PtC: July 1, 1980. established in beingness

Q. Then how do I elevate it to a higher level?

M. Leave it alone! There is no question of elevating to a higher level. Here it is only a question of understanding.

Iswara is the manifestation of the five elements and the universe, the "I Amness." To the Absolute, the witnessing of that "I Amness" occurs. This is the Absolute standpoint, siddha. This understanding should not be claimed by you, who are a sadhaka. Sadhaka means the process of getting established in the Iswara principle, the consciousness.

Q. Last night "there was an experience of very great vibration in the body. In fact there was no body, just vibration, no form, and very intense.

M. Whatever that vibration, that is the product of the five elements.

Q. It is not a taste of "I Amness"?

M. If you want to express it that way, you may. These are the five elements, three gunas, prakriti and purusha, ten elements. These are the expressions of your beingness.

Q. So when Maharaj says to stay firm in the consciousness of not being the body-mind, how does that relate to these ten elements?

M. That talk - to transcend the body-mind and establish in your beingness, is for the kindergarten spiritual seeker, the lowest level. But now I am talking to a sadhaka who is getting established in beingness; that first lesson is over now.

Q. Oh!

M. Your world, your universe, is the expression of your beingness. The second step, the sadhaka gets established in beingness, Iswara principle, manifestation. A sadhaka is manifestation.

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PtC: June 29, 1980. a temporary condition

Maharaj: Whatever concept you have about yourself cannot be true. The "I Amness" is the prime concept, and it has to be satisfied by letting it do its normal work in the world. The important thing is the realization of the fact that it is a concept.

Questioner: In the world this concept is always trying to be at the top. Even to the children we say, "You must be first in the examination. "Is it wrong to push your personality and individuality on others?

M. What is wrong is that you consider yourself to be limited to this body and shape. What knowledge I try to give is given to the knowledge "I Am" in each of you, which is the same. If you try to get that knowledge as an individual you will never get it.

Q. If “I Am" is a concept and it disappears, how is one to know that that concept has disappeared?

M. That "I Am" is a concept is to be understood while the concept is there. Once it merges in the original state, who (or what) is there who wants to know? The illusory entity has disappeared.

Q. I am convinced that this `I Am" is a concept and it will end, but why should I take it that it is a false concept?

M. How and when did this very thought come? Did this thought not come merely as a movement in that concept itself? If the consciousness were not there, the thought would not be there.

Consciousness is a temporary condition which has come upon the total, timeless, spaceless, changeless state. It is a happening which has come and which will disappear.

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PtC: June 27, 1980. only conceptual

What was conceived has grown physically, and some of the expressions of this knowledge "I Am" have achieved tremendous things. Some have became avatars, some have achieved success in various fields. At the end of the time span the magnificent personalities, and whatever they have achieved - both have disappeared. It may have been for many years; this "I Amness" may have remained existent for hundreds of years in particular cases; still, however long the time, there is an end to it.

Some of these avatars and jnanis have understood what the "I Amness" is, that it needs a body before it can manifest itself, and the body can only come out of sexual intercourse. Having understood it, instead of remaining in that knowledge apart from manifestation, and merely observing manifestation, they started giving advice to that which is only conceptual; all manifestation is conceptual. They said, "Let there not be sexual relations." Many of these avatars and jnanis have given this advice. Has it happened? Has the rain stopped? Has the production of population stopped? No. Nature will take its course. It is only to be understood, nothing is to be done.

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PtC: May 4, 1980. the primary illusion

This touch of "I Amness" is in each being; this beingness has that touch of love for the Absolute and it is a representation of the Absolute. When you got yourself separated from the Absolute with this identity "I Am," you felt fragmented, isolated, and that is why your demands started. In the Absolute there are no needs. Only the Absolute prevails. The truth is total Brahman only, nothing else but Brahman. In a total Brahman state the touch of beingness, "I Am," and with that, separation started, otherness has come. But this "I Amness" is not just a small principle, that itself is the mula-maya, the primary illusion. What I am expounding is not meant for the common people, because they have not reached the stature to understand what I am saying. Therefore I tell them to do bhajans, japa, meditation. After doing that, when the purifying takes place, they will be worthy enough to receive my talks.

PtC: April 30, 1980. this attachment

All of you are like beggars; you have got a begging bowl and you want to collect God in that.

Take it that this "I Amness" of yours is the unadulterated form of Godlihood; the pure Iswara state is your beingness.

It is quite proper and praiseworthy that you are listening to the talks. Nevertheless, you are not getting rid of this attachment to the body- mind. You are constantly surrounded by relations or intimacies connected with your body-mind. Have full faith in your beingness and allow it to grow into the manifest Iswara principle. It is all powerful - meditate on that. It is very simple, yet at the same time, very profound. The consciousness is the seed of Godliness. If we give it its true importance and pray to it, then it will flower into Godliness. If we don't give it any importance, it will not flower into Godliness.

PtC: April 23, 1980. in the illusion

When I talk to you, don't try to understand from the body-mind identity. Your true state is always there; it has not gone anywhere. Although you did not know it was there, and now you know it is there, you have done nothing. It is always there.

On my true, whole, homogeneous state just a small ripple appeared, the news came, "I Am." That news made all the difference, and I started knowing this; but now I have known my true state, so I understand my true state first, and then I understand that this ripple is coming and going on my true state. While, in your case, you take interest in the ripple and don't take interest in your true state.

Out of my existence as the Noumenon has come this state of the phenomenal. The homogeneous understands the play of the attributes, the projection of the mind, but the play, the projection of the mind, cannot understand the homogeneous. The moment it tries to understand It, it becomes one with It. Everybody is trying to understand the meaning of all this. You are not understanding because you have all the swaddling clothes of "I-am-this-or-that." Remove them.

The ultimate point of view is that there is nothing to understand, so when we try to understand, we are only indulging in acrobatics of the mind.

Whatever spiritual things you aspire to know are all happening in this objective world, in the illusion; all your activities, material and spiritual, are in this illusion. All this is happening in the objective world, all is dishonesty, there is no truth in this fraud.

PtC: April 19, 1980. you, the Absolute

You must come to a firm decision. You must forget the thought that you are a body and be only the knowledge "I Am," which has no form, no name. Just be. When you stabilize in that beingness it will give all the knowledge and all the secrets to you, and when the secrets are given to you, you transcend the beingness, and you, the Absolute, will know that you are also not the consciousness. Having gained all this knowledge, having understood what is what, a kind of quietude prevails, a tranquility. Beingness is transcended, but beingness is available.

awareness is beyond all

All the universe of experience is born with the body and dies with the body; it has its beginning and end in awareness, but awareness knows no beginning, nor end. If you think it out carefully and brood over it for a long time, you will come to see the light of awareness in all its clarity and the world will fade out of your vision. It is like looking at a burning incense stick, you see the stick and the smoke first; when you notice the fiery point, you realize that it has the power to consume mountains of sticks and fill the universe with smoke. Timelessly the self actualizes itself, without exhausting its infinite possibilities. In the incense stick simile the stick is the body and the smoke is the mind. As long as the mind is busy with its contortions, it does not perceive its own source. The Guru comes and turns your attention to the spark within. By its very nature the mind is outward turned; it always tends to seek for the source of things among the things themselves; to be told to look for the source within, is, in a way, the beginning of a new life. Awareness takes the place of consciousness; in consciousness there is the 'I', who is conscious while awareness is undivided; awareness is aware of itself. The 'I am' is a thought, while awareness is not a thought, there is no 'I am aware' in awareness. Consciousness is an attribute while awareness is not; one can be aware of being conscious, but not conscious of awareness. God is the totality of consciousness, but awareness is beyond all—being as well as not-being.

go beyond experience

In nature nothing is at stand-still, everything pulsates, appears and disappears. Heart, breath, digestion, sleep and waking—birth and death everything comes and goes in waves. Rhythm, periodicity, harmonious alternation of extremes is the rule. No use rebelling against the very pattern of life. If you seek the Immutable, go beyond experience. When I say: remember 'I am' all the time, I mean: 'come back to it repeatedly'. No particular thought can be mind's natural state, only silence. Not the idea of silence, but silence itself. When the mind is in its natural state, it reverts to silence spontaneously after every experience or, rather, every experience happens against the background of silence.

Now, what you have learnt here becomes the seed. You may forget it—apparently. But it will live and in due season sprout and grow and bring forth flowers and fruits. All will happen by itself. You need not do anything, only don't prevent it.

It is that Life you love

M: It is natural and good to love oneself. Only you should know what exactly do you love. It is not the body that you love, it is Life—perceiving, feeling, thinking, doing, loving, striving, creating. It is that Life you love, which is you, which is all. Realize it in its totality, beyond all divisions and limitations, and all your desires will merge in it, for the greater contains the smaller. Therefore find yourself, for in finding that you find all. Everybody is glad to be. But few know the fullness of it. You come to know by dwelling in your mind on 'I am', 'I know', 'I love'—with the will of reaching the deepest meaning of these words.

Q: Can I think 'I am God'?

M: Don't identify yourself with an idea. If you mean by God the Unknown, then you merely say: 'I do not know what I am'. If you know God as you know your self, you need not say it. Best is the simple feeling 'I am'. Dwell on it patiently. Here patience is wisdom; don't think of failure. There can be no failure in this undertaking.

And yet I feel that I am an infant

I am now 74 years old. And yet I feel that I am an infant. I feel clearly that in spite of all the changes I am a child. My Guru told me: that child, which is you even now, is your real self (swarupa). Go back to that state of pure being, where the 'I am' is still in its purity before it got contaminated with 'this I am' or 'that I am'. Your burden is of false self-identifications—abandon them all. My Guru told me—'Trust me. I tell you; you are divine. Take it as the absolute truth. Your joy is divine, your suffering is divine too. All comes from God. Remember it always. You are God, your will alone is done'. I did believe him and soon realized how wonderfully true and accurate were his words. I did not condition my mind by thinking: 'I am God, I am wonderful, I am beyond'. I simply followed his instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with, nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared—myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.

look without imagination

Learn to look without imagination, to listen without distortion: that is all. Stop attributing names and shapes to the essentially nameless and formless, realize that every mode of perception is subjective, that what is seen or heard, touched or smelt, felt or thought, expected or imagined, is in the mind and not in reality, and you will experience peace and freedom from fear.

Even the sense of 'I am' is composed of the pure light and the sense of being. The 'I' is there even without the 'am'. So is the pure light there whether you say 'I' or not. Become aware of that pure light and you will never lose it. The beingness in being, the awareness in consciousness, the interest in every experience—that is not describable, yet perfectly accessible, for there is nothing else.

the world is your own projection

Assert your independence in thought and action. After all, all hangs on your faith in yourself, on the conviction that what you see and hear, think and feel is real. Why not question your faith? No doubt, this world is painted by you on the screen of consciousness and is entirely your own private world. Only your sense 'I am', though in the world, is not of the world. By no effort of logic or imagination can you change the 'I am' into 'I am not'. In the very denial of your being you assert it. Once you realize that the world is your own projection, you are free of it. You need not free yourself of a world that does not exist, except in your own imagination! However is the picture, beautiful or ugly, you are painting it and you are not bound by it. realize that there is nobody to force it on you, that it is due to the habit of taking the imaginary to be real. See the Imaginary as imaginary and be free of fear.

afraid of what you are

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. This self-assertion is best expressed in words: 'I am'. Nothing else has being. Of this you are absolutely certain.

it must be experienced

Words betray their hollowness. The real cannot be described, it must be experienced. I cannot find better words for what I am now. What I say may sound ridiculous. But what the words try to convey is the highest truth. All is one, however much we quibble. And all is done to please the one source and goal of every desire. whom we all know as the 'I am'.

I am complete forever

When I say: 'I am', I do not mean a separate entity with a body as its nucleus. I mean the totality of being, the ocean of consciousness, the entire universe of all that is and knows. I have nothing to desire for I am complete forever.

it is that 'I am' you know so well

The self is neither [the known or the knower], between nor beyond. To look for it on the mental level is futile. Stop searching, and see—it is here and now—it is that 'I am' you know so well. All you need to do is to cease taking yourself to be within the field of consciousness. Unless you have already considered these matters carefully, listening to me once will not do. Forget your past experiences and achievements, stand naked, exposed to the winds and rains of life and you will have a chance.

the 'I am' immovable

There is no power as separate from me. It is inherent in my very nature. Call it creativity. Out of a lump of gold you can make many ornaments—each will remain gold. Similarly, in whatever role I may appear and whatever function I may perform—I remain what I am: the 'I am' immovable, unshakable, independent. What you call the universe, nature, is my spontaneous creativity. Whatever happens—happens. But such is my nature that all ends in joy.

Before the world was

Before the world was, consciousness was. In consciousness it comes into being, in consciousness it lasts and into pure consciousness it dissolves. At the root of everything, is the feeling 'I am'. The state of mind: 'there is a world' is secondary, for to be, I do not need the world, the world needs me.

nothing to hold on to

Self-forgetting is inherent in self-knowing. Consciousness and unconsciousness are two aspects of one life. They co-exist. To know the world you forget the self—to know the self you forget the world. What is world after all? A collection of memories. Cling to one thing, that matters, hold on to 'I am' and let go all else. This is sadhana. In realization there is nothing to hold on to and nothing to forget. Everything is known, nothing is remembered.