There is no such state as seeing the real. Who is to see what? You can only be the real, which you are, anyhow. The problem is not mental. Abandon false ideas, that is all. There is no need of true ideas. There aren't any.
Relatively, yes [there can be true knowledge of things]. Absolutely, there are no things. To know that nothing is is true knowledge.
As long as you are engrossed in the world, you are unable to know yourself: to know yourself, turn away your attention from the world and turn it within.
You may know all the right words, quote the scriptures, be brilliant in your discussions and yet remain a bag of bones. Or you may be inconspicuous and humble, an insignificant person altogether, yet glowing with loving kindness and deep wisdom.
Just as every drop of the ocean carries the taste of the ocean, so does every moment carry the taste of eternity. Definitions and descriptions have their place as useful incentives for further search, but you must go beyond them into what is undefinable and indescribable, except in negative terms.
Mere knowledge is not enough; the knower must be known. The pandits and yogis may know many things, but of what use is mere knowledge when the self is not known? It will be certainly misused. Without the knowledge of the knower there can be no peace.
A general longing for liberation is only the beginning; to find the proper means and use them is the next step. The seeker has only one goal in view: to find his own true being. Of all desires it is the most ambitious, for nothing and nobody can satisfy it; the seeker and the sought are one, and the search alone matters.
The remedy lies in clarity and integrity of thinking. Try to understand that you live in a world of illusions, examine them and uncover their roots. The very attempt to do so will make you earnest, for there is bliss in right endeavour.
It is the absolute in you that takes you to the absolute beyond you - absolute truth, love, selflessness are the decissive factors in self-realization. With earnestness these can be reached.
Your first task is to see the sorrow in you and around you; your next, to long intensely for liberation. The very intensity of longing will guide you; you need no other guide.
Try. One step at a time is easy. Energy flows from earnestness.
To find reality you must be real in the smallest daily action; there can be no deceit in the search for truth.
You must find your own way. Unless you find it yourself, it will not be your own way and will take you nowhere. Earnestly live your truth as you have found it, act on the little you have understood. It is earnestness that will take you through, not cleverness - your own or another's.
It is earnestness that is indispensable, the crucial factor. Sadhana is only a vessel and it must be filled to the brim with earnestness, which is but love in action. For nothing can be done without love.
[The person is removed] by determination. Understand that it must go and wish it to go - it shall go if you are earnest about it.
Earnestness is not a yearning for the fruits of one's endeavours. It is an expression of an inner shift of interest away from the false, the unessential, the personal.
For this [self-realization], you need a well-ordered and quiet life, peace of mind and immense earnestness.
Once you realize that the body depends on the mind, and the mind on consciousness, and consciousness on awareness, and not the other way round, your question about waiting for self-realization till you die is answered. It is not that you must be free from the "I-am-the-body" idea first, and then realize the self. It is definitely the other way round - you cling to the false because you do not know the true. Earnestness, not perfection, is a precondition to self-realization. Virtues and powers come with realization, not before.
Keep the "I am" in the focus of awareness, remember that you are , watch yourself ceaselessly and the unconscious will flow into the conscious without any special effort on your part.
Abandon every attempt, just be; don't strive, don't struggle, let go every support, hold on to the blind sense of being, brushing off all else. This is enough.
It is your idea that you have to do things that entangle you in the results of your efforts - the motive, the desire, the failure to achieve, the sense of frustration - all this holds you back. Simply look at whatever happens and know that you are beyond it.
It has nothing to do with effort. Just turn away, look between the thoughts, rather than at the thoughts. When you happen to walk in a crowd, you do not fight every man you meet, you just find your way between. When you fight, you invite a fight. But when you do not resist, you meet no resistance. When you refuse to play the game, you are out of it.
There is nothing to do. Just be. Do nothing. Be. No climbing mountains and sitting in caves. I do not even say: "be yourself", since you do not know yourself. Just be. Having seen that you are neither the "outer" world of perceivables, not the "inner" world of thinkables, that you are neither body nor mind, just be.
Stay open and quiet, that is all. What you seek is so near you that there is no place for a way.
Life itself is desireless. But the false self wants to continue - pleasantly. Therefore, it is always engaged in ensuring one's continuity. Life is unafraid and free. As long as you have the idea of influencing events, liberation is not for you: the very notion of doership, of being a cause, is bondage.
Death is natural, the manner of dying is man-made. The real does not die, the unreal never lived. Set your mind right and all will be right. When you know that the world is one, that humanity is one, you will act accordingly. But first of all you must attend to the way you feel, think and live. Unless there is order in yourself, there can be no order in the world.