When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree.
The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You are too this, or I’m too this.’ That judgment mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.
The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You are too this, or I’m too this.’ That judgment mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.
Don't fight with anything in creation...nothing is wrong with emotion, only don't tie yourself to good or bad.
Don't cling to anything.
There is no commandment: 'Thou shalt not feel.'
Feelings belong to the totality, like everything else in manifestation, they have their place, leave them there.
Even if you could embrace the entire universe, it would not add up to your Self...Nothing does.
Be very clear about this...
Don't cling to anything.
There is no commandment: 'Thou shalt not feel.'
Feelings belong to the totality, like everything else in manifestation, they have their place, leave them there.
Even if you could embrace the entire universe, it would not add up to your Self...Nothing does.
Be very clear about this...
Right and wrong,
pleasure and pain,
exist in mind only.
They are not your concern.
You neither do nor enjoy.
You are free.
You are the solitary Witness
of All that is,
forever free.
Your only bondage is
not seeing This.
The thought, “I am the doer,”
is the bite of a poisonous snake.
To know, “I do nothing,”
is the wisdom of faith.
Be happy.
A single understanding,
"I am the One Awareness,"
consumes all suffering
in the fire of an instant.
Be happy.
pleasure and pain,
exist in mind only.
They are not your concern.
You neither do nor enjoy.
You are free.
You are the solitary Witness
of All that is,
forever free.
Your only bondage is
not seeing This.
The thought, “I am the doer,”
is the bite of a poisonous snake.
To know, “I do nothing,”
is the wisdom of faith.
Be happy.
A single understanding,
"I am the One Awareness,"
consumes all suffering
in the fire of an instant.
Be happy.
A society that keeps cures a secret so they can continue to sell medication for huge profits is not a real society but a huge mental asylum.
Life is very short in this body and all of the things
you're going through will soon come to an end.
If you have not made any spiritual headway
you will be under the delusion of karma.
And you will return again and again in a delusory body form
going through many experiences that appear real to you.
The only way for it to come to an end is to give it all up now.
Make up your mind that this is going to become the year for you
to totally become realized. To awaken totally.
And by following the three precepts as outlined,
this will happen to you faster than you can breath,
if you allow it to.
Do not allow the world to run your life.
Do not let the world fool you.
All this is an illusion.
Be yourself. Know yourself.
Realize that you are Brahman, the pure awareness.
Your nature is pure consciousness
and one day you will have to awaken.
So why not begin now. Why wait?
T.117: Three Precepts For Self Realization
you're going through will soon come to an end.
If you have not made any spiritual headway
you will be under the delusion of karma.
And you will return again and again in a delusory body form
going through many experiences that appear real to you.
The only way for it to come to an end is to give it all up now.
Make up your mind that this is going to become the year for you
to totally become realized. To awaken totally.
And by following the three precepts as outlined,
this will happen to you faster than you can breath,
if you allow it to.
Do not allow the world to run your life.
Do not let the world fool you.
All this is an illusion.
Be yourself. Know yourself.
Realize that you are Brahman, the pure awareness.
Your nature is pure consciousness
and one day you will have to awaken.
So why not begin now. Why wait?
T.117: Three Precepts For Self Realization
Gyana, karma and meditation are closely connected. The difference is only about sattva (quality of purity, harmony), rajas (quality of activity, passion, anxiety) and tamas (quality of inertness, stuggishness, ignorance, darkness, perishable nature).
The prevalence of gyana is the prevalence of sattva, the prevalence of karma is the prevalence of rajas, and the prevalence of meditation is the prevalence of tamas. This is a terminology.
The prevalence of gyana is the prevalence of sattva, the prevalence of karma is the prevalence of rajas, and the prevalence of meditation is the prevalence of tamas. This is a terminology.
There is neither creation nor destruction, neither destiny nor free will, neither path nor achievement. This is the final truth.
The veil between you and God is only doubt.
I don’t know what kundalini is.
Sri Ramana Maharshi :
Kundalini is one name
given by the yogic people for
what may be called the atma sakti inside the body.
The vichara school calls the same power jnana.
The bhakta calls it love or bhakti.
The yogic school says that
this power is dormant in muladhara
at the base of the spinal cord and
that it must be
roused and taken through the various chakras
on to sahasrara at the top,
in the brain,
to attain moksha.
The jnanis think this power is centred in the heart, and so on.
~ Day by day with Bhagavan, 11-11-45
Sri Ramana Maharshi :
Kundalini is one name
given by the yogic people for
what may be called the atma sakti inside the body.
The vichara school calls the same power jnana.
The bhakta calls it love or bhakti.
The yogic school says that
this power is dormant in muladhara
at the base of the spinal cord and
that it must be
roused and taken through the various chakras
on to sahasrara at the top,
in the brain,
to attain moksha.
The jnanis think this power is centred in the heart, and so on.
~ Day by day with Bhagavan, 11-11-45
Yoga Väsiştha Săra Sangraha
एवमुक्तो वसिष्ठेन रामो दाशरथिस्तदा।
सर्वैषणा-विनिर्मुक्तो विनयादिदमब्रवीत् ॥
Thus instructed by Vasistha-ji, Rāma, the son of Dasaratha, who was freed from all desires, replied with humility.
Śri Rāma awoke from his samādhi and listened with attention to Vasiştha-ji.
sarvaişaņā-vinirmuktaḥ - Free from all desires,
A person has innumerable desires. These are categorized into three.
a) vittaişaņā -- the desire for wealth, possessions, security and comfort.
b) putraişaņā -- the desire for progeny, relations, pleasure.
c) lokaişaņā -- the desire for name, fame, status, recognition, power and heaven.
One or the other of these dominates our lives. A seeker of Truth may overcome the desire for wealth and progeny but the desire for name and recognition may still remain deep-rooted. Śri Rāma was free from all the three types of desires.
*vinayād idam abravīt* -- He spoke with humility. For the ignorant people a few university degrees and the knowledge of some information bring pride. They feel superior to others and look down upon those with a little less knowledge.
However, only true knowledge brings humility (vidyā dadāti vinayam).
Srī Rāma was already humble by nature and with Self-knowledge he became totally egoless.
Jai Shree Ram
Ref. -
Yoga Vashishtha Saar Sangraha, Chapter 7, Verse 12
Swami Tejomayananda Ji
एवमुक्तो वसिष्ठेन रामो दाशरथिस्तदा।
सर्वैषणा-विनिर्मुक्तो विनयादिदमब्रवीत् ॥
Thus instructed by Vasistha-ji, Rāma, the son of Dasaratha, who was freed from all desires, replied with humility.
Śri Rāma awoke from his samādhi and listened with attention to Vasiştha-ji.
sarvaişaņā-vinirmuktaḥ - Free from all desires,
A person has innumerable desires. These are categorized into three.
a) vittaişaņā -- the desire for wealth, possessions, security and comfort.
b) putraişaņā -- the desire for progeny, relations, pleasure.
c) lokaişaņā -- the desire for name, fame, status, recognition, power and heaven.
One or the other of these dominates our lives. A seeker of Truth may overcome the desire for wealth and progeny but the desire for name and recognition may still remain deep-rooted. Śri Rāma was free from all the three types of desires.
*vinayād idam abravīt* -- He spoke with humility. For the ignorant people a few university degrees and the knowledge of some information bring pride. They feel superior to others and look down upon those with a little less knowledge.
However, only true knowledge brings humility (vidyā dadāti vinayam).
Srī Rāma was already humble by nature and with Self-knowledge he became totally egoless.
Jai Shree Ram
Ref. -
Yoga Vashishtha Saar Sangraha, Chapter 7, Verse 12
Swami Tejomayananda Ji
The unconditioned mind intuits truth.
Truth comes when your mind and heart are purged of all sense of striving and you are no longer trying to become somebody; it is there when the mind is very quiet, listening timelessly to everything.
Truth comes when your mind and heart are purged of all sense of striving and you are no longer trying to become somebody; it is there when the mind is very quiet, listening timelessly to everything.
There is noble virtue in unshakable endurance of whatever comes, but there is also dignity in refusal of meaningless torture and humiliation.
The mind is here to test you,
to try and create doubt in you,
to challenge your strength.
You must transcend every doubt
concerning who you are.
Doubts about other things you can afford,
but doubts about yourself,
you must clarify until delusions end.
You are the immutable awareness,
not the psychological mind.
As soon as you are clear about this,
mind begins to merge with you
as the single Being.
White Fire ~ Second Edition
to try and create doubt in you,
to challenge your strength.
You must transcend every doubt
concerning who you are.
Doubts about other things you can afford,
but doubts about yourself,
you must clarify until delusions end.
You are the immutable awareness,
not the psychological mind.
As soon as you are clear about this,
mind begins to merge with you
as the single Being.
White Fire ~ Second Edition
Настоящий друг — это человек, который выскажет тебе в глаза все, что о тебе думает, а всем скажет, что ты — замечательный человек.
Если бы кто-нибудь в битве тысячекратно победил тысячу людей, а другой победил бы себя одного, то именно этот другой — величайший победитель в битве.
Четко сформулированная, озарённая мысль может быть видима как искра света.
Никогда не вмешивайся в чужое страдание. Человек должен устать от самого себя и испить положенную ему чашу яда.
Не будь самоуверен и не надейся, что ты сможешь кому-то помочь.
Помочь можно только тому, кто готов к помощи. Страдающий человек видит мир через свою боль, а значит он глух и слеп. Каждый тащит за собой свой жизненный опыт, не видя, что это мёртвый груз, который лежит на его плечах. Если ты попытаешься вмешаться в чужое страдание, то оно затянет тебя кармическим вихрем в чужую игру. Человек заразен своим страданием - помни это.
Иди своим Путём и не оборачивайся на людскую боль. Только если ты найдёшь свой Путь, ты сможешь помочь людям превзойти себя.
Не будь самоуверен и не надейся, что ты сможешь кому-то помочь.
Помочь можно только тому, кто готов к помощи. Страдающий человек видит мир через свою боль, а значит он глух и слеп. Каждый тащит за собой свой жизненный опыт, не видя, что это мёртвый груз, который лежит на его плечах. Если ты попытаешься вмешаться в чужое страдание, то оно затянет тебя кармическим вихрем в чужую игру. Человек заразен своим страданием - помни это.
Иди своим Путём и не оборачивайся на людскую боль. Только если ты найдёшь свой Путь, ты сможешь помочь людям превзойти себя.
Either you remain forever hungry and thirsty, longing, searching, grabbing, holding, ever losing and sorrowing, or go out whole-heartedly in search of the state of timeless perfection to which nothing can be added, from which nothing -- taken away. In it all desires and fears are absent, not because they were given up, but because they have lost their meaning.
You say you try to slow down the mind enough so you can stay in the Self, but there is no need to ‘slow down the mind’ for this. The mind has never been able to stay in the Self by effort. This is all due to much misunderstanding. Please listen:
to stay in something is an effort. It requires a dedication and a skill.
It would require full time commitment, devotion, determination, single-mindedness. Even the Buddha could not do it. People have spent many years naked in caves trying to convert or merge the mind inside the heart, and have failed. They may have achieved something they did not have before, like peace or concentration or even joy, but they retain their identity as a seeker or practitioner—an entity who attains something. They may become a peaceful person, but there is a duality there. They must Be the peace itself. The Self cannot be reached or owned by anyone. It can only be discovered and recognised as the effortless and natural source of all which Is and appears.
How do you ask something as fickle as the mind to stay in something as absolute as the Self?
Isn’t it all a little ridiculous?
to stay in something is an effort. It requires a dedication and a skill.
It would require full time commitment, devotion, determination, single-mindedness. Even the Buddha could not do it. People have spent many years naked in caves trying to convert or merge the mind inside the heart, and have failed. They may have achieved something they did not have before, like peace or concentration or even joy, but they retain their identity as a seeker or practitioner—an entity who attains something. They may become a peaceful person, but there is a duality there. They must Be the peace itself. The Self cannot be reached or owned by anyone. It can only be discovered and recognised as the effortless and natural source of all which Is and appears.
How do you ask something as fickle as the mind to stay in something as absolute as the Self?
Isn’t it all a little ridiculous?
Mantras are the purest form of universal vibrations, or shakti, the profundity of which was experienced by the Rishis in deep meditation. Mantra is the power of the universe in seed form. That is why they are known as bijaksharas (seed letters). Having gone through that experience, they offered these pure sounds to humanity. However, verbally encapsulating an experience, particularly the most profound of all experiences, is not so easy. So, the mantras we have are the closest sounds to the universal sound that the compassionate Rishis could verbally create for the benefit of the world. However, the fact still remains that the fullness of a mantra can only be experienced when your. mind attains perfect purity.
RAMANA MAHARSHI : HIS LIFE by Gabriele Ebert.
It is reported that Sri Ramana appeared to some devotees in the form of God or light. His mother once saw Ramana as Shiva, with a garland of snakes, then again she saw him in the form of light. Ganapati Muni and others had different visions of him too. When Roda McIver met Maharshi for the first time, he appeared to her as a splendid light. She reports, “Bhagavan had gone up the hill when I arrived, and I was told to wait on the footpath for His return. I did not see Him coming, but suddenly I saw a brilliant light before me, like the sun rising. I lifted my head and saw Bhagavan standing before me. He looked at me, nodded and smiled. At that moment I felt something happening in me which I had never experienced before in my life! The Sun that He was, He revealed at that moment that He was the Light, the Fire of Knowledge!”
It is also reported that people were healed in the presence of the Maharshi. As, for example, a little boy, whose name was also Ramana and who had been bitten by some kind of poisonous animal. When the parents brought the boy to the Maharshi he was already unconscious and had almost stopped breathing. Sri Ramana passed his hands over the boy’s body saying, “It is nothing. He will be all right.” And indeed, little Ramana soon recovered.
M.A. Piggot reports a similar occurrence. Someone had brought a man into the Hall who had been bitten by a snake and lay him down before Sri Ramana. “We all watched, fear gripping our hearts. Not so he, who sat looking into the far distance while the victim writhed in pain. Calm and compassion was in that look, and infinite peace. After what seemed like hours, the twitching ceased and the man appeared to sleep. Then the one who had brought in the sufferer gently touched him. The man rose, prostrated himself before the Maharshi and went out cured.”
It is reported that Sri Ramana appeared to some devotees in the form of God or light. His mother once saw Ramana as Shiva, with a garland of snakes, then again she saw him in the form of light. Ganapati Muni and others had different visions of him too. When Roda McIver met Maharshi for the first time, he appeared to her as a splendid light. She reports, “Bhagavan had gone up the hill when I arrived, and I was told to wait on the footpath for His return. I did not see Him coming, but suddenly I saw a brilliant light before me, like the sun rising. I lifted my head and saw Bhagavan standing before me. He looked at me, nodded and smiled. At that moment I felt something happening in me which I had never experienced before in my life! The Sun that He was, He revealed at that moment that He was the Light, the Fire of Knowledge!”
It is also reported that people were healed in the presence of the Maharshi. As, for example, a little boy, whose name was also Ramana and who had been bitten by some kind of poisonous animal. When the parents brought the boy to the Maharshi he was already unconscious and had almost stopped breathing. Sri Ramana passed his hands over the boy’s body saying, “It is nothing. He will be all right.” And indeed, little Ramana soon recovered.
M.A. Piggot reports a similar occurrence. Someone had brought a man into the Hall who had been bitten by a snake and lay him down before Sri Ramana. “We all watched, fear gripping our hearts. Not so he, who sat looking into the far distance while the victim writhed in pain. Calm and compassion was in that look, and infinite peace. After what seemed like hours, the twitching ceased and the man appeared to sleep. Then the one who had brought in the sufferer gently touched him. The man rose, prostrated himself before the Maharshi and went out cured.”
CONVERSATIONS WITH ANNAMALAI SWAMI
SICKNESS OF JNANIS
Q: In order to have realized the Self, jnanis must have done a lot of punyas (merit) and tapas (practice) in their previous lives. If jnanis experience the fruits of all their previous punyas in their last life, they all ought to have very enjoyable last lives. This does not appear to be the case. Many of them get very sick. They often have to put up with a lot of body problems.
AS: There are several reasons for this. Sometimes Self-realization makes the body very weak. Bhagavan's body used to shake a lot. When he was asked about this he would sometimes say, 'If an elephant enters a weak hut, what will happen to the hut?' The elephant was Self-realization and the weak hut was his body.
Some jnanis take on the karma of some of their disciples and experience it themselves in the form of sickness. In such cases, the sickness cannot be attributed to anything that happened in the jnanis previous lives.
Most jnanis have got rid of most of their karma, both good and bad before they even start on their last life. They have all done tapas in their previous lives. By the time their last life starts they often have very little karma left. Only a few, like Vidyaranya Swami, have a lot of punya as left to enjoy.
Vidyaranya Swami lived several centuries ago. In one lifetime, when he was very poor and hungry, one of his gurus initiated him and told him to do upasana [meditation] on the Goddess Lakshmi [the goddess of wealth]. He did that upasana for years, hoping to get rich, but no wealth came to him in that lifetime.
In one of his subsequent births, he received initiation from a
jnani, did a lot of meditation and finally realized the Self. After realization, he was established in a state of total desirelessness. It was only after his realization that his previous upasana on Lakshmi started to bear fruit.
Sometime after his realization, gold started to fall from the sky into the city where he was living. Vidyaranya Swami realized that this was happening because of his previous meditations, but because he no longer had any desires, he no longer had any interest in accumulating money or gold. He told the king that the golden rain was falling on account of his previous tapas. He also made it clear that he didn't want any of gold for himself. The king announced that the people in the city could keep any gold which had fallen on their own property. He reserved the gold which had fallen on public property for his own use. The king later used his own share of the gold to build new temples and tanks.
The king took the gold which had fallen on the streets and made gold bricks out of it. In order to test whether Vidyaranya Swami was really desireless, the king put some of these bricks outside Vidyaranya Swami's house. Then he and his wife secretly watched to see what he would do with them. Vidyaranya Swami eventually came out of his house, saw the bricks and squatted on while he defecated. Because he no longer had any interest in money, that was the only useful thing he could do with them.
- Living by the Words of Bhagavan, p. 276
SICKNESS OF JNANIS
Q: In order to have realized the Self, jnanis must have done a lot of punyas (merit) and tapas (practice) in their previous lives. If jnanis experience the fruits of all their previous punyas in their last life, they all ought to have very enjoyable last lives. This does not appear to be the case. Many of them get very sick. They often have to put up with a lot of body problems.
AS: There are several reasons for this. Sometimes Self-realization makes the body very weak. Bhagavan's body used to shake a lot. When he was asked about this he would sometimes say, 'If an elephant enters a weak hut, what will happen to the hut?' The elephant was Self-realization and the weak hut was his body.
Some jnanis take on the karma of some of their disciples and experience it themselves in the form of sickness. In such cases, the sickness cannot be attributed to anything that happened in the jnanis previous lives.
Most jnanis have got rid of most of their karma, both good and bad before they even start on their last life. They have all done tapas in their previous lives. By the time their last life starts they often have very little karma left. Only a few, like Vidyaranya Swami, have a lot of punya as left to enjoy.
Vidyaranya Swami lived several centuries ago. In one lifetime, when he was very poor and hungry, one of his gurus initiated him and told him to do upasana [meditation] on the Goddess Lakshmi [the goddess of wealth]. He did that upasana for years, hoping to get rich, but no wealth came to him in that lifetime.
In one of his subsequent births, he received initiation from a
jnani, did a lot of meditation and finally realized the Self. After realization, he was established in a state of total desirelessness. It was only after his realization that his previous upasana on Lakshmi started to bear fruit.
Sometime after his realization, gold started to fall from the sky into the city where he was living. Vidyaranya Swami realized that this was happening because of his previous meditations, but because he no longer had any desires, he no longer had any interest in accumulating money or gold. He told the king that the golden rain was falling on account of his previous tapas. He also made it clear that he didn't want any of gold for himself. The king announced that the people in the city could keep any gold which had fallen on their own property. He reserved the gold which had fallen on public property for his own use. The king later used his own share of the gold to build new temples and tanks.
The king took the gold which had fallen on the streets and made gold bricks out of it. In order to test whether Vidyaranya Swami was really desireless, the king put some of these bricks outside Vidyaranya Swami's house. Then he and his wife secretly watched to see what he would do with them. Vidyaranya Swami eventually came out of his house, saw the bricks and squatted on while he defecated. Because he no longer had any interest in money, that was the only useful thing he could do with them.
- Living by the Words of Bhagavan, p. 276
MAYA
Of all the aspects of Advaita philosophy that of Maya is the most difficult to understand, still more to explain. Some interpret it as ignorance, others as dream, others still as illusion, and nothing but experience can explain it satisfactorily. In the meantime considerable misunderstanding is created by explanations – the more it is explained, the more obscure it becomes.
In one of the Ashrams I visited in 1939 I met a Canadian lady. She had come to India “in search of Truth,” and had visited many yogis and Ashrams, the last of which was the Ramakrishna Mutt in Madras. We talked as usual on yoga, meditation, etc., but when I mentioned the word “maya”, she gasped, clutched her throat, and dropped her voice: “Don’t say it,” she whispered, “those people of Ramakrishna Mission were about to destroy me, but God came to my rescue and I escaped.”
I: How do you mean, did they want to kill you? They are sannyasis.
She: Not my body, but my soul. They told me that nothing exists: no world, no human beings, no trees, nothing, nothing – all is illusion, all my own imagination and that I cannot kill the illusion till I surrender myself. Where will I be without my soul and mind?
I had no alternative but to change the subject.
But Sri Bhagavan’s explanations are superb, as will be seen from the following dialogues.
15th April 1937
1. Mr. C. wanted to know the mystery of this gigantic world illusion.
C. We speak of the world as illusion, yet everything in it follows rigid laws, which proves it to be well-planned and well-regulated.
Bhagavan: Yes, he who projected the illusion gave it the appearance of order and sound planning.
C. All spiritual institutions except the Advaitic give prominence to the creative aspect of Reality, which they name God. They speak of prophets, saints, scriptures, etc. Are they all illusion?
Bhagavan: They all exist in the same way as you, the questioner, exist. You are in the relative world, so they are; or else you would not have known of them. In dreams, one also sees a well-regulated world with saints, scriptures, etc., but the moment one wakes up they all disappear. So also waking from this dream world into the Supreme Consciousness causes them all to disappear.
C: But how out of Truth does illusion, falsehood spring up?
Bhagavan: Maya is not falsehood, although it has the appearance of it, but the active side of Reality. It is the maker of forms in Consciousness and form means variety, which causes illusion – mind you, all this variety is in consciousness and nowhere else; it is only in the mind. One jiva, seeing another jiva, forgets its identity with it and thinks of it as separate from itself.
But the moment it turns its attention on its own nature as consciousness, and not as form, the illusion of diversity or separateness breaks as a dream breaks when waking takes place.
C. It is hard to conceive God, the formless, giving rise to forms.
Bhagavan: Why hard? Does not your mind remain formless when you do not perceive or think, say, in deep sleep, in samadhi, or in a swoon? And does it not create space and relationship when it thinks and impels your body to act?
Just as your mind devises and your body executes in one homogeneous, automatic act, so automatic, in fact, that most people are not aware of the process, so does the Divine Intelligence devise and plan and His Energy automatically and spontaneously acts – the thought and the act are one integral whole. This Creative Energy which is implicit in Pure Intelligence is called by various names, one of which is maya or shakti, the Creator of forms or images.
Of all the aspects of Advaita philosophy that of Maya is the most difficult to understand, still more to explain. Some interpret it as ignorance, others as dream, others still as illusion, and nothing but experience can explain it satisfactorily. In the meantime considerable misunderstanding is created by explanations – the more it is explained, the more obscure it becomes.
In one of the Ashrams I visited in 1939 I met a Canadian lady. She had come to India “in search of Truth,” and had visited many yogis and Ashrams, the last of which was the Ramakrishna Mutt in Madras. We talked as usual on yoga, meditation, etc., but when I mentioned the word “maya”, she gasped, clutched her throat, and dropped her voice: “Don’t say it,” she whispered, “those people of Ramakrishna Mission were about to destroy me, but God came to my rescue and I escaped.”
I: How do you mean, did they want to kill you? They are sannyasis.
She: Not my body, but my soul. They told me that nothing exists: no world, no human beings, no trees, nothing, nothing – all is illusion, all my own imagination and that I cannot kill the illusion till I surrender myself. Where will I be without my soul and mind?
I had no alternative but to change the subject.
But Sri Bhagavan’s explanations are superb, as will be seen from the following dialogues.
15th April 1937
1. Mr. C. wanted to know the mystery of this gigantic world illusion.
C. We speak of the world as illusion, yet everything in it follows rigid laws, which proves it to be well-planned and well-regulated.
Bhagavan: Yes, he who projected the illusion gave it the appearance of order and sound planning.
C. All spiritual institutions except the Advaitic give prominence to the creative aspect of Reality, which they name God. They speak of prophets, saints, scriptures, etc. Are they all illusion?
Bhagavan: They all exist in the same way as you, the questioner, exist. You are in the relative world, so they are; or else you would not have known of them. In dreams, one also sees a well-regulated world with saints, scriptures, etc., but the moment one wakes up they all disappear. So also waking from this dream world into the Supreme Consciousness causes them all to disappear.
C: But how out of Truth does illusion, falsehood spring up?
Bhagavan: Maya is not falsehood, although it has the appearance of it, but the active side of Reality. It is the maker of forms in Consciousness and form means variety, which causes illusion – mind you, all this variety is in consciousness and nowhere else; it is only in the mind. One jiva, seeing another jiva, forgets its identity with it and thinks of it as separate from itself.
But the moment it turns its attention on its own nature as consciousness, and not as form, the illusion of diversity or separateness breaks as a dream breaks when waking takes place.
C. It is hard to conceive God, the formless, giving rise to forms.
Bhagavan: Why hard? Does not your mind remain formless when you do not perceive or think, say, in deep sleep, in samadhi, or in a swoon? And does it not create space and relationship when it thinks and impels your body to act?
Just as your mind devises and your body executes in one homogeneous, automatic act, so automatic, in fact, that most people are not aware of the process, so does the Divine Intelligence devise and plan and His Energy automatically and spontaneously acts – the thought and the act are one integral whole. This Creative Energy which is implicit in Pure Intelligence is called by various names, one of which is maya or shakti, the Creator of forms or images.
You are so used to the support of concepts that when your concepts leave you, although it is your true state, you get frightened and try to cling to them again.
The Master is a skillful sculptor. Sometimes he has to hit parts of the boulder very hard with a hammer and chisel. He gently taps on other areas of the boulder. Some parts need to be completely removed, while other areas just need polishing. Like this, the Sadguru is a divine sculptor who brings out the magnificent sculpture hidden within the boulder.
If you make human company too important
you will not discover your true Self.
Relationships not based in Truth
are never entirely reliable
and are rarely enduring.
Taking time to discover yourself is the best use of time.
Prioritise this.
One should not excessively seek partners or friends,
one should seek to know and be oneself.
As you begin to awaken to the Truth,
you start noticing how well life flows by itself
and how well you are cared for.
Life supports the physical, emotional,
mental and spiritual needs of the one
who is open to self-discovery.
Trust opens your eyes to the recognition of this.
Surrender allows you to merge in your own eternal being.
you will not discover your true Self.
Relationships not based in Truth
are never entirely reliable
and are rarely enduring.
Taking time to discover yourself is the best use of time.
Prioritise this.
One should not excessively seek partners or friends,
one should seek to know and be oneself.
As you begin to awaken to the Truth,
you start noticing how well life flows by itself
and how well you are cared for.
Life supports the physical, emotional,
mental and spiritual needs of the one
who is open to self-discovery.
Trust opens your eyes to the recognition of this.
Surrender allows you to merge in your own eternal being.
Beings
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