LEARN FROM SLEEP
Study the condition of deep sleep, where there is neither the play of the mind nor the senses. There are no objects; there is neither attraction nor repulsion. Wherefrom do you derive ananda in sleep? This experience is universal; everyone says: "I slept soundly. I knew nothing. I was very happy in sleep." During deep sleep you rest in satchidananda atman and enjoy the atmic bliss which is independent of objects. The difference between deep sleep and samadhi (superconsciousness) is that in deep sleep there is the veil of ignorance and in samadhi this veil is removed.
From sleep you draw four conclusions:
1. You exist. There is a feeling of continuity of consciousness.
2. There is advaita (oneness).
3. You are ananda svarupa (blissitself).
4. The world is mithya (a play of the mind).
Names and forms are illusory. The world is mere play of the mind. When there is mind, there is world. If you can produce destruction of the mind consciously through yoga sadhana (practice), the world will disappear and you will feel the atman everywhere.
Even in the daytime you become one with the atman whenever a desire is gratified. When you enjoy an object you become mindless for a short time. You rest in your own atman and enjoy the atmic bliss. Ignorant persons attribute this happiness to the objects. Just as the dog which sucks a dry bone foolishly imagines that the blood comes from the dry bone - whereas in reality the blood oozes out of its own palate, so also foolish persons imagine that happiness comes from external objects, while they actually derive the happiness from their own Atman within. They are deluded owing to the force of illusion and ignorance.
Have no longing for objects. Reduce your wants. Cultivate vairagya (dispassion); it thins out the mind.
Do not mix much. Do not talk much. Do not walk much. Do not eat much. Do not sleep much.
Control the emotions. Abandon desires and vasanas (tendencies). Control irritability and lust.
THE ONENESS OF ALL EXISTENCE
Realise the totality and allinclusiveness of your life. Your being is cosmic. You inhabit all the worlds - all the worlds are your spontaneous expression. One's love for friends, sons, etc. is not for the sake of others, but for one's own self. Therefore love for self is the highest and hence full of supreme happiness. The more you give up your hankerings for objects and try to realise your identity with the true self or Atman, the more you will realise your true happiness.
The path of evolution is from unconsciousness to life; from life to consciousness; from consciousness to selfconsciousness; and from selfconsciousness to superconsciousness. Mysticism is the art of union with the reality. A mystic is a person who has attained that union with the reality, or who is aiming for that attainment.
What is this ego; what is this little `I'? Is it your foot or flesh or hand or blood - or any part of your body? Reflect well. You will know that there is no such thing as `I'. The `I' will vanish into nothingness. What is left is the pure, infinite atman. When the ego perishes, the supreme soul reveals itself in all its pristine glory and splendour.
Do not seek to satisfy the ego - offer all your life and actions as sacred sacrifice to the supreme divine. You yourself are passing a death sentence on yourself - you are creating a hell by your own evil thoughts. It is useless to look up to the skies to find the divine. Turn inwards. In your own heart dwells the eternal.
COSMIC POWER HOUSE
Individual souls are like electric light bulbs. The bulbs get their light from the power house. The jivas (souls) get their power from Brahman, the infinite cosmic power house. The bulb imagines that it is independent and boasts of its effulgence and power. It has no idea of its source. When the current fails it hangs its head in shame and weeps. Even so, the jiva drags out his egoism. O fool, O dunce, know the source through purity, devotion, tapas, meditation and enjoy supreme peace and eternal bliss.
ONE-POINTED MIND
(Siva was very busy attending to the dispatch of free books. He suddenly stopped and looked up.)
From the time I got out of the morning class I have been going on thinking of writing a few poems, but I do not find time. I am doing this work, but my mind is still working on the poems. Even when I was taking my milk, I was busy within sifting the points for the poems. Only when I finish the poems will my mind know rest.
Are you all keeping a note-book to record your thoughts? First of all you should note down in this book all the new points that you learn in the class. Then there are parallel ideas that might strike you; or ideas arising out of those expressed by others in the class. These may be new, novel and unknown to others. These should at once be noted down. Are you keeping such note-books?
Evil should not have time to dwell in your mind. What if someone refuses to give you milk, to give you food? What if some one scolds you? Always repeat: "I am not this body; I am not this mind; I am the eternal immortal satchidananda atman".
Bear insult and injury. If some one slaps you on your cheeks, you should not even mind it; you should not even be aware of it, so to say. This is very difficult. But this is most important. When the other man is scolding you, your mind should be engaged in vicara. After a while this man will realise: "What is this? I have been scolding him several times; he does not get irritated, he does not retort. There must be something in him, which I should learn." Then he will fall at your feet and apologise. You have conquered.
That which draws out this hidden consciousness of atman, is the highest knowledge. The teachings that break your bondage and bestow on you freedom, are the teachings of the ancient rsis (sages) which lay bare the mysteries of the universe. On the dawn of true knowledge, the veil of ignorance is lifted and, with it, all illusory appearance of phenomena is sublated. What is left is only the perceiving self, the negator of all negations - which is no other than Brahman, existence, knowledge, bliss absolute.
PERFECTION
The essential qualification for a sadhu (man of renunciation) is that he should adapt himself to all conditions and circumstances, causing no inconvenience to others. His is the duty to serve - not to worry others. Very few sadhus know what they are and what they should be.
This morning an old sadhu from Swarg Ashram came here. He was there when I was there, too. He is aged 80 now. Today they did not prepare roti here. There was only rice and curry. But, the sadhu would not take. He wanted only roti (bread). It seems rice will produce wind. If you allow him, he will lecture to you for half an hour on the evil effects of rice-eating. But he will refuse to be reminded that a very large population in India and the world lives on rice alone.
This is all that he has understood of sadhana (spiritual practice) during all these thirty years of sadhu life: "Rice should not be taken; roti alone is good for health and meditation." All their life these people will waste on this one thought of the right food and the wrong food. What is there if one day you do not get your food to your own liking. Even your own wife will not tolerate you for a day if you are so particular about what food you should have.
It is the special duty of a sadhu not to cause any inconvenience to householders. We are not to be a burden on householders, but to be of some service to them. When will the sadhu understand this. Some sadhakas (seekers) here also have that impression that they are living in an asrama and that one consideration ought to be sufficient to open out the gates of Kaivalya (liberation) to them. I assure you: even if they live many hundreds of their lives near the greatest saint in the world, they will not improve even a bit. They must themselves exert. Each one must think for himself, act for himself. There have been some sadhakas here whom I myself trust and put in charge of the affairs of the asrama - then I myself used to dread to approach them. If, for instance, I go to them and ask them to prepare a little more of what they give me for my food in order that I may give the extra quantity to someone else, I would be refused. What I do on those occasions is to reduce my own consumption and distribute this to the others.
If a sadhaka gets real samadhi (superconsciousness) in a hundred births, that is a very great achievement. God is perfect; and unless and until all the evil qualities are eradicated and divine qualities acquired to the degree of perfection, there will be no samadhi.
THE SADHANA THAT HARDENS
(A letter was on Siva's table: a great European yogi had written to Siva requesting him to invite him to India. This was needed to obtain a passport.)
What a big show of themselves do these so-called saints make. Flying from this country to that country: everywhere they go, parties, receptions and farewell parties, again. It is not?
Some of them should be received with a unique honour. Instead of flags and festoons adorning the reception entrance, people should hang old shoes and broomsticks.
We should not wait for the thing to happen actually. We should train ourselves. I have done so. I have beaten myself with shoes severely. This I used to do especially on birthdays - just after returning to my kutir after the meetings where people will praise me, glorify me, deify me, I will go into my kutir and beat myself nicely with a pair of shoes: "What are you? You wretched flesh-blood-excreta made body? Do you want garlands? Can you not wear torn clothes? Do you think that you are great? Do you want to be prostrated to? Now, take these garlands."
Suka Deva was tested by Janaka like this. He was a great jnani. When he went to Janaka for instruction, he was made to wait outside the palace uncared for, without food, without shelter and without any honour. Then he was attended upon by the ladies of the court and the Maharanis. In these ways Janaka tested Suka Deva's tranquility of mind. Suka was above all these things. He had preserved his equanimity all through. Such should be a sadhaka.
I have heard this said of St. Francis of Assisi also. He used to call his body `Mr. Ass'. What a tremendous vairagya they all had.
Even this occasional shoe-beating is not enough for me. I should give this body a dose of this hardening-medicine at least once a week.
WORDS OF WISDOM
One's individual ego, preconceived notions, pet ideas, prejudices and selfish interests should be given up. All these stand in the way of spiritual progress. Lord's grace begins to work only when you learn to discipline yourself, subordinate your selfishness and surrender fully to him.
Why dost thou try to find thy God in deities and temples when thou has kept thy visible gods standing outside, hungry and naked? Regarding Him as manifest everywhere thou shouldst serve all creatures with intense bhava if thou wishest to attain the highest perfection. Indeed, thy love towards the Lord should engender love for the whole universe - for thou must see Him in all.
Kindle the light of love in thy heart for love is the immediate way to the kingdom of God, the vast domain of perennial peace and joy. Where there is love there is peace. Where there is peace there is love. Life and death are the two scenes in the drama of life. All is passing; all is sorrow; all is pain; all is unreal.
This world is merely a play of colours and sounds. Hence, O man, seek the permanent, the allblissful, the real, which is evershining in the chambers of thy heart, which is selfluminous, infinite, unchanging and eternal. Moksa (liberation) means nothing but the destruction of the impurities of the mind. The mind becomes pure when all desires and fears are annihilated. Lead the divine life. Light the lamp of divine life everywhere.
Thy aim should be to maintain an unshakable sweetness of disposition, to be pure and gentle and to be happy in all circumstances. To be always conscious of the divine, always to feel the divine presence, to live always in the awareness of the supreme being in the chambers of your heart and everywhere around you is verily to live a life of fullness and divine perfection, even whilst on earth.
This body is a lamp. The heart is the wick. The oil is your love for the Lord. You can build a temple in your heart by the absence of anger, by the practice of humility, compassion, forgiveness, faith, devotion, meditation, prayer and recitation of the Lord's name.
MAYA
There is no duality in reality. All modification is illusory; multiplicity is an illusion.
Maya (the illusory power of the Lord) projects multiplicity. Maya creates division - division between the individual soul and the supreme soul.
Maya is a tremendous, delusive power of God. Maya is the material stuff of this world. Maya is the source of the physical universe. This world of names and forms is a false show kept up by the jugglery of maya. Just as a stick burning at one end, when waved round quickly, produces an illusion of a circle of fire, so is it with the multiplicity of the world. Maya deludes us. Maya creates havoc in the mind. The things that we perceive all round us are only mind in form or substance. The world is a product of the mind. The whole world is an expansion of the mind. The entire universe arises and exists in the mind. Nothing of the world is outside the mind. Earth, mountains and rivers - all are fragments of the mind, appearing as it were, to exist outside. The world does not exist by itself. It is not seen without the aid of the mind. It disappears when the mind ceases to function, as in deep sleep.
It is imagination alone that assumes the forms of time, space and motion. Space and time have no independent status apart from Brahman or the self, which is pure awareness. There is no space without time, and there is no time without space. Space and time go together. Space and time are interdependent. They are both unreal. Time and space are mental projections, as unreal as dreams. However real they may seem to be, they are not ultimately real. Timeless, spaceless Brahman is the only reality.
Brahman alone is. It is Brahman alone that shines as the world of variegated objects, like water differentiated by the waves into many kinds of foam, bubbles, etc. Brahman appears as the world when cognised through the mind and the senses.
Maya conceals the truth and presents an error - it veils the reality and shows the world. Mistaking the body for atman or the self is called maya. Maya screens the knowledge of atman and therefore man mistakes one for the other. This is the cause of bondage - we have the erroneous consciousness that we are objective beings, that our actions are objective expressions projected in time and space.
WORLD IS THE BODY OF GOD
The universe is a mirror in which is reflected the being and beauty of God. God's universe is ruled by his eternal laws. In the East, the law of cause and effect is called the law of karma. In the New Testament it is expressed in the words: "Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap." What is written is written and no man can change the eternal plan. That which is decreed by God's will occurs on this earth. There is system, method, order, regularity everywhere in this universe because the universe is, ultimately governed by God.
This world is the body of the Lord. This world, though it really is not, appears to be. Know that it is nothing but a reflection. When you know the rope, the snake-knowledge disappears. Even so, the world does not really exist and yet appears to be existing through ignorance. It disappears with the knowledge of the atman on which the illusion of the world is superimposed. In Brahman or the absolute, this world shines falsely, owing to ignorance. It is not true, even as dreams under the influence of sleep. It is because of illusory superimposition on the part of the individual that the empirical names and forms appear to be real. When, by the power of meditation, the effect (world) is negated as unreal, the cause (Brahman) also ceases to be a cause. The certitude or conviction that the universe is not the supreme Brahman is itself avidya (ignorance). Hence the certitude that, "The universe is Brahman alone", is emancipation.
The world is a spirit manifested in space and time. When you look at the absolute, through the senses, it appears as the universe. The puryastaka (body) is composed of the eight - that is mind, egoism, intellect and the five objects of the senses (sound, sight etc.). All these, composed of the five elements, are appearances only. So also is time through right discrimination. In this mortal world, everything perishes, but the ideas and the ideals do not perish. Ideas are more enduring than objects, which are perishable, but atman, the immortal soul endures forever. Just as the universe appears dark to the blind, and shining to those who have eyes to see, so it appears blissful to the sages and painful to the ignorant.
IGNORANCE
The mind is a creation of avidya! (ignorance) and it is the effect of avidya. The mind is filled with delusion - this is why it tempts you and makes you go astray. If you can destroy the cause of the mind by getting knowledge of the supreme self, the mind is nowhere; it dwindles into an airy nothing.
The whole experience of duality, made up of perceiver and perceived, is pure imagination. There is no ignorance apart from the mind. On the destruction of the mind, all is destroyed. The mind's activity is the cause of all appearance. On account of illusion you think that the outside objects are separate from you and real.
As long as there is mind there are all these distinctions - big and small, high and low, superior and inferior, good and bad, etc., - but the highest truth is that there is no relativity. If you can transcend the mind by constant and profound meditation on atman you will be able to attain a state beyond the pairs of opposites wherein lies supreme peace and highest knowledge.
The first thought is the `I-thought'. As this `I-thought' is the base of all other thoughts, egoism is the seed for the mind. The idea of `I' brings in its train the idea of time, space and other potencies. With these environments, the name `jiva' (soul) accrues to it. And contemporaneously with it there arise buddhi (intellect), memory and manas (mind) which is the seed of the tree of desire.
You cannot realise God if you have the slightest trace of egoism, or attachment to name and form, or the least tinge of worldly desire in the mind. Try to minimise egoism little by little. Root it out by self-sacrifice, by karma yoga, by self-surrender, or by vedantic selfenquiry. Whenever egoism asserts itself, raise the question within yourself: "What is the source of this little `I'?" Again and again ask this question and, as you remove layer after layer, the onion dwindles to nothing. Analyse the little `I' and it becomes a nonentity.
The ego is the Lord for whose entertainment the dance is performed and the objects of the senses are his companions. The intellect is the dancing girl and the senses are the persons who play on the instruments which accompany the dance. The saksi (witnessing soul) is the lamp which illumines the scene. Just as the lamp, without moving from its place, furnishes light to all parts - so too, the saksi from its unchangeable position illumines everything situated inside or outside.
BODY IS NOT `I'
This is a world of diversity. Intellects are different; faces are different; sounds are different; religions are different; faiths are different. Colours are different; faculties are different tastes and temperaments are different. But one thing is common to all - every one of us wants nitya sukha (eternal happiness), infinite knowledge, immortality, independence and freedom. These things can be attained by knowledge of the self alone.
Everybody wants happiness that is not mixed with sorrow and pain, but he does not know where he can get this supreme bliss. The best means to acquire this knowledge is by the enquiry, "Who am I?" This has the potentiality of producing the quiescence of mind which will enable it to wade through this ocean of samsara (cycle of birth and death). It demands a sharp, subtle, pure intellect, bold understanding and gigantic will. The commonplace `I' that everyone is glibly talking about and relishing acutely every moment of his life, from the babbling baby to the garrulous old man, must be clearly understood.
The physical body is not the `I', it is the product of food - it lives on food and dies without food. It is a bundle of skin, flesh, fat, bones, marrow, blood and a lot of other filthy things. It does not exist before birth or after death. It lasts for a short intervening period. It is transient. It undergoes changes such as childhood, youth and old age. It has six changes - existence, birth, growth, modification, decay and death. It is not of one homogeneous essence; it is manifold, insentient, inert. It is an object of perception, like a chair or a table. You continue to live even when hands and legs have gone.
How can the body be the self-existent, eternally pure atman, the knower, the silent witness of the changes that take place in the body and in all things, the inner ruler of all?
You have learned that body and mind are not `I'.You have learned that prana is not `I'.The world is unreal, this thou hast understood.Thou hast understood that Brahman alone is real.Now meditate on the formula `I am Brahman' - Lose thyself, unite with him.Rest there peacefully, joyfully.This is the proper place, the abode of the pure.
AM I THE `I'?
You say, "This is my body" - this indicates that you are different from the body and the body is your instrument. You are holding it just as you hold a walking stick in your hand.
In sleep you exist independent of the walking stick in your hand (body). In dreams you operate through the astral body without having any concern for the fleshy body. Through ignorance you have identified yourself with the physical body and mistaken it for the real `I' which is ever-pure, all-pervading, self-existent, selfluminous and self-contained, which has neither beginning nor end, which is changeless, beyond time, space and causation, and which exists in the past the present and the future.
Prana (vital force) is not `I'. It is the effect of rajas (energy). It is inert. It cannot welcome a man while you are asleep, though it is flowing. It increases and decreases. You say, "My prana" - this shows you are different from prana. It is your instrument only. You can control the breath by pranayama. The controller is different from the controlled (prana). Prana is not `I'.
Mind also is not `I'. It gropes in darkness. It borrows light from a higher power. It gets puzzled and confused. During shock and fear it becomes insentient. It is the effect of satva. It is your instrument. You say, "my mind" - therefore mind is different from `I'. It is full of changing ideas. It has a beginning and an end. You can control the mind and the thoughts - the controller is different from the controlled (mind). It is as much your property, and outside of you, as your limbs etc., or dress, chair, etc. In sleep there is no mind, yet you wake up with a feeling of continuity of consciousness. There is no mind in delirium or coma, yet `I' remains. Mind is a bundle of thoughts and all thoughts are centred around the false egoistic little `I'. The root thought of all these thoughts is the `I' that is full of vanities.
Talking of myself, I always speak of `I'. The sheaths in which I am happy, old, black, a sanyasi (monk), etc., are incidents in the continuity of the `I'. They are ever changing and varying but the `I' remains the same - unchanging amid the changing.
BRAHMAN AND MAYA
Like the pot and clay, waves and the sea, ornaments of silver and gold, the universe is non-different from Brahman. The cause does not lose its being by appearing as the effect. The world is not an illusion, but it is non-different from Brahman. Like heat is inseparable from fire and identical with it, so the universe which is of the nature of Brahman is identical with it.
The world is dependent on Brahman and independently the world is nothing. The play of cit (consciousness) alone shines as this universe. The universe was, is and always will be. There is no beginning or end to creation.
Behind the impermanent material world there is the invisible source of all things, pure, unchanging spirit or atman. In the presence of God, maya (illusion) creates the world, even as in the presence of the superior officer, the subordinates do their work. Just as a carpenter cannot work without the instruments, and the instruments themselves also cannot do any work without the carpenter, so also, Isvara (God) cannot create the world without maya, nor can maya create the world without Isvara.
This world is an overflow of the love of God. This is the view of a bhakta (devotee). This world is an overflow of the bliss of Brahman. This is the view of a vedantin or sage. Love and bliss are one; God and Brahman are one. This world is nothing but the expression of God's love for Himself. This world is an expression or manifestation of God. It is the outcome of the spontaneous play of love and joy. God expands Himself and manifests as the world.
Atmic sankalpa (the will of the self) makes this universe shine and constitutes it. Every object is surcharged with divine significance. Everything in this world has got a spiritual message to convey. Learn from everything. All is Brahman. When this truth is intellectually recognised and intuitively realised, then all feelings of differences end forever.
BRAHMAN
Whatever has a beginning or an end is unreal. That which exists in the past, the present and the future is real. Only Brahman exists in these three periods of time. Hence Brahman alone is real. The reality underlying all names and forms, the primal one from which everything originates is Brahman, the absolute. Brahman is the soul of all joy, all bliss. Brahman transcends phenomena. Production and destruction are only phenomena, the jugglery of the mind or maya (illusion).
Brahman is infinite, eternal, immortal. Infinity is one - only that which is unchanging, indivisible, non-dual, beginningless, endless, timeless, spaceless, causeless, can be infinite. There can be no parts, no differences, no distinctions in Brahman.
Brahman is self-luminous, self-existent, self-contained, selfestablished, selfrevealed. Brahman illumines itself by itself; by its nature it is ever illumined. Individual souls and the world are unreal - nothing save Brahman is eternal.
Immortality, knowledge, bliss purity, independence, perfection, etc., constitute the very nature of Brahman. He resides in your heart. He witnesses the activity of the buddhi (intellect). Word, speech, mouth, may not approach Brahman. Mind also cannot go there. Supreme Brahman is impersonal, formless, all-pervading and subtle - but He can be reached through meditation, through the eye of intuition, by one who has purified himself and who is endowed with the four means of salvation.
God cannot be seen with the physical eyes - but He reveals himself to His devotees. He is one though called by countless names. Realise the reality of the one existence, the one life that throbs in all atoms, in all beings - the one power that creates, sustains and dissolves this universe.
When the heart of the devotee is united in the Lord, no difference between them remains.
Before saturating the mind with thoughts of Brahman you will have to assimilate divine ideas first.
Remember this triplet always: Assimilation - Saturation - Realisation.
ATMAN
The atman (self) is most ancient, hard to perceive and abides secretly in the innermost cave of the heart or intellect. This atman or supreme soul fills all with his radiance. This atman is incorporeal, pure, invulnerable. He is untouched by evil. The atman is the supreme seer and thinker, immanent and transcendental. This atman is the immortal spirit, the common, unifying entity present in all. You live, because the supreme atman is. You understand, because the atman is intelligence. You enjoy, because the atman is bliss.
Atman is the reality itself - it is of the nature of pure consciousness. It is undifferentiated, pure awareness and pure experience. Atman is secondless; it alone is; all else which appears to be is not. Atman is the one which appears divided; the changeless as full of change; the timeless as temporal; the infinite as extended and fragmented in space.
Atman is one. It is the root, the reality itself. Atman is pure consciousness, calm and infinite like the waveless ocean. That atman which is impersonal, changeless, like unto space, by nature purity itself - verily, verily, that am I. The one who is the eternal, the atman, exists. He is all in all. This atman is so mysterious that it cannot easily be grasped. This atman can easily be grasped when the science of the self (brahmavidya) is taught by a guru who has attained self-realisation.
This atman is subtler than the subtlest and so is not attained by arguments. Like butter hidden in milk, this mysterious atman is hidden in every being. Realise this atman by the churning of meditation. The atman is unborn, ageless, immortal, deathless and fearless. He who knows this atman becomes Brahman, the fearless.
Atman is Brahman - absolute, infinite, the supreme being. It is existence absolute, knowledge absolute, bliss absolute. It is self- delight and self-knowledge. It is bodiless, formless and without gunas, all-pervading, all-full, imperishable. It has neither beginning nor end. It exists in past, present and future. It is self- existent, the source for body, mind, senses, prana, the vedas and the universe itself. No one can deny it; it is the inner self of all beings.
SELF-REALISATION
There is no other duty for man except meditation on the self. Dismissing all else, one should establish oneself in the self. There remains nothing to be done or attained when the self is experienced. For, that Brahman the immortal is before, behind, to the right and to the left and stretched forth above and below.
Brahman is all this. The real alone is an enduring being, and this real is experienced through meditation coupled with knowledge. Whatever a man of purified mind makes clear in his mind, and whatever desires he desires, that he gets and that he fulfils. One should therefore have pure and perfect resolves.
The supreme self is experienced in the fourth state of consciousness. It is neither this nor that - it has no quality in particular, and yet it is everything. It is peaceful, blessed and non-dual. It is the cessation of all phenomena. It is the atman that should be known and realised. That is the purpose of life. The liberated sage experiences that he is everything - the tree, the mountain, the sun. He is the food and the eater of the food. He is the knower, the knowledge and the known, in one. He is the whole universe in himself.
Bliss is the ultimate nature of reality - from bliss all this comes forth. All the bliss of the world is only a shadow of self-bliss. The self is the source of all bliss - it is everything - all knowledge and all bliss. All this is based on consciousness and is guided by consciousness. Consciousness is Brahman. I am Brahman. That thou art. This self is Brahman. Only the infinite is bliss. There, one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, understands nothing else. That is the infinite fullness.
The self is an ocean without a shore and a surface. It is merely existence, consciousness and bliss. When there is duality one can speak to the other, but when everything is but one's own self then who can speak to whom? Who can see whom?
Atman is pure consciousness - it is the unchanging witness. It is realised within your heart as existence, knowledge, bliss absolute. Realise this atman within the temple of your own heart and enjoy immortal bliss.
SATCHIDANANDA
Brahman is satchidananda. Sat is truth - that which exists in the past, the present and the future - which has no beginning, middle or end - which is self-existent, self-created - which never changes. In truth the world abides, from the truth the world comes forth and in truth the world dissolves. Truth is the only substance that underlies and pervades this world of beings. Truth is, and gives immortality and fearlessness.
Cit is self-knowledge. There are no indriyas (senses) in cit. It is self-luminous and imparts light to the mind, intellect, senses and the skin of the body, the sun, moon, stars, fire, lightning and all objects.
Ananda is bliss itself. There is no enjoyer in ananda. It is enjoyment itself.
When you are in the company of women, say: "There is satchidananda atman in all these names and forms. Names and forms are false. They have no independent existence. Their support is the one satchidananda atman." Lust will vanish; sex ideas will disappear. Practise, feel and realise this truth. One grain of practice is better than a ton of theory. Practice is better than precept.
The snake in the rope vanishes when you bring a lamp. So also the illusion of the body and the world disappears with the advent of the sun of wisdom. All fears, miseries, and troubles melt away. You have regained your original pristine glory.
Pure consciousness is Brahman or the absolute - it is always the witnessing subject. It can never become the object of perception - it is always the knower. Mind can only know the external objects. How can mind, effect, know the cause, Brahman? How can the finite know the infinite?
How can mind know the knower? You cannot jump on your shoulders. Fire cannot burn itself. If atman becomes the object of perception, it will become a finite object. The denier of the pure consciousness does always exist (sat) - he is just like the man who denies or doubts his tongue when he is talking. This proves Brahman always exists. Existence is pure consciousness (cit). Pure consciousness is also immortal bliss (ananda).
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