Let
there be peace and love among all beings of the universe. OM
Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.
"To
expound and propagate concepts is simple.
But to drop all concepts is difficult and
rare."
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SEE
what
you too could see, here and now, but for the wrong
focus of your attention you give no attention to
Self. Your mind is busy with things, people and
ideas, never with Self. Bring your Self into focus,
become aware of your own existence.
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As all living
beings desire to be happy always, without misery,
as in the case of everyone there is observed
supreme love for oneself, and as happiness alone is
the cause for love, in order to gain that happiness
which is one's nature and which is experienced in
the state of deep sleep where there is no mind, one
should know oneself. For that, the path of
knowledge, the enquiry of the form "Who am I?", is
the principal means.
2. How little does man know of his Self
[the one, immortal, formless substratum of all
that exists], how he takes the most absurd
statements about himself for holy Truth. He is told
that he is the body, was born, will die, has
parents, duties; learns to like what others like
and fear what others fear. Totally a creature of
heredity and society, he lives by memory and acts
by habits. Ignorant of his Self and his true
nature, he pursues false aims and is always
frustrated. His life and death are meaningless and
painful, and there seems to be no way out.
3. Without Self-knowledge all is trouble. If
you want to live sanely, creatively, and happily,
and have infinite riches to share, search for what
you are. Without it you will be consumed by desires
and fears, repeating themselves meaninglessly in
endless suffering. Most of the people do not know
that there can be an end to pain. But once they
have heard the good news, obviously going beyond
all strife and struggle is the most urgent task
that can be. You know that you can be free and now
it is up to you.
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4. Look at
the net and its many contradictions. You do and
undo at every step. You want peace, love, happiness
and work hard to create pain, hatred and war. You
want longevity and overeat, you want friendship and
exploit. See your net as made of such
contradictions and remove them – your very
seeing will make them go.
5. How do you go about finding anything? By
keeping your mind and heart on it. Interest there
must be and steady remembrance. To remember what
needs to be remembered is the secret of success.
You come to it through earnestness.
6. What is supremely important is to be free
from contradictions: the goal and the way must not
be on different levels; life and light must not
quarrel; behaviour must not betray belief. Call it
honesty, integrity, wholeness; you must not go
back, undo, uproot, abandon the conquered ground.
Tenacity of purpose and honesty in pursuit will
bring you to your goal.
7. Consciousness does not shine by itself.
It shines by a light beyond it. Having seen the
dreamlike quality of consciousness, look for the
light in which it appears, which gives it being.
There is the content of consciousness as well as
the awareness of it.
8. Remain as you are prior to beingess; you
are totally unknown to your Self.
9. It is not so much the matter of levels as
of qualities [gunas]. Meditation is a pure
activity and aims at complete elimination of
inertia and restlessness. Pure harmony is perfect
freedom from sluggishness and restlessness.
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10.
Once you know with absolute certainty that nothing
can trouble you but your own imagination, you come
to disregard your desires and fears, concepts and
ideas, and live by Truth alone.
11. Refuse all thoughts except one: the
thought "I am". The mind will rebel in the
beginning, but with patience and perseverance it
will yield and keep quiet.
12. The teaching is simple: when the "I am"
arises, everything appears, and when "I am"
subsides everything disappears. Onto your
absoluteness, which is without form or shape, came
this sence "I am", which is also without shape and
form.
13. This "I am" has spontaneously "appeared" on
your absolute state, therefore it is an illusion.
The feeling "I am" is itself an illusion, therefore
whatever is seen through this illusion cannot be
real.
14. This "I am" has come out of the state
prior to it and now is the cause of all suffering.
Before the "I am" came you were happy, so
revert.
15. Be alert. Question, observe,
investigate, learn all you can about confusion, how
it operates, what it does to you and others. By
being clear about confusion you become clear of
confusion.
16. By eliminating the intervals of
inadvertence during the waking hours you will
gradually eliminate the long interval of
absent-mindedness, which you call sleep. You will
be aware that you are asleep.
17. 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
realise that the world is your own projection, you
are free of it.
18. All these sufferings are man-made and it
is within man's power to put an end to them. God
helps by facing man with the results of his actions
and demanding that the balance should be restored.
Karma is the law that works for righteousness; it
is the healing hand of God.
19. Use your mind. Remember. Observe. You
are not different from others. Most of their
experiences are valid for you too. Think clearly
and deeply, go into the structure of your desires
and their ramifications. They are a most important
part of your mental and emotional make-up and
powerfully affect your actions. Remember, you
cannot abandon what you do not know. To go beyond
yourself, you must know yourself. Whatever you come
across, go beyond.
20. Purify yourself by a well-ordered and
useful life. Watch over your thoughts, feelings,
words and actions. This will clear your vision.
21. Ultimately, you are the proof that God
exists, not the other way around. For before any
question about God can be put, you must be there to
put it.
22. Before the mind – I am. "I am" is
not a thought in the mind; the mind happens to me,
I do not happen to the mind. And since time and
space are in the mind, I am beyond time and space,
eternal and omnipresent.
23. Since it is awareness that makes
consciousness possible, there is awareness in every
state of consciousness. Therefore, the very
consciousness of being conscious is already a
movement in awareness. Interest in your stream of
consciousness takes you to awareness. It is not a
new state. It is at once recognised as the
original, basic existence, which is life itself,
and also love and joy.
24. Realisation is but the opposite of
ignorance. To take the world as real and one's Self
as unreal is ignorance, the cause of sorrow. To
know the Self as the only Reality and all else as
temporal and transient is freedom, peace and joy.
It is all very simple. Instead of seeing things as
imagined, learn to see them as they are. When you
can see everything as it is, you will also see your
Self as you are. It is like cleansing a mirror. The
same mirror that shows you the world as it is, will
also show you your own face. The thought "I am" is
the polishing cloth. Use it.
25. Devotion to your goal makes you live a
clean and orderly life, given to the search for
Truth and to helping people, and realisation makes
noble virtue easy and spontaneous, by removing for
good the obstacles in the shape of desires and
fears and wrong ideas.
26. The entire purpose of a clean and
well-ordered life is to liberate man from the
thaldrom of chaos and the burden of sorrow.
27. In reality, only the Ultimate is. The
rest is a matter of name and form. And as long as
you cling to the idea that only what has name and
shape exists, the Supreme will appear to you
non-existing.
28. All will happen as you want it, provided
you really want it.
29. Within the prison of your world appears
a man who tells you that the world of painful
contradictions, which you have created, is neither
continuous nor permanent and is based on a
misapprehension. He pleads with you to get out of
it, by the same way by which you got into it. You
got into it by forgetting what you are and you will
get out of it by knowing your Self as you are.
30. Why not turn away from the experience to
the experiencer and realise the full import of the
only true statement you can make: "I am"?
31. To you, you get born and die, while to
me the world appears and disappears. You see
yourself in the world, while I see the world in
myself. You cling to the idea that you were born
into a world of pain and sorrow; I know that the
world is a child of love.
32. Harmony between the inner and the outer
is happiness. On the other hand,
self-identification with the outer causes
suffering.
33. 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.
34. Seeing the false as false, is
meditation. This must go on all the time.
35. Deliberate daily exercise in
discrimination between the True and the false and
renunciation of the false is meditation.
36. When I met my Guru, he told me, "You are
not what you take yourself to be. Find out what you
are. Watch the sense "I am", find your real Self."
I obeyed him, because I trusted him. I did as he
told me. All my spare time I would spend looking at
myself in silence. And what a difference it made,
and how soon!
37. Establish yourself firmly in the
awareness of "I am" and reject all that does not go
with it. This is the beginning and also the end of
all endeavour.
38. Meditation will help you to find your
bonds, loosen them, untie them and cast your
moorings.
39. To solve a problem you must trace it to
its source. Only in the dissolution of the problem
in the universal solvents of enquiry and
dispassion, can its right solution be found.
40. Why don't you enquire how real are the
world and the person?
41. You have a purpose only as long as you
are not complete; until then completeness,
perfection, is the purpose. But when you are
complete in your Self, fully integrated within and
without, then you enjoy the universe; you do not
labour at it.
42. To know what you are, you must first
investigate and know what you are not. And to know
what you are not you must watch yourself carefully,
rejecting all that does not necessarily go with the
basic fact: "I am". The ideas: I am born at a given
place, at a given time, from my parents and now I
am so-and-so, living at, married to, father of,
employed by, and so on, are not inherent in the
sense "I am". Our usual attitude is of "I am this".
Separate consistently and perseveringly the "I am"
from "this" or "that", and try to feel what it
means to be, just to be, without being "this" or
"that". All our habits go against it and the task
of fighting them is long and hard sometimes, but
clear understanding helps a lot. The clearer you
understand that on the level of the mind you can be
described in negative terms only, the quicker you
will come to the end of your search and realise
your limitless being.
43. When things repeatedly happen together,
we tend to see a causal link between them. It
creates a mental habit, but a habit is not a
necessity.
44. False ideas about this "I am" lead to
bondage, right knowledge leads to freedom and
happiness.
45. Pleasure and pain alternate. Happiness
is unshakeable. What you can seek and find is not
the real thing. Find what you have never lost, find
the inalienable.
46. The sense "I am" is your own. You cannot
part with it, but you can impart it to anything, as
in saying: "I am young, I am rich, etc." But such
self-identifications are patently false and the
cause of bondage.
47. Final Reality is prior to consciousness,
prior to Self.
48. By forgetting who you are and imagining
yourself as a mortal creature, you created so much
trouble for yourself that you have to wake up, like
from a bad dream. Enquiry also wakes you up.
49. Truth is simple and open to all. Why do
you complicate? Truth is loving and loveable. It
includes all, accepts all, purifies all. It is
untruth that is difficult and a source of trouble.
It always wants, expects, demands. Being false, it
is empty, always in search of confirmation and
reassurance. It is afraid of and avoids enquiry. It
identifies itself with any support, however weak
and momentary. Whatever it gets, it loses and asks
for more.
50. What is your happiness worth when you
have to strive and labour for it? True happiness is
spontaneous and effortless.
51. "I am" itself is God. The seeking itself
is God. In seeking you discover that you are
neither the body nor the mind, and the love of the
Self in you is for the Self in all. The two are
one. The consciousness in you and the consciousness
in me, apparently two, really one, seek unity and
that is love.
52. Your personal universe does not exist by
itself. It is merely a limited and distorted view
of the Real. It is not the universe that needs
improving, but your way of looking.
53. All desire has its source in the Self.
It is all a matter of choosing the right
desire.
54. All questions arise from your believing
yourself to be a person. Go beyond the personal and
see.
55. I ask you only to stop imagining that
you were born, have parents, are a body, will die
and so on. Just try, make a beginning – it is
not as hard as you think.
56. Whatever you do against your better
knowledge is sin.
57. Remembering your Self is virtue,
forgetting your Self is sin.
58. The sense"I am" is the birth principle.
Investigate it and you will finally stabilise in
final Reality.
59. Steady faith is stronger than destiny.
Destiny is the result of causes, mostly accidental,
and is therefore loosely woven. Confidence and good
hope will overcome it easily.
60. We discover the Self by being earnest,
by searching, enquiring, questioning daily and
hourly, by giving one's life to this discovery.
61. On your true state has arisen this
subtle principle "I am", which is the cause of all
mischief.
62. See your world as it is, not as you
imagine it to be. Discrimination will lead to
detachment; detachment will ensure right action,
right action will build the inner bridge to your
real being. Action is proof of earnestness. Do what
you are told diligently and faithfully and all
obstacles will dissolve.
63. Investigate your world, apply your mind
to it, examine it critically, scrutinise every idea
about it; that will do.
64. The entire universe of pain is born of
desire. Give up the desire for pleasure and you
will not even know what is pain.
65. By its very nature pleasure is limited
and transient. Out of pain desire is born, in pain
it seeks fulfilment, and it ends in the pain of
frustration and despair. Pain is the background of
pleasure, all seeking of pleasure if born in pain
and ends in pain.
66. Sorting out and discarding are
absolutely necessary. Everything must be
scrutinised and the unnecessary ruthlessly
destroyed. Believe me, there cannot be too much
destruction. For, in reality, nothing is of value.
Be passionately dispassionate – that is
all.
67. When through the practice of
discrimination and detachment, you lose sight of
sensory and mental states, pure being emerges as
the natural state.
68. To be a living being is not the ultimate
state: there is something beyond, much more
wonderful, which is neither being nor non-being,
neither living nor not-living. It is a state of
pure awareness, beyond limitations of space and
time..
69. Dive deep within your Self and you will
find it easily and simply. Go in the direction of
"I am".
70. To know the world you forget the Self
– to know the Self you forget the world. What
is the 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.
71. All the three states of waking, dreaming
and sleeping are contained within the life bubble
in consciousness called "I". The real world lies
beyond the self.
72. Be fully aware of your own being and you
will be in bliss consciously. Because you take your
mind off your Self and make it dwell on what you
are not, you lose your sense of well-being, of
being well.
73. Delayed response is wrong response.
Thought, feeling and action must be one and
simultaneous with the situation that calls for
them.
74. My experience is that everything is
bliss. But the desire for bliss creates pain. Thus,
bliss becomes the seed of pain. the entire universe
of pain is born of desire. Give up the desire for
pleasure and you will not even know what pain
is.
75. As you are now, the personality is only
an obstacle. Self-identification with the body may
be good for an infant, but true growing up depends
on getting the body out of the way. Normally, one
should outgrow body-based desires early in life.
Even the bhogi [worldly enjoyer], who does
not refuse worldly enjoyments, need not hanker
after the ones he has tasted. Habit, desire for
repetition, frustrates both the yogi and the
bhogi.
76. The very desire to live is the messenger
of death, just as the longing to be happy is the
outline of sorrow.
77. There are so many who take the dawn for
the noon, a momentary experience for full
realisation and destroy even the little they gain
by excess of pride. Humility and silence are
essential for an aspirant, however advanced. Only a
fully ripened Self-realised being [jnani]
can allow himself complete spontaneity.
78. There are no distinctive marks of
Self-realisation [jnana]. Only ignorance
can be recognised, not jnana. Nor does a jnani
claim to be something special. All those who
proclaim their own greatness and uniqueness are not
jnanis. They are mistaking some unusual development
for realisation. The jnani shows no tendency to
proclaim himself to be a jnani. He considers
himself to be perfectly normal, true to his real
nature. Proclaiming oneself to be an omnipotent,
omniscient and omnipresent deity is a clear sign of
ignorance.
79. Be attentive, enquire ceaselessly. That
is all.
80. A spark of Truth can burn up a mountain
of lies. The opposite is also true. The sun of
Truth remains hidden behind the cloud of
self-identification with the body.
81. In your world I would be most miserable.
To wake up, to eat, to talk, to sleep again –
what a bother!
82. The yogi is narrow as the sharp edge of
the knife. He has to be to cut deep and smoothly,
to penetrate unerringly the many layers of the
false. The worldly enjoyer [bhogi] worships
at many altars; the yogi serves none but his own
true Self.
83. Your own Self is your ultimate teacher.
The outer teacher is merely a milestone. It is only
your inner teacher that will walk with you to the
goal, for he is the goal.
84. There are no others to help. The only
thing that can help is to wake up from the
dream.
85. Seek within. Your own Self is your best
friend.
86. The self by its nature knows itself
only. For lack of experience whatever it perceives
it takes to be itself. Battered, it learns to look
out and to live alone. When right behaviour becomes
normal, a powerful inner urge makes it seek its
source. The candle of the body is lighted and all
becomes clear and bright.
87. Those who know only scriptures know
nothing. To know is to be.
88. As long as we delude ourselves by what
we imagine ourselves to be, to know, to have, to
do, we are in a sad plight indeed. Only in complete
self-negation there is a chance to discover our
real being.
89. The false self must be abandoned before
the real Self can be found.
90. Perceptions based on sensations and
shaped by memory imply a perceiver, whose nature
you never cared to examine. Give it your full
attention, examine it with loving care and you will
discover heights and depths of being which you did
not dream of, engrossed as you are in your puny
image of yourself.
91. You must be serious, intent, truly
interested. You must be full of goodwill for
yourself.
92. By all means be selfish – the right
way. Wish yourself well, labour at what is good for
you. Destroy all that stands between you and
happiness. Be all, love all, be happy, make
happy.
93. All kinds of experiences may come to you
– remain unmoved in the knowledge anything
perceivable is transient and only the "I am"
endures.
94. Without love all is evil. Life itself
without love is evil.
95. You are love itself when you are not
afraid.
96. In the great mirror of consciousness
images arise and disappear, and only memory gives
them continuity. And memory is material –
destructible, perishable, transcient. On such
flimsy foundations we build a sense of personal
existence – vague, intermittent, dream-like.
This vague persuasion: "I am so and so" obscures
the changeless state of pure awareness and makes us
believe that we are born to suffer and die.
97. There is progress all the time.
Everything contributes to progress. But this is the
progress of ignorance. The circles of ignorance may
be ever widening, yet it remains a bondage all the
same. In due course a Guru appears to teach and
inspire us to practise Yoga and a ripening takes
place as a result of which the immemorial night of
ignorance dissolves before the rising sun of
wisdom.
98. When ignorance becomes obstinate and
hard and the character gets perverted, effort and
the pain of it become inevitable.
99. Freedom to do what one likes is really
bondage, while being free to do what one must, what
is right, is real freedom.
100. You mean to say everybody's life is
totally determined at his birth? What a strange
idea! Were it so, the power that determines would
see to it that nobody should suffer.
101. Pay no attention to your thoughts.
Don't fight them. Just do nothing about them, let
them be, whatever they are. Your very fighting them
gives them life. Just disregard. Look through.
Remember to remember: "Whatever happens, happens
because I am." All reminds you that "you are". Take
full advantage of the fact that to experience you
must "be". You need not stop thinking. Just cease
being interested. It is disinterestedness that
liberates. Don't hold on, that is all. The world is
made of rings. The hooks are all yours. Make
straight your hooks and nothing can hold you. Give
up your addictions. There is nothing else to give
up. Stop your routine of acquisitiveness, your
habit of looking for results and the freedom of the
universe is yours. Be effortless.
102. Not to know, and not to know that one
does not know, is the cause of endless
suffering.
103. What business have you with saving the
world, when all the world needs is to be saved from
you? Get out of the picture and see whether there
is anything left to save.
104. Just like a deficiency disease is cured
through the supply of the missing factor, so are
the diseases of living cured by a good dose of
intelligent detachment.
105. Remove the sense of separateness and
there will be no conflict.
106. The whole world is an ever-changing
state. No form is permanent. All you have to do is
see the dream as a dream... you are the formless,
timeless, Unborn. I ask you to stop imagining that
you were born, have parents, are a body, will die
and so on.
107. Whatever name you give it: will, or
steady purpose, or one-pointedness of mind, you
come back to earnestness, sincerity, honesty. When
you are in dead earnest, you bend every incident,
every second of your life to your purpose. You do
not waste time and energy on other things. You are
totally dedicated, call it will, or love, or plain
honesty. We are complex beings, at war within and
without. We contradict ourselves all the time,
undoing today the work of yesterday. No wonder we
are stuck. A little of integrity would make a lot
of difference.
108. Collect and strengthen your mind and
you will find that your thoughts and feelings,
words and actions will align themselves in the
direction of your will.
109. Weak-mindedness is due to lack of
intelligence, of understanding, which again is the
result of non-awareness. By striving for awareness
you bring your mind together and strengthen it.
110. Nothing of value can happen to a mind
which knows exactly what it wants.
111. Go to the source of both pain and
pleasure, of desire and fear. Observe, investigate,
try to understand.
112. Once the illusion that the body-mind is
oneself is abandoned, death loses its terror, it
becomes a part of living.
113. Find the permanent in the fleeting, the
one constant factor in every experience.
114. First purify your vision. Learn to see
instead of staring. Also you must be eager to see.
You need to both clarity and earnestness for
Self-knowledge. You need purity of heart and mind,
which comes through earnest application in daily
life of whatever life you have understood. There is
no such thing as compromise in Yoga.
115. Nothing can block you so effectively as
compromise, for it shows lack of earnestness,
without which nothing can be done.
116. Begin by disassociating yourself from
your mind. Resolutely remind yourself that you are
not the mind and that its problems are not
yours.
117. Go on pondering, wondering, being
anxious to find a way. Be conscious of yourself,
watch your mind, give it your full attention. Don't
look for quick results; there may be none within
your noticing. Unknown to you, your psyche will
undergo a change, there will be more clarity in
your thinking, charity in your feeling, purity in
your behaviour. You need not aim at these –
you will witness the change all the same. For, what
you are now is the result of inattention and what
you become will be the fruit of attention.
118. Do not undervalue attention. It means
interest and also love. To know, to do, to
discover, or to create you must give your heart to
it, which means attention. All blessings flow from
it.
119. When you are free of the world, you can
do something about it.
120. Correct your attitude to your body and
leave it alone. Don't pamper, don't torture. Just
keep it going, most of the time below the threshold
of conscious attention.
121. The nature of the perfect mirror is
such that you cannot see it. Whatever you can see
is bound to be a stain. Turn away from it, give it
up, know it as unwanted.
122. Is not meanness also a form of madness?
And is not madness the misuse of the mind?
Humanity's problem lies in this misuse of the mind
only. All treasures of nature and spirit are open
to man who will use his mind rightly.
123. Fear and greed cause the misuse of the
mind. The right use of mind is the service of love,
of life, of beauty, of Truth.
124. Attend to yourself, set yourself right,
mentally and emotionally. Leave alone the reforms
and mind the reformer.
125. All you need is to stop searching
outside what can be found only within. Set your
vision right before you operate. You are suffering
from acute misapprehension. Clarify your mind,
purify your heart, sanctify your life – this
is the quickest way to a change of your world.
126. Problems created by desires and fears
and wrong ideas can be solved only on the level of
the mind. You must conquer your own mind and for
this you must go beyond it.
127. To go beyond the mind, you must have
your mind in perfect order. You cannot leave a mess
behind and go beyond. The mess will bog you up.
"Pick up your rubbish" seems to be the universal
law. And a just law too.
128. Just remember your Self. "I am" is
enough to heal your mind and take you beyond. Just
have some trust. Common-sense too will tell you
that to fulfil a desire you must keep your mind on
it. If you want to know your true nature, you must
have your Self in mind all the time, until the
secret of your being stands revealed.
129. Desire the good of all and the universe
will work with you. But if you want your own
pleasure, you must earn it the hard way. Before
desiring, deserve.
130. It is not the worship of the person
that is crucial, but the steadiness and depth of
your devotion to the task. Remember, wonder,
ponder, live with it, love it, grow into it, grow
with it, make it your own – the word of your
Guru, outer or inner. Put in all and you will get
all. I was doing it. All my time I was giving to my
Guru and to what he told me.
131. It is easy, if you are earnest.
132. When you are concerned with Truth, with
Reality, you must question every thing, your very
life. By asserting the necessity of sensory and
intellectual experience you narrow down your
enquiry to search for comfort.
133. Question every urge, hold no desire
legitimate. Empty of possession, physical and
mental, free of all self-concern, be open for
discovery.
134. My Guru ordered me to attend to the
sense "I am" and to give attention to nothing else.
I just obeyed. I did not follow any particular
course of breathing, or meditation, or study of
scriptures. Whatever happened, I would turn away my
attention from it and remain with the sense "I am",
it may look too simple, even crude. My only reason
for doing it was that my Guru told me so. Yet it
worked! Obedience is a powerful solvent of all
desires and fears.
135. You can not speak of a beginning of
consciousness. The very ideas of beginning and time
are within consciousness. To talk meaningfully of
the beginning of anything, you must step out of it.
And the moment you step out, you realise that there
is no such thing and never was.
136. The illusion of being the body-mind is
there, only because it is not investigated.
Non-investigation is the thread on which all the
states of mind are strung. All states of mind, all
names and forms of existence are rooted in
non-enquiry, non-investigation, in imagination and
credulity. It is right to say "I am", but to say "I
am this", "I am that" is a sign of not enquiring,
not examining, of mental weakness or lethargy.
137. When we are absorbed in other things,
in the not-self, we forget the Self.
138. Practice [sadhana] consists in
reminding oneself forcibly of one's pure beingness,
of not being anything in particular, nor a sum of
particulars, not even the totality of particulars,
which make up a universe.
139. Enquire what is permanent in the
transient, real in the unreal. This is sadhana.
140. Think of yourself by all means. Only
don't bring the idea of a body into the
picture.
141. Attachment is bondage, detachment is
freedom. To crave is to slave.
142. Inertia and restlessness [tamas and
rajas] work together and keep clarity and
harmony [sattva] down. Tamas and rajas must
be conquered before sattva can appear.
143. You come to it by putting an end to
indolence and using all your energy to clear the
way for clarity and charity. Don't be afraid, don't
resist, don't delay. There is nothing to be afraid
of. Trust and try. Experiment honestly.
144. That immovable state, which is not
affected by the birth and death of a body or a
mind, that state you must perceive.
145. In life nothing can be had without
overcoming obstacles. The obstacles to the clear
perception of one's true being are desire for
pleasure and the fear of pain. It is the
pleasure-pain motivation that stands in the
way.
146. Leave alone your desires and fears,
give your entire attention to the subject, to Him
who is behind the experience of desire and fear.
Ask: who desires? Let each desire bring you back to
your Self.
147. It would be a grievous mistake to
identify yourself with something external.
148. The desire to find the Self will surely
be fulfilled, provided you want nothing else. But
you must be honest with yourself and really want
nothing else. If in the meantime you want many
other things and are engaged in their pursuit, your
main purpose may be delayed until you grow wiser
and cease being torn between contradictory urges.
Go within, without swerving, without ever looking
outward.
149. The world and the mind are states of
being. The Supreme is not a state. It pervades all
states, but it is not a state of something
else.
150. Whatever work you have undertaken,
complete it. Do not take up new tasks, unless it is
called for by a concrete situation of suffering and
relief from suffering. Find your Self first, and
endless blessings will follow. Nothing profits the
world as much as the abandoning of profits. A man
who no longer thinks in terms of loss and gain is
truly the non-violent man, for he is beyond all
conflict.
151. Primarily, ahimsa means what is says,
"Don't hurt". It is not doing good that comes
first, but ceasing to hurt, not adding to
suffering. Pleasing others is not ahimsa.
152. The only help worth giving is freeing
from the need of further help. Repeated help is no
help at all. Do not talk of helping another, unless
you can put him beyond all need of help.
153. When you have understood that all
existence, in separation and limitation, is
painful, and when you are willing and able to live
integrally, in oneness with all life, as pure
being, you have gone beyond the need of help. You
can help another by precept and example and, above
all, by your being. You cannot give what you do not
have and you don't have what you are not.
154. You can only cease to be as you seem to
be now. There is nothing cruel in what I say. To
wake up a man from a nightmare is compassion. You
came here because you are in pain, and all I say
is: wake up, know your Self, be your Self. The end
of pain lies not in pleasure. When you realise that
you are beyond both pain and pleasure, aloof and
unassailable, the the pursuit of happiness ceases
and the resultant sorrow too. For pain aims at
pleasure and pleasure ends in pain,
relentlessly.
155. By being clear about confusion, you
become clear of confusion.
156. What is birth and death but the
beginning and the ending of a stream of events in
consciousness? Because of the idea of separation
and limitation they are painful. Momentary relief
from pain we call pleasure – and we build
castles in the air hoping for endless pleasure
which we call happiness. It is all misunderstanding
and misuse. Wake up, go beyond, live really.
157. Have your being outside this body of
birth and death and all your problems will be
solved. They exist because you believe yourself
born to die. Undeceive yourself and be free. You
are not a person. To be a person is to be
asleep.
158. Just look and remember, whatever you
perceive is not you, nor yours. It is there in the
field of consciousness, but you are not the field
and its contents, nor even the knower of the field.
Simply look at whatever happens and know you are
beyond it.
159. 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.
160. Of all the people the knower of the
Self, the liberated man, is the most trustworthy.
But merely to trust is not enough. You must also
desire. Without desire for freedom of what use is
the confidence that you can acquire freedom? Desire
and confidence must go together. The stronger your
desire, the easier comes the help. The greatest
Guru is helpless as long as the disciple is not
eager to learn. Eagerness and earnestness are
all-important. Confidence will come with
experience. Be devoted to your goal and devotion to
him who can guide you will follow. If your desire
and confidence are strong, they will operate and
take you to your goal, for you will not cause delay
by hesitation and compromise. The greatest Guru is
your inner Self. Truly, He is the supreme teacher.
He alone can take you to your goal and he alone
meets you at the end of the road. Confide in him
and you need no outer Guru. But again you must have
the strong desire to find him and do nothing that
will create obstacles and delays. And do not waste
energy and time on regrets. Learn from your
mistakes and do not repeat them.
161. Let us wait with improving others until
we have seen ourselves as we are and have changed.
There is no need to turn round and round in endless
questioning; find your Self and everything will
fall into its proper place.
162. The body exists in time and space,
transient and limited, while the dweller is
timeless and spaceless, eternal and all-pervading.
To identify the two is a grievous mistake and the
cause of endless suffering.
163. You are the god of your world and you
are both stupid and cruel. Let God be a concept
– your own creation. Find out who you are, how
did you come to live, longing for Truth, goodness
and beauty in a world full of evil. Of what use is
your arguing for or against God, when you just do
not know who is God and what you are talking about.
The God born of fear and hope, shaped by desire and
imagination, cannot be the Power that is the Mind
and Heart of the universe.
164. There are two levels to consider –
the physical of facts, and the mental of ideas. I
am beyond both. Neither your facts nor ideas are
mine. What I see is beyond. Cross-over to my side
and see with me.
165. You are not here. I am here. Come in!
But you don't. You want me to live your life, feel
your way, use your language. I cannot, and it will
not help you. You must come to me. Words are of the
mind and the mind obscures and distorts. Hence, the
absolute need to go beyond words and move over to
my side. You give reality to concepts, while
concepts are distortions of Reality. Abandon all
conceptualisation and stay silent and attentive. Be
earnest about it and all will be well with you.
166. Why play with ideas? Be content with
what you are sure of. And the only thing you can be
sure of is "I am". Stay with it, and reject
everything else. This is Yoga.
167. If you want to sin, sin wholeheartedly
and openly. Sins too have their lessons to teach
the earnest sinner, as virtues the earnest saint.
It is the mixing up of the two that is so
disastrous. Nothing can block you so effectively as
compromise, for it shows lack of earnestness,
without which nothing can be done.
168. Go deep into the sense of "I am" and
you will find. How do you find a thing you have
mislaid or forgotten? You keep it in your mind
until you recall it. The sense of being, of "I am"
is the first to emerge. Ask yourself whence it
comes, or just watch it quietly. When the mind
stays in the "I am", without moving, you enter a
state that cannot be verbalised but can be
experienced. All you need to do is to try and try
again.
169. Don't identify yourself with the world
and you will not suffer.
170. To nourish the ideas: "I am a sinner, I
am not a sinner" is sin. To identify oneself with
the particular is all the sin there is. The
impersonal is real, the personal appears and
disappears.
171. Give up the idea of being what you
think yourself to be.
172. What matters is the idea you have of
yourself, for it blocks you. Give it up.
173. Easier to change, than to suffer. Grow
out of your childishness, that is all.
174. 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 the words: "I am".
175. So far you took yourself to be the
movable and overlooked the immovable. Turn your
mind inside out. Overlook the movable and you will
find your Self to be the ever-present, changeless
Reality, inexpressible, but solid like a rock.
176. You are conscious. Hold on to it.
177. In witnessing, in awareness,
Self-consciousness, the sense of being "this" or
"that" is not. Unidentified being remains.
178. When you understand that names and
shapes are hollow shells without any content
whatsoever, and what is real is nameless and
formless, pure energy of life and light of
consciousness, you will be at peace, immersed in
the deep silence of Reality.
179. All creation toils for its Self and
will not rest until it returns to it.
180. What I say is true, but to you it is
only a theory. How will you come to know that it is
true? Listen, remember, ponder, visualise,
experience. Also apply it in your daily life. Have
patience with me and above all have patience with
yourself, for you are your only obstacle.
181. To receive communication, you must be
receptive.
182. All I can tell you is the way I
travelled and invite you to take it.
183. As far as I am concerned, my teaching
is simple: trust me for a while and do what I tell
you. If you persevere, you will find that your
trust was justified.
184. Names and shapes changes incessantly.
Know your Self to be the changeless witness of the
changeful mind. That is enough.
185. You seem to want instant insight,
forgetting that the instant is always preceded by a
long preparation. The fruit falls suddenly, but the
ripening takes time.
186. 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.
187. First reject verbally, then mentally
and emotionally, then in action. Give attention to
the Reality within you and it will come to light.
It is like churning butter. Do it correctly and
assiduously and the result is sure to come.
188. The relative cannot result in the
Absolute. But the relative can block the Absolute,
just as the non-churning of the cream may prevent
butter from separating. It is the Real that creates
the urge; the inner prompts the outer and the outer
responds in interest and effort.
189. If you cannot break a habit all at
once, consider the familiar way of thinking and see
its falseness. Questioning the habitual is the duty
of the mind. What the mind created, the mind must
destroy. Or realise that there is no desire outside
the mind and stay out.
190. To have the direct experience of a
country one must go and live there.
191. Givers there are many; where are the
takers?
192. While you repeat verbally: "Give,
give", you do nothing to take what is offered. I am
showing you a short and easy way to being able to
see what I see, but you cling to your old habits of
thought, feeling and action and put all the blame
on me.
193. Whatever he does, if he does it for the
sake of finding his own real Self, will surely
bring him to his own Self.
194. No need of faith which is but
expectation of results. Here the action only
counts. Whatever you do for the sake of Truth, will
take you to Truth. Only be earnest and honest. The
shape it takes hardly matters.
195. The very facts of repetition, of
struggling on and on and of endurance and
perseverance, in spite of boredom and despair and
complete lack of conviction are really crucial.
196. There is a connection between the word
and its meaning, between action and its motive.
Spiritual practice is will asserted and
reasserted.
197. Meet your own Self. Be with your own
Self, listen to it, obey it, cherish it, keep it in
mind endlessly. You need no other guide. As long as
your urge for Truth affects your daily life, all is
well with you. Live your life without hurting
anybody. Harmlessness is a most powerful form of
Yoga and it will take you speedily to your goal.
This is what I call Nisarga Yoga, the Natural Yoga.
It is the art of living in peace and harmony, in
friendliness and love. The fruit of it is
happiness, uncaused and endless.
198. Turn within and you will come to trust
your Self.
199. What prevents you from knowing is not
the lack of opportunity, but the lack of ability to
focus in your mind what you want to understand. If
you could but keep in mind what you do not know, it
would reveal to you its secrets. But if you are
shallow and impatient, not earnest enough to look
and wait, you are like a child crying for the
moon.
200. There is nothing wrong in repeating the
same truth again and again until it becomes
Reality. People need to hear words, until facts
speak to them louder than words.
201. In my world there is community,
insight, love, real quality; the individual is the
total, the totality is in the individual. All are
one and the one is all.
202. To remember what needs to be remembered
is the secret of success. You come to it through
earnestness.
203. Knowing the world to be a part of
myself, I pay it no more attention than you pay to
the food you have eaten.
204. Mind is interested in what happens,
while awareness is interested in the mind itself.
The child is after the toy, but the mother watches
the child, not the toy.
205. To lose entirely all interest in
knowledge results in omniscience.
206. Once you know your mind and its
miraculous powers, and remove what poisoned it
– the idea of a separate and isolated person
– you just leave it alone to do its work among
things for which it is well suited. To keep the
mind in its own place and on its own work is the
liberation of the mind.
207. Who would have witnessed the "I am" if
your prior state of non-beingness were not
there?
208. Remember, you cannot abandon what you
do not know. To go beyond yourself, you must know
yourself.
209. 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.
210. The desire for Truth is the best of all
desires, yet it is still a desire. All desires must
be given up for the Real to be. Remember that you
are. This is your working capital. Rotate it and
there will be much profit.
211. A man who claims to know what is good
for others is dangerous.
212. There can be no consciousness without
awareness, but there can be awareness without
consciousness, as in deep sleep.
213. Do not look for me in identification
with or opposition to something: I am where desire
and fear are not.
214. Consciousness does not shine by itself.
It shines by a light beyond it.
215. The mind must learn that beyond the
moving mind there is the background of awareness
which does not change. The mind must come to know
the true Self and respect it and cease covering it
up, like the moon which obscures the sun during
solar eclipse.
216. While the mind is centred in the body,
and consciousness is centred in the mind, awareness
is free. The body has its urges and mind its pains
and pleasures. Awareness is unattached and
unshaken. It is lucid, silent, peaceful, alert and
unafraid, without desire and fear. Meditate on it
as your true being and try to be it in your daily
life, and you shall realise it in its fullness.
217. Awareness becomes consciousness when it
has an object. The object changes all the time. In
consciousness there is movement; awareness by
itself is motionless and timeless, here and
now.
218. All consciousness is limited and
therefore painful. At the root of consciousness
lies desire, the urge to experience.
219. The world is but a succession of
experiences and you are what makes them conscious,
and yet remain beyond all experience. It is like
the heat, the flame and the burning wood. The heat
maintains the flame, the flame consumes the wood.
Without heat, there would be neither flame nor
fuel. Similarly, without awareness there would be
no consciousness, nor life, which transforms matter
into a vehicle of consciousness.
220. You can have for the asking all the
peace you want. You must ask with an undivided
heart and live an integrated life. Detach yourself
from all that makes your mind restless. Renounce
all that disturbs its peace. If you want peace,
deserve it and don't disturb it by being a slave to
your desires and fears.
221. The primary concept "I am" is
dishonest, a cheat, it has deceived you into
believing what is not. Focus sharply on the "I am"
and it will disappear.
222. Discover all that you are not –
body, feelings thoughts, time, space, being and
not-being, this or that – nothing, concrete or
abstract, which you perceive can be you. The very
act of perceiving shows that you are not what you
perceive.
223. Go within and discover what you are
not. Nothing else matters.
224. Distrust your mind, and go beyond it to
the direct experience of being, knowing and loving.
There are many starting points – they all lead
to the same goal. You may begin with selfless work,
abandoning the fruits of action; you may then give
up thinking and in the end give up all desires.
Here, giving up is the operational factor. Or you
may not bother about anything you want, or think,
or do and just stay put in the thought and feeling
"I am", focussing "I am" firmly in your mind. All
kinds of experience may come to you – remain
unmoved in the knowledge that all perceivable is
transient, and only the "I am" endures.
225. That which sees all and nothing is the
inner teacher. He alone is, all else only appears
to be. He is your own Self, your hope and assurance
of freedom; find him and cling to him and you will
be saved and safe.
226. The Self is solid, steady, changeless,
beginningless and endless, ever new, ever fresh.
Desirelessness and fearlessness will take you
there.
227. Whatever happens it happens to you.
What you do, the doer is in you. Find the subject
of all that you are as a person.
228. Give up all questions except one: "Who
am I?" After all, the only fact you are sure of is
that you are. The "I am" is certain. The "I am
this" is not. Struggle to find out what you are in
reality. Give your heart and mind to it, think of
nothing else.
229. Adhere to the thought that you are the
ground of all knowledge, the immutable and
perennial awareness of all that happens to the
senses and mind. If you keep it in mind all the
time, aware and alert, you are bound to break the
bounds of non-awareness and emerge into pure life,
light and love.
230. The idea, "I am the witness only", will
purify the body and the mind and open the eye of
wisdom. Then man goes beyond illusion and his heart
is free of all desires. Just like ice turns to
water and water to vapour, and vapour dissolves in
air and disappears into space, so does the body
dissolve into pure awareness, then into pure being,
which is beyond all existence and
non-existence.
231. By focussing the mind on "I am", on the
sense of being, the "I am so-and-so" dissolves, the
"I am a witness only" remains and that too
eventually submerges into "I am all". Abandon the
idea of a separate "I" and the question of "Whose
experience?" will not arise.
232. When you discern and let go all that is
unreal, what remains is real.
233. The good news of enlightenment will,
sooner or later, bring about a transformation.
First hearing, then remembering, pondering and so
on. We are on familiar ground. The man who heard
the news becomes a yogi; while the rest continue in
their worldly pursuits of joys and sorrows.
234. Thinking yourself to be a person –
living, feeling, thinking, active, passive, pleased
or pained – is a mere habit, built on memory,
prompted by desire. Question yourself, ask
yourself: "Is it so?", "Who am I?", "What is behind
and beyond all this?" And soon you will see your
mistake. It is in the very nature of a mistake to
cease to be, when seen.
235. What is perceived in pure awareness,
unaffected by desire and fear, is what is called a
fact.
236. Love is a state of being. Sex is
energy. Love is wise, sex is blind.
237. What is going on is a projection of
your mind. A weak mind cannot control its own
projections. Be aware, therefore, of your mind and
its projections. You cannot control what you do not
know. On the other hand, knowledge gives power. In
practice it is very simple. To control yourself,
know yourself.
238. Give your undivided attention to the
most important in your life, yourself. Of your
personal universe you are the centre – without
knowing the centre what else can you know?
239. The universe is of tremendous value. By
going beyond it you realise your Self. Find a
foothold in the beyond and all will be clear and
easy.
240. Desires and fears remain only in your
memory. Realise that their root is in expectation
born of memory, and they will cease to obsess
you.
241. In the ultimate state there is neither
sorrow nor happiness, only freedom. Happiness
depends on something or other and can be lost;
freedom from everything depends on nothing and
cannot be lost. Freedom from sorrow has no cause
and therefore, cannot be destroyed. Realise that
freedom.
242. You evaluate the world as name and form,
but when name and form are dissolved, a dissolution
takes place. It is all happening spontaneously.
There is no question of you trying to do
anything.
243. Consciousness and unconsciousness,
while in the body, depend on the condition of the
brain. But the Self is beyond both, beyond the
brain, beyond the mind. The fault of the instrument
is no reflection on its user.
244. Everybody sees the world through the
idea he has of himself. If you imagine yourself as
separate from the world, the world will appear as
separate from you and you will experience desire
and fear. I do not see the world as separate from
me, and so there is nothing for me to desire or
fear.
245. Wisdom lies in never forgetting the
Self as the ever-present source of both the
experiencer and his experience.
246. Wisdom is eternally negating the
unreal. To see the unreal is wisdom. Beyond this
lies the inexpressible.
247. Once you realise that the person is
merely a shadow of the Reality, but not the Reality
itself, you cease to fret and worry. You agree to
be guided from within and life becomes a journey
into the unknown.
248. Freedom is freedom from worry. Having
realised that you cannot influence the results, pay
no attention to your desires and fears. Let them
come and go. Don't give them nourishment of
interest and attention.
249. The illusion of being the body-mind is
there only because it is not investigated.
Non-investigation is the thread on which all the
states of mind are strung.
250. The "I am" is the sum total of all that
you perceive, it's time-bound, the "I am" itself is
an illusion, you are not the "I am" you are prior
to it.
251. A man who knows that he is neither body
nor mind cannot be selfish, for he has nothing to
be selfish for. Or, you may say, he is equally
"selfish" on behalf of everybody he meets;
everybody's welfare is his own.
252. All your problems arise because you
have defined and therefore limited yourself. When
you do not think yourself to be this or that, all
conflict ceases. Any attempt to do something about
your problems is bound to fail, for what is caused
by desire can be undone only in freedom from
desire.
253. The pure mind sees things as they are
– bubbles in consciousness. These bubbles are
appearing, disappearing and reappearing, without
having real being. No particular cause can be
ascribed to them, for each is caused by all and
affects all. Each bubble is a body and all these
bodies are mine.
254. All your questions are sprouting from
your identification with the body-form. You should
go inside. All hopes and desires should be for the
Self. You should only be craving the Self.
255. Prior to the appearance of this form, I
was neither being or no being. Consciousness has to
appear in this form, so this form can recognise
consciousness.
256. Whatever appears in consciousness will
disappear in consciousness, but consciousness is
ever present.
257. On what basis is one confident about
this existence? What does it depend on?
258. For the earnest seeker it is easy to
realise the Self, but it is difficult for
others.
259. Everything becomes clear when you
strive to realise the Self and not God. This
realisation, even for a moment, wipes out all past
and makes you free of all future strain and
trouble.
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260.
God may exist but only if there is an "I" to
perceive it. Without an "I" to perceive it who will
confirm his existence? The "I" creates God!
261. You become thought free when you are
not thinking about yourself.
262. A Self-realised being is not affected
by life or death.
263. The one who has created all bodies is
the one who decides their karma, the activity that
they perform.
264. Once you transcend the idea that "I am
the body", then it won't matter whether life is
short or long. The illusory world [maya] in
no way can affect you.
265. Realise that eternal state, the
Absolute [Parabrahman], which is prior to
all conception. Abide in That!
266. Living is life's only purpose.
267. My Guru told me to hold on to the sense
"I am" tenaciously and not to swerve from it even
for a moment. I did my best to follow his advice
and in a comparatively short time I realised within
myself the truth of his teaching. All I did was to
remember his teaching, his face, his words
constantly. This brought an end to the mind; in the
stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am –
unbound.
268. The mind creates time and space, and
takes its own creations for reality. All is here
and now, but we do not see it. Truly, all is in me
and by me. There is nothing else. The very idea of
"else" is a disaster and a calamity.
269. It is the choices you make that are
wrong. To imagine that some little thing –
food, sex, power, fame – will make you happy
is to deceive yourself.
270. The Self is universal and its aims are
universal. There is nothing personal about the
Self. Live an orderly life, but do not make it a
goal by itself.
271. Nothing profits the world as mush as
the abandoning of profits. A man who no longer
thinks in terms of loss and gain is the truly
non-violent man, for he is beyond all conflict.
272. To divide and particularise is in the
mind's very nature. There is no harm in dividing.
But separation goes against fact. Things and people
are different, but they are not separate. Nature is
one, Reality is one. There are opposites, nut no
opposition.
273. When you look at anything as separate
from you, you cannot love it for you are afraid of
it. Alienation causes fear, and fear deepens
alienation. It is a vicious circle. Only
Self-realisation can break it. Go for it
resolutely.
274. Just as a speck in the eye, causing
inflammation, may wipe out the world, so the
mistaken idea "I am the body-mind" causes the
self-concern, which obscures the universe. It is
useless to fight the sense of being a limited and
separate person unless the roots of it are laid
bare. Selfishness is rooted in the mistaken ideas
of oneself. Clarification of the mind is Yoga.
275. The mind cannot know what is beyond the
mind, but the mind is known by what is beyond
it.
276. In reality, nothing happens. There is
no past, no future. Onto the screen of the mind
destiny forever projects its pictures, memories of
former projections, and thus illusion constantly
renews itself. The pictures come and go –
light intercepted by ignorance. See the light and
disregard the picture.
277. You began as a child and you will end
as a child. Whatever you have acquired in the
meantime you must lose and start at the
beginning.
278. What you need will come to you if you
do not ask for what you do not need. Yet only few
people reach this state of complete dispassion and
detachment. It is a very high state, the very
threshold of liberation.
279. The "here" is everywhere, and the "now"
always. Go beyond the "I am the body" idea, and you
will find that space and time are in you and not
you in space and time. Once you have understood
this, the main obstacle to realisation is
removed.
280. You are concerned with your own
happiness and I am telling you that there is no
such thing. Happiness is never your own, it is
where the "I" is not.
281. The world is but the surface of the
mind, and the mind is infinite. What we call
thoughts are just ripples in the mind. When the
mind is quiet, it reflects the Reality. When it is
motionless through and through; it dissolves and
only the Reality remains. This Reality is so
concrete, so actual, so much more tangible than
mind and matter, that compared to it even diamond
is soft like butter. This overwhelming actuality
makes the world dream-like, misty, irrelevant.
282. There is only a stream of sensations,
perceptions, memories and ideations.
283. A man who is given a stone and assured
that it is a priceless diamond will be mightily
pleased until he realises his mistake; in the same
way pleasures lose their tang and pains their barb
when the Self is known. Both are seen as they are
– conditional responses, mere reactions, plain
attractions and repulsions, based on memories or
preconceptions. Usually pleasure and pain are
experienced when expected. It is all a matter of
acquired habits and convictions.
284. As long as there is the body and the
sense of identity with the body, frustration is
inevitable. Only when you know your Self as
entirely alien to and different from the body, will
you find respite from the mixture of fear and
craving inseparable from the "I am the body"
idea.
285. Happiness is our real nature and we
shall never rest until we find it. But rarely do we
know where to seek. Once you have understood that
the world is but a mistaken view of the Reality,
and it is not what it appears to be, you are free
of its obsessions.
286. Pleasure is a distraction and a
nuisance, for it merely increases the false
conviction that one needs to have and do things to
be happy when in reality it is just the
opposite.
287. To see everything as imagination born
of desire is necessary for Self-realisation. We
miss the Real by lack of attention and create the
unreal by excess of imagination.
288. Do what you believe in and believe in
what you do. All else is waste of energy and
time.
289. To be is to suffer. the narrower the
circle of my self-identification, the more acute
the suffering caused by desire and fear.
290. What I teach is the ancient and simple
way of liberation through understanding. Understand
your own mind and its hold on you will snap. The
mind misunderstands, misunderstanding is its very
nature. Right understanding is the only remedy,
whatever name you give it.
291. The person is what I appear to be to
other persons. To myself I am the infinite expanse
of consciousness in which innumerable persons
emerge and disappear in endless succession.
292. Just keep in mind the feeling "I am",
merge in it, until your mind and feeling become
one. By repeated attempts you will stumble on the
right balance of attention and affection, and your
mind will be firmly established in the
thought-feeling "I am". Whatever you think, say, or
do, this sense of immutable and affectionate being
remains as the ever-present background of the
mind.
293. The changeful keeps on changing, while
the changeless is waiting. Do not expect the
changeful to take you to the changeless – it
can never happen.
294. You are the perceiving point, the
non-dimensional source of all dimensions.
295. The realised man knows what others
merely hear, but do not experience. Intellectually
they may seem convinced, but in action they betray
their bondage.
296. What happens to the body and the mind
may not be within your power to change, but you can
always put an end to your imagining yourself to be
body and mind. Whatever happens, remind yourself
that only your body and mind are affected, not your
Self.
297. Be empty of all mental content, of all
imagination and effort, and the very absence of
obstacles will cause Reality to rush in.
298. Spiritual maturity lies in the
readiness to let go of everything. The giving up is
the first step. But real giving up is the
realisation that there is nothing to give up, for
nothing is your own. It is like deep sleep –
you do not give up your bed when you fall asleep,
you just forget it.
299. Mind is interested in what happens,
while awareness is interested in the mind itself.
The child is after the toy, but the mother watches
the child, not the toy.
300. Forget the known, but remember that you
are the knower. Don't be all the time immersed in
your experiences. Remember that you are beyond the
experiencer, ever Unborn and deathless.
301. To want nothing and do nothing –
that is true creation! To watch the universe
emerging and subsiding in one's heart is a
wonder.
302. When effort is needed, effort will
appear. When effortlessness becomes essential, it
will assert itself. You need not push life about.
Just flow with it and give yourself completely to
the task of the present moment, which is the dying
now to the now. For living is dying. Without death
life cannot be.
303. To work in the world is hard, to
refrain from all unnecessary work is even
harder.
304. The moment you know your real being,
you are afraid of nothing. Death gives freedom and
power. To be free in the world, you must die to the
world. Then the universe is your own, it becomes
your body, an expression and a tool. The happiness
of being absolutely free is beyond description. On
the other hand, he who is afraid of freedom cannot
die.
305. Does a happy man seek happiness? How
restless people are, how constantly on the move! It
is because they are in pain that they seek relief
in pleasure. All the happiness they can imagine is
in the assurance of repeated pleasure.
306. The only difference between us is that
I am aware of my natural state, while you are
bemused. Just like gold made into ornaments has no
advantage over gold dust, except when the mind
makes it so, so are we are in being – we
differ only in appearance. We discover it by being
earnest, by searching, enquiring, questioning daily
and hourly, by giving oneís life to this
discovery.
307. Do not identify yourself with the world
and you will not suffer.
308. Do understand that you are destined for
enlightenment. Co-operate with your destiny, dont
go against it, dont thwart it. Allow it to fulfil
itself. All you have to do is to give attention to
the obstacles created by the foolish mind.
309. You need not get at Reality, for you
are it. It will get at you, if you give it a
chance. Let go of your attachment to the unreal and
the Real will swiftly and smoothly slip into its
own. Stop imagining yourself being or doing this or
that and the realisation that you are the source
and heart of all will dawn upon you.
310. The Real does not die, the unreal never
lived.
311. I see no difference between you and me.
My life is a succession of events, just like yours.
Only I am detached and see the passing show as a
passing show, while you stick to things and move
along with them.
312. Yes, I appear to hear and see and talk
and act, but to me it just happens, as to you
digestion or perspiration happens. The body-mind
machine looks after it, but leaves me out of it.
Just as you do not need to worry about growing
hair, so I need not worry about words and actions.
They just happen and leave me unconcerned, for in
my world nothing ever goes wrong.
313. Pleasure and pain lost their sway over
me. I was free from desire and fear. I found myself
full, needing nothing.
314. To me it is "a body", not "my body", "a
mind", not "my mind". The mind looks after the body
all right, I need not interfere.
315. Whatever is done, is done on the stage.
Joy and sorrow, life and death, they all are real
to the man in bondage; to me they are all in the
show, as unreal as the show itself.
316. To me nothing ever happens. There is
something changeless, motionless, immovable,
rock-like, unassailable; a solid mass of pure
being-consciousness-bliss. I am never out of it.
Nothing can take me out of it, no torture, no
calamity.
317. Man alone can destroy in himself the
roots of pain.
318. All is attended to in minutest details
and yet there is a sense of unreality about it all.
So is the case with me. All happens as it needs,
yet nothing happens. I do what seems to be
necessary, but at the same time I know that nothing
is necessary, that life itself is only a
make-belief.
319. There was discovery and it was sudden.
Just as at birth you discover the world suddenly,
as suddenly I discovered my real being.
320. I am neither conscious nor unconscious.
I am beyond the mind and its various states and
conditions. A person is a set pattern of desires
and thoughts and resulting actions; there is no
pattern in my case. There is nothing I desire or
fear, so how can there be a pattern?
321. All that is experienced, perceived and
conceived by an "I", as well as the "I" is part of
the illusion [maya].
322. Act on what you think is true. This is
the way to Truth. Action is the test of Truth.
323. I have come to the conclusion that
consciousness and whatever appears in consciousness
is nothing but a gigantic fraud.
324. The desire to find the Self will surely
be fulfilled, provided you want nothing else. But
you must be honest with yourself and really want
nothing else. If in the meantime you want many
other things and are engaged in their pursuit, your
main purpose may be delayed until you grow wiser
and cease being torn between contradictory urges.
Go within, without swerving, without ever looking
outward.
325. My world is absolutely free; everything
in it is self-determined. Therefore I keep on
saying that all happens by itself. There is order
in my world too, but it is not imposed from
outside. It comes spontaneously and immediately,
because of its timelessness. Perfection is not in
the future. It is now.
326. There is no religion, no karma, no
time. There is only the all-prevading life-force.
Do not try to know it, but hold on to what you have
heard. It is the natural state where there is no
memory that "I am the body". The one who holds the
saying of the Guru as ultimate, will get
forbearance and will get the state of Reality. Even
if there is knowledge of Reality, it is not
everlasting or true. As it is an experience, it
cannot last. All is Reality, all is blisssful and
peaceful. The memory of personality, however, is a
misery. Remember that.
327. Whatever name you give it: will, or
steady purpose, or one pointedness of mind, you
come back to earnestness, sincerity, honesty. When
you are in dead earnestness, you bend every
incident, every second of your life to your
purpose. You do not waste time and energy on other
things. You are totally dedicated, call it will, or
love, or plain honesty. We are complex beings, at
war within and without. We contradict ourselves all
the time, undoing today the work of yesterday. No
wonder we are stuck. A little of integrity would
make a lot of difference.
328. Go deep into the sense of "I am" and
you will find. How do you find a thing you have
mislaid or forgotten? You keep it in your mind
until you recall it. The sense of being, of "I am"
is the first to emerge. Ask yourself whence it
comes, or just watch it quietly. When the mind
stays in the "I am", without moving, you enter a
state that cannot be verbalised but can be
experienced. All you need to do is to try and try
again.
329. I can tell you about myself. I was a
simple man, but I trusted my Guru. What he told me
to do, I did. He told me to concentrate on "I am"
– I did. He told me that I am beyond all
perceivables and conceivables – I believed. I
gave him my heart and soul, my entire attention and
the whole of my spare time. As a result of faith
and earnest application, I realised my Self within
three years.
330. Detach yourself from all that makes
your mind restless. Renounce all that disturbs its
peace. If you want peace, deserve it.
331. Emotional reactions, born of ignorance
or inadvertence, are never justified. Seek a clear
mind and a clean heart. All you need is to keep
quietly alert, enquiring into the real nature of
yourself. This is the only way to peace.
332. For him, the sincere seeker, the right
procedure is to adhere to the thought that he is
the ground of all knowledge, the immutable and
perennial awareness of all that happens to the
senses and mind. If he keeps it in mind all the
time, aware and alert, he is bound to break the
bounds of non-awareness and emerge into pure life,
light and love. The idea – "I am the witness
only" will purify the body and the mind and open
the eye of wisdom. Then man goes beyond illusion
and his heart is free of all desires. Just like ice
turns to water and water to vapour, and vapour
dissolves in air and disappears into space, so does
the body dissolve into pure awareness, then into
pure being, which is beyond all existence and
non-existence.
333. You are not the body. The only solution
is for you to give up your identity with the
body-mind.
334. I see what you too could see, here and
now, but for the wrong focus of your attention. You
give no attention to your Self. Your mind is all
with things, people and ideas, never with your
Self. Bring your Self into focus, become aware of
your own existence. See how you function, watch the
motives and results of your actions. Study the
prison you have built around yourself, by
inadvertence.
335. Why do you feel sorry for this mortal
body?
336. Look at the net and its many
contradictions. You do and undo at every step. You
want peace, love, happiness and work hard to create
pain, hatred and war. You want longevity and
overeat, you want friendship and exploit. See your
net as made of such contradictions and remove them
– your very seeing will make them go.
337. How do you go about finding anything?
By keeping your mind and heart on it. Interest
there must be and steady remembrance. To remember
what needs to be remembered is the secret of
success. You come to it through earnestness.
338. First purify your vision. Learn to see
instead of staring. Also you must be eager to see.
You need to both clarity and earnestness for
self-knowledge. You need purity of heart and mind,
which comes through earnest application in daily
life of whatever life you have understood. There is
no such thing as compromise in Yoga.
339. Take the first step first. All
blessings come from within. Turn within. "I am" you
know. Be with it all the time you can spare, until
you revert to it spontaneously. There is no simpler
and easier way.
340. It is easier to understand that the
entire manifestation is in the nature of a dream,
or a mirage, but you interpret the rest of the
manifestation as being a mirage and won't let go of
the seer of a phenomenon. The seer is also part of
the mirage. See it all as a dream and be done with
it.
341. Refuse all thoughts except one: the
thought "I am". The mind will rebel in the
beginning, but with patience and perseverance it
will yield and keep quiet.
342. All you need is to stop searching
outside what can be found only within. Set your
vision right before you operate. You are suffering
from acute misapprehension. Clarify your mind,
purify your heart, sanctify your life – this
is the quickest way to a change of your world.
343. Have your Guru always in your heart and
remember his instructions – this is real
abidance with the True.
344. You must exist prior to witnessing for
witnessing to happen.
345. We discover Self by being earnest, by
searching, enquiring, questioning daily and hourly,
by giving one's life to this discovery.
346. You are not this mortal body, so why
even be concerned with it?
347. When the "I am" beingness state goes,
the Absolute will again prevail. It ever prevails.
The state in which you were eight days prior to
conception or thousands of years prior to that,
whatever that state is, that state ever prevails
whether the beingness state is there or the
beingness disappears. That is the eternal state of
yours.
348. Forget me, forget Maharaj, forget the
teachings, just stay in the Self as a portal to the
Absolute.... Forget me, forget Maharaj, forget the
teaching, stay in the consciousness and your own
unique path will emerge for you.
349. Stay in the Self as a portal to the
Absolute, be the Self as a portal to the
Absolute.
350. The Supreme is the easiest to reach for
it is your very being. It is enough to stop
thinking and desiring anything, but the
Supreme.
351. Expect nothing from experiences, all
experiences do is lead you to more experiences.
352. All that explanations do is help you to
feel better about what happened. Cause and effect
are just a way of thinking about things.
353. There is no karma in final Reality.
354. Take the first step first. All
blessings come from within. Turn within. "I am" you
know. Be with it all the time you can spare, until
you revert to it spontaneously. There is no simpler
and easier way.
355. You are always seeking pleasure,
avoiding pain, always after happiness and peace.
Don't you see that it is your very search for
happiness that makes you feel miserable? Try the
other way: indifferent to pain and pleasure,
neither asking, nor refusing, give all your
attention to the level on which "I am" is
timeslessly present. Soon you will realise that
peace and happiness are in your very nature and it
is only seeking them through some particular
channels that disturbs. Avoid the disturbances,
that is all.
356. My concepts, if implanted in you, will
destroy all other words and concepts.
357. Being the Self is worshipping the
Self.
358. My religion is to worship the Self.
359. Everything is zero. There is no gain,
there is no loss.
360. Actions occur, blame or praise is
assigned later. Be free from the fruit of your
action.
361. Happiness is where the "I" is not.
362. All that is to be will be.
363. When I see myself as everything, that
is love.
364. There is no one nor anything closer or
further away from the Self.
365. What you know about yourself came from
outside of you, therefore discard it.
366. I am not interested in your illusion or
your imagined entity.
367. Stay in the Self. Stay prior to the
senses.
368. There is no birth. There is no death.
There is no person. It is all a concept. It is all
an illusion. You are the child of a barren
woman.
369. I simply followed my Guru's 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.
370. Consciousness is the Guru of the
Guru.
371. All that you can teach is
understanding; the rest comes on its own.
372. Discard all as "not this, not this"
[neti-neti]. All layers or veils are
consciousness to be discarded, The "I am", the
sense of beingness, is a temporary state. Prior to
"I am" is the consciousness, also called "the Self
of All".
373. Hold onto the "I am", the sense of
beingness, discard all else.
374. The important thing is consciousness.
You must give your full attention to the
consciousness itself, Self itself. That is the
process of meditation; then all the secrets are
revealed to you by the Self.
375. In the Absolute, I do not even know
that I am.
376. There is no such thing as
enlightenment, because there is no entity to be
enlightened.
377. What does consciousness depend
upon?
378. I am nothing perceivable or
conceivable. All perceivables or conceivables are
to be discarded as "not this, not this", until the
negator too is discarded or negated.
379. By enquiry, deconstruction through a
process of negation, "not this, not this", all
conditioning that gives the illusion or appearances
of difference or separation from the substratum
that is consciousness.
380. To go beyond, we must pass through
total negation of everything as having independent
existence.
381. Resolutely reject what you are not
until the real Self [the Absolute] emerges
in its glorious nothingness. It is
not-a-thingness.
382. Once the attention is fixed on the
substratum of consciousness [final
Reality], there is nothing left. In short, you
liquidate that yardstick of body-mind as your
identity.
383. I see only consciousness and know
everything to be but consciousness. As you know the
picture on the cinema screen to be light.
384. It is not possible for a phenomenal
object to achieve something, and this body is only
a phenomenal object.
385. In fact, there is no body or a world to
contain it. There is only a mental condition, a
dream-like state easy to dispel by questioning its
reality.
386. Even the consciousness is a temporary
appearance, an appearance on the absolute
Reality.
387. Go in, prior to thoughts, prior to
beingness, prior to consciousness itself. The basic
concept, beingness, is itself an illusion.
388. The original state is timeless,
formless, and that what has come about is merely an
illusion. The sum total is, whatever experiences
you have, whether for a day or for years, it is all
an illusion.
389. Krishna said, "Remember me, I am always
there." What is that state of Krishna? He is beyond
the body-mind state; that means he is the
consciousness. Further, Krishna is the absolute
Reality.
390. The spray of the ocean contains
innumerable droplets, but they are the ocean
only.
391. The eye does not see, does not notice
the consciousness prior to the opening of the eye
lid.
392. The experience of presence is part of
the "I am", and should not be there.
393. Since you are formless consciousness,
you can perform no action nor have a particular
behavior. Therefore, there is no doer and there is
no action that has been performed by a doer, of a
particular behavior. Imagining that you can realise
your true nature through actions or behaviors is
delusion.
394. Whatever exists has no substance. It is
unreal. The present moment is unreal. It is very
simple: the present moment is time-bound, and
anything that is time-bound is untrue.
395. If there is no consciousness there is
no God. The existence and essence of God are both
in this consciousness, and therefore in this body.
The body is consciousness.
396. I have come to the conclusion that the
world is spontaneously there without any seed or
cause; its creation is causeless or seedless.
Seeking out causes is a past time of the mind.
There is no duality of cause and effect.
397. You are neither body nor in the body.
There is no such thing as a body. Just as the
universe is contained in consciousness, so too this
physical body is merely an appearance in
consciousness.
398. If you can remember it or forget it, it
is not the Reality. There is only one Truth in the
world and that is that everything is unreal.
399. If you can remember it or forget it, it
is not you, therefore discard it.
400. You must remember that you are prior to
the word; kill the words. Don't frame your
knowledge, don't condition it by words. Be prior to
the words.
401. I am telling you a simple thing: get
rid of the notion that you are this corpse. The
body is dead always. The body is inert. You are not
the body. Do nothing else except this; do not
identify the Self with a body.
402. Without the experience of the waking
and sleep states, try to explain what you are.
403. The realised man has lost the capacity
of identifying himself with anything. He is without
location, placeless, beyond space and time, beyond
the world, beyond words and thoughts is he.
404. We are neither matter or energy,
neither body nor mind.
405.
Time is in the mind. Space is in the mind. The law
of cause and effect is just a way of thinking.
406. Things happen without cause.
407. As to my mind, there is no such thing.
There is consciousness in which everything
happens.
408. There is no entity that needs
enlightenment. There is no such thing as
enlightenment!
409. The worshiper is the Self and the
object of worship is also the Self, the
consciousness.
410. Personality is a mistaken identity.
There is no such thing as a person or self. Any
image you have of yourself is not true.
411. Abide only in consciousness. In your
attention, only consciousness should be there. This
is meditation. What I mean by meditation is to
reject all experiences and to be in the
experience-less state.
412. You have only to abide in that
consciousness.
413. Whatever you understand, you are not
that.
414. The world is not; it is a mere
appearance.
415. All your activities, material and
spiritual, are in this illusion. Once you
understand the object of spirituality, you will
also understand that spirituality is unreal.
416. Consciousness has no shape or design.
You are and I am, but only as points in
consciousness. We are nothing apart from
consciousness. This must be well grasped. The world
hangs on the thread of consciousness. No
consciousness, no world.
417. There is no creator and nobody created
me.
418. All experience is illusory, limited and
temporal. Whatever the experiencer feels or thinks
is all in the consciousness, and is not real.
Expect nothing from experience.
419. All knowledge is a form of
ignorance.
420. Not only is the body-mind unreal, but
this manifest consciousness, this universe, is also
unreal. The I am-ness is dream-like, ephemeral.
421. My Guru told me that consciousness, the
Self, is the Guru.
422. I talk only to the consciousness about
the consciousness.
423. The conscious presence depends on the
body, and the body is nothing but the sperm and
ovum, so where is this "you"? The body is like an
instrument that says, "I am", like an announcer.
Presently you think you are the body-mind, and
whatever concepts you have collected are flowing
out. When you begin spirituality, you reject the
body-mind with "I am not that." Then you come to
the "I am" only, without words. Then you are
everything, you are not confined to the body.
424. From where do you know that you
are?
425. Anything that appears in time is an
illusion to be discarded.
426. Ultimately, you are not even the
observer.
427. There is really no witness because
there is nothing to be witnessed. Seek the source
of consciousness.
428. That which makes you think that you are
human is not human. It is but a dimensionless point
of consciousness; a conscious nothing. So long as
you consider yourself as a separate entity wanting
spiritual salvation, all this is useless.
429. We think that when the body is
destroyed, the consciousness is also destroyed; it
is not destroyed; it becomes one with the universal
Reality.
430. The consciousness, the Self, is the
soul of the manifest world; and you, the Absolute,
are the soul of the consciousness.
431. Consciousness is a temporary condition
which is upon the total, timeless, spaceless,
changeless state. It is a happening which has come
and which will disappear.
432. I take my stand in the original state
where I was not aware that I am.
433. The Absolute is without quality and
beyond consciousness.
434. I do not believe in spirituality.
Spirituality is as discardable as dishwater. I am
nothing, and even the word nothing has no
meaning.
435. In the end, one has to give up even the
association with consciousness itself. This is the
ultimate aim. You are consciousness. Where is the
question of your merging with the
consciousness?
436. Whatever you meditate on, you are not
that. Whatever you observe, you are not that. So in
this way, reject whatever you observe and finally
settle down where no more observation is.
437. To go beyond yourself, you must be
beyond consciousness, which is possible only when
you look at consciousness as something that happens
to you and not in you, as something external,
alien, superimposed.
438. I was never born, will never die.
439. In the true state nothing is.
440. The Absolute is the unborn state prior
to consciousness, so how can it have an iota of
knowledge?
441. When you meditate on the sense "I am",
which is the beginning of knowledge, how can there
be any questions?
442. Catch hold of the "I am" and all
obstacles will evaporate, you will be beyond the
realm of body-mind.
443. There is no reason, no cause, no
purpose. It is spontaneously happening. Everything
is an illusion. Your conviction that you were born
is an illusion.
444. There is no link or mark or connection
between the Absolute and the illusory person or
self.
445. In the unmanifest absolute, there is no
consciousness at all – no consciousness of
existence.
446. The absolute Reality is the unborn
state in which there is no experience. It will be
revealed to you.
447. Eight days prior to conception or a
thousand years back, who were you?
448. In spite of the body, I am in the
absolute state. Worlds come and go. I am the
original being.
449. Abidance in the non-witnessing state is
the advaita state, the highest. In the highest
state there is no experience. Experience,
experiencing, experiencer – everything is only
one.
450. Having understood the nature of
consciousness you will also understand that you are
not the consciousness.
451. One who is completely rid of coming and
going, and, finally, one who is completely rid of
one's very own concept that "I am", is completely
liberated.
452. Just trust me and live by trusting me.
I shall not mislead you. You are the supreme
Reality beyond the world and its creator. Beyond
consciousness and its witness. Beyond all
assertions and denials.
453. I am nothing, have nothing, can do
nothing, yet all comes out of Me, the source is Me,
the root, the origin is Me.
454. You can never say what it is. Anything
you say it is, it isn't.
455. The seeker is he who is in search of
himself.
456. You must watch yourself continuously
– particularly your mind – moment by
moment, missing nothing. This witnessing is
essential for the separation of the Self from the
"not-self". A mere verbal statement will not do
– you may repeat a formula endlessly without
any result whatsoever.
457. Understanding the "I am", your sense of
"being" or just "presence" is extremely important
as on it rests the entire outcome of the
teaching.
458. You have "to be" before anything else
can be, your sense of "presence" or the feeling "I
am" is really fundamental to anything that has to
follow.
459. This sense of "being" or the feeling "I
am", was it not the very first event or happening
before any of your living experiences could
begin?
460. Apply your mind, go back in time and
try to recollect the moment when for the first time
it dawned on you that "you are" or "I am". This
nascent "I am" is without words or nonverbal.
461. This "I am" is still there with you,
ever present, ever available, it was and still is
the first thought. Reject all other thoughts and
remain there.
462. Everyone
is concerned about what happens after the death of
the body and not about what happened before its
birth.
463. When the "I am" goes all that remains
is the Absolute, give all your attention to the "I
am".
464. You have to transcend the "I am" to
enter the concept-free ultimate Reality, where you
do not even know you are!
465. One who has realised the "I am", which
means transcending it as well, for him there is no
birth or death nor any karma.
466. Witnessing happens in the state prior
to the "I am". Right now, right here, you are the
absolute Reality. Hold on to the "I am" very
firmly, ever abide in it and it will dissolve,
leaving you as you really are.
467. You are neither the "I am" nor its
activities, you as the Absolute are none of these.
Be a true devotee, by abiding in the "I am" thereby
transcending the experience of death to attain
Immortality.
468. What is it in you that understands this
"I am" without a name, title or word? Subside in
that innermost center and witness the "I am".
469. Totally accept the sense"I am" as
oneself, and with full conviction and faith firmly
believe in the dictum "I am that by which I know I
am".
470.
Catch hold of the sense"I am" in meditation and the
realisation will occur that "I", the Absolute, am
not the quality "I am".
471. Do nothing else but stay in the "I am",
the primary illusion, and then it will release its
stranglehold on you and vanish.
472. In deep meditation, infused only with
the "I am", it would be intuitively revealed to you
as to how this "I amness" came to be.
473. My Guru taught me what "I am" and I
pondered only on That. My original state is to be
in that state where there is no "I am".
474. To do away with body-mind sense or
identity, imbibe or dwell in the "I am". Later the
"I am" will merge into the ultimate Reality.
475. Having acquired and understood the
sense"I am" stay there in seclusion and don't
wander around here and there. Once you stabilise in
the "I am", you will realise that it is not the
eternal state, but "you" are eternal and
ancient.
476. True happiness cannot be found in
things that change and pass away. Pleasure and pain
alternate inexorably. Happiness comes from the Self
and can be found in the Self only. Find your real
Self and all else will come with it.
477. Every pleasure, physical or mental,
needs an instrument. Both the physical and mental
instruments are material, they get tired and worn
out. The pleasure they yield is necessarily limited
in its intensity and duration. Pain is the
background of all your pleasures. You want them
because you suffer. On the other hand, the very
search for pleasure is the cause of pain. It is a
vicious circle.
478. You should identify yourself only with
this indwelling "I am". That is all. Sit in
meditation by identifying with the "I am", dwell
only on the sense "I am".
479. Forget all about physical disciplines
and just be. When you are established in the "I am"
there are no thoughts or words.
480. Consciousness depends on the Absolute,
the Absolute does not depend on consciousness.
481. When you shall begin to question your
dream, awakening will not be far away.
482. You are the Reality beyond the "I am",
the Parabrahma. Meditate on this and remember this,
until this idea, too, leaves you. Understand the "I
am", transcend it and realise the Absolute.
483. It is the "I am" that investigates the
"I am" and on realising its falsehood it disappears
and merges into Eternity.
484. Along with the sense "I am" appears
space and the world. When the "I am" vanishes, the
world is liquidated.
485. The "I am" in body form can reach the
highest state only if you understand, accept it and
dwell there. Then you escape birth and death.
486. You have to be there before you can say
"I am". The "I am" is the root of all
appearance.
487. Nobody ever fails in Yoga. It is slow
in the beginning and rapid in the end. When one is
fully matured, realisation is explosive.
488. The "I am" has great potency, the
entire manifestation has come from it. When you
dwell in the "I am" as your destiny you realise
that your destiny is not death but the
disappearance of "I am".
489. Go to the "I am" state, remain there,
merge, and go beyond. If you were to dwell in the
"I am" and firmly abide in it, all external things
will lose their grip on you.
490. The knowledge "I am" means
consciousness, God, Guru and Ishwara. But you, the
Reality, are none of these.
491. Out of nothingness, the sense "I am",
or beingness, has risen. This "I am" has to return
to its source. There is no individual.
492. You should consider more closely your
own world, examine it critically and, suddenly, one
day you will find yourself in mine.
493. Consistently and with perseverance
separate the "I am" from "this" or "that", just
keep in mind the feeling "I am".
494. Hold on to the "I am" to the exclusion
of everything else. The "I am" in movement creates
the world, the "I am" at peace becomes the
Absolute.
495. The "I am" concept is the last outpost
of the illusion. Hold on to it until you are no
more. Remain focused on the "I am" until it goes
into oblivion, then the eternal is, Reality is.
496. Prior to birth where was the "I am"?
Don't contaminate the "I am" with the body
idea.
497. In the absence of "I am" nothing is
required. The "I am" will go with the body and the
Absolute remains.
498. You must not only have the conviction
that "I am" but also that you are free from the "I
am".
499. Remember the "I am" only and give up
the rest. Staying in the "I am" you realise that it
is unreal.
500. Understand that the "I am" has dawned
on you and all are its manifestations. In this
understanding you realise you are not the "I
am".
501. Sitting quietly, being one with the "I
am", you lose all concern for the world.
502. Appearance and disappearance, birth and
death; these are qualities of "I am" and do not
belong to you, the Absolute.
503. With the dropping off of the primary
experience "I am", all experiences vanish and only
the Absolute remains.
504. The belief in the "I am" to be
something as a body or an individual is the cause
of all fear. In the absence of the "I am", who is
to fear what?
505. In understanding the unreality of the
"I am", of the world, you are totally free.
506. Before you occurred to yourself as "I
am" you were the highest [Parabrahman].
Until the impurity of "I am the body" goes, stay
put in the "I am" quietude.
507. Erroneously you have handed over the
sense "I am" to the body, thereby reduced the
limitless to the limited, hence you are afraid of
dying.
508. Your fall started with the appearance
of "I am", then you blundered by embracing the body
as "I am". All that gathered thereafter is
unreal.
509. Who has the knowledge "I am"? Somebody
in you knows that "I am", "you are". Who is
it?
510. Who can know the illusory state "I am"?
Only a non-illusory state can do so.
511. The primary illusion is only this
knowingness "I am". Liberation is when this
knowingness is transformed into
non-knowingness.
512. When the body dies, the "I am" goes
into oblivion. Nothing happens to you, the
Reality.
513. In the absence of the sense "I am",
only my eternal state ever prevails.
514. Remain still at the source of your
creation.
515. If you just try to keep quiet, all will
come – the work, the strength for work, the
right motive. Must you know everything beforehand?
Don't be anxious about your future – be quiet
now and all will fall in place. The unexpected is
bound to happen, while the anticipated may never
come. Don't tell me you cannot control your nature.
You need not control it. Throw it overboard. Have
no nature to fight, or to submit to. No experience
will hurt you, provided you don't make it into a
habit. Of the entire universe you are the subtle
cause. All is because you are. Grasp this point
firmly and deeply and dwell on it repeatedly. To
realise this as absolutely true, is liberation.
516. You have to think "I am not the body
but I am that formless, nameless knowledge
indwelling in the body." When you abide
sufficiently long in this state, whatever doubts
you may have, that knowledge "I am" itself will
sprout out with life and meaning for you, intended
for you only, and everythng will become clear. No
external knowledge will be necessary.
517. You must come to a firm decision. You
must forget the thought that you are the body and
be only the knowledge "I am", which has no form and
no name. Just be. When you stabilise in beingness
it will give all the knowledge and all the secrets
to you, and when the secrets are given to you, you
transcend 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.
518. Your belonging is a matter of your own
feeling and conviction. After all, it is all verbal
and formal. In reality there is neither Guru nor
disciple, neither theory nor practice, neither
ignorance nor realisation. It all depends on what
you take yourself to be. Know your Self correctly.
There is no substitute to Self-knowledge.
519. Pure experience does not bind;
experience caught between desire and fear is impure
and creates karma.
520. There is nothing in the world except
for this ignorance which is the greatest fraud.
Consciousness itself is dishonest. That ignorance
has automatically grown roots and branches.
521. All types of hungers come along with
the body and they make you a beggar. Where there is
no movement of consciousness there is Perfection.
Wherever there is knowledge of the body there is
God. And where there is God, there is a body. There
will be no misery or happiness where there is no
knowledge of "beingness". Where there is no name,
there is no form, there is no quality. If there is
no quality, there can be no action. Just pay
attention to the fact that "you are". Do not do
anything more.
522. Everyone has one common flavor. It is
only temporary. There was a flavor "I am Krishna",
"I am Shiva", but no flavor or taste has lasted.
There have been great saints and sages, but today
have they the taste of "I am" left with them? The
memory of this body is not there in another body.
That is the nature of consciousness. In a moment
there are millions of births and this huge mundane
world comes into existence.
523. Continuously contemplate that you are
pure Reality, you are not of the class that dies.
There is nothing – no one except you.
Therefore, do not talk against anyone, do not blame
anyone.
524. Whatever is, is a form of
consciousness. It has taken rise. "That" is you
alone. The same is the seed of the universe, seed
of Reality, the seed of Self. By repeating "I am
not the body", gradually it turns into a
conviction.
525. There is no importance to how one
behaves. Knowing he is neither "this" nor "that",
he sits quiet. I am not even the one who knows "I
am". There is bliss after "this is like this, this
is not like that" goes away. When bliss becomes
compact, impenetrable, then it is not consciously
felt. This bliss is not that which admits memory or
forgetfulness. The information given by the mind,
intellect and consciousness does not even touch
one, yet he acts. One who is listening has come
into existence due to the conglomoration of the
mind, intellect and consciousness. But the one who
is the impenetrable bliss is the one who is the
knower of the mind, intellect and
consciousness.
526. One should be ashamed of saying that
the body is his form. How much is being done in
order to save honour and to avoid shame? The
impenetrable bliss is not of the class of shame.
All the qualities [gunas] belong to mind,
intellect and consciousness. There can be no action
without them. One's nature means one's conduct
according to previous impressions. The one with
bliss is under no rule of conduct. You are inside
the collective of mind, intellect and
consciousness.
527. Direct knowledge means your own Self.
There is no teaching there, nor teacher. The body
is introduced only in the "beingness". "Beingness"
and a dream are not two, and all is felt and
fancied in that alone. So long as this "I amness"
was not known, there was no hitch in the compact
bliss. The dream looks very real, but it is
dishonest, not true. The "I amness" has no limit
or standard. You have to understand this only once,
and then there is no concern for the body at all.
The "I amness" is a passing phase. It is borrowed.
Your enjoying of your ""I amness" will not last.
This is a fact that you will know yourself. Only a
rare one understands the phase of this
consciouslness. There is no coming and going for
him. Without the Grace of the Guru that
impenetrable consciousness will not be
stablised.
528. You speak of my experience as different
from your experience, because you believe we are
separate. But we are not. On a deeper level my
experience is your experience. Dive deep within
your Self and you will find It easily and simply.
Go in the direction of "I am".
529. Only the "I am" is certain. It is
impersonal and all knowledge stems from it. Hold on
to it and let all else go.
530. I do not believe in spiritual paths.
The purpose of spiritual paths is to enmesh you in
the world of knowledge, while Reality resides prior
to it. All spiritual paths lead to unreality.
Discard all paths.
531. We know the outer world of sensations
and actions, but of our inner world of thoughts and
feelings we know very little. The primary purpose
of meditation is to become conscious of, and
familiar with, our inner life. The ultimate purpose
is to reach the source of life and consciousness.
Incidentally, practice of meditation affects deeply
our character. We are slaves to what we do not
know; of what we know we are masters. Whatever vice
or weakness in ourselves we discover and understand
its causes and its workings, we overcome it by the
very knowing; the unconscious dissolves when
brought into the conscious. The dissolution of the
unconscious releases energy; the mind feels
adequate and becomes quiet.
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