It is authentic.

Having experienced the verity of his words in the pages of I AM THAT, and being inspired by it, many from the West have found their way to Maharaj to seek enlightenment.

Maharaj's interpretation of truth is not different from that of Jnana Yoga/Advaita Vedanta.

But, he has a way of his own.

The multifarious forms around us, says he, are constituted of the five elements.

Maharaj: Good results will come, sooner or later.

At Sri Ramanashram did you get some instructions?

Q: Yes, some English people were teaching me and also an Indian follower of jnana yoga, residing there permanently, was giving me lessons.

M: What are your plans?

Q: I have to return to the States because of visa difficulties.

What makes you come here is your being displeased with your life as you know it, the life of your body and mind.

You may try to improve them, through controlling and bending them to an ideal, or you may cut the knot of self-identification altogether and look at your body and mind as something that happens without committing you in any way.

Q: Shall I call the way of control and discipline raja yoga and the way of detachment -- jnana yoga?

And the worship of an ideal -- bhakti yoga?

M: If it pleases you.

The universe works by itself -- that I know.

What else do I need to know?

Q: So a jnani knows what he is doing only when he turns his mind to it; otherwise he just acts, without being concerned.

M: The average man is not conscious of his body as such.

He is conscious of his sensations, feelings and thoughts.

Both sleep and waking are misnomers.

We are only dreaming.

True waking and true sleeping only the jnani knows.

We dream that we are awake, we dream that we are asleep.

The three states are only varieties of the dream state.

It makes everything perceivable, yet itself it is beyond perception.

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.

Q: If awareness is all-pervading, then a blind man, once realised, can see?

M: You are mixing sensation with awareness.

The jnani knows himself as he is.

He is also aware of his body being crippled and his mind being deprived of a range of sensory perceptions.

But he is not affected by the availability of eyesight, nor by its absence.

Q: How is it done?

M: Refuse all thoughts except one: the thought 'I am'.

The mind will rebel in the beginning, but with patience and perseverance it will yield and keep quiet.

Once you are quiet, things will begin to happen spontaneously and quite naturally without any interference on your part.

Q: Can I avoid this protracted battle with my mind?

M: Emotional reactions, born of ignorance or inadvertence, are never justified.

Seek a clear mind and a clean heart.

All you need is to keep quietly alert, enquiring into the real nature of yourself.

This is the only way to peace.

9: Responses of Memory.

But such a state does not last!

The mood changes and all goes wrong.

M: If you could only keep quiet, clear of memories and expectations, you would be able to discern the beautiful pattern of events.

It is your restlessness that causes chaos.

Q: For full three hours that I spent in the airline office I was practising patience and forbearance.

You have to act on what I told you and persevere.

It is not the right advice that liberates, but the action based on it.

Just like a doctor, after giving the patient an injection, tells him: 'Now, keep quiet.

Do nothing more, just keep quiet,' I am telling you: you have got your 'injection', now keep quiet, just keep quiet.

You have nothing else to do.

It is not the right advice that liberates, but the action based on it.

Just like a doctor, after giving the patient an injection, tells him: 'Now, keep quiet.

Do nothing more, just keep quiet,' I am telling you: you have got your 'injection', now keep quiet, just keep quiet.

You have nothing else to do.

My Guru did the same.

You have nothing else to do.

My Guru did the same.

He would tell me something and then said: 'Now keep quiet.

Don't go on ruminating all the time.

Stop.

Stop.

Be silent'.

Q: I can keep quiet for an hour in the morning.

But the day is long and many things happen that throw me out of balance.

It is easy to say 'be silent', but to be silent when all is screaming in me and round me -- please tell me how it is done.

I am returning to Europe with nothing to do there.

My life is completely empty.

M: If you just try to keep quiet, all will come -- the work, the strength for work, the right motive.

Must you know everything beforehand?

Don't be anxious about your future -- be quiet now and all will fall in place.

Q: We were going on with the mantra given to us by the Guru.

We also did some meditation.

There was not much of thinking or study; we were just trying to keep quiet.

We are on the bhakti path and rather poor in philosophy.

We have not much to think about -- just trust our Guru and live our lives.

Better ask something that really touches you, so that you feel strongly about it.

Unless you are emotionally involved, you may argue with me, but there will be no real understanding between us.

If you say: 'nothing worries me, I have no problems', it is all right with me, we can keep quiet.

But if something really touches you, then there is purpose in talking.

Shall I ask you?

What is perfect, returns to the source of all perfection and the opposites play on.

Q: How am I to reach perfection?

M: Keep quiet.

Do your work in the world, but inwardly keep quiet.

Then all will come to you.

Q: How am I to reach perfection?

M: Keep quiet.

Do your work in the world, but inwardly keep quiet.

Then all will come to you.

Do not rely on your work for realisation.

Q: How shall I know that I am moving in the right direction?

M: By your progress in intentness, in clarity and devotion to the task.

Q: We, Europeans, find it very difficult to keep quiet.

The world is too much with us.

M: Oh, no, you are dreamers too.

Q: Crucifixion, death and resurrection -- we are on familiar grounds!

I have read, heard and talked about it endlessly, but to do it I find myself incapable.

M: Keep quiet, undisturbed, and the wisdom and the power will come on their own.

You need not hanker.

Wait in silence of the heart and mind.

Only what is your own at the start will remain your own in the end.

Accept no guidance but from within, and even then sift out all memories for they will mislead you.

Even if you are quite ignorant of the ways and the means, keep quiet and look within; guidance is sure to come.

You are never left without knowing what your next step should be.

The trouble is that you may shirk it.

Relax and watch the 'I am'.

Reality is just behind it.

Keep quiet, keep silent; it will emerge, or, rather, it will take you in.

Q: Must I not get rid of my body and mind first?

M: You cannot, for the very idea binds you to them.

This is what I cannot grasp.

Once you accept the existence of things, why reject their causes?

M: I see only consciousness, and know everything to be but consciousness, as you know the picture on the cinema screen to be but light.

Q: Still, the movements of light have a cause.

M: The light does not move at all.

My life is completely empty.

M: If you just try to keep quiet, all will come -- the work, the strength for work, the right motive.

Must you know everything beforehand?

Don't be anxious about your future -- be quiet now and all will fall in place.

The unexpected is bound to happen, while the anticipated may never come.

'Ask and you shall be given' is the eternal law.

So many words you have learnt, so many you have spoken.

You know everything, but you do not know yourself.

For the self is not known through words -- only direct insight will reveal it.

Look within, search within.

A result cannot have a purpose of its own.

Q: In God's economy everything must have a purpose.

M: Do you know God that you talk of him so freely?

What is God to you?

A sound, a word on paper, an idea in the mind?

M: Don't identify yourself with an idea.

If you mean by God the Unknown, then you merely say: 'I do not know what I am'.

If you know God as you know your self, you need not say it.

Best is the simple feeling 'I am'.

Dwell on it patiently.

When I enquire how to get, or avoid something, I am not really inquiring.

To know anything I must accept it -- totally.

Q: Yes, to know God I must accept God -- how frightening!

M: Before you can accept God, you must accept yourself, which is even more frightening.

The first steps in self acceptance are not at all pleasant, for what one sees is not a happy sight.

In fact, I know much less than you do.

Q: Your words are wise, your behaviour noble, your grace all-powerful.

M: I know nothing about it all and see no difference between you and me.

My life is a succession of events, just like yours.

Only I am detached and see the passing show as a passing show, while you stick to things and move along with them.

Your mind seems to be always quiet and happy.

And miracles happen round you.

M: I know nothing about miracles, and I wonder whether nature admits exceptions to her laws, unless we agree that everything is a miracle.

As to my mind, there is no such thing.

There is consciousness in which everything happens.

Is there anything else you would like me to do?

M: Without you is there a world?

You know all about the world, but about yourself you know nothing.

You yourself are the tools of your work, you have no other tools.

Why don't you take care of the tools before you think of the work?

Why should I engage in fancies?

Q: Everybody quotes scriptures.

M: Those who know only scriptures know nothing.

To know is to be.

I know what I am talking about; it is not from reading, or hearsay.

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.

Throughout the West people are in search of something real.

They turn to science, which tells them a lot about matter, a little about the mind and nothing about the nature and purpose of consciousness.

To them reality is objective, outside the observable and describable, directly or by inference; about the subjective aspect of reality they know nothing.

It is extremely important to let them know that there is reality and it is to be found in the freedom of consciousness from matter and its limitations and distortions.

Most of the people in the world just do not know that there is reality which can be found and experienced in consciousness.

At least from your own past lives.

M: Until I met my Guru I knew so many things.

Now I know nothing, for all knowledge is in dream only and not valid.

I know myself and I find no life nor death in me, only pure being -- not being this or that, but just being.

But the moment the mind, drawing on its stock of memories, begins to imagine, it fills the space with objects and time with events.

The five senses and the four functions of the mind -- memory, thought, understanding and selfhood; the five elements -- earth, water, fire, air and ether; the two aspects of creation -- matter and spirit, all are contained in awareness.

Q: Yet, you must believe in having lived before.

M: The scriptures say so, but I know nothing about it.

I know myself as I am; as I appeared or will appear is not within my experience.

It is not that I do not remember.

There are no causes, but your ignorance of your real being, which is perfect and beyond all causation.

For whatever happens, all the universe is responsible and you are the source of the universe.

Q: I know nothing about being the cause of the universe.

M: Because you do not investigate.

Enquire, search within and you will know.

I am only asking you to question wisely.

Instead of searching for the proof of truth, which you do not know, go through the proofs you have of what you believe to know.

You will find you know nothing for sure -- you trust on hearsay.

To know the truth, you must pass through your own experience.

Q: I am mortally afraid of samadhis and other trances, whatever their cause.

In fact, it was only in the beginning when I was making efforts, that I was passing through some strange experiences; seeing lights, hearing voices, meeting gods and goddesses and conversing with them.

Once the Guru told me: 'You are the Supreme Reality', I ceased having visions and trances and became very quiet and simple.

I found myself desiring and knowing less and less, until I could say in utter astonishment: 'I know nothing, I want nothing.

M: I was not given any image, nor did I have one.

My Guru never told me what to expect.

M: You know it already; do it.

Q: That's what you say.

I know nothing about it.

M: Yet I repeat -- you know it.

Do it.

In deep sleep you are not conditioned.

How ready and willing you are to go to sleep, how peaceful, free and happy you are when asleep!

Q: I know nothing of it.

M: Put it negatively.

When you sleep, you are not in pain, nor bound, nor restless.

M: Of the centre of your being, which is free of all directions, all means and ends.

Q: Be all, know all, have all?

M: Be nothing, know nothing, have nothing.

This is the only life worth living, the only happiness worth having.

Q: I may admit that the goal is beyond my comprehension.

It is what makes the mind knowledgeable.

The brighter the intelligence, the wider, deeper and truer the knowledge.

To know things, to know people and to know oneself are all functions of intelligence: the last is the most important and contains the former two.

Misunderstanding oneself and the world leads to false ideas and desires, which again lead to bondage.

Right understanding of oneself is necessary for freedom from the bondage of illusion.

Nothing can set you free, because you are free.

See yourself with desireless clarity, that is all.

Q: It takes time to know oneself.

M: How can time help you?

Time is a succession of moments; each moment appears out of nothing and disappears into nothing, never to reappear.

Q: Integration.

M: If you want integration, you must know whom you want to integrate.

Q: By meeting people and watching them, one comes to know oneself also.

It goes together.

M: It does not necessarily go together.

It is not a conscious process, it happens entirely by itself.

None of us can help it.

What needs changing shall change anyhow; enough to know oneself as one is, here and now.

Intense and methodical investigation into one's mind is Yoga.

Q: What about the chains of destiny forged by sin?

They are a most important part of your mental and emotional make- up and powerfully affect your actions.

Remember, you cannot abandon what you do not know.

To go beyond yourself, you must know yourself.

Q: What does it mean to know myself?

By knowing myself what exactly do I come to know?

M: You cannot renounce.

You may leave your home and give trouble to your family, but attachments are in the mind and will not leave you until you know your mind in and out.

First thing first -- know yourself, all else will come with it.

Q: But you already told me that I am the Supreme Reality.

Is it not self-knowledge?

You are, both conscious and free to be conscious.

Nobody can take this away from you.

Do you ever know yourself non-existing, or unconscious?

Q: I may not remember, but that does not disprove my being occasionally unconscious.

M: Why not turn away from the experience to the experiencer and realise the full import of the only true statement you can make: 'I am'?

M: It helps you to understand what you are not and keeps you free from false ideas, desires and actions.

Q: If I am the witness only, what do right and wrong matter?

M: What helps you to know yourself is right.

What prevents, is wrong.

To know one's real self is bliss, to forget -- is sorrow.

Anxiety and hope are born of imagination -- I am free of both.

I am simple being and I need nothing to rest on.

Q: Unless you know yourself, of what use is your being to you?

To be happy with what you are, you must know what you are.

M: Being shines as knowing, knowing is warm in love.

I had some inner experiences on my own and I would like to compare notes.

Maharaj: By all means.

Do you know yourself?

Q: I know that I am not the body.

Nor am I the mind.

On the other hand, knowledge gives power.

In practice it is very simple.

To control yourself -- know yourself.

Q: Maybe, I can come to control myself, but shall I be able to deal with the chaos in the world?

M: There is no chaos in the world, except the chaos which your mind creates.

There is nothing cruel in what I say.

To wake up a man from a nightmare is compassion.

You came here because you are in pain, and all I say is: wake up, know yourself, be yourself.

The end of pain lies not in pleasure.

When you realise that you are beyond both pain and pleasure, aloof and unassailable, then the pursuit of happiness ceases and the resultant sorrow too.

You are wise and I am stupid; you see, I don't.

Where and how shall I find my wisdom?

M: If you know yourself to be stupid, you are not stupid at all!

Q: Just as knowing myself sick does not make me well, so knowing myself foolish can not make me wise.

M: To know that you are ill must you not be well initially?

At least there will be no external God to battle with.

Q: This world is so rich and complex -- how could I create it?

M: Do you know yourself enough to know what you can do and what you cannot?

You do not know your own powers.

You never investigated.

When reality explodes in you, you may call it experience of God.

Or, rather, it is God experiencing you.

God knows you when you know yourself.

Reality is not the result of a process; it is an explosion.

It is definitely beyond the mind, but all you can do is to know your mind well.

There are only restrictions and limitations.

The sum total of these defines the person.

You think you know yourself when you know what you are.

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.

M: You yourself are the proof.

You have not, nor can you have any other proof.

You are yourself, you know yourself, you love yourself.

Whatever the mind does, it does for the love of its own self.

The very nature of the self is love.

As waves they come and go.

As ocean they are infinite and eternal.

Know yourself as the ocean of being, the womb of all existence.

These are all metaphors of course; the reality is beyond description.

You can know it only by being it.

Be sure your attitude is of pure goodwill, free of expectation of any kind.

Those who seek mere happiness may end up in sublime indifference, while love will never rest.

As to method, there is only one -- you must come to know yourself -- both what you appear to be and what you are.

Clarity and charity go together -- each needs and strengthens the other.

Q: Compassion implies the existence of an objective world, full of avoidable sorrow.

M: You assert yourself to be what you are not and deny yourself to be what you are.

You omit the element of pure cognition, of awareness free from all personal distortions.

Unless you admit the reality of chit, you will never know yourself.

Q: What am I to do?

I do not see myself as you see me.

Q: So there is no way to gain detachment?

M: There is nothing to gain.

Abandon all imaginings and know yourself as you are.

Self-knowledge is detachment.

All craving is due to a sense of insufficiency.

Q: To know myself must I practise awareness?

M: There is nothing to practise.

To know yourself, be yourself.

To be yourself, stop imagining yourself to be this or that.

Just be.

Are you hungry and thirsty as I am, waiting rather impatiently for the meals to be served, or are you in an altogether different state of mind?

Maharaj: There is not much difference on the surface, but very much of it in depth.

You know yourself only through the senses and the mind.

You take yourself to be what they suggest; having no direct knowledge of yourself, you have mere ideas; all mediocre, second-hand, by hearsay.

Whatever you think you are you take it to be true; the habit of imagining yourself perceivable and describable is very strong with you.

M: As an exercise in concentration -- yes.

But it will not take you beyond the idea of a table.

You are not interested in tables, you want to know yourself.

For this keep steadily in the focus of consciousness the only clue you have: your certainty of being.

Be with it, play with it, ponder over it, delve deeply into it, till the shell of ignorance breaks open and you emerge into the realm of reality.

The idea: 'I-am-not-the-body' is merely an antidote to the idea 'I-am-the-body' which is false.

What is that 'I am'?

Unless you know yourself, what else can you know?

Q: From what you say I conclude that without the body there can be no liberation.

If the idea: 'I-am- not-the-body' leads to liberation, the presence of the body is essential.

Pleasure puts you to sleep and pain wakes you up.

If you do not want to suffer, don't go to sleep.

You cannot know yourself through bliss alone, for bliss is your very nature.

You must face the opposite, what you are not, to find enlightenment.

65: A Quiet Mind is All You Need.

Q: If my true being is always with me, how is it that I am ignorant of it?

M: Because it is very subtle and your mind is gross, full of gross thoughts and feelings.

Calm and clarify your mind and you will know yourself as you are.

Q: Do I need the mind to know myself?

M: You are beyond the mind, but you know with your mind.

Be.

No climbing mountains and sitting in caves.

I do not even say: 'be yourself', since you do not know yourself.

Just be.

Having seen that you are neither the 'outer' world of perceivables, nor the 'inner' world of thinkables, that you are neither body nor mind -- just be.

Unperceived, the manifested is as good as the unmanifested.

And you are the perceiving point, the non-dimensional source of all dimensions.

Know yourself as the total.

Q: How can a point contain a universe?

M: There is enough space in a point for an infinity of universes.

An inference to you, but not to myself.

I know myself by being myself.

As you know yourself to be a man by being one.

You do not keep on reminding yourself that you are a man.

It is only when your humanity is questioned that you assert it.

Q: How can you say I have made the world?

I hardly know it.

M: There is nothing in the world that you cannot know, when you know yourself.

Thinking yourself to be the body you know the world as a collection of material things.

When you know yourself as a centre of consciousness, the world appears as the ocean of the mind.

M: There is nothing in the world that you cannot know, when you know yourself.

Thinking yourself to be the body you know the world as a collection of material things.

When you know yourself as a centre of consciousness, the world appears as the ocean of the mind.

When you know yourself as you are in reality, you know the world as yourself.

Q: It all sounds very beautiful, but does not answer my question.

Thinking yourself to be the body you know the world as a collection of material things.

When you know yourself as a centre of consciousness, the world appears as the ocean of the mind.

When you know yourself as you are in reality, you know the world as yourself.

Q: It all sounds very beautiful, but does not answer my question.

Why is there so much suffering in the world?

The unlimited is already perfect.

You are perfect, only you don't know it.

Learn to know yourself and you will discover wonders.

All you need is already within you, only you must approach your self with reverence and love.

Self- condemnation and self-distrust are grievous errors.

Appearances are deceptive.

To see clearly, your mind must be pure and unattached.

Unless you know yourself well, how can you know another?

And when you know yourself -- you are the other.

Leave others alone for some time and examine yourself.

To see clearly, your mind must be pure and unattached.

Unless you know yourself well, how can you know another?

And when you know yourself -- you are the other.

Leave others alone for some time and examine yourself.

There are so many things you do not know about yourself -- what are you, who are you, how did you come to be born, what are you doing now and why, where are you going, what is the meaning and purpose of your life, your death, your future?

You are so small that nothing can pin you down.

It is your mind that gets caught, not you.

Know yourself as you are -- a mere point in consciousness, dimensionless and timeless.

You are like the point of the pencil -- by mere contact with you the mind draws its picture of the world.

You are single and simple -- the picture is complex and extensive.

You are single and simple -- the picture is complex and extensive.

Don't be misled by the picture -- remain aware of the tiny point -- which is everywhere in the picture.

What is, can cease to be; what is not, can come to be; but what neither is nor is not, but on which being and non-being depend, is unassailable; know yourself to be the cause of desire and fear, itself free from both.

Q: How am I the cause of fear?

M: All depends on you.

Q: Somehow I do not like the idea of dying.

M: It is because you are so young.

The more you know yourself the less you are afraid.

Of course, the agony of dying is never pleasant to look at, but the dying man is rarely conscious.

Q: Does he return to consciousness?

Any two of them presuppose the third which unites the two.

In sadhana you see the three as two, until you realise the two as one.

A long as you are engrossed in the world, you are unable to know yourself: to know yourself, turn away your attention from the world and turn it within.

Q: I cannot destroy the world.

M: There is no need.

This sense of unfulfillment keeps on growing as years pass by.

Maharaj: As long as there is the body and the sense of identity with the body, frustration is inevitable.

Only when you know yourself as entirely alien to and different from the body, will you find respite from the mixture of fear and craving inseparable from the 'I-am-the-body' idea.

Merely assuaging fears and satisfying desires will not remove this sense of emptiness you are trying to escape from; only self-knowledge can help you.

By self-knowledge I mean full knowledge of what you are not.

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.

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.

A personal problem cannot be solved on its own level.

Q: When we are in trouble, we are bound to be unhappy.

M: Fear is the only trouble.

Know yourself as independent and you will be free from fear and its shadows.

Q: What is the difference between happiness and pleasure?

M: Pleasure depends on things, happiness does not.

Surely, this is the most urgent task.

You cannot see yourself as independent of everything unless you drop everything and remain unsupported and undefined.

Once you know yourself, it is immaterial what you do, but to realise your independence, you must test it by letting go all you were dependent on.

The realised man lives on the level of the absolutes; his wisdom, love and courage are complete, there is nothing relative about him.

Therefore he must prove himself by tests more stringent, undergo trials more demanding.

In reality there is neither Guru nor disciple, neither theory nor practice, neither ignorance nor realisation.

It all depends on what you take yourself to be.

Know yourself correctly.

There is no substitute to self-knowledge.

Q: What proof will I have that I know myself correctly?

M: Well, words do not matter, nor does it matter in what shape you are just now.

Names and shapes change incessantly.

Know yourself to be the changeless witness of the changeful mind.

That is enough.

98: Freedom from Self-identification.

M: For some time the mental habits may linger in spite of the new vision, the habit of longing for the known past and fearing the unknown future.

When you know these are of the mind only, you can go beyond them.

As long as you have all sorts of ideas about yourself, you know yourself through the mist of these ideas; to know yourself as you are, give up all ideas.

You cannot imagine the taste of pure water, you can only discover it by abandoning all flavourings.

As long as you are interested in your present way of living, you will not abandon it.

'Ask and you shall be given' is the eternal law.

So many words you have learnt, so many you have spoken.

You know everything, but you do not know yourself.

For the self is not known through words -- only direct insight will reveal it.

Look within, search within.

This is easy because the sense 'I am' is always with you.

Then meet yourself as the knower, apart from the known.

Once you know yourself as pure being, the ecstasy of freedom is your own.

Q: Which Yoga is this?

M: Why worry?

In reality there is neither Guru nor disciple, neither theory nor practice, neither ignorance nor realisation.

It all depends on what you take yourself to be.

Know yourself correctly.

There is no substitute to self-knowledge.

Q: What proof will I have that I know myself correctly?

M: Within the prison of your world appears a man who tells you that the world of painful contradictions, which you have created, is neither continuous nor permanent and is based on a misapprehension.

He pleads with you to get out of it, by the same way by which you got into it.

You got into it by forgetting what you are and you will get out of it by knowing yourself as you are.

Q: In what way does it affect the world?

M: When you are free of the world, you can do something about it.

Both anatomy and astronomy describe you.

Q: Even If I accept your doctrine of the universal body as a working theory, in what way can I test it and of what use is it to me?

M: Knowing yourself as the dweller in both the bodies you will disown nothing.

All the universe will be your concern; every living thing you will love and help most tenderly and wisely.

There will be no clash of interests between you and others.

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.

Deprived of attention, it will slow down and reveal the mechanism of its working.

M: The talk is in your world.

In mine -- there is eternal silence.

My silence sings, my emptiness is full, I lack nothing.

You cannot know my world until you are there.

Q: It seems as if you alone are in your world.

But I trusted my Guru and he proved right.

Trust me, if you can.

Keep in mind what I tell you: desire nothing, for you lack nothing.

The very seeking prevents you from finding.

Q: You seem to be so very indifferent to everything!

Self-knowledge is detachment.

All craving is due to a sense of insufficiency.

When you know that you lack nothing, that all there is, is you and yours, desire ceases.

Q: To know myself must I practise awareness?

M: There is nothing to practise.

M: The unexpected and unpredictable is real.

16: Desirelessness, the Highest Bliss.

Questioner: I have met many realised people, but never a liberated man.

Have you come across a liberated man, or does liberation mean, among other things, also abandoning the body?

Maharaj: What do you mean by realisation and liberation?

16: Desirelessness, the Highest Bliss.

Questioner: I have met many realised people, but never a liberated man.

Have you come across a liberated man, or does liberation mean, among other things, also abandoning the body?

Maharaj: What do you mean by realisation and liberation?

Q: By realisation I mean a wonderful experience of peace, goodness and beauty, when the world makes sense and there is an all-pervading unity of both substance and essence.

He will always behave in an exemplary way.

M: Who sets the example?

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.

Without trust there is no peace.

Somebody or other you always trust -- it may be your mother, or your wife.

Of all the people the knower of the self, the liberated man, is the most trust-worthy.

But merely to trust is not enough.

You must also desire.

They explain, but do not justify.

M: I never meant to say that lawlessness follows self-realisation.

A liberated man is extremely law- abiding.

But his laws are the laws of his real self, not of his society.

These he observes, or breaks according to circumstances and necessity.

38: Spiritual Practice is Will Asserted and Re-asserted.

Questioner: The Westerners who occasionally come to see you are faced with a peculiar difficulty.

The very notion of a liberated man, a realised man, a self-knower, a God-knower, a man beyond the world, is unknown to them.

All they have in their Christian culture is the idea of a saint: a pious man, law-abiding, God-fearing, fellow-loving, prayerful, sometimes prone to ecstasies and confirmed by a few miracles.

The very idea of a jnani is foreign to Western culture, something exotic and rather unbelievable.

M: Probably we would feel quite happy.

We may even exchange a few words.

Q: But would he recognise you as a liberated man?

M: Of course.

As a man recognises a man, so a jnani recognises a jnani.

The life of which it is an expression will guide it.

Once you realise that the person is merely a shadow of the reality, but not reality itself, you cease to fret and worry.

You agree to be guided from within and life becomes a journey into the unknown.

13: The Supreme, the Mind and the Body.

Questioner: From what you told us it appears that you are not quite conscious of your surroundings.

The relinquishing of the lesser is the gaining of the greater.

Give up all and you gain all.

Then life becomes what it was meant to be: pure radiation from an inexhaustible source.

In that light the world appears dimly like a dream.

Q: If my world is merely a dream and you are a part of it, what can you do for me?

M: When the mind is kept away from its preoccupations, it becomes quiet.

If you do not disturb this quiet and stay in it, you find that it is permeated with a light and a love you have never known; and yet you recognise it at once as your own nature.

Once you have passed through this experience, you will never be the same man again; the unruly mind may break its peace and obliterate its vision; but it is bound to return, provided the effort is sustained; until the day when all bonds are broken, delusions and attachments end and life becomes supremely concentrated in the present.

Q: What difference does it make?

M: The mind is no more.

And you will be concerned as long as the picture clashes with your own sense of truth, love and beauty.

The desire for harmony and peace is in eradicable.

But once it is fulfilled, the concern ceases and physical life becomes effortless and below the level of attention.

Then, even in the body you are not born.

To be embodied or bodyless is the same to you.

Q: It is restless, greedy of the pleasant and afraid of the unpleasant.

M: What is wrong with its seeking the pleasant and shirking the unpleasant?

Between the banks of pain and pleasure the river of life flows.

It is only when the mind refuses to flow with life, and gets stuck at the banks, that it becomes a problem.

By flowing with life I mean acceptance -- letting come what comes and go what goes.

Your love of others is the result of self-knowledge, not its cause.

Without self-realisation, no virtue is genuine.

When you know beyond all doubting that the same life flows through all that is and you are that life, you will love all naturally and spontaneously.

When you realise the depth and fullness of your love of yourself, you know that every living being and the entire universe are included in your affection.

But when you look at anything as separate from you, you cannot love it for you are afraid of it.

I call this capacity of entering other focal points of consciousness -- love; you may give it any name you like.

Love says: 'I am everything'.

Wisdom says: 'I am nothing' Between the two my life flows.

Since at any point of time and space I can be both the subject and the object of experience, I express it by saying that I am both, and neither, and beyond both.

Q: You make all these extraordinary statements about yourself.

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.

Q: Is not life by its very nature repetitive?

Will not following life lead to stagnation?

Q: What is the source of consciousness?

M: Consciousness itself is the source of everything.

Q: Can there be life without consciousness?

M: No, nor consciousness without life.

They are both one.

You need no other guide.

As long as your urge for truth affects your daily life, all is well with you.

Live your life without hurting anybody.

Harmlessness is a most powerful form of Yoga and it will take you speedily to your goal.

This is what I call nisarga yoga, the Natural yoga.

And confidence will come with experience.

Q: How strange!

I cannot imagine life without a Guru.

M: It is a matter of temperament.

You too are right.

M: Life lives on life.

In nature the process is compulsory, in society it should be voluntary.

There can be no life without sacrifice.

A sinner refuses to sacrifice and invites death.

This is as it is, and gives no cause for condemnation or pity.

It is only your mind that prevents self-knowledge.

Q: How am I to be rid of the mind?

And is life without mind at all possible on the human level?

M: There is no such thing as mind.

There are ideas and some of them are wrong.

I AM THAT.

Dialogues of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

That in whom reside all beings and who resides in all beings, who is the giver of grace to all, the Supreme Soul of the universe, the limitless being - I am that.

Amritbindu Upanishad.

That which permeates all, which nothing transcends and which, like the universal space around us, fills everything completely from within and without, that Supreme non-dual Brahman -- that thou art - Sankaracharya.

Discover all that you are not -- body, feelings thoughts, time, space, this or that -- nothing, concrete or abstract, which you perceive can be you.

The very act of perceiving shows that you are not what you perceive.

The clearer you understand on the level of mind you can be described in negative terms only, the quicker will you come to the end of your search and realise that you are the limitless being.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Foreword.

Separate consistently and perseveringly the 'I am' from 'this' or 'that', and try to feel what it means to be, just to be, without being 'this' or 'that'.

All our habits go against it and the task of fighting them is long and hard sometimes, but clear understanding helps a lot.

The clearer you understand that on the level of the mind you can be described in negative terms only, the quicker you will come to the end of your search and realise your limitless being.

19: Reality lies in Objectivity.

Questioner: I am a painter and I earn by painting pictures.

Q: Does not a jnani feel sorrow when his child dies, does he not suffer?

M: He suffers with those who suffer.

The event itself is of little importance, but he is full of compassion for the suffering being, whether alive or dead, in the body or out of it.

After all, love and compassion are his very nature.

He is one with all that lives and love is that oneness in action.

M: No reaction.

As it is natural for the incense stick to burn out, so it is natural for the body to die.

Really, it is a matter of very little importance.

What matters is that I am neither the body nor the mind.

I am.

No rich Ashram was ever built around him and most of his followers are humble working people cherishing the opportunity of spending an hour with him from time to time.

Simplicity and humility are the keynotes of his life and teachings; physically and inwardly he never takes the higher seat; the essence of being on which he talks, he sees in others as clearly as he sees it in himself.

He admits that while he is aware of it, others are not yet, but this difference is temporary and of little importance, except to the mind and its ever-changing content.

When asked about his Yoga, he says he has none to offer, no system t propound, no theology, cosmology, psychology or philosophy.

He knows the real nature -- his own and his listeners' -- and he points it out.

If you have not learnt, repeat.

Q: What am I to learn?

M: To live without self-concern.

For this you must know your own true being (swarupa) as indomitable, fearless, ever victorious.

Once you know with absolute certainty that nothing can trouble you but your own imagination, you come to disregard your desires and fears, concepts and ideas and live by truth alone.

Here and there you may forget, it does not matter.

Go back to your attempts till the brushing away of every desire and fear, of every reaction becomes automatic.

Q: How can one live without emotions?

M: You can have all the emotions you want, but beware of reactions, of induced emotions.

Be entirely self-determined and ruled from within, not from without.

And action is the touchstone of reality.

Q: Even when we act without conviction?

M: You cannot live without action, and behind each action there is some fear or desire.

Ultimately, all you do is based on your conviction that the world is real and independent of yourself.

Were you convinced of the contrary, your behaviour would have been quite different.

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

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

All has its being in me, in the 'I am', that shines in every living being.

Even not- being is unthinkable without me.

Whatever happens, I must be there to witness it.

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

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

Q: Buddha too has said that for the attainment of nirvana one must go to living beings.

Consciousness needs life to grow.

M: The world itself is contact -- the totality of all contacts actualised in consciousness.

M: Do you need to work?

Q: I need it for the sake of money.

I like it, because it puts me in touch with living beings.

M: What do you need them for?

Q: They may need me and it is their destinies that made me take up this work.

It is the testing of the theory that makes it fruitful.

Experiment with any theory you like -- if you are truly earnest and honest, the attainment of reality will be yours.

As a living being you are caught in an untenable and painful situation and you are seeking a way out.

You are being offered several plans of your prison, none quite true.

But they all are of some value, only if you are in dead earnest.

M: Only when the alternative is worse than death.

But such readiness to die flows from the same source as the will to live, a source deeper even than life itself.

To be a living being is not the ultimate state; there is something beyond, much more wonderful, which is neither being nor non- being, neither living nor notliving.

It is a state of pure awareness, beyond the limitations of space and time.

Once the illusion that the body-mind is oneself is abandoned, death loses its terror, it becomes a part of living.

Without self-realisation, no virtue is genuine.

When you know beyond all doubting that the same life flows through all that is and you are that life, you will love all naturally and spontaneously.

When you realise the depth and fullness of your love of yourself, you know that every living being and the entire universe are included in your affection.

But when you look at anything as separate from you, you cannot love it for you are afraid of it.

Alienation causes fear and fear deepens alienation.

In that sense the entire universe becomes a school of Yoga (yogakshetra).

Q: Is perfection the destiny of all human beings?

M: Of all living beings -- ultimately.

The possibility becomes a certainty when the notion of enlightenment appears in the mind.

Once a living being has heard and understood that deliverance is within his reach, he will never forget, for it is the first message from within.

M: Of all living beings -- ultimately.

The possibility becomes a certainty when the notion of enlightenment appears in the mind.

Once a living being has heard and understood that deliverance is within his reach, he will never forget, for it is the first message from within.

It will take roots and grow and in due course take the blessed shape of the Guru.

Q: So all we are concerned with is the redemption of the mind?

What is the power that creates order out of chaos?

Living is more than being, and consciousness is more than living.

Who is the conscious living being?

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.

Living is more than being, and consciousness is more than living.

Who is the conscious living being?

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.

Are you too unhappy?

M: I have no personal problems.

But the world is full of living beings whose lives are squeezed between fear and craving.

They are like cattle driven to the slaughter house, jumping and frisking, carefree and happy, yet dead and skinned within an hour.

You say you are happy.

Q: In spite of being a very bad man?

M: I know no bad people, I only know myself.

I see no saints nor sinners, only living beings.

I do not hand out grace.

There is nothing I can give, or deny, which you do not have already in equal measure.

Sorrow, shunned so far, will pursue you.

If you want to be beyond suffering, you must meet it half way and embrace it.

Relinquish your habits and addictions, live a simple and sober life, don't hurt a living being; this is the foundation of Yoga.

To find reality you must be real in the smallest daily action; there can be no deceit in the search for truth.

You say you find your life enjoyable.

Q: You see love everywhere, while I see hatred and suffering.

The history of humanity is the history of murder, individual and collective.

No other living being so delights in killing.

M: If you go into the motives, you will find love, love of oneself and of one's own.

People fight for what they imagine they love.

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

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

Q: Buddha too has said that for the attainment of nirvana one must go to living beings.

Consciousness needs life to grow.

M: The world itself is contact -- the totality of all contacts actualised in consciousness.

M: Do you need to work?

Q: I need it for the sake of money.

I like it, because it puts me in touch with living beings.

M: What do you need them for?

Q: They may need me and it is their destinies that made me take up this work.

In that sense the entire universe becomes a school of Yoga (yogakshetra).

Q: Is perfection the destiny of all human beings?

M: Of all living beings -- ultimately.

The possibility becomes a certainty when the notion of enlightenment appears in the mind.

Once a living being has heard and understood that deliverance is within his reach, he will never forget, for it is the first message from within.

Are you too unhappy?

M: I have no personal problems.

But the world is full of living beings whose lives are squeezed between fear and craving.

They are like cattle driven to the slaughter house, jumping and frisking, carefree and happy, yet dead and skinned within an hour.

You say you are happy.

Q: In spite of being a very bad man?

M: I know no bad people, I only know myself.

I see no saints nor sinners, only living beings.

I do not hand out grace.

There is nothing I can give, or deny, which you do not have already in equal measure.

M: My destiny was to be born a simple man, a commoner, a humble tradesman, with little of formal education.

My life was the common kind, with common desires and fears.

When, through my faith in my teacher and obedience to his words, I realised my true being, I left behind my human nature to look after itself, until its destiny is exhausted.

Occasionally an old reaction, emotional or mental, happens in the mind, but it is at once noticed and discarded.

After all, as long as one is burdened with a person, one is exposed to its idiosyncrasies and habits.

I want to live a good life, a holy life.

What am I to do?

M: Go home, take charge of your father's business, look after your parents in their old age.

Marry the girl who is waiting for you, be loyal, be simple, be humble.

Hide your virtue, live silently.

I do not issue orders to consciousness.

I know that it is in the nature of awareness to set things right.

Let consciousness look after its creations!

The boy's sorrow, your pity, my listening and consciousness acting -- all this is one single fact -- don't split it into components and then ask questions.

Q: How strangely does your mind work?

Cross over to my side and see with me.

Q: What I want to say is very simple.

As long as I believe: 'I am the body', I must not say: 'God will look after my body'.

God will not.

He will let it starve, sicken and die.

Don't confuse me with the body.

I have no work to do, no duties to perform.

That part of me which you may call God will look after the world.

This world of yours, that so much needs looking after, lives and moves in your mind.

Delve into it, you will find your answers there and there only.

Watch it intently and you will see how the mind assumes innumerable names and shapes, like a river foaming between the boulders.

Trace every action to its selfish motive and look at the motive intently till it dissolves.

Q: To live, one must look after oneself, one must earn money for oneself.

M: You need not earn for yourself, but you may have to -- for a woman and a child.

You may have to keep on working for the sake of others.

You need not know all.

Enough to know what you need to know.

The rest can look after itself, without your knowing how it does it.

What is important is that your unconscious does not work against the conscious, that there is integration on all levels.

To know is not so very important.

M: God gives the body and the mind and the Guru shows the way to use them.

But returning to the source is your own task.

Q: God has created me, he will look after me.

M: There are innumerable gods, each in his own universe.

They create and re-create eternally.

M: The person, being a creature of circumstances, necessarily changes along with them, like the flame that changes with the fuel.

Only the process goes on and on, creating time and space.

Q: Well, God will look after me.

I can leave everything to Him.

M: Even faith in God is only a stage on the way.

Is it inevitable?

M: The least you can expect is an endless succession of visitors who will make your abode into a free and open guesthouse.

Better accept your life as it shapes, go home and look after your wife with love and care.

Nobody else needs you.

Your dreams of glory will land you in more trouble.

M: Clarity and charity is action.

Love is not lazy and clarity directs.

You need not worry about action, look after your mind and heart.

Stupidity and selfishness are the only evil.

Q: What is better -- repetition of God's name, or meditation?

Q: The inner teacher is not easily reached.

M: Since he is in you and with you, the difficulty cannot be serious.

Look within, and you will find him.

Q: When I look within, I find sensations and perceptions, thoughts and feelings, desires and fears, memories and expectations.

I am immersed in this cloud and see nothing else.

M: Since he is in you and with you, the difficulty cannot be serious.

Look within, and you will find him.

Q: When I look within, I find sensations and perceptions, thoughts and feelings, desires and fears, memories and expectations.

I am immersed in this cloud and see nothing else.

M: That which sees all this, and the nothing too, is the inner teacher.

M: See what you are.

Don't ask others, don't let others tell you about yourself.

Look within and see.

All the teacher can tell you is only this.

There is no need of going from one to another.

Does one need to abandon one's profession and one's social standing in order to find reality?

M: Do your work.

When you have a moment free, look within.

What is important is not to miss the opportunity when it presents itself.

If you are earnest you will use your leisure fully.

You are that tiny point and by your movement the world is ever re- created.

Stop moving, and there will be no world.

Look within and you will find that the point of light is the reflection of the immensity of light in the body, as the sense 'I am'.

There is only light, all else appears.

Q: Do you know that light?

Q: Where do I find such courage?

M: In yourself, of course.

Look within.

All you need you have.

Use it.

Only what is your own at the start will remain your own in the end.

Accept no guidance but from within, and even then sift out all memories for they will mislead you.

Even if you are quite ignorant of the ways and the means, keep quiet and look within; guidance is sure to come.

You are never left without knowing what your next step should be.

The trouble is that you may shirk it.

You know everything, but you do not know yourself.

For the self is not known through words -- only direct insight will reveal it.

Look within, search within.

Q: It is very difficult to abandon words.

Our mental life is one continuous stream of words.

You know so many things about yourself, but the knower you do not know.

Find out who you are, the knower of the known.

Look within diligently, remember to remember that the perceived cannot be the perceiver.

Whatever you see, hear or think of, remember -- you are not what happens, you are he to whom it happens.

Delve deeply into the sense 'I am' and you will surely discover that the perceiving centre is universal, as universal as the light that illumines the world.

M: When you are hurt, you cry.

Why?

Because you love yourself.

Don't bottle up your love by limiting it to the body, keep it open.

It will be then the love for all.

M: You yourself are the proof.

You have not, nor can you have any other proof.

You are yourself, you know yourself, you love yourself.

Whatever the mind does, it does for the love of its own self.

The very nature of the self is love.

M: When you are hurt, you cry.

Why?

Because you love yourself.

Don't bottle up your love by limiting it to the body, keep it open.

It will be then the love for all.

Why?

Because you love yourself.

By all means love yourself -- wisely.

What is wrong is to love yourself stupidly, so as to make yourself suffer.

Love yourself wisely.

Because you love yourself.

By all means love yourself -- wisely.

What is wrong is to love yourself stupidly, so as to make yourself suffer.

Love yourself wisely.

Both indulgence and austerity have the same purpose in view -- to make you happy.

By all means love yourself -- wisely.

What is wrong is to love yourself stupidly, so as to make yourself suffer.

Love yourself wisely.

Both indulgence and austerity have the same purpose in view -- to make you happy.

Indulgence is the stupid way, austerity is the wise way.

You are asking because you are not sure of yourself.

And you are not sure of yourself because you never paid attention to yourself, only to your experiences.

Be interested in yourself beyond all experience, be with yourself, love yourself; the ultimate security is found only in self-knowledge.

The main thing is earnestness.

Be honest with yourself and nothing will betray you.

Have faith and act on it.

Please see that I want nothing from you.

It is in your own interest that l speak, because above all you love yourself, you want yourself secure and happy.

Don't be ashamed of it, don't deny it.

It is natural and good to love oneself.

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.

Then live and work disregarding illness and think no more of it.

With the removal of causes the effect is bound to depart.

Man becomes what he believes himself to be.

Abandon all ideas about yourself and you will find yourself to be the pure witness, beyond all that can happen to the body or the mind.

Q: If I become anything I think myself to be, and I start thinking that I am the Supreme Reality, will not my Supreme Reality remain a mere idea?

Play, for example, is natural and man is the most playful animal in existence.

Play fulfils the need for self-discovery and self-development.

But even on his play man becomes destructive of nature, others and himself.

Maharaj: In short, you do not object to pleasure, but only to its price in pain and sorrow.

Q: If reality itself is bliss, then pleasure in some way must be related to it.

He is also aware of his body being crippled and his mind being deprived of a range of sensory perceptions.

But he is not affected by the availability of eyesight, nor by its absence.

Q: My question is more specific; when a blind man becomes a jnani will his eyesight be restored to him or not?

M: Unless his eyes and brain undergo a renovation, how can he see?

Q: But will they undergo a renovation?

M: How can they?

One enslaves, the other liberates.

The motive matters supremely.

Freedom comes through renunciation.

All possession is bondage.

M: I am always available, but the hours in the morning and late afternoon are the most convenient.

Q: I understand that no work ranks higher than the work of a spiritual teacher.

M: The motive matters supremely.

90: Surrender to Your Own Self.

Questioner: I was born in the United States, and the last fourteen months I have spent in Sri Ramanashram; now I am on my way back to the States where my mother is expecting me.

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.

Liberation is never of the person, it is always from the person.

Q: And no trace remains of the person?

M: A vague memory remains, like the memory of a dream, or early childhood.

After all, what is there to remember?

A flow of events, mostly accidental and meaningless.

Q: I am mortally afraid of samadhis and other trances, whatever their cause.

A drink, a smoke, a fever, a drug, breathing, singing, shaking, dancing, whirling, praying, sex or fasting, mantras or some vertiginous abstraction can dislodge me from my waking state and give me some experience, extraordinary because unfamiliar.

But when the cause ceases, the effect dissolves and only a memory remains, haunting but fading.

Let us give up all means and their results, for the results are bound by the means; let us put the question anew; can truth be found?

M: Where is the dwelling place of truth where you could go in search of it?

Find the true meaning of these words and you will be free of all bondage.

You have a mind which is spread in time.

One after another all things happen to you and the memory remains.

There is nothing wrong in it.

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.

I do not feel myself to be in control of such states.

M: The body is a material thing and needs time to change.

The mind is but a set of mental habits, of ways of thinking and feeling, and to change they must be brought to the surface and examined.

This also takes time.

Just resolve and persevere, the rest will take care of itself.

M: The absolute precedes time.

Awareness comes first.

A bundle of memories and mental habits attracts attention, awareness gets focalised and a person suddenly appears.

Remove the light of awareness, go to sleep or swoon away -- and the person disappears.

The person (vyakti) flickers, awareness (vyakta) contains all space and time, the absolute (avyakta) is.

M: Watch in what state you are, from what level you talk.

If you talk from the mind, you may be wrong.

If you talk from full insight into the situation, with your own mental habits in abeyance your advice may be a true response.

The main point is to be fully aware that neither you nor the man in front of you are mere bodies; If your awareness is clear and full.

a mistake is less probable.

You must know your inner worth and trust it and express it in the daily sacrifice of desire and fear.

Q: If I know myself, shall I not desire and fear?

M: For some time the mental habits may linger in spite of the new vision, the habit of longing for the known past and fearing the unknown future.

When you know these are of the mind only, you can go beyond them.

As long as you have all sorts of ideas about yourself, you know yourself through the mist of these ideas; to know yourself as you are, give up all ideas.

M: Who identifies them?

Somebody with a memory to register and compare.

Don't you see that memory is the warp of your mental life.

And identity is merely a pattern of events in time and space.

Change the pattern and you have changed the man.

M: The fact of pain is easily brought within the focus of awareness.

With suffering it is not that simple.

To focus suffering is not enough, for mental life, as we know it, is one continuous stream of suffering.

To reach the deeper layers of suffering you must go to its roots and uncover their vast underground network, where fear and desire are closely interwoven and the currents of life's energy oppose, obstruct and destroy each other.

Q: How can I set right a tangle which is entirely below the level of my consciousness?

Look within, search within.

Q: It is very difficult to abandon words.

Our mental life is one continuous stream of words.

M: It is not a matter of easy, or difficult.

You have no alternative.

Whatever I want to see, I can see.

But why should I invent patterns of creation, evolution and destruction?

I do not need them and have no desire to lock up the world in a mental picture.

Q: Coming back to sleep.

Do you dream?

The person cannot be said to exist on its own rights; it is the self that believes there is a person and is conscious of being it.

Beyond the self (vyakta) lies the unmanifested (avyakta), the causeless cause of everything.

Even to talk of re-uniting the person with the self is not right, because there is no person, only a mental picture given a false reality by conviction.

Nothing was divided and there is nothing to unite.

Q: Yoga helps in the search for and the finding of the self.

I see the world through the window, not in the window.

All you say holds well together because of the common foundation, but I do not know whether your foundation is in reality, or only in the mind.

I can have only a mental picture of it.

What it means to you I do not know.

M: As long as you take your stand in the mind, you will see me in the mind.

Q: The other mind -- where to look for it?

M: In the going beyond the limiting, dividing and opposing mind.

In ending the mental process as we know it.

When this comes to an end, that mind is born.

Q: In that mind, the problem of joy and sorrow exist no longer?

M: I am not asking you to commit suicide.

Nor can you.

You can only kill the body, you cannot stop the mental process, nor can you put an end to the person you think you are.

Just remain unaffected.

This complete aloofness, unconcern with mind and body is the best proof that at the core of your being you are neither mind nor body.

I am in a more real state than yours.

I am undistracted by the distinctions and separations which constitute a person.

As long as the body lasts, it has its needs like any other, but my mental process has come to an end.

Q: You behave like a person who thinks.

M: Why not?

Q: An opening is just void, absence.

M: Quite so.

From the mind's point of view, it is but an opening for the light of awareness to enter the mental space.

By itself the light can only be compared to a solid, dense, rocklike, homogeneous and changeless mass of pure awareness, free from the mental patterns of name and shape.

Q: Is there any connection between the mental space and the supreme abode?

From the mind's point of view, it is but an opening for the light of awareness to enter the mental space.

By itself the light can only be compared to a solid, dense, rocklike, homogeneous and changeless mass of pure awareness, free from the mental patterns of name and shape.

Q: Is there any connection between the mental space and the supreme abode?

M: The supreme gives existence to the mind.

The mind gives existence to the body.

How are they related to person, witness, and the absolute?

Maharaj: Mahadakash is nature, the ocean of existences, the physical space with all that can be contacted through the senses.

Chidakash is the expanse of awareness, the mental space of time, perception and cognition.

Paramakash is the timeless and spaceless reality, mindless, undifferentiated, the infinite potentiality, the source and origin, the substance and the essence, both matter and consciousness -- yet beyond both.

It cannot be perceived, but can be experienced as ever witnessing the witness, perceiving the perceiver, the origin and the end of all manifestation, the root of time and space, the prime cause in every chain of causation.

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.

There is a difference in feeling when we say 'I was deeply asleep' from 'I was absent'.

Q: We shall repeat the question we began with: between life's source and life's expression (which is the body), there is the mind and its ever-changeful states.

The stream of mental states is endless, meaningless and painful.

Pain is the constant factor.

What we call pleasure is but a gap, an interval between two painful states.

Let me make my terms clear: by being asleep I mean unconscious, by being awake I mean conscious, by dreaming I mean conscious of one's mind, but not of the surroundings.

M: Well, it is about the same with me, Yet, there seems to be a difference.

In each state you forget the other two, while to me, there is but one state of being, including and transcending the three mental states of waking, dreaming and sleeping.

Q: Do you see in the world a direction and a purpose?

M: The world is but a reflection of my imagination.

But your attention is fixed on things, physical or mental.

When your attention is off a thing and not yet fixed on another, in the interval you are pure being.

When through the practice of discrimination and detachment (viveka-vairagya), you lose sight of sensory and mental states, pure being emerges as the natural state.

Q: How does one bring to an end this sense of separateness?

M: By focussing the mind on 'I am', on the sense of being, 'I am so-and-so' dissolves; "I am a witness only" remains and that too submerges in 'I am all'.

Q: What is the cause of self-forgetting?

M: There is no cause, because there is no forgetting.

Mental states succeed one another, and each obliterates the previous one.

Self-remembering is a mental state and self-forgetting is another.

They alternate like day and night.

M: There is no cause, because there is no forgetting.

Mental states succeed one another, and each obliterates the previous one.

Self-remembering is a mental state and self-forgetting is another.

They alternate like day and night.

Reality is beyond both.

Q: Is the conviction: 'I am That' false?

M: Of course.

Conviction is a mental state.

In 'That' there is no 'I am'.

With the sense 'I am' emerging, 'That' is obscured, as with the sun rising the stars are wiped out.

The habit of chasing pleasure and shunning pain is so ingrained in me, that all my good intentions, quite alive on the level of theory, find no roots in my day-to-day life.

To tell me that I am not honest does not help me, for I just do not know how to make myself honest.

M: You are neither honest nor dishonest -- giving names to mental states is good only for expressing your approval or disapproval.

The problem is not yours -- it is your mind's only.

Begin by disassociating yourself from your mind.

Q: Like beads on a string, events follow events -- for ever.

M: They are all strung on the basic idea: 'I am the body'.

But even this is a mental state and does not last.

It comes and goes like all other states.

The illusion of being the body-mind is there, only because it is not investigated.

Q: In my present state the 'I am the body' idea comes spontaneously, while the 'I am pure being' idea must be imposed on the mind as something true but not experienced.

M: Yes, sadhana (practice) consists in reminding oneself forcibly of one's pure 'being-ness', of not being anything in particular, nor a sum of particulars, not even the totality of all particulars, which make up a universe.

All exists in the mind, even the body is an integration in the mind of a vast number of sensory perceptions, each perception also a mental state.

If you say: 'I am the body', show it.

Q: Here it is.

M: It is all memory carried over into the now.

Q: I can be certain only of what is now.

Past and future, memory and imagination, these are mental states, but they are all I know and they are now.

You are telling me to abandon them.

How does one abandon the now?

M: You do not realise that your present waking state is one of ignorance.

Your question about the proof of truth is born from ignorance of reality.

You are contacting your sensory and mental states in consciousness, at the point of 'I am', while reality is not mediated, not contacted, not experienced.

You are taking duality so much for granted, that you do not even notice it, while to me variety and diversity do not create separation.

You imagine reality to stand apart from names and forms, while to me names and forms are the ever changing expressions of reality and not apart from it.

Q: I can see that the basic biological anxiety, the flight instinct, takes many shapes and distorts my thoughts and feelings.

But how did this anxiety come into being?

M: It is a mental state caused by the 'I-am-the-body' idea.

It can be removed by the contrary idea: 'I- am-not-the-body'.

Both the ideas are false, but one removes the other.

What makes the actual unique?

Obviously, it is your sense of being present.

In memory and anticipation there is a clear feeling that it is a mental state under observation, while in the actual the feeling is primarily of being present and aware.

Q: Yes I can see.

It is awareness that makes the difference between the actual and the remembered.

M: You are a creature of memories; at least you imagine yourself to be so.

I am entirely unimagined.

I am what I am, not identifiable with any physical or mental state.

Q: An accident would destroy your equanimity.

M: The strange fact is that it does not.

There is a difference in feeling when we say 'I was deeply asleep' from 'I was absent'.

Q: We shall repeat the question we began with: between life's source and life's expression (which is the body), there is the mind and its ever-changeful states.

The stream of mental states is endless, meaningless and painful.

Pain is the constant factor.

What we call pleasure is but a gap, an interval between two painful states.

Let me make my terms clear: by being asleep I mean unconscious, by being awake I mean conscious, by dreaming I mean conscious of one's mind, but not of the surroundings.

M: Well, it is about the same with me, Yet, there seems to be a difference.

In each state you forget the other two, while to me, there is but one state of being, including and transcending the three mental states of waking, dreaming and sleeping.

Q: Do you see in the world a direction and a purpose?

M: The world is but a reflection of my imagination.

But your attention is fixed on things, physical or mental.

When your attention is off a thing and not yet fixed on another, in the interval you are pure being.

When through the practice of discrimination and detachment (viveka-vairagya), you lose sight of sensory and mental states, pure being emerges as the natural state.

Q: How does one bring to an end this sense of separateness?

M: By focussing the mind on 'I am', on the sense of being, 'I am so-and-so' dissolves; "I am a witness only" remains and that too submerges in 'I am all'.

Q: What is the cause of self-forgetting?

M: There is no cause, because there is no forgetting.

Mental states succeed one another, and each obliterates the previous one.

Self-remembering is a mental state and self-forgetting is another.

They alternate like day and night.

The habit of chasing pleasure and shunning pain is so ingrained in me, that all my good intentions, quite alive on the level of theory, find no roots in my day-to-day life.

To tell me that I am not honest does not help me, for I just do not know how to make myself honest.

M: You are neither honest nor dishonest -- giving names to mental states is good only for expressing your approval or disapproval.

The problem is not yours -- it is your mind's only.

Begin by disassociating yourself from your mind.

M: It is all memory carried over into the now.

Q: I can be certain only of what is now.

Past and future, memory and imagination, these are mental states, but they are all I know and they are now.

You are telling me to abandon them.

How does one abandon the now?

M: You do not realise that your present waking state is one of ignorance.

Your question about the proof of truth is born from ignorance of reality.

You are contacting your sensory and mental states in consciousness, at the point of 'I am', while reality is not mediated, not contacted, not experienced.

You are taking duality so much for granted, that you do not even notice it, while to me variety and diversity do not create separation.

You imagine reality to stand apart from names and forms, while to me names and forms are the ever changing expressions of reality and not apart from it.

Q: The self you choose to call false is to me most distressingly real.

It is the only self I know.

What you call the real self is a mere concept, a way of speaking, a creature of the mind, an attractive ghost.

My daily self is not a beauty, I admit, but it is my own and only self.

You say I am, or have, another self.

What has a beginning must have an end.

Only the beginningless is endless.

Q: God may be a mere concept, a working theory.

A very useful concept all the same!

M: For this it must be free of inner contradictions, which is not the case.

Q: How strange!

Surely the doer comes before the deed.

M: It is the other way round; the deed is a fact, the doer a mere concept.

Your very language shows that while the deed is certain, the doer is dubious; shifting responsibility is a game peculiarly human.

Considering the endless list of factors required for anything to happen, one can only admit that everything is responsible for everything, however remote.

Just as every drop of the ocean carries the taste of the ocean, so does every moment carry the taste of eternity.

Definitions and descriptions have their place as useful incentives for further search, but you must go beyond them into what is undefinable and indescribable, except in negative terms.

After all, even universality and eternity are mere concepts, the opposites of being place and time- bound.

Reality is not a concept, nor the manifestation of a concept.

It has nothing to do with concepts.

Q: And you are the witness?

M: What does witness mean?

Mere knowledge.

It rained and now the rain is over.

I did not get wet.

Just as the shape of a gold ornament does not affect the gold, so does man's essence remain unaffected.

Where this sense of equality is lacking it means that reality had not been touched.

Mere knowledge is not enough; the knower must be known.

The Pandits and the Yogis may know many things, but of what use is mere knowledge when the self is not known?

It will be certainly misused.

Where this sense of equality is lacking it means that reality had not been touched.

Mere knowledge is not enough; the knower must be known.

The Pandits and the Yogis may know many things, but of what use is mere knowledge when the self is not known?

It will be certainly misused.

Without the knowledge of the knower there can be no peace.

M: Of course.

The gospel of self-realisation, once heard, will never be forgotten.

Like a seed left in the ground, it will wait for the right season and sprout and grow into a mighty tree.

41: Develop the Witness Attitude.

Questioner: What is the daily and hourly state of mind of a realised man?

Somehow, people do not trust the simple, the easy, the always available.

Why not give an honest trial to what I say?

It may look very small and insignificant, but it is like a seed that grows into a mighty tree.

Give yourself a chance!

Q: I see so many people sitting here -- quietly.

Into self-awareness all blessings flow.

Begin as a centre of observation, deliberate cognisance, and grow into a centre of love in action.

'I am' is a tiny seed which will grow into a mighty tree -- quite naturally, without a trace of effort.

Q: I see so much evil in myself.

Must I not change it?

Q: Yes, but what is the sadhana for achieving the natural state?

M: Hold on to the sense 'I am' to the exclusion of everything else.

When thus the mind becomes completely silent, it shines with a new light and vibrates with new knowledge.

It all comes spontaneously, you need only hold on to the 'I am'.

Just like emerging from sleep or a state of rapture you feel rested and yet you cannot explain why and how you come to feel so well, in the same way on realisation you feel complete, fulfilled, free from the pleasure-pain complex, and yet not always able to explain what happened, why and how.

I am like a little boy -- going up, going down, going up, going down.

M: All changes in consciousness are due to the 'I-am-the-body' idea.

Divested of this idea the mind becomes steady.

There is pure being, free of experiencing anything in particular.

But to realise it you must do what your teacher tells you.

You imagine that permanence is the proof of truth, that what lasts longer is somehow more true.

Time becomes the measure of truth.

And since time is in the mind, the mind becomes the arbiter and searches within itself for the proof of truth -- a task altogether impossible and hopeless!

Q: Sir, were you to say: Nothing is true, all is relative, I would agree with you.

But you maintain there is truth, reality, perfect knowledge, therefore I ask: What is it and how do you know?

But why be so concerned with me?

Give all your attention to the question: 'What is it that makes me conscious?

', until your mind becomes the question itself and cannot think of anything else.

Q: All and sundry are urging me to meditate.

I find no zest in meditation, but I am interested in many other things; some I want very much and my mind goes to them; my attempts at meditation are so half-hearted.

M: It may look and feel so in the beginning.

Persevere in such indifference and it will blossom into an all-pervading and all-embracing love.

Q: One has such moments when the mind becomes a flower and a flame, but they do not last and the life reverts to its daily greyness.

M: Discontinuity is the law, when you deal with the concrete: The continuous cannot be experienced, for it has no borders.

Consciousness implies alterations, change followings change, when one thing or state comes to an end and another begins; that which has no borderline cannot be experienced in the common meaning of the word.

M: The entire universe is your Guru.

You learn from everything, if you are alert and intelligent.

Were your mind clear and your heart clean, you would learn from every passer-by;.

It is because you are indolent or restless, that your inner Self manifests as the outer Guru and makes you trust him and obey.

Q: Is a Guru inevitable?

A quiet mind, undistorted by desires and fears, free from ideas and opinions, clear on all the levels, is needed to reflect the reality.

Be clear and quiet -- alert and detached, all else will happen by itself.

Q: You had to make your mind clear and quiet before you could realise the truth.

How did you do it?

M: I did nothing.

M: Earnestness, the sign of maturity.

Q: And how does maturity come about?

M: By keeping your mind clear and clean, by living your life in full awareness of every moment as it happens, by examining and dissolving one's desires and fears as soon as they arise.

Q: Is such concentration at all possible?

M: Try.

It is always there -- at the back of the words.

Shift your attention from words to silence and you will hear it.

The mind craves for experience, the memory of which it takes for knowledge.

The jnani is beyond all experience and his memory is empty of the past.

He is entirely unrelated to anything in particular.

The jnani is beyond all experience and his memory is empty of the past.

He is entirely unrelated to anything in particular.

But the mind craves for formulations and definitions, always eager to squeeze reality into a verbal shape.

Of everything it wants an idea, for without ideas the mind is not.

Reality is essentially alone, but the mind will not leave it alone -- and deals instead with the unreal.

The known, the changeable, is what you live with -- the unchangeable is of no use to you.

It is only when you are satiated with the changeable and long for the unchangeable, that you are ready for the turning round and stepping into what can be described, when seen from the level of the mind, as emptiness and darkness.

For the mind craves for content and variety, while reality is, to the mind, contentless and invariable.

Q: It looks like death to me.

M: It is.

Q: Between the spirit and the body, is it love that provides the bridge?

M: What else?

Mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it.

4: Real World is Beyond the Mind.

Questioner: On several occasions the question was raised as to whether the universe is subject to the law of causation, or does it exist and function outside the law.

To control yourself -- know yourself.

Q: Maybe, I can come to control myself, but shall I be able to deal with the chaos in the world?

M: There is no chaos in the world, except the chaos which your mind creates.

It is self-created in the sense that at its very centre is the false idea of oneself as a thing different and separate from other things.

In reality you are not a thing, nor separate.

All is of the mind and you are not the mind.

The mind is born and reborn, not you.

The mind creates the world and all the wonderful variety of it.

Just like in a good play you have all sorts of characters and situations, so you need a little of everything to make a world.

Q: Nobody suffers in a play.

What makes you say: I am here?

Verbal habits born from assumptions.

The mind creates time and space and takes its own creations for reality.

All is here and now, but we do not see it.

Truly, all is in me and by me.

In reality, there is no such thing.

Feelings, thoughts and actions race before the watcher in endless succession, leaving traces in the brain and creating an illusion of continuity.

A reflection of the watcher in the mind creates the sense of 'I' and the person acquires an apparently independent existence.

In reality there is no person, only the watcher identifying himself with the 'I' and the 'mine'.

The teacher tells the watcher: you are not this, there is nothing of yours in this, except the little point of 'I am', which is the bridge between the watcher and his dream.

Begin by disassociating yourself from your mind.

Resolutely remind yourself that you are not the mind and that its problems are not yours.

Q: I may go on telling myself: 'I am not the mind, I am not concerned with its problems,' but the mind remains and its problems remain just as they were.

Now, please do not tell me that it is because I am not earnest enough and I should be more earnest!

I know it and admit it and only ask you -- how is it done?

M: A little of daily sweeping, washing and bathing can do no harm.

Self-awareness tells you at every step what needs be done.

When all is done, the mind remains quiet.

Now you are in the waking state, a person with name and shape, joys and sorrows.

The person was not there before you were born, nor will be there after you die.

You become immovable in reticence.

You become a power which gets all things right.

It may or may not imply intense outward activity, but the mind remains deep and quiet.

Q: As I watch my mind I find it changing all the time, mood succeeding mood in infinite variety, while you seem to be perpetually in the same mood of cheerful benevolence.

M: Moods are in the mind and do not matter.

Our question is: can there be a happy mind?

M: Desire is the memory of pleasure and fear is the memory of pain.

Both make the mind restless.

Moments of pleasure are merely gaps in the stream of pain.

How can the mind be happy?

M: You must ask with an undivided heart and live an integrated life.

Q: How?

M: Detach yourself from all that makes your mind restless.

Renounce all that disturbs its peace.

If you want peace, deserve it.

It can perhaps be made quiet, but it is not quiet by itself.

M: You may have a chronic fever and shiver all the time.

It is desires and fears that make the mind restless.

Free from all negative emotions it is quiet.

Q: You cannot protect the child from negative emotions.

We have met many holy people and we are glad to meet one more.

Maharaj: You have met many anchorites and ascetics, but a fully realised man conscious of his divinity (swarupa) is hard to find.

The saints and Yogis, by immense efforts and sacrifices, acquire many miraculous powers and can do much good in the way of helping people and inspiring faith, yet it does not make them perfect.

It is not a way to reality, but merely an enrichment of the false.

All effort leads to more effort; whatever was built up must be maintained, whatever was acquired must be protected against decay or loss.

Q: What will put an end to imagination?

M: Why should you want to put an end to it?

Once you know your mind and its miraculous powers, and remove what poisoned it -- the idea of a separate and isolated person -- you just leave it alone to do its work among things to which it is well suited.

To keep the mind in its own place and on its own work is the liberation of the mind.

Q: What is the work of the mind?

Effects of repeated fasting also verge on the miraculous.

I wrote to him not to be in a hurry to die; rather to give a trial to other approaches.

There is a Yogi living not far from Bombay who possesses some miraculous powers.

He has specialised in the control of the vital forces governing the body.

I met some of his disciples and sent through to the Yogi my friend's letter and photo.

Q: Why is life so full of contradictions?

M: It serves to break down mental pride.

We must realise how poor and powerless we are.

As long as we delude ourselves by what we imagine ourselves to be, to know, to have, to do, we are in a sad plight indeed.

Only in complete self-negation there is a chance to discover our real being.

M: When the time comes for the world to be helped, some people are given the will, the wisdom and the power to cause great changes.

37: Beyond Pain and Pleasure there is Bliss.

Maharaj: You must realise first of all that you are the proof of everything, including yourself.

None can prove your existence, because his existence must be confirmed by you first.

Your being and knowing you owe nobody.

M: You must give yourself time to brood over these things.

The old grooves must be erased in your brain, without forming new ones.

You must realise yourself as the immovable, behind and beyond the movable, the silent witness of all that happens.

Q: Does it mean that I must give up all idea of an active life?

M: Not at all.

I am life and mine are mind and body.

Q: You say at the root of the world is self-forgetfulness.

To forget I must remember What did I forget to remember?

I have not forgotten that I am.

M: This 'I am' too may be a part of the illusion.

But if you stay with the idea that you are not the body nor the mind, not even their witness, but altogether beyond, your mind will grow in clarity, your desires -- in purity, your actions -- in charity and that inner distillation will take you to another world, a world of truth and fearless love.

Resist your old habits of feeling and thinking; keep on telling yourself: 'No, not so, it cannot be so; I am not like this, I do not need it, I do not want it', and a day will surely come when the entire structure of error and despair will collapse and the ground will be free for a new life.

After all, you must remember, that all your preoccupations with yourself are only in your waking hours and partly in your dreams; in sleep all is put aside and forgotten.

It shows how little important is your waking life, even to yourself, that merely lying down and closing the eyes can end it.

Each time you go to sleep you do so without the least certainty of waking up and yet you accept the risk.

When you talk of a quiet mind, what is it?

Is not mind the same as consciousness?

M: We must remember that words are used in many ways, according to the context.

The fact is that there is little difference between the conscious and the unconscious --- they are essentially the same.

The waking state differs from deep sleep in the presence of the witness.

As consciousness, they are all me.

As events they are all mine.

There is a mysterious power that looks after them.

That power is awareness, Self, Life, God, whatever name you give it.

It is the foundation, the ultimate support of all that is, just like gold is the basis for all gold jewellery.

But as long as you do not even doubt yourself to be a Mr. S0-and-so, there is little hope.

When you refuse to open your eyes, what can you be shown?

Q: I imagine karma to be a mysterious power that urges me towards perfection.

M: That's what people told you.

You are already perfect, here and now.

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.

realise that you are not the mover, only the observer, and you will be at peace.

Q: Is that power separate from me?

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.

But your true home is in nothingness, in emptiness of all content.

Q: Emptiness and nothingness -- how dreadful!