

It looks as if their psyche (antahkarana) is different.

Concepts like Self, Reality, pure mind, universal consciousness the Indian mind grasps easily.

What makes me come I really ~o not know, but somehow I cannot forget you.

Maharaj: Some forget, some do not, according to their destinies, which you may call chance, if you prefer.

Q: Between chance and destiny there is a basic difference.

M: Only in your mind.

In fact, you do not know what causes what?

Q: Not at all.

The memory of the last state -- compared to the actuality of the present state gives the experience of change.

M: Between the remembered and the actual there is a basic difference which can be observed from moment to moment.

At no point of time is the actual the remembered.

Between the two there is a difference in kind, not merely in intensity.

You give no attention to your self.

Your mind is all with things, people and ideas, never with your self.

Bring your self into focus, become aware of your own existence.

See how you function, watch the motives and the results of your actions.

Study the prison you have built around yourself by inadvertence.

The 'I' is there even without the 'am'.

So is the pure light there whether you say 'I' or not.

Become aware of that pure light and you will never lose it.

The beingness in being, the awareness in consciousness, the interest in every experience -- that is not describable, yet perfectly accessible, for there is nothing else.

Q: You talk of reality directly -- as the all-pervading, ever-present, eternal, all-knowing, all- energizing first cause.

You talk as if you know the self and see it to be under the sway of ignorance and illusion.

But, in fact, you do not know the self, nor are you aware of ignorance.

By all means become aware -- this will bring you to the self and you will realise that there is neither ignorance nor delusion in it.

It is like saying: if there is sun, how can darkness be?

As under a stone there will be darkness, however strong the sunlight, so in the shadow of the 'I- am-the-body' consciousness there must be ignorance and illusion.

The beneficiary is not the person.

Just like the candle which does not increase by burning.

Q: Can the person become aware of itself by itself?

M: Yes, it happens sometimes as a result of much suffering The Guru wants to save you the endless pain.

Such is his grace.

The conscious ones are very few.

You are unaware of the fact because to you only the conscious ones count.

Become aware of the unconscious .

Q: Can one be aware of the unconscious?

How is it done?

You are what you think yourself to be, but you cannot think yourself to be what you have not experienced.

Q: To become an engineer I must learn engineering.

To become God, what must I learn?

M: You must unlearn everything.

God is the end of all desire and knowledge.

M: You must unlearn everything.

God is the end of all desire and knowledge.

Q: You mean to say that I become God merely by giving up the desire to become God?

M: All desires must be given up, because by desiring you take the shape of your desires.

When no desires remain, you revert to your natural state.

Q: What is a fact?

M: What is perceived in pure awareness, unaffected by desire.

27: The Beginningless Begins Forever.

Questioner: The other day I was asking you about the two ways of growth -- renunciation and enjoyment (yoga and bhoga).

The difference is not so great as it looks -- the Yogi renounces to enjoy; the Bhogi enjoys to renounce.

All else is memory.

M: Quite right.

The beginningless begins forever.

In the same way, I give eternally, because I have nothing.

To be nothing, to have nothing, to keep nothing for oneself is the greatest gift, the highest generosity.

Q: Taking advantage of other people's cruelty is cruelty by proxy.

M: If you look into living process closely, you will find cruelty everywhere, for life feeds on life.

This is a fact, but it does not make you feel guilty of being alive.

You began a life of cruelty by giving your mother endless trouble.

To the last day of your life you will compete for food, clothing, shelter, holding on to your body, fighting for its needs, wanting it to be secure, in a world of insecurity and death.

It manifested itself in strange ways.

Whenever I was unwell, she felt better; when I was in good shape, she was down again, cursing herself and me too.

As if she never forgave me my crime of having been born, she made me feel guilty of being alive.

'You live because you hate me.

If you love me -- die', was her constant, though silent message.

Is knowing separate from being?

Whatever you can know with your mind is of the mind, not you; about yourself you can only say: 'I am, I am aware, I like It'.

Q: I find being alive a painful state.

M: You cannot be alive for you are life itself.

It is the person you imagine yourself to be that suffers, not you.

Self is the common factor at the root of all experience, the awareness in which everything happens.

The entire field of consciousness is only as a film, or a speck, in 'I am'.

This 'I am-ness' is, being conscious of consciousness, being aware of itself.

And it is indescribable, because it has no attributes.

It is only being my self, and being my self is all that there is.

Does he not take himself to be an ordinary human being?

M: Neither ordinary, nor extra-ordinary.

Just being aware and affectionate -- intensely.

He looks at himself without indulging in self-definitions and self-identifications.

He does not know himself as anything apart from the world.

Unaware means asleep.

You are aware anyhow, you need not try to be.

What you need is to be aware of being aware.

Be aware deliberately and consciously, broaden and deepen the field of awareness.

You are always conscious of the mind, but you are not aware of yourself as being conscious.

As long as the observer, the inner self, the 'higher' self, considers himself apart from the observed, the 'lower' self, despises it and condemns it, the situation is hopeless.

It is only when the observer (vyakta) accepts the person (vyakti) as a projection or manifestation of himself, and, so to say, takes the self into the Self, the duality of 'I' and 'this' goes and in the identity of the outer and the inner the Supreme Reality manifests itself.

This union of the seer and the seen happens when the seer becomes conscious of himself as the seer, he is not merely interested in the seen, which he is anyhow, but also interested in being interested, giving attention to attention, aware of being aware.

Affectionate awareness is the crucial factor that brings Reality into focus.

Q: According to the Theosophists and allied occultists, man consists of three aspects: personality, individuality and spirituality.

M: When there is a person, there is also consciousness.

'I am' mind, consciousness denote the same state.

If you say 'I am aware', it only means: 'I am conscious of thinking about being aware'.

There is no 'I am' in awareness.

Q: What about witnessing?

There is a state beyond forgetting and not- forgetting -- the natural state.

To remember, to forget -- these are all states of mind, thoughtbound, word-bound.

Take for example, the idea of being born.

I am told I was born.

I do not remember.

We are on familiar ground.

The man who heard the news becomes a Yogi; while the rest continue in their Bhoga.

Q: But you agree that living a life -- just living the humdrum life of the world, being born to die and dying to be born -- advances man by its sheer volume, just like the river finds its way to the sea by the sheer mass of the water it gathers.

M: Before the world was, consciousness was.

In consciousness it comes into being, in consciousness it lasts and into pure consciousness it dissolves.

Everyone creates a world for himself and lives in it, imprisoned by one's ignorance.

All we have to do is to deny reality to our prison.

Q: Just as the waking state exists in seed form during sleep, so does the world the child creates on being born exist before its birth.

With whom does the seed lie?

M: With him who is the witness of birth and death, but is neither born nor dies.

Only, perhaps as one of the contributing factors.

There were so many others; all contributed.

But the main factor, the most crucial, was the fact of being born the son of a king.

Similarly, the Guru may help.

But the main thing that helps is to have reality within.

Q: Does it find the answers?

M: It finds that it is left without questions, that no answers are needed.

Q: Being born is a fact.

Dying is another fact.

How do they appear to the witness?

What is your opinion in the matter?

M: No doubt, a drug that can affect your brain can also affect your mind, and give you all the strange experiences promised.

But what are all the drugs compared to the drug that gave you this most unusual experience of being born and living in sorrow and fear, in search of happiness, which does not come, or does not last.

You should enquire into the nature of this drug and find an antidote.

Birth, life, death -- they are one.

Self is the common factor at the root of all experience, the awareness in which everything happens.

The entire field of consciousness is only as a film, or a speck, in 'I am'.

This 'I am-ness' is, being conscious of consciousness, being aware of itself.

And it is indescribable, because it has no attributes.

It is only being my self, and being my self is all that there is.

Maharaj: This may or may not be so.

Even if it is, it is only so from the mind's point of view, but In fact the entire universe (mahadakash) exists only in consciousness (chidakash), while I have my stand in the Absolute (paramakash).

In pure being consciousness arises; in consciousness the world appears and disappears.

All there is is me, all there is is mine.

Before all beginnings, after all endings -- I am.

Q: How does one go beyond consciousness into awareness?

M: Since it is awareness that makes consciousness possible, there is awareness in every state of consciousness.

Therefore the very consciousness of being conscious is already a movement in awareness.

Interest in your stream of consciousness takes you to awareness.

It is not a new state.

The first is something that has both movement and inertia.

That we perceive.

We also know that we perceive -- we are conscious and also aware of being conscious.

Thus, we have two: matter-energy and consciousness.

Matter seems to be in space while energy is always in time, being connected with change and measured by the rate of change.

You seem to say that there can be perceiving without a perceiver, knowing without a knower, loving without a lover, acting without an actor.

I feel that the trinity of knowing, knower and known can be seen in every movement of life.

Consciousness implies a conscious being, an object of consciousness and the fact of being conscious.

That which is conscious I call a person.

A person lives in the world, is a part of it, affects it and is affected by it.

What you need is to be aware of being aware.

Be aware deliberately and consciously, broaden and deepen the field of awareness.

You are always conscious of the mind, but you are not aware of yourself as being conscious.

Q: As I can make out, you give distinct meanings to the words 'mind', 'consciousness', and 'awareness'.

M: Look at it this way.

The search for reality is itself the movement of reality.

In a way all search is for the real bliss, or the bliss of the real.

But here we mean by search the search for oneself as the root of being conscious, as the light beyond the mind.

This search will never end, while the restless craving for all else must end, for real progress to take place.

One has to understand that the search for reality, or God, or Guru and the search for the self are the same; when one is found, all are found.

It is the state of being -- knowing and liking.

Who does not like to be, or does not know his own existence?

But we take no advantage of this joy of being conscious, we do not go into it and purify it of all that is foreign to it.

This work of mental self-purification, the cleansing of the psyche, is essential.

Just as a speck in the eye, by causing inflammation, may wipe out the world, so the mistaken idea: 'I am the body-mind' causes the self-concern, which obscures the universe.

Awareness takes the place of consciousness; in consciousness there is the 'I', who is conscious while awareness is undivided; awareness is aware of itself.

The 'I am' is a thought, while awareness is not a thought, there is no 'I am aware' in awareness.

Consciousness is an attribute while awareness is not; one can be aware of being conscious, but not conscious of awareness.

God is the totality of consciousness, but awareness is beyond all -- being as well as not-being.

Q: I had started with the question about the condition of a man after death.

This I try to express my saying that I am beyond the mind.

Q: How can I reach you then?

M: Be aware of being conscious and seek the source of consciousness.

That is all.

Very little can be conveyed in words.

Q: Before the spark is lit and after, what is the difference?

M: Before the spark is lit there is no witness to perceive the difference.

The person may be conscious, but is not aware of being conscious.

It is completely identified with what it thinks and feels and experiences.

The darkness that is in it is of its own creation.

M: Not even your own experience?

Q: Neither my experience, nor even existence.

They depend on my being conscious.

M: And your being conscious depends on what?

Q: I do not know.

Q: Neither my experience, nor even existence.

They depend on my being conscious.

M: And your being conscious depends on what?

Q: I do not know.

Formerly, I would have said: on my body; now I can see that the body is secondary, not primary, and cannot be considered as an evidence of existence.

M: Man does not change much over the ages.

Human problems remain the same and call for the same answers.

Your being conscious of what you call transmission of wisdom shows that wisdom has not yet been transmitted.

When you have it, you are no longer conscious of it.

What is really your own, you are not conscious of.

There is an atmosphere of timelessness about his tiny room; the subjects discussed are timeless -- valid for all times; the way they are expounded and examined is also timeless; the centuries, millennia and yugas fall off and one deals with matters immensely ancient and eternally new.

The discussions held and teachings given would have been the same ten thousand years ago and will be the same ten thousand years hence.

There will always be conscious beings wondering about the fact of their being conscious and enquiring into its cause and aim.

Whence am I?

Who am I?

M: Not as long as you think yourself to be a person.

Q: By what sign shall l know that I am beyond sin and virtue?

M: By being free from all desire and fear, from the very idea of being a person.

To nourish the ideas: 'I am a sinner' 'I am not a sinner', is sin.

To identify oneself with the particular is all the sin there is.

Why should a liberated man necessarily follow conventions?

The moment he becomes predictable, he cannot be free.

His freedom lies in his being free to fulfil the need of the moment, to obey the necessity of the situation.

Freedom to do what one likes is really bondage, while being free to do what one must, what is right, is real freedom.

Q: Still there must be some way of making out who has realised and who has not.

The moment he becomes predictable, he cannot be free.

His freedom lies in his being free to fulfil the need of the moment, to obey the necessity of the situation.

Freedom to do what one likes is really bondage, while being free to do what one must, what is right, is real freedom.

Q: Still there must be some way of making out who has realised and who has not.

If one is indistinguishable from the other, of what use is he?

Don't you see that the Supreme Reality is what makes everything possible?

But if you ask of what use is it to you, I must answer: 'None'.

In matters of daily life the knower of the real has no advantage: he may be at a disadvantage rather: being free from greed and fear, he does not protect himself.

The very idea of profit is foreign to him; he abhors accretions; his life is constant divesting oneself, sharing, giving.

Q: If there is no advantage in gaining the Supreme, then why take the trouble?

To encourage it to free itself from the unreal it is promised something in return.

In reality, there is no need of purpose.

Being free from the false is good in itself, it wants no reward.

It is just like being clean -- which is its own reward.

Q: Is not self-knowledge the reward?

M: The universe without and the immensity within as they are in reality, in the great mind and heart of God.

The meaning and purpose of existence, the secret of suffering, life's redemption from ignorance.

Q: If being happy is the same as being free from fear and worry, cannot it be said that absence of trouble is the cause of happiness?

M: A state of absence, of non-existence cannot be a cause; the pre-existence of a cause is implied in the notion.

Your natural state, in which nothing exists, cannot be a cause of becoming; the causes are hidden in the great and mysterious power of memory.

You just keep on trying until you succeed.

If you persevere, there can be no failure.

What matters supremely is sincerity, earnestness; you must really have had surfeit of being the person you are, now see the urgent need of being free of this unnecessary self-identification with a bundle of memories and habits.

This steady resistance against the unnecessary is the secret of success.

After all, you are what you are every moment of your life, but you are never conscious of it, except, maybe, at the point of awakening from sleep.

All will happen by itself.

You need not do anything, only don't prevent it.

52: Being Happy, Making Happy is the Rhythm of Life.

Questioner: I came from Europe a few months ago on one of my periodical visits to my Guru near Calcutta.

Now I am on my way back home.

It is your complete ignorance of yourself, that covered up your love and happiness and made you seek for what you had never lost.

Love is will, the will to share your happiness with all.

Being happy -- making happy -- this is the rhythm of love.

53: Desires Fulfilled, Breed More Desires.

Questioner: I must confess I came today in a rebellious mood.

M: The universe without and the immensity within as they are in reality, in the great mind and heart of God.

The meaning and purpose of existence, the secret of suffering, life's redemption from ignorance.

Q: If being happy is the same as being free from fear and worry, cannot it be said that absence of trouble is the cause of happiness?

M: A state of absence, of non-existence cannot be a cause; the pre-existence of a cause is implied in the notion.

Your natural state, in which nothing exists, cannot be a cause of becoming; the causes are hidden in the great and mysterious power of memory.

Just be.

Do not try to be quiet; do not make 'being quiet' into a task to be performed.

Don't be restless about 'being quiet', miserable about 'being happy'.

Just be aware that you are and remain aware -- don't say: 'yes, I am; what next?

' There is no 'next' in 'I am'.

M: Love is not selective, desire is selective.

In love there are no strangers.

When the centre of selfishness is no longer, all desires for pleasure and fear of pain cease; one is no longer interested in being happy; beyond happiness there is pure intensity, inexhaustible energy, the ecstasy of giving from a perennial source.

Q: Mustn't I begin by solving for myself the problem of right and wrong?

M: What is pleasant people take it to be good and what is painful they take it to be bad.

Just keep in mind the feeling 'I am', merge in it, till your mind and feeling become one.

By repeated attempts you will stumble on the right balance of attention and affection and your mind will be firmly established in the thought-feeling 'I am'.

Whatever you think, say, or do, this sense of immutable and affectionate being remains as the ever-present background of the mind.

Q: And you call it liberation?

M: I call it normal.

Q: Without the mind means without thoughts.

'I am' as a thought subsides.

'I am' as the sense of being remains.

M: All experience subsides with the mind.

Without the mind there can be no experiencer nor experience.

M: Call it silence, or void, or abeyance, the fact is that the three -- experiencer, experiencing, experience -- are not.

In witnessing, in awareness, self-consciousness, the sense of being this or that, is not.

Unidentified being remains.

Q: As a state of unconsciousness?

M: With reference to anything, it is the opposite.

To strengthen, and stabilise the 'I am' we do all sorts of things -- all in vain, for the 'I am' is being rebuilt from moment to moment.

It is unceasing work and the only radical solution is to dissolve the separative sense of 'I am such-and-such person' once and for good.

Being remains, but not self-being.

Q: I have definite spiritual ambitions.

Must I not work for their fulfilment?

Give up the idea that you have not found it and just let it come into the focus of direct perception, here and now, by removing all that is of the mind.

Q: When all that can go, goes, what remains?

M: Emptiness remains, awareness remains, pure light of the conscious being remains.

It is like asking what remains of a room when all the furniture is removed?

A most serviceable room remains.

Maharaj: I am aware of being asleep.

Q: Is not sleep a state of unconsciousness?

M: Yes, I am aware of being unconscious.

Q: And when awake, or dreaming?

M: I am aware of being awake or dreaming.

There are states when you are not conscious.

Call it unconscious being.

Q: Being unconscious?

M: Consciousness and unconsciousness do not apply here.

Existence is in consciousness, essence is independent of consciousness.

At the root of consciousness lies desire, the urge to experience.

Q: Do you mean to say that without desire there can be no consciousness?

And what is the advantage of being unconscious?

If I have to forego pleasure for the freedom from pain, I better keep both.

M: Beyond pain and pleasure there is bliss.

M: He is the Supreme, of course, but he can also be viewed as the universal witness.

Q: But he remains a person?

M: When you believe yourself to be a person, you see persons everywhere.

In reality there are no persons, only threads of memories and habits.

At the moment of realisation the person ceases.

The nature of the self is pure awareness, pure witnessing, unaffected by the presence or absence of knowledge or liking.

Have your being outside this body of birth and death and all your problems will be solved.

They exist because you believe yourself born to die.

Undeceive yourself and be free.

You are not a person.

But you never know who you are.

The person merely appears to be, like the space within the pot appears to have the shape and volume and smell of the pot.

See that you are not what you believe yourself to be.

Fight with all the strength at your disposal against the idea that you are nameable and describable.

You are not.

Q: Did not karma compel me to become what I am?

M: Nothing compels.

You are as you believe yourself to be.

Stop believing.

Q: Here you are sitting on your seat and talking to me.

Q: The other day you told us that there is no such thing as karma.

Yet we see that every thing has a cause and the sum total of all the causes may be called karma.

M: As long as you believe yourself to be a body, you will ascribe causes to everything.

I do not say things have no causes.

Each thing has innumerable causes.

Q: How does one gain self-control?

I am so weak-minded!

M: Understand first that you are not the person you believe yourself to be.

What you think yourself to be is mere suggestion or imagination.

You have no parents, you were not born, nor will you die.

M: You may change the name, but the fact remains.

What is the drug which you call karma or destiny?

It made you believe yourself to be what you are not.

What is it, and can you be free of it?

Before you go further you must accept, at least as a working theory, that you are not what you appear to be, that you are under the influence of a drug.

The 'I am' is the only changeless factor I am conscious of; how can it be false?

M: It is not the 'I am' that is false, but what you take yourself to be.

I can see, beyond the least shadow of doubt, that you are not what you believe yourself to be.

Logic or no logic, you cannot deny the obvious.

You are nothing that you are conscious of.

The mind plays a guessing game; it is ever uncertain; anxiety-ridden and restless.

You resent being treated as a mere instrument of some god, or Guru, and insist on being treated as a person, because you are not sure of your own existence and do not want to give up the comfort and assurance of a personality.

You may not be what you believe yourself to be, but it gives you continuity, your future flows into the present and becomes the past without jolts.

To be denied personal existence is frightening, but you must face it and find your identity with the totality of life.

Then the problem of who is used by whom is no more.

You are what you think about.

Are you not most of the time busy with your own little person and its daily needs?

The value of regular meditation is that it takes you away from the humdrum of daily routine and reminds you that you are not what you believe yourself to be.

But even remembering is not enough -- action must follow conviction.

Don't be like the rich man who has made a detailed will, but refuses to die.

Awareness contains every experience.

But he who is aware is beyond every experience.

He is beyond awareness itself.

Q: There is the background of experience, call it matter.

There is the experiencer, call it mind.

As I talk to you, I am in the state of detached but affectionate awareness (turiya).

When this awareness turns upon itself, you may call it the Supreme State, (turiyatita).

But the fundamental reality is beyond awareness, beyond the three states of becoming, being and not-being.

Q: How is it that here my mind is engaged in high topics and finds dwelling on them easy and pleasant.

When I return home I find myself forgetting all l have learnt here, worrying and fretting, unable to remember my real nature even for a moment.

Cease to be the object and become the subject of all that happens; once having turned within, you will find yourself beyond the subject.

When you have found yourself, you will find that you are also beyond the object, that both the subject and the object exist in you, but you are neither.

Q: You speak of the mind, of the witnessing consciousness beyond the mind and of the Supreme, which is beyond awareness.

Do you mean to say that even awareness is not real?

M: As long as you deal in terms: real -- unreal; awareness is the only reality that can be.

In the various schools of self-realisation there is so much talk of awareness, that one ends with the impression that awareness itself is the supreme reality.

Is it so?

The body is looked after by the brain, the brain is illumined by consciousness; awareness watches over consciousness; is there anything beyond awareness?

M: How do you know that you are aware?

Q: I feel that I am.

I cannot express it otherwise.

M: When you follow it up carefully from brain through consciousness to awareness, you find that the sense of duality persists.

When you go beyond awareness, there is a state of non-duality, in which there is no cognition, only pure being, which may be as well called non-being, if by being you mean being something in particular.

Q: What you call pure being is it universal being, being everything?

M: Everything implies a collection of particulars.

It is unreachable by words, or mind.

You may call it God, or Parabrahman, or Supreme Reality, but these are names given by the mind.

It is the nameless, contentless, effortless and spontaneous state, beyond being and not being.

Q: But does one remain conscious?

M: As the universe is the body of the mind, so is consciousness the body of the supreme.

When you see them as one, and go beyond, you are in the supreme state.

It is not perceivable, because it is what makes perception possible.

It is beyond being and not being.

It is neither the mirror nor the image in the mirror.

It is what is -- the timeless reality, unbelievably hard and solid.

M: Perfection is a state of the mind, when it is pure.

I am beyond the mind, whatever its state, pure or impure.

Awareness is my nature; ultimately I am beyond being and non-being.

Q: Will meditation help me to reach your state?

M: Meditation will help you to find your bonds, loosen them, untie them and cast your moorings.

Q: Is he conscious?

M: He is beyond all that the mind conceives.

He is beyond being and not being.

He is the Yes and No to everything, beyond and within, creating and destroying, unimaginably real.

Q: God and the Mahatma are they one or two?

Reality is beyond the subjective and objective, beyond all levels, beyond every distinction.

Most definitely it is not their origin, source or root.

These come from ignorance of reality, not from reality itself, which is indescribable, beyond being and not-being.

Q: Many teachers have I followed and studied many doctrines, yet none gave me what I wanted.

M: The desire to find the self will be surely fulfilled, provided you want nothing else.

The permanent is beyond all comings and goings.

Go to the root of all experience, to the sense of being.

Beyond being and not-being lies the immensity of the real.

Try and try again.

Q: To try one needs faith.

As long as you are ignorant of yourself as the creator, your world is limited and repetitive.

Once you go beyond your self-identification with your past, you are free to create a new world of harmony and beauty.

Or you just remain -- beyond being and non-being.

Q: What will remain with me if I let go my memories?

M: Nothing will remain.

I used to create a world and populate it -- now I don't do it any more.

Q: Where do you live, then?

M: In the void beyond being and non-being, beyond consciousness.

This void is also fullness; do not pity me.

It is like a man saying: 'I have done my work, there is nothing left to do'.

First realise that your problem exists in your waking state only, that however painful it is, you are able to forget it altogether when you go to sleep.

When you are awake you are conscious; when you are asleep, you are only alive.

Consciousness and life -- both you may call God; but you are beyond both, beyond God, beyond being and not-being.

What prevents you from knowing yourself as all and beyond all, is the mind based on memory.

It has power over you as long as you trust it; don't struggle with it; just disregard it.

Consciousness is partial and changeful, awareness is total, changeless, calm and silent.

And it is the common matrix of every experience.

Q: How does one go beyond consciousness into awareness?

M: Since it is awareness that makes consciousness possible, there is awareness in every state of consciousness.

Therefore the very consciousness of being conscious is already a movement in awareness.

M: Awareness is not of time.

Time exists in consciousness only.

Beyond consciousness where are time and space?

Q: Within the field of your consciousness there is your body also.

M: Of course.

Even these, once detachment sets in, move away from the centre of consciousness and happen spontaneously and effortlessly.

Q: What then is in the centre of consciousness?

M: That which cannot be given name and form, for it is without quality and beyond consciousness.

You may say it is a point in consciousness, which is beyond consciousness.

Like a hole in the paper is both in the paper and yet not of paper, so is the supreme state in the very centre of consciousness, and yet beyond consciousness.

Q: What then is in the centre of consciousness?

M: That which cannot be given name and form, for it is without quality and beyond consciousness.

You may say it is a point in consciousness, which is beyond consciousness.

Like a hole in the paper is both in the paper and yet not of paper, so is the supreme state in the very centre of consciousness, and yet beyond consciousness.

It is as if an opening in the mind through which the mind is flooded with light.

M: That which cannot be given name and form, for it is without quality and beyond consciousness.

You may say it is a point in consciousness, which is beyond consciousness.

Like a hole in the paper is both in the paper and yet not of paper, so is the supreme state in the very centre of consciousness, and yet beyond consciousness.

It is as if an opening in the mind through which the mind is flooded with light.

The opening is not even the light.

Q: Can I say that I am not what I am conscious of, nor am I consciousness itself?

M: As long as you are a seeker, better cling to the idea that you are pure consciousness, free from all content.

To go beyond consciousness is the supreme state.

Q: The desire for realisation, does it originate in consciousness or beyond?

M: In consciousness, of course.

All desire is born from memory and is within the realm of consciousness.

What is beyond is clear of all striving.

The very desire to go beyond consciousness is still in consciousness.

Q: Is there any trace, or imprint, of the beyond on consciousness?

M: No, there cannot be.

I cannot tell what I am because words can describe only what I am not.

I am, and because I am, all is.

But I am beyond consciousness and, therefore, in consciousness I cannot say what I am.

Yet, I am.

The question 'Who am I' has no answer.

No experience can answer it, for the self is beyond experience.

Q: Still, the question 'Who am I' must be of some use.

M: It has no answer in consciousness and, therefore, helps to go beyond consciousness.

Q: Here I am -- in the present moment.

What is real in it, and what is not?

It is essentially the witness as well as the residue of the accumulated experiences, the seat of memory, the connecting link (sutratma).

It is man's character which life builds and shapes from birth to birth.

The universal is beyond all name and shape, beyond consciousness and character, pure unselfconscious being.

Did I put down your views rightly?

Maharaj: On the level of the mind -- yes.

It is your mind that has separated the world outside your skin from the world inside and put them in opposition.

This created fear and hatred and all the miseries of living.

Q: What I do not follow is what you say about going beyond consciousness.

I understand the words, but I cannot visualise the experience.

After all, you yourself have said that all experience is in consciousness.

I understand the words, but I cannot visualise the experience.

After all, you yourself have said that all experience is in consciousness.

M: You are right, there can be no experience beyond consciousness.

Yet there is the experience of just being.

There is a state beyond consciousness, which is not unconscious.

M: You are right, there can be no experience beyond consciousness.

Yet there is the experience of just being.

There is a state beyond consciousness, which is not unconscious.

Some call it super- consciousness, or pure consciousness, or supreme consciousness.

It is pure awareness free from the subject object nexus.

M: Consciousness is intermittent, full of gaps.

Yet there is the continuity of identity.

What is this sense of identity due to, if not to something beyond consciousness?

Q: If I am beyond the mind, how can I change myself?

M: Where is the need of changing anything?

I have no shape of my own.

You are so accustomed to think of yourselves as bodies having consciousness that you just cannot imagine consciousness as having bodies.

Once you realise that bodily existence is but a state of mind, a movement in consciousness, that the ocean of consciousness is infinite and eternal, and that, when in touch with consciousness, you are the witness only, you will be able to withdraw beyond consciousness altogether.

Q: We are told there are many levels of existences.

Do you exit and function on all the levels?

Unless we revolt against this craving for experience and let go the manifested altogether, there can be no relief.

We shall remain trapped.

Q: You say you are the silent witness and also you are beyond consciousness.

Is there no contradiction in it?

If you are beyond consciousness, what are you witnessing to?

Q: You say you are the silent witness and also you are beyond consciousness.

Is there no contradiction in it?

If you are beyond consciousness, what are you witnessing to?

M: I am conscious and unconscious, both conscious and unconscious, neither conscious nor unconscious -- to all this I am witness -- but really there is no witness, because there is nothing to be a witness to.

I am perfectly empty of all mental formations, void of mind -- yet fully aware.

M: Creation is in the very nature of consciousness.

Consciousness causes appearances.

Reality is beyond consciousness.

Q: While we are conscious of appearances, how is it that we are not conscious that these are mere appearances?

M: The mind covers up reality, without knowing it.

M: And as long as one is conscious, there will be pain and pleasure.

You cannot fight pain and pleasure on the level of consciousness.

To go beyond them you must go beyond consciousness, which is possible only when you look at consciousness as something that happens to you and not in you, as something external, alien, superimposed.

Then, suddenly you are free of consciousness, really alone, with nothing to intrude.

And that is your true state.

I used to create a world and populate it -- now I don't do it any more.

Q: Where do you live, then?

M: In the void beyond being and non-being, beyond consciousness.

This void is also fullness; do not pity me.

It is like a man saying: 'I have done my work, there is nothing left to do'.

this is natural, for there is a season for sowing and a season for harvesting.

But the word of a Guru is a seed that cannot perish.

Of course, the Guru must be a real one, who is beyond the body and the mind, beyond consciousness itself, beyond space and time, beyond duality and unity, beyond understanding and description.

The good people who have read a lot and have a lot to say, may teach you many useful things, but they are not the real Gurus whose words invariably come true.

They also may tell you that you are the ultimate reality itself, but what of it?

Just trust me and live by trusting me.

I shall not mislead you.

You are the Supreme Reality beyond the world and its creator, beyond consciousness and its witness, beyond all assertions and denials.

Remember it, think of it, act on it.

Abandon all sense of separation, see yourself in all and act accordingly.

Q: Is not awareness a form of consciousness?

M: When the content is viewed without likes and dislikes, the consciousness of it is awareness.

But still there is a difference between awareness as reflected in consciousness and pure awareness beyond consciousness.

Reflected awareness, the sense 'I am aware' is the witness, while pure awareness is the essence of reality.

Reflection of the sun in a drop of water is the reflection of the sun, no doubt, but not the sun itself.

Questioner: Who is the Guru and who is the supreme Guru?

Maharaj: All that happens in your consciousness is your Guru.

And pure awareness beyond consciousness is the supreme Guru.

Q: My Guru is Sri Babaji.

What is your opinion of him?

Once you are beyond the person, you need no words.

Q: What can take me beyond the person?

How to go beyond consciousness?

M: Words and questions come from the mind and hold you there.

To go beyond the mind, you must be silent and quiet.

Q: What am I to wait for?

M: For the centre of your being to emerge into consciousness.

The three states -- sleeping, dreaming and waking are all in consciousness, the manifested; what you call unconsciousness will also be manifested -- in time; beyond consciousness altogether lies the unmanifested.

And beyond all, and pervading all, is the heart of being which beats steadily -- manifested-unmanifested; manifested-unmanifested (saguna-nirguna).

Q: On the verbal level it sounds all right.

There can be no such thing as changeless consciousness.

Changelessness wipes out consciousness immediately.

A man deprived of outer or inner sensations blanks out, or goes beyond consciousness and unconsciousness into the birthless and deathless state.

Only when spirit and matter come together consciousness is born.

Q: Are they one or two?

You may change your mind or your body, but it is always something external to you that has changed, not yourself.

Why bother at all to change?

realise once for all that neither your body nor your mind, nor even your consciousness is yourself and stand alone in your true nature beyond consciousness and unconsciousness.

No effort can take you there, only the clarity of understanding.

Trace your misunderstandings and abandon them, that is all.

Yet, I am.

The question 'Who am I' has no answer.

No experience can answer it, for the self is beyond experience.

Q: Still, the question 'Who am I' must be of some use.

M: It has no answer in consciousness and, therefore, helps to go beyond consciousness.

Rhythm, periodicity, harmonious alternation of extremes is the rule.

No use rebelling against the very pattern of life.

If you seek the Immutable, go beyond experience.

When I say: remember 'I am' all the time, I mean: 'come back to it repeatedly'.

No particular thought can be mind's natural state, only silence.

Do I need experience?

M: You already have all the experience you need, otherwise you would not have come here.

You need not gather any more, rather you must go beyond experience.

Whatever effort you make, whatever method (sadhana) you follow, will merely generate more experience, but will not take you beyond.

Nor will reading books help you.

Monotony is soporific.

I cannot accept samadhi, however glorious, as a proof of truth.

M: Samadhi is beyond experience.

It is a qualityless state.

Q: The absence of experience is due to inattention.

Q: I understood that the experience of the real follows seeing the false as false.

M: There is no such thing as the experience of the real.

The real is beyond experience.

All experience is in the mind.

You know the real by being real.

He is just propertyless.

Similarly, the realised man is egoless; he has lost the capacity of identifying himself with anything.

He is without location, placeless, beyond space and time, beyond the world.

Beyond words and thoughts is he.

Q: Well, it is deep mystery to me.

Q: Surely, you will die.

M: Life will escape, the body will die, but it will not affect me in the least.

Beyond space and time I am, uncaused, uncausing, yet the very matrix of existence.

Q: May I be permitted to ask how did you arrive at your present condition?

M: My teacher told me to hold on to the sense 'I am' tenaciously and not to swerve from it even for a moment.

Q: You make all these extraordinary statements about yourself.

What makes you say those things?

What do you mean by saying that you are beyond space and time?

M: You ask and the answer comes.

I watch myself -- I watch the answer and see no contradiction.

this is natural, for there is a season for sowing and a season for harvesting.

But the word of a Guru is a seed that cannot perish.

Of course, the Guru must be a real one, who is beyond the body and the mind, beyond consciousness itself, beyond space and time, beyond duality and unity, beyond understanding and description.

The good people who have read a lot and have a lot to say, may teach you many useful things, but they are not the real Gurus whose words invariably come true.

They also may tell you that you are the ultimate reality itself, but what of it?

A most serviceable room remains.

And when even the walls are pulled down, space remains.

Beyond space and time is the here and the now of reality.

Q: Does the witness remain?

M: As long as there is consciousness, its witness is also there.

You can question the description and the meaning, but not the event itself.

Being and non-being alternate and their reality is momentary.

The Immutable Reality lies beyond space and time.

Realise the momentariness of being and non-being and be free from both.

Q: Things may be transient, yet they are very much with us, in endless repetition.

My feeling is that all that happens in space and time happens to me, that every experience is my experience every form is my form.

What I take myself to be, becomes my body and all that happens to that body becomes my mind.

But at the root of the universe there is pure awareness, beyond space and time, here and now.

Know it to be your real being and act accordingly.

Q: What difference will it make in action what I take myself to be.

The knower of reality is not compelled.

The only law he obeys is that of love.

94: You are Beyond Space and Time.

Questioner: You keep on saying that I was never born and will never die.

If so, how is it that I see the world as one which has been born and will surely die?

Once you realise that there is nothing in this world, which you can call your own, you look at it from the outside as you look at a play on the stage, or a picture on the screen, admiring and enjoying, but really unmoved.

As long as you imagine yourself to be something tangible and solid, a thing among things, actually existing in time and space, short-lived and vulnerable, naturally you will be anxious to survive and increase.

But when you know yourself as beyond space and time -- in contact with them only at the point of here and now, otherwise all-pervading and all-containing, unapproachable, unassailable, invulnerable -- you will be afraid no longer.

Know yourself as you are -- against fear there is no other remedy.

You have to learn to think and feel on these lines, or you will remain indefinitely on the personal level of desire and fear, gaining and losing, growing and decaying.

In spite of its primevality, however, the sense of 'I am' is not the Highest.

It is not the Absolute.

The sense, or taste of 'I am-ness' is not absolutely beyond time.

Being the essence of the five elements, it, in a way, depends upon the world.

It arises from the body, which, in its turn, is built by food, consisting of the elements.

Maharaj: It is not permanent.

The knower rises and sets with the known.

That in which both the knower and the known arise and set, is beyond time.

The words permanent or eternal do not apply.

Q: In sleep there is neither the known, nor the knower.

A venerable Yogi, a master in the art of longevity, himself over 1000 years old, comes to teach me his art.

I fully respect and sincerely admire his achievements, yet all I can tell him is: of what use is longevity to me?

I am beyond time.

However long a life may be, it is but a moment and a dream.

In the same way I am beyond all attributes.

Such things need special training.

Or, just travelling to New York.

I may be quite certain that I am beyond time and space, and yet unable to locate myself at will at some point of time and space.

I am not interested enough; I see no purpose in undergoing a special Yogic training.

I have just heard of New York.

The supreme is not a state.

It pervades, all states, but it is not a state of something else.

It is entirely uncaused, independent, complete in itself, beyond time and space, mind and matter.

Q: By what sign do you recognise it?

M: That's the point that it leaves no traces.

It is the only reality the body has.

Q: What happens to that spark of life after death?

M: It is beyond time.

Birth and death are but points in time.

Life weaves eternally its many webs.

Q: People come and go.

One loves whom one meets, one cannot love all.

M: When you are love itself, you are beyond time and numbers.

In loving one you love all, in loving all, you love each.

One and all are not exclusive.

Q: Time consumes the world.

Who is the witness of time?

M: He who is beyond time -- the Un-nameable.

A glowing ember, moved round and round quickly enough, appears as a glowing circle.

When the movement ceases, the ember remains.

M: Before the mind -- I am.

'I am' is not a thought in the mind; the mind happens to me, I do not happen to the mind.

And since time and space are in the mind, I am beyond time and space, eternal and omnipresent.

Q: Are you serious?

Do you really mean that you exist everywhere and at all times?

When pure awareness is attained, no need exists any more, not even for 'I am', which is but a useful pointer, a direction-indicator towards the Absolute.

The awareness 'I am' then easily ceases.

What prevails is that which cannot be described, that which is beyond words.

It is this 'state' which is most real, a state of pure potentiality, which is prior to everything.

The 'I am' and the universe are mere reflections of it.

Similarly, the realised man is egoless; he has lost the capacity of identifying himself with anything.

He is without location, placeless, beyond space and time, beyond the world.

Beyond words and thoughts is he.

Q: Well, it is deep mystery to me.

I am a simple man.

Words carry distinctions.

The unmanifested (nirguna) has no name, all names refer to the manifested (saguna).

It is useless to struggle with words to express what is beyond words.

Consciousness (chidananda) is spirit (purusha), consciousness is matter (prakriti).

Imperfect spirit is matter, perfect matter is spirit.

You must come to me.

Words are of the mind and the mind obscures and distorts.

Hence the absolute need to go beyond words and move over to my side.

Q: Take me over.

M: I am doing it, but you resist.

Is it inevitable?

Is it not possible to illustrate it, if not describe.

I admit, no verbal description will do, when the state described is beyond words.

Yet it is also within words.

Poetry is the art of putting into words the inexpressible.

You had both.

You are willing to tell us all about the training, but when it comes to results, you refuse to share.

Either you tell us that your state is beyond words, or that there is no difference; that where we see a difference, you see none.

In both cases we are left without any insight into your state.

M: How can you have insight into my state when you are without insight into your own?

I am the beingness of being, the knowingness of knowing, the fullness of happiness.

You cannot reduce me to emptiness!

Q: If you are beyond words, what shall we talk about?

Metaphysically speaking, what you say holds together; there is no inner contradiction.

But there is no food for me in what you say.

Q: It looks like death to me.

M: It is.

It is also all-pervading, all-conquering, intense beyond words.

No ordinary brain can stand it without being shattered; hence the absolute need for sadhana.

Purity of body and clarity of mind, non-violence and selflessness in life are essential for survival as an intelligent and spiritual entity.

All experience is in the mind.

You know the real by being real.

Q: If the real is beyond words and mind, why do we talk so much about it?

M: For the joy of it, of course.

The real is bliss supreme.

Q: Christianity accepts suffering as purifying and ennobling, while Hinduism looks at it with distaste.

M: Christianity is one way of putting words together and Hinduism is another.

The real is, behind and beyond words, incommunicable, directly experienced, explosive in its effect on the mind.

It is easily had when nothing else is wanted.

The innards created by imagination and perpetuated by desire.

M: There is no contradiction.

The reel of destiny is coming to its end -- the mind is happy.

The mist of bodily existence is lifting -- the burden of the body is growing less from day to day.

Q: Let us say, the jnani is ill.

He has caught some flu and every joint aches and burns.

Q: Is there a remedy against activity?

M: Watch it, and it shall cease.

Use every opportunity to remind yourself that you are in bondage, that whatever happens to you is due to the fact of your bodily existence.

Desire, fear, trouble, joy, they cannot appear unless you are there to appear to.

Yet, whatever happens, points to your existence as a perceiving centre.

I have no shape of my own.

You are so accustomed to think of yourselves as bodies having consciousness that you just cannot imagine consciousness as having bodies.

Once you realise that bodily existence is but a state of mind, a movement in consciousness, that the ocean of consciousness is infinite and eternal, and that, when in touch with consciousness, you are the witness only, you will be able to withdraw beyond consciousness altogether.

Q: We are told there are many levels of existences.

Do you exit and function on all the levels?

Q: But what about the knower.

With the disappearance of the body, does the knower disappear?

M: Just as the knower of the body appears at birth, so he disappears at death.

Q: And nothing remains?

M: Life remains.

The body mediates between me and the world.

Without the body there would be neither me nor the world.

M: The body appears in your mind, your mind is the content of your consciousness; you are the motionless witness of the river of consciousness which changes eternally without changing you in any way.

Your own changelessness is so obvious that you do not notice it.

Have a good look at yourself and all these misapprehensions and misconceptions will dissolve.

M: The contrary is nearer to truth -- the body knows me and is aware of my needs.

But neither is really so.

This body appears in your mind; in my mind nothing is.

Q: Do you mean to say you are quite unconscious of having a body?

M: On the contrary, I am conscious of not having a body.

76: To Know that You do not Know, is True Knowledge.

Maharaj: There is the body.

Inside the body appears to be an observer and outside -- a world under observation.

The observer and his observation as well as the world observed all appear and disappear together.

Beyond it all, there is void.

Being the essence of the five elements, it, in a way, depends upon the world.

It arises from the body, which, in its turn, is built by food, consisting of the elements.

It disappears when the body dies, like the spark extinguishes when the incense stick burns out.

When pure awareness is attained, no need exists any more, not even for 'I am', which is but a useful pointer, a direction-indicator towards the Absolute.

The awareness 'I am' then easily ceases.

To undo this confusion is the purpose of Yoga.

Q: Does not death undo this confusion?

M: In death only the body dies.

Life does not, consciousness does not, reality does not.

And the life is never so alive as after death.

M: Of course.

Naming cannot go beyond the mind, while perceiving is consciousness itself.

Q: When somebody dies what exactly happens?

M: Nothing happens.

Something becomes nothing.

On the eleventh day, at prayer time he was singing and clapping vigorously and suddenly died!

Just like that, between two movements, like a blown out candle.

Everybody dies as he lives.

I am not afraid of death, because I am not afraid of life.

I live a happy life and shall die a happy death.

Q: Which foolishness?

M: Of thinking that you were born and will die, that you are a body displaying a mind and all such nonsense.

In my world nobody is born and nobody dies.

Some people go on a journey and come back, some never leave.

What difference does it make since they travel in dream lands, each wrapped up in his own dream.

Now, what is it in you that does not change?

As long as there is food, there is body and mind.

When the food is stopped, the body dies and the mind dissolves.

But does the observer perish?

Q: I guess it does not.

The mind cannot know what is beyond the mind, but the mind is known by what is beyond it.

The jnani knows neither birth nor death; existence and non-existence are the same to him.

Q: When your body dies, you remain.

M: Nothing dies.

The body is just imagined.

You are like the man in the cinema house, laughing and crying with the picture, though knowing fully well that he is all the time in his seat and the picture is but the play of light.

It is enough to shift attention from the screen to oneself to break the spell.

When the body dies, the kind of life you live now -- succession of physical and mental events -- comes to an end.

It can end even now -- without waiting for the death of the body -- it is enough to shift attention to the Self and keep it there.

All happens as if there is a mysterious power that creates and moves everything.

To my own surprise, I remain as I am -- pure awareness, alert to all that happens.

Q: Even at the Moment of death?

M: What is it to me that the body dies?

Q: Don't you need it to contact the world?

M: I do not need the world.

But he soon retraced his steps and came back home comprehending the futility of such a quest.

Eternal life, he perceived, was not to be sought for; he already had it.

Having gone beyond the I-am-the-body idea, he had acquired a mental state so joyful, peaceful and glorious that everything appeared to be worthless compared to it.

He had attained self-realisation.

Uneducated though the Master is, his conversation is enlightened to an extraordinary degree.

The self is the source of all, and of all -- the final destination.

Nothing is external.

Q: When the body idea becomes obsessive, is it not altogether wrong?

M: There is nothing wrong in the idea of a body, nor even in the idea 'I am the body'.

But limiting oneself to one body only is a mistake.

Q: I do not know.

Formerly, I would have said: on my body; now I can see that the body is secondary, not primary, and cannot be considered as an evidence of existence.

M: I am glad you have abandoned the l-am-the-body idea, the main source of error and suffering.

Q: I have abandoned it intellectually, but the sense of being the particular, a person, is still with me.

I can say: 'I am', but what I am I cannot say.

Unity in diversity is natural and good.

It is only with separateness and self-seeking that real suffering appears in the world.

92: Go Beyond the l-am-the-body Idea.

Questioner: We are like animals, running about in vain pursuits and there seems to be no end to it.

Is there a way out?