Biography of Papaji

(1910 — 1997)
http://www.satsangbhavan.net/biography.htm

Satsang with Papaji

http://www.satsangbhavan.net/

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 СОДЕРЖАНИЕ:

BIOGRAPHY OF PAPAJI
(1910 — 1997)
EARLY LIFE
EARLIEST MEMORY
IN LOVE WITH BUDDHA
MOTHER’S EXAMPLE
HOLI MEDITATION
PEACE PEACE
FREEDOM FIGHTER
ARMY LIFE
SEARCH FOR GOD
SEEKING GOD
MEETING RAMANA MAHARSHI
LIFE IN CHENNAI
DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL
WITH MAHARSHI AGAIN
THE PROCESS
AFTER REALIZATION
THE MUSLIM PIR
AT RAMANASRAMAM
“I AM WITH YOU”
RETURN TO THE WORLD
LAST TRAIN FROM PAKISTAN
ARRIVAL IN LUCKNOW
THE MASTER REMAINS
MAHASMADHI
NOTHING EVER HAPPENED (BIOGRAPHY OF PAPAJI)
BY DAVID GODMAN
DAVID GODMAN
SATSANG WITH PAPAJI
WHO ARE YOU?
6 November, 1991
WHAT IS FREEDOM?
5-6 December, 1991
EXISTENCE TAKES CARE
5-6 December, 1991
WHEN FEAR COMES, KISS ITS FACE!
6 December, 1991
I TRUST YOU ARE ALL LIONS
JUST TO PLUCK A ROSE PETAL
BE SO BEAUTIFUL THAT IT FINDS YOU
10 December, 1991
LOOK THROUGH THE EYES OF LOVE
13 December, 1991
IDENTIFY YOURSELF WITH THAT
13 January, 1992
KING OR BEGGAR?
16-17 January, 1992
SHUN THE COMPANY OF THE PAST
18 January, 1992

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 OPEN YOUR OWN BOOK
22 February, 1992
WHAT IS ENLIGHTENMENT?
22 February, 1992
WHAT IS THE SELF?
8 April, 1992
KEEP QUIET!
5 May, 1992
WHAT IS MEDITATION?
15 May, 1992
WHO AM I?
18 May, 1992
YOU NEED REMINDING ONLY ONCE!
19 May, 1992
NO PRACTICE IS NEEDED
26 May, 1992
WHY ARE YOU HERE FOR SATSANG?
5 June, 1992
MAKE THE DECISION TO BE FREE!
12 June, 1992
ALL THIS IS MIND
ALL THIS IS MIND. WHATEVER YOU SEE IS MIND.
29 June, 1992
MY MEETING WITH RAMANA
DRIVEN BY THE BEAST OF DESIRE
22 June, 1992
DOUBT
3 July, 1992
TURN THE MIND TO FACE ITS SOURCE
9 July, 1992
CONSCIOUSNES
17 July, 1992
THE CONDITIONS FOR FREEDOM
21 July, 1992
YOU HAVE POSTPONED LONG ENOUGH
18 August, 1992
NO EFFORT
24 August, 1992
KEEP QUIET! KEEP QUIET! KEEP QUIET!
5 September, 1992
THE DESIRES ARE DANCING
18 September, 1992
DEATH
29 September, 1992
WORSHIP
17 November, 1992
BEYOND DELIGHT, BEYOND BLISS
21 November, 1992
NOTIONS CREATE THE MIND
23 November, 1992
PRACTICE AND NON-PRACTICE
1 October, 1992
THE WORK IS COMPLETED
5 December, 1992
RID THE MIND OF DISEASES
YOU HAVE A RAFT TO CROSS
14 December, 1992

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 Biography of Papaji
(1910 — 1997)

Sri H.W.L. Poonja, lovingly referred to as Papaji, was born on October 13, 1910, in a
part of the Punjab that is now in Pakistan.

He had his first direct experience of the Self at the age of nine. He met his Master, Sri
Ramana Maharshi, in 1944. Shortly afterwards he realized the Self in the presence of his
master.Being a householder, he continued to work and support the many members of
his extended family until his retirement in 1966. After extensive travel Papaji settled
down in Lucknow, India, where he received visitors from around the world. He died on
September 6, 1997.

This first-person account of Papaji's life was written by David Godman and approved by
Papaji himself. It is published as the first chapter in the Papaji Interviews book.

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 Early life
Earliest Memory

My earliest memory is of a striking experience which occurred when I was about eight
years old. The year was 1919. The British, having recently triumphed in the First World
War, had given all schoolchildren a one-month holiday so that they could join in the
victory celebrations. They even gave us a little badge to wear to commemorate the
victory. We were living in Faisalabad at the time, in a part of the Punjab that is now in
Pakistan. My mother decided that this unscheduled vacation would be an ideal time to
go and visit some of our relatives who lived in Lahore. The visit must have taken place
in the summer of that year because I distinctly remember that mangoes were in season
at the time.

One evening, while we were all sitting in my relative’s house in Lahore, someone started
to prepare a mango, milk and almond drink for everyone. It should have been a mouth-
watering treat for a boy of my age, but when a glassful of it was offered to me, I made
no attempt to stretch out my hand to receive it. It was not that I didn’t want to drink it.
The truth was, I had just been consumed and engulfed by an experience that made me
so peaceful and happy, I was unable to respond to the offered glass. My mother and the
other women present were both astonished and alarmed by my sudden inactivity. They
all gathered around me, trying to decide what had happened and what to do

By this time my eyes were closed. Though I was unable to respond to their queries, I
could hear the discussion going on around me, and I was fully aware of all their
attempts to bring me back to my usual state.They shook me, they gently slapped my
face, they pinched my cheeks.

Someone even lifted me up in the air, but nothing elicited any kind of physical response
from me. I was not being stubborn. The experience was so overwhelming it had
effectively paralysed my ability to respond to any external stimuli. For about an hour
they tried everything they could think of to bring me back to a normal state of
consciousness, but all their attempts failed.

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I had not been sick, this had not happened to me before and, just prior to its
commencement, I had not been exhibiting any strange symptoms. Because of the
suddenness of the event, because it had never happened before, and because no
amount of shaking could wake me, my family came to the conclusion that a malevolent
spirit had suddenly and mysteriously possessed me. In those days there were no doctors
or psychiatrists to run to. When something like this happened, the standard response
was to take the victim to the local mosque so that the mulla could perform an exorcism.
We even used to take our buffaloes to him when they got sick or failed to give milk in
the hope that his exorcisms and mantras would somehow remove the affliction.

So, even though I came from a Hindu family, I was carried to the local mosque and
shown to the mulla. He chanted some words while simultaneously running some metal
tongs over my body. That was the standard way of performing an exorcism. The mulla,
with his usual optimism, said that I would soon recover, but his efforts, like those of my
family before him, failed to bring me out of the state I was in. Still paralyzed, I was
carried home and put to bed. For two full days, I stayed in this peaceful, blissful, happy
state, unable to communicate with anyone, but still fully aware of the various things that
were going on around me.

At the end of this two-day period I opened my eyes again. My mother, who was an
ardent Krishna bhakta, came up to me and asked, ‘Did you see Krishna?’ Seeing how
happy I was, she had abandoned her initial idea that I had been possessed and had
substituted for it a theory that I had had some kind of mystical experience involving her
own favourite deity.

‘No I replied, ‘all I can say about it is that I was very happy.

As far as first causes were concerned, I was as much in ignorance as my family.

I did not know what I had been experiencing or what had precipitated this sudden
immersion into intense and paralyzing happiness.

I told my mother when she pressed me further, ‘There was tremendous happiness,
tremendous peace, tremendous beauty. More than that I cannot say.’ It had been, in
fact, a direct experience of the Self, but I did not understand this at the time. It was to
be many years before I fully appreciated what had happened to me.

My mother would not give up her theory. She went and fetched a picture which
portrayed Krishna as a child, showed it to me and asked, ‘Did you see anyone like this?’

Again I told her, ‘No, I didn’t’.

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My mother used to sing Krishna bhajans in our house. She had married when she was
sixteen and given birth to me when she was eighteen. So, when all this happened, she
was still a young woman. Since both her face and her voice were extremely beautiful,
her bhajans attracted many people to our house.

Although it did not tally with my own direct experience, my mother somehow convinced
me that the happiness had been caused by coming into contact with Krishna. She
encouraged me to become a devotee of Krishna, saying that, if I meditated on Krishna
and repeated His name, the experience I had had of Him would sooner or later return.
This was a powerful argument for me. Ever since I had opened my eyes, I had felt a
great longing to have that experience again. Since I could think of no other way of
getting it back, I followed my mother’s advice and began to worship Krishna. My mother
herself taught me how to perform all the various rituals and practices associated with
the Krishna cult. Once I began, it did not take me long to develop an intense and
passionate love for the form of Krishna. I soon forgot that the purpose of my devotion
was to get back to that state which I had experienced for two days. I became so
fascinated with Krishna, so enamoured of His form, the love I felt for Him soon displaced
my desire to get back to that original experience of happiness.

I was particularly attracted to one picture of the child Krishna, the same one that my
mother had shown me on the last day of my experience. To me, the face was so
indescribably beautiful, so magnetically attractive, I had little difficulty in pouring all my
love and devotion into it. As a result of this intense bhakti, Krishna began to appear
before me, taking the same form as the picture. He would regularly appear to me at
night, play with me, and even try to sleep in my bed. I was very innocent at the time. I
didn’t realise that this manifestation was one of the great deities of Hinduism, and that
some of His devotees spent whole lifetimes striving to get a single glimpse of Him.
Naively, I thought that it was quite natural for Him to appear in my bedroom and play
with me.

His physical form was as real as my own — I could feel it and touch it — but He could
also appear to me in a more subtle form. If I put a blanket over my head, I could still
see Him. Even when I closed my eyes, the image of Him was still there in front of me.
This Krishna was full of playful energy. He always appeared after I had gone to bed and
His childish and enthusiastic playing kept me awake and prevented me from going to
sleep. When the novelty of His initial visits had worn off, I started to feel that His
appearances were becoming a bit of a nuisance because He was preventing me from
sleeping, even when I was very tired. As I was trying to think up some way of making
Him go away, it occurred to me that it would be a good idea if I sent Him off to see my
mother. I knew that, as an ardent Krishna bhakta, she would be delighted to see Him
too.

Why don’t you go and sleep with my mother?’ I asked Him one night. ‘You are not
allowing me to go to sleep. Go to my mother instead.’ Krishna seemed to have no
interest in my mother’s company. He never went to see her, preferring instead to spend
all His time with me.

One night my mother overheard us talking and asked, ‘Who are you talking to?’

‘I am speaking with your Krishna,’ I replied, ingenuously. ‘He disturbs me at night and
doesn’t let me sleep. If I close my eyes I still see Him, sometimes more clearly than
when they are open. Sometimes I put a blanket over my head, but I still see Him. He
always wants to sleep with me, but I cannot sleep while He is here.’

She came into the room to investigate, but she didn’t see Him. In all the times that
Krishna came to our house, she never saw Him once.

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When He wasn’t there I always felt a desire to see Him. I really did want to see Him and
play with Him. The only problem was that I was often so tired when He came I felt that
He should, after a decent interval, leave me in peace so that I could lie down and get
some sleep.

He didn’t come every night. Sometimes I would see Him and sometimes I wouldn’t. I
never doubted His reality; I never had the idea it was some kind of vision. I even wrote
a postcard to Him once, telling Him how much I loved Him. I posted it and wasn’t at all
surprised when I got a reply from Him, properly stamped and franked and delivered by
the postman. He was so real to me, it seemed quite natural to correspond with Him by
post.

From the moment that Krishna first came into my life, I lost interest in my schoolwork. I
would sit in class, apparently paying attention, but my mind and heart would be on the
form of Krishna. Sometimes, when waves of bliss would surge up inside me, I would
abandon myself to the experience and lose contact with the outside world.

From the time of my first experience a desire to search for God and a hunger in me for
Him were always present. I was always, unconsciously, looking for an outlet for these
feelings. When I was about eleven, for example, a group of sadhus passed by our house.
I was immediately attracted to them and tried to join their group. ‘My parents are dead,’
I told them. ‘Will you look after me?’ They agreed and we walked off together to a place
about twenty kilometres away from the town. I didn’t tell my parents, so they, of
course, spent several days frantically looking for me. Then, following up a rumour that I
had been seen with these sadhus, they tracked me down to our camp.

I remember my father exclaiming, after he had finally found me, ‘I thought you were
lost! I thought you were lost!’

I wasn’t the least bit repentant about my adventures. I retorted, ‘How can I be lost? Am
I a buffalo that I can get lost and not know where I am? I always knew where I was.’ I
didn’t have any appreciation of the worry and the concern I had caused my parents. By
joining the sadhus I had merely expressed my yearning and hunger for God. I even
went so far as to tell my father, ‘Why have you come to look for me instead of leaving
me with God?’ My father, naturally, would not allow me to stay there. He lectured the
sadhus on what he thought was their irresponsible behaviour and then took me back to
town.

During my childhood other boys would act out their fantasies by playing soldiers or
pretending they were famous sportsmen or rulers. I, on the contrary, had an urge to
imitate sadhus. I knew nothing of the inner life of such people, but I was quite content
merely to mimic the externals. I particularly remember one day when I decided to play
at being a naked sadhu and persuaded my sister to join in the game. We stripped off,
smeared our bodies with wood ash to imitate vibhuti and sat cross-legged in front of a
fire which we made in out garden. That was as far as we could go because we didn’t
know anything about meditation or yoga. One of our neighbours who happened to look
over the common garden wall was understandably shocked to see a naked girl there,
covered with ash. We were so innocent it didn’t occur to us that it wasn’t proper for
young girls to sit outside with no clothes on. The neighbour summoned our mother and
the game came to an abrupt end.

In Love With Buddha

My next major spiritual adventure occurred when I was about thirteen. It started when I
saw a picture of the Buddha in a history book at school. This picture illustrated the

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period of his life when he tried to live on only one grain of rice a day. The face was very
beautiful but the body was skeleton-like, all skin and bone. I immediately felt a great
attraction to him, even though I didn’t then know anything about his teachings. I simply
fell in love with his beautiful face and decided that I should try to emulate him. In the
picture he was meditating under a tree.

I didn’t know that at the time, in fact I didn’t even know what meditation was.
Undeterred, I thought, ‘I can do that. I can sit crosslegged under a tree.

I can be like him.’ So I began to sit in a cross-legged position in our garden under some
rose bushes that grew there, happy and content that I was harmonising my lifestyle with
this person I had fallen in love with.

Then, to increase the similarity even more, I decided that I should try to make my body
resemble his skeleton-like frame. At that time in our house we would collect our food
from our mother before going off to eat it separately. This made it easy for me to throw
my meals away. When no one was looking I would go outside and give all my food to
the dogs in the street. After some time I managed to stop eating completely.I became
so weak and thin, eventually my bones began to stick out, just like the Buddha’s. That
made me very happy and I became very proud of my new state. My classmates at
school made my day by nicknaming me ‘the Buddha’ because they could see how thin I
was getting.

My father worked for the railways. At this particular period of his life he was working in
Baluchistan as a stationmaster. Because his job was a long way away, we only ever saw
him when he came home on leave. About a month after my fasting began he came
home on one of his regular visits and was shocked at how thin I had got during his
absence. He took me off to see various doctors and had them examine me in order to
find out what was wrong. None of them suspected that I was deliberately fasting. One of
them told my father, ‘He is growing tall very quickly, that is why he is getting so thin.
Give him good food, lots of milk and dry fruits.’

My mother followed the advice, adding a bit of her own: every day she would say, ‘Eat
more butter, eat more butter’. The dogs on the street got very fat and happy because
the new diet went the same way as the old one.

The school history book which contained Buddha’s picture was a simple guide for
children. The main biographical facts were there, but the concepts of meditation and
enlightenment were not adequately explained. Presumably the author did not think that
these very essential points would be of interest to children. So, I remained ignorant of
what he was really doing under that tree and why his final accomplishment was so

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great. Nevertheless, I still felt attracted to him and still felt an urge to imitate him as
closely as possible.

I learnt from this book that the Buddha wore orange robes and that he begged for his
food, going from house to house with a begging bowl. This was something I could, with
a little ingenuity, copy.

My mother had a white sari which seemed to me to be the ideal raw material for a robe.
I took it when she wasn’t looking and dyed it ochre, the colour of the Buddha’s robes. I
wraped it around myself in what I took to be the correct way and began to play at being
a mendicant monk. I got hold of a bowl to beg with and walked up and down the streets
of Faisalabad, asking for alms. Before I went home I would change into my ordinary
clothes and wrap up the orange sari in a paper parcel. I kept the parcel among my
school books, a place I thought no one would bother to look.

One of my friends found out what I was doing and told me, ‘You can’t get away with
this. Somebody will recognise you and tell your family what you are doing.’

Feeling very confident about my ability to do it secretly, I told him, ‘Your parents know
me. I will come to your house in my robes and ask for food. If I can fool them I can fool
anybody.’

I put on my sari, smeared ashes all over my face to further my disguise, put a cap on
my head and went off to their house with my begging bowl. It was about 8 p.m. so the
darkness also helped my disguise. I called out ‘Bhiksha! Bhiksha!’ [Alms! Alms!] because
I had seen sadhus beg for food by calling in this way. Since it did not occur to me that
anyone might recognise my voice, I made no attempt to disguise it. My friend’s mother
came to the door, showed no sign of recognition, and invited me in to eat.

‘Swamiji, Babaji, come in and eat something,’ she said, taking me in and offering me
food.

I went with her, acting out the role I had assigned myself. ‘My child,’ I said to her, even
though she must have been about thirty years older than I, ‘you will have children and
get lots of money.’ I had heard swamis bless women like this. Since most women
wanted to get rich and have several sons, itinerant swamis would give these fantasies
their blessings in the hope of getting a better reception and something good to eat.

Then, laughing, she removed my cap and told me that she had always known who I
really was. ‘Your appearance is quite good,’ she said, ‘but I recognised you from your
voice.’ Then her husband came and she explained to him what was going on.

Scornfully he said, ‘Who will not recognise you if you go out begging like that? You will
soon be detected.’

Now it was my turn to laugh because earlier that day I had begged at his shop and got a
one paisa copper coin from him. I showed him the coin.

He had to revise his opinion a little. ‘I must have been busy with my customers,’ he
said. ‘I must have given it to you without looking.’

‘No, that’s not true,’ I responded truthfully. ‘You saw me very clearly. I walked past your
shop, begging. You saw me, called me back and handed me this coin. My disguise is
good enough and I can get away with it so long as I don’t talk to people who might
recognise my voice.’

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These people were amused by my antics, not knowing that I was doing this sort of thing
regularly in a stolen dyed sari. They didn’t tell my mother, so I was able to carry on with
my impersonation.

My mother only had three saris. One day, fairly soon after I had taken the white one,
she washed the other two and started looking for the third because she needed to wear
it.

Of course, she couldn’t find it anywhere. She never asked me about it because, since I
was not a girl, it did not occur to her that I might have had any possible use for it. She
eventually decided that she must have given it to the dhobi, and that he had lost it or
forgotten to return it.

The final phase of my Buddha impersonations came when I discovered that he used to
preach sermons in public places. This excited me because it was a new facet of his life
that I could copy. I knew absolutely nothing about Buddhism, but the thought that this
might be a handicap when I stood up to preach never occurred to me.

There was a clock-tower in the middle of our town and near it was a raised platform
where all the local politicians used to give their speeches. It was very much the centre of
Faisalabad because all the routes to other towns radiated out from it. I put on my usual
disguise, strode confidently up the steps, and began to give my first public speech. I
cannot recollect anything that I said — it couldn’t have been anything about Buddhism
because I knew absolutely nothing about it — but I do remember that I delivered my
speech with great flair and panache. I harangued the passers-by with great gusto,
occasionally raising my arm and wagging my finger to emphasise the points I was
making. I had seen the politicians gesture like that when they made their speeches.

I felt I had made a successful start to my oratorical career and taken a step further
towards my goal of imitating the Buddha in everything he did. I went back to the clock-
tower on several occasions and preached many sermons there. Unfortunately,
Faisalabad was not a big city and it was inevitable that sooner or later someone who
knew me would recognise me. It was not surprising, therefore, that one day one of my
neighbours spotted me and reported my antics to my mother.

At first she was very sceptical. ‘How can it be he?’ she asked. ‘Where would he get an
orange robe from?’ Then, remembering her missing sari, she went to the cupboard
where I kept my books and found the paper parcel. The game was over, for that
discovery effectively ended my brief career as an imitation Buddha.

It was an absurd but very entertaining episode in my life which, in retrospect, I can see
as reflecting my state of mind at the time. I had this intense yearning for God but I had

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nothing to channel it into except the external forms of the deities. Something in me
recognised the Buddha as divine and my childish and ignorant attempts to follow in his
footsteps were merely a manifestation of that burning inner desire to find God. I wasn’t
being mischievous. I never regarded it as some kind of childhood prank. Some power
was compelling me to do it. Some old samskaras were coming up and compelling me
towards reality, towards the truth of the Self. It was a serious attempt on my part to
find my way back to the state of happiness and peace that I had once experienced and
known as my own inner reality.

My mother did not get very angry with me. We had always had a good relationship and
she could see the humour of the situation. Because she had been so young when I was
born, we behaved with each other as if we were brother and sister, rather than mother
and son. We played, sang and danced together, and quite often we even slept in the
same bed.

Mother’s Example

I have already mentioned that my mother was an ardent Krishna bhakta. I should also
mention that she had a Guru who was a well-known teacher of Vedanta.

He knew many vedantic works and could lecture on them all with great authority. His
favourite was Vichar Sagar by the Hindu saint Nischaldas. My mother could recite large
portions of it by heart. Many years later, when I became acquainted with Sri Ramana
Maharshi, I found that he too liked it and that he had even made a Tamil abridged
rendering of it under the title Vichara Mani Mala.

My mother’s Guru had made her memorise many vedantic slokas which she used to
chant at various times during the day. Traditional vedantic sadhana is done by
affirmation and negation. Either one repeats or contemplates one of the mahavakyas
such as ‘I am Brahman’ or one tries to reject identification with the body by saying and
feeling, ‘I am not the body, I am not the skin, I am not the blood,’ etc. The aim is to get
into a mental frame of mind in which one convinces oneself that one’s real nature is the
Self and that identification with the body is erroneous.

My mother used to chant all these ‘I am not...’ verses and I used to find them all very
funny. I was, at heart, a bhakta. I could appreciate any sadhana which generated love
and devotion towards God, but I couldn’t see the point of these practices which merely
listed, in endlessly trivial ways, what one was not. When my mother had a bath she
would chant, ‘I am not the urine, I am not the excrement, I am not the bile,’ and so on.
This was too much for me. I would call out, ‘What are you doing in there? Having a bath

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or cleaning the toilet?’ I ridiculed her so much that eventually she stopped singing these
verses out loud.

My mother’s Guru encouraged me to join a local lending library which had a good
selection of spiritual books. I started to read books on Vedanta and Hindu saints. It was
this library which introduced me to Yoga Vasishta, a book I have always enjoyed. One
day I tried to borrow a book about Swami Ram Tirtha, a Hindu saint who went into
seclusion in the Himalayas in his twenties and who died there when he was only thirty-
four. I had a special reason for borrowing this book: he was my mother’s elder brother,
so I naturally wanted to find out more about him.

The librarian had watched me borrow all these books with an increasing sense of alarm.
In middle-class Hindu society it is quite acceptable to show a little interest in spiritual
matters, but when the interest starts to become an obsession, the alarm bells go off.
This well-meaning librarian probably thought that I was taking my religion too seriously,
and that I might end up like my uncle. Most families would be very unhappy if one of
their members dropped out at an early age to become a wandering sadhu in the
Himalayas. The librarian, feeling that he was acting for the best, refused to let me
borrow this book about my uncle. Later, he went to my mother and warned her that I
was showing what was, for him, an unhealthy interest in mysticism. My mother paid no
attention. Because her own life revolved around her sadhana, she was delighted to have
a son who seemed to be displaying a similar inclination.

My mother’s Guru liked me very much. He suggested books for me to read and
frequently gave me advice on spiritual matters. He owned a lot of land, had many cows,
and spent half his time in teaching and the other half in managing his properties and
possessions. One day he made my mother an astounding offer: ‘Please give me your
son. I will appoint him my heir and spiritual successor. When I die everything I have will
be his. I will look after his spiritual development, but to get all this he must agree to one
condition. He must not marry and he must remain a brahmachari. If he agrees, and if
you agree, I will take full responsibility for him.’

My mother had great love and respect for this man, but she was far too attached to me
to consider handing me over to someone else. She turned down his offer. I too had
great respect for him. If my mother had accepted his offer, I would happily have gone
with him.

At around this time she announced that she was going to take me to a different swami
because she wanted me to get some special spiritual instructions from him. I didn’t like
the idea and I didn’t like the man she chose for me. I told her, ‘If you take me to this
man I will test him to see if he has really conquered his passions. As soon as I see him I
shall slap him in the face. If he gets angry, I will know that he has no self-control. If he
doesn’t get angry, I will listen to him and accept whatever he has to teach me. My
mother knew that I was quite capable of carrying out the threat. Not wishing to be
embarrassed by my disrespectful activities, she dropped her plans to take me to see
him.

Holi Meditation

When I was about fifteen I went to a friend’s house during the annual Holi celebrations.
His mother offered me some pakoras which she had made for the festival. I happily ate
two. As they were very tasty, I asked for some more. Surprisingly, she refused. I could
see that she had been making them in large quantities, and that she planned to make a
lot more, so I couldn’t understand why she was restricting me to two. The answer, as I
was to discover later, was that she was putting bhang [cannabis leaves] in them and

13
didn’t want me to ingest too large a dose. In those days it was quite common to put a
little bhang in the food on festival days. At weddings, for example, the bhang would
make the guests very happy and would also increase their appetites. Weddings were
great occasions for overeating. With appetites stimulated by bhang, the guests would
get ravenously hungry and would perform great feats of gluttony.

I went home and sat down to my evening meal. My mother was making chapatis. After
consuming all the ones she had cooked I asked for some more because I still felt
hungry. She made extra, but even they were not enough to satisfy my hunger. I ate
them as fast as she could prepare them and kept on asking for more. It was not until I
had eaten about twenty that she realised what had happened to me. She laughed and
exclaimed, ‘You’ve been eating bhang, haven’t you? Who has been feeding you bhang?’ I
told her about the pakoras and she laughed again. I was now beginning to understand
why my friend’s mother had restricted me to two. In addition to being extremely
hungry, I was also beginning to feel a little intoxicated.

That night we all slept in the same room. At about midnight I got out of bed, sat in the
padmasana position, and called out in a loud voice, ‘You are not my father! You are not
my mother!’ Then I went into a deep meditation. My parents woke up but they were not
very alarmed by my behaviour. They just assumed that I was still suffering from the
effects of the bhang I had eaten.

At 3 a.m. I was still sitting there with my eyes closed. My parents woke up because
strange and unrecognisable sounds were coming out of my mouth.

They tried to wake me up but I was in too deep a meditation to be roused. My mother,
thinking that I was getting delirious, persuaded my father to go out and find a doctor.
He had a hard time persuading one to come because it was the middle of the night and
a festival day. Eventually, though, he found one and brought him back to the house.

This doctor gave me a thorough examination while my parents watched anxiously. I was
aware of what he was doing and of my mother’s worried comments, but I couldn’t bring
myself out of the state or behave in a normal way. The doctor finally announced his
decision.

‘Congratulations,’ he said, addressing my parents. ‘You have a very fine boy, a very
good son. There is nothing physically wrong with him. He is just immersed in a very
deep meditation. When it is over he will come out of it quite naturally and be perfectly
normal.’

14
For all of that night and for the whole of the next day I was immersed in that state.
During the day I continued to utter strange sounds which no one could understand until
a local pandit passed by our house. He heard what I was saying, recognised it, came in
and announced, ‘This boy is chanting portions of the Yajur Veda in Sanskrit. Where and
when did he learn to chant like this?’

The answer, most probably, is that I learned in some previous life. At the time I knew
Punjabi, my native language, Urdu, the language of the local Muslims, and a little
Persian. I knew no Sanskrit and had never even heard of the Yajur Veda. The bhang
must have triggered some memories and knowledge left over from a previous life. As
the doctor had predicted, I eventually returned to normal — with no knowledge of
Sanskrit or the Vedas — and resumed my usual everyday life.

Peace Peace

My next unusual experience occurred when I was about sixteen years of age. I was
attending a school which was run by the Arya Samaj, a Hindu reform movement founded
in the nineteenth century. The school was named after Swami Dayananda, the founder
of the organisation. Because it was a residential school, I slept in a hostel with all the
other boys.

Every morning we would assemble outside and sit in a semicircle while a prayer was
chanted. It always ended with the words ‘Om shanti shanti’ [Om, peace, peace]. At the
conclusion of the prayer, a flag would be raised in the school grounds with an ‘Om’
printed on it. As the flag was being raised, we all had to jump up and shout, ‘Victory to
the dharma! Victory to Mother India! Victory to Swami Dayananda!’

One morning, at the conclusion of the prayer, the chanting of ‘Om shanti shanti’ caused
my whole body to go numb. I became paralysed in much the same way that I had been
when, as an eight-year-old boy, I had been offered the mango drink in Lahore. I was
aware of everything that was going on around me, there was a great feeling of peace
and happiness inside, but I couldn’t move any of my muscles or respond to what was
going on around me. The other boys jumped up and saluted the flag, leaving me sitting
on the floor in my paralysed state.

The teacher who was supervising the prayers saw me sitting on the floor and just
assumed that I was being lazy or disobedient. He put my name on a list for punishment
by the headmaster. This meant that I had to appear before him the next morning and be
caned. The teacher left the scene without ascertaining the real cause of my immobility.
The other boys, meanwhile, started to make fun of me. When they realised that I was
not capable of responding to their taunts, they decided to stage a mock funeral. They
picked up my body, stretched me out on their shoulders and then pretended that they
were carrying me off to the cemetery to be cremated. I had to go along with their game
because I was not capable of complaining or resisting. When they had had their fun,
they carried me home and dumped me on my bed. I remained there for the rest of the
day, paralysed, but absorbed in an inner state of peace and happiness.

he next morning, fully recovered, I reported to the headmaster for my punishment.

15
He took out his cane, but before he had a chance to use it I asked him, ‘Please sir, what
am I supposed to have done? What mistake am I supposed to have committed?’ The
headmaster had no idea. The teachers had merely given him a list of boys to be caned
because the teachers themselves were not allowed to administer corporal punishment.
He checked with the teacher who had sent me to him and was told about my act of
‘disobedience’ the day before.

I told him, ‘I didn’t refuse to stand up. I suddenly went numb all over and couldn’t
move.’ I told him about the experience, explaining that it had been triggered by hearing
the words ‘shanti shanti’ at the end of the morning prayer. This headmaster was a very
good man. A supporter of Mahatma Gandhi, he did the job without taking any salary
because he believed that Hindu boys should be brought up and educated in a Hindu
environment. In those days, most schools were either secular institutions run by the
government or Christian organisations operated by missionaries. Since he was supposed
to be inculcating us with Hindu values and ideals, he recognised the absurdity of
punishing me for having had a mystical experience as a consequence of listening to a
Hindu prayer. He let me off and in later years we became quite good friends.

Freedom Fighter

Because of my continuing interest in Krishna, I didn’t do well enough in school to go to

college.

Instead, at the age of eighteen, I got a job as a travelling salesman. I enjoyed the work
very much because it gave me the opportunity to travel all over India.Then, in 1930,
when I was twenty years old, my father decided that it was time for me to get married. I
didn’t like the idea at all, but to avoid a big family argument I agreed to marry the
woman my father selected for me. I became a householder and in due course fathered a
daughter and a son.

16
During the next few years my interest in nationalist politics temporarily competed with
my continuing interest in Krishna. To understand this part of my story it will be
necessary to give a little background information about the conditions we were then
living and working in.

The 1930’s were a time of great political unrest. The British rule of India was being
challenged in many ways. There was a feeling in the air that if we organised ourselves
properly and put enough pressure on the government, we could put an end to the
colonial occupation. Gandhi, the most well-known of the freedom fighters, was
espousing a campaign of non-cooperation and non-violence, hoping that if enough
Indians refused to obey the orders of the British, they would accept that the country was
ungovernable and leave us to look after our own affairs. I didn’t accept this theory at all.
I was and am a great believer in direct action and I felt that we should confront the
British with a show of force. ‘If some people break into my house,’ I reasoned, ‘and take
it over so completely that they have us running around obeying their orders, what
should we do?’ The Gandhian answer would be, ‘Politely ask them to leave, and if they
say “no”, refuse to obey any of their orders’. I thought that this approach was being
pusillanimous. In my experience, squatters who have appropriated someone else’s
property don’t listen to polite requests. I, therefore, was in favour of picking up a stick
and driving them out by force.

But how to do it? The British were very well organised and I knew that a direct physical

assault would not make much of a dent in their power structure. I decided instead to
gain some yogic siddhis and then use these siddhis to attack the British.I took to
frequenting a graveyard at night, my idea being that if I could summon up spirits of the
dead and gain control over them, I could then unleash these forces on the British. I
succeeded in summoning up an assortment of spirits and even managed to control them
enough for them to do my bidding, but I soon realised that these entities had very little
power and that they would not be effective weapons against the British.

Undaunted, I joined a group of freedom fighters who had decided to take direct military
action against the British. We were essentially a group of saboteurs whose aim was to
conduct a guerrilla war against our rulers by attacking key military, economic and
political targets. I was trained how to make bombs and looked forward to the day when
I would see some direct military action.

Although I was not directly involved, our group was responsible for blowing up the
Viceroy’s train as he was travelling to Peshawar. Our equipment was a bit primitive, for
we had to rely on a fuse rather than detonation by remote control. The timing was not
quite right and we ended up blowing up the carriage that was adjacent to the one which
the Viceroy was occupying. The Viceroy escaped unhurt.

17
 Army life

Life in the army meant keeping up an outer front of normality and military sobriety.

Open exhibitions of love for a Hindu god would have been frowned on to such an extent
that they would have jeopardised my career.

This caused me to lead a dual life. By day I played the officer-sahib, complete with stiff
upper lip. At night, behind locked doors, I would transform myself into a Krishna gopi. I
would dismiss my orderly, telling him not to disturb me with the usual 5 a.m. cup of tea.

That gave me the whole night with my beloved Krishna. I was not content with doing
japa of His name, or with worshipping an inanimate picture or statue, I wanted Krishna
Himself to appear before me, as He had frequently done when I was young, so that I
could pour out my love to Him directly.

I pretended I was Radha, the consort of Krishna, because I thought that if I imitated her
in every way, Krishna would come and appear before me. I dressed myself in a sari,
decorated my body with bangles and women's jewellery, and even put make-up on my
face. I got into the bhava that I really was Radha, pining away for her divine lover. It
worked. Krishna would appear and I would pour out my heart to Him. On the mornings
after Krishna had appeared to me my face would be lit up with the happiness of divine
love. One of my superior officers mistook my state for drunkenness and gave orders to
the barman in the mess that I should not be given more than three small drinks a day.
He was told by the barman, quite correctly, that I never drank at all, but he didn't
believe him. He simply couldn't understand how someone could look so radiantly happy
without having had any alcoholic stimulants.

My nationalist ambitions withered and died during my brief spell in the army, but, on the
contrary, my passion for Krishna increased to the point where I could think about little
else. The army was not a congenial place for a bhakta who only wanted to indulge in his
obsession for Krishna, so I resigned my commission. It was a difficult thing to do during
wartime, but with the assistance of a sympathetic commanding officer, to whom I
explained my predicament, I managed to free myself from my military obligations.

This man,’ I thought, ‘came all the way to the Punjab in some form, appeared at my
door and directed me to come and see him at Tiruvannamalai. I went there and got a
very good experience when I sat with him. This man must be qualified to advise me.
Perhaps his appearance in my room here means that he wants me to go and see him
again in Tiruvannamalai. Anyway, since there is no one else in Madras whose opinion I
value, I may as well go to him and see what he has to say.’ I still had no interest in his

18
philosophy, but I did recollect that I had been quite attracted by his personality and
presence.

19
 Search for God
Seeking God

I returned home to face the wrath of my father. Having a wife and family to support, he
found it inexcusable that I had given up a promising career without having anything else
to fall back on.

It was true — I could have had a glittering career in the army. All my classmates from
the officer’s training school who made the military their career went on to occupy all the
senior positions in the army in the years that followed independence in 1947. I didn’t
care. Nothing mattered to me anymore except finding God and holding on to Him.

After leaving the army, I had no desire to get a job. I felt instead that I needed a
spiritual Master who could help me to consummate my love affair with Krishna. I had
been sporadically successful in getting Him to appear before me, but I wanted Him all
the time. Since I was unable to summon up Krishna at will, I felt that I should find a
Master who could help me to do it, or who could do it for me. There was, therefore, only
one quality I was looking far in my prospective Master: he must have seen God himself,
and he must have the ability to show Him to me. No other qualifications mattered.

20
With this criterion in mind I began a tour of India which took me to almost every famous
ashram and guru in the country. I went to see such well-known people as Swami
Sivananda, Tapovan Swami,

Ananda Mayi Ma, Swami Ramdas, two of the Shankaracharyas and a host of lesser-
known spiritual figures.At each place I stopped I asked the same question: ‘Have you
seen God? Can you show me God?’ All of them responded in much the same way. They
tried to give me a mantra, or they tried to make me meditate. All of them made a point
of saying that God could not be produced like a rabbit out of a conjuror’s hat, and that if
I wanted to see Him I would have to undergo years of strenuous sadhana. This was not
what I wanted to hear. I told all these swamis and gurus, ‘I am asking you if you can
show me God. If you can, and if you can do it immediately, then say so. If there is a
price to be paid, then tell me. Whatever the price is, I will pay it. I am not interested in
sitting here, year after year, chanting one of your mantras. I want to see God now. If
you can’t show Him to me right now, I will look for someone else who can.’ Since none
of the people I met claimed they could show me God, I eventually had to return to my
father’s house, disillusioned and dispirited.

Meeting Ramana Maharshi

Shortly after my return a sadhu appeared at our door, asking for food. I invited him in,
offered him some food and asked him the question that was uppermost in my mind.
‘Can you show me God? If not, do you know of anyone who can?’

Much to my surprise, he gave me a positive answer. ‘Yes, I know a person who can
show you God. If you go and see that man, everything will be all right for you. His name
is Ramana Maharshi.’

Not having heard of him before, I asked where he lived and was told, ‘Sri
Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai’. Since I had never heard of the place either, I asked
him for directions to get there.

He gave me detailed instructions: ‘Take a train to Madras. When you get to Madras, go
to Egmore station. That is where the metre gauge trains leave from. Take a train from
there to a place called Villupuram. You have to change trains there. Then catch a train
from there to Tiruvannamalai.’

21
I wrote all these details down with mixed feelings. I was very happy to hear that there
was at least one man in India who could show me God, but I also knew that I had no
means of getting to see him. I had spent all the money I had saved from my spell in the
army on my unsuccessful pilgrimage, and I knew that my father would not give me any
assistance. He disapproved of my spiritual trips, feeling, with some justification, that I
should be devoting my time instead to supporting my family.

When I told him that I wanted to go to the South to see yet one more swami, he
exploded with anger. ‘What about your wife and children?’ he demanded. ‘Was it not
enough to leave the army that you must now rush to the other end of India, indulging in
your mad search for spiritual adventures?’ Obviously, no help would be forthcoming
from that quarter.

Shortly afterwards, I went into town and happened to meet one of my old friends. He
was running a tea-stall.

‘I haven’t seen you for a long time,’ he remarked. ‘I heard a story that you resigned
your commission in the army.’

‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘I have given it up for good.’

‘So what are you doing now?’ he enquired.

‘Nothing,’ I answered. ‘I am looking for some sort of job.’

‘Well sit down,’ he said. ‘I will give you some milk to drink.’ Since you are not employed
at the moment, you don’t need to pay.’

I sat down and began to glance through a newspaper that was lying on one of the
tables. Having just been reminded of my unemployed state, I turned to the page which
listed all the job advertisements. One vacancy seemed to be tailor-made for me: ‘Ex-
army officer required in Madras.’ The British army was looking for an ex-officer to
manage all the stores in a canteen which was being run for British servicemen. I looked
for the address to apply to and found that the contractor who had placed the
advertisement was based in Peshawar, a nearby-city. I sent my application there, along
with a photo of myself in army uniform, and was immediately engaged. Not only that,
the contractor gave me money to get to Madras and told me that I need not report for
duty for one month. I thus got money to go to the Maharshi and an opportunity to spend
time in his presence before I reported for work.

It was 1944 and I was thirty-four years of age. I followed the sadhu’s advice and took a

22
train to Tiruvannamalai. On disembarking there I discovered that the Maharshi’s ashram
was about three kilometers away, on the other side of the town, so I engaged a bullock
cart to take me and my belongings there. As soon as we reached the ashram, I jumped
out of the cart, put my bags in the men’s dormitory, and went off to look for this man
who could show me God. I peeped in through his window and saw, sitting on a sofa
inside, the same man who had visited my house in the Punjab.

I was disgusted. ‘This man is a fraud,’ I said to myself. ‘He appears in my house in the
Punjab, tells me to go to Tiruvannamalai, then hops on the train so that he can get there
before me.’ I was so annoyed with him I decided that I wouldn’t even go into the hall
where he was sitting. Mentally adding him to the long list of frauds I had met on my first
pilgrimage round India, I turned on my heels and went off to collect my bags.

As I was preparing to leave on the same cart that had brought me to the ashram, one of
the residents accosted me and asked, ‘Aren’t you from the North? You look like a North
Indian.’ I found out later that he was called Framji and that he owned a cinema in
Madras.

‘Yes I am,’ I replied.

‘Haven’t you just arrived?’ he asked, noting that I was making preparations to leave.
‘Aren’t you going to stay here for at least a couple of days?’

I told him the story of how I had come to be in Tiruvannamalai, concluding by saying,
`This man has been travelling around the country, advertising himself. I don’t want to
see him. I came here because he said there was a man here who could show me God. If
this man really does have the capacity to show me God, why did he not do it in my
house in the Punjab when he came to see me? Why did he make me come all this way? I
am not interested in seeing such a man.’

Framji said, ‘No, no, you are mistaken. He has not moved out of this town in the last
forty-eight years. It is either a case of mistaken identity or somehow, through his
power, he managed to manifest himself in the Punjab while his physical body was still
here. Some girl from America came here once and told a similar story. These things do
happen occasionally. Are you sure that you have not made a mistake?’

‘No,’ I answered, absolutely sure of myself. ‘I recognise the man. I have not made a
mistake.’

‘In that case,’ he responded, ‘please stay. I will introduce you to the manager and he
will give you a place to stay.’

I went along with his suggestion merely because my curiosity had been aroused.
Something strange had happened and I wanted to find out exactly what it was. It was
my intention to confront the Maharshi in private and ask for an explanation of his
strange behaviour.

I soon discovered, though, that he never gave private interviews, so I decided instead
that I would try to see him when the big room in which he saw visitors was relatively
empty.

I ate lunch in the ashram. At the conclusion of the meal the Maharshi went back to his
room with his attendant. No one else followed him. I didn’t know that there was an
unofficial rule that visitors should not go to see him between 11.30 a.m. and 2.30 p.m.
The manager had decided that the Maharshi needed to rest for a few hours after lunch,
but since the Maharshi would not go along with a rule which prevented people from

23
coming to see him, a compromise was reached. His doors would remain open but all
visitors and devotees were actively discouraged from going to see him during these
hours. Not knowing this, I followed the Maharshi into his room, thinking that this was
the best time to have a private interview.

The Maharshi’s attendant, a man called Krishnaswami, tried to discourage me. ‘Not
now,’ he said. ‘Come back at 2.30.’ The Maharshi overheard the exchange and told
Krishnaswami that I could come in and see him.

I approached him in a belligerent way. ‘Are you the man who came to see me at my
house in the Punjab?’ I demanded. The Maharshi remained silent.

I tried again. ‘Did you come to my house and tell me to come here? Are you the man
who sent me here?’ Again the Maharshi made no comment.

Since he was unwilling to answer either of these questions, I moved on to the main
purpose of my visit. ‘Have you seen God?’ I asked. ‘And if you have, can you enable me
to see Him? I am willing to pay any price, even my life, but your part of the bargain is
that you must show me God.’

‘No,’ he answered, ‘I cannot show you God or enable you to see God because God is not
an object that can be seen. God is the subject. He is the seer. Don’t concern yourself
with objects that can be seen. Find out who the seer is.’ He also added, ‘You alone are
God,’ as if to rebuke me for looking for a God who was outside and apart from me.

His words did not impress me. They seemed to me to be yet one more excuse to add to
the long list of those I had heard from swamis all over the country. He had promised to
show me God, yet now he was trying to tell me that not only could he not show me God,
no one else could either. I would have dismissed him and his words without a second
thought had it not been for an experience I had immediately after he had told me to find
out who this ‘I’ was who wanted to see God.

At the conclusion of his words he looked at me, and as he gazed into my eyes, my whole
body began to tremble and shake. A thrill of nervous energy shot through my body. My
nerve endings felt as if they were dancing and my hair stood on end. Within me I
became aware of the spiritual Heart. This is not the physical heart, it is, instead, the
source and support of all that exists. Within the Heart I saw or felt something like a
closed bud. It was very shining and bluish. With the Maharshi looking at me, and with
myself in a state of inner silence, I felt this bud open and bloom. I use the word ‘bud’,
24
but this is not an exact description. It would be more correct to say that something that
felt bud-like opened and bloomed within me in the Heart. And when I say ‘Heart’ I don’t
mean that the flowering was located in a particular place in the body. This Heart, this
Heart of my Heart, was neither inside the body nor out of it. I can’t give a more exact
description of what happened. All I can say is that in the Maharshi’s presence, and under
his gaze, the Heart opened and bloomed. It was an extraordinary experience, one that I
had never had before. I had not come looking for any kind of experience, so it totally
surprised me when it happened.

Though I had had an immensely powerful experience in the presence of the Maharshi,
his statement ‘You alone are God’ and his advice to ‘Find out who the seer is’ did not
have a strong appeal for me. My inclination to seek a God outside me was not dispelled
either by his words or by the experience I had had with him.

I thought to myself, ‘It is not good to be chocolate, I want to taste chocolate’. I wanted
to remain separate from God so that I could enjoy the bliss of union with Him.

When the devotees came in that afternoon I viewed them all with the rather prejudiced
eye of a fanatical Krishna bhakta. So far as I could see, they were just sitting quietly,
doing nothing. I thought to myself, ‘No one here seems to be chanting the name of God.
Not a single person has a mala to do japa with. How can they consider themselves to be
good devotees?’ My views on religious practice were rather limited. All these people may
have been meditating, but so far as I was concerned, they were wasting their time.

I transferred my critical gaze to the Maharshi and similar thoughts arose. ‘This man
should be setting a good example to his followers. He is sitting silently, not giving any
talks about God. He doesn’t appear to be chanting the name of God himself, or focusing
his attention on Him in any way. These disciples are sitting around being lazy because
the Master himself is sitting there doing nothing. How can this man show me God when
he himself shows no interest in Him?’

With thoughts like these floating around my mind it was not long before I generated a
feeling of disgust for both the Maharshi and the people who surrounded him. I still had
some time before I had to report for duty in Madras, but I didn’t want to spend it with all
these spiritually lazy people in the ashram. I took off to the other side of Arunachala, a
few kilometres away, found a nice quiet spot in the forest on the northern side of the
hill, and settled down there to do my Krishna japa, alone and undisturbed.

I stayed there for about a week, immersed in my devotional practices. Krishna would
often appear before me, and we spent a lot of time playing together. At the end of that
period I felt that it was time to go back to Madras to make preparations for my new job.
On my way out of town I paid another visit to the ashram, partly to say goodbye, and
partly to tell the Maharshi that I didn’t need his assistance for seeing God because I had
been seeing Him every day through my own efforts.

When I appeared before him, the Maharshi asked, ‘Where have you been? Where are
you living?’

‘On the other side of the mountain,’ I replied.

‘And what were you doing there?’ he inquired.

He had given me my cue. ‘I was playing with my Krishna,’ I said, in a very smug tone of
voice. I was very proud of my achievement and felt superior to the Maharshi because I
was absolutely convinced that Krishna had not appeared to him during that period.

25
‘Oh, is that so?’ he commented, looking surprised and interested. ‘Very good, very nice.
Do you see Him now?’

‘No sir, I do not,’ I replied. ‘I only see Him when I have visions.’ I was still feeling very
pleased with myself, feeling that I had been granted these visions, whereas the
Maharshi had not.

‘So Krishna comes and plays with you and then He disappears,’ said the Maharshi. ‘What
is the use of a God who appears and disappears? If he is a real God, He must be with
you all the time.’

The Maharshi’s lack of interest in my visionary experiences deflated me a little, but not
to the extent that I was willing to listen to his advice. He was telling me to give up my
search for an external God and instead find the origin and identity of the one who
wanted to see Him. This was too much for me to swallow. A lifetime of devotion to
Krishna had left me incapable of conceiving the spiritual quest in any other terms than
that of a quest for a personal God.

Though his advice did not appeal to me, there was still something about the Maharshi
that inspired and attracted me. I asked him to give me a mantra, hoping thereby to get
his sanction for my own form of spirituality. He refused, although later, when I was back
in Madras, he did give me one in a dream. I then asked him if he would be willing to
give me sannyasa since I was not very keen to take up my new job in Madras. I had
only taken it because it had offered me a way of getting to see the Maharshi. He refused
that request too. Having therefore got, in my own jaundiced opinion, nothing from the
Maharshi except a good experience and some bad advice, I returned to Madras to take
up my new job.

Life in Chennai

I found a nice house to live in, big enough to accommodate my family, and began my
work. The job itself did not interest me much but I did it dutifully and

to the best of my ability, because I had a wife and children to support. All my spare time
and energy were devoted to communing with Krishna.I made a puja room in my house,
informing my wife that when I was in it, I was never to be disturbed. At 2.30 each
morning I would get up and begin my sadhana. Sometimes I would read the various

26
Krishna stories or the Upanishads or the Gita, but mostly I would do japa of the name. I
synchronised the japa with my breathing.

Calculating that I breathed about 24,000 times a day, I decided that I should repeat the
name of God at least once for every breath I took. I cultivated the idea that any breath I
took that was not utilised in uttering the divine name was a wasted one. I found this a
relatively easy target to meet.

Then the thought occurred to me: ‘There have been years of my life when I did not
chant the name at all. All those breaths were wasted. If I increase my recitations to
50,000 a day, I can make up for all those breaths I wasted when I was young.’ I soon
achieved this new target, managing all the time to synchronise the chanting with some
part of the breath.

I would stay in my puja room, chanting the name, from 2.30 a.m. to 9.30 a.m., at which
point I had to leave to go to the office. Work started there at 10 a.m. At the end of each
working day I would return home, lock myself in my puja room again, and carry on
chanting the name of Krishna until it was time for me to go to sleep. I also slept in the
puja room, thus effectively cutting myself off from all interaction with my family. I even
stopped speaking with them.

One morning, around 2.00 a.m., I heard voices outside my door. I knew it could not be
my wife because I had given her strict instructions that I was not to be disturbed while I
was inside my puja room.It then occurred to me that it might be some of my relatives
from the Punjab who had come to visit us. The train from the Punjab usually arrived at
Madras in the evening, but it seemed quite possible to me that the train had arrived
several hours late and that the passengers had only just managed to reach our house.
My curiosity piqued, I decided to open the door to find out who they were.

Imagine my astonishment, on opening the door, when I saw not a group of relatives but
the shining forms of Rama, Sita, Lakshmana and Hanuman standing outside. I couldn’t
understand what they were doing there. I had spent most of my life calling on Krishna,
never feeling much attraction to Rama, or any interest in Him. Nevertheless, I
prostrated to them all with great awe and reverence.

It was Sita who raised her hand and began to speak to me. ‘We have come from
Ayodhya to visit you because Hanuman told us that there was a very great Krishna
bhakta here in Madras.’ I looked at her raised hand, noting casually all the lines that
were on the palm. That image must have imprinted itself permanently on my memory

27
because every time I recall that vision, I clearly see all the lines on that hand just as
they were on the day she appeared before me. Their bodies were not, so far as I could
ascertain, normal human bodies because I could see through them and dimly take in
what was behind them, but they were all exquisitely beautiful. After some time the
vision changed into a landscape in which I saw a mountain and a great garuda flying in
the sky, moving towards me, but never reaching me. There was no perception of time
while all this was going on.

The vision seemed only to last a short time, but I was eventually drawn out of it by my
wife calling to me that if I didn’t leave soon, I would be late for work. I suppose,
therefore, that it must have lasted from about 2.30 in the morning till about 9.30 a.m.
Because of the vision, this was the first day on which I failed to fulfil my self-assigned
quota of 50,000 repetitions of Krishna’s name. Though the vision had been awe-
inspiring, I still felt guilty that I had neglected my japa. I did not mention the night’s
events to anyone in the office because I had got into the habit of keeping my
conversation there to a minimum. I would speak when there was business to be
transacted; otherwise I would keep quiet.

Dark Night of the Soul

Later that day, when I tried to resume my chanting, I found that I could not repeat the
name of Krishna any more. Somehow, my mind refused to cooperate.

I couldn’t read any of my spiritual books either. My mind, thought-free and quiet,
refused to concentrate on or pay attention to any of the spiritual objects I tried to put in
front of it. It was all very mystifying. For a quarter of a century the divine name had
been flowing effortlessly through my mind; now I couldn’t even utter it once.

I immediately went to see the head of the Ramakrishna Mission in Madras, a man called
Swami Kailasananda, and told him that I was having problems with my sadhana. I
explained that I had been chanting the name of God for years and that I had also been
reading many spiritual books. Now, I told him, no matter how hard I try, my mind will
not focus on anything to do with God.

Swami Kailasananda responded by telling me that this was what Christian mystics call
‘the dark night of the soul’. It is a stage in sadhana, he said, in which the practitioner

28
finds, after years of effort, that practice suddenly becomes very hard or unrewarding.
After asking me not to give up trying, he told me to come and attend the regular
satsangs which were being held at the Mission because he felt that in such an
atmosphere I might find it easier to resume my thoughts of God. I didn’t find his advice
very satisfactory. I never went back, nor did I ever attend any meetings. I went to
several other well-known swamis in Madras, but they all told me more or less the same
thing: ‘Don’t give up trying, attend our satsangs, and we are sure that the problem will
soon go away.’

I never attended any of these meetings, partly because I didn’t think much of the
advice, and partly because I didn’t think that these people were qualified to advise me.
Though I could see that they were quite good sadhaks, I also felt that they had not had
a direct experience of God, an experience which would, in my opinion, have made them
more qualified to pass judgement on my case.

My thoughts turned once more to the Maharshi in Tiruvannamalai. I had recently had a
vision of him in my puja room in which he had stood smiling before me.

He had not said anything to me and at the time I had not attributed much significance to
the appearance. Now I began to revise my opinion.

This man,’ I thought, ‘came all the way to the Punjab in some form, appeared at my
door and directed me to come and see him at Tiruvannamalai. I went there and got a
very good experience when I sat with him. This man must be qualified to advise me.
Perhaps his appearance in my room here means that he wants me to go and see him
again in Tiruvannamalai. Anyway, since there is no one else in Madras whose opinion I
value, I may as well go to him and see what he has to say.’ I still had no interest in his
philosophy, but I did recollect that I had been quite attracted by his personality and
presence.

With Maharshi Again

The following weekend I was scheduled to have a half-day holiday on Saturday

afternoon. Sunday, of course, was a holiday every week. I took the train on Saturday
and made my way once more to the hall where the Maharshi sat. As on my first visit, I
felt that my business was private, so I looked for another opportunity to talk to him
when no one else was around. Resorting to the same ruse I had used on my previous

29
visit, I went to see him after lunch. I knew the hall would be empty then. As on my
previous trip, the attendant tried to persuade me to come back later, but again the
Maharshi intervened and gave me permission to enter and speak to him.

I sat in front of the Maharshi and began to tell him my story. ‘For twenty-five years I
have been doing sadhana, mostly repeating the name of Krishna. Up till fairly recently I
was managing 50,000 repetitions a day. I also used to read a lot of spiritual literature.
Then Rama, Sita, Lakshmana and Hanuman appeared before me. After they left, I
couldn’t carry on with my practice. I can’t repeat the name any more. I can’t read my
books. I can’t meditate. I feel very quiet inside but there is no longer any desire in me
to put my attention on God. In fact, I can’t do it even if I try. My mind refuses to engage
itself in thoughts of God. What has happened to me and what should I do?’

The Maharshi looked at me and asked, ‘How did you come here from Madras?’

I didn’t see the point of his question but I politely told him the answer: ‘By train.’

‘And what happened when you got to the station at Tiruvannamalai?’ he inquired.

‘Well, I got off the train, handed in my ticket and engaged a bullock cart to take me to
the ashram.’

‘And when you reached the ashram and paid off the driver of the cart, what happened to
the cart?’

‘It went away, presumably back to town,’ I said, still not clear as to where this line of
questioning was leading.

The Maharshi then explained what he was driving at. ‘The train brought you to your
destination. You got off it because you didn’t need it anymore. It had brought you to the
place you wanted to reach.

Likewise with the bullock cart. You got off it when it had brought you to
Ramanasramam. You don’t need either the train or the cart any more. They were the
means for bringing you here. Now you are here, they are of no use to you.

‘That is what has happened with your sadhana. Your japa, your reading and your
meditation have brought you to your spiritual destination. You don’t need them
30
anymore. You yourself did not give up your practices, they left you of their own accord
because they had served their purpose. You have arrived.’

Then he looked at me intently. I could feel that my whole body and mind were being
washed with waves of purity. They were being purified by his silent gaze. I could feel
him looking intently into my Heart. Under that spellbinding gaze I felt every atom of my
body being purified. It was as if a new body were being created for me. A process of
transformation was going on — the old body was dying, atom by atom, and a new body
was being created in its place. Then, suddenly, I understood. I knew that this man who
had spoken to me was, in reality, what I already was, what I had always been. There
was a sudden impact of recognition as I became aware of the Self.

I use the word ‘recognition’ deliberately, because as soon as the experience was
revealed to me, I knew, unerringly, that this was the same state of peace and happiness
that I had been immersed in as an eight-year-old boy in Lahore, on the occasion when I
had refused to accept the mango drink. The silent gaze of the Maharshi re-established
me in that primal state, but this time it was permanent. The ‘I’ which had for so long
been looking for a God outside of itself, because it wanted to get back to that original
childhood state, perished in the direct knowledge and experience of the Self which the
Maharshi revealed to me. I cannot describe exactly what the experience was or is
because the books are right when they say that words cannot convey it. I can only talk
about peripheral things. I can say that every cell, every atom in my body leapt to
attention as they all recognised and experienced the Self that animated and supported
them, but the experience itself I cannot describe. I knew that my spiritual quest had
definitely ended, but the source of that knowledge will always remain indescribable.

I got up and prostrated to the Maharshi in gratitude. I had finally understood what his
teachings were and are. He had told me not to be attached to any personal God,
because all forms are perishable. He could see that my chief impediments were God’s
beautiful form and the love I felt towards Him. He had advised me to ignore the
appearances of these ephemeral Gods and to enquire instead into the nature and source
of the one who wanted to see them. He had tried to point me towards what was real and
permanent, but stupidly and arrogantly I had paid no attention to his advice.

With hindsight I could now see that the question ‘Who am I?’ was the one question
which I should have asked myself years before. I had had a direct experience of the Self
when I was eight and had spent the rest of my life trying to return to it. My mother had
convinced me that devotion to Krishna would bring it back and had somehow
brainwashed me into undertaking a quest for an external God whom she said could
supply me with that one experience which I desired so much. In a lifetime of spiritual
seeking I had met hundreds of sadhus, swamis and gurus, but none of them had told me
the simple truth the way the Maharshi had done. None of them had said, ‘God is within
you. He is not apart from you. You alone are God. If you find the source of the mind by
asking yourself “Who am I?” you will experience Him in your Heart as the Self.’ If I had
met the Maharshi earlier in my life, listened to his teachings and put them into practice,
I could probably have saved myself years of fruitless external searching.

I must make one other comment about the greatness of the Maharshi. In the days that
followed my vision of Rama I went all over Madras, looking for advice on how to start
my sadhana again. The swamis I saw there gave me pious platitudes because they could
not see into my Heart and mind the way the Maharshi could. Several days later, when I
came and sat in front of the Maharshi, he didn’t tell me to keep on trying because he
could see that I had reached a state in which my sadhana could never be resumed
again. ‘You have arrived,’ he said. He knew I was ready for realisation and through his
divine look he established me in his own state.

31
The real Master looks into your mind and Heart, sees what state you are in, and gives
out advice which is always appropriate and relevant. Other people, who are not
established in the Self, can only give out advice which is based on either their own
limited experience or on what they have heard or read. This advice is often foolish. The
true teacher will never mislead you with bad advice because he always knows what you
need, and he always knows what state you are in.

The Process

Before I carry on with my story I should like to recapitulate some of the main events in
my spiritual career because they illustrate, in a general way, how the process of
realisation comes about. Firstly, there must be a desire for God, a love for Him, or a
desire for liberation. Without that, nothing is possible. In my own case, the experience I
had had when I was eight awakened such a great desire for God within me that I spent
a quarter of a century in an obsessive search for Him. This desire for God or realisation
is like an inner flame. One must kindle it and then fan it until it becomes a raging fire
which consumes all one’s other desires and interests. A single thought or a desire other
than the thought ‘I want God’ or ‘I want Selfrealisation’ is enough to prevent that
realisation from taking place. If these thoughts arise, it means that the fire is not
burning intensely enough.

In the years I was an ecstatic Krishna bhakta I was fanning the flames of my desire for
God, and in the process burning up all my other desires. If this inner fire rages for long
enough, with sufficient intensity, it will finally consume that one, central, overwhelming
desire for God or the Self. This is essential because realisation will not take place until
even this last desire has gone. After this final desire disappears, there will be the silence
of no thoughts. This is not the end, it is just a mental state in which thoughts and
desires no longer arise. That is what happened to me in Madras after Rama appeared
before me. All my thoughts and desires left me, so much so, I couldn’t take up any of
my practices again.

Many people have had temporary glimpses of the Self. Sometimes it happens
spontaneously, and it is not uncommon for it to happen in the presence of a realised
Master.

After these temporary glimpses, the experience goes away because there are still
thoughts and latent desires which have not been extinguished. The Self will only accept,
consume and totally destroy a mind that is completely free of vasanas. That was the

32
state of my mind for the few days I was in Madras. But realisation did not happen in
those few days because the final ingredient was not present. I needed the grace of my
Master; I needed to sit before him; I needed to have him tell me, ‘You have arrived,’
and I needed to believe him; and I needed to have him transmit his power and grace via
his divine look. When the Maharshi’s gaze met my vasana-free mind, the Self reached
out and destroyed it in such a way that it could never rise or function again. Only Self
remained.

I mentioned earlier that it was my mother who turned me into a Krishna bhakta. I
discovered after my realisation that she had merely been the instrumental cause, for the
roots of that particular passion for Krishna could be traced back to my previous life as a
yogi in South India. When knowledge of this previous life came to me, it went a long
way to explaining the pattern of my current life.

In my last life I was a great Krishna bhakta who had disciples of his own and who had
built a temple dedicated to Krishna in which was installed a large, white, stone statue of
the deity. During that particular life I had frequently reached the state of nirvikalpa
samadhi, but I had not managed to realise the Self. One of my impediments then was
that I still had a sexual desire for one of the workers in my ashram. She was a low-caste
woman who used to do odd jobs there. I never made any advances to her and I tried
hard to control my desire, but it never completely left me. When I was reborn as H.W.L.
Poonja, this was the woman I ended up marrying. That one vasana had been enough to
bring about a rebirth in which I had to marry her and raise a family with her. Such are
the workings of karma.

My life as a Krishna yogi ended in an unusual and somewhat gruesome way. I had
entered a state of nirvikalpa samadhi and remained in it for twenty days. My devotees
thought that I had died because they could detect no signs of breathing or blood
circulation. One man from a local village, who was supposed to be an expert in these
matters, was brought in to see if the prana had left the body. He scrutinised my
fontanelle before announcing that he was going to drill a hole there to see if there was
any life still in the body. He borrowed a tool which was used to scrape out coconuts and
gouged a hole in the top of my skull with it. Then he peered into the hole and
pronounced me dead. My devotees accepted the verdict and buried me in a samadhi pit
which was dug near the temple. I then died from being buried alive. I had been fully
aware of the activities of the man who had drilled the hole and of the devotees who had
finally buried me, but I was not able to respond in any way because I was so deeply
immersed in nirvikalpa samadhi. It was uncannily like the experiences I had had as a
boy in my current life, those experiences in which I had been immersed in peace and
happiness, aware of what was going on around me, but unable to make any response.

Many years ago, when I was in the South, I went to have a look at this temple. I
remembered enough of the route from my last life to direct the driver of the taxi from
the local station, even though it was a long way from town with a lot of turnings at
various junctions along the way. It was just as I had remembered it. The white Krishna
statue I had installed was still there. I went off to look at my old samadhi, but it had
gone. The local river had changed its course slightly and washed it away.

The Maharshi had taught me that I should not run after the forms of gods such as
Krishna because they are ephemeral. Though I have followed his advice since he showed
me who I am, nonetheless, images of gods still continue to appear to me. Even now,
decades after my spiritual search ended, Krishna still regularly appears to me. I still feel
a great love for Him whenever He appears, but He no longer has the power to make me
look for anything outside my own Self.

33
Let me explain. When I was a young boy I thought that the body of Krishna was real
because I could touch it. I now know that this is not the true criterion of reality. Reality
is that which always exists and never changes, and only the formless Self meets that
definition. With hindsight I can therefore say that, when I was a boy, the appearance of
Krishna in my bedroom was a transient, unreal phenomenon which arose in
consciousness, the one reality. All the other appearances of Krishna in my life can be
classified in the same way. Now, abiding as the Self, I cannot be tricked or deluded by
the majesty of the Gods, even the ones that manifest right in front of me, because I
know that whatever power or beauty they may appear to have is illusory. All power and
beauty are within me as my own Self, so I no longer need to look for them anywhere
else.

After Realization

After my final experience in the Maharshi’s presence, my outer life went on much as
before. I went back to Madras, carried on with my job, and supported my family to the
best of my ability. At weekends, or when I had accumulated enough leave, I would go
back to Tiruvannamalai, sit at the feet of my Master and bask in his radiant presence.
The cynical, sceptical seeker who had aggressively confronted the Maharshi on his first
visit, had gone for good. All that remained was love for him.

In the first few months after my realisation, I didn’t have a single thought. I could go to
the office and perform all my duties without ever having a thought in my head. It was
the same when I went to Tiruvannamalai. Whether I was sitting in the hall with the
Maharshi, walking around the mountain or shopping in town, everything I did was
performed without any mental activity at all. There was an ocean of inner silence that
never gave rise to even a ripple of thought. It did not take me long to realise that a
mind and thoughts are not necessary to function in the world. When one abides as the
Self, some divine power takes charge of one’s life. All actions then take place
spontaneously, and are performed very efficiently, without any mental effort or activity.

I often brought my family and business colleagues to the ashram at weekends. Out of all
the people I brought, the Maharshi seemed to be particularly fond of my daughter. She
had learned quite good Tamil during her time in Madras, so she could converse with him
in his native language. They used to laugh and play together whenever we visited.

On one of my visits she sat in front of the Maharshi and went into what appeared to be a
deep meditative trance. When the bell for lunch went, I was unable to rouse her. The
Maharshi advised me to leave her in peace, so we went off to eat without her. When we
came back she was still in the same place in the same state. She spent several more
hours in this condition before returning to her normal waking state.

Major Chadwick had been watching all this with great interest. After her experience
ended, he approached the Maharshi and said, ‘I have been here for more than ten years,
but I have never had an experience like this. This seven-year-old girl seems to have had
this experience without making any effort at all. How can this be?’

The Maharshi merely smiled and said, ‘How do you know that she is not older than you?’

After this intense experience my daughter fell in love with the Maharshi and became
very attached to his form.

34
Before we left she told him, ‘You are my father. I am not going back to Madras. I will
stay here with you.’

The Maharshi smiled and said, ‘No, you cannot stay here. You must go back with your
real father. Go to school, finish your education, and then you can come back if you want
to.’

The experience had a profound impact on her life. Just a few weeks ago I overheard her
telling someone in our kitchen that not a day has passed since then without some
memory of that event. But if you ask her about it, she can’t give any kind of answer. If
anyone asks her, ‘What happened that day when you were in a trance in front of the
Maharshi?’ her response is always the same. She just starts crying. She has never been
able to describe or explain, even to me, what exactly happened.

The Muslim Pir

On another visit I brought a Muslim pir I had met in Madras. As a professor in Baghdad
he had had an inner awakening and taken to the religious life. He had come to India
because he had suddenly felt an

urge to visit some Hindu holy men to see what sort of state they were in. I encouraged
him to join me on one of my visits to the Maharshi since I could not imagine a better

35
example of a Hindu saint. At Tiruvannamalai we sat in the hall together for some time,
looking at the Maharshi. Then the pir got up, saluted him and walked out. When I caught
up with him and asked him why he had left so suddenly, he said, ‘I have smelled this
one flower in the garden of Hinduism. I don’t need to smell any of the others. Now I am
satisfied and can go back to Baghdad.’

This man was a jnani and in those few minutes with the Maharshi he was able to satisfy
himself that the flowering of jnana in Hindus was no different from the highest
experience attained by Islamic saints.

Such enlightened people are very rare. In the last forty years or so I have met
thousands of sadhus, swamis, gurus, etc. I have been to Kumbha Melas which millions
of pilgrims attended; I have been to many of the big ashrams in India; I have toured the
Himalayas, meeting many reclusive hermits there; I have met yogis with great siddhis,
men who could actually fly. But in all the years since my realisation I have only met two
men, apart from the Maharshi himself, who convinced me that they had attained full and
complete Self-realisation. This Muslim pir was one. The other was a relatively unknown
sadhu I met by the side of a road in Karnataka.

I was waiting for a bus in an isolated location near Krishnagiri, a town located midway
between Tiruvannamalai and Bangalore. An extremely disreputable-looking man
approached me. He wore tattered, filthy clothes and had open wounds on his legs which
he had neglected so badly they were infested with maggots. We talked for a while and I
offered to remove the maggots from his leg and give him some medicine which would
help his wounds to heal. He wasn’t interested in having any assistance from me. ‘Leave
the maggots where they are,’ he said. ‘They are enjoying their lunch.’

Feeling that I couldn’t leave him in such a miserable condition, I tore a strip off the
shawl I was wearing and tied it round his leg so that at least he could have a clean
bandage. We said ‘good-bye’ and he walked off into the nearby forest.

I had recognised this man to be a jnani and was idly speculating on what strange karma
had led him to neglect his body in such a way, when a woman approached me. She had
been selling iddlies and dosas at a nearby roadside stall.

‘You are a very lucky man,’ she said. ‘That was a great mahatma. He lives in this forest
but he almost never shows himself. People come from Bangalore to have his darshan,
but he never allows anyone to find him unless he himself wants to meet them. I myself
sit here all day, but this is the first time I have seen him in more than a year. This is the
first time I have seen him approach a complete stranger and start talking to him.’

I have digressed a little into the story of the bedraggled jnani because he and the
Muslim pir illustrate a couple of points that I want to make. The first I have already
alluded to. Though many people have had a temporary direct experience of the Self, full
and permanent realisation is a very rare event. I say this from direct experience, having
seen, quite literally, millions of people who are on some form of spiritual path.

The second point is also interesting, for it reflects great credit on the Maharshi. Out of
these people, the only three I have met since my realisation who have satisfied me that
they are jnanis, it was the Maharshi alone who made himself available, twenty-four
hours a day, to anyone who wanted to see him. The Krishnagiri sadhu hid in his forest;
the Muslim pir, when he stayed at my house in Madras, kept himself locked up and
refused to see visitors who wanted to see him. Of these three, the Maharshi alone was
easy to find and easy to approach.

36
My own early visits demonstrate the point. He could have kept quiet on my first two
after-lunch visits and allowed his attendant to send me away. Instead, sensing that I
had an urgent problem, he allowed me to come in and talk about the things that were
bothering me. No one was ever denied access to him because they were immature or
unsuitable. Visitors and devotees could sit in his presence for as long as they wanted, all
of them absorbing as much grace as they could assimilate. Through his jnana alone, the
Maharshi was a towering spiritual giant. By making himself continuously available, the
lustre of his greatness shone even more.

At Ramanasramam

On my visits to Sri Ramanasramam I would sit in the hall with the Maharshi, listening to
him deal with all the questions and doubts that devotees brought to him. Occasionally, if
some answer was not clear, or if it did not tally with my own experience, I would ask a
question myself. My army training had taught me that I should keep on questioning until
I fully understood what was being explained to me. I applied the same principles to the
Maharshi’s philosophical teachings.

On one occasion, for example, I heard him tell a visitor that the spiritual Heart-centre
was located on the right side of the chest, and that the ‘I’-thought arose from that place
and subsided there. This did not tally with my own experience of the Heart. On my first
visit to the Maharshi, when my Heart opened and flowered, I knew that it was neither
inside nor outside the body. And when the experience of the Self became permanent
during my second visit, I knew that it was not possible to say that the Heart could be
limited to or located in the body.

So I joined in the conversation and asked, ‘Why do you place the spiritual Heart on the
right side of the chest and limit it to that location? There can be no right or left for the
Heart because it does not abide inside or outside the body. Why not say it is
everywhere? How can you limit the truth to a location inside the body? Would it not be
more correct to say that the body is situated in the Heart, rather than the Heart in the
body?’ I was quite vigorous and fearless in my questioning because that was the method
I had been taught in the army.

The Maharshi gave me an answer which fully satisfied me. Turning to me, he explained
that he only spoke in this way to people who still identified themselves with their bodies.
‘When I speak of the “I” rising from the right side of the body, from a location on the
right side of the chest, the information is for those people who still think that they are
the body. To these people I say that the Heart is located there. But it is really not quite
correct to say that the “I” rises from and merges in the Heart on the right side of the
chest. The Heart is another name for the Reality and it is neither inside nor outside the
body; there can be no in or out for it, since it alone is. I do not mean by “Heart” any
physiological organ or any plexus or anything like that, but so long as one identifies
oneself with the body and thinks that one is the body, one is advised to see where in the
body the “I”-thought rises and merges again. It must be the Heart at the right side of
the chest since every man, of whatever race and religion, and in whatever language he
may be saying “I”, points to the right side of the chest to indicate himself. This is so all
over the world, so that must be the place. And by keenly watching the daily emergence
of the “I”-thought on waking, and its subsiding in sleep, one can see that it is in this
Heart on the right side.’

I liked to talk to the Maharshi when he was alone or when there were very few people
around, but this was not often possible. For most of the day he was surrounded by
people. Even when I did approach him with a question, I had to have an interpreter on
hand because my Tamil wasn’t good enough to sustain a philosophical conversation.

37
The summer months were the best time to catch him in a quiet environment. The
climate was so unpleasant at that time, few visitors came. One time in May, at the
height of the summer, there were only about five of us with the Maharshi. Chadwick,
one of the five, made a joke about it: ‘We are your poor devotees, Bhagavan. Everyone
who can afford to go to the hills to cool off has left. Only we paupers have been left
behind.’

The Maharshi laughed and replied, ‘Yes, staying here in summer, without running away,
is the real tapas’.

I would sometimes accompany the Maharshi on his walks around the ashram. This
enabled me to talk privately with him and to observe first-hand how he dealt with
devotees and ashram workers.

I watched him supervise the sharing out of the food, making sure everyone received
equal portions; I watched him remonstrate with workers who wanted to prostrate to him
rather than carry on with their work. Everything he did contained a lesson for us. Every
step he took was a teaching in itself.

The Maharshi preferred to work in a low-key, unspectacular way with the people around
him. There were no great demonstrations of his power, just a continuous subtle
emanation of grace which inexorably seeped into the hearts of all those who came into
contact with him.

One incident I witnessed illustrates very well the subtle and indirect way that he worked
with us. A woman brought her dead son to the Maharshi, placing the dead body before
the couch. The boy had apparently died from a snake bite. The woman begged the
Maharshi to bring him back to life, but he deliberately ignored her and her repeated
requests. After a few hours the ashram manager made her take the corpse away. As she
was leaving the ashram she met some kind of snake charmer who claimed that he could
cure her son. The man did something to the boy’s hand, the place where he had been
bitten, and the boy immediately revived, even though he had been dead for several
hours.

The devotees in the ashram attributed the miraculous cure to the Maharshi, saying,
‘When a problem is brought to the attention of a jnani, some “automatic divine activity”
brings about a solution’. According to this theory, the Maharshi had done nothing
consciously to help the boy, but at a deeper, unconscious level, his awareness of the
problem had caused the right man to appear at the right place. The Maharshi of course
disclaimed all responsibility for the miraculous cure. ‘Is that so?’ was his only response
when told about the boy’s dramatic recovery.

38
This was typical of the Maharshi. He never performed any miracles and never even
accepted any responsibility for those that seemed to happen either in his presence or on
account of a devotee’s faith in him. The only ‘miracles’ he indulged in were those of
inner transformation. By a word, a look, a gesture, or merely by remaining in silence, he
quietened the minds of people around him, enabling them to become aware of who they
really were. There is no greater miracle than this.

“I Am With You”

In 1947 the British Government, under pressure from the Muslims, decided that after
independence India would be partitioned. The areas with a Muslim majority would form
the new state of Pakistan; the leftover territory would be the new, independent India. In
the Northwest, the border ran roughly north-south and was located to the east of
Lahore. This meant that my family would find themselves in Pakistan after
independence, which was scheduled to occur in August. In the months preceding
independence many Muslims from India migrated to the embryonic state of Pakistan. At
the same time, many Hindus who were living in areas that would be in Pakistan left to
live in India. Feelings ran high in both communities. Hindus trying to leave Pakistan
were attacked, robbed and even killed by Muslims, while Muslims trying to leave India
were subjected to the same treatment by Hindus. The violence escalated to the point
where whole trainloads of Hindus leaving Pakistan were hijacked and gunned down by
Muslims, while, in the other direction, Hindus were attacking trains of fleeing Muslims,
and murdering all the occupants. I knew nothing about all this because I never bothered
to read newspapers or listen to the radio.

In July 1947, a month before independence, Devaraja Mudaliar approached me and

asked me which part of the Punjab I came from. When I told him that I came from a
town about 200 miles to the west of Labore, he informed me about the forthcoming
partition, stressing that my family and my father’s house were going to end up in
Pakistan.

‘Where are all the members of your family at the moment?’ he asked.

‘So far as I know,’ I answered, for I didn’t have much contact with them, ‘they are still
all in my home town. None of them is living in a place which will be in India.’

‘Then why don’t you go and fetch them?’ he asked. ‘It is not safe for them to stay there.’
He told me about the massacres that were going on and insisted that it was my duty to
look after my family by taking them to a safe place. He even suggested that I bring
them to Tiruvannamalai.

‘I’m not going,’ I told him. ‘I cannot leave the company of the Maharshi.’ This was not an
excuse; I felt it was quite literally true. I had reached a stage in my relationship with the
Maharshi where I loved him so much, I couldn’t take my eyes off him or contemplate the
thought of going to the other end of the country for an indefinite period.

That day, as we accompanied the Maharshi on his evening walk outside the ashram,
Devaraja Mudaliar turned to him and said, ‘Poonja’s family seems to be stranded in
Western Punjab. He doesn’t want to go there. Nor does he seem interested in trying to
get them out. Independence is less than a month away. If he does not go now, it may
be too late.’

The Maharshi agreed with him that my place was with my family. He told me, ‘There will
be a lot of trouble in the area you come from. Why don’t you go there at once? Why
don’t you go and bring your family out?’

39
Though this amounted to an order, I was still hesitant. Ever since the day the Maharshi
had shown me who I am, I had felt great love for him and great attachment to him. I
genuinely felt that I didn’t have any relationship in the world other than the one I had
with him. My attitude was, ‘I feel so much gratitude towards this man who has removed
my fears, shown me the light and removed the darkness from my mind, I can’t have any
relationship any more except with him’. I attempted to explain my position to the
Maharshi.

‘That old life was only a dream,’ I said. ‘I dreamed I had a wife and a family. When I
met you, you ended my dream. I have no family any more, I only have you.’

The Maharshi countered by saying, ‘But if you know that your family is a dream, what
difference does it make if you remain in that dream and do your duty? Why are you
afraid of going if it is only a dream?’

I then explained the main reason for my reluctance to go. ‘I am far too attached to your
physical form. I cannot leave you. I love you so much I cannot take my eyes off you.
How can I leave?’

‘I am with you wherever you are,’ was his answer. From the way he spoke to me I could
see that he was determined that I should go. His last statement was, in effect, a
benediction for my forthcoming trip and for my future life in general.

I immediately understood the deep significance of his remark. The ‘I’ which was my
Master’s real nature was also my own inner reality. How could I ever be away from that
‘I’? It was my own Self, and both my Master and I knew that nothing else existed.

I accepted his decision. I prostrated before him and for the first and only time in my life
I touched his feet as an act of veneration, love and respect. He didn’t normally let
anyone touch his feet, but this was a special occasion and he made no objection. Before
I rose I collected some of the dust from beneath his feet and put it in my pocket to keep
as a sacred memento. I also asked for his blessings because I had an intuition that this
was our final parting. I somehow knew I would never see him again.

40
 Return to the World
Last Train From Pakistan

I left the ashram and made my way to Lahore. The atmosphere there was every bit as
bad as I had been led to expect. Angry Muslims were running around shouting, ‘Kill the
Hindus! Kill the Hindus!’ Others were shouting, ‘We got Pakistan so easily, let us now
invade India and conquer it! Let us take it by the sword!’

I went to the station and bought a ticket for my home town. I found a seat in a nearly-
empty carriage, put my bags there and went outside to have a drink at the platform tea
stall. Surprised at finding the train so empty, I asked one of the passers-by, ‘What’s
going on? Why is the train so empty?’

He gave me the reason. ‘The Hindus are not traveling any more. They are afraid to go
anywhere by train because they are in the minority here. So many train passengers are
being murdered, no one wants to travel that way any more.’

In those violent days, Hindus and Muslims were traveling in separate carriages so they
could protect each other in case there was any trouble. The nearly empty carriages I
was looking at were those occupied by the Hindus.

And then an inner voice, the voice of my Master, said to me, ‘Go and sit with the
Muslims in their compartment. Nothing will happen to you there.’ Superficially it seemed
like a good idea, but I had doubts about my ability to fool my Muslim fellow-passengers
into believing that I was one of them. I dressed very differently and I had a highly
visible ‘Om’ tattooed on the back of one of my hands. I came from a community of
brahmin Hindus which thought that all Muslims were polluted and impure because they
ate beef. Anyone who wanted to come into our house had to show the back of his hand
first. All the local Hindus had an ‘Om’ tattooed there; the Muslims did not. The Hindus
were allowed in, the Muslims were excluded.

I listened to the voice and took my seat with the Muslims. No one objected or
questioned my right to be there. Somewhere in the countryside the train was stopped by
Muslims and all the passengers in the Hindu carriages were gunned down. No one paid
any attention to me, even though, to my own eyes at least, I was clearly a Hindu.

I disembarked from the train when it reached my destination and made my way to my
family home. When I got there it, was locked and barred. Nobody answered my knock.
Eventually my father appeared on the roof, demanding to know who I was.

‘It’s your son,’ I called back. ‘Can’t you see? Don’t you recognize my voice?'

41
He recognized me and showed his astonishment at my return.

He knew that my family obligations had never rated highly in my priorities before.

What have you come back for?’ he asked, somewhat incredulously. ‘The Punjab is
burning. Hindus are being murdered everywhere. Anyway, how did you get here? Are
the trains still running?’

‘Yes,’ I called back, ‘the trains are still running. That’s how I got here.’

My father thought for a while before coming to a major decision. ‘In that case,' he said,
‘you must take the family out of the Punjab and get them settled somewhere in India. If
the trains are still running, I can get railway passes for you all.'

The following day, equipped with the relevant passes, I took thirty-four members of my
family, virtually all of them women, out of Western Punjab into India. The train we took
from Lahore was the last one to leave that city for India. After partition, the trains never
crossed the border again.

The Maharshi had sent me to the Punjab to do my duty. That was typical of him because
he never permitted his devotees to abandon their family responsibilities. Telling me, ‘I
am with you wherever you are,' he sent me off to fulfil my obligations. When I first
heard this remark, I only appreciated its philosophical significance. It did not occur to
me that physically I would also be under his care and protection. Yet this was manifestly
the case. He had told me where to sit on the train. For more than twenty hours after the
massacre I had sat unrecognised in a Muslim carriage, despite having pierced ears and
an ‘Om' on my hand, both of them classic Hindu identification marks. In an environment
of utter anarchy I had secured seats for a vast contingent of my family and got them out
of danger on the last train that ever left Lahore for India. After independence the cross-
border railway lines were pulled up and the border itself was closed.

Arrival in Lucknow

I took my family to Lucknow because I had a friend there from my time in the army
whom I knew I could rely on for help. With his assistance I found suitable
accommodation. There was no question of my returning to the Maharshi because I was
the only potential earner in our group. Refugees fleeing Pakistan for India were stripped
of all their possessions before they left. Even personal jewellery was taken. Arriving in
India with little more than the clothes we were wearing, it became my responsibility to
feed, clothe and support this vast group of destitute refugees.

42
Having listened to the Maharshi for several years, I knew by heart the advice he always
gave to householders: ‘Abide as the Self and do your duties in the world without being
attached to them in any way.’ For the next few years I had ample opportunity to live this
philosophy.

‘That old life was only a dream,’ I said. ‘I dreamed I had a wife and a family. When I
met you, you ended my dream. I have no family any more, I only have you.’

The Maharshi countered by saying, ‘But if you know that your family is a dream, what
difference does it make if you remain in that dream and do your duty? Why are you
afraid of going if it is only a dream?’

I then explained the main reason for my reluctance to go. ‘I am far too attached to your
physical form. I cannot leave you. I love you so much I cannot take my eyes off you.
How can I leave?’

‘I am with you wherever you are,’ was his answer. From the way he spoke to me I could
see that he was determined that I should go. His last statement was, in effect, a
benediction for my forthcoming trip and for my future life in general.

I immediately understood the deep significance of his remark. The ‘I’ which was my
Master’s real nature was also my own inner reality. How could I ever be away from that
‘I’? It was my own Self, and both my Master and I knew that nothing else existed.

I had to work night and day to keep the family going. I have always been a big, strong
man, and in my youth I was a successful wrestler.

But even with all this strength at my disposal, I had a gruelling, arduous time trying to
keep up with all the needs and expectations of thirty-four dependants, all of us stranded
in a strange land.It did not help matters that my family did not feel any need to
economise. On the rare occasions I came home I would find a housefull of women,
drinking cups of tea and frying mountains of pakoras. I remember buying an eighteen-
kilo tin of cooking oil for them almost every week.

At 8.47, on the evening of April 14th, 1950, I was walking down a street in Lucknow. I
suddenly felt an enormous spasm in my chest which nearly knocked me to the ground. I
thought it must be some sort of heart attack. A few seconds later I saw a few people
pointing up to a large meteor which was trailing across the sky. This was the meteor
which thousands of people all over India saw in the first few seconds after the
Maharshi’s death. Many people have said that they knew instinctively that the
appearance of the meteor signified that the Maharshi was dead. This never occurred to
me at the time. I only found out about his death when I listened to the news on the
radio the following day.

43
 The Master Remains

There is one final episode I must tell before I complete the story of my association with
my Master.

Many years later, sitting on the banks of the Ganga, I had an extraordinary vision of
myself, the self that had been H.W.L. Poonja, in all its various incarnations through
time. I watched the self move from body to body, from form to form. It went through
plants, through animals, through birds, through human bodies, each in a different place
in a different time. The sequence was extraordinarily long. Thousands and thousands of
incarnations, spanning millions of years, appeared before me. My own body finally
appeared as the last one of the sequence, followed shortly afterwards by the radiant
form of Sri Ramana Maharshi. The vision then ended. The appearance of the Maharshi
had ended that seemingly endless sequence of births and rebirths. After his intervention
in my life, the self that finally took the form of Poonja could incarnate no more. The
Maharshi destroyed it by a single look.

As I watched the endless incarnations roll by, I also experienced time progressing at its
normal speed. That is to say, it really felt as if millions of years were elapsing. Yet when
my normal consciousness returned, I realised that the whole vision had occupied but an
instant of time. One may dream a whole lifetime but when one wakes up one knows that
the time which elapsed in the dream was not real, that the person in the dream was not
real, and that the world which that person inhabited was not real. All this is recognised
instantly at the moment of waking. Similarly, when one wakes up to the Self, one knows
instantly that time, the world, and the life one appeared to live in it are all unreal.

That vision by the Ganga brought home this truth to me very vividly. I knew that all my
lifetimes in samsara were unreal, that the Maharshi had woken me up from this wholly
imaginary nightmare by showing me the Self that I really am. Now, freed from that
ridiculous samsara, and speaking from the standpoint of the Self, the only reality, I can
say, ‘Nothing has ever come into existence; nothing has ever happened; the
unchanging, formless Self alone exists’. That is my experience, and that is the
experience of everyone who has realised the Self.

A few months ago, at one of the satsangs I conduct in Lucknow, someone gave me a
note which concluded:

44
‘My humble respects and gratitude to you, especially to one who was a disciple of
Ramana Maharshi.’ I couldn’t let this pass. ‘Why do you say “was”?’ I exclaimed. ‘Please
correct your grammar! Please correct your grammar! I am his disciple! He is my Master.
How can I throw him away into the past? There is no past and no future for the Master.
There isn’t even a present because he has transcended time.’

When I left him physically in 1947 he told me, ‘I am with you wherever you are’. That
was his promise and that is my experience. There is no one called Poonja left anymore.
There is only an emptiness where he used to be. And in that emptiness there shines the
‘I’, the ‘I’ that is my reality, the ‘I’ that is my Master, the ‘I’ that he promised would be
with me wherever I am. Whenever I speak, it is not someone called Poonja who is
speaking, it is the ‘I’ that is the Maharshi who speaks, the ‘I’ which is the Self in the
Heart of all beings.

I tried to explain this to the person who sent me the note. Who am I? What am I?

I never think it is I, Poonja, who am speaking. It is he, the Maharshi, the Master who is
speaking. If I ever thought that this person called Poonja was speaking to you, I would
have no right to sit here because whatever would come out of my mouth would be false.
It is my own Master who speaks; it is your own Master who speaks.

It is your own Heart speaking; it is your own Self which is speaking to you. There is no
one here claiming to be an intermediary. There is no one here claiming that he once had
a Master called “Sri Ramana Maharshi”. There is only emptiness, and in that emptiness
the “I” which is, not was, my Master speaks.

‘I am sitting here introducing you to my teacher and his teachings. He is the teacher,
not I. He is your own Self. He is the teacher of the world. He was the teacher before you
even knew him. He was there, waiting for you, smiling within your Heart. Now you are
attracted by him, not me. I, Poonja, am not in the picture at all.’

Poonja has gone for good, but the Master remains and will always remain. He is seated
in my Heart as my own imperishable Self. Shining as the ‘I’, he alone is.

45
 Mahasmadhi

On 6th September, 1997 Papaji passed away in the intensive-care ward of a Lucknow
hospital, having succumbed to what the doctors there called ‘acute respiratory failure'.
Papaji was cremated the following day and his ashes were immersed in the Ganga a few
days later by Surendra, his son, and by the devotees who accompanied him. —

Though his health had been poor for some time, Papaji continued to give regular public
satsangs till 25 th August (Krishna Janmashtami), and the never-ending stream of
devotees was made welcome at his home until a severe attack of viral fever, bronchitis
and asthma forced his admission to hospital on 2 nd September.

http://www.satsangbhavan.net/biography.htm

46
 Nothing Ever Happened (biography of Papaji)
by David Godman

Paperback.
3 volumes.
1297 pages.
Published 1998 by the Avadhuta Foundation.
ISBN 0963802259.

A massive (over 1,200 pages) biography of Papaji, a disciple of Ramana Maharshi and
one of the most influential advaitic teachers of modern times. In addition to the
biographical narrative that spans more than eighty years of his action-packed life, there
are teaching dialogues, extensive extracts from Papaji's diaries and letters, along with
many accounts by devotees who were utterly transformed by him. This is the definitive
account of Papaji's life.

Check out our Ordering Information Page for more details

http://www.davidgodman.org/books/nothingeverhappened.shtml

David Godman (With father in a vintage 1930s car)

47
 David Godman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Godman

David Godman (born 1953 in the UK) is the author of a number of significant books on
Ramana Maharshi's teachings and disciples. He currently lives near Tiruvannamalai,
which is the South Indian town where Sri Ramana Maharshi spent all his adult life.

Works

Be As You Are (edited): dialogues between Ramana Maharshi and visitors. This is the
most widely read book on Ramana Maharshi's teachings.

No Mind - I am the Self: biographies and teachings of Lakshmana Swamy and Mathru
Sri Sarada. Lakshmana Swamy is a direct disciple of Ramana Maharshi who realised the
Self in his presence in 1949. Mathru Sri Sarada is his disciple. She realised the Self in
Lakshmana Swamy's presence in 1978.

Living by the Words of Bhagavan: a biography of Annamalai Swami, a devotee of

Ramana Maharshi who worked closely with the Maharshi in the 1930s and early 1940s.
The book also contains dialogues that Annamalai Swami had with visitors in the late
1980s.

Papaji Interviews (edited): a collection of interviews that various visitors had with Papaji
(H. W. L. Poonja) in the early 1990s. Papaji is an enlightened disciple of Ramana
Maharshi. The book also contains a lengthy introductory account of Papaji's early life and
his association with Ramana Maharshi.

Nothing Ever Happened: A three-volume biography of Papaji (H. W. L. Poonja)that

chronicles his life up to the early 1980s.

Final Talks (edited): dialogues between Annamalai Swami and visitors to his ashram that
took place in the last six months of his life.

The Power of the Presence (edited): A three-volume series that contains first-person
accounts from devotees whose lives were transformed by Ramana Maharshi.

Sri Ramana Darsanam (translated and edited): originally written in Tamil by Sadhu
Natanananda, a devotee of Ramana Maharshi, this books gives little-known incidents
from Ramana Maharshi's life, along with comments on their significance.

Padamalai (translated and edited): This is derived from a long Tamil poem of the same
name that was written by Sri Muruganar, a devotee of Ramana Maharshi. It contains
teachings of Ramana Maharshi recorded by Muruganar in Tamil, along with extensive
supporting quotations from other sources that contain Ramana Maharshi's teachings.

http://www.davidgodman.org/

48
 Satsang with Papaji
http://www.satsangbhavan.net/

Om.
Let there be Peace and Love
Among All Beings of the Universe.
Let there be Peace,Let there be Peace,
Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.
Namaskar.
Welcome to Satsang.

49
 Who Are You?
Who are you? Where do you come from? Many times you came and many times you
returned. You have never attempted to ask yourself who you are. If you had done so,
you would never have returned to this miserable samsara. When you have known, this
karma ceases to function, samsara ceases to exist. You return to your original
fundamental nature — to Being, to Existence, to Bliss. That is what you are. That is what
you have been. That is what you are going to be.

So here is how to do it — it is very easy. Let me introduce you to what is going on here.
To begin with, find out who is the one who sees. Ask yourself the question: "Who is the
seer?" Find out what is seen. That which is seen is the object and the seer is the subject.
The seer — subject — must be separate from the object, different from the object. It is
that which is seeing the object. The object is that which is seen. The seer is looking at
the object — you are not the object. You may see anything: a horse, a cow, a car, a
building, or anything. You are not that. You are the seer.

When you experience your own body you may think that you are the body, but you are
not the body. You experience, "I see the body." so you are the seer of the body. It is
here that you make the mistake: You become the body and you forget that you are the
seer. You have become an object when you say, "I am doing. I am seeing. I am tasting.
I am touching. I am smelling. I am hearing." You have lost your bearings and become
the body — the seer is no longer separated from the body. Whatever is seen is an
object, so when the body is objectified who is the seer? When you see the body it
becomes an object. Whatever you see is an object. If you see your eyes they are
objects; if you see your hands they are objects.

50
What about the mind? You know very well that if your mind is suffering it is not at
peace. You know the activities of the mind also. You know, "Now my mind is thinking or
not thinking." This means that you are also aware of the activities of the mind. You are
something other than the mind. You are not the mind. You are neither the mind nor the
body.

The same is true of the working of the senses. When you are working, walking, or
talking, you know very well, "I am at work, my hands are working." You know very well
that you are not the hand; something else is commanding the hands to work. You are
something other than the movement of physical activities. You are not even that.

Now consider the intellect. You decide, "I have to do this. I have to go to Lucknow." You
decided and you are here. You guided the intellect to make the decision, "Let's go to
Lucknow." then you followed the intellect. So you are guiding even the intellect and you
know very well that the intellect is something other than you.

Find out who you are — here and now. You are not the mind. You are not even the
prana — the breathing. You know very well that breathing is in and out, inhaling and
exhaling. You can feel, "I am inhaling, I am exhaling." You know this activity also. Who
is watching the inhaling and exhaling? This is all that the body is.

So who are you? You are not all these functions. You will have to ask the question, "Who
am I?" This is what we have come here to understand, and we have not done this at any
time before. This question must be solved but we have postponed it. Everyone has
postponed it for millions of years. We will not postpone this here. There is no method to
practice. Simply find out, "Who am I?" This is not a method or practice or sadhana.

This can be done here and now — in this instant — because the Self is here.
Enlightenment means to know thy Self — to know, "Who am I." This is Enlightenment.
This is Wisdom. This is Bliss. This is Existence. This is Being. This is Truth. This truth is
not located at a distance — it is your own Self through which you are searching for truth
and freedom. It is not any distance from here. It is within you, nearer than your own
breath. It is behind the retina of your eyes, which you cannot see. You need not look
outside. It is behind the retina; it is that through which the retina sees. You need no
effort to see it.

When you still all activities, without doing anything, without thinking any thought —
when you do not stir any thought from the mind ground, without moving, without
moving the mind, without starting a single thought — in an instant of time you are free.
When you give rise to any sadhana or practice, when you go to any center or ashram,
when you go to any teacher or pilgrimage or church, when you make any prayer, you
have postponed it. This you have done.

Be free of all these things right now. Because free you have been, free you are. You
cannot achieve anything other than what you are. Anything gained afresh or achieved
for the first time — anything which is new to you — you will certainly lose because it was
not there at all. All that is natural to you is already there. Do not try to achieve anything
or gain anything or attain anything which is not already there. This is not a fresh gain.
People think, "At the end of this sadhana I am going to be free." But it is not like that.
You have been looking for something else, not freedom. Freedom is already here.

When you exert effort or practice sadhana you will camouflage and cover the truth. You
will have to remove this covering because it is you who put it there. This covering will be
removed through your effort. And when all efforts are done away with — when all
attempts, all intents and intentions, all ideas and notions are rejected — at that time ask
yourself, "Who am I?" You will certainly find the answer.

51
This is how freedom is already attained: You are already free. If you can hear this once
from a teacher you are free. If you cannot hear this, then practice. If you can listen to a
teacher who is not a liar, who is speaking the truth, and if you are honestly longing for
freedom then listen once and you are free.

If you are not honest and if the teacher is not authentic it will not work. You will have to
take up a practice if something is false somewhere. What is that practice? At all times,
walking, sleeping, dreaming, on waking, while standing, sitting, lying, go on chanting
the mantra. I can recommend mantras also, as a second best. If you can repeat this
mantra from now till your last breath I guarantee you will not appear again in a next
birth; you will not fall into any womb. What is the mantra? "I AM FREE!" Take up this
practice if you do not believe me.

If you can listen, if you long for freedom, and you feel that I am honest when I tell you
that you are free, then accept it! Hear this only once and you are free.

If you do not accept what I am saying then I will give you a practice as a second best.
You will have to continue practicing on every breath — every breath of the waking state,
of the dream state, of the sleeping state up to the last breath. Then I guarantee that
you will not appear again in this miserable samsara.

To hear this once is enough. It is no problem to be free in this life. You have lived 8.4
million times as different kinds of species. This cycle has taken about 35 million years,
and each of us has gone though many such cycles. So let us now decide not to return
again.

Those who are here represent 6 billion people in the world today, without counting all
the animals, birds, worms and germs. Out of 6 billion human beings there are very few
of us here. Throughout the world they do not allow you to even utter the words, "I want
to be free." If you say, "I am free." or "I am God." you are put on a cross or stoned to
death. Those few who have said, "I am Free." have been stoned to death or crucified. I
am happy that you have freedom of expression; you are lucky. You are born of a lucky
family, of a lucky land that has allowed you to come to some other country and search
for freedom. You are twice lucky. And I trust that all those who are here will not return
home as they came. I am having good results. This is the first time in history. I see
people every day come in front and say, "I am free. I am free." They come from every
country and see me saying, "I am in peace. I have seen peace. I am very happy!" They
express it in many ways.

This has never happened before. In distant centuries people were performing tapas
continuously for thousands of years, but we have very few examples of enlightenment —
only a finger count. We have to go back thousands of years to find some sage or saint
we can quote about freedom, like Jagnavalka, Vaishista or Buddha. But here I am very
happy to see many buddhas appearing. Without sitting under any bodhi tree they are
becoming buddhas. This is happening in this century because now we have no time to
go to the mountains. The mountains are all polluted now. In Kashmir at 22,000 feet,
armies are standing abreast with their weapons with intention of killing each other. How
can you meditate between two armies?

It is best that wherever you find time, even in your own apartment — close your eyes
and meditate. Search within yourself. There is no need to go anywhere because there is
no peace anywhere. Everything is polluted — we cannot even have fresh air. The ocean
is polluted, the rivers are polluted, mountains are polluted, the land is polluted, food is
polluted. What is there to do about it? You cannot even do yoga. For yoga you need very
sattvic food, which is not available. The human lifespan is becoming shorter so it is
better to hurry up! No one has seen tomorrow.

52
Today is the best day. You can win freedom right now. I do not advise any practice. I do
not tell you to practice even for one minute. Just now, this instant, one second, half a
second, half of half a second is enough. Anytime today, but today — but now — you are
free.

Simply listen to me. Simply have trust in what I say when I tell you that you are free.
Do not doubt. If you need to doubt then you will need practice. It is your choice.

6 November, 1991

***

What is Freedom?
We are looking for freedom. What is freedom?

It is not in anything objective. It is neither the creation, nor the creator of this universe,
nor the God who is looking after preservation, nor destruction. It is none of that. It is
neither the sun, nor the moon, nor the stars, nor the wind. Those are not freedom. No
object is freedom. Go on rejecting everything objective from the mind. Freedom is
nothing that the mind can conceive or perceive or understand. Finally you will arrive at
that which cannot be rejected. Go on rejecting everything that can be rejected, all
objects. Get rid of all objectification.

Finally, when you see nothing more to be rejected, the mind will be quiet. Mind will be
no-mind: That cannot be described. All description belongs to the objective world only
and consciousness cannot be objectified. In the beginning when there was nothing there
was consciousness — total consciousness — where no objects and no subjects existed.
You are this consciousness.

Starting from the beginning, before the beginning, you are this consciousness. And this
consciousness became all that you see. You are this consciousness itself. There are
millions of kinds of manifestation existing in consciousness and you have become all
this. You are the fountain of all this creation.

For this you do not have to exert or make effort, or search for any way or method or
practice. Somehow you have to arrive here. How can you do it? Through adoration of
the wisdom of the Self. That is consciousness. Adore your own consciousness with
wisdom and you have achieved what you are aspiring for here and now.

5-6 December, 1991

***

Existence Takes Care

I will tell you the secret of sitting meditation, standing meditation, walking meditation,
sleeping meditation, dreaming meditation, and active meditation in the battle field as a
soldier. Let me speak from my own experience, as I never speak from what I have heard
or read. It is better first to experience and then to speak.

In 1953 I was loading a ship in Mangalore at a time when I was dealing in manganese
ore. I stayed there the whole day for the loading, and once the hatches were closed I
got a bank draft from the captain to certify that the ship had been loaded with 10,000
tons of manganese ore for Rotterdam. I wanted to cash the draft immediately at the

53
bank in Bangalore, which was about 500 miles away. It was already about 9 p.m., and I
had to reach the bank by morning. I was exhausted as I had been working offshore for
the whole day from early in the morning until late in the night. I was not near the wharf
where I could easily get out of the ship and it was very hot. I decided that I should rest
before beginning my journey and then start early in the morning. But then I realized
that the banks would be closed, and it would be better to cross the mountain pass and
have a coffee and a nap on the other side, and then go to Bangalore. The road over the
hill climbed from the town at sea level up to five thousand feet making eleven hairpin
bends.

I don't know what happened. I could not stop on the mountain road because there were
wild elephants which had lifted cars up in the air and thrown them in the valley, one mile
below. It was better to keep going and then to rest.

When I arrived on the other side of the hill my head was resting on the steering wheel. I
woke up from a deep sleep feeling very fresh, no longer even needing a cup of coffee. I
continued the journey to Bangalore having had a complete sound, deep sleep. My head
was resting on the steering wheel. I was feeling so fresh that I no longer needed a rest
or a coffee, as though I had slept for eight hours. Who drove the car? This is a problem I
have never been able to solve. Even in the waking state drivers have accidents but I was
fast asleep. The road was narrow, no more than fifteen feet. On one side was a high
mountain, on the other side was a very steep valley, and I cut eleven hairpin bends.
Who drove the car? I have never been able to find the answer to this.

The other incident I want to describe to you happened in Lucknow. I was walking to the
GPO from Kaiserbagh, in front of what is now Janpath market. I always kept a very safe
distance, walking on the left side of the road, because sometimes I could never get out
of meditation at all! I was neither troubling anyone else nor was I troubled by anyone.
An old model Ford car came down the street, a 1934 or ‘36 model with footrests hanging
on the side. These days cars no longer have footrests. The car hit me so hard that the
footrest fell off onto the ground. People gathered around me saying they had noted
down the number. The car had sped away leaving only the footrest. They wanted to
know if I was hurt and to go to the police. My pants were torn and when I pulled them
up, the car had struck me from behind. There was a little bloodstain on the back of the
knee but nothing more. I told them I was perfectly alright.

When you are in meditation you do not need to look after yourself. A power will rise
which is moving the earth, which is causing the sun to shine, which is giving the moon
its brilliance, and which is allowing all these jivas to function as they want to. If you are
attuned to that power you will have nothing to do, everything will be beautiful. That
power will look after you in a way which you cannot manage. A man operating from his
senses gets into many accidents. But I did not fall into the valley, I slept. Who took care
of me? This is the greatest mistake, to fall asleep at the steering wheel. One is advised
to be well rested before driving. Who cared for me?

That power is there but you are not looking at it. It is so compassionate that it will look
after you. You have been denying it and depending on your own ego. Even this ego is
getting its power from somewhere else, to become ego, to become mind, to think, to
become the senses and to allow you to function. When you turn your face towards it, it
will arise to help you; otherwise you cannot save yourself. How long can you be aware
and careful?

Meditation means, no meditator and no object of meditation. Then you can do whatever
you like. When the meditator is there it is ego. This is not something to be decided
intellectually; it has to be directly experienced. There is no end to argument and logic.

54
That has nothing to do with it. This is your own mother, your own supreme power, which
is here and now.

If you close your eyes you will see who is responsible. You do not have to travel even a
yard out of your own self — you do not have to take one step. You do not need to think
or even to meditate. You do not have to do anything, just keep quiet as you are and you
have got it. If you try to search you have lost it. There is nothing to search for — it is
that through which the search is taking place. It is that which is found after searching
has ceased.

If you know this it is enough. If you don't you will never find rest in millions of years.
You have already passed through 8.4 million species. If you are fatigued then you will
see this. If you want to hitchhike some more the goal will not be attained; you can
continue as you like and it will never end. If you want to end everything is ended now. If
you want to continue it will continue. As you think so you become — this is a formula.
You think, "I am in trouble" and you are in trouble. You think, "I am free," and you are
free. If you are attached to any object you are in trouble, you are in suffering, there is
manifestation. If you want to end this it is seized immediately in the recognition, "I am
free." That is all there is to it. What time do you need?

5-6 December, 1991

***

When Fear Comes, Kiss Its Face!

Q: When I'm quiet — just feeling this love — it is so beautiful. Then this feeling of fear
comes; as if the love will go away. I don't want that fear to come. I just want to stay in
the beauty of the feeling of love.

I can only suggest to you that when the fear comes that is what is happening, so let it
come. Hug this fear, don't reject it. Hug it and kiss it. If fear comes when you are happy
it is a past habit that has been showing up, a dormant tendency of the mind. All that is
dormant will have to rise up now; otherwise these tendencies would have given you
much trouble again and again. You would have had to live out those things which were
buried deep in the subconscious mind.

Now because the sense of an individual doer is no longer there these tendencies are no
longer rising in the present and you don't need to do anything any more. When the
concept of the future is discarded and in the present you have no desire; past
tendencies are free to rise up. So don't try to bury them now. Before they could wait for
another incarnation if they were not fulfilled now, but now they can no longer wait —
this is the time for them to leave. So keep quiet and simply watch. They will not trouble
you. Do not stop them. Do not say, "I do not want them." Invite them. Tell them,
"Come! Please come now; this is the time." Do not resist any more. Allow whatever may
arise to arise on its own. Be prepared. Do not stop them, do not run away, let them
arise.

Previously you were always busy with day to day desires, with future hopes and
expectations. You were so engaged so these dormant tendencies were waiting, saying to
themselves, "We will be fulfilled next time." Now the time is here because there is no
more expectation, no more hope, no more desire. This is the time for the dormant
tendencies buried in the unconscious mind to appear and to leave this place. So do not
resist. Let them arise, okay? Good.

6 December, 1991

55
 ***

I Trust You Are All Lions

All ignorance has been started by shepherds. Shepherds are for sheep. I trust that you
are lions. Lions are not to be herded; wherever they go they are on their own track.
There are no lion herds; there are only sheep herds. You are all lions — so go your own
way. Do not walk the beaten path like sheep, one after another. Do not follow any path.
Lions do not follow each other like sheep.

Most people are sheep, following shepherds all over the world. Religions are started by
shepherds and people become followers like sheep. But wherever you go you are lions,
and there are no paths for lions. Wherever a lion walks, that is the path. For a lion no
path is the only path. So don't count yourself among sheep needing a shepherd. Your
way is no way — it is to know who you are. This is not following like a sheep. This is a
novel approach, so far unknown. Once known it is known for good. He who knows this
has fulfilled the purpose of the striving of human life. He is happy and peaceful. He
enjoys both here and hereafter.

Please don't become sheep. Don't follow anyone. Don't look here and there. Don't look
anywhere. Stop looking. Stop all your imagining of the future and conceptualizing of the
past. Keep yourself in this moment, which is no moment. Find out where this moment is
rising from, where time is rising from, where this thought is rising from, and you will see
you have always been at Home. You don't need anything more!

***

Just to Pluck a Rose Petal

Freedom, Love and Peace will be attained instantly as soon as you abandon vasanas —
the impressions of the past that you have stored in your memory. If you abandon
vasanas right now you can be free and happy, you can be in peace and love.

You can live well without vasanas, without desires, just as when you take off your hat or
your coat you can live well and nothing is lost. Likewise, if you renounce vasanas — if
you renounce the tendencies of the past — you will be well and happy. No time is
needed, it is as easy as plucking a petal from a rose flower. It doesn't take time. You
can attain freedom, light and wisdom now — instantly you can be free. You do not need
to toil endlessly. Penance, austerities, even meditations — just abandon them. This
notion that, “I am bound.” has to be dropped and instantly you will be free and happy.

I am very happy to see so many seekers of truth here in one place with the desire for
freedom. It has never happened at any time before. In the past we can only find isolated
cases of those who found freedom. Two thousand years ago Siddhartha became the
Buddha. He had to travel from teacher to teacher; he had to go through all kinds of
austerities before he could finally just sit under the bodhi tree in Bodhgaya and find
silence. We do not have time to do all that. This teaching is so simple that it is not a
teaching at all. So simple just to pluck a rose petal, just to give up the notion that you
are bound, that you have to search for freedom in caves or mountains or monasteries.
Freedom is revealed within yourself.

A crow sat on a coconut tree and the coconut fell. This does not create a relationship
between the coconut and the crow. You may attribute freedom to meditation, sadhanas
and effort; but when the coconut fell it fell on its own accord, not because the crow sat
on the tree. When you get it you may attribute it to some sadhana, to staying with the

56
teacher, to going to the Himalayas for years of contemplation or to long austerities and
meditations, but it has nothing to do with these things. It is simply a question of keeping
quiet. Keep quiet just for a moment, for this instant of time, and allow it to happen.
Don't interfere. Just keep quiet and watch what happens.

This is a very simple way to freedom. You are free. The notion that you are bound has
been dumped on your head by your parents, by your priest, by your society. If you get
rid of all these instantly you will find that you are what you have always been. If you
give up all that you have read, heard, seen, touched or tasted, freeing yourself from all
past notions — what will be left? You alone will remain — that which you have always
been, what you will always be, and what you are now. The exercise or sadhana or way is
not something to be borrowed from the outside. Just keep quiet, keep silent, and you
will know freedom from sorrow and suffering. I wish everyone would try this and see.

***

Be So Beautiful That It Finds You

When you are out walking and you become tired you stop, you sit down, you relax. So
when you get tired of trying to find solutions to your problems, when you find no
solution, sit down. By sit down I mean, don’t try to solve the problem at all — the
problem is in the past, it is not now. Don't think about past problems, just leave them
alone and sit down. This is the moment of relaxation. You only have to allow this, listen
to it, do not do anything. Just listen: Don't go to the past. The past is a problem, the
past is mind. When you go to the past all will be problems so don't go to the past. The
mind is the past and the past is a graveyard. Don't go to the graveyard. All problems are
dead, so return to this moment without trying to solve the problem. Trying has put you
in trouble, so don't touch this trying any more.

Simply sit down, keep quiet. Keep quiet for one moment. This is the moment you need,
this is the moment of rest. Keep quiet for a moment without going to the past and you
will find relaxation. There is no other way — simply do not think of the past. First help
yourself — which means to not think — and then if you still need to you can ask me for
help.

Just for this moment do not think, but direct your mind to its Source. Bring the mind
which is thinking — which is going to the past — to face this present moment, and this
will give you eternal rest. Help yourself not to look to past moments and do you find any
problems? In this moment, without going to the past, where is the problem? Has it gone
away? Then you have helped yourself. This is truly Self help.

You cannot buy this in the market, you cannot acquire it, you cannot purchase it. It is
not something to be had. It is something that is already here. Do not try to get things,
to achieve things, to attain things which are not already here, because whatever is
absent — once you get it — will also be lost. Instead of reaching out after anything
which is absent discover that which is already here, which you do not need to try and
attain. This will be something fresh, something which is here, which is now. Give up your
desire to get something tomorrow, do not allow this desire to stir, to rise up form the
ground of mind. Abandon all your desires to get something which you do not already
have. No desire is needed for that which you already have here.

Instead of trying to get it offer yourself up so it can get you. Be so beautiful that this will
be attracted by your beauty. It will come and get you instead of you getting it. Who are
you to get it, anyway? Allow yourself to be taken by it — that's the only way. You must
be immaculate, which means to be without desire. Your own nature is immaculate so
sooner or later you will know this. When there is no desire there is Beauty, there is

57
Love. You cannot disturb this beauty even by giving rise to a thought to get it. This
thought will only be an impurity. Make sure that no desire arises and you will be so
immaculately beautiful — so perfectly pure and spotless — that everything will be
instantaneously unfolded before you. Then this beauty will hug Beauty itself.

Simply keep quiet. Do not do anything and it will happen. Abandon even the intention to
get something in the next moment. Do not even make the distinction between "this
moment" and "the next moment". Then something will happen instantaneously.

10 December, 1991

***

Look through the Eyes of Love

Q: If someone insults me I feel angry and want to hurt them back.

If you return a slap with love, with a kiss, he will forget his behavior; he will not sting
anybody else. You have to live wisely, if you want to enjoy this life, this is a beautiful
world that is here for you to enjoy. There are so many beautiful things: there are
mountains, there are rivers, there are birds, there are animals. What more do you want?
There are clouds, sun, moon and stars. Why don't you open your eyes and enjoy this
manifestation, which your own creation? Everybody is related to you.

So how can anger arise? Sometimes it happens while eating, especially if the food is
very tasty, that the teeth hurt the tongue. You do not go to the dentist to pull your teeth
out because they hurt your tongue; there is nothing wrong with them. The tongue
knows, "We are friends, I am enjoying taste and they are munching. If they hurt me I
shall not pull them out." Like this, coordinate life with everyone, then you will really
know how to live in love.

Once many years ago a planter invited me to visit his coffee plantation. He took me
there on a Sunday; it was my day off from work. He said, "We'll go on Saturday night in
the jeep. My cook does not sleep in the bungalow which is at the top of the hill. The
coffee is grown on the slopes and the area for drying it is at the bottom. When I go
there I stay in the bungalow, which is well equipped, and the cook stays down the hill
with his family, in the area for drying the coffee. So as soon as I wake up I will go down
the hill to get him."

In the morning he drove off before I was up. I awoke to a very beautiful sight. The
plantation was all around me, covered in orange trees. The trees were there just for
their shade, to protect the coffee plants from the direct sun. He was not interested in
selling the oranges so all the fruits that dropped in the fields were ploughed back in as
manure. I came out of the bungalow and saw bushes and bushes full of oranges, very
big loose jacket mandarin fruits. I felt so happy to see them, so many bushes laden
down with oranges touching the ground, so many orange fruits. I saw all these oranges
in the morning sun, and I felt such joy.

As this feeling arose, standing in front of a beautiful bush I addressed it and spoke to
the bush out loud: "Good morning, Mother, how do you do? You are very lucky, you
have so many children." It did not occur to me to hurt her, not even to pluck one of her
fruits for myself. It was enough just to see the beauty of the oranges and this woman so
proud of her children. I liked her, I loved her, and I kissed that tree itself. I was so very
happy! The thought of picking the oranges did not even come into my mind. In that
same moment she also spoke to me: "I am very happy with you so I offer you these
fruits," and instantly twelve big oranges fell from the tree.

58
I am not making this up. This really happened as I am describing it. I have seen many
things happen like this. We are all one — there is no separation between us, only we do
not realize it. The same is true with rocks, with trees, with birds, with rivers: you can
speak with all of them, and you will see how you can get love from everything. So I
spoke with this tree, and she responded. She said, "I am also happy. I want to give you
my oranges, please take them." I took one and again I kissed her. I could understand
how she was feeling; I could understand her language.

What was the trick? It was only love. See everything with eyes full of love. If you look at
anybody with that love I do not think that they can be angry with you. Sometimes anger
may visit you. When the hotel is full, no rooms, no accommodation available, no one will
go there. In the same way, if your house is full of love all these other tourists as anger,
lust and greed will see that the house is already full and they will not come inside; they
will go away and look for some other lodging house. If the doors are open to greed, lust
and anger they will enter immediately; they will not wait for the check-in time.

If you love people who will not return love to you?

13 December, 1991

***

Identify Yourself with That

Identify yourself with cosmic consciousness during meditation. You are That. There is no
difference. A notion arose that you are a separate individual with some higher supreme
consciousness to arrive at, which is not true.

A wave rises from the ocean and feels she is separate from her source and is therefore
not the ocean. But let the wave inquire, "Who I am?" Let her discover the place from
where she arose. She will arrive at her source, at the ocean itself. Her notion of being a
separate wave instantaneously vanishes. A river discharges into the ocean and becomes
one with it.

This understanding arises through inquiry. What is the relationship between a ring and
the gold from which it is made? Can you separate the gold from the ring or the ring from
the gold? It is impossible. Without the ring you can't see the gold, and without the gold
and you can't see the ring. Abandon the name — ring, and the form — round. The ring is
name and form only, the substance is gold. When you remove name and form what is
left to be separate?

If you feel a separation between the meditator and the one who is meditated upon,
discover your true identity and you will see that you were never separate. You have
always been consciousness itself. Through consciousness you are meditating, through
the consciousness you are establishing your separation, and through consciousness you
will establish your unification. These are notions. Remove the notion that you are bound.
If this separation — this idea — is removed, you will find that you have always been that
which you are now. These notions, ideas and intentions have to be instantaneously
withdrawn, and you are here.

This is why we are here under one roof. This is a great occasion that so many blessed
people are collected together under one roof seeking enlightenment. You have already
spent millions of years — some say 35 million years — waiting to be here today. Before,
it was never possible for so many to come together under the one roof, to help each
other, to remove our separation and bondage, to declare our freedom.

59
We are not to return to this samsara — this never ending cycle of birth and death —
again. Even samsara is only a concept; not actually true. We speak of it only for
convenience, to make you aware of how important it is to win freedom, to be wise, to be
enlightened right now. For this reason it is suggested that it has taken a long time.
Otherwise in this moment you will see that time and past and future do not exist. You
are what you are even now. What problem can remain in this?

13 January, 1992

***

King or Beggar?
You do not need to desire anything; everything belongs to you. Everything you see you
can have. It is all yours — everything is yours. Tell me now that which is not yours. The
mind is your servant, the ego is your maid servant, the body is your foot mat — what
else do you need? You can give commands: "Come on… come on mind, do this". Call to
the ego; she is your maid servant, she will do everything that you need. You have to
give commands, you have to be king. Don't enslave yourself to the mind, to the ego, to
the senses. You have to command them and everything will be done. Otherwise you
become a slave.

To be a slave means that, with any desire that you have you become a slave to it. You
enslave yourself to anything that you need or desire, to petty things, you become a
beggar. You choose: If you are a king, you must behave like king. If you are beggar
take a begging bowl and beg. Any desire that arises in your mind makes you a beggar.
So who are you now, king or beggar? Sit on your throne.

********

Enlightenment is to relieve you from the concept of bondage. You say you are bound,
then you ask for something that is the opposite of bondage. If you are in prison you
need to be free. That means to get out of jail. Everybody is bound, everybody is in the
prison of desires, the prison of, "I want this and I want that." They are never fulfilled.
Any prisoner that desires something in the jail is not fulfilled. He is bound; he wants to
be released. The whole samsara is a prison, the whole universe is a prison because your
desires are not fulfilled. One is fulfilled and gives you sorrow. When you ask for another
desire it ends in sorrow; and then the third one ends in sorrow. This is the life and this is
samsara: No one is happy.

Here or there a rare one demands, "I want to be free of samsara." This is called
enlightenment. To be free of sorrows, to be free of death and tensions and unhappiness
is called enlightenment. This is a very welcome desire, which arises here and there. A
very few — perhaps a finger count in a century — will ask for enlightenment. The world
has not much capacity to produce many enlightened people in a century. We have to dig
into the past to find some example of an enlightened person. We have to go and hunt it
down from centuries ago to find an enlightened man, so it is a very welcome desire: to
be enlightened.

To be feeling total in this moment is neither bondage nor enlightenment. This moment
has got nothing to do with concept of bondage or even enlightenment. This moment has
no name. It is the most precious moment. This moment is out of time, out of mind, out
of concept, out of any ideation. This is free. This is your home and you are always in this
moment. You went to the past to suffer. Out of suffering you wanted to be free. The
thought, "I want to be enlightened." arose from the past. In this moment you have no
desire, not even for enlightenment.

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 16-17 January, 1992

***

Shun the Company of the Past

The past is stronger than the present in the mind because you cannot see the present.
Everybody speaks to you of the past. Do you find anyone among your friends and
relations who is speaking of the present? Everyone speaks to you of the past; therefore
it has become very strong. You will have to seek out the company of those who speak to
you of the present moment, then this will also become much stronger and you will shun
the company of the past. To get rid of the past keep company with those who are trying
to live in, or who have tasted this moment of present, who are speaking about this
present life. Satsang means association with those who live in Truth. Here everyone is
speaking everyday of this present moment, of peace and love and happiness.

The enemy is very strong: Mind is your enemy. You have to be very strong and tight
fisted with your decision not to be lead away by those friends who trouble you. Shun
their company, even if they are related to you.

There was a young princess in India, still in her teens. She had great love of freedom
but the royal family would not allow her to meditate. They said that it was not the right
way to live in a royal palace; that you have to live as queens live. Her mind was very
serene and peaceful, and she had no one to turn to for guidance. In the royal palace
there was the king and all his relations, but no one who could be a guide for her or a
friend.

She heard of someone whose advice she could seek. She wrote a letter and gave it to a
runner to get advice. She wrote in the letter:

"My dear father, I do not know which behavior will be better for me. These people
threaten me, saying that I have to live in such-and-such a mold to suit the palace. But
this behavior doesn't suit me. I want to meditate. I have to win freedom in this life. But
these people threaten me and give me trouble. Please advise me what to do."

The reply came back: "Shun everyone, whosoever they may be, maybe near and dear to
you — husband, relations, parents, whosoever. Walk out.” That was all he wrote. Then
he quoted different stories of a son disobeying their father, a wife disobeying her
husband, to find freedom. He gave many examples. The queen walked away from the
palace and is still remembered today.

You will have to decide for your own good. You can't please the world. Who has ever
pleased the world? If you have won freedom perhaps everyone will be happy with you.
We still remember people who lived a life of freedom, even thousands of years ago. We
don't remember our relations. We forget even those who have been dead for ten or
twenty years. A person who worked for himself and won enlightenment and gave advice
to others is still alive.

You have to make up your mind. Nobody can trouble you if you decide for freedom. You
have to make a firm decision then nothing can trouble you. If you are weak everybody
will trouble you. If you simply keep quiet I don't think any thought can come. Simply
decide to sit quiet. This will be a fire — nothing can touch you. Until now it is only that
your decision has been weak.

18 January, 1992

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 ***

Open Your Own Book

All you have to do is to still the mind. There are two ways to quiet the mind: One is
through inquiry, which is suitable to a very few qualified people; and the other is
through yoga, which includes concentration, meditation and other practices.

First you need the capacity to discern the real from the unreal, to embrace what is real
and to adhere to it. Reject what is unreal and false. Fascination with study, karma,
pilgrimages, or dips in the holy waters will not help you. Learning all the Vedas, all the
sutras, like a parrot is not going to help you. No gift, austerity or charity is going to help
you.

More important than anything is the burning desire for freedom. This alone is enough. If
you have this burning desire you will be led to satsang. Satsang means to stay quiet, to
still the mind, to bring it back to the center wherever it goes. If you can't do it by
yourself then search for a perfected teacher, but do not make any mistake, you see.

When you go shopping you have free choice about what to buy and you have this same
freedom in selecting a teacher. In the supermarket you choose, "I don't want this, I
don't want that, this is not good, that is not good." You have freedom of choice, no
bargain can be struck. Your human life and enlightenment is on one hand, and wasting
your life with someone incompetent to liberate you is on the other.

Someone came to see me saying, "I have gone to many teachers without finding
enlightenment, and finally I found that my current master himself is not enlightened. He
has initiated me and now he is filling me with all kinds of fear. He says that if you leave
the teacher you will have to go to hell. I met someone who told me to come here. I am
here to be enlightened. My guru is very loving, he is not withholding anything from me;
he teaches me with great love. He has taught me all the scriptures so that I know them
by heart, but I am missing freedom. I have found that my mind is not free, it is not
quiet. But now I know that I am on the right track and in some way I am here to help
my teacher. After enlightenment I will go and enlighten my teacher." I have never heard
a student resolving to enlighten his teacher before!

If you are bent upon freedom — determined to win freedom in this span of life, this
year, this month, today, now — you will have to make a choice. Anything will surface
from the mind to sabotage you. Find the best ways to quiet the mind. The instant that
the mind is stilled there is meditation. Meditation has to be perennial, permanent, not
just sitting for an hour a day. It does not mean chanting the thought, "I have to be
free." It means being centered in the Self, which is alone true; all else is false. There
must be a very strong understanding in your mind. It is not difficult once you discover
the ability to discern what is real from what is unreal. Pleasures of the senses may try to
distract you, religions may promise you pleasures in heaven after life, but you will have
to abandon all these things. Abandon studying any book; it does not help you. Now you
open your own book for the first time. Open your own book and keep quiet.

22 February, 1992

***

62
 What is Enlightenment?
All you have to do is to still the mind, which can be done in one of two ways: Through
inquiry, which is suitable to a very few qualified people; or through yoga, which includes
concentration, meditation and other practices. But first you need the capacity to discern
the real from the unreal, to embrace what is real and to adhere to it. Reject what is
unreal and false. Fascination with study, karma, pilgrimages, or dips in the holy waters
will not help you. Learning all the Vedas, all the sutras, like a parrot is not going to help
you. No gift, austerity or charity is going to help you.

More important than anything is the burning desire for freedom. This alone is enough. If
you have this burning desire you will be led to satsang, which means to stay quiet, to
still the mind, to bring it back to the center wherever it goes. Either do it by yourself or
search for a perfected teacher, but do not go astray from the longing to be free.

When you go shopping you have free choice about what to buy, and you have this same
freedom in selecting a teacher. In the supermarket you choose, "I don't want this, I
don't want that; this is not good, that is not good." You have freedom of choice. No
bargain can be struck. Your human life and enlightenment is on one hand, and wasting
your life with someone incompetent to liberate you is on the other.

Someone came to see me saying, "I have gone to many teachers without finding
enlightenment, and finally I found that my current Master himself is not enlightened. He
has initiated me and now he is filling me with all kinds of fear. He says that if you leave
the teacher you will have to go to hell. I met someone who told me to come here. I am
here to be enlightened. My guru is very loving. He is not withholding anything from me.
He teaches me with great love. He has taught me all the scriptures so that I know them
by heart, but I am missing freedom. I have found that my mind is not free, it is not
quiet; but now I know that I am on the right track, and in some way I am here to help
my teacher. After enlightenment I will go and enlighten my teacher." I have never heard
a student resolving to enlighten his teacher before!

If you are bent upon freedom, determined to win freedom in this span of life, this year,
this month, today, now, you will have to make a choice. Anything will surface from the
mind to sabotage you. Find the best ways to quiet the mind. The instant that the mind is
stilled there is meditation. This meditation has to be perennial, permanent — not just
sitting for an hour a day. It does not mean chanting the thought, “I have to be free.” It
means being centered in the Self which alone is true, all else is false. There must be a
very strong understanding in your mind. It is not difficult once you discover the ability to
discern what is real from what is unreal. Pleasures of the senses may try to distract you,
religions may promise you pleasures in heaven after life; but you will have to abandon
all these things. Abandon studying any book; it does not help you. Open your own book
now for the first time. Open your own book and keep quiet.

22 February, 1992

***

What Is The Self?

This the proper time for all of us to introduce the mind to the Self. What is the Self? It is
your own original nature: satyam, shivam, sundaram — which means truth,
consciousness, bliss. This is the Self which was before the origin and which is going to
be after the end. That is the place where you always are.

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It is not that you have to become something or that you have to attain something, or
that you have gain something afresh. You are going to lose anything which is gained or
obtained because it is not your nature. Anything gained is not permanent because you
did not possess it previously — you got it through effort. It was absent before you
attained it so you cannot keep it forever.

Somehow this notion arises and this notion becomes mind. This notion is only mind,
which is not distinct from ‘I’. ‘I’ arises — this is what is called mind. 'I' is not separate
from ego. How did it all start? The ego is not separate from the body; the body is not
separate from the senses nor their respective objects, nor the entire manifestation with
the notion of time — beginning, middle, and end. It all started with 'I'. We got involved
in it.

This is the appropriate time to return home. You have to do this here and now by
withdrawing the outgoing tendencies of the mind. That is how we meditate: We sit quiet.
During meditation the mind is running outwards following its own tendencies, its own
desires for respective objects and enjoyments that are deep-rooted in the mind.

During meditation this has to be checked. This is the meaning of meditation: to bring
back all the outgoing tendencies of the mind wherever they are going. Check them!
Bring them back to 'I'. From here you have to be very vigilant, very attentive. Do not
make any effort. Do not become involved in any thinking process. Simply keep quiet.
Through incessant vigilance allow it to happen, allow this revelation to take place,
without keeping any gain in your mind, without making any effort to become anything
else. This is an unfoldment — this is called revelation.

At this point bring everything back, bring all these tendencies back to the 'I' thought. Be
very vigilant and find out how this notion of 'I' arises. It is absolutely necessary to keep
quiet, to remain without thinking, without making any effort.

I don't think anybody could describe what is going to happen beyond this. It has never
been described. It is for you to dive into your own source, to arrive back home. You
don't need anyone else to lead you, you don't need any companion. You have to do it
alone — without the mind, without the intellect, without the ego, without the body,
without the senses, without their objects. Only vigilance is needed, natural vigilance with
no effort, without even a thought. That can be had here and now… or never. This is up
to you.

8 April, 1992

***

Keep quiet!
When I speak about quietness — when I tell you to keep quiet — it is not easy for
everyone to follow. Most people here are from different backgrounds, practices,
sadhanas; and therefore feel they need to do something, to put something into practice.
When I say, "Keep quiet." it is not a practice. There is nothing to be done and nothing to
be undone. This cannot be followed. There is nothing to think about, no need to make
any kind of effort. This is an indication of the quietness I am speaking about. Truth
always exists. Existence alone is. It is called satyam.

We speak about enlightenment, but first we have created bondage. Bondage does not
exist. How can you remove that which does not exist? First, teachers impose a concept
of bondage and then various practices are prescribed. There may be millions of books in

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the world, thousands more are published every day. Nowhere does it say, "Be quiet".
When you simply say "Keep quiet," what is the rest of the book to be about?

There is no ignorance at all; there is only existence — there is only satyam. If you
simply keep quiet you will know that only this exists. Before the sun rises early in the
morning it does not first try to remove the darkness of the night. The sun does not say,
"Let me brush away the darkness and only then, in the daytime, I will rise." For the sun
there is no light, there is no darkness to be removed. The sun does not even know that
such a thing as night exists. What practice is needed to remove darkness, where is this
darkness? All practices imply the reality of darkness, of ignorance, when in fact they do
not exist. The river in the sand is a mirage; it does not exist, it never existed. If you go
closer and closer the sand not even is wet; it is only a belief that makes us run after a
mirage, nothing else. There is only satyam; there is only Truth. What need is there of
practice? It is only practice which is concealing the truth.

You have been given a concept by most of the teachers that there is darkness, and that
you have to spend your whole life clearing this darkness. No one speaks about light;
everyone is trying to remove darkness and ignorance when it does not really exist.

First of all, look for yourself! Has anyone seen any ignorance? Sometimes when people
who come to see me come closer to keeping quiet they say, "I do not understand." What
is there to understand? Simply keep quiet — this is what you really are. How can there
be any doubt? In keeping quiet you discover what you really are.

Through spiritual practices you overlook the one who is causing this to happen. Who is
involving your limbs in the practice, your intellect in the practice? Who is causing your
mind to be involved in trying to get understanding? If the one causing activity is not
there you cannot conduct any practice. This is why I tell you to simply keep quiet. Then
you will know what you truly are and what you have always been, and this is
indestructible. All else will be destroyed, only Existence itself remains. The Truth will
always remain — it Is — it is eternal. That which is not this truth does not exist at all.

You have two choices: Either you follow most teachers and spend your life trying to
remove or clean out the mind. First you will have to find out if the mind exists. No one
has seen the mind. Even if you found it, how do you propose to clean it? Everyone is
practicing cleaning the mind but there is no one so far who has cleaned it. Where is this
mind to be cleaned?

The second choice is to keep quiet and you will know who really you are. This is very
simple. It is not going to take you time; in fact time does not appear. There is nothing
outside that can help you, you have just to keep quiet — that's all — and you will know
then you are eternal. You are Eternal Existence itself.

5 May, 1992

***

What is Meditation?
A long time ago, Siddhartha went from place to place going through different processes,
meeting different teachers who were performing different penances. Some were
meditating, some were performing rituals, some were even hanging from the trees,
some were standing with their hands always up, never sitting at all.

When Siddhartha sat down under the bodhi tree he got up as Buddha. Ananda was the
first man to ask the master what he had got there. The reply was, “Nothing.” We do not

65
know how to describe what he found under the bodhi tree. He spent the rest of his life,
from 30 to 80, trying to describe what he had got and still he could not. This is
something that still remains un-described, un-conceived.

When you know that you are meditating it is not meditation. The thought that, "I am
meditating and this is the process." is not meditation. Sitting in a particular posture is
not meditation. Concentrating on different centers in the sushpana channel of the spine
is not meditation. Chanting a formula is not meditation. Having a vision or picture of a
particular deity is not meditation. So what is meditation?

The important question is if the meditation is immaculate, untouched, without cause and
without effect? To know what meditation is, you have to find who the meditator is: "Who
is the meditator?" When you ask this everything will drop. The process will to drop
because you are inquiring into the nature of the meditator, the one who is busy with this
process of sadhana, who is executing the practice of meditation — the same one who
executes anything that is possible through the mind. If you ask who the meditator is I
don't think you will easily get the answer because everything will drop right here. You
have to find out who the meditator is, who is meditating, and what is the purpose of
meditation.

You forgot the purpose of meditation. We wanted freedom from this world process of
suffering and to end this we meditate with the help of the mind. The mind itself is
suffering, is samsara; so if we take the help of mind we are not going to arrive
anywhere. Ask who the meditator is and you will reply to yourself: "I meditate. I am the
meditator."

What is this ‘I’ who becomes the meditator? How is it different from what it is searching
for? You will have to discover what has been concealed when you give rise to this
meditator — what is buried underneath. What is that foundation out of which this
meditator rises and performs different sadhanas and practices? Return back home to
find the source of the meditator — the source of ‘I’. There is no difference between the
meditator, the ‘I’, the mind, and the ego. Whenever we meditate it is the ego that takes
the role of the meditator, so meditation has not brought any result so far.

Someone arose from under the bodhi tree. That cannot be attributed to any practice of
meditation. When he was asked what he had attained he was quite honest and said,
"Nothing." He had not attained anything during the process of long sittings of
meditation. Something had revealed itself to itself. That revelation, that happening, is
not in your hands. If you carry a gun on your shoulder and you are looking for a target it
will take you elsewhere. The gun is effort, the gun is ego. If you drop the gun and don't
possess anything it is going to reveal itself, by itself, to itself within itself. That which
has been concealed since millions of years will have to reveal itself.

We are waiting, thinking that we have to do something about it. It is this doer-ship
which is concealing the truth, existence, consciousness, and bliss. Otherwise this has
always been with you, is with you now, and will always be with you. You can never
separate yourself from it at any time. You cannot breathe without it, you cannot live
without it. It was only a concept that the wave was different from the ocean, that the
ring was different from the gold, or that the vessel is different from the clay. Because we
do not see the substratum we find a difference.

Here and now, if we do not make any effort, if we do not activate a single thought, if we
do not even allow the thought ‘I’, if we do not hold to the concept of time, if we do not
postpone anything to the next moment, to the next breath, this is going to reveal itself.
Here and now means out of time all together. This has nothing to do with any meditation
or any process. We have tried endlessly through numberless incarnations and we have

66
not been able to complete it. This time let us decide to return home. We have been
different waves, different name and form; but if name and form does not arise where is
the wave? We are the ocean, existence, consciousness and bliss. We have come here to
realize this without any effort. We have tried every kind of effort, we have been advised
in our different backgrounds to “do this” or “do that.” Now, here, for the first time you
do not have to do anything. Simply sit quiet for one moment in time. That is all that is
required to realize existence, consciousness and bliss.

How could existence be absent? Is it possible for you ever to deny that you exist or even
that you are conscious of your existence? You can only deny that you are happy because
no one is happy, from the king down to the worker. We have been missing bliss because
we have been searching for it in things which are not permanent, which are not eternal,
which appear and disappear.

Only bliss is missing. Existence can be found in rocks, in animals, in trees. We are
human beings, a super species among 8.4 million species. This is the supreme form, the
most blessed form, in which it is possible to know that we are That. Do not postpone the
right use of a human form until the next life or the next day. Tomorrow will never come.
This is not difficult, not located miles away from you. It is here, now, nearer than your
own breath. It is behind the retina. It is that which shines through the eyes. It is that
which even sunshine cannot reach, nor the moon, nor the stars, nor fire. You are That.

Om Hare Om.

15 May, 1992

***

Who am I?
Who are you? Where do you come from? And where are you going? Except by a very
few, a finger count, these questions have never been confronted since time immemorial.
You are here now, so let us try to solve them.

We discuss this everyday: You have forgotten who are you. You have forgotten that you
are home, you have forgotten your destination, where you have to go. This is why we
suffer again and again. Millions of years have passed and we have not yet solved these
questions. It is so simple no time or practice is needed. We are simply otherwise
engaged. We are busy with all our occupations, with wanting this and that, with holding
to the idea that, “This is mine.” and “I belong to this.” Find out who you are and who are
your relations.

Every night when you sleep you experience leaving everything behind — your relations
and friends, your house, your country, the mountains, and rivers. You don't see
anything when you are asleep and you have no trouble; you are happy. This is a very
short experience which we have every night due to the compassion of your own Self;
giving you a hint to discover Eternal Bliss. This is for a very short time. When you go to
sleep you are at peace. The only troublesome states are waking and dreaming. Who
wakes up and gets into trouble? Who dreams? The dreamer gets into trouble, but no one
knows who they are and where they have to return to. This is so simple that every
reasonable person can solve it, here and now.

We speak every day about this which has been lost. You turn outside to a guide who is
deceiving you and you trust that guide. Who is that guide? It is your own mind. Although
he has always deceived you, you return to the same guide because you are used to him.
He has been your guide since the beginning, but he has always deceived you. Now ask

67
yourself the question, “Who am I?” for the first time. This question has never been
asked. You have simply trusted the mind to tell you what to do and you have obeyed.
This is the time for all of us here to ask this question. Do away with this guide and you
will return to your Eternal Home, to Existence, to Consciousness, to Bliss.

Is there any time when you are not in the mind, when you stop your race after
pleasures of the senses, when you simply see? Keep still and this guide disappears,
simply with the question, “Who are you?” Then you will know what the mind is, and it
disappears. This question has never been asked. This guide has never been challenged
before. Wherever you have gone until now you have allowed it to deceive you. It has
told you this or that is good, and you accepted it — that this is a world of pleasure, and
you accepted it — that these gods will give you pleasures in heavens, and you accepted
it. When you challenge the mind it disappears instantly. This is why every day we
emphasize the question, “Who are you?”

The qualification needed to ask this question is discrimination — the ability to know the
real from the unreal, the eternal from the false, the pure from the impure.
Discrimination must first be developed, and it will lead to the capacity to ask the
question which dissolves all that is false. When you ask this question with discernment
you will come to know what is real and what is unreal. Turn to any thing which has
name and form and see where this name and form came from. Was it eternal or did it
appear in the past a few years ago, and will it disappear after a few more years?
Everything will disappear. In fact the whole world disappears when you sleep.

Whatever is eternal must remain constantly. It never disappears. That which appears
and disappears is falsehood. All relationships up to this point have been with
appearances and disappearances, and so there has been no relationship with that which
is Eternal, which is your own Home, which is your own Self, your own Friend, your
Atman, which is Existence itself.

Existence will remain always. It will never become non-existence. Consciousness will
always remain consciousness. In the waking state you are conscious of doing this and
that. In the dream state you are conscious of the dreamer doing something. In the sleep
state you are conscious of not knowing anything, of enjoying the bliss of deep sleep, you
are also very much conscious of this. Existence is there always, consciousness is there
always, and bliss can also be there always. In the waking state, pleasure is mistaken for
bliss. Pleasure is temporary. We may call it bliss, but bliss is eternal. It is your nature. It
is your Atman, your own Self.

We may stumble on different experiences but we are still searching for the same thing.
The one who is searching — the seeker itself — is what is needed. We are lost in a
search without knowing who it is that is enjoying all this. We are attached, so we
attribute the source of this joy to the object without knowing the enjoyer. It is the Self
— the Atman — who is enjoying; not the object. No object has any capacity to give you
happiness. It is ‘I’ who enjoys the object, whatever object it may be; anything, any
relation, any idea, any concept, the source of their joy comes from ‘I’, not from the
object or idea or notion.

When you rid yourself of all notions, all intentions and ideas, this will be revealed. Stop
for a while. Give an instant to your own Self — just an instant that you have never found
time for so far. You have spent 35 million years for others, seeking love, seeking beauty,
seeking rest, and you have not got it. You have been hitchhiking millions of times and
yet again you are here.

If this sounds good you can go through it and it is done, not by any kind of practice for
you have done enough. What had to be done is done now. It is finished. What had to be

68
attained is attained. You are here in satsang. In satsang no practice is needed, nothing
is done. Only you are asked to keep quiet. Only you are asked to keep still. Only you are
asked not to stir a single thought. And wait... Turn your back on whatever appears in
front of you. Now is the time to turn your back on what you have done in the past. Turn
your face to what has not been done before. Turn your face towards your own atman for
the first time and turn your back on this name and form.

18 May, 1992

***

You Need Reminding Only Once!

You only have to be reminded once of who you are. You do not have to do anything. You
do not have to read any book or listen to any cassettes or tapes. Just a reminder or
even overhearing is enough.

I will tell you a story about a baby child. There was a king who was fond of hunting
game. One day the queen also insisted on accompanying the king for the hunt. She
decided to take her baby boy along with her also, and they started out. In the evening
they pitched a tent in the forest so they could go out in the night, riding on an elephant
to find some game. Generally hunting is done at night because all the animals go out for
food then. The young prince was kept under the care of nurses and sentries were posted
outside the tent. So the king and queen and all their retinue went out the whole night
hunting for game and returned to the tent at about ten next morning. The queen found
that her son was missing.

In the night the nurses and the guards had fallen asleep. The boy had woken up, and
not finding his mama lying next to him he had walked out of the tent and deeper and
deeper into the forest in search of his mama, the queen.

The queen came back and felt very sad. Everyone was exhausted; they had not slept the
whole night. But she said she would not even eat breakfast until she had seen her son
again. Some said that he had been eaten by a wolf or a hyena, but the queen said that
there would be marks of blood inside the tent or nearby. A search was mounted to find
the bones. The queen said that if the bones were produced she could be sure that her
son had been killed by a wild animal and she would accept the situation. They looked all
around the tent for a mile in all directions but they did not find any trace of blood stains.
They had to return to the capital, but the king decided to send search parties in all four
directions throughout the country and instructed them not to return until they found the
boy, or at least a clue as to his fate. The parties were dispatched to console the queen.
Months and years passed.

The boy was only three or four years old when he wandered into the forest dressed only
in his underwear. A potter who lived on the farther side of the forest was collecting clay
to make his pots and found the boy crying. His family had no child so they were very
happy to find this child, a gift from gods — very handsome boy. They brought him
home, gave him a bath and food and new clothes. The boy grew up with his new family,
helping his foster father by collecting clay and bringing it home to help the family make
the pots.

Twelve years passed and the teams of police were still searching for the prince. One
search party was very thirsty so they stopped at a well where this boy was collecting
water to take home to his family. The policemen saw the boy with a bucket and asked
him for a drink. He gave them a cup of water and they were thankful. "What is your

69
name?" they asked the boy. "My name is Junglee." he replied. Junglee means forester in
Hindi. The family gave him this name because they found him in the jungle.

The police were very shrewd. They asked him, "This is very rare name. We have never
heard of anyone with the name Junglee before. Who are your parents?" "Our house is
over there. We make pots. My parents are at home," replied the boy. That was all he
could say — he had forgotten all about his past. They were very suspicious about this
boy's name. They wanted to see his parents and find out why they named him Junglee.
Seeing the police party the parents became very afraid.

They asked the father, "Who is this boy?" "He is our son," came the reply.

"Is he your son? When did you beget him?" they asked. So the potter told his story:
"About 12 years ago I was walking to the forest to fetch some clay and this boy was
crying. I brought him home and for the last 12 years he has been with us. He is not our
son but we have brought him up with great love and care because we didn't have a child
of our own." So the policemen explained what had happened and who this child was,
and the boy could overhear the entire conversation. Finally the police told the boy to
come with them and they would take him to the king. The foster father was only crying
out in fear, "It is not our fault, it's not our fault. We have found the boy."

At that point a party of boys arrived to call Junglee for a game which they had all left
unfinished from the night before. "Come, Junglee. Come to finish the game we did not
finish last night." This boy had only overheard what the police had said to his father. "Do
you know that he is the prince?" They had said, "He is the prince. Come with us and you
will be rewarded. You have no reason to fear." The boy only overheard the conversation,
that is all, but he turned to his friends who were calling him to play and told them, "Shut
up! I'll have you arrested by my police! Keep quiet or I'll have you arrested!" He became
the prince by simply overhearing what had been said. He did not mediate to become a
prince nor did he read any sutra or any book. He simply overheard the truth of his
situation from an authority and immediately he became the prince.

Once you hear from an authority that you are That, it is quite enough. You do not need
anything more. Overhearing the words of an authorized source is enough to know the
truth. But not all who hear the truth respond in the same way. Some are very sharp
witted — they are like camphor touching a flame. All is over, nothing is left. They belong
to a very superior quality of seeker — in going to the teacher, once they touch the word
and the ego is destroyed like camphor.

Others are like firewood — they will also be gradually consumed. They belong to a
second type of person, a middle quality. The third type also touches the fire and they
take some time to burn and to become fire itself. Those are the ones who are
postponing, taking their time. They will also become the flame itself but it will take some
time because they are busy deciding. They are like children who make sand castles on
the beach and get lost in their play till the high tide comes. Some wise children see that
their mother is waiting and kick over what they have built with double pleasure and
meet their mother before the high tide comes. Everything will be swept away by the
high tide. Before it comes it is better to return home, your mother is calling. The third
type is that category which does not move — they are like stone. If you put a stone in
the fire nothing will happen. The stone will remain a stone — there will be no ignition.

There are these three categories, and all three categories are represented here in this
satsang, and in the world: tamasic, rajasic, and sattvic. All need to be free. Some have
a burning desire of freedom — they need to meet a teacher only once. A perfect teacher
and a perfect longing for freedom is all that is needed. Some who come to see me here
say, "I have it! I got it! But now I cannot decide whether to leave you or whether to stay

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longer to stabilize what I have got." There is no question of stabilization here. One
glimpse of atman is enough to give you light. One glimpse is more than enough.

A small window is enough to allow the rays of the sun to come into the room. A small
hole is enough to allow you to expose your face to the sun. That light is quite enough to
bring you home. Some people wait here and say they might lose what they have gained.
I tell them that you will surely lose what has been gained. But how can you lose
anything which you have not gained? When you have nothing in your pocket how can
you lose it? You do not have to gain anything. You have come to lose all the burdens
that you have been carrying on your shoulders since 35 million years.

There were once two teachers in China with ashrams about 500 miles apart. People used
to travel from one ashram to the other. One teacher was preaching that it was
necessary first to purify the mind like a mirror — to wipe the dust from the mirror so
that you could see your face clearly. He had a great following. His students all got
involved in cleaning the mirror for their whole lifetime. The other teacher on the other
side of the mountains had a very different teaching. He did not say anything about any
mirror to be cleaned. The first teacher did not understand: If the mirror is not cleaned, if
there is dust on the mirror, if there are weeds in the lake, how can you see your own
reflection? So he sent one of his closest students who was supposed to have grasped the
teaching, to go and find out what the other teacher was teaching. He had full confidence
in this student. The man arrived in the other monastery.

The disciples of the second teacher came to the master. "Some people say this man is a
very confident student, number one after the teacher. The teacher has sent him here to
steal your teachings." The master came to know about it so he called the man. A master
has to speak to everyone, whoever comes.

The master asked this man: "Are you a spy?" "Yes, Master, I came as a spy. I was sent
by my master," replied the man. "But staying here with you I am no longer a spy of my
master; I am your student, bless me. My master does not teach this teaching. He only
says, 'Go on rubbing the mirror.’ Now you tell me there is no mirror and no dust to
alight on it. How simple! When there is no mirror where is the dust going to alight? This
is a very beautiful teaching. Master, I am going to stay with you — please accept me.
But first please allow me one thing. My master is very beloved to me. I spent eighteen
years with him. I am very grateful to him. I have some responsibility, some gratitude,
some duty to pay off this debt. So let me go and give this teaching to my teacher." The
master said "Okay, you can go, you can go." So the student returned to his old teacher.

"What is the teaching that he gives?" he was asked. "No teaching! No teaching! There
are so many mirrors we have been trying to clean. They will never be clean. When there
is a mirror there will always be dust to alight. This master asked me, 'When there is no
mirror where is the dust going to alight?' Come with me, Master! He is a very beautiful
teacher with no teaching at all!" The teacher and all his students came to see this
master with no teaching.

We are here for Freedom. Our aim is freedom but we get lost in sadhanas, practices,
yoga methods and reading books. Why did you come here? What was the purpose of
wearing this human body which so precious among 8.4 million species, the highest
temple? Once in 35 million years you wear this beautiful form — don't waste it. You only
need to be reminded like this prince, and you are the prince. You have been saying, “I
am the body, I am the mind, I am the ego, I am the senses, I have objects to enjoy.”
With this burden how can you face your own nature, how can you get on the throne?
How can sit on the throne of the emperor if you have forgotten who you are? You have
to be reminded; you do not need to perform any practices.

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We speak here of Existence, Consciousness, Bliss. When are you not that? When was the
time when you were not that? When will the time come when you will not be that? How
can you lose Existence itself? How can you lose Consciousness? How can you lose Bliss?
You have been lost somewhere else so you do not know who you really are.

19 May, 1992

***

No Practice is Needed
Different practices have been described which are being followed in the world. One is
gyanamarg — the path of knowledge; one is bhakti, or devotion;and one is karma.
Rituals, yoga, rajyoga, kundalini yoga, pilgrimages to shrines, worship of the personal
deities, recitation of the holy books, repetition of the sacred formulas, and many other
types of exercises, or sadhanas are being practiced. The question is: What is the goal
that you have selected to arrive at? What do you want? What is your aim? For different
aims there are different roads, different practices.

Here we are mainly dealing with Brahman. I will use the word 'Brahman', rather than
'Self', because in all other languages 'self' can be also be used for the individual soul, for
the individuality. Brahman is that which is without any attributes — knowledge itself
which has no association, with no duality whatsoever. Brahman is the word that has
been used in the book of knowledge. We are working here on how to arrive at that
attribute-less Brahman which is beyond the reach of the mind and the intellect. It is said
by those who have gone beyond and realized this goal, that this is where the intellect
and its associates like mind, senses, and so on beat a retreat. They cannot go there
because it reveals Itself by itself. You need no agent, no-one to take you there, neither
the intellect, nor the mind, nor the senses, nor any kind of practice, because it is self-
revealing.

You need a candle to find something in a dark room. You need the light of the sun in the
day or of the moon in the night, and if they are not there you need a candle or a lamp in
the house. But you don't need a candle to see a lamp — it is light itself. It is self-
revealing. It is self-luminous. No association is possible; it is attribute-less. It is advised
to realize the attribute-less Brahman, immaculate Brahman, eternal Brahman, or to
adopt a practice which is very near to your goal. Everything else — like pilgrimages,
purification, visiting churches — may do some benefit. Worship of the deities may also
give you some temporary relief, chanting of holy books may focus your mind on one
object. But with all these practices the mind is not yet obliterated.

The practice nearest to truth for those few who want to realize absolute Brahman is
meditation only on attribute-less Brahman itself, without any object of concentration.
When people start to mediate they do something, they hold some image in the mind or
some word. That may be useful, but it is even better to think of attribute-less Brahman,
to always keep aware of the attribute-less Brahman during meditation, knowing that, “I
am Brahman.” without focusing on any object of the past, present, or future.

This is the nearest practice. If you want to do any practice, to meditate on attribute-less
Brahman, immaculate Brahman, which is none other than your own Atman — your own
fundamental nature. If you are not able to realize the truth instantly you can continue
this practice for a while. Slowly you will see that the meditator and the meditated upon
vanish. Neither attribute-less Brahman nor meditation upon attribute-less Brahman has
anything to do with a meditator or something meditated upon.

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So this constant exercise is advised, constant sadhana on attribute-less Brahman,
thinking, “I am Brahman.” If you want to think something, why think, “I am the body?”
The body does not last. Why think, “I am this.” or “I am that?” If you want to have a
thought at all and you cannot live without thinking, then have this supreme thought: “I
am Brahman.” This is the exercise which is nearest to your goal of Brahman itself. The
meditator and the meditated upon will vanish. This is the goal that we started
meditation for. No other sadhana or exercise is as near as this for one who wants to be
free of this samsara, from this going again and again from death to birth and birth to
death. This is how to break the cycle. There is only one way and this is this way. This
can continue always wherever you are.

You do not need to go to any ashram, because nobody there knows how to sit quiet. In
every ashram and center recently different therapies have been introduced. There
should be at least one person who could teach you silence, peace, and tranquility, and
direct you to that place. He should be in the know of things himself, but nobody is there
like that. Therefore wherever you go, some kind of therapy has been introduced in every
ashram. Because no one teaches, “Sit quiet and don't do anything.” If a center were to
do that what would be the use of that center? A center is there for some commercial
reason, for some material gain.

This is the only teaching that is not practiced anywhere in the world! What better
teaching could there be, or what better teacher who tells you, “Keep quiet!” This was the
teaching of my master. Nobody else has taught this recently, in this century. There were
a few teachers also in the past but not in this century. In the twentieth century he alone
was the teacher who could say, “Keep quiet!”

To keep quiet is the only goal that you have to practice to do away with this cycle. If you
can't keep quiet, then the practice closest to this quietness is prescribed: To repeat, “I
am Brahman.” There is no harm in this, because when you utter the word “Brahman” it
has neither name nor form. This Brahman word is not a name, because name and form
go together immediately. When you utter a name there is a form. There is no form to
accompany this name, so the mind is again formless and nameless. This does not depict
any object or any subject.

This practice is not even a practice. It can be continued at home with whatever you are
doing in your routine of life. Just keep this thought here and do whatever you want. This
is the way which is nearest to your own Atman. In this life a human body is very rare so
we have to make the best of it. Once lost it cannot be regained. We would have to go
around again.

You are here from many countries, so let us find some way to be happy in ourselves, to
be peaceful ourselves, and take this message back to our country and spread it. Now is
the time. We know what is happening in the universe. We can only keep quiet and wish
that sanity descend on human beings. We send good vibrations of peace and love every
morning. Let us behave at least as human beings, working for our own good and for that
of the world.

Buddha has done it.

Janaka has done it.
Yagnavalka has done it.
Vasishtha has done it.
And Shikaraj has done it.
Vishvamitra and many others have done it.
So why can't you do it?
If you are bent upon doing it, it is here and now.

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 26 May, 1992

***

Why Are You Here for Satsang?

We are here in satsang to save ourselves from the suffering of repeated rebirths. We are
here… we are completed at least one round of thirty five million years. It happened to
8.4 million different kinds of species that we all know, and if we miss this chance again
we have to go round. So let us make up some kalpa this time — no repeated birth —
and pray the almighty divine comes from Mount Purity to lead us from ignorance to light
— britumam amritam astumount satgarum. This should be the aim of our satsang and
we are speaking here every day. And you are here from almost all countries of the world
with desire to be free. And some of you have also been to several ashrams in our
country and also in many centers in other countries too. Every country is now… is having
yoga centers and different kind of therapies, and you have been traveling into those
centers also and wherever you have gone you have been told, “Do this and do that.”

A one year old baby is provided with the baby walker by the parents. The child learns
how to walk and throws away the baby walker and is very happy for the first time; and
look at its majestic walk. But in those centers and those ashrams once this baby walker
is given to you, you are so much attached with this you don't get rid of it, and you are
not allowed to do it. You have to walk on the baby walker. This is the teaching in every
ashram. And this is the discipline and this is the sadhana. And you are no more a baby,
why get attached to the baby walker? And even if you can walk as a symbol you have to
carry this on your shoulders. Because you often speak in such and such ashram, “We
have been told to do this, we have been told to do that.”

There was one center in China. The teacher was preaching, “First of all you have to
purify your mind like a mirror.” and he had a great following. “You have to clean, clean
the mirror; wipe out the dust from the surface of the mirror so that you can see your
face.” So this was the teaching of this teacher and he had following. There was another
teacher about five hundred miles away on the other side of the mountains. The people
used to visit both of these centers and speak about these teachers. So some teachers
would come from this, this other center — go to this center holding mirrors in their
hands and wiping out the dust. They speak, “That center, that teacher doesn't ask us to
clean your mirror, to purify your minds. This teacher says “What kind of teaching could
it be? If your mind is not pure how can you have reflection? It sounds quite reasonable.”
So he sent one of his most trusted student. "Go visit, come back and tell me what is the
teaching of this teacher."

"He doesn't teach anything; he sits quiet. And there are some students who sit too.”
“You go and don't disclose that you are from such and such teacher.” And he's still
sitting on the third day and this teacher asked, "You are… you belong to CIA not this
teacher. You are intelligence reporter.” He said: "No sir. I came as the CIA of my
teacher, no doubt. He told me to come here and see what's going on here. And I have
come for that purpose to tell my teacher. But now I am no more a CIA agent. Now I am
your disciple. I stayed with this teacher for forty two years cleaning the mirror, again
dust will alight. Wherever there is mirror there dust has to arise, alight on it; but here
when I find your teaching is, ‘There is no mirror at all; and where the dust is going to
alight?’ That was all, my dear master. It opened up to me. I am free. No mirror do I
need now to clean. There was no mirror at all. And now please allow me to see my
teacher, let me go back. Because I promised to my teacher, and I will speak to him
because, ‘This no teaching, no way, no sadhana is not known to him.’ So I will tell to my
teacher and come back soon."

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So he says, "Go, my son, go." He tells to the teacher, "This teacher was very good
person. He also understood, he said. Because my teacher told him to go on wiping the
mirror and my grand teacher also was doing the same thing, and we belong to that
lineage of dust cleaners." So listening to this he also followed. And some of his students
who are very arrogant — they didn't listen. The teacher followed the student and stayed
here — welcomed.

So actually the Brahman, atman, is omnipotent, omniscient, self-effulgent. If there is a

candle you don't need your torch in hand to find where the candle is in the room
because it’s light itself. You don't need any… any extra light to see the light. Light is the
same. Like this, your atman is self effulgent, eternal, beauty, love, and consciousness,
bliss, existence. You don't need to do anything about it. Only you get rid of your
arrogance, your separation that you are not this, and it will reveal itself to the self.

So for the last two days, repeatedly I have been asked to give you some practice. Never
did I speak about any kind of practice in my life. For the last fifty years I never speak
about practice. People are here who have spent minutes, hours. And here also you have
seen a man from Washington DC stay two hours — immediately woke up and the
satsang is still going on. I thought, “Perhaps he has to catch his flight.” I said. I have
never asked him a name also, and his bag was also alongside him. And then he just
prostrates and he goes up. And someone asked him, "Why you are in a hurry to go?
Since you have come you can stay for at least one satsang." "It's no use to stay here,"
he says. "It's no use. I'm coming from Thailand, and twenty six years I have spent from
center to center, and this couple of hours is quite enough. What more could any
teaching be? It's enough."

Another man — he was Doctor James. In 1953 he went to attend international Buddhist
conference in Bangkok. From there he comes and I was working in Bangalore for a
shipping corporation and this man straight away walks to my office and he came, he
came by a taxi and he was very dusty, you see. I said, "You go and have a hot shower,
have a cup of coffee, and we speak." "No, no, no, I have to ask. And if your friends who
are seated here, they excuse me, I'll ask you a question." And then I said, "Carry on.
Ask me." He asked one question and I replied and the taxi was in front of the door itself.
He said, "I am going now." I thought, “He is not satisfied.” He said, "No, I don't want to
waste your time. Just five minutes it took me, because I spent many years. I have seen
many teachers in China, Japan, Thailand and the rest of the centers in India, Nepal,
Bhutan, and other countries also. This straight-away — no teaching — there's no teacher
at all. So I will write to you before I go, even in Delhi if I have time between my flights.
I will go back to London and I will write." And he did write.

This experience he wrote to me. So here this depends upon how serious you are. The
people who want to hang on postpone their desire for freedom. There are thousands
ashrams here. They can go there if they don't understand these things. They can go if
they want to follow any practice. They can go there. There are many people there you
see.

Even Lord Buddha himself. He was a prince — married to the beauty of the land, blessed
with a son; and this desire for freedom arises in the midnight — wakes up, rides on the
horse. (Contic was its name.) Even that horse which rode him out of the palace is now
immortal horse. He went from ashram to ashram, many different kind of tapas,
sadhanas were being practiced and always he said, “Not it. It's not it. This should not be
like this thing.” People were hanging head down feet tied to the branch of a tree and
doing penance, tapas for freedom. What relation has this kind of tapas with the
freedom? Hanging like a monkey from a tree… branch of a tree… and wanting to be free,
has got no relation. Yet this is being practiced even now. So different kind of… he went

75
round different places. He rejected all ashrams and then finally he goes to Bodhgaya;
sat down by himself under the bodhi tree and found it, you see.

This is the desire who is your teacher itself — this desire is your teacher itself, your
guide itself. And this will bring you to your own Self. And it will not fail you if you have
decided very well, “I want to be free.” But if you are egoistic, arrogant, having desire for
the things which are not eternal, happiness that fade away every moment. Your
relationship with those whose legs are in the mouth of the crocodile of Lord Yama, isn't
it. If you want to love, if you want to be related, why not relate yourself with your own
Self? And this relationship is the only relationship which is going to help you. It's not
going to deceive you at all and you will not appear again into this land of suffering. It
can be had instantly you see, the people have done it and every day I tell you the
stories how… how people have won this freedom instantly.

Once there was king, king of the Vedas — very noble king. Desire arises in his mind to
be free. He needs a teacher now. So he sent word all over the country to hold a
conference so then he invited the enlightened people of this country to lead him to
freedom. But his condition was he wants to be free in an instant. And what was that?
Condition: as quick as to embark on a horse. So many people from the country — say
about five thousand saints, sages, yogis — assembled in this camp belonging to different
views, different shades, different sects. And the king stood there also, and there was a
horse, and he said, "As a token of my dedication — guru dakshina — I will give eleven
hundred cows, gold plated horns, garland of gold coins around their neck and a land at
the bank of river Ganga. And I will build an ashram who gives me gyanam as quick as I
ride this horse which stood just… just next to him.

And five thousand people assembled there. They are looking to each other, speaking to
each other, “This king is not reasonable. Look I have been doing meditations in the
Himalayas sixty years. I have grown gray beard and yet I do not know what is freedom.”
So they are discussing, "This king is not reasonable." speaking between themselves.
There comes one very dirty looking young boy. Nude he was, also deformed — in
physically deformed. He didn't know what's going on here in this congregation. He
looked inside. Many people were there — he also entered. And where the king stood on
one foot, the left foot in his stirrup and the right was to go on the saddle. "How much
time is needed to just embark on the saddle?" That was the condition of the king.

This man stood up nude, deformed, dirty, and people were laughing at him: "He doesn't
know, he's insane, he's mad boy." He addressed them… addressed them first of all:
"Why do you laugh… why do you laugh at me. Seeing my body you laugh. Seeing my
deformity — seeing this physical form which is skin or leather — you are leather
merchants. You are leather merchants; you have no business to come here in satsang."
he said. "You go and do your trade in the leather market." That's all he said. That is all
he said to five thousand people. "You are looking at my physical form and you are
laughing, you are joking. You look after your business. You know this is satsang," he
said. "No other talk is allowed here — not looking at the form. In satsang if you look at
the form you are in your usual profession."

Now he addresses to the king: "Yes sir, now you come along to me. Come, I will give
you freedom. But now I am your teacher and you are my student. And you have
according to Indian custom you have to give me guru dakshina in advance, because
after, you are free – after, you are enlightened — then me and you are equal. I can't ask
anything from you because you are equal to me and you will not give anything to me.
We both are equal. Therefore now you want something from me, therefore I am your
teacher and you are my student. Give me guru dakshina. He says: "Here are the cows.
Here are the cows, here is the land I promised." "But that land doesn't belong to you.
You want knowledge of your Self, and this land before it belonged to you to whom did it

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belong? And these cows, too. This is public property. This land, this kingdom, was ruled
by your father, isn't it? And before your father, who was the king here?" He said: "My
grandfather." "And after you?" "My sons," he said.

"So you are just a manager looking after a property. Give me something that belongs to
you." He says, "If you give me knowledge I will serve you all my life. All my life I will
serve." He said, "How? How you are going to serve me? If you want to serve me
physically, you are already… this body you have already pledged to your wives isn't it?
You had an oath in front of the fire at the time of marriage, isn't it? And… and they say…
all your queens, they call you ‘my king, my husband' isn't it? So your body belongs to
your queens; and also the public when they say you are their king. Your body belongs to
the public. It doesn't belong to you. Give me something that belongs to you itself. Body
belongs to public; body belongs to your queens; body belongs to your children. It’s not
your own. How can you give me something which you have already sold to others? The
king was very wise; very noble king was he, very intelligent. He's now thinking that he
has only one thing on which nobody… nobody can claim. “It belongs to me. I may be
belonging physically but inside me there is something which I know is only me.” And
then he said, "I have one thing, sir, that I have for you and this is my mind. I surrender
my mind unto you."

He said, “Then let us have this ceremony. Let you bring Ganga water and repeat thrice
so that this agreement of disciple and student is to be completed, so that you don't
withdraw from this, and make sankalpa. Here do I surrender to you, Master. I have
given you this token of my present, my guru dakshina, and you impart me knowledge.
And then after this ceremony is over now; and this boy walks out of the tent and goes
away — disappeared. Everybody… this congregation of five thousand people looking… do
not understand. This boy is very funny. After this ceremony is over he disappeared.

King is also thinking now; king is also thinking now. One foot, left foot in the stirrup —
right is to embark on the saddle of the horse. Look at his longing and look at his
dedication also. Discipleship has been accepted, ceremony is over, and this man
disappeared. So he is astonished. He can't help. And he's looking through the hole of the
tent. This king is thinking something. Now he is outside and now king thinks… king is
now is thinking himself, within himself that, "I have surrendered the mind and I am
feeling in this agreement." He was very wise man. So he instantly thinks, "I have no
business to mentate. I have no business to mentate, even to start a single thought —
why this man has gone out of the tent." There he stopped thinking. The king stopped
thinking, you see. No thought is there in the mind of the King. Here is the point which
we speak every day about. There he comes and from the face you can very well know
when you think, when you start a thought in the mind. And what is this thought and
where are you?

This thought takes you straight away to the graveyard, mind you. This thought — any
thought that rises in your mind — is it… isn't it a past; isn't it a past? Mind itself is past.
Thought itself is past. Whatever you think is past. And what is past is graveyard.
Therefore you are in the graveyard. You are not living being, you are speaking to the
dead. What is dead? Memory. Memory is graveyard. It's not satsang. Here now satsang
is going to take place; give me your attention. So that face is very different when you
have no thought — that face you have been seeing. Yesterday also people were here.
Instantly this same question was there about enlightenment. I do not know that man.
Perhaps if this young man from Germany and the other one from Sweden, I will call
them and see what's happening with them today.

And now this… this young person, he arrives in front of him — one foot in the stirrup,
other was to go on the other side on the stirrup to embark on the saddle. That was the
promise and this is the time. No thought in the mind of this king. When there's no

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thought and this previous thought, “I want freedom, first of all.” Everyone is bound
because we separate ourselves from… from our own existence, consciousness and bliss
— bliss. Somehow, we think and we call: “Now we are bound.” The wave rises from the
ocean and separates and searches, “Where is the ocean?” Searches day and night — the
wave is searching, “Where is the ocean?”

Like this all this manifestation we are all searching, “Where is… where is consciousness
and where is existence and where is bliss?” This is what's going on here, so when I am
bound? It’s very few people who have this concept who have superimposed bondage on
them — superimposition that also — and then they will give rise to another
superimposition of freedom. He who's bound, very few will aspire for light, wisdom.

So when your thought stops, mind stopped, bondage vanish, also the freedom vanished,
isn't it? There is no mind. It was the mind that troubled you – “I am bound.” Can you
sleep? Neither you are bound nor you are free because mind is not there. So when this
king stood up thoughtless, his urge for freedom also disappeared, bondage disappeared,
also the freedom disappeared. Now at that time, what else could be That is beyond
description. He who has this experience will know how to describe it and this King has
described very well, you see. He brought the other foot which was planted into this
stirrup back on the deck itself, prostrated in front of him three times, went round three
times, and he blessed him and he went away. He disappeared, you see. This is over.

So I started this, this morning satsang, this practice, because many people want. So I…
so I have to agree to them because they want some direct practice. So have I told them
yesterday, day before yesterday, till… till you can't walk on your own legs you can
practice on existence — on Existence. “I am existence. I am consciousness. I am bliss.”
To have your relation with what really you are. This also is creating knower, knowing
and known. So finally they have to merge into that where there is no duality at all. How
long you can live in dualities — knower, knowing, known. If you want some support
there's no problem, you see. You can have instead of doing any other exercise. This is
acceptable in the shutees, and the sages allow it — to do it, therefore I can agree. “I am
existence.” Who can deny, “I don't exist.” first of all? Do you ever go and ask someone,
"Do I exist or not?" Do you… do you ask, "Am I conscious or not?" You don't ask this
question. If you ask you'll be sent to Nuermunser here. You do not know what's
Nuermunser. Someone who belongs to this talk, they will know it.

First of all, those people who are there who can't deny, “I am that.”? In the ancient
times also, the student who has a burning longing for freedom; he goes to the teacher in
the forest and just asks this question. "Ho ham?" This question he doesn't know,
"Master, save me! I am afflicted with this serpent of samsara. Now I am fed up again,
again, and again appearing, disappearing. In society I have been troubled. Oh masters,
save me. Ho ham. Who am I?" "My dear son, why not?" He gives indication, "Thou art
That, that's all. Thou art That." He follows That. Instantly he says… instantly he finds it
is That — finger pointing to the moon. He will see the moon that takes you to your own
Self, and he agrees. Then he says: "I am, I am, I am, I am."

This moment will never come again, mind you. This moment which is passing in front of
you is gone, as father who is dead will never come back again. This moment just in
front… just in front… in front of you is possible, is not going to make the best of it. And
best of it, best use of it is only… only to get into it. Get drowned into this moment… This
Moment — not the previous, not the next.

This is what happened to the King of the Dehas, this what is happened. He didn't sit… he
didn't sit for meditation. Neither has the teacher told him to meditate now. The real
teacher has no teaching. There may be preachers who tell you do this and do that.
Perhaps in my own words I call them murderers, butchers. They butcher you, they

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murder you who tell you do this and do that, you see. Teacher has no teaching. He
doesn't give you teaching because you are that already. What the teacher is going to tell
you, “You are already that.” What can she tell you distracts you and every exercise,
every sadhana, every practice is distraction from your own Self, because you get
otherwise engaged and you are already afflicted by thirty five million years.

Are you not afflicted like to add something more on it? Why not to throw away this
burden once for all; and here goes. A very sharp one has to have this knowledge now
itself — in this moment — and you have been seeing the result. The dull ones have no
place in this satsang. First of all the dull ones have no place in this satsang. The sharp
witted person, intelligent person like Ashoka, [chuckle] yeah, Shankara, one word, even
Vivekenanda recently, Ram Tirtha recently, you see. So this satsang I don't think is for
the dull people. I tell every day and so many people are here there must be something
wrong going on here under this roof. Never it has happened in the past, so many people
coming for satsang. Only one teacher, one student. Even Shankara had only four
students, you see. So sometimes I think, “Why these people are here? Sometimes five
hundred, four hundred people here. Some falsehood is being practiced here. I should
take care of it.” Wherever there is someone dancing there will be crowd of it. Where
truth is being spoken who could be there, you see. Now it's some dance is there on the
road, you can see everyone will disappear. Who will be with me, you see? Some dancing
you see on the road, you will just give a test yourself. It’s not satsang, you see.

So those few people, I don't some get into trouble and then they… they need this
because this is a fire. This is a fire which will burn everything. They can't stay in
satsang, therefore you see some people… some get up and during the satsang
disappear. The next day they don't come. You are seeing every day; you are seeing
every day. Some are here since a year, two years. Some read the papers, some
magazines, and come from far off countries you see. Some come here, and you will see
new faces who are to come for the first day and I guarantee tomorrow they are not
coming here. You have been telling every day, isn't it? Because this is a jump into their
arrogance. Because their arrogance is… is struck at the root. Who wants to separate
from his arrogance, “I am so and so. I am this much, I am that much from the bank.
This my land, this is my apartment, this is my ninety-three model Benz.” That's all what
everybody wants.

I think one satsang is quite enough. If you decide on going for satsang don't tie your
rope. Some have tied even today. They have fixed up their appointment with their
wives, with their offices, “I'll be back at eleven thirty.” isn't it? Tied a rope as… as you
slide a bucket into the water and the bucket things are very happy in this shower-bath;
the bucket is very happy into the wells of the water. Outside is 44 degrees (celcius) and
this bucket is very hot. And this kind man has put me down to well. Now I am very
happy but she doesn't know. She is tying me with the rope. She is just taken in. Like
this everybody is sitting for that bucket. They tie the rope around their waist with
something or the other… appointment. “After this satsang I will meet you,” isn't it? If
you cut your rope once only – once — that is quite enough.

You need not come again and again — only one time. Once just for five minutes because
your atman is not away from you, only you are driven by the rope. Everybody is
thinking… everybody is thinking, “It’s getting late. Papaji is getting too much time. Isn't
it? Tying a rope and coming to satsang, many people say. One man came who is here
who lives in Indira Nagar, in this 'A' Block itself. He just came and he requested that, "I
want to see Papaji before satsang." I said, “He may have a question.” When he came in
I asked, “Let him come before satsang and I want to know if he has a special… he wants
special time. I will give him.” He asked me, he will get summer vacation in October. Will
I be here in October? "Where do you live?" He said, "I live here itself. I live here, I live
here." I said, “Attend this satsang. You come here.” "No, no, no, no. I've not come for
satsang, I just came to make inquiry." I said, "Are you? Have you a guarantee that you
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will live in October, or will I have a guarantee will I live in October?" You see, I cannot
know what's going to happen next moment, you see.

5 June, 1992

***

Make the Decision to Be Free!

You have to decide right now to be free once and for all. Everyone who has found
freedom in this lifetime has had to make this decision. I don't find see problem for
anyone here to be free in this lifetime.

Again and again, I tell stories about people who have found freedom. They have to be
repeated because the mind is not ready to listen or accept. Some people only need to be
told once by the teacher. A few don't even need to be told: Freedom rises up by itself.

Some people write to me saying that they started the search for freedom at a very
young age — seven or eight years old, even two or three! This is the push of karmas of
previous lives. Some make the decision later; some never make the decision at all. You
can tell them again and again but they don't listen. There are also teachers and beautiful
sutras available but they don't make use of them.

We are a very small community here and it's good that there are only a few of us. Some
people who come here complain of arrogance, relationship troubles, egotism and greed,
asking how to get rid of these things. They will all slowly disappear in satsang. This
atmosphere will not allow the mind to live. This is where the death of the mind takes
place. The mind cannot survive in satsang, just as a deer cannot face a tiger. These few
here must make the decision to be free.

I was only a child when it happened to me. I was still at school and I didn't know
anything about freedom. I don't know how or why it happened — I just fell in love with
the greatest teacher in the world. My parents and teachers read the same books, my
teachers were teaching the same things year after year and weren't personally
benefiting at all. I can't explain why. On seeing a picture of Buddha sitting in meditation
I fell in love with him, and without knowing anything about him I promised myself to do
just as he did. I started sitting whenever I had free time. I didn't even know what I was
doing or what it was about. I felt so much love in meditation that I could not escape. In
fact it was meditation that fell in love with me, took hold of me at that young age, not
me with it. I didn't really know what was going on. I used to get up in the middle of the
night and meditate! At the age of 12 or 13 I used to go out begging in the streets, even
though I came from a middle class family. People used to come and listen to me
speaking, although I didn't know what I was saying. My parents used to worry about me
when I got up in the middle of the night and sat on the cold winter ground. This is called
satsang — love — this is something that drives you.

You can sit down and close your eyes, but if the mind is running around all over the
place it is not meditation. I didn't know what meditation was. I didn't have any
intentions. I didn't make a decision to go and sit in a certain position and meditate.
Meditation just whispered in my ears, "Get up boy. It is midnight. Get out of bed. Sit
down on the ground and meditate". I would like this to happen to everybody. It troubled
Buddha. It troubled me and a few others too. Why don't we all get into this trouble?

I don't have any reason to believe a man who complains of ego and other troubles. What
does it mean when a man says, "I am troubled by my ego. I have been here for 15 or
20 days and my ego is not disappearing?" Surely it means that he wants something that

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is not good for him. You have to decide. Discriminate with a cool head. Sit down and
decide what is good for you and follow that. Don't listen to anyone else — the whole
world is deceiving you. The whole world may be against you so you have to make your
own decisions. Don't listen to your parents, your society or your preachers.

***

There were two teachers of different sects who heard of a sage living in the forest. They
both went to him and asked, "Sir, how can we have joy in our lives?" The saint replied
"Just keep your bodies healthy. This is the source of joy". Hearing this they both went
back to their tribes and started preaching. The first said to his people, "I have been to
see a saint. He says you have to enjoy this world. You have to keep your body well: eat,
drink and be merry. Enjoy everything to the maximum because this world will not be
available to you again". This sect followed this; they ate, drank and were merry; they
pampered the body. They are still doing this now — they are still preaching this today:
99% of people belong to this sect, looking after the body with food, sleep and sex.

The other leader also went back to his people and told them the same thing, but they
questioned the teaching. However hard they tried to keep the body healthy, it still
became sick, and even when the body was healthy, there was still something amiss: the
mind was still troubled. So after six months, the leader of this sect went back to the
saint to ask if there had been some kind of mistake. This time the saint welcomed him
saying, "Very good, my dear boy, now go and look after your mind. Just make sure that
the mind is comfortable, that's all".

The leader went back to his people and they tried. But they found that however hard
they tried — however much they concentrated or meditated — the mind could not be
brought under control. Another six months passed, and again he returned to the saint.

By this time the first leader had still not been back to the saint and has not been back to
this very day, after millions of years. Those of his tribe say happily, "I am arrogant. I'm
an egoist. I'm in grief, anger, jealousy. I'm a hypocrite..." And they're all very proud of
it, even today, millions of years later.

So after six months the second leader returned to the saint and told him that he couldn't
keep the mind under control. "Very good, well done," replied the sage. "The mind is very
fickle. It is like air. You can't keep it under control. Now, above the mind there is a
power called intellect, the power of discrimination. Every man has this power of
judgment. Go back and find out what is real and what is not real, then come back and
tell me".

Again he went away, he tried, and he came back. "I have been trying with the intellect. I
started with the objects of the world which we perceive through the five senses. All
these sense objects appear and disappear. Things I saw some time ago have already
disappeared. So the intellect is not reliable because it attaches itself to things which
vanish and disappear. It loves things which are not eternal, and this does not bring
peace, happiness, bliss, or consciousness. I have discovered this about the intellect but
still the attention goes out to objects." “Okay Very good," the teacher said again. A
teacher will teach you only to the extent that you are ready to receive. Those who are
ready see what happens.

The man went away, and started to witness the intellect, the mind, the senses and their
objects from somewhere behind them. He said to himself, "Now I've done it. I am the
witness of the intellect itself. I can see my decisions very clearly and I can judge
whether they are good or bad. I will not cling to the impermanent, to that which is not
eternal or to that which does not bring bliss."

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Once again he returned to the teacher and asked, "Is there anything deeper than this,
anything more precious?" He asked for guidance. Again the saint replied "Leave
everything. Get rid of your intellect, mind, ego, body, senses and objects. Have the firm
conviction that you are existence, consciousness and bliss itself. Do not use your
intellect, your mind or your senses. Just merge into existence, as we are speaking now,
and become one with existence. Have the firm conviction 'I am existence, I am
consciousness and I am bliss'."

This is as far as a teacher can teach. There is another part to the teaching, however,
another secret. This secret is so sacred — it is the secret of all secrets. Nobody knows
who holds the key to this secret. I have never heard of anyone going beyond and then
returning to the teacher and saying, "I have been beyond and that is the end of the
matter." It is fathomless – fathomlessness. None can measure its depth. The oceans,
the skies, the planets, the solar system and even the 22 other solar systems with their
own suns, moons, planets and stars have all been measured, but this has never been
measured. The more you go into it, the more you want to know it. But who goes there?
People come here saying, "I am arrogant, I'm an egoist, I have a problem with
relationships." Why do they come here? There are books, psychologists and doctors in
New York, Washington and California. What brings them to Lucknow?

To know the truth and the truth alone, to know consciousness and consciousness alone:
This is satsang.

12 June, 1992

***

All This is Mind

All this is mind. Whatever you see is mind.

A notion arises and that particular object manifests in front of you. This is true of any
object: past, present, and future. The whole manifestation is just a notion — objectified
mind — nothing else. Unless we are aware of this mind there can be no peace, so we
often speak about this. Even your body is a notion of the mind and you call it real. Then
you become this object and other relations also become real. No one is willing to take
the return journey — back to the beginning, to where the notion arises, because our
senses are outgoing.

When a notion arises an object which is manifested is the desire of your own mind and it
becomes absolutely real. Even your body is a notion. Let us start with this. If you don't
give rise to the notion, "I am the body," there is no body. This body is an object of the
mind, a thought in the mind, including the senses and all their activities moving towards
different objects of sight, sound, hearing, tasting, and touch. This whole manifestation in
front of you is only your notion — actually it doesn't exist. Only when we successfully
understand this will you have tremendous peace and eternal happiness. That has always
been your fundamental nature.

How did this manifestation arise in the beginning? If you follow the track backwards and
discover its source — the place where it is rising from — you might find out for yourself,
by yourself, without any effort or thought. There must have been a time when there was
no creation and no creator. Everything is rising from that place which you do not know.
Everybody wants to be happy, wants to be blissful, wants to be eternal, wants to avoid
death; because this is our nature. Death is not our nature. Our nature is eternity — to
be free of death and rebirth, of sorrow and suffering. We avoid death, disease, and

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suffering because this is a natural instinct in everybody. Neither man, nor animals like to
suffer. There was a time when there was only peace — this is called shanti. Nothing else
was there. Even the creator was not created at that time, let alone the creation. Only by
returning there will we find peace, not by sitting in meditations or doing anything else.
Here and now we can again try to discover this source, this fountain from where this
mind itself and all thought arises.

With this question you will have to go to the root of thought itself. Doing this exercise
you do not stir a thought, or mentate, or activate the mind, or make any kind of effort.
We speak again and again of this because except in this method you are wasting your
time in postponements. It will take you this instant of time to know who you are. It
takes this very instant of time.

In this same instant of time the creation began and lived and is destroyed. It is the
same instant. And it is the same instant that kept you bound in a never-ending cycle of
incarnations of birth and death. This is the same instant. And again it is going to take
you the same instant to return home. It is all in this instant. This instant is beyond time.
Time is also a notion of the mind. The mind is also a notion, like a wave rising from the
ocean.

That ocean of eternal peace is you. What is the difficulty that we suffer from? It is that
we seek peace elsewhere and do not experience that we are peace incarnate itself. We
do not have to find peace, we do not have not to attain peace. We are peace itself, and
perhaps even beyond it.

This does not take time. A few of us have done it here in ourselves. We are happy, and
we will be happy if the whole world is happy. This is what we speak of again and again. I
am not going to give you any method which will make you waste your time and
postpone this project for the next life. Do it here and now. When I tell you that it is this
instant why don't you make use of this instant? You will not through any method — not
by doing anything nor by doing nothing. Just stay quiet and you will see what the secret
has been that you have been missing. The treasure was within you and you were
begging.

29 June, 1992

***

My Meeting with Ramana

Q: Today is Ramana's birthday. I'd like to ask you to say something about Ramana.

Papaji: This is a long story so I will tell you in a short version about my contact with
him, and something of what came before also.

Ramana was the son of an advocate. He was studying in a mission school. In his
boyhood, one day he was going to school on the day when the fees were due. He had
taken money and was going to school to pay his fees. On the way he felt as though he
were dying. He lay down on the road on the way to and began to inquire: '"Who is dead?
Who is dead? The body is lying here, but I see I am not dead. This body is dead and I
am conscious that I am not dead." This was his experience. He found the Eternal
Consciousness which never dies. The body may die, like clothes. Worn out clothes are
thrown away and you get new ones to be worn again.

It started like this, but then he wanted to find out what it was. There was nobody to
speak to him. After this experience he wanted to see what this experience was. He

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disappeared from the town of his parents. He had heard people speaking of a pilgrimage
place called Mount Arunachala. He wanted to go there and he had the fees in his pocket.
So he went to the railway station and the money did not cover the whole journey. He
told the booking clerk, "Give me a ticket as far as my money goes." He bought a ticket
to a place called Tirkalur, 20 miles short of his destination. He was wearing gold
earrings, so when he got down at the station he was able to sell them to someone and
to complete his journey.

He started meditation to locate what the consciousness was. For years he was not heard
of. Sometimes he was going to beg for bicksar. No one knew who this person is. After
many years people started going to him. When the light shines everyone is attracted.
People from all over the world went to him and stayed. There are still people there. It
was a forest on the slopes of this hill, and now it has become an international centre.

Many people were seeing him, many people were going to him, kings and presidents of
other countries were going to him. I never knew because he was in the South of India
and I was in the North. I was searching for a guru but somehow I didn't like any of them
because I found only commercialization.

I went to the Himalayas. I went around to all the well known gurus. I went to Rishikesh,
to Uttarpashi, to Tapawanum, to Haridwar. I also went to traditional gurus. I wandered
by the bank of Ganga, to Kashipuri. I went down to the desert, down to the South — I
went everywhere. Everywhere I went they wanted to initiate me and asked me to do
sadhana.

When I had gone and sat with them my question was only, "Can you show me God?
Have you seen Him? If you have seen Him, can you show me? What fees do I have to
pay you? If you have not seen and you cannot show me, tell me straight forward that
you have not seen Him and you cannot show me." But this much nobody dared to tell.
They would say, "You have to sit down and do sadhana."

I said, "Why sadhana? When I go to a shop I have money in my pocket, he has the
commodity I want. He will not tell me. 'You first meditate in front of the shop then I will
give it to you." Nobody will say this. If you have something give it to me and ask me any
price, I will pay the price. I will serve you all my life."

But they would only say, "You have to go through a long sadhana." In Rishikesh a man
had been doing sadhana for 50 years. He was pointing at me saying, "Look at this man!"
Everyone was laughing. "This man is standing in an army dress. ‘Show me God,’ he
says." They were mocking me. They were making a joke of me, standing asking them to
show me God. "Is not something to be shown. He doesn't go through sadhana; he does
not agree with sadhana."

There was one swami in Tapowan. He was very well known and very old, about 88 years
old. But then I saw he was having a court case with one very poor sadhu just occupying
a thatch hut. He said, "He is occupying my place. He doesn't vacate. I will get an
advocate.” He had plenty of land and this was only one man not harming anyone, only
mediating alone. He was living there in a place ten feet by ten feet in one corner of the
land. The swami wanted to make a wall there. Somehow I didn't like, he wanted to
throw this sadhu out. When he has about ten acres of land why doesn't he allow him a
space ten feet by ten feet. After all, he is a sadhu. He was bringing an eviction order and
all that. I didn't like. I saw so many people like this and I returned back home. Very
much disappointed and dejected I returned home. And the money that I had saved I
spent already.

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One day I was going to take lunch and I saw a man standing outside. I asked him, "If
you want to take, come in and take food with me. And if you want monetary help I will
help you. If you want food come in." He came in. I asked my mother to bring another
plate of food and gave it to him. And then I asked him, "Are you a sannyasin? You must
traveling throughout the country. Have you come across any person who is God-
realized, who is enlightened and free? Have you seen anyone? If you have, give me the
address; I will go to see him." He gave me an address and I noted down for the first
time the name of a town called Tiruvanamalai, and he told me how to get there. Then he
went away.

I decided not to tell my wife or my parents what had happened. I went out to the town.
I had no funds as I had spent everything in my search for a guru and my father would
not give me any money. When I was walking in the town an old friend called out to me
— we had done physical exercises together. "You have not been seen around here. I
heard that you had joined the army and since then we have not seen you." I sat down
with him and saw an old Punjab newspaper lying in his shop on the table, the Old
Tribune was the name. Immediately my eye went to the wanted advertisements. It was
written, they required one ex-army officer to work in our CBI stores to supply army
supplies to some British shipment. They were contractors in Pishawar and one unit was
going to Madras. I saw a man was advertising for an ex-army officer to serve in Madras.
So I applied and they sent me money to cover my first class ticket, and gave me one
month's time to report. I said to myself “I've got money now." With that money I went
straight in search of Ramana Maharshi's ashram at Arunachala.

I got down at the railway station and booked a bullock cart, which was the local
transportation. I went to the ashram, and left all my baggage outside. I was going to
start my work in Madras so I had all my bedding with me. I left it outside and went into
the hall where a man was sitting. As soon as I saw this man I recognized that it was the
same man who had given me the address in Punjab. I became very angry with him. I
didn't go to see him. I didn't even enter the hall. I just went to find another cart to go
back to the railway station. There was a Parsi man there; his name was Thromji. Later
on we became friends. He came to me and said, "You seem to be a North Indian." "Yes,
I am," I replied. "Then how is it that you have just arrived and now you are going back?"
I told him, "This man is a fraud! He met me just fifteen days ago in Punjab and he gave
me his own address that he is a God-realized man." "No, no," he said. It's not possible.
You are making a mistake." I said, "How can I make a mistake? I am not mad. He is the
same man. I am quite fit, both in body and mind. I cannot make such a mistake. In only
fifteen days I cannot forget. He is the same man."

He said, "No. This man has not moved from this place in 50 years. You can ask anyone.
Either you have seen someone else and you are mistaking the identity, or this man must
have appeared to you through his own power to help you. We have heard of some three
or four instances. So come with me, I will introduce you to the manager of this ashram
and you can stay in the guest house." So he took me and insisted that I went there, and
they give me a place to stay.

Then I went inside. He was not speaking to anybody. Everybody was quiet, but
something was going on in this silence. For the first time I saw this happening without
talking. Something was there; some vibration was there which was entering into my
heart. After about 10 minutes there was a bell for lunch. Maharishi got up, everybody
got up — there were maybe 15 or 20 people there — and we all went in the hall to take
lunch together. Then Maharshi went back to his hall alone; no one else followed him.
After lunch Maharshi took rest, and then people came again in the hall at 2:30. I never
knew this rule. So seeing him alone I went in straight away, but as I was going in the
attendant stopped me. He said, "You come back at 2:30." Maharshi was looking and he
signaled me to come in.

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I went inside and asked him, "It was you wasn't it, who saw me and gave me your own
address in Punjab?" He kept quiet. "If it was you why didn't you tell me? I wanted to see
God. Why you didn't do it there, and why have you called me here? I have come here
and you don't speak with me. I do not understand." Still he was silent. I said, "I do not
understand your silence. Please speak to me." Still he was silent. Still he was silent, so I
was not very happy.

I was in love with Lord Krishna since my boyhood. It was a constant force in my life. So
I said, "Ok, this place is very nice, I like this place. This mountain is very beautiful, there
are forests, there are monkeys, there are peacocks. I will live here. I will go to the forest
and stay there." I went to the forest. I had a month before I had to join my duties and I
had used up only five days. So I went to the other side of the hill for some time,
knowing I could join my duties later on and knowing I was in a good place.

Then the time came for me to go, so I decided to go and prostrate before him and then
to leave. I came to him. He was there again, and once again he was alone. Very few
people went to see him, very few. He asked me, "Why didn't you come for so many
days?" I was very proud. I said, "I have been playing with my God." "Very good, very
well." He said. "You have been playing with God?" "Yes, I was. I have always been." "Do
you see him now? Do you see him now?" "Not now," I said. "Not now. When I have
vision I see him, sometimes in the night also. When I have vision I see him, not always.
That's why I want to see him always."

Then he said, "God does not appear and disappear."

For the first time I heard this: "God is reality itself. God doesn't disappear. He is
appearance itself. So what appears and disappears is only mental, is only imagination." I
didn't like this philosophy that I was hearing. "The god appeared and disappeared. And
the seer is still here, he who has seen god is still here. Find out who the seer is."

I had never been confronted at any time by anyone with this question before. Neither
the living saints nor any of the past saints I had heard about could confront you like this,
with this question: "Find out who the seer is. Find out who you are. That does not
disappear. Always it is there, whether you are awake or dreaming or asleep. This seer is
always there. Now you tell me who this seer is."

No answer came for this question but I had an experience to find out the source of ‘I’. It
worked it my case. On my first trip to the guru I found it. Actually the seer was always
there; the source of ‘I’ was always there. He simply asked me to, "Find out who the seer
is." That's what he said. In his presence I experienced the seer, what it was. It was so
quick. My body was vibrating and became One. I did not understand this tremendous
bliss, this tremendous happiness, this beauty, in just an instant.

This teaching is the ultimate teaching, which I try to present to you every day. I don't
think any other teaching is worth striving for except to discover your own Self. Later on,
if you need anything else you may go in search of it. Here and now find out who you
are. This is the ultimate Reality, this is the ultimate teaching. I don't think any other
teaching can surpass this teaching. Know your Self and then know the rest, if it is
needed. This false appearance will disappear in the recognition of your own Self. This
false appearance will not show up again when the Real is revealed to you. That has no
form and no name; That has no geographical location anywhere, neither inside nor
outside. This is Eternal Rest. Each of you is already in this. The only impediment is your
preoccupation with something else, with something unreal. That is the only hindrance.
Otherwise this Freedom, this Wisdom, this Beauty, this Love is always inviting you. You
only have to turn your attention within your own Self and you see that you have always
been free. This is your own nature.

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There is no need to seek, no need to hunt it down anywhere else. It is already here. You
only have to abandon the notion that, "I am bound. I am suffering. I am born. I have to
die." This is simply a notion that you have entertained somehow, due to your
unmindfulness. This will disappear instantly when you want it to, when you need it to,
when you desire it, instantly this is here. You do not need to go and search for it — it is
not an object to search for. It is your very inner nature. It is very close, closer even than
your breath. When something is closer and nearer than the breath what effort do you
need to meet it? It is so near, so dear, so intimate to you, but you are lost in fulfilling
your desires with those things or people which are not worth making friends with. They
appear and disappear — they are not permanent, they are not real. So what is the use
of that hunt which is not abiding, which is not living, which is not eternal, which is
disturbing? It's not wise to purchase disturbance for nothing. If you are a good buyer
you will make a bargain for those things which do not disappear. That will be the real
diamond, and having that you will not see your poverty.

I went away to Madras and joined my duty. They gave me a very good bungalow and a
car. Every Saturday we had half day of work, and Sunday was a full day off. So I started
coming every weekend for a day and a half. Whenever I got holidays I went there for
some months. Then the partitioning of India was going to take place and some friends
living permanently in the ashram asked me which part of Punjab I belonged to, to the
West or East? I said: "West, other side of the river." "Do you know that place is now
Pakistan?" I was not reading any papers, nor interested in politics. I never knew
anything. He asked me, "What about your family?" I said, "Everybody is in Punjab, in
West Punjab. Nobody is in India except myself." He said, "Why don't you go and take
care of them?" I said, "No, it's over now; my connection with my family is over. After
seeing this man, I have no connection whatsoever with anybody."

He told Maharishi what I had said. So as I was going on my evening walk Maharishi was
there with a few people. He asked Maharishi about my situation, that India was going to
be partitioned and my family was in Pakistan. Maharishi asked me, "Why don't you go?"
And I said, "It was a dream. It was a dream; I had a wife, I had children and I had
parents, I have relations. It was a dream. My dream is over now." "Oh, very good if your
dream is over. A dream is a dream, so why are you are afraid of a dream? If you know it
is a dream go and see the dream then."

I saw he was winning a point and I wouldn't allow it. So I said, "No. Now I am physically
attached to you, I have physical attachment. I cannot leave you. I want to stay with
you. I'll let anything happen, whatever it is. I can't save anybody."

Then he looked at me and said, "I am with you wherever you are." These are the words
in my mind. They helped me even when I left. There was no trouble for any of my
family. I brought back them back to Lucknow in August of '47. There was no trouble.
There was trouble all around but it was very safe for us. The guru, the master helps
everywhere.

***

Driven by the Beast of Desire

Who feels that we are bound? Let us examine this important subject. When objectivity
arises in consciousness it becomes conditioned, limited. This is bondage. When it is
abandoned, when you become without objectivity, when there is no object in the mind,
you can call this no-mind. No-mind is liberation, freedom, emancipation. There is no
difference between No-mind and consciousness.

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How is it possible to avoid this object? What is this object? This object arises in our
consciousness. Just as a beast, an ox or bull is driven by a herdsman from behind; so
craving is driving everybody. When you say, "I enjoy this, I enjoy that." it is not that
you are enjoying, but you are driven like a beast by craving. You are driven by this
craving from behind and you go to meet the object like a beast. You become a beast of
this craving. You say, "I am enjoying, this is my desire." but this is not so. You have
been driven and compelled by the object, by your craving. This craving is your
herdsmen from behind. You are driven by any kind of desire. Almost all beings belong to
this category: men, dogs, all are driven by cravings of this world and also of the next
world. They are driven by this craving and therefore they suffer endlessly.

How is it possible to avoid this craving? You have been driven by this object, by this
craving, by this desire since time immemorial; you do not remember. You have spent
millions of years with this craving but each time you forget. You have spent millions of
lifetimes. Where are the cravings, where are the objects, where are those relations of
your incarnations prior to this one? You have been behaving in this way many times
before. Now this will also disappear and you will begin another manifestation like this
one. It is a never ending process.

This world cycle is a never ending. How is it possible to end it? Just by no longer giving
rise to this craving. It is the easiest thing and the most difficult also. I say it is the most
difficult because we see very few who have been able to do it, therefore there must be
some difficulty. I say it is also the most easy, because if a man of reason chooses to be
free he has to just get rid of this craving and it will end. So some say it is easy and
some say it is difficult. It is difficult for those who are beasts of craving, for those who
have attachments, for them it is difficult. But in their final incarnation or in the company
of some good person, in contact with a sage, they will understand how to get rid of this
craving. Staying near a sage they will come to know. This can be difficult; this can be
very easy.

I remember a story. There was a king who learned from his guru how to be free, and he
became free. As a king he was free. His wife, the queen, also used to go to the sage and
she was also free. They had two sons. The elder also became free but the younger was
too young. He had been hearing about the same subject but he could not do it. He was
not very much attached. He had lost about fifty percent of his ego but yet he was
somewhat attached. One brother was in difficulty, the other had done his work, and both
parents had done it.

The king, the father of these two boys, died. The queen was very fond of her husband.
She said, "Why should I live here now? We have lived together, why don't I go to this
king? I'll give him company." She knew how to dispose of the elements. Our bodies are
composed of five elements: earth, water, fire, air, and akash, or space. That is what our
body is made of, and that is what is outside of us. Earth, water, fire, air and akash are
all outside of us. Just as we borrow some money from our friends and return it, so we
have borrowed these elements to fulfill our place. We borrow earth from earth, water
from water, fire from fire. This Queen knew the art of disposing of her body and she
turned back the loan. That which had been taken from the earth, the earth part of the
body, is returned to the earth; the liquid of the body is returned to water, fire to fire, the
air that we breath in and out is returned to air, and space to space. So she also
disappeared.

This is an art. It belongs to yoga but everybody can practice it; it is not very difficult.
Kabir did it recently in his lifetime, and many other people who prefer to disappear in
this way have done it. At Kabir's death the Hindus claimed he was a Hindu and wanted
to cremate him, and the Muslims said he was a Muslim and wanted to bury him. So they
were having a dispute. His body was covered and they went near the body to drag it

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away and there were only two flowers! His samadhi is near here in UP near Gorakpur;
he lived nearby in Magar. So one flower was cremated, the other flower was buried!

Like this the queen departed. The eldest son performed the ceremony which has to be
performed for departed parents with great honor and respect. He did not feel any kind of
sorrow. "My parents were enlightened. I am also enlightened by my enlightened
parents. They are happy. They have gone to the region beyond this concept and I can
see where they are." The younger brother was crying and sobbing. His brother was
asking, "My dear brother, why are you sobbing? Why? What’s the matter with you?" But
he didn't listen. He said, "Your parents were enlightened people. They are not to be born
again. You should be happy." The younger brother didn't listen. He said, "You are crying
for those who are very happy at this time. And you have had many parents like these
your recent parents. You must cry for them also. You have been a tiger, what about
your tiger parents? You have been a fish, what about your fish parents? You have been
a mosquito, what about your mosquito parents? You have been a tree, what about your
tree parents? You must cry for them also. Why don't you cry? I can show you all your
millions of parents now, you can see them. I can also show you your recent parents
now. I can see them and you don't because you are not an enlightened person.
Therefore, you are crying, you are suffering. You will have to suffer."

This boy understood his brother. We can also end bondage if we give up craving for
objects. How is it possible to stop this craving? How did this boy do it? How did his
parents do it? When the craving arises in consciousness it has to arise from somewhere.
"I want this. I want that." is all in-between. When you become an experiencer you want
to enjoy objects of experience. To have enjoyment of any object you must first become
the experiencer and create an object of experience. These two things must be there:
The seer and the seen.

Between the experiencer and the experienced there is experiencing. You are that
experiencing alone. You are neither the experiencer nor the object of experience. This is
missed. "I am experiencing both the seer and the seen. I am seeing." This you forget.
You think, "I am the seer and this is the object of sight." We miss what is in between. If
you stay between them in experiencing — this is consciousness. Everyone is having this
experience of consciousness always. You will have to question this experience, between
experiencer and experienced. What is this which is experiencing which is neither subject
nor object? You will have to inquire into this. Or directly ask yourself, "Who am I? Who
am I? Who am I?"

Many people have difficulty in understanding this. Every day I receive letters from
people who find it difficult to follow this. Not everyone is capable of arriving at this
understanding or making this inquiry. It needs some discipline, some ground that has
not been fulfilled. It is not possible to be engaged and busy with enjoyment of the
senses and fulfilling your cravings on the one hand; and also wanting to be free, wanting
to attend satsang, wanting to make this quest for self-knowledge on the other hand.
This difficulty exists for those who are not free of running after desires and cravings. It
is not possible to have both things at the same time. If you want to enjoy the world
nobody is stopping you. The world is there to enjoy, so enjoy it! And if you are already
satisfied then return now to your own Self for enjoyment, having enjoyed your own
beauty, your own consciousness, your own bliss, you have enjoyed everything. Either
this is the time of satisfaction or you run after things. Nobody has ever been satisfied
running after these objects. As one object is fulfilled in the mind there are thousands
waiting in queue. You have spent millions of years picking up one object after another.

Those people who have found that these cravings cannot be fulfilled are fit for the
instruction of the teacher. They come, saying, "Now let me have knowledge." They have
come for instruction and it will work. A dull mind which is engaged somewhere else is

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not listening to the instruction of the teacher and will not get the teaching although the
teaching is the same. It is said that those who listen to the teaching, those who come to
the teacher, those who have satsang are in their last incarnation. They have tried
everything else without finding satisfaction. They could not find it last time so they have
returned with only this desire for freedom. When there is only the desire for freedom
they will attain freedom. Whatever age they may be they will set off one day to find the
teacher, and sitting with the teacher this instruction will drive deep into their heart. They
will see that here is wisdom and here is light.

Trouble comes for those who are engaged elsewhere and still say, "We want to be free".
This is not going to pay them at all. If you have amritam and cyanide in the same cup it
will not work. If you have to take cyanide, take it cleanly and see the result. That is the
result that you have always been seeing. Now is the time to taste a drop of amritam, of
nectar, of bliss. What is this nectar? It is bliss, it is consciousness, it is existence. Nectar
is that which, having tasted it, you get complete satisfaction with no more searching,
with no more coming and going. The only trouble is this: You cannot at the same time
have enjoyment of the senses and freedom. You will have to decide. Or use up your life
and have another life; there is no problem. Each one of us has already lived 8.4 million
incarnations to be here today. If this is enough then let us now aspire for freedom and
for freedom alone, and let us see what happens.

We are not speaking of any method anymore — you have had enough methods.
Certainly no method is going to give you freedom because every method will need body,
mind and senses. Whatever you do — whether you travel to holy shrines, to holy rivers,
to temples, practice rituals or yoga — you need a body, you need a mind, you need
senses. This mind is the root of the problem itself; this mind is samsara. It is a demon
35 million years old. You are walking hand in hand with this friend since time
immemorial and you do not know who this fellow is. Still you do not know. Why don't
you part company with him just for five minutes and see — see how free you are
without mind! We have seen that when all objects are abandoned from consciousness
you have no mind. When there is no objectification in consciousness you are
immediately free.

For some this is very easy; listening to the instruction of the teacher alone is enough.
For some dispassion and effort is advised, dispassion and sadhana is advised. This
sadhana is: If you forget yourself, again and again return to This. Again return to This.
You will get rid of this mind.

What is the mind? Just one thought is mind. This one thought is manifestation, is 35
million years. Abandonment of this one thought is freedom. So this is very easy or very
difficult. When you utter the word ‘I’ it takes you back 35 million years: just the thought
of ‘I’. As far back as you go you will find an endless past in this one ‘I’. You will find the
future and the present also contained in this ‘I’ thought. This one ‘I’ thought has created
millions of people. It has created heaven and hell.

This one thought is also the key to ending past, present and future. It can also liberate
you. To abandon this one ‘I’ thought is liberation; to cling to it is bondage. One is easy,
other one is difficult. This is your choice and you have to make your choice this instant.
You are free from the beginning. Who told you that you are bound? You have chosen to
be bound because of craving to enjoy, and you are not satisfied so far. Now let us sit
together and help each other to get rid of just this one ‘I’ thought. How can this be
called difficult, just to get rid of this ‘I’ thought? Where does it exist? When you search
for it or try to see it or touch it or feel it or even conceptualize it, it does not appear. We
never look for this ‘I’ thought; we like to be chased by it like a beast.

22 June, 1992

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 ***

Doubt
Let us speak together about doubt. I tell you when attending satsang, not to bring doubt
along with you. I receive many letters describing beautiful experiences, but they all end
with: "Am I on the right path?" Also the people who leave here begin to experience
doubts.

It is like someone going to dig rubies in the river in Bihar State, where rubies are found.
A man finds a ruby on the sand at the riverside but he throws it away. He doubts his
luck, "How can I find it so easily?" he says, so he throws it back in the river. "People
around me are digging for 150 feet and they still have not found anything, so I will
throw it away." He doubts, "Is it a ruby or a piece of glass?"

Doubt is the only thing that is troublesome. The books of knowledge give you the
highest teaching directly, only doubt stands between you and that teaching. Since time
immemorial they have been passing this ancient teaching from chest to chest that "You
are That." The teaching was coming directly, only doubt exists between you and That.
Secondly it is taught that "I am Brahman." and thirdly "All this what I see, feel, hear,
touch and taste is all myself." But doubt is in the way so that we don't believe.

It is true of all the teachings: if we listen without doubt one word is quite enough. When
you come to satsang do not entertain doubt by questioning, "Is it going to happen to
me?" Do not use the intellect as a test stone, because it will not give you the correct
indication of gold. Throw it away. But many are not ready to do that so they will not get
the point. They will take this teaching and continue to suffer endlessly, for immeasurable
time. Your suffering will not end unless you remove this doubt from within you.

Somehow, since my childhood I have not carried any doubt. I didn't have doubt, I had
never heard of doubt, because my first teacher was my own mother. Whatever she told
me instantly happened to me. I was a child and I never knew or heard about doubt. I
got it instantly. She used to tell me stories and they manifested in front of me instantly
because I had no doubt whether this reality or not. Usually when you hear a story you
entertain doubts. I tell you stories here as the mothers tell stories to their children, but
they are not really stories. This is truth in an essence, in simple words, spoken in story
form.

I will tell you a story about doubt which I have heard from my mother when I was six or
seven years old. In ancient times people used to go to satsang early in the morning, at
four in the morning, before going to their business or office. In my own town in Pakistan
there was a bank manager. He used to conduct satsang in his own house from four to
five. About twenty people used to gather and he used to speak on a book called Vichar
Sagar, I remember. It's a very ancient book of direct teachings from Vedanta, written by
a Punjabi saddhu called Nichildas. I used to attend that morning meeting when I was
very small, maybe seven or eight. This was happening every morning and evening.
There used to be gatherings in my own town, vedanta teaching, devotional teaching,
yoga teaching and kundalini yoga. All these different teachings were there. There were
also discourses in the evening. This was only 70 or 80 years ago. People used to take
their food and sit near their lane to attend the Satsang till 10:30 or 11:00 and then
come back home. Morning and evening satsang were a must for everybody. He may be
an office boy, he may be a business man, he may even be a worker. Even people who
were driving hand carts used to attend.

About one bandit – robber — this was also a profession. Some go for satsang and some
go for their game in the night, so he goes. So one day he was passing, he just heard

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someone speaking about… about a young boy having a diamond padded cap on his head
and a garland of celestial gems around his neck and that's all he heard; and he stopped.
He sat down near the gathering and listened. So at about 10:30 this satsang was over
and the priest has collected whatsoever money was given to him after. After satsang
some money's left for the priest and some gift also; so he collected and put them in a
bag. And everyone is leaving for his house and he's leaving for his house — his family is
waiting. This is his profession, to recite stories in the evenings.

And he's going his way and this man [the bandit] just went to him… asked him, “Give
me the address of this boy you spoke about – having the diamond imbedded cap and
the garland of gems around his neck… a garland. Give me this address.” Now this
Brahmin priest, he's reading a story. This man tells him, "Give me the address of this
boy." He says, "You know that path going to the river Yamuna, that side. At that time he
goes for bath every morning at four o'clock. You go there and you will see him." "Okay,
let's find. But I cannot… I cannot recognize him. I've not seen him. You come with me."
So he said, “My family is waiting for me and later on your family, you know.” Then he
put the pistol on the chest and he gave his introduction now: "I do not know him. You
come with me and you simply tell me this man, that's all, and then you go. But two
cannot hide behind one tree. You stay in that tree and I in this tree. You simply point
out this is the boy and then that's all. Then I will come." And then he tied him with the
rope so that he doesn't run away.

Time is now 11 p.m. He [robber] has tied him [priest]. He's hiding and now the time is
passing — 11 to 4. This man spoke like this is a story, and this man says, “He didn't
take it as story; he took it's a fact.” And this priest is counting every minute of his
death, and this robber is counting every minute of his luck, “I will have this diamond. I'll
be very rich, you see. I'll be very rich.” So he's totally concentrated. Nothing else…
nothing else between him, and his mind is only concentrating on the diamond and this
boy which he described — a young boy wearing a cap imbedded with diamonds, garland
around his neck. Time is passing… time is passing now. This thought that this boy
having diamonds around his neck. Now the time is now 4 o'clock.

And now this thought itself has manifested. You can also manifest what you think; you
are not away from your thought. You are a thought itself — you become what you think.
You become what you think instantly. You… you are thought. You have conviction, “I am
the body.” so you are. You listen every day, “You are existence, consciousness, bliss.”
This is also a thought, nothing else. Because conviction of the body is stronger than this
conviction that, “I am consciousness. I am bliss.” So whatever is the stronger thought so
you become. There's no doubt — you are thought itself.

So at 4 a.m. this manifested itself. The boy comes in front of him and gave him the
garland and the cap he was wearing himself. “So it's very nice of you, but wait… don't
go away… because I didn't have your address. There is another partner in this deed and
you have something else that I did not hear. I only heard cap of the diamonds and the
garland but you have something on your arm also. So this I will… this gift I will give to
this priest. You come with me.” So he took this boy in front of that one. He's still tied
with the rope. He thought, “He's now going to kill me. He's going to kill me.” Before
reaching him he folded hands, “Sir, I told you a story from the book. Don't kill me. My
wife, my children are waiting for me. Don't kill me now. I told a story — it was a story
only.” Then he says, “No, no, no. You were right. I'm very thankful to you. Exactly at
that time here is the boy; here is the boy and here are the diamonds. And I can only
take garland and only the cap but here is something on his arm also, so I will give you
this gift. Still he doesn't believe. He said, “Don't, don't, don't bluff me please. You have
to kill now… kill me now, that's all. Kill me.” “You don't see?” “No, no, no, I don't see. I
don't see.” Then he says, “You see this… you see this hand?” With the touch of his hand
he saw who this boy was… who this boy was. And this Brahmin, this priest, now
immediately saw, “I am confronting him.” He untied the priest and this priest prostrated
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in front of this bandit and never returned home. And this man — this is a true story —
he is known as Bandit Saint. He is known as Bandit Saint still.

So I am just speaking about doubts you see. This doubt is the only thing that gives you
trouble, so without doubt if you have straight away this teaching as the story has been
told to you, you just listen. Anything if it is even falsely told to you it will materialize.
You simply hear the word; it will manifest.

Let the teacher tell you, “You are consciousness.” and you simply hear without doubt –
and what's going to happen? You listen from the teacher that you are existence, you are
consciousness, you are eternal, you are deathless, you are not the body. What does he
tell you that is wrong? But you don't listen to him. What wrong is there? But you have a
conviction, “I am suffering, I am born, I have to die because I have listened from my
parents, I have listened from my priest. So nothing is going to work.” So it's not good to
have any doubt in your mind when you speak about it, you see. And it is so simple not
to have doubt — it's so simple. So simple and there is no confusion if you don't entertain
doubt that you are what you are. Only this veil is a doubt you see. So this veil, this
doubt has become this manifestation and this is your own creation, this is your own
creation, you see. And if you don't have this doubt of, “Where is the creation, and who is
the creator?” then instantly you will know who you really were and are.

3 July, 1992

***

Turn the Mind to Face its Source

When your mind is not clinging to any object, to any person or idea, its face is turned
towards its Source.

This is very simple. Millions of books about enlightenment and freedom have been
written and are available in the world, and what is the result? People have been working
for enlightenment, freedom, liberation, emancipation, moksham, since thousands of
years. What is the result? Everything that you do, everything that you have been told to
do, it is with the mind. When you read a book you are reading with the mind. When you
are meditating you are meditating with the mind. When you are doing anything you are
always doing it with the mind. This is why there is no result.

Distract the mind immediately from any object, person, or idea. It is that simple. Then
the face of the mind is turned towards its source for the first time, and a reflection from
somewhere un-told, un-described will fall on this mind which is not dwelling on the past.
All objects, ideas, and people belong to the past. Now for the first time the mind has
been directed towards its own native place, its own abode.

With the reflection of beyond it loses its entity as the mind. It becomes no-mind now. It
is satyam — truth, shivam, and sundaram. Other than this I am not aware of any other
process by which you could be free. If you have any ideas, any attachments to anything
— including your own body, your mind, your intellect or anything else — how could you
be free? Just by giving rise to one thought of the mind — the ‘I’ thought — and there is
instantly past, present, future, manifestation, suffering and a cycle of incarnations,
never ending reincarnations.

If you so choose, if you so desire, it can be put to an end right now. But you have not
taken that decision so far. You have been postponing this decision and passing through
millions of births, taking millions of years and this decision still is waiting. I do not know
what you are looking for or why you are afraid to return to your own native place, to the

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abode of all auspiciousness, happiness, love, and beauty. Why are you shirking your
responsibilities?

9 July, 1992

***

Consciousnes
You have heard the word Consciousness. When a finger is pointing to the moon, you see
the moon. When you hear this word – consciousness — where is it pointing to? The
finger pointing to the moon shows you the moon. Now the word ‘consciousness’ is used
pointing to something. After having heard this word what do you see? What do you
perceive? Who are you?

You are always consciousness: You have been, you are, and you always will be. Where is
the difficulty in accepting the truth and what is real? Who told you that you are
ignorant? Where did this ignorance arise from in the first place? Again and again you
have affirmed, "I am ignorant, I am ignorant, I am ignorant." and then we suffer. With
the repeated affirmation, "I am bound." and "I suffer." this universe is created with
endless suffering, incarnation, reincarnation, and endless birth and death. Somehow this
cycle has started. Who is responsible for it? It is only your affirmation that this is real,
this ignorance is real, this snake is real. There arises the fear; this snake has concealed
the reality of the rope.

How is it possible to remove the concept of the snake? Who will remove this doubt? Now
you cannot see the rope because you are attached to the idea of the snake. But there
was never any snake. In the same way, you cannot see consciousness because you are
attached to the imposition of ignorance. There was never any ignorance; you are
consciousness itself. The snake will be removed by reasoning, not by sitting near it and
meditating. Meditation will not remove the snake. You will have to see through reason
that the snake is not moving. You are in shock, you are suffering, you are trying to pick
up a stone or stick to beat the snake with; that is how you are engaged here. You have
not used reason, and this is called ignorance. Move towards it, look at it carefully, or
listen to someone coming from the other side who tells you that this is not a snake; it is
just a piece of string lying here. He had not seen the snake, so on hearing his words the
snake vanished because it never existed. There was only a rope underneath; through
ignorance you took it to be a snake.

In the same way, through lack of reasoning you have accepted your affirmations that
"This samsara is real." and "I am bound." It may never have existed at all. Sit down
quietly and reason it out. Through this reasoning you will find out who has concealed
consciousness and created ignorance. Or listening to someone who knows it was a rope
can remove your doubt. On hearing this once from a responsible person the snake will
disappear and you will see that it was a rope, that "I am consciousness." Now as I say
the word ‘consciousness,’ put it to the test stone and see if this word is correct. Go near
and see if ignorance is real or not. Only then will you know that you are consciousness
and Truth itself. You are satyam, shivam, sundaram.

You have been told from the very beginning that ignorance exists, and now this has
become a reality. This ignorance does not exist at all. When you sit quietly where is the
ignorance? Somehow we have accepted it, so the question now is how to remove this
ignorance. When you add wood to a fire it becomes fire and burns completely, so that
there is no more wood left. And when all the wood has become fire, when there is no
more fuel, the fire also goes out. What is the fire that will remove ignorance and return
you back to your own status, to your own abode, to atman, to Brahman?

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There is really no name for your original nature but we have to converse. I say the word
‘consciousness.’ It is perhaps a finger pointing to the moon, but the finger is not the
moon. It is only pointing to the moon because you can't see the moon. Someone who
has seen it points his finger. If you cling to the finger you can't see the moon. Most
people cling to what they have learnt, they cling to a teaching and start meditating.
They become so interested in the means that they forget why the means was needed —
the finger was needed only to see the moon. Meditation is a finger pointing to freedom.
But everybody got attached, and now different societies are running meditation and
nobody speaks about enlightenment.

The only fire which can burn everything is the fire of inquiry. Any practice which you
perform is with the mind, and the result will be only mental. The trouble is with the
mind, so we must find out how to get rid of the mind itself. The whole creation of past,
present, future, hell, heaven, creator, preservation and destruction is just mind. The
mind is simply a thought. There is no difference between a thought and the mind.

There is one prime thought that becomes the mind, that becomes the ego, body,
senses, manifestation and time. All these millions of universes are hanging like dust
particles in one thought. Give rise to the thought — 'I' — and everything arises. In this
one thought exists the past, present, millions of universes, hells and heavens, and gods
and creators, preservers and destroyers. How can this 'I' be arrested? If this 'I' ceases,
everything ceases. When 'I' arises, everything arises in front of you. Now everything has
arisen because you use the word 'I', but when there is no 'I' there is nothing.

When you enter into the deep sleep state without even any dreams you do not see any
object, you do not see any subject, you do not see any manifestation — no creator nor
creation. This is a dull state because there is no awareness at all so you may not
recognize it. In deep sleep you forget yourself completely. There is no body, there are
no senses, there are no objects. Nothing is there because there is no 'I' thought there.
When you wake up in the morning the first thought to arise is the thought 'I'. You think,
"I am so-and-so", and instantly the whole world arises before you. How is this thought
to be checked?

There is a fire in this inquiry; if you simply inquire, "Who am I?” This is a fire which will
burn everything: all the modifications of the mind, past, present and future. Just these
three words: "Who....am....I.....?" are a fire which will burn everything, as the fire we
talked of earlier. After having burnt past, present, and future, they will also burn the
memory. And this inquiry will also be burnt as wood burns completely in a fire. The 'I'
thought which went to inquire into its own nature is no longer to be found, and in this
your true nature is revealed.

This inquiry can be conducted in this very instant. It is not a long procedure, it is not a
practice. You do not have to do anything for this inquiry. You simply need to investigate,
to inquire without thinking about anything and without performing any kind of practice.
No effort or thought is involved. This is the inquiry that I speak about: to find out what
this 'I' is which has created this manifestation. After having made this inquiry, keep
quiet. If you do not think, and do not make any kind of effort that which you have never
heard described, that which cannot be achieved or attained will reveal itself. It will
reveal itself once you have conducted this inquiry and given up all kinds of thought and
effort.

This auspiciousness is your own swarupam, your own Self, your own atman, your own
Brahman. It is that which is everywhere. This is very simple for those who can hear
innocently, without working the thinking process and the memory. You can postpone
this, but sooner or later you will have to return home; and whenever this happens it will
be this very second. You can postpone this second endlessly and endless universes will

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arise. It is up to you. Decide now. You can end it in this very second or you can create
more universes. This very second is out of time because 'I' is time, mind is time. When
you inquire into this 'I' it is gone. What happens is a revelation which does not take
place in time at all. It transcends time, ego and everything.

Simply keep quiet and do not do anything at all.

17 July, 1992

***

The Conditions for Freedom

What are the conditions or requirements that are needed for freedom or enlightenment?
Truly speaking, there are no hard and fast rules or conditions that you have to be
fulfilled to be free. But I will cite one example of a king.

When the question of enlightenment comes I do not know why kings are always
mentioned. We have heard that in ancient times enlightenment was won only by kings
and not by workers. Vaishista was a king, Vishwamitra was a king, Yagnavalka was a
king, Gyanasruti was a king, Buddha was a prince. There may be something in this
because they have fulfilled their vasanas and desires. Perhaps those who have not done
enough to fulfill their vasanas cannot renounce; they are addicted to vasanas. Therefore
we always hear that kings have won freedom: Janaka was a king, Dasaratha was a king,
Rama was a king, Krishna was a king. It can be won by everyone but the story goes in
favor of the kings.

There was a king who spoke to his wife, "My hairs are getting gray now." In ancient
times, when people were seeing gray hairs on their head they rejected everything and
went to the forest or to some rishi's ashram to sit with him and to be free. This king was
very much attached to his wife, she to him. But on this morning he said, "My dear
queen, I will leave you now." "Why are you going to leave me?" She asked, "You told me
that there is nothing else more beautiful than me. Didn't you say that?" "Yes I did," the
king replied. "Then why should you leave me now?"

And he said, "My dear queen, my beloved one, my dear one, there is something else
that I cannot attain here with you on the throne. So I leave you and I go." He did not
listen to the queen's beseeching.

The queen said, "I can teach you knowledge. I know that which you want to learn and I
can teach you. I did not speak on this matter until now because the time was not ripe.
You were young, you had vasanas, and the time had not come; but now I can teach
you."

Still the king did not listen. He said, "What you can teach? What is a woman going to
teach me? I am going now. Here are the ministers who are very able. They will help you
in government. Here are the treasures. I am giving you everything. I will go now."

This queen had been going to satsang since childhood in her parents’ house, and she
was enlightened. But the king was not in a suitable condition to listen to her instruction.
It is most important that you be in very good shape to be benefited by satsang. He
didn't listen. He walked out and went away and disappeared into the forest. The queen
had also learned yoga, so she sat in samadhi and her subtle body went all over the place
to find out where the king was sitting in meditation looking for freedom. And she saw
him living and meditating in a thatched hut. So the queen thought, "This is the right
time for me to teach."

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She disappeared in the night and went in the disguise of a young sadhu — dressed up as
a sadhu, as a man. She declared that she belonged to Vaikunth Loka. "I have come
because you have rejected everything," she said. "I have come because you are a very
serious seeker of truth and I will teach you." He was very happy. He prostrated before
the sadhu and welcomed him, saying that this was the time he needed a teacher. So
every night she would disappear from the palace and go and teach. The sadhu told a
whole story to him, how he was the king of a certain country, he had a queen and
everything but he rejected everything.

The sadhu told the king, "Your renunciation is not yet complete because what has to be
renounced is not yet renounced. You renounced your palace but instead here is a
thatched hut. There's no difference between a palace and a thatched hut. You have the
same attachment now with the thatched hut. Instead of your royal robes you are now
wearing this soiled robe of a renunciate." The king left the hut and threw off his robe, so
he was standing nude.

"Now is my renunciation complete?" "Not yet, not yet. Still you are attached to
something, and with attachment, freedom is not possible." "Only the body is left," said
the king. "Only my body is there, so I am going to throw my body into the fire." "Wait,"
said the sadhu. "Wait. What harm has this poor body done to you? You do not need to
throw it away. Perhaps through this body you can attain freedom. This body is inert.
Why do you want to throw it away? This is a beautiful chance for you to work through
this body. Something else has to be renounced, not the body. Even in your sleep you
have no body, still you are not enlightened and you are not free. During sleep you do
not see anybody, yet you are not free. Even at death your body is cremated, yet you are
not free. You have to renounce that which has to be renounced."

The king did not understand what has to be renounced. "You have to renounce that
through which you are renouncing everything, and through which you think that you are
going to have emancipation and wisdom. That has to be renounced. What is that? Mind.
The mind has to be renounced. You did not do it when you were in the palace and also
here you cannot do without it. You have not won freedom living in the palace and also
here you are still bound. Until you renounce mind you cannot be free."

The king agreed to do this, but how to do it? How is it possible to renounce the mind?
He did not know how to renounce the mind. So the sadhu taught him. Every night this
young sadhu appeared before him, spent the whole night, and then flew back to the
palace in the morning to attend to the affairs of the court and the king. She had a very
active day and also a very active night. At night she was a guru; in the day she was a
queen.

She told him what has to be done. She told him to sit quiet and she told him how to get
rid of this mind. "The mind is a vasana — a desire. Whose desire? My desire. This mind
is just a thought. The prime thought, the first thought, is only the ‘I’ thought. There is
no difference between ‘I’ and mind. "I," ego, and mind are all the same thing. So how is
it possible to get rid of this ‘I’? The king said, "How could I get rid of this ‘I’?”

In everything — in anything that you do — the ‘I’ is always maintained. Therefore there
is no possibility of success. No one can win freedom, whether he be in an ashram or
working by himself alone on the heights of the Himalayan mountains. The ‘I’ is still
maintained. “I am meditating. I am performing pilgrimages. I am doing all these things.
I am chanting such-and-such a formula.” The ‘I’ is still there. Unless this ‘I’ is killed
there is no use of any sadana that you do."

This young sadhu now told this yogi, "I will tell you a way how to get rid of this mind in
the shape of 'I.' Find out where this 'I' is rising from. Question yourself, 'Where is this 'I'

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rising from?'" "It is very difficult to find," said the king. "It is very difficult because I
have never heard about this before. No one ever told me about it. No one ever asked
me to question where this 'I' is rising from."

We are working with this question here every day. Some say that it is very difficult, that
they don't get it, they don't understand. A few are able to do it for some time, and I am
glad. But again, after a week or so they say that the old tendencies come back. The
whole-hearted jignasa — the fire of desire for freedom that is needed — is not there. It's
only for fun's sake, reading some books and hearing from so-called teachers, going to
so-called centers in the world which teach freedom. People are attracted there and sit
with a teacher who doesn't know himself — he is not free himself. He doesn't belong to
the tradition of gurus; neither did he have a guru, so he has no right to speak on gyana
— knowledge. You have to see the lineage of the guru, to which lineage does the
teacher belong? Otherwise you are misled, misguided and lost forever.

Do not waste your life this time, this human incarnation. It is very difficult to maintain
the desire for freedom in human life. Most human beings are just two-legged animals,
two-legged beasts interested only in sex, food and sleep. This is what animals and man
have in common: food, sex and sleep. The only difference between animals and man is
that we have the option, we have discrimination, to utilize this blessed human temple of
God for the sake of freedom. We have had better sex as a pig. We have had better food
as a wolf. If you overeat you have to go to the doctor in the evening. We don't even
have the stamina to eat that a wolf does. And animals sleep much better that we do.
Man has to use sleeping pills and other drugs to be able to sleep.

Coming back to the story, the king was slowly learned from the young sadhu and he
came to know the Truth. He said, "Respected guru, I prostrate before for you. I
searched, I have found the place where this 'I' is rising from, and I don't see anything
there."

This is the experience of everyone who comes and sits in front at satsang. Yesterday I
received a letter from a girl was here and has now gone back to Holland. She wanted
some clarification. "I learned, and I am practicing here also, but I don't find anything. I
don't find anything. I don't see anything. I just see that I am very happy in this
moment. Is this the right state or is there any mistake in this?"

Those who have this experience have to stay a little longer so that they do not forget it.
Why not finish up the whole thing here and now? It doesn't take time. You have come
for this purpose and I am very happy that we are here to share our experiences with
each other. We have to make sure that we are all happy so that we can go back home
and help our friends also. In this way this will spread through the whole world like a wild
fire. This is the right time. I am seeing the result. One single person who goes from here
is quite enough.

This king told the sadhu, "I am very happy about what has occurred, but what is
freedom? What was this idea of freedom?" The sadhu replied, "You have entertained a
concept that you were bound. You were bound so you wanted to be free. This is the
direct path to freedom where this concept of bondage has now vanished. When the
concept of bondage has vanished the concept of freedom also goes. While walking
barefoot in the forest we may be pricked by a thorn in the foot. So we try to take
another thorn to take the first thorn out, and then we throw both of them away. In the
same way, bondage is only a concept. To remove this thorn we need another concept of
freedom. When the time comes that both the thorns are thrown away we do not know
anything, we do not know what happened. Now you will have to put all your strength to
not be recalled by habits which are millions of years old. These old habits are also a

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concept. Where do the habits go when you sleep? Then there are no old habits and no
new habits either. There is no bondage and also there is no freedom."

The king was staying in this state and the sadhu was still waiting with him. One week
passed in this state and he was absolute blissful, in a stateless state. So the sadhu came
and asked him, "What more do you want? What more do you need? This is freedom.
Remain as this wherever you are, even sitting in the palace with your queen. Isn't this
possible?"

"I was very attached to my queen, and these attachments could not have helped me,"
the king replied. "Therefore I had to reject them all. I do not know if she could have
taught me. She was a stupid woman and said she could teach me knowledge. It's a good
thing that it was my good karma to be blessed by you, my satguru." Then he prostrated
again and again; he went around the sadhu many times. The queen said to herself,
"He's all right now." and removed her disguise. She removed the appearance of sadhu
and became his queen and prostrated before the king. "Let us return to our palace," she
said. The king wondered to himself, "Why I didn't listen to you then?" He decided it
didn't matter. The king and queen were both enlightened and in constant satsang.

Yesterday someone asked about harmonious life. A question arose in my house about
the harmonious life between a wife and husband, and we had a discussion about this
over lunch. Everyone is living in great fear. A harmonious life means living together in
wisdom, understanding our relationship with our partners, with our friends, with our
relations. This can be called a harmonious life. We are here from all over the world.
Could there be any better bond of love between all of us? People are living here as more
than brothers with brothers, and sister with sisters, and parents with parents. What
better harmonious life could there be than satsang? A harmonious life is only when both
of… when all of us have the same enterprise, the same thing, the same path, the same
goal. When we are always speaking about that: This is going to be a harmonious life.
There can be no other harmonious life in the world than sitting in satsang, in great love
with each other.

To be prepared for satsang we have to be willing to reject all our past vasanas. We know
that our vasanas are finished because this desire for freedom will come only once in a
cycle. Not once in a life, once in a cycle; which means 35 million years. Only then will
this desire for freedom arise; and whenever it comes make the best of it. Sit down
wherever you are so that this moment is not gone. Immediately, this is the right time to
win freedom. Do not postpone for the next moment or for the next day. This is the right
time — when this desire arises — not that you read it in a book, not that you were told
to come, not that someone said, "I will give you enlightenment." not that it was imposed
on you. It has to come on its own. It has to come from within. The wave has to rise from
the ocean, not from the desert. If it does come from the desert it is something else and
not actually the wave. Whenever this desire for freedom comes, sit down where you are
and keep quiet. This is the right time.

21 July, 1992

***

You Have Postponed Long Enough

The abode of Peace, Consciousness, and Bliss is here. You are only required to have a
firm conviction. Just as you have a firm conviction that, "I am the body and this is
mine." so half of that conviction given to knowing, "I am consciousness, I am peace."
will do.

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There are six ways, I think, through which you can attain freedom. What we speak of
here is a very direct way: It is called Brahma vidya — direct awakening. There are also
other ways, like pranayama, there is yoga; there is kundalini; and there is also bhakti
yoga. All these methods are useful. Whatever is suitable to you — whatever you like —
you can succeed with. What we mostly speak here is Brahma vidya, direct awakening
through vichar — reason. We look objectively at how to arrive at purusha, the absolute
truth which is one without a second, unchanging.

Whatever changes is not real. Starting with the body it changes, from childhood to youth
to old age to death it changes. Even the whole world changes with earthquakes, with
cyclones. The world which was here a hundred years ago or a thousand years ago is not
now. Even money changes, and whatever changes is not the truth. The mind is also
changing. Sometimes it is peaceful, sometimes it is restless. The states that you pass
through every day also change. We have a firm belief that what we see in the waking
state is real. This reality disappears in the dream state. Both waking and dreaming
disappear in the sleep state, and sleep also disappears in the next waking state. What is
alternating is not real. This is a fact.

Whenever there is a change there must be an underlying substratum which does not
change, on which these changes are taking place. When you see a clay jar, instantly you
have a consciousness of earth. When you see a ring, instantly you are conscious of gold.
When you see a table, instantly you are aware that it is a wood. Like this there must be
some substratum which has taken a different shape and a different name. Whatever
changes has a substratum.

Whatever you can objectify and externalize, do it. Finally you will reach the body itself.
Whatever you see must be external to you. If you see the body it is external, and
something must be internal — something must be inner. That is why you can see things;
because whatever you see must be external, must be an object. Even in a dream
everything is external to you. There are mountains, there are rivers, men, trees; all are
external to you. The sleeping man is not affected by the dream, he is only seeing.

So now we are advised to discover the changeless on which these changes are taking
place. How is this to be done? By rejecting. Whatever changes, reject it. Sit down coolly
for some time and see. Whatever you see, whatever you perceive or conceive or feel can
be rejected. Something will be left which you cannot reject. That is the permanent
abode of existence, consciousness, bliss and freedom. This can be done instantly or this
may take ages.

Centuries ago people used to go and leave their homes. Kings would renounce their
kingdoms and go to the forest for freedom, for penance. Many people left. Whenever the
question of freedom arose instantly the thought came, "Let me go to forest, let me go to
the mountains." That has nothing to do with it. That is only running away from your own
Self. The things that trouble you will go along with you. Whatever is troublesome here
will also trouble you in the mountains. How is that to be renounced? You will have to
decide now to sit quiet, coolly, wherever you are — in the thick of a crowd, at work, at
home — it doesn't matter.

You want to postpone this and you have done it before. We have become experts at
postponement, which is why we are here after 35 million years once again. We have
traveled already for 35 million years, and now we have enough experience. How are we
going to put an end to this? Stay a while. Keep quiet and see what is rising within
yourself. What is rising in your mind, and who is perceiving this rise? Find out what is
arising and go to the source from where it is arising. That is all you have to do. Those
who can understand this have done it very well. Every day you see it here. The old days
are over where you were advised to go to the forest. And teachers were very hard; they

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would not tell you anything unless they tested you. Teachers were very hard then. They
would not show you the diamond so easily.

Just a hundred years ago there was a king who heard of a saint living in his own
kingdom. The king was very restless inside and wanted peace of mind, so he decided to
go and see this saint. Because he was a king he had to go with lots of presents loaded
on elephants. His queens also accompanied him, also his ministers and security forces.
The King was going to see a saint. The saint was living in a very poor hermitage with
thatched huts and a few disciples were living with him. The king arrived and asked one
of the disciples of the saint to pass on a message. "Inform him that the king of this
country has come to pay his respects. Can he come out of his hut?" The disciple went
inside to ask. "The king is here and he is standing outside with his queens and ministers
and presents."

The saint said to this, "Tell the king to unload everything under the tree and wait. I will
tell him when I am free and I will see him." So everything was kept under the tree, and
the saint told his disciples, "Give him two meals a day, just as they are cooked in this
ashram. Give him lunch and dinner, that's all."

So the king and the queens and the minister waited till night. Still there was no order.
So the king said, "We have to run the government." He sent the ministers and queens
back. He said, "I will stay alone. I will have the darshan of the saint and only then will I
return."

That night passed. Days passed. He stayed for fifteen days with only his food under the
tree. Again he asked, "I've waited here for fifteen days. Go and ask the saint if I may
see him now." The reply came, "You will have to wait for another three days." He waited
for another three days. "Now again three days have passed," he said. "Now wait for
another day," he was told. Another day passed. After that day he sent a man telling him,
"Go and find out, when can I see him."

"Just one hour," came the reply. One hour passed. Then he said, "When should I see
him?" "After five minutes," he was told. "After five minutes," cried the king. "After five
minutes! Five minutes is too much to wait! I cannot wait! I cannot wait!" And he rushed
in immediately without asking anyone's permission and he prostrated.

It was his arrogance; it was his ego that took time. The saint was sitting in a thatched
hut with no door; he could go in at any time. Who stopped him? His arrogance saying, "I
am a king," was all that was in the way. What stops you from returning to your
consciousness? It is only your arrogance, your ego, the idea that, "I am the body." This
is your kingdom. You are enthroned in this kingdom and all your vasanas are your
queens, and "this" and "that" are your ministers.

So when you are ready, wherever you are, without asking anyone's permission; find out
where this purusha is, where this abode is, where your own abode of rest is. Whenever
you conceive of the body there must be some concealing substratum underneath,
through which you are able to imagine that there is a body. Before the concept of the
body there must be something changeless concealed underneath from where this wave
is arising that, "I am the body." How do you miss it? Like the king you are spending
millions of years and no one stops you. Just now — rush in.

In previous times you had to go to the Himalayas for forty, fifty or sixty years in your
old age, and even then you might not find truth. After leaving the palace the Buddha
also went to many places. He saw many very hard and difficult penances. In some
ashrams he saw people tying their feet to the trees and hanging head down, performing
penance. Buddha asked what was going on and they told him, "We want freedom!" They

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were hanging like monkeys! This kind of practice is being practiced even now wherever
you go. In any ashram you go to the teacher will prescribe you to sit down in this
particular posture with the spine in a straight line, and to think of this. If you are really
serious abut this you do not have to wait. Your abode is within you — nearer than your
own breath, nearer even than where the breath rises from, it is behind the retina. So
very near, and still we have been postponing this for millions of years. Whose fault is
this?

We are playing like children on the beach making sand houses, forgetting to return
home. The high tide comes and sweeps everything away while you are sleeping. The
high tide has to come. Before this high tide comes return home. Your mother is waiting
for you, and you are busy with your sand houses.

18 August, 1992

***

No Effort
You must have come here for freedom, to get rid of sorrow, to get rid of suffering. Life is
a repeating cycle of death, disease, and old age; but you can abandon this by simply
listening. Listen to me, listen to what I am saying and all is over.

I don't give you any task or any work to do. This is not the Olympics; you don't have to
run. This is satsang. No exertion is needed here. Without even needing to think a single
thought you can be liberated this moment. If you are not ready in this life you might as
well wait a thousand lives. You simply need to listen very carefully. It is very easy for
those who are serious, sincere, and devoted to themselves. People who come for
tamashia will not get the point.

You have to simply become aware of the movement of the mind, which begins this
endless trouble. That something is actually arising out of consciousness is only a
concept, and it is this which gives rise to the myth of an individual identity. How much
time does it take for the mind to arise or for it to be stopped? One movement of thought
causes this endless creation to appear, complete with its creators, preservers, and
destroyers. If the mind is checked it is all over. But it is not going to end on its own. If it
were real it could end, but because it is only a notion it will end only if you see the
source of the notion as it is arising. The idea that, "I am so-and-so" and "You are so-
and-so" is the movement of the mind. "I am" is the first movement of the mind; and
from here arises the trouble.

When you get up in the morning you feel rested and happy. There is a movement in
consciousness and you call this the waking state. The world appears to you with its
mountains, rivers, forests, people, birds and animals, and you call it waking up. The
same thing happens at night in dreams. There are no objects to experience, but even in
sleep the mind is not quiet; it creates another world. Who is responsible for that
creation? Who? You cannot say God, or the Creator, or any other person. It is you who
are sleeping comfortably, but you cannot rest even in sleep and so you create another
world within yourself. You see mountains, rivers, elephants, tigers, although they are
not there in your apartment — you are alone. Neither are there objects nor is there any
subject. Only the ego is projecting its own world.

Just like the chicks return in the evening under the wings of the mother hen the ego
says, “Keep quiet.” Because of ego, darkness, next morning they will jump out of the
wings of again the same thing, you see. The mind is exhausted from the transactions of
subject-object relationship. Give it a little rest.

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Transcending these three states you will find another state where you have peace. Few
people know this peaceful state of consciousness, of happiness, of bliss, of existence.
Even beyond this turiya there is yet another state which a few rare ones reach and
return to speak about it. In this discovery everything ends — from here all also starts.
This is the substratum which has always been concealed by thoughts, from where they
arise. This supreme state of consciousness is concealed by conceptual understanding
itself.

If I show you a handkerchief you will see its form, its length, width, thickness, its uses,
and its name – “handkerchief.” You will not see the cotton from which it is made; you
will not call it "cotton." If I show you this kerchief even — this is a kerchief — length,
width, height, its uses, name is “kerchief”. Form is this you see, but you know the cotton
you can't see. Cotton is not seen. No one can say it's cotton… kerchief! If you remove
the name and form you will see the cotton.

If you remove the name and form, all that you see here and now — whatever you see —
remove the name and form. You are in that state beyond the fourth which I described,
you see. It will appear itself. It is here. That's not to be gained, it is already there.
Because you are already otherwise engaged in your fantasies you have no time to look.
What is concealed? You only give importance to what is seen. Importance to form and
your notions, you see.

So, if you check your notion — one word — if you check your notion and intention simply
for that reason. Don't allow any notion to arise or any intention in the mind, you see, for
just this instant of time. What's going to happen? So this is one word. How to do it? Not
to give rise. You must ask me question, why? How to do it? How not to give rise to this
movement at all, you see.

So this can be done when you make inquiry… when you make inquiry into this process of
movement. What is the movement going on? That's all you have got to do it. And this
inquiry is enough instruction from someone, and this is enough to listen from someone.
That's all you have to do as a student, and this is enough for the teacher to speak, and
there's nothing beyond this to speak, and nothing beyond this to listen either. What else
can you read in any book if you don't listen to this? That, I have to inquire into the
movement of the mind itself — strike at the root of the mind. If you see a mango tree in
the seed you don't see leaves nor the fruits but in the seed, in the small seed of a tree
there are leaves, there are branches, there are flowers, there are fruits that you can't
see, you see. So to see this you have to inquire. This is the minutest of the minute; may
it take a millionth part of the tip of your hair. That's what is said. The millionth part of
the tip so minute, so subtle it is. And only how will you reach it? You can't see with your
eyes, you can't touch with your hands. Only by inquiry you are going to reach the most
subtle place and it is reaching you there. Inquire.

This inquiry is not going to end. This inquiry is not going to end unless this subject who
is inquiring is itself consumed into the inquiry. First let the inquirer consume itself into
the inquiry itself, and then the inquiry will be consumed into that which has not yet been
described — and you are that. Not that you are going to become something else at some
other time. No, you are already that. You're not going to gain anything. Not going to
gain anything, not to achieve anything, not to learn anything. If you get rid of all that
you have learned till now, heard till now, read till now, seen till now, what's left? All
what you've acquired is only hearsay. You have borrowed… you have borrowed from
someone else. It's not your nature; it's not your true Self. You will return to your own
Self and nobody knows what the Self is. You attribute Self to some particular form or
name that can be seen, smelt, touched or heard about which cannot be seen or touched,
that I am going to refer. So, how to do it? Simply inquire into the nature of what is seen,
what this universe is, and what its origin.

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Its origin is not other than your own notion because you have become first, "I am so and
so," and then there is the world. There are relations and this is the world, and it's your
notion. Now if you find out the substratum of the notion, the source of the notion, and
how to do it? By simply inquiring, "What is the source of the notion?" Simply look down
— there's no other way. You don't need do anything. Simply keep quiet and don't think.
That's all. You have not to do anything.

You have not seen this moment of quietness for the last millions of years — you have
never been quiet. And we are going to speak of this quietness which is your nature and
which is the substratum of everything that is seen. Without this we cannot have rest.
And this is what is called Freedom, Enlightenment, Wisdom, Existence-Consciousness-
Bliss, satyam-shivam-sundaram, whatsoever you call it — and yet it has no name. Yet it
has no name — not even consciousness. It is so empty of even emptiness how can you
describe it?

When you see a star, you can see a star because of the skies. You can't see a star
without the background of sky. When you see the universe there must be something –
consciousness — which compels you to see the universe. When you see your own body
there must be consciousness through which you have experience of your body. What is
this consciousness? You have never before thought of it. What is the basis that you see?
Even to start with your body, how this body is seen? There must be some basis through
which you are aware. There must be some substratum, some source through which you
are experiencing the body itself. What is that?

If you keep quiet, then only you will know it; not with the moving of the mind. If you
move the mind there is body, and if you move the mind to know the cause, the source
of the body, you multiply it. So, how to do it? By not doing anything; not thinking
anything. Just imagine if you do not think — just to see the source of the body you have
not to think. What is the source now? You are multiplying only. So if you understand this
thing, even if you understand you miss it. You have not to understand it. If you
understand you are thinking, still you are thinking. So free. You have to be so free not
even to put activity to even your understanding — so free. No one has seen this freedom
before.

You will really enjoy whatever you do in the world. I don't advise you to run away from
your activity. May you be active, whatever you are doing already 200% better than
other people are doing. Other people will be suffering.

You can't pay attention if relaxed like this. You have to pay absolute attention. Some
say, "I'll just find out what has been spoken. I'll just go back to the hotel and find out."
That will not do, you see. What's the use of the rain when the crop is dried up. It's no
use. This moment is very important. You can after all… you need only one, this instant is
needed; and if this instant you can't be quiet what's the use of coming here? Some, if
not now, after all you have to get only one word today, now, today, tomorrow, day
after. Everyday, same thing I am saying because you have to get at it some word,
someday — now. You have to get one word. It will ignite like explosive. It will ignite.
Because you are not listening, not paying attention therefore it's not working. It has to
work, it has to work. How much time does it take to burn? Instantly, instantly it has to
burn. Like that you have to ready, when the satsang is there you must be very ready.

Come, come — be ignited like camphor! This word, this instruction is fire — let it ignite
your heart like camphor and destroy your darkness! If a room has been shut up for
twenty or thirty years and you switch on the light the darkness in the room will not say,
"I will depart slowly. I have been here for thirty years." When you switch the light on
there is light immediately; the darkness will not linger simply because she has been
there for thirty years. You may have lived in darkness for thirty five million years, but

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one click of the switch can switch on the light and instantly destroy the whole forest of
ignorance. This is the power of the teacher: to remove ignorance instantly. If the fire
does not burn the camphor something is wrong somewhere. Either the fire is not fire or
the camphor is a stone. If it does not react instantly something is wrong somewhere.
You will feel the presence of a true teacher — he will ignite your heart.

24 August, 1992

***

Keep quiet! Keep quiet! Keep quiet!

A man wrote to me from Germany, saying: "Although we have never met physically, I
have heard your words on a video tape. The words were, 'Keep quiet, keep quiet, keep
quiet.' I can't describe the effect these words have had, or what has happened to me
since hearing them. I have never heard this quietness described before in any of the
books I have read in my life. Other teachers don't speak in this way. Some force has had
a tremendous effect on me, such that I was able to keep quiet."

We will examine this: the nature of this quietness: How to have it. How to practice it.

Seven thousand years ago, Arjuna asked Krishna how to quiet the mind. "It is just like
the wind," he said. "You can't hold it in your fist. It is so turbulent, how can it be
controlled?" Krishna's answer was simple: It can be done through detachment and
practice. These two words are very significant. How can one easily discover viragya,
detachment? Everyone wants to enjoy the objects of the senses — seeing, hearing,
smelling, touching, tasting — that is all they are interested in.

So how can the mind be detached from its sense objects, and brought to quietness? It
will happen only when you know that all these objects do not bring abiding peace and
rest, that thinking again and again of your desires cannot bring satisfaction. Through
repeatedly seeking pleasure and never finding peace you are creating some sort of
displeasure with these things. Naturally you want to detach yourself from the things
which have not brought you peace and rest.

There was a famous saint, a poor man, about five hundred years ago named
Thyagaraya. People interested in music know his name. He is the king of artists, the
king of singers and musicians. He says,

Santham laka soukhyam ladu.

When there is no quietness, even kingdoms will not bring you happiness.

When we know that sense objects cannot bring us permanent happiness, the mind will
slowly withdraw from these objects.

In the Vedas it is declared, "Neti neti." [Not this, not that.]

Whenever the mind goes out to an object of the senses bring it back to peace, bring it
back to quietness. Whenever it goes out, quiet it down. Be very careful to bring it back
because you have seen that the objects of the senses have not given you peace. This is
the rahasya, the secret which Krishna gave to Arjuna — detachment. Wherever the mind
goes, detach it from its respective sense objects again and again.

Detachment must exist side by side with gyana, with knowledge of Brahman, with
knowledge of freedom. The desire for freedom and detachment from the senses must
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run concurrently. Detach yourself from those things which are not permanent, and rest
in that which is always permanent. Let your focus be always on this — on Brahman, on
the desire for the attainment of enlightenment. Remain here in this desire for freedom.
Reflect continuously from here on this. The desire to be free has already arisen in your
mind. You have spent millions of years so this desire for freedom can arise. Now listen
to it, reflect on it continuously, meditate in it. This process has to continue constantly.

Many people ask me what will happen when they return home. They say they are all
right here because they are repeatedly hearing this truth every day, but reflection has to
continue all the time. Wherever you are, when you sit, meditate on the Self, on
Brahman, on Truth, on Peace, on Shanti. Contemplate this all the time, speak about this
among yourselves. This is how your time in this universe is to be spent. Those who can
instantly embrace this truth carry a mountain of merits as large as the Himalayas. They
are led to satsang. Those who cannot recognize this will have to wait.

Some come to satsang and want to escape; they want to go somewhere else.
Something incomplete is carried from previous lives and this karma is taking them to
their next birth, hence they escape from satsang. I hear of people who want to return to
their previous centers and ashrams. They had found much peace, happiness, and joy
there from their friends. I advise them that this satsang is not for everyone. I don't find
fault with them. This is the weight of karma. They have some more work to do, some
more incarnations. It doesn't matter, you can work some more. Sooner or later you will
have to arrive in satsang.

Those who come to satsang are not coming for the first time. They have merits. They
have already completed millions of incarnations and it is that which is now compelling
them to sit here in satsang. It may be very few but that doesn't matter. All others will
have to wait; satsang will not work for them now. Every realized saint has declared that
you need good karma — experience of satsang in previous incarnations that will bring
you here for satsang, for quietness.

Buddha was born as a prince, Gautama Siddhartha. On his first visit outside of his
father's palace he was confronted for the first time with disease, old age, and death.
Instantly he decided to keep quiet. This is what I mean by detachment from the
enjoyment of sense objects. As soon as he was faced with the reality of life outside he
decided, "No, I don't want this kind of life." He returned home and a detachment arose
towards his life.

Tukaram, a great saint, says that man becomes attached to his house, to his wife, to his
son. This is what all the saints have said. Tukaram advised watching all these kinds of
attachment. He says that for a man there is no greater attachment than to his wife; for
a woman there is no greater attachment than to her husband. The same is true of
prosperity, the desire for a house. And every man has a great desire for a son, to
continue his lineage. These three words mentioned by Tukaram: spouse, house, and
children comprise the whole arena of attachment. Buddha returned and woke up from all
this. He saw the nature of life and he withdrew from the attachment to his wife, to his
son Rahul, to his palace and luxuries. He kept quiet. Under the bodhi tree he kept quiet
and he was free. This is what is meant by keeping quiet. Kabir says,

Chit thir man thir budhi thir.

Quiet down your mind, your speech, intellect,
and then... find out what happens.

5 September, 1992

***

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 The Desires Are Dancing
The desires are dancing. Let us see this dance. This universe is only the dance of
desires.

Whatever your desires are, they manifest as objects so you can enjoy this dance. Your
own desires are dancing in this samsara, in whatever you see in this manifestation, in all
these objects. The rise of this everlasting dance depends upon ignorance. Samsara is
just ignorance. We observe this dance because of ignorance. How is it possible to get rid
of this dance? Objects attract the mind and we run after these objects — we run after
our projections. Then the mind joins company with these objects, with this dance, and
forgets how to wake up. This drama and this dance can only end when the sun rises.
When the sun rises this drama will be over. This sun is inquiry — vichar. When the sun
of vichar rises in your mind this drama immediately ends there, and it can not end
otherwise. We have come here for freedom only; to end this drama. Therefore again and
again we are coming and going. We forget why we came and we get lost in the
enjoyment of the senses.

I remember a story. There was a king who had no issue, no son. He was getting old so
he decided to adopt a prince to succeed him as the king after his death. He fixed a date
with his sentries that on a particular day the gates of the palace would be open from
eight in the morning till eight at night. The king would be seated in the palace and he
would conduct interviews to find the most suitable person to be chosen as his prince. So
on this day the gates were opened and people went inside. Everybody was allowed to
enter and see the king in person.

When the gates are opened to see the king you have to be looking your best. So a very
good shower-bath was arranged for everyone who entered the palace and then there
were all kinds of perfumes for them to use. Then there was a place with many different
kinds of very expensive dresses. You should be well dressed to see the king, so you
could choose your own clothes from a huge variety of different kinds of gold and silver
gowns and dresses. Then some lunch was arranged, to be well fed before seeing the
king. And then there was music and then dancing. After all this you are ready to see the
king — you are fully satisfied.

Some people who were entering the palace were very fond of showers, so they spent
their time in the sauna and taking different kinds of baths and showers. Some were fond
of perfumes, so they were trying out all the different perfumes that were there. Some
were busy with all the different kinds of dresses. Some were gluttons; they were very
fond of eating and drinking, so they were trying all the different varieties of food and
different dishes which were there. Here in India when food is served there are a hundred
and one types of dishes in a good lunch, and everything was included here. After lunch
there was music and then dancing. Everything was provided beautifully by the king.

The time was getting close to eight o'clock so a siren alerted everyone to get ready to
leave. The people who were fond of perfumes had collected bottles and had filled their
bags with those perfumes. Those who were fond of food had taken something for their
wives and other relations and friends; they were packing food to take away. Those who
were fond of dresses were carrying bundles of dresses on their shoulders. Some were
listening to the music, some were dancing. The sentries of the palace told them, "Now
your time is up. You have to leave. You're not allowed to take anything away with you.
You were supposed to only eat and to use the perfumes here and enjoy the music." But
people were so engaged, "Oh let me sit a little longer. It's such nice music." Those who
were dancing said, "Please let us have some more time for dancing. We cannot leave
this company." But nothing was allowed. They were all pushed out of the gate. The time
was 8 p.m.

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The king called his secretary and asked, "What happened? No came to me for an
interview. What happened? Did you open the gates?" "Yes, yes, the gate was open for
twelve hours," replied the secretary. "How is it that no one has come to see me?" asked
the king. "They were engaged in their own luxuries and needs," came the reply. "We do
not know if anyone went to see you or not."

Samsara is exactly like this. No one went to see the king. If someone had gone and had
been accepted everything would have belonged to him. It is not allowed to take anything
away from this. We came here to see the king but we got lost in luxuries, in fulfillment
of desires. When the time comes for the gates to be closed we will not be able to carry
anything with us. The king is waiting but no one goes. This dance drama is exactly like
that. We came here to meet the king and sit on the throne, but we forgot why we came
and we got lost in infinite distractions.

Palaces, you see, many palaces are here in India. You can go to Delhi, Jaipur and other
places. You see how comfortably the kings wanted to live. And they are lying there…
they are lying there dead. Nobody could recreate permanency, and they had diamonds.
The kings had everything. No one could take anything, you see. Even the greatest
conqueror of the world, Alexander, who had conquered three fourths of the world; only
China was left, you see… China was left. But due to some sickness he had to go back to
Greece. On the way he died. That's a long story, how he went back. It's a long story I
have told you already. He met some yogi and told this yogi, "I am going. I am waiting
for the monsoons. After the end of the monsoons I will cross the river Jilam (since
Punjab had already been conquered by him) and then I will proceed to China." That was
his intention.

And then there was one yogi who was sitting at the bank of river Jilam, meditating.
Alexander had never seen anybody in this posture, sitting day and night. So some of his
army men informed Alexander, "There is one man who is always sitting like this thing,
not moving." Alexander said, "Okay, you bring him to me. I will ask him what is this,
what is he doing." And they took one interpreter. They shook the yogi and asked him,
"The king of this land, Alexander the Great, wants to see you. You please come." He
says, "The tradition of this country, the tradition of India is, whosoever wants to see
someone, it is he who should go to the other person. I don't need to see him. If he
needs to see me let him come and see me."

That's what he said. So they said, “Okay, he has to be forcefully removed. So some five,
six people tried to lift him by hands and feet, to take him to the camp where Alexander
was staying. And then a man who was carrying him by the hand, the hand came out of
the body; the feet, the leg came out of the body and the body rested on the ground and
they were taking only legs; and they were afraid and they threw the body parts and ran
away. This… this has happened.

Now Alexander himself opted to come and see this man, and again he was sitting like
this thing. Because of Alexander's teacher, a disciple of Socrates, you see, who told him,
"When you go to India you will see some yogi." He was not happy with his teacher.
(Tutor he was, you see.) He was not happy because when he told his tutor, "I want to
conquer the whole world," the tutor replied, "You conquer the mind. You conquer the
mind and everything is conquered." Alexander said, "You are stupid," and he put him
into prison.

"Okay. When you go to India please see some saint… some saint in India, and bring me
Gita from this country — Gita, book of knowledge — and a part of Ganga water." That
was what he wanted. "Okay, I will do that." So this was the first instant he saw this
yogi, so he goes there. The yogi is sitting and Alexander is standing with his army
generals, you see.

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"Who are you?" "I am Alexander, from Greece." "What for you are here?"

"I have conquered all Europe; now I have to conquer India. Because of the monsoon this
river is in spate, so I am waiting for the river to come down and then I will go to China."
That's what he said.

"Listen, listen my dear boy. In twenty days you have to leave this world. That's how it
will be." Alexander said, "Let him be arrested." because he was very young. At that time
thirty-three years old. "Let him be arrested, but may be true anyway. My mother told
me, 'When you're sick, you feel that your death is coming near, you come to your own
country and die.'" you see.

So then he goes on very fast horses to reach Greece. On the way at Barbarun, I think
that's where, he has a very simple diarrhea. He is dying, and the generals ask, "What is
your will? What is your last will?" He says, "Keep my hands out of my… out of the coffin
so that the people will know I am not carrying anything with me."

That's what his desire was. And this monarch, Alexander the Great, had to leave this
drama empty-handed. So coming to the point, as long as your vasanas are dancing,
samsara is going to stay forever. You can't have rest with this dance — you cannot have
rest. Who is there in the world, from king to a worker, who says, "I am happy, I am in
peace?" No one will tell you, you see. Even if you may be king, no one is happy, you
see. Now also you go around and see different countries and the heads of the countries,
how happy they are, you see. Tension. So only one thing will help you to be happy, that
is to check this vasana, check this vasana, check this desire for enjoyment, and perhaps
you will have the highest degree of enjoyment if you check your desire. If you don't give
rise to desire you will have utmost peace, love and beauty you will see for the first time,
and even with your desire something what happens? In desire also, it is the end of
desire that gives us peace.

Supposing you need something. "I need a new model car. So I am not happy because I
want to have one, so I go to look at it. I have no money so I borrow money from the
bank, from friends. Now the car is in front of my house." You are happy. Has the iron
given you this happiness? Or the rubber tires? Or the benzene? What has given you
happiness? Because the desire to have the new model Toyota is now over. So then this
desire is gone then you are happy. So for all — every desire, in every case, you see — it
is not the object that you desire. Having that object will give you happiness only
because your desire has ended. After the desire has ended and that emptiness is giving
you happiness, you see.

If you know it was the emptiness, it is the desireless-ness, thoughtless-ness that gave
me happiness, why not have this happiness here and now by not giving rise to a
thought? Any thought, you see. First thought is, "I am the body, I am mind, I am
intellect, I am senses." So even this: If you don't give rise to thought… and then you
have to know how to do it also — inquire. There can be no any other method, maybe
yoga, or anything else, even going to the pilgrimages, or chanting the formulas,
meditating, practices — nothing is going to help you. Only you have to inquire at the
root of the first thought. That is, we every day speak about I-thought, you see, so this
‘I’ and samsara. There is no difference, you see. To create samsara there must be rise of
‘I’. Then only you see samsara. And when you don't give rise to this I-thought… in the
sleep there is no samsara, no objects, no birth, no death, nothing ever, you see. So this
‘I’ itself, just ‘I’ is samsara.

To get rid of all this sorrows and troubles and miseries and what is called cycle of birth
and death, for kalpas it has to stay — it is going to stay, mind you, billions of years. This
samsara is there billions of years. Eighty-five billion years is the age of this samsara,

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according to last results. Eighty-five billion years, but these billions of years are also a
concept only, you see, is also a concept. Only with the rise of the ‘I’ you count billions of
years. When you don't give rise to simply ‘I’ there are no billions and no millions,
because this mind instantly will create past, present, future, and this bondage is mind
only, you see. So anyone who desires, he can stop it here and now, and those who want
to play, they are very, very welcome to play and dance a dance. If they're happy let
them dance. But I don't think — no gods are even happy in this, no god even is happy.

You sit quiet, you make a try. If not for long, for few minutes you spend and see — just
for a minute, you see. Sit quiet — don't give rise to thought and first of all you see
what's going to happen. So listening is not going to help you. Immediately you have to
get into it. You have to be… be it.

And this happiness is your nature. Consciousness is your nature. Existence is your
nature. Love is your nature. Peace is your nature, you see. So you can do whatever you
want. So the sages, they suggest to be happy. We have to get rid of vasanas, you see.
Enough of the vasanas, you see. Millions of years we have spent with the vasanas and
we have been troubled, and now we have a very beautiful human incarnation, very good
intention – bromjignasa — very good intention. What more you need? "Now I want to be
free." Very good, excellent vasana. So you are most lucky, merits are great, therefore
you are here in satsang, and I don't think you will lose anything, and or gain anything.

You will return to your own kingdom which is your birthright — not to suffer suffering.
We simply imagine that there is suffering because we want to play with the projections
of our own mind. We want to have swim into the mirage, hallucination, illusion. So once
we decide, "I want to be free." it's enough. “I want to be free.” This decision has to be
very firm decision, as firm as this universe is real. Firm decision, firm conviction, “This is
real,” you see. So we have this kind of firmness in our Now. Very new desire, "I want to
be free." This desire we did not desire, you see, previously; and now we are here
because we have decided to be free this time. Therefore, my dear friends, decide once
and for all that we are here and freedom is our right.

And we have to win it — just doing nothing, just to get rid of this one vasana — one
vasana — get rid of one vasana only: "I want this." That's all. “I want this.” And perhaps
if you don't give rise to this vasana everything will be added onto you. Even if you don't
want, it will be offered to you. The kingdom of three universes will be offered to you…
so?

Om shanti.

18 September, 1992

***

Death
We are going to speak: What is death? Fear of death? There are beings, bodies
everywhere — under the water, under the ground, over the earth, in the air. They
cannot be counted — billions, trillions of bodies. All have to die. And this death is after
each body. Even after death and this death is following this body; even after, death will
bring another body and then again death. That's repeated for millions and millions of
years unless you remove this fear of death.

Because what is body? Earth, water, fire, air — that's all. This is the body and these are
the elements outside also. Somehow integration has taken place of earth, water, fire,
air; and then you have to disintegrate at the time of death. So if we realize it, always

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understand it – “These are the elements, but I am not the elements. I am not this body.
I am not perishable. I am imperishable – Brahman”. Then perhaps you have solved this
problem once and for all and you will not wear this body once again.

And how to do it? First of all, when you have found conviction of ‘I’ don't talk of reality.
When you speak: “I am this ‘I’.” When you use, “I am this ‘I’." and you have firm
conviction of ‘I’ — and this ‘I’ is identified with the body — don't talk of enlightenment,
freedom or reality or truth or bliss or ananda whatsoever. It's not possible. And this ‘I’ is
universe, bondage. When ‘I’ arises the universe arises, the bondage arises. And when
there is no ‘I’ — no concept of ‘I’ — that's called freedom.

So how to get rid of this concept of ‘I’? There are various ways described in the book of
knowledge, Upanishads, sutras also. So everybody says, “I am...” everybody says, “I am
so and so, you are so and so, he is so and so, and this is the world.” No one ever
questions, "What am I? Where do I come from? Where do I return to? What is the
purpose of my coming here? What have I done?" So this question is never asked. "Who
am I?" is never asked. So you have to question, "Who am I?" And then you have to
search for its answer by yourself here and now. And this is going to free you.

And through yoga also you can do it. Just with the count of eight breaths — inhaling,
exhaling — just for 8 times. How much time it takes? One minute you have 16 breaths,
one minute — just half a minute and you are free. How? During these 8 inhalings or
exhalings do not associate with any object and you are free. You can do it here and now.
Just for 8 counts of your inhalings, no association with any object and you are free.
Freedom is here and now, always, everywhere. You have been postponing for millions of
years because of vasanas — "I want this, I want that. I am attached to this person, and
that person is very much attached to me." This is all and this is called the cycle of birth
and death, and this is universe, and this is bondage, suffering. And actually it doesn't
exist — only vasana.

There is no difference between vasana and samsara. Vasana is, "I want this." That's all.
When you don't give rise to simply, "I want this or that." Where is samsara; where has it
gone to? So this vasana is samsara, and this vasana is time, this vasana is mind —
which is past. Samsara is past. Mind is past. Vasana is past.

So we have never looked into this present moment, not ever. We have never tried it. We
have never been told, no one ever taught us, what is Presence.

We speak always of past and future. Everywhere there is a talk of past and future. Who
could speak of this presence? And this presence, this present instant is called freedom,
enlightenment, wisdom, bliss. And you can do it without any effort, here and now.
Without any effort and without starting any thought either. No thinking. So simple it is.
And this simplicity has not been recognized therefore we have to suffer endlessly.

Even this suffering does not exist. As in the dream where we are attacked by robbers…
attacked by robbers, and we are suffering. They are threatening us with revolvers in
hand so we want some help… nobody helps. What can anybody do? So there comes a
tiger — a roar of the tiger! The robbers run away, fearing their own death. And with the
roar of the tiger this man who was attacked by the robbers wakes up… wakes up, you
see. Now where are the robbers? Where is the fear? Where is the tiger? Where is the
suffering? In the dream everything was there. There were robbers, fear, tiger.
Everything was dream visions, illusions, hallucinations. But on waking up, nothing
existed.

Likewise, the same is the case here. There is no difference at all. So you are all sleeping,
and when we dream we must have previously slept. Before we must have been sleeping,

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then in the sleep we dream. In the dream we see objects — sleep, dream, objects, you
see. So when we see objects we are dreaming. When we are dreaming we are sleeping.
So here also, when we see objects we are dreaming and we are sleeping. Wake up!
What is this wake-up now? Is the roar of the tiger that made you wake up from the
dream, from the sleep, like this thing? When you want to be free, "I want to be free!" is
the roar of the tiger.

First of all, no one wants to be free and this is a fact. No one wants to be free. Some
fear is there. They need some help. Go and join meditation retreats. Go to some
teachers for some help. Help to solve their problems, not for freedom. Who? Who comes
for freedom, first of all?

We are 6 billion people tonight. How many are there? How many buddhas? How many
enlightened people have we produced for quite billions of years now? Because we don't
want freedom we want to enjoy, and this enjoyment, and this enjoyment. Each time is
taking away from us; then again we make up our mind. The desires unfulfilled are
waiting will give us next birth to enjoy the same; again not fulfilled. Whose desires are
fulfilled? Not even the emperors have fulfilled their desires, not even the kings. Nobody
has fulfilled their desires. So each man thinks, "I will fulfill my desires." and later on no
one speaks of freedom at all. Some fear there, perhaps no one wants freedom.

And this is a fact, because he who wants freedom has to be free in the same moment
when he wants to be free. Because the wave rises from the ocean, is the ocean, within
the ocean — not separate. So when the desire for freedom arises it arises from Freedom
itself, from Self itself, and is the Self itself, you see. If it is an ocean there has to be a
wave not separate from the ocean itself. And in the desert if it arises it's a mirage. In
the desert also there are waves. People run after it to have a soothing bath, swim in
that. So that also is a river with waves but it is not real. It was not there in the morning
neither in the evening, only for some time it is there. So this pleasure is for sometime.
Just in the waking state or in the dream state that you can enjoy is not abiding, is not
permanent, is not eternal peace. And after having enjoyed and found peace, you want to
run for something else. So it's not peace at all.

Peace — once attained — you are peace itself. So when you run here, there, it is
something else; it is sensual pleasure, not peace, not bliss — sensual pleasure because
it is the nature of the mind. Having enjoyed one thing it wants something else and then
something else, and this is called samsara.

So if you desire freedom make up your mind, if not today maybe at the end of this life if
not next life. Don't postpone it. This postponement is called samsara. Samsara means
postponement. And if you stand on your toes and decide, "I want to be free." who can
stop it, first of all? Decide once and for all: “I have to be free.” Because freedom is
within and when you say, "I want to be free." who speaks? Who is it that wants to be
free? From where does it rise? Even this desire — I want to be free — where does it rise
from? Where does it stand? Where does it subside to?

Just you have to understand this thing: You have not to go anywhere. Even you have
not to desire anything. Only just understand that you are not bound. “I am suffering, I
am bound,” you have heard from someone else. It's not real experience. You find out
yourself. This suffering, this death, these tensions, you have heard from someone else;
it's not your experience. Because when you sleep all what you have heard, of what you
have read, is not there; and you are happy even in sleep, though this is ignorant state.
You are happy because all that you have read or heard, experienced, and tasted and
smelled and seen is no more there, and you are happy. So if you free yourself of what
you have seen, smelled, heard, tasted or touched, just for one second — maybe half of
the second, maybe half of the half will do. That's how, you see.

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What is… I remember just now in this context, Ekentari. I will translate Hadigari:

Adi se puni aab. Sungabetide sadu ki, botukatain abrad.

So he says,

One instant or one second, half of the second, half of the half of the second.

If you associate with a saint, a perfect teacher; perhaps you are all the kalpas,

but all the bondages are completed, severed away and you are free.

That's what Goswamitutishida says. And Kabir also says the same thing, you see. He
also says,

Chetiter, manter, boditer.

He was an illiterate man. Kabir was illiterate. He says that, I have never touched ink on
the paper, nor have I held pen in my hand.” That's what he says — that was his
education.

Chetiter, manter, buditer, isfalavsherid.

Batche, batche halfkerain, kahat Kabir Kabir.

So he says — I will translate:

Do not start a thought in your mind. Keep your intellect quiet.

Chetiter — mind — also quiet. Senses also quiet. And then enlightenment itself will be
calling you from behind. Enlightenment itself will be inviting you from, “Dain ohkabir —
Wait, I am following you.” That is how it happened.

So don't start a thought, one single thought. Don't discriminate between this and that,
and no mentation, and one second, half second, half of the half. How could it be difficult
now? It is difficult for those who are yet attached to something more precious than their
own Self — more precious, more beautiful, more worth acquiring than your own wisdom,
than Self, than eternity, than bliss. Therefore how can they ask for freedom? So he who
wants — whatever he wants — he is drawn by that particular object, you see. So
wherever your attachment is, wherever the object of your attachment is, there you are.
Doesn't matter where you are; you may be in satsang.

29 September, 1992

***

Worship
During the lifetime of some enlightened beings worship began. Even during the time of
Lord Buddha people worshipped stupas, worshipped statues of the Buddha. Some people
don't believe in worship through statues. Those who invaded India at the time when
Buddhist dharma was strong, demolished most of the statues and Buddhist monasteries
were burnt. But during the time of Buddha himself he accepted dharma and sangha.
Monasteries were established during the time of Ashoka; statues and stupas were built.

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Even today in many countries statues of Buddha are being built. Recently a statue 60
feet high was built in Bodhgaya by the Japanese.

Worship has been advised from time immemorial. Here we generally speak about
consciousness, which is omniscient, omnipresent, in everything, every atom. There is no
place where there is no consciousness. So what does worship mean? Many people get
confused. Those who have been enlightened, free, they have worshipped through
stupas, through statues, and that is how dharma has been living till today and it will
live. I do not know of any religion which has not included worship. Buddhism is already
2,600 years old. Vedic Dharma is 25,000 years old. In Peru they have found a Shiva
lingam 25,000 years old.

We are dealing with consciousness only, but it's very important to consider this matter.
Many people write to me from The States and Europe. They say they are all right here,
but when they return they forget it they lose peace and consciousness. I advise them to
playfully worship whatever comes into their day-to-day life. Whatever they see has to be
worshipped as the same consciousness — it cannot be other than consciousness. Eating
food, whatever you do. Listening to music, worship through the ears. Whatever you see,
it has to be worshipped, adored, honored. Like this, you will not forget consciousness.
When you see that consciousness is everywhere this Cosmic Being has to be adored and
worshipped in every being, every non-being, in every situation; when you are happy, in
happiness; when you are not happy, in unhappiness. In all situations engage yourself.
People say, "Sometimes I am happy; sometimes I lose it." Beyond both is
consciousness, their own Self. The Self reveals itself to itself. This Cosmic Being which
resides in all beings, in human beings, and animals, and birds, in everything — is
conscious within you. In the cave of your heart is the Conscious Being that directs you to
see, smell, hear, activate your activities. This has to be worshipped, adored, honored
wherever you go, whatever you do, whatever you hear, whatever you see. Then how
can you forget? Wherever you are you are in consciousness and consciousness is within
you. Worship this purusha — this cosmic being within you.

I do not know how this cosmic being has become an individual being. If it has become
an individual being then the cosmic being is residing within it. This knowledge that, "I
am individual being." must be in the cosmos. This cosmic being has entered the cavity of
your heart. Somehow you feel separated. You feel that, "I am an individual being, a
different personality." Where does this knowledge that, "I am an individual being." come
from? This knowledge is quite enough to be worshipped. Worship this knowledge at
least, that "I am this individual being." If you can't agree that, "I am cosmic."

Many times I've made attempt to express. I have failed. It is said the mind cannot
reach, the senses cannot describe. Somehow I have to do it.

This longing will arise — it is not enough. You will have to go and see a teacher and
listen to the teacher. First you choose, "I have to return to effortlessness, I want to be
free." This longing is not enough. This longing rises from ignorance only; it's not
wisdom. Any choice is from ignorance; any longing is from ignorance. Good longing also
is ignorance, but it takes you to a teacher who tells you whatever he tells you, and that
is also ignorance. It is ignorance because it cannot be conveyed through words. Your
mind can listen. This experience cannot be had by the mind or senses. When the mind
and senses admit their defeat, then you will have this experience.

Let the individual dissolve and adore the Supreme Being. Let it merge into the supreme
being from where it arose. Individuality must come from somewhere; a wave arises
from somewhere. The individuality rises when you say, "this individual." You have
returned with this thought. Now, this moment, where did this thought rise from?
Individuality. This moment go back and see. Don't make any effort — it will drop by

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itself. Don't make any effort, don't think; it will drop by itself. Your longing will cease.
My instruction will cease.

17 November, 1992

***

Beyond Delight, Beyond Bliss

Action which originates from the mind without attachment we can call Non-action. In
fact this activity arises without mind at all. We can call this No-mind. You may be doing
many things in the world, but if there is no attachment to the outcome, to the objects of
action, you remain free.

The delight which comes from sensory experience is always fleeting. When an
experience is repeated an earlier desire which had been stored in memory is recalled to
repeat the experience. The delight derived from that experience is already past — not
fresh — because it has been recalled. First you need desire, then an object of desire,
then experience through the senses. Only an unwise person seeks to repeat experience.
A wise person knows that every experience, every delight, is fleeting and will not touch
it. Everyone in the world is unhappy; not a single person finds happiness because they
delight in old experience. No one asks for anything fresh, not only the common man but
even kings, even diamond merchants. Kings want diamonds like the Kohinoor to be
happy. No-one's desires are fulfilled.

There is something very precious which is not stored in the memory. Give it any name
or no name, it will bring satisfaction and bliss. It will take you beyond bliss. This is our
topic here: first delight, then bliss, and then beyond.

Nobody gets out of this trap of delight: Everybody is caught in it. You look for bliss but
where is it to be found? Bliss means anything not recalled from memory. This will never
be discovered on your own because it is found only through association with a sage, a
perfect person, one who has known it and can enable you to have this experience; or
from the recorded experiences of ancient sages in authorized sutras.

With the help of your own desire for abiding happiness, for abiding bliss, for freedom,
you will discover something beyond that which can be called consciousness. There's
nothing beyond consciousness. Once you attain consciousness there's nothing more to
be attained. Anything that can be attained will be lost.

Consciousness is like the Kohinoor, the world's most precious diamond. No one has yet
attained it yet it has to be aspired for, to reach for something fresh, something new.
How can it be unattainable and yet be desired? Because in its attainment the knower,
the known and the means of knowing all merge into That itself. So it is both attained
and yet never attained. In the realization of consciousness you have attained everything
that is worth attaining. It is complete and perfect. It is moksham — liberation. It is
emancipation, it is perfection. You can call it bliss, you can call it beyond bliss. People
call it emptiness, people call it fullness, yet it is beyond words. It has never been
described so far. It is That which has to be aspired for — something which you have
never heard described before. It cannot be held in memory, nor can it be seen, heard,
touched or thought about.

When the mind blinks for a moment everything arises. This manifestation is the result of
just one blink of the mind. If you don't wink for this single moment everything will
cease. If you don't stir the mind just for this instant — this finger snap — that which I

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speak about is here and now. And, my dear friends, you are That… you are That… you
are That.

If you have heard these words without them landing anywhere — without them touching
your memory — you have gone beyond. If somehow this has penetrated into the
memory, trespassed there, then you will have to fall in love with it, keep fully devoted to
it. Walking, talking, sleeping, dreaming, on awakening each day — always keep in touch
with it — think of it, speak to it, worship it even. This which is beyond everything is the
only thing to be worshipped. Don't be afraid to worship this, because all things are
within This which I speak about.

Everything is to be worshipped. Everything which you worship is That itself. What else
could there be? If you have some gold you can make any shape out of it — any animal
or bird — but its essential gold-ness will not be lost. Only the name and form can
change, the gold-ness cannot be lost. If you understand this with your total
consciousness you will see that everything which exists in consciousness must be
consciousness itself. Everything in the river, every wave, every bubble, every tide must
be made of the same substance which is liquid, which is water. Look at the river and not
its expressions, like bubbles and waves. Knowing this you don't need anything else.

This single instruction is quite enough for those who have deserved it, earned it through
eons of time. Some will still postpone for a year or till the end of this incarnation. But
why you are here? You are alive just to know who you have been, who you would be,
and who you are now. You have lost track of it so you need some guidance. Find a guide
and listen to him once. Follow him and you are out of this trap. If you don't want to
listen it doesn't matter; for after all, how long can this trap remain a trap? Somehow its
trap-ness will have to be dissolved and solved once and for all.

One satsang is quite enough. Knowing this truth you are always in satsang. Satsang
means to live as Truth itself — which means to live as the Self, to live as consciousness.
Who can say, "I am not my Self?" He who knows, "I am the Self." is in satsang. And if
someone says, "I am not the Self." it is still excellent — he is still in satsang. If the fish
in the water can cry, "I am thirsty," it means she is alive in the water — she's not
thirsty. In satsang you are not told to do anything — to practice anything — because
there are no modifications; it is immaculate, it is pure, it is purity itself. You are pure.
You may have been taught to believe that, "I am impure, I am bound" but it is only talk.
How can "I am." be impure or bound? To say "I am." is enough. If you add something to
it there will be trouble.

Make the best of this time — don't postpone. This postponement is called manifestation,
is called bondage. If you don't postpone you are here and now — you are free. This
postponement is called mind which says, "I will do it later; I will do tomorrow". Mind is
past. Past is memory and memory is universe, manifestation, and repetition of births
and deaths, suffering and tension. But just to know: "I am suffering," is enough to end
suffering. You must simply know what that "I am" is.

It is not the body nor the mind nor the intellect. If you say, "I am," can you show this I
am? It's not the body. You can just investigate: Just find out where this ‘I am’ is. You
will not find it — you will not find ‘I am’ anywhere — only words. So after sometime I'm
speaking about this happiness, and knowing this is called equanimity, peace, bliss. And
before that was delight. Anything that is fleeting is called delight. Anything that is
abiding is not delight; so here you are at peace. Equanimity is there and you are bliss.
Here is the bliss.

So keeping up this for some time in this state and not looking for, not desiring for
anything from the memory of the past staying for sometime here and you will be thrown

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or called from somewhere else by someone else into somewhere else which you have
never heard before. Because what you hear is only about waking, dreaming, sleeping —
that's all you have know so far. Anything that speaks to you in this physical form is
waking state. Subtle form that you dream in the night is dreaming state. There also you
have got relations and we see mountains and rivers and forests and animals... subtle
form. And then also we have experience, and then in sleep also. That's all the three
states we know. Therefore we have delight in one and we have bliss in the sleep state.
Again we repeat the same circle endlessly.

So staying here in this state you will be called from somewhere else into somewhere
else. That state is not a state. States are only three. Beyond that you can't call it a
state. That is, you can call it a word. If you have to use word I believe the sanskrit word
is pragya. Pragna is beyond that, beyond states you see. Beyond the beyond is called
pragna. So that state is beyond the delight and beyond the happiness and beyond the
bliss even. It is not even this; it is not even Self. It's not even It. What has been given
in some sutras “It” word is used. That word is used, tat is used; not even that. That
cannot be comprehended by mind nor expressed, nor described, nor experienced;
because for any kind of delight, bliss, enjoyment, you need someone to experience.
Mind doesn't go there; senses do not present themselves there. So when all these beat
retreat — mind, intellect, senses — when they beat retreat, that beyond is called... tita
is the word. Some say, "Beyond." Let beyond be beyond. I don't touch it.

Because I receive many letters; even today I will see. The letters always mention: “We
lose what we get in the satsang when we return back home. We lose it after some time,
and then we do not know what to do.” So it means anything that you hear in satsang
you have stored in the mind; so that is what we are discussing about and this thing that
you are storing in the mind. You want to call for and repeat it. When you're here do not
store in the memory so that you lose it. Anything can be called back from memory.
When it doesn't land in the memory you can't call back. So they're in trouble. They can't
call back therefore they take to some other exercises.

So one of these letters I will read: “After the satsang in Lucknow I lost it in a month.” So
I am just speaking about this thing. Do not try to grab it, grasp it and store it into the
memory. Anything stored in the memory is not satsang. It's called learning — it's called
knowledge — that you go to the universities and get a doctorate out of that which is
stored in the memory. It's not that knowledge. It cannot be stored in the memory, you
see. Never it has been done. So let the word pass through and through. Pierce through
the mind and through the intellect and let it go from where it came. One word, any one
time, whatever, whenever, wherever possible — it is that one word which will work.

So I am again trying to clarify: Don't try to understand what is spoken here. Just keep
quiet. Don't try to listen even. Just keep quiet and let it go. What is happening, you
don't be concerned of it. That is some higher supreme power. You are in the lap of
supreme power. Don't use your intellect here. It is She who will take care of you. It is
He who will take care of you. It is It that will take care of itself. Who are you to
understand it? So keep quiet for once. Don't blink and don't wink and keep quiet for one
single second. Otherwise you will have notions and expectations and ideations. That's
what you will make out of this satsang. Don't try to have any notion, any hope that here
we have come with the hope that we will be free. Give up this hope either. No hopes and
no notions and no tensions also. No ideas about what it is. Don't form any ideas about it,
you see. This is called quietness, equanimity, silence and peace. Then the supreme itself
will enter into your open heart and sit down there permanently, because it is already
there and you are otherwise engaged. Therefore it is concealed by some other desire: "I
want this, and I want that," you see.

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So do what you have to do? Anything to which you have camouflaged or concealed the
original ultimate nature of your own Self has to be discovered, uncovered, or to be
revealed. It has to reveal itself by itself; not by any effort. Not by any effort. Not even to
think about anything of the past, present and future. No thought and no effort. That is
the requirement. How this precious gem where it is concealed by you — how it will
reveal itself. The gem doesn't need your candle to be seen. It has its own luster, self-
effulgent. Like, you will not see the sun through the light of your candle but through its
own rays. Who needs a candle to see the sun? He doesn't need because the sun has the
luster of light itself. So anything which is light you don't need any effort to see.

You don't need to do anything. Simply keep quiet — allow it to reveal itself. If you had
kept quiet even for a single instant, for a finger snap, with a wink of you eye — once —
during this travel that you have done for 35 million years, my dear friends who are here.
This is all a blink of the mind, and now if we are quiet it has to reveal. It is self-
effulgent. Never it has been concealed. But when the desire is there then it is concealed
because we desire something else. And that something else we do not know — that
something else is also the same thing. What else you can aspire? Where from do you get
anything else which is not already there? Where from? Who are you? So this is so
simple. The trouble is with its beauty and simplicity and self-effulgence.

You please merge into it — jump into it. That's all. Jumping into the lake of nectar, lake
of amritam, who will die? And we are afraid. In ambrosia — drinking ambrosia — I will
die... How ridiculous.

21 November, 1992

***

Notions Create the Mind

It is very important to examine the nature of notion, because whatever is created —
whatever you see — is a notion. This may be surprising to you.

Take a tiny seed in the palm of your hand. In India the mustard seed has been given as
an example because it is the smallest seed available… or a banyan seed. In the West
take any seed you can find; it doesn't matter what kind. Now what do you see in this
seed? Do you see a huge tree, a grand trunk, flowers, millions of fruits, with again
billions and trillions of seeds inside? Do you see all this is a tiny seed? You do not find all
this inside the seed, yet when the seed comes into contact with the soil it sprouts.

The same is true with notion. Notion is now sprouted as this universe, time and space
that you see, as past, present and future. Men, animals, mountains, rivers, forests are
all contained in this tiny seed-like notion. This notion will sprout when it touches
consciousness, and from this arises mind. All this diversity is created out of the single
notion, "I suffer. I am happy. I am bound. I want to be free." These are all notions. A
sage is one who knows that these are all notions and is hence free from them. Those
who are yet to be enlightened are not yet free from this notion and therefore think that
they are bound, that they are suffering; they will have to become enlightened somehow
later on.

We must find out how to get rid of this notion. A notion is just a thought — it is your
own thought, which must be rising from somewhere. Just as a seed touches the soil, it
sprouts and becomes a tree, so this notion touches consciousness; it sprouts and
becomes mind. What existence could the mind have without consciousness as its
substratum? Where could it stand without some foundation, some soil in which to
sprout?

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Those who know the substratum, who see how the mind rises, will never suffer. Those
who ignore the substratum however, those who begin from the sprout, from the notion
itself, those who look at the branches, fruits and flowers, at the sufferings, happiness
and joys of life — they will suffer endlessly because they do not know the substratum of
all this. Thought is the substratum, thought is the mind, mind is time and space, mind is
past.

How does the mind arise? When it rises it seems to be created; although it is not really
true to say that it is created or not, that it arises or not. Both are seen simultaneously.
When you see a mirage in the desert you see a river running in the desert, in the sands.
The river which is running can be said to exist, and it can also be said that is does not
exist. Both are true. People will go running to have a swim in it because it looks like a
real river. And at the same time it is true that it does not exist, there is only sand, there
is no river at all. Both are simultaneously true.

So you can say that this is samsara, this is the world. Or you can say that this does not
exist at all. Both are simultaneously real. If you accept this, then to say, “This is not
real." is true; and to say, "This is real." is also true — just like the mirage. This is all real
because it sprouted from consciousness, and it is not real because it is only a notion.
From the notion arises the ego, the observer, the observation and the observed. It is
from here that the trouble starts. For the sage this trouble is not there; his observer,
observation and observed are all the same and therefore he is happy. He who is yet to
be awakened thinks, "I am the observer. This object which I am observing gives me
happiness. I experience that happiness." He is in trouble. He will have to get rid of his
own notions somehow, either by sitting with a saint or through investigation with his
own discrimination and discernment, or with the help of some wise people.

So in investigating how to get rid of this ego which brings diversity there are two
perspectives. In one there is no diversity. In the other, diversity and unity are the same;
like the river in the desert which is both real and not real. In this there may be many
diversities, but if you know their basis — the substratum from which they arise — you
know them all. The waves in the ocean are no different from their substance — water.
Many waves can exist without the oneness of the water being lost. In this diverse world
people may look different with different views, different shapes, different forms, but
their essence is still one. That essence is the same in all beings and non-beings. If you
are aware of this you are free, you are happy. You are eternally blissful because bliss
comes if you are aware of consciousness. There is no difference between bliss and
consciousness. If you know that the origin of all diversities and sufferings is
consciousness, you will not have any problem.

You must arrive at this, you must understand this, you must reach this — that the
underlying ground, the underlying essence is consciousness. When you look at people,
when you look at mountains, when you look at a river, when you look at your body you
must be conscious, you are conscious. You are conscious when you sleep, you are
conscious when you are awake, you are conscious of objects, you are conscious of your
activities. When you dream you are conscious of subtle activities, you are aware of
relationships within the dream. You are conscious of subjects and objects, of
experiences and objectivity, you are conscious of subjectivity. The basis of all activity is
consciousness. Also in deep sleep you are conscious for you wake up knowing that you
slept, that you had a peaceful sound sleep, you are conscious. All these three states are
projections of consciousness. It is within consciousness that all these things are floating
— they are all projected in front of it. That consciousness you are.

Transcending these three states there is a fourth state known as turiya. In this
transcendental state you are also aware. Beyond the fourth state, beyond turiya, there
is that which is not known to anyone. It is not known because that is the depth of

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consciousness. Even the word "consciousness" is no more found there. No words, no
experiences, no "I, you, he, or she" ever existed in this. This is your true nature. This is
the Truth. This is ultimate understanding. This is always eternally present. This is
presence itself. It is never absent at any time. This is called Truth. This is called
Freedom. This is called Wisdom.

Whatever Truth is must always be there, be here, be now, be everywhere. It must be

Omniscient. It must be Omnipresent. That which you are is Omniscience and
Omnipresence. You have to live playfully along with all these waves in different forms
and enjoy this — your happiness.

23 November, 1992

***

Practice and Non-Practice

Both practice and non-practice are false ideas. Abandon all discussions, discriminations,
concepts from the mind and you will possess all the dharmas; and such-ness, thus-ness
will possess you. Everything that you do thereafter will be in accordance to dharma and
your karmas have ceased to function.

Like the Buddha, he may have practiced when he left his palace. He has gone to
different centers, ashrams, teachers. He found that is not the way to be free. One after
the other he went on rejecting, and the last one was: they were doing very severe
penance, very severe penance they were doing, but even that he rejected — that was
not the way to be free, he decides himself. So he went to Bodgaya. And I don't think the
people attribute that he practiced meditation. I don't think it was a meditation. I think
he was very free at that time. And he rose up. And it was Ananda who asked him,
"Master, what's your experience?" He kept quiet. And this quietness is not yet
understood. Why did not reply? He gets up and then he went round the bodhi tree and
prostrating in ecstasy, you see, because he found freedom.

So likewise, if we practice we have already divided between us and reality. We have

created a wall between truth and ourselves, and we have preconceived the result. When
we sit for meditation already we have preconceived the result, the goal, the ideal which
we are going to attain after sometime. So what we think has to happen, so that pre-
concept is now postponement, and we are satisfied. Surely that's not going to be
freedom, maybe a concept of freedom. Freedom is absolutely immaculate, free of any
ideas, any notions. That's called Freedom, you see. Therefore by practice, if you practice
and we win freedom, freedom is not the result of any practice, you see; because it is
here and now. So whatever we attain after practice so it will be… it will be, you can say
within… within the practice that we have attained freedom. So freedom cannot be held
within any practice, you see. Because practice will lead you to something that can be
attained which was not attained before. Can we achieve it? After practice. But freedom is
not a concept, not an idea. Is already there before even you think and start practice,
freedom was already there. So you created division when you practiced, you see. So
freedom cannot be practiced. So when we give up the concept of freedom — absolutely
no idea, no concept of anything to attain or achieve — then we are empty-minded. Now
in the emptiness — in this emptiness, within the emptiness – there’ll be wave which will
rise from within the emptiness — it’s not from your side — that will be calling you. You
can call it source… source. And if you direct your mind towards this within the emptiness
that will pull you to freedom, you see. So it needs some absolute purity, absolute purity,
absolute devotion, absolute surrender to source — to freedom itself, you see. Without it,
it's not going to happen.

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Everywhere people are practicing. Everywhere practice is going on, in India and abroad.
So there was one man who practiced; for number of years he was practicing and in the
end what happened? One thought comes in his mind and he rose up and returned back
to his previous habits, you see. So, you can't suppress it also. When the mind is there,
"I want to be free." and if you practice it will not work. You have to wait for millions of
years to win freedom. You have to wait. Its better to wait and not impose on you, "I
have to be free this time." I see many people, "I want to be free. In different centers we
have been practicing freedom." I don't believe with this kind of behavior with this kind of
character, with this kind of relationship, how dare they can say, "We have been
practicing freedom and enlightenment."

It’s a very different story, you see — few here, there. How many buddhas we have
produced? This universe… how many buddhas have been produced by this universe? At
any center everybody says, “We went there.” Millions. One teacher has millions of
followers, you see, and everybody says, "We went for freedom." And they have been
coming here in large numbers and saying, "We came for freedom." Everybody said to
us, "We come for freedom." And they came squeezed, absolutely squeezed of their
bodies, squeezed of their minds, and squeezed of their intellects. You have to be very
healthy in mind, very healthy in body also. Perhaps there will be very helpful for you to
decide, "I want to be free." with the force of your previous karmas. And then you have
to sit quiet. A monkey cannot sit quiet, surely not! His habits have to be abandoned.
Mind is monkey, you see. How it can keep quiet, your see? So in satsang, this monkey
can be trained — the monkeys can be trained. But it is the satsang, in the satsang,
come to satsang and don't indulge for sometime. Keep quiet.

After all we are not doing any gymnastics here. And not therapies are working here, as
most of you have been doing — coming for freedom, lost in the therapies. How you can
claim that we are in this ashram to win freedom? Don't deceive your Self. You can
deceive others, you can deceive yourself, but you cannot deceive you own Self within.
So you have got to be honest. If there is time for you to be free, come to satsang.
Otherwise enjoy the world, enjoy the garden. This world is enough for those who are
thirsty of sensual pleasure. Enjoy as best as you can for millions of years, you see. So if
you're fed up with this, come here — sit quiet — and it doesn't take time.

Freedom is already there, you see. You have only to know that you are free. You have
never been bound. It was the desire, "I want this.” and “I want that." that you have to
abandon. And see… after this see, if you abandon this desire and then if the result is not
good return back to the world. It's always there. When you are not quiet there is world.
When you are quiet, if you don't like return back — if you like, stay on.

If you stay on you will see and you will notice for the first time that it never existed —
nothing ever existed — before, now and later. This is the ultimate truth that you have to
be told. When you see any form there is falsehood. What you have to do? If you simply
get rid of one thing — just form — for one instant of time you just abandon the concept
of form from your mind — for one second — and see if you are not happy. And form is
falsehood. Where there's a form there's falsehood, you see. And all forms are seen in
ignorance; and in wisdom there's no form, in light there is no form. So there's no
pressure on you. Do as you like.

Okay… Namaskar.

1 October, 1992

***

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 The Work Is Completed
From Silence you came and to Silence you return. This is the ultimate Truth.

The concept that there was any work to complete has in itself been completed. This is
all. What is there to complete? What was the work? To keep quiet. When you know this
you have completed everything. Otherwise you will be hitchhiking for millions of years
thinking that you have not completed your work. There is no work to be completed. The
idea that you have to complete some work — that you are bound, that you have to be
free — is all conceptual. You are fundamentally free all the time, and to know this is the
completion of everything. The only hindrance was that you thought that you were
bound. That was the obstacle. Removing this obstacle you can call, "completion of the
work."

Please remove all doubt by leaving it nowhere to reside. You call it doubt but there is no
doubt at all. What is meant by doubt? Will you have any doubt if someone says, "You
are not called so-and-so?" You know what your name is. In the same way you are That
itself. In a dream you forgot your real nature and doubt arose. You will have to either
remove doubt by yourself, or go to one who knows how to remove it — to one who will
help you remove your doubt. Nobody can change you; you will remain what you are. A
doubt arose: "I am not what I am." The idea that "I am the body." was this doubt. You
are the in-dweller of the body, not the body itself. This simple understanding comes
easily in satsang, but it will not arise outside in the world — or it will take millions of
years — simply because everybody is clinging to the concept that, "I am the body." In
actually you are not the body; you are the one who is aware of the body. When you are
aware of something it is an object in awareness. You are aware of everything including
the body. What is this awareness? Who is aware?

Do not think. Do not even meditate. Meditation means postponing for old age or at least
for next year that which is available now. Meditation means rejecting the rose flower and
hunting for the thorn. Don't meditate here. Just now! Sit quietly! Don't think! Whenever
you meditate you are postponing Now! Why postpone this until some other time, until
some other moment? Have you ever seen the next moment? Why not now? Isn't it
available now? What kind of meditation do you need? There are people here who have
been meditating for many years with all the teachers of the world and still they are not
free. Meditation is only postponement. You may have made a habit of sitting in
meditation every morning from six to eight, but the mind is very happy to have cheated
you. You can do everything — there are some very professional meditators here — but
still there is nothing inside.

You can complete this instantly because the Self — the Atman — is ever present. For
whom are you seeking through method, through meditation, through thought? For
whom? It is here and now. Even before you sit for meditation it is already here. Even the
instinct to meditate came from the same source, to find the same thing. You are running
away from it, never turning back. Whatever thought comes, whatever it is, even the
thought of meditation: Stop. Discover the source of these thoughts: "I have to meditate,
I have to be free. I need freedom." Keep quiet and wait. Find out from where these
thoughts are coming. Return back to the source of these same thoughts and tell me
what you see. What do you call this? Where will it lead you? It will strike at your mind
forever and you will become what you have always been. You will not find this through
any method. Don't be deceived once again by your mind.

You are here to be free in this very instant without doing anything, without even stirring
a single thought. That's why you are here. I don't tell you to go to the Himalayas or to
the caves or to the forest. I have seen many people with head hanging down doing
penance. I have seen many in the higher altitudes of the Himalayas. They did not

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discover freedom. It is here and now. What is there to think about this? Even without
thinking you are That. The habit of thinking, of doing something, is your only
impediment. Give at least one second to yourself without doing anything, without even
thinking. Do not make any kind of effort, and see the result.

5 December, 1992

***

Rid the Mind of Diseases

We cannot meditate because of the diseases of the mind. These diseases are attraction
and aversion, attachment and hate, anger and greed. For meditation you need a very
healthy mind.

We have to get rid of these diseases of the mind. How can we meditate when our mind
is diseased? While meditating you have to be very alert, vigilant and watchful so that for
a little time during meditation these diseases don't show up. In the beginning they may
trouble you, they may rise up, but gradually they will go on vanishing. When they have
vanished you will enjoy meditation while sitting, while walking, while talking, and at
work. Then meditation will become your nature — will be spontaneous without any effort
of sitting meditations.

There you will see your own Self which doesn't need any meditation. You will be one
with the Heart — the mind will merge into the heart and heart into the Self, and Self is
always free. The Self is always wisdom, light and freedom itself. You have to be careful
while meditating that these notions of attachment, hatred, greed and lust do not touch
you.

***

You Have a Raft to Cross

All the beings are wandering in this ocean of samsara. No one is happy, due to
psychological perversions, desires and hopes. No one can attain happiness until wisdom
is attained — until Self-knowledge is attained. We have spent millions of years searching
for peace, and we have not been successful so far because of hope, desire, diseases of
the mind.

It is not possible to get rid of this disease without Self-knowledge, without wisdom.
Everyone is spending years wandering endlessly. Fortunate is the one who knows that
he has a raft to cross this ocean, although most people do not make use of it. This
human body can be used as a raft to cross this miserable ocean where millions of jivas
are wandering in a blind well, without any result. The vehicle that you possess now could
not be built; this human body is not available to the eight million kinds of jivas out there
in the world, which we have passed through one by one. We have had every kind of
experience as we have passed through eight million species. The raft of this human body
was never available before, and if we don't make use of it we may not find it again.

Make the best of what is available to you to find wisdom, happiness, well-being and
beauty. It is easily available: The moment you give rise to the desire for freedom, from
that moment you are on the raft. It is this desire which leads you in search of a teacher,
to sit with the teacher and find the way to be happy.

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You may know how many people in the world from where you come from, the country,
can give rise to this desire, "Now I want to be free." So they go to search for a teacher
and to sit with the teacher and to consult with him; sit with him and find out the way
how to be happy. And you can do it wherever you are. If there are two good friends, by
mere conversation you can do it yourself. Mere conversations will be alright because if
someone has gone to a particular country and you have not gone, and he can explain to
you by a map and you can get at the map you will not have difficulty. So this mapping of
the association of some of your best friends with the conversation is called satsang.
Conversation with your own friends, conversation with the teacher, will help you and this
is called the raft to cross over this miserable samsara.

Without this desire I don't think that it is possible for any being to get out of this. All
beings are caught up in different kinds of desires for sense pleasures which are
impermanent. They are satisfied with that without knowing the consequences.

A man was walking in the forest and fell into a well which was covered by an overgrowth
of leaves and scrubs. While falling he caught hold of the root of a tree which was
growing into the well and so he felt safe. Looking down, he found that there was a
crocodile in the well which was waiting for him with open jaws. He felt very afraid.
Looking up he found a tiger looking over the side of the well. The tiger was hunting in
the night for some food in the forest and saw this man, but almost immediately he fell
into the well. Then he looked at the root he was hanging from and saw two rats gnawing
at it. But there was a beehive on a tree above the well and drop by drop the honey was
trickling down into his open mouth. He was very happy licking the honey.

This is our life. Day and night are the two rats cutting through the creeper of your life.
Every day and night that passes cuts into the creeper on which this life is hanging.
Below is death: the fear that "I am going to die.": the crocodile waiting tomorrow. Above
is the tiger: the fear of what is going to happen today. But we are happy licking the
honey: enjoying the pleasure of the senses. This is everyone's situation — ignoring the
trouble that is all around, trapped in the blind well of the mind.

The raft to save you is this body, the decision: "I have to be free during this incarnation
somehow." Make up your mind. You have done very well to be here. Out of six billion
people, how many even aspire for freedom? You have to be free right now, because you
will not find it elsewhere. You have not yet looked into your own treasure; you have
looked elsewhere and suffered. The treasure is within you, the diamond is within you, so
don't beg. Look within and instantly you are rich. No one knows this. With this treasure
within us we have still suffered due to the bad habits of wants and hopes of the mind.
This is the disease of the mind. Once you have found that you are atman, that you are
the substratum, you are at peace within yourself. Then everything that arises from the
Self will be fulfilled. It is not coming from the mind. That which arises from the mind and
hope will never satisfy you. We need some reliable person to set us straight.

There was a man who used to go on a pilgrimage to a South Indian temple from the
north. In India people go from the south to the north, from the east to the west for
pilgrimages; from Kashi to Rameshram, from Pouli to Dwarka. People would make
friends on such pilgrimages and every five or ten years they would make a trip together
to see some holy places and saints.

This man became friends with someone in the south; he used to stay with him when he
was on his pilgrimage. After an interval of ten years he went to the same family to visit.
The man's wife was there but in a miserable condition. She was working at the grinding
mill, washing the dishes of the neighbors. He inquired about his friend.

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The wife told him, "He died some seven years ago and now we are in trouble. I bring
some grains and make flour out of it. I bring some clothes to wash or go to work in
nearby houses, because I have three children who have not completed their education. I
have to earn money for their education. Now they are doing well at school, so I will be
able to find jobs for them." This man inquired, "Didn't my friend speak to you about
anything?" "No, no he didn't speak about anything," replied the widow. "Why, he simply
died."

The man who died had told his friend that he had some gold which he had hidden so
that his children would go to school and not think that their father had enough money to
support them. He wanted them to work. In olden times parents would often hide their
money so that the children would get a good education. And only after that would they
will give it to them, after the children were well educated and capable to conduct a
business or whatever they wanted to do. Then the father would hand over the money
and walk away into the forest. This was the tradition that was kept up for many years.

This friend of the family then told the widow that just under the spot where she was
grinding the flour in the mill there was hidden a pot full of gold. With this word alone she
jumped, even though the pot of gold was not yet found. Just the word of an
authoritative man, a friend of the family, brought great pleasure.

She called her sons. "Look, look, your uncle has come! He says that we are very rich.
There is gold hidden here. Bring a spade!" So they dug a few inches below the ground
where she had been toiling day and night and she found the pot of gold. Instantly she
became very rich. She had been willing to live in poverty; grinding at the mill, suffering
greatly to provide enough clothing for the children. At that same spot there was poverty
a few inches above the ground, and riches concealed a few inches underneath.

In this same way an authoritative person will tell you that there is a diamond within you,
that there is treasure within you. With this assurance alone a man can become very
happy. Dig it up! Take your spade and dig. You will find the treasure and then celebrate.
Here we celebrate every day, even though people do not understand why. This is cause
to celebrate: "I have found the treasure." Otherwise you will be like someone who finds
a diamond and doesn't know it is a diamond.

There was a very poor man who used to bring bricks from the kiln to the building site,
just making a few cents a day. While digging in the sands of the river he found a
diamond, but still he was very poor. He tied the beautiful stone around the neck of his
donkey and continued his miserable life. A merchant was passing and saw the situation.
"Look at that stupid man," he thought to himself. "He is doing menial work although he
owns this diamond." He asked the laborer how much he wanted for his donkey.

"Five dollars," said the laborer. That was the price of donkeys at that time. The
merchant paid the price and the laborer was very happy. Then he removed the string
with the diamond from around the neck of the donkey and walked away. "What a foolish
man," thought the laborer. "What about the donkey?" he asked. "I didn't pay for the
donkey," said the merchant. "You can keep the donkey with you, but I will still pay you a
few hundred dollars for your stupidity." Both were happy. Some who come to satsang
say they feel very happy here but when they go back to their country they are the same
as before. This is the same stupidity — not knowing that the treasure is within you.

Once you know from an authority that this is the treasure it will shine by itself. The
diamond will shine from its own luster, without looking for any help from anyone. You
will not need to ask any questions. You will fall in love with it and perhaps you will not
turn your attention away from it again, because it is so beautiful. Then you will never
make a mistake again.

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Trouble arises for those who say, "Sometimes I am happy and sometimes I am not."
When they are unhappy it is because unhappiness is arising from the mind, and when
they are happy it is arising from the Self. The Self alone can give you happiness. All
happiness is from the Self. All trouble, sorrow and suffering is from the mind. You have
to be very careful to be vigilant to see what is coming from the mind, and to see the
happiness that is coming from the Self.

Even in small things this is true. You might purchase a car or buy an apartment or meet
a friend and you are happy. Why do these things bring you happiness? You are attracted
to a particular person, or to a particular car, or to a particular apartment made of bricks
and cement. It is not the steel, the rubber, or the benzene that brings happiness with
the car. Nor is it the bones, flesh, blood, or marrow in a person. When you are happy
you recognize the Self within the self, and you are free of desire. When you get a car
your hope is gone, your desire for the car has left you. When you meet a friend your
desire for the meeting is no longer there. When you buy an apartment your wanting to
have an apartment is no longer there. This emptiness without desire or hope has given
you happiness. If you know that it is this emptiness from the hope and desire that brings
you happiness then you can always keep your mind empty. Then where is the problem
to be happy wherever you are — walking, talking, sitting, standing, sleeping — you can
be happy.

This moment you can try for one instant to not entertain any hope, any desire, and see
what happens. The Self will reveal itself, the Truth will reveal itself to itself. This can be
seen directly here and now. Don't postpone it when you can simply get be happy without
doing anything. Why miss it? This is the raft I speak about: Simply keep quiet.

14 December, 1992

http://www.satsangbhavan.net/

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