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Know the world in yourself. Never look for yourself in the world, for this would be to project your illusion.
As long as the body is existing, there will continue to be a kind of maturing taking place, becoming deeper and deeper, and purer and purer, against a background of unchanging awareness. You can only contemplate and keep contemplating, because in your contemplation you'll find, 'I'm here'. And whatever will happen, next, you're not concerned about.
Stillness is your essential nature. What is stillness? The inner space or awareness in which the words on this page are bieng perceived and become thoughts. Without that awareness, there would be no perception, no thoughts, no world. You are that awareness, disguised as a person.
Step into my hut.
You will enter as you are,
but you must come out the other end without ‘you’
for this is not your true Self.
You have been living only in the idea of yourself and this is not freedom; not truth.
You don’t need to have much time for what you must discover is timeless.
Find that which doesn’t require time.
Nothing to practise.
Somehow, you must find the magic to drop yourself.
Only those who do, discover their timeless and perfect Self.
You will enter as you are,
but you must come out the other end without ‘you’
for this is not your true Self.
You have been living only in the idea of yourself and this is not freedom; not truth.
You don’t need to have much time for what you must discover is timeless.
Find that which doesn’t require time.
Nothing to practise.
Somehow, you must find the magic to drop yourself.
Only those who do, discover their timeless and perfect Self.
All I plead with you is this: make love of your self perfect. Deny yourself nothing - give your self infinity and eternity, and discover that you do not need them; you are beyond.
Awareness is that state in which the consciousness subsides into itself.
The Bible says: “Be still and know that I am God”. Stillness is the sole requisite for the realization of the Self as God.
It is useful when experiencing fear in meditation to anchor your attention in something very grounding, such as your breath or even the bottoms of your feet. But don’t fight against the fear because this will only increase it. Imagine that you are the Buddha under the Bodhi tree, or Christ in the desert, remaining perfectly still and unmoved by the body-mind’s nightmare. It may feel very real but it is really nothing more than a convincing illusion.
Meditation is a deliberate attempt to pierce into the higher states of consciousness and finally go beyond it. The art of meditation is the art of shifting the focus of attention to even subtler levels, without losing one's grip on the levels left behind. The final stage of meditation is reached when the sense of identity goes beyond the 'I-am-so-and-so', beyond 'so-I-am', beyond 'I-am-the-witness-only', beyond 'there-is', beyond all ideas into the impersonally personal pure being. But you must be energetic when you take to meditation. It is definitely not a part-time occupation. Limit your interests and activities to what is needed for you and your dependents' barest needs. Save all your energies and time for breaking the wall your mind had built around you. Believe me, you will not regret.
If you desire liberation avoid objects of the senses & seek compassion, truthfulness, contentment, forgiveness, straightforwardness & love.
Who am I?’ is the question that the mind cannot answer. In that impossibility it stops. You know, it’s like computers — when you put something in that they cannot handle, they just crash. It’s the same with the mind. If the mind asks itself ‘Who am I?’, it cannot solve it. It cannot solve it because all that it knows is name and form. That which is the source of the mind is completely beyond name and form, so it cannot put it into a box. In that impossibility, the mind just stops. That which remains as consciousness is the real you. That is the way home, cutting through everything that is there — passion, fear, pain, whatever. The real you is all that remains.
The Infinite uses all measures in order to awaken in all the various forms in existence. It uses birth, life, death, happiness, sorrow, clarity, and delusion in order to awaken. All of your seeking is in reality the activity of the Infinite as well. No matter how far astray or deluded you become, you can never get a single step away from the Infinite’s embrace. If you could all at once stop believing your dreaming mind and be completely still right in the midst of your present state, the Infinite would effortlessly present itself.
When the mind is free of all of its content, all of its conditioned thinking, it enters into the solitude of silence. That silence can only arise when one sees the limitations of one’s thinking. When one sees that his or her thoughts will not bring truth, peace, or freedom, there arises a natural state of silence and inner clarity. And in that silence there is a profound solitude, because one is not seeking a more advantageous relationship with thought or with the accompanying emotions that are derived by thought.
My love, leave aside all this fruitless thinking and come lay down here in the silence of being. I am inside your Heart and you are inside my Heart as Truth Itself playing as Love and Joy.
Deepen and broaden the awareness of yourself and all the blessings will flow. You need not seek anything, all will come to you most naturally and effortlessly.
Take refuge in silence. You can be here or there or anywhere. Fixed in silence, established in the inner ‘I’, you can be as you are. The world will never perturb you if you are well founded upon the tranquility within. Gather your thoughts within. Find out the thought centre and discover your Self-equipoise. In storm and turmoil be calm and silent. Watch the events around as a witness. The world is a drama. Be a witness, inturned and introspective.
My wife had met Maharaji and had come to get me in America to bring me back to meet him. When we first went to see Maharaji I was put off by what I saw. All these crazy Westerners wearing white clothes and hanging around this fat old man in a blanket! More than anything else I hated seeing Westerners touch his feet. On my first day there he totally ignored me. But after the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh day, during which he also ignored me, I began to grow very upset. I felt no love for him; in fact, I felt nothing. I decided that my wife had been captured by some crazy cult. By the end of the week I was ready to leave.
We were staying at the hotel up in Nainital, and on the eighth day I told my wife that I wasn’t feeling well. I spent the day walking around the lake thinking that if my wife was so involved in something that was clearly not for me, it must mean that our marriage was at an end. I looked at the flowers, the mountains, and the reflections in the lake, but nothing could dispel my depression. And then I did something that I had really never done in my adult life. I prayed.
I asked God, “What am I doing here? Who is this man? These people are all crazy. I just don’t belong here.” Just then I remembered the phrase, “Had ye but faith ye would not need miracles”
“Okay, God, I don’t have any faith. Send me a miracle.” I kept looking for a rainbow but nothing happened, so I decided to leave the next day.
The next morning we took a taxi down to Kainchi to the temple, to say goodbye. Although I didn’t like Maharaji, I thought I’d just be very honest and have it out with him. We got to Kainchi before anyone else was there and we sat in front of his tucket on the porch. Maharaji had not yet come out from inside the room. There was some fruit on the tucket and one of the apples had fallen on the ground, so I bent over to pick it up. Just then Maharaji came out of his room and stepped on my hand, pinning me to the ground. So there I was on my knees touching his foot, in that position I detested. How ludicrous! He looked down at me and asked, “Where were you yesterday?” Then he asked, “Were you at the lake?” (He said “lake” in English). When he said the word “lake” to me I began to get this strange feeling at the base of my spine, and my whole body tingled. It felt very strange. He asked me, “What were you doing at the lake?”
I began to feel very tight. Then he asked, “Were you horseback riding?”
“No.”
“Were you boating?”
“No.”
“Did you go swimming?”
“No.”
Then he leaned over and spoke quietly, “Were you talking to God? Did you ask for something?”
When he did that I fell apart and started to cry like a baby. He pulled me over and started pulling my beard and repeating, “Did you ask for something?” That really felt like my initiation. By then others had arrived and they were around me, caressing me, and I realized then that almost everyone there had gone through some experience like that. A trivial question such as, “Were you at the lake yesterday?” which had no meaning to anyone else, shattered my perception of reality. It was clear to me that Maharaji saw right through all the illusions; he knew everything. By the way, the next thing he said to me was, “Will you write a book?”
That was my welcome. After that I just wanted to rub his feet.”
- Dr. Larry Brilliant
Excerpt from Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba
We were staying at the hotel up in Nainital, and on the eighth day I told my wife that I wasn’t feeling well. I spent the day walking around the lake thinking that if my wife was so involved in something that was clearly not for me, it must mean that our marriage was at an end. I looked at the flowers, the mountains, and the reflections in the lake, but nothing could dispel my depression. And then I did something that I had really never done in my adult life. I prayed.
I asked God, “What am I doing here? Who is this man? These people are all crazy. I just don’t belong here.” Just then I remembered the phrase, “Had ye but faith ye would not need miracles”
“Okay, God, I don’t have any faith. Send me a miracle.” I kept looking for a rainbow but nothing happened, so I decided to leave the next day.
The next morning we took a taxi down to Kainchi to the temple, to say goodbye. Although I didn’t like Maharaji, I thought I’d just be very honest and have it out with him. We got to Kainchi before anyone else was there and we sat in front of his tucket on the porch. Maharaji had not yet come out from inside the room. There was some fruit on the tucket and one of the apples had fallen on the ground, so I bent over to pick it up. Just then Maharaji came out of his room and stepped on my hand, pinning me to the ground. So there I was on my knees touching his foot, in that position I detested. How ludicrous! He looked down at me and asked, “Where were you yesterday?” Then he asked, “Were you at the lake?” (He said “lake” in English). When he said the word “lake” to me I began to get this strange feeling at the base of my spine, and my whole body tingled. It felt very strange. He asked me, “What were you doing at the lake?”
I began to feel very tight. Then he asked, “Were you horseback riding?”
“No.”
“Were you boating?”
“No.”
“Did you go swimming?”
“No.”
Then he leaned over and spoke quietly, “Were you talking to God? Did you ask for something?”
When he did that I fell apart and started to cry like a baby. He pulled me over and started pulling my beard and repeating, “Did you ask for something?” That really felt like my initiation. By then others had arrived and they were around me, caressing me, and I realized then that almost everyone there had gone through some experience like that. A trivial question such as, “Were you at the lake yesterday?” which had no meaning to anyone else, shattered my perception of reality. It was clear to me that Maharaji saw right through all the illusions; he knew everything. By the way, the next thing he said to me was, “Will you write a book?”
That was my welcome. After that I just wanted to rub his feet.”
- Dr. Larry Brilliant
Excerpt from Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba
Under the obsessive thoughts and plans, under the emotions, positive and negative, there is an ocean of peace.
During worldly activity, if your attention is fixed on the fundamental reality, there is no difficulty. But ordinary people forget the reality and take the name alone to be real. The different "I"'s are not real. There is only one 'I'. The separate "I" is like a watchman in a fort. He is like the protector of the body. The real owner in everybody is only the one real 'I'. So, when the separate "I" surrenders to the real "I" , then, [because the idea of a separate self who 'owns' the body disappears] , "I" and 'mine' are eliminated. The true state comes into existence when, after sorting out what belongs to whom, the ego "I" surrenders itself to the real owner.
Absence of thought does not mean a blank.
There must be someone to be aware of that blank. Knowledge and ignorance pertain only to the mind and are in duality, but the Self is beyond them both. It is pure Light.
There is no need for one Self to see another.
There are no two selves.
What is not the Self is mere non-self and cannot see the Self. The Self has no sight or hearing; it lies beyond them, all alone, as pure Consciousness.
There must be someone to be aware of that blank. Knowledge and ignorance pertain only to the mind and are in duality, but the Self is beyond them both. It is pure Light.
There is no need for one Self to see another.
There are no two selves.
What is not the Self is mere non-self and cannot see the Self. The Self has no sight or hearing; it lies beyond them, all alone, as pure Consciousness.
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.
What is the beauty in the human face, in the sky, in the stars, and in the moon? It is only the partial apprehension of the real all-embracing Divine Beauty. `He shining, everything shines. It is through His light that all things shine.’ Take this high position of Bhakti which makes you forget at once all your little personalities. Take yourself away from all the world's little selfish clingings. Do not look upon humanity as the centre of all your human and higher interests. Stand as a witness, as a student, and observe the phenomena of nature. Have the feeling of personal non-attachment with regard to man, and see how this mighty feeling of love is working itself out in the world.
So long as one desires liberation, so long, you may take it, one is in bondage.
Here is Bhagavan’s brief account of how he resolved this question during his ego-death experience in 1896 in Madurai.
When I scrutinised within the mind ‘Who is the seer?’ the seer became non-existent and I saw that which remained. The mind does not [now] rise to say ‘I saw’; how [therefore] can the mind rise to say ‘I did not see’. (Arunachala Ashtakam, verse two, tr. Sadhu Om)
Questioning ‘Who am I?’ within one’s mind, when one reaches the Heart the individual ‘I’ sinks crestfallen, and at once reality manifests itself as ‘I-I’. Though it reveals itself thus, it is not the ego ‘I’, but the perfect being, the Self Absolute. (Ulladu Narpadu, verse 30)
‘Whence does this ‘I’ arise? Seek this within. This ‘I’ then vanishes. This is the pursuit of wisdom. Where the ‘I’ vanished, there appears an ‘I-I’ by itself. This is the infinite [poornam]. (Upadesa Undiyar, verses 19 and 20).
When I scrutinised within the mind ‘Who is the seer?’ the seer became non-existent and I saw that which remained. The mind does not [now] rise to say ‘I saw’; how [therefore] can the mind rise to say ‘I did not see’. (Arunachala Ashtakam, verse two, tr. Sadhu Om)
Questioning ‘Who am I?’ within one’s mind, when one reaches the Heart the individual ‘I’ sinks crestfallen, and at once reality manifests itself as ‘I-I’. Though it reveals itself thus, it is not the ego ‘I’, but the perfect being, the Self Absolute. (Ulladu Narpadu, verse 30)
‘Whence does this ‘I’ arise? Seek this within. This ‘I’ then vanishes. This is the pursuit of wisdom. Where the ‘I’ vanished, there appears an ‘I-I’ by itself. This is the infinite [poornam]. (Upadesa Undiyar, verses 19 and 20).
At present we are conscious of ourselves as a set of adjuncts with object knowing consciousness in which our attention seemingly move away from the self towards the object with separation between knowing subject and known object. In self-enquiry we withdraw our attention from thoughts and objects so that attention rests in self without any oscillation. To posit our attention in this state is the aim of self-enquiry.
All the activities that the body is to go through are determined when it first comes into existence, it does not rest with you to accept or reject them. The only freedom you have is to turn your mind inward and renounce activities there.
Beings
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