UNDER THE RIGHT TEACHER THE DISCIPLE LEARNS TO LEARN, NOT TO REMEMBER AND OBEY
Each seeker accepts, or invents, a method which suits him, applies it to himself with some earnestness and effort, obtains results according to his temperament and expectations, casts them into the mound of words, builds them into a system, establishes a tradition and begins to admit others into his 'school of Yoga'. It is all built on memory and imagination. No such school is valueless, nor indispensable; in each one can progress up to the point, when all desire for progress must be abandoned to make further progress possible. Then all schools are given up, all effort ceases; in solitude and darkness the last step is made which ends ignorance and fear forever.
The true teacher, however, will not imprison his disciple in a prescribed set of ideas, feelings and actions; on the contrary, he will show him patiently the need to be free from all ideas and set patterns of behavior, to be vigilant and earnest and go with life wherever it takes him, not to enjoy or suffer, but to understand and learn.
Under the right teacher, the disciple learns to learn, not to remember and obey. Satsang, the company of the noble, does not mold, it liberates. Beware of all that makes you dependent. Most of the so-called 'surrenders to the Guru' end in disappointment, if not in tragedy. Fortunately, an earnest seeker will disentangle himself in time, the wiser for the experience.
Q: Surely, self-surrender has its value.
M: Self-surrender is the surrender of all self-concern. It cannot be done, it happens when you realize your true nature. Verbal self-surrender, even when accompanied by feeling, is of little value and breaks down under stress. At best it shows an aspiration, not an actual fact.
- I AM THAT ch 92
Each seeker accepts, or invents, a method which suits him, applies it to himself with some earnestness and effort, obtains results according to his temperament and expectations, casts them into the mound of words, builds them into a system, establishes a tradition and begins to admit others into his 'school of Yoga'. It is all built on memory and imagination. No such school is valueless, nor indispensable; in each one can progress up to the point, when all desire for progress must be abandoned to make further progress possible. Then all schools are given up, all effort ceases; in solitude and darkness the last step is made which ends ignorance and fear forever.
The true teacher, however, will not imprison his disciple in a prescribed set of ideas, feelings and actions; on the contrary, he will show him patiently the need to be free from all ideas and set patterns of behavior, to be vigilant and earnest and go with life wherever it takes him, not to enjoy or suffer, but to understand and learn.
Under the right teacher, the disciple learns to learn, not to remember and obey. Satsang, the company of the noble, does not mold, it liberates. Beware of all that makes you dependent. Most of the so-called 'surrenders to the Guru' end in disappointment, if not in tragedy. Fortunately, an earnest seeker will disentangle himself in time, the wiser for the experience.
Q: Surely, self-surrender has its value.
M: Self-surrender is the surrender of all self-concern. It cannot be done, it happens when you realize your true nature. Verbal self-surrender, even when accompanied by feeling, is of little value and breaks down under stress. At best it shows an aspiration, not an actual fact.
- I AM THAT ch 92
You must have a strong conviction; that conviction means practicing. That conviction means not only “I Am,” but it means I am free from “I Am” also. You know you are, without words. Just be that. You are not to think or imagine anything.
In space there is darkness and light, the space is there whether darkness or light is there; in the same way the state prior to consciousness is always there. Right now it is there. It is the substratum of everything.
The words of a gnani have the power of dispelling ignorance and darkness in the mind. It is not the words that matter, but the power behind them.
There are no distinctive marks of gnana. Only ignorance can be recognized, not gnana. Nor does a gnani claim to be something special. All those who proclaim their own greatness and uniqueness are not gnanis. They are mistaking some unusual development for realization.
Go to the source without which neither light or darkness could be cognized. What is the use of talking about what is objective when I have told you to go to the subject?
The Absolute truth
The body appears in your mind, your mind is the content of your consciousness, you are the motionless witness of the river of consciousness which changes eternally without changing you in any way. Your own changelessness is so obvious that you do not notice it. Have a good look at yourself and all these misapprehensions and misconceptions will dissolve. Just as all the little watery lives are in water and cannot be without water, so all the universe is in you and cannot be without you.
The body appears in your mind, your mind is the content of your consciousness, you are the motionless witness of the river of consciousness which changes eternally without changing you in any way. Your own changelessness is so obvious that you do not notice it. Have a good look at yourself and all these misapprehensions and misconceptions will dissolve. Just as all the little watery lives are in water and cannot be without water, so all the universe is in you and cannot be without you.
But the very longing and search for reality is the movement, operation, action of reality. All you can do is to grasp the central point, that reality is not an event and does not happen and whatever happens, whatever comes and goes, is not reality.
Once you understand that the false needs time and what needs time is false, you are nearer to the Reality, which is timeless, ever in the now.
The essence of slavery is to imagine yourself to be a process, to have past and future, to have history. In fact, we have no history, we are not a process, we do not develop, nor decay; also see all as a dream and stay out of it.
The knowledge that I am expounding will dissolve your identity as a personality and will transform you into manifest knowledge.
By all means pray for the dead. It pleases them very much. They are flattered. The gnani does not need your prayers. He is himself the answer to your prayers.
You imagine that without cause there can be no happiness. To me dependence on anything for happiness is utter misery. Pleasure and pain have causes, while my state is my own, totally uncaused, independent, unassailable.
There can be progress in the preparation (sadhana).
Realization is sudden.
The fruit ripens slowly,
but falls suddenly and without return.
Realization is sudden.
The fruit ripens slowly,
but falls suddenly and without return.
The world is but a show, glittering and empty. It is, and yet is not. It is there as long as I want to see it and take part in it. When I cease caring, it dissolves. It has no cause and serves no purpose. It just happens when we are absent-minded.
I have come to the conclusion that consciousness and whatever appears in consciousness is nothing but a gigantic fraud. There is no one who has committed this fraud - it is a spontaneous happening. There is no perpetrator of this fraud.
Hear this: God can only exist in the heart of man, not elsewhere. You identify with the body and limit yourself, and yet, remember, do not neglect this body, this is the house of God, take care of it. Only in this body can God be realized.
Spiritual practice is will asserted and re-asserted. Who has not the daring will not accept the real even when offered. Unwillingness born out of fear is the only obstacle.
It is the urge, the hidden motive that matters, not the shape it takes. Whatever he does, if he does it for the sake of finding his own real self, will surely bring him to himself.
If you want words, I shall give you some of the ancient words of power. Repeat any of them ceaselessly; they can work wonders.
You want me to prove to you that I am trustworthy! How can I and why should I? After all, what I am offering you is the operational approach, so current in Western science.
When a scientist describes an experiment and its results, usually you accept his statements on trust and repeat his experiment as he describes it. Once you get the same or similar results, you need not trust him any more; you trust your own experience.
When a scientist describes an experiment and its results, usually you accept his statements on trust and repeat his experiment as he describes it. Once you get the same or similar results, you need not trust him any more; you trust your own experience.
In the stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am — unbound.
As long as you believe only the particular to be real, conscious and happy and reject the non-dual reality as something imagined, an abstract concept, you will find me doling out concepts and abstractions.
But once you have touched the real within your own being, you will find me describing what for you is the nearest and the dearest.
But once you have touched the real within your own being, you will find me describing what for you is the nearest and the dearest.
Look at your mind dispassionately , this is enough to calm it. When it is quiet, you can go beyond it. Do not keep it busy all the time. Stop it – and just be. If you give it a rest, it will settle down and recover its purity and strength.
You need not worry about your worries, do not try to be quiet, do not turn being quiet into a task to be performed, miserable about being happy........there is no next in the I AM.
You are afraid of what you are. Your destination is the whole. But you are afraid that you will lose your identity. This is childishness, clinging to the toys, to your desires and fears, opinions and ideas. Give it all up and be ready for the real to assert itself.
Beings
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