Session 181

Shreyashree is asking, What does the awareness practice mean at the level of us seekers? When the awareness is by grace, does this mean evolution or purification?

It simply means that you are trying to use your knowledge in your daily life and you are waiting for that moment when there is awareness, when there is awareness you hold on to the awareness, that is all.

The more you do it, the more it will be turned on because now an importance is seen of this activity of awareness. Somehow it is perceived as more important because you are paying attention to what is happening and the more you do it, the more you attend to it, the more you like it, the more there will be. This is the whole practice.

Whenever I say try to be aware, that simply means that whenever there is awareness you must allow it fully and completely and there will be effects of it which we keep mentioning in many satsangs, many videos, many times we have discussed the effects of awareness. There are some benefits and there are some drawbacks from the point of view of the ego.

You will first find that the ego has diminished, almost feels like it is not there but nothing to worry, it will come back as soon as it is needed. The awareness will be gone, the person will be back in total unawareness and nothing will be known at that time. The knowledge will be in the background but then it comes back again, oh I was not aware. This is the first thought, when this first thought is there, it means that the awareness is already there otherwise there was no possibility of detecting that I was not aware. Unawareness means this thing cannot be said that there is no awareness, complete darkness. As soon as you get this thought, oh I was not aware or you may get this thought that now I am aware, now hold on to this state of awareness, pay attention to it, see how it feels, is there any change in your behavior, speech and thought?

Awareness is simply knowledge that I am the experiencer. Do you find it confusing or do you find it unpleasant that I am the experiencer? Do you find a certain kind of bliss in it? Does the world seem like a real, serious job to be done at any cost or will the world become like a dream when awareness is on, when nothing matters, just like in the dream? You should note these things. At the level of seekers, this is all you need to do, there can be initial questions like when will I do my other work or how to bring it when I want it. Probably everybody knows the answers to these things, everybody knows the answers to these questions, childish questions.

After the knowledge, the seeker must surrender to the knowledge. There is nothing more to doing, and yes, it is surely by grace because there is no doer really. The practice is not being done by the practitioner; this you will know only when you are in awareness.

Like your heart is beating, nobody is doing it. Your lungs are breathing, nobody is doing it. Your eyes are seeing but nobody is making it see, and your ears are listening and nobody does it. Very easy, nobody brings awareness, there is nobody, it's all grace. The grace will happen to those who are ready. Who is ready then? Those who have understood, they are ready. They don't even need to do any kind of effort; awareness is always there or it is there whenever it is needed.

See, some people have this misconception that it must be present all the time. You will not even notice if it is present all the time. There is no way to notice it, like if a background noise is present all the time. You don't notice it then. Then some people think that I should be alert all the time, 24 by 7. And they say when will I sleep, when will I work, when will I eat, who will take care of my family if I am doing this job all the time? Alertness is not awareness. Alertness is an emergency situation that's all. It should not happen 24 by 7; otherwise, health will be affected. Alertness means there is some danger or something important is happening. And awareness means simply knowing, simply being in knowledge.

So why do people have these questions? First, they do not think, they do not sit and think, oh, I am on step number 4, let me do it, okay, okay, he said awareness, I will not check the video, I will not even listen to the definition of awareness. And all I do is I sit with eyes closed the whole day. This is the condition of even the very, very intelligent seekers. You need to understand your practice before you even do it. If you don't understand you should ask.

So awareness will become like a constant background which is unnoticeable, and you won't notice it but others are going to notice it. An ordinary person does not understand the word peace. They will say why are you silent, why are you depressed, that's all they understand. You don't even feel a need to smile because smiling is also violence, not silence, you smile inside, that's all you can do. You won't notice it; other people will notice. Your behavior is very different now. You are not arguing, you are not shouting, you are not crying, you are not even laughing too much, and you don't do any of the stupid things that everybody else is doing. There will be more changes, but remember we are not after the awareness for the changes, that is not our goal, to bring in the change.

If you don't need any change in you, in your mind then there is no need of changing anything, it is perfect as it is. You are unique just like everybody else. Don't think that I need to be aware just to bring in the changes, that will be therapy, that's not awareness practice, it is some kind of medicine. You are aware because this is the path of knowledge, that is the only practice here. You want to progress spiritually, isn't it? You don't want to change the behavior, you don't want to change the body. These are side effects as I have already said in the video. Still, people try to bring in the awareness, even after listening to the video, even after saying that these are side effects, don't try to bring them, it's not possible, be in knowledge, that is possible but the ego is very strong. Knowledge is not really accepted, the thought will be like this, well, I am in awareness now, 5 minutes have passed, nothing has happened. I have this thing to do, I have that thing to do, I have this problem, that problem, my time is getting wasted here and this is the ego, your “good” friend. So there is no awareness really, there are only thoughts.

When there is awareness, there can be thoughts, they are like smoke, they disappear completely. They are not solid, they do not hit you like a stone and they do not make you work. No action is possible here, there is control, control is the keyword. That is the goal of the awareness practice, to have full control over all the activities. But that control cannot come, if you try to control, it will never happen, that will be some kind of suppression or that will be some kind of rejection, it is not called control.

Control is when everything is happening, the dance of activities is happening in you and you are watching. It's not stopping actually, it is watching. The stopping may happen, may not happen depending on how important that activity is, so there can be side effects like evolution or purification, but we don't do it, it's not possible to do it. It is possible to let it happen by becoming a bystander of it, you stand by, watch, watch the evolution happen, watch the purification happen. If you do it, something is wrong, isn't it? Hopefully, that answers the question. There was a long discussion in one of the satsangs in English and there is a very good video by Ashwin in Hindi if anybody is interested in knowing more about awareness.

And usually I don't say it, but the awareness practice is optional, in the pure path of knowledge there is no practice, nothing is prescribed. The seed is there and the seed will tell you when to practice, which means it will happen automatically. In the Kundalini tradition, people say that I am doing Kundalini practice, the truth is the Kundalini is making them practice something, this is the truth. I think it is true for all the practices in the world, the Kundalini comes whenever she wants, the Kundalini does whatever she wants, the practitioner cannot do anything.

Unfortunately, it is never told to them that you are not present actually, you are not there, the only thing there is, is this power, Kundalini, we also call it Devi, that is all there is, she is now somewhat activated or agitated by your Guru, there is nobody to stop it. There will be thoughts like I want to stop this, this is not usual, it is not natural - see these thoughts are unnatural. You were never told that this cannot be stopped, you were never told that it will happen as and when it wants to happen. Then there will be thoughts, no, it is my life, I will control when the Kundalini comes and when it goes, I will control how much I evolve, when I die and so on. It is nothing like this, the only way in the Kundalini tradition is to surrender, that is what this ego can do, it cannot do anything, and I am saying this is exactly the same in the path of knowledge, exactly, simply because we call it by some other name, the truth is not going to change.

This ego can only surrender, and this top-down process starts in the seeker, or that body-mind. In the Kundalini tradition it is bottom-up, I think this is also discussed somewhere, because it is bottom-up, because you are familiar with the bottom layers only, you think it is going out of control, this is for Kundalini people, since the path of knowledge is top-down, you think I am in control, both are a problem. There is control, there is no controller, the Kundalini seems to be out of control because this is never told to them, there is no controller, that which is, is already in control, it was there before your activation, it is in control after your activation. Nothing has changed actually, except your surprise. This non-acceptance, lack of surrender causes suffering in the Kundalini tradition, otherwise, there is no real suffering. Guru can tell all these things, there is no doer, surrender, and I will tell you the truth, Guru keeps saying it every day, people don't listen. Then what happens is, the ego is crushed by force.

That is what happens, then that person is sent to a mental hospital. I have seen a lot of such cases. In India they are sent to some tantric Baba, because there is some evil spirit in that body. It was a valid path, but I don't think it is so effective nowadays. Nothing can be done actually, even the Guru will not do anything. Guru gives you some kind of placebo words, I am doing something for you, you will be fine, you will be cured of Kundalini - I have heard this thing. Who can cure the Kundalini? Give me his name. Nobody.

The same way, when you do the awareness practice, there is nobody to bring the awareness, there is no controller of anything and nobody can stop it also, one way street. So I also give you placebo words, many people must have experienced this thing. I say - You are doing great, I am happy that you are progressing. But neither that person is doing anything nor I am doing anything. Then they write a long one-page experience they had. I say - a very good experience, now continue the practice. Meaningless. The key is surrender, the only way to get rid of it is to not go to a Guru in the first place, don't take any spiritual path. By any, I mean any, because all the paths will do the same thing, there is only a one-layered structure and it operates in exactly one way, so that is the only solution.

Parteep is commenting, many seekers even require preparation to understand the path of knowledge. It is our job to prepare them.

Yes, you are in the knowledge dissemination now, so it is the job of the teacher to prepare them, and those who are totally hopeless, this is the duty of the teacher to send them to some other path, not prepare them. Only those with possibilities, should be tried, although you cannot do much.

Parteep is saying, I do all paths for potential and sincere seekers only.

The only preparation they require is to leave whatever they are doing and get on the path of knowledge. And those who understand the importance of it, they are prepared to change, others they will continue, others will continue in their old pattern.

Laila is asking, do you know why they built the pyramids?

I know, but I cannot produce any evidence. See, the pyre means fire, mid means in the middle, now you can guess it. The chambers are exactly in the middle of those pyramids, and the precision is of engineering quality, not of tomb kind. It's not for spiritual stuff, not for putting dead bodies there. So they were producing fire in the middle of that, it will not be the fire of our kind. The ancient people, they did not understand too much. I am not talking about Egyptians, this word is given by Europeans, everything that moves is fire for them, so they called it fire. There must be something which they were producing in the centers of those. Now it is lost, I don't know what happened. It was destroyed in the last cycle, probably even before that. When they tell you that the pyramid was made in this year, in this century, it's all wrong. They don't actually know. We know about pyramids only from Greek philosophers like Plato and so on. Otherwise, the modern people have no clue.

There were found very precise boxes made up of granite, in those boxes, there are mummified bulls. Why bulls? There is an explanation for all that. They tried the methods on animals just like we do. If you can bring back an animal from death, yes, you can try it on a person now. They were doing so many experiments. We don't have any clue what they were actually doing. And we find the same thing in India. They were doing so many things about which we don't have any clue. Even the Indian temples are in pyramidal shape, but they are very much decorated which means they are new compared to pyramids, which means the art was lost, the technology was lost. It became a place of worship or some other kind of thing.

It is totally off-topic. So I was talking in that podcast about how they came to know that the connection from the causal body can be restored to the physical body if the physical body is kept in a preserved condition, that much they came to know. Obviously, the first people to exploit this knowledge were kings, the wealthy and the powerful. So they became almost immortal. Now there are consequences of this, the evolution will stop if you stay in human form. For example, if the monkeys stayed in the monkey form, they would have never become humans. The natural process of death causes evolution. So they probably enjoyed a long lifetime, not total immortality.

And the later generations when the knowledge was lost, they tried to copy it, and the fire was extinguished long back, so they dug up these pyramids to find out what is inside. They are not meant to go in there, but these ignorant people went inside. They already had superstitions that people can be brought back to life, and the kings were again pioneers, but they did not know, simply buried their own bodies there, which you find as rotten dead bodies nowadays. They managed to keep it a little bit preserved, not too much. A causal body will not connect to this kind of mummy, it's not possible. So probably there were failed experiments like half rotten bodies got connected to the causal body, and then people were terrified that this ghost-like thing is walking now, this is the germ of the superstition. It was a technology.

Nothing is to be written in the pyramids, nothing should be drawn there, this is the original thing, they were very advanced, they did not need to write anything there. The writing happened later, and the egomaniacs, the kings, wrote their names there, just like people go to any monument or something and they spoil that place by writing names on it. Same way they wrote their name, and they claimed it. And today's historians or archaeologists, they simply say that the name is written there, that means it was made by that king, and that king. However his armies and his people were totally savages, and so the question comes, how did these totally backward people managed such a technological achievement.

But these bird-brained historians, they don't think beyond this, you see. When the pyramids were built, it was not a desert, it was a lush green tropical area. These people were not savages, they were highly advanced, you cannot even imagine how advanced they were, by advancement, I mean spiritual advancement. So that original stuff is gone now, nobody really knows the history. By looking at all that history, we can be sure of only one thing that nobody knows it, it's illogical. Whatever they have written are simplistic assumptions, the history is more complicated and is actually full of holes. Holes are when the destruction happened, that made big holes in the history. You will never know actually, we are discovering all the layers of time there.

On the top layer there will be just looting and snatching, people went there for gold and they dug up many things, they made up stories and so on. There was a lot of gold and treasure inside, it was all stolen and then you find these kings of Egypt, their bodies which are rotten now, then if you go deeper you will find the real stuff. You need to have a little bit of spiritual knowledge and you should not be brainwashed by whatever they call mainstream and then you will see that it is so old that there are layers of time on it. I think even a normal person is more intelligent than the people who are researching there, mostly the Egyptian government is doing the research and their job is to hide, not to show. They want to keep it as a tourist site and they don't actually show whatever they find there because of their extremist mentality. These things are not allowed in their religion, bringing back the dead people and the gods and goddesses is not allowed now, so mostly it is destroyed or locked away.

It sounds like a conspiracy now but this is the truth, it is just a cash cow, the pyramid has become simply means to earn cash nowadays, nobody is doing real research there and even if you do some kind of research, you will not find anything, this is guaranteed. The scene is always the same in all parts of the world, that the advancement in science and spirituality turns into stories and the stories become superstitions and then you know history is written over them which is simply low quality guesswork or some dirty politics, and then it is totally lost.

Yes there are many conspiracies also concerning that, so it is very muddy now, it is too dirty, you cannot look through it, the same thing has happened in India also, do we know anything about Kailash temple? No, how was it made? I think Kailash temple is as complicated and as big achievement as pyramids. Do we pay attention to that? No way to know. People call it the Hindu temple, but there were no Hindus back then.

Back to Rajit's question, they had the knowledge of the self, if anybody is interested I have done I think 10 - 12 parts series on hermetic principles that is in the podcast, it is exactly like non-dual philosophy but more has emphasis on the illusion part, they don't even call it illusion, for them it was truth. It is mentioned in our program also, I have shown the layered model used by them, it is very similar to what we are using now. There is something interesting there, but it is all muddy you see, no proper discovery has been done, no proper experiments have been done there, some people managed to measure the pyramids and it comes out to be a model of the earth, there are videos on youtube, this cannot be conspiracy because these are official figures.

Rajit is asking, so even after knowing the illusion, can one be still caught in the illusion?

See, one is caught in the illusion only in ignorance, but to take interest in the illusion after knowing that it is an illusion is perfectly possible. Then it won't be called as getting caught, it will be called as your passion to know it more or to exploit it, use it for different purposes. That is the field of tantra. We know it is an illusion, we are still after it, especially after knowing that it is an illusion, the possibilities open up. If it were real then there was no possibility really, there was no possibility to do anything. So this is very contradictory that I am caught in the illusion but I know it is an illusion - it is not possible. Either you don't know it or you know it. So what happens is that perfectly knowledgeable people when they are doing experiments on the illusion, the ignorant people brand them as being caught in the illusion. But those who do, they know what they are doing. Those who don't know, they have only opinions, they don't know anything.

Dipesh is asking, how do we explain Deja Vu?

A very simple explanation, it is a fault in your brain, and that does not mean it's a permanent fault, it is simply an error in the mechanism of creating memories. A very simple explanation is there, there is nothing spiritual in that, error in processing your memory. Yes, it's a glitch, an error. It is not that you will never come to know anything that is mysterious or spiritual but then you are very much sure what I am seeing it, what I am looking at. But if you are unsure what this is, what is this current experience, that means it is an error. It's always like this, people who have real spiritual experiences for them there is no doubt, they don't ask for any explanation, they know what is that.

The key is knowledge, if you know there won't remain any doubt about anything, this is the power of knowledge. You will understand the correct working of the mind, you will understand the errors of the mind, you will understand the history, you will understand the present, how devolved we are. The only reason is knowledge, we lost the knowledge, so now this is the important thing to do, bring back the knowledge. To bring back the knowledge you must have the knowledge yourself, you cannot dig it out from the pyramids or something, not possible. And for those who want answers there is the path of knowledge.

Session 182

There is a question by Anu. I have started listening to Path of Knowledge, listen to your first video. I am on yogic path and yoga starts with sadhana. Why is Path of Knowledge called direct path and not yoga?

It achieves the yoga anyway, but without any sadhana, without any practice. Simply by seeing that you are already in the union. How do we do that? This is the, you will see it in the series that you are listening to. That is why it is called direct path because that which you are is already here. You don't need to unite the two, which is the experience and the experiencer. There is no need to unite them, they are already one. And once that is seen directly on the pointing of the Guru, then there is nothing to do. No practice is required or you can say the only practice that is required is to remember how you got there, how you achieved the yoga without doing anything. If somebody fails in this direct realization, then they are sent to the yogic path, which means path of discipline, discipline your intellect and your tendencies and remove all the obstacles for knowing that you are one, you are the whole existence. Then the path of knowledge starts.

Discussion on the test of Leyla follows.

The first question was, when can we say the knowledge ends?

The detailed answer to this question is that the knowledge ends as soon as there is self-realization or the realization of oneness. These both are a little bit, you can say, subjective opinions, but you can mention both of them if you want. The knowledge ends there, it takes only 30 minutes, but the knowledge of the illusion never ends. Diagonally opposites, duals, experiencer and the experience. You can guarantee that if something is true for the experiencer, exactly opposite will be the case for the experience. The knowledge of the experience is not really knowledge, it is science and or the knowledge of the illusion and it can go on infinitely. This is the complete answer, according to me.

Number two was can an ignorant person know that he, she is ignorant and this is controversial. Can the ignorant person know anything that he lacks, some kind, on their own, I mean, without pointing out? Pointing out means it's very easy to know. On their own, not coming in touch with anybody who has knowledge, including the gurus or books. Even with books, there will be difficulty.

There are consequences of ignorance, ultimately suffering, but do they come to know that I am suffering because of ignorance or do they blame something or other for their suffering? Do they point to themselves that I am ignorant, that's why I am suffering? It's kind of very rare and we are assuming that they have no exposure to the karmic theory or to the concept of suffering. And the fact is, 90% of people cannot know that they are ignorant. Actually, the sign of ignorance is that the person assumes that he is the smartest person on earth. This is the real sign of ignorance, that they refuse to even think that there can be ignorance. They think I am the smartest. I know everything. Then the 10%, you can say, there is a little possibility, very slowly because of their suffering. Oh, I must have made a mistake. There is an opening for some reason. I landed in trouble because I did something wrong or I did not know how to behave or how to. I did not know these things. I did not know that I should not marry the wrong person. There is an opening sometimes when ignorance is felt. It is very rare, but there can be some. Then how to remove it? That nobody can do. That cannot be done. That is called grace. Even after knowing or not knowing that I have ignorance, if you find somebody who can clear your ignorance, that will be called grace.

With ignorance comes suffering. Suffering will make him contemplate. Then he realizes the ignorance and looks for ways to overcome it. This is an extraordinary ability, I can tell you. Very rare. I know it was absent in me. I belong to the 90%. I kept thinking that whatever I do is right, others are wrong. Some people point to the sky, some invisible man there, he is doing something wrong with me. It is impossible for them to think of anything which points to themselves. When they come to know that the problem is me, half of the problem is solved actually.

How is knowledge achieved systematically on the path of knowledge?

The systematic method is listening, contemplating, and abiding. One should mention these three words every time somebody asks you how to get the knowledge. See the requirement is direct experience and logic. That is the requirement. But there is a method to utilize your experience and logic. Listen, contemplate, abide. Systematic, three-step. Our program is simply these three steps. I have added some value to it. Value-added service, which means I make you write things so that you don't skip through the stuff. I take exams and so on. That if you do it, you do it nicely, isn't it? Do it 100%, not half-heartedly. The program disciplines the seeker to actually complete the path of knowledge. These three things are fundamental and then you can add on it to make it even better, if possible.

Is the experience dependent on the experiencer?

Siddhi is saying, experience is in the experiencer only. Movie on the screen.

But isn't the movie dependent on the screen? That is what the question is asking. In the metaphor, movie screen, where will be the movie if there is no screen? Isn't that a dependency?

Experience is eternal. Should we answer it from the point of view of the non-duality or should we look for an answer in the duality? First you should think like this. At which level the answer will be there? It's going to be controversial I think. You guys should do this. Trouble other teachers with these questions. You know so many teachers. Take these questions to the teachers. See what they answer.

Probably, you know, I am wrong. Who knows? You simply assume that I am the last authority. No, no.

Those who want, they can take these controversial questions and put them before the best teachers. Its your homework. Send them an email. Put it in the YouTube comments. I don't think they read it. Or if you join the satsang sometimes, sometimes and ask these questions. Some people are paying thousands of rupees to join the satsang. Why don't you trouble them a little bit? Value for money. People pay this much money and they ask very very shallow questions. Like who was I in the past life? How many angels can dance on the pin? These questions, being asked in the exams, are valuable.

I think the trick here is that you need to answer from both points of view. The dual and non-dual, to achieve complete understanding. At the level of duality, yes, it is going to look as if the experience is dependent on the experiencer. Some people will go ahead and say without the experience, there is no experiencer. This is also a view. Don't even think about the non-duality, assume you don't know anything about the unity or the non-duality, and you know only up to the duality. The experience and the experiencer, that is self-realization. At that level, you will find them mutually dependent. It is an illusion, produced by the mind, a thinking process like the movie and the screen. You see, no screen, then no movie. And without the movie, if it is complete darkness, you won't come to know where the screen is. It's all complete darkness. Those who are at the level of duality will never realize the real relation.

As many people have said, at the level of non-duality, they are one. No relation. The relation is of oneness. Like the pot and the clay, the wave and the water, the ornament and the gold. They are one. One part is changing, one aspect is changing, one dimension is changing. The other dimension is stationary. Even with this condition, it is one. But at the level of duality, you can say the wave is dependent on the water. Where will the wave arise? There is no water. But water is never found without a form. Even if it is an irregular form, it will be a form. Ultimately, we conclude that they are one. But you can simply say that there will be an illusion of duality where one will feel as if it is dependent on the other. This is done by the intellect. There is no need to believe it. Simply accept that it will look like this. The illusion will be like this. As soon as you unite, there is no need to study also. What will you study there? It is completely unknowable. At the level of non-duality, there is nothing to study. It is completely unknowable. We need to divide. Then we can study. This is the level of duality, you see.

Why is the layered structure repeatedly going through the cycles of incarnation?

The whole thing is evolving, actually, by repeatedly taking incarnations and getting the experience. Refining itself. And the desire is simply, in this case, the force that makes it act, and the actions then result in fruits, consequences. And the consequences make us learn. If there are no consequences, we will learn nothing, we will never evolve. This is what is happening. It appears like this. There is a possibility like this. It will continue like this. It is a cyclic process. That's all it is. Process of the causal body. Just like there are cyclic processes in your physical body. It wakes up in the morning, that is like birth. It goes to sleep at night, that is like death. It goes into the dream state, that is like after death. Isn't it? As below, so above. The causal body is also in a loop, in a cyclic process. Which is of birth. Now why? The reason can be cooked up according to our intelligence. There can be many reasons like karmic bondages. That can be one of the reasons because there is so much bondage there. There is very little chance that it will evolve quickly. It does evolve very slowly. Gets rid of the cycles of incarnations eventually. It can take an infinite amount of time, a long, long time. And some can go down also. Causal body is the cause. Yes, that is why it is called causal, because it is the cause of the birth.

Next question. What causes mental distortion?

Leyla said ignorance. Yes, ignorance is the biggest mental distortion but there are many more causes. Remember the video on states of the mind where we were discussing the lunatic mind or the mad mind. That is the most distorted mind and then the criminal mind and the egoic mind up to the mind of a seeker. It's all distortions. Prejudices, assumptions, forms of ignorance only. Below the states of equanimous mind, aware mind, everything is distortion only. It does not matter how smart you are, how educated you are, how much money you have, you're a president or whatever, drug dealer, boss, all have distorted minds. They are all distorted minds. Only the one who has realized what he is, there is a possibility of removing the distortions. Which is called purification. And that is also very difficult. Even with the knowledge, there remains distortions, blind beliefs, assumptions.

Many things cause mental distortion. The first thing is mother nature. If there is some birth defect, genetic defect, it causes distortion. You know that. And there is trauma, there is bad behavior by people, abuse, bad relations, and indoctrination is the big cause. Indoctrination is simply a distortion of the mind, mentality. Because you can say that indoctrination is also ignorance. You can say that assumptions are also ignorance, blind beliefs.

The mind cannot do anything but produce illusions, there is knowledge that it is an illusion. That is the only difference between somebody who has knowledge and somebody who is ignorant. Even though there is this mental activity which you can call a complete distortion of reality, we still know that it is an illusion and that nullifies the effect of it. That is why we prefer it, yes. Absolute purity is not really a requirement on the path of knowledge. It's like on the other paths. No, we need to realize that purity and impurity both are equally illusory and then leave it as it is. But the good thing is, with the awareness practice, you know this is optional. If you want, you can do it. Awareness practice purifies and the distortions are removed. You need to remove it only that much, minimum till it stops causing suffering. Very easy, you see. Very logical, because it can take millions of years to remove the whole of the illusion. It's not possible really because the mind is continuously producing illusions, distortions. You do it only that much which removes your gross suffering. You can have fine suffering which is above human birth. We are okay with it. like instead of crying on the street, empty stomach, you can prefer to cry in a Ferrari having a five-star dinner. That is preferred. Fine kind of suffering, no problem from the point of view of humans.

We are not complete without knowledge yet existence is already whole and complete. How is this contradiction possible?

Are we not complete without knowledge? This is the trick question, you see. Who says we are not complete without knowledge? Nobody said it, it's a completely made-up statement. Are we not complete if there is no knowledge? We are whole and complete. That is the realization, isn't it? The knowledge is only this much that we are already whole and complete. Not realizing will not make us incomplete. The realization is that we were always like this. We are the whole. We are complete. The existence. I am Brahman. This is the realization. Now who can say that we are not complete without knowledge? The knowledge simply makes us know that this is so. This is the only thing. Existence is already whole and complete. There cannot be any other statement besides this. Everything else would be a wrong statement.

Anu is asking, why is Gyanmarg not so popular? I heard it from Parthit Sir only. I have searched many doors but never heard of this one.

It's everywhere really. Just that the awareness is very low among people. It is mentioned in very much detail in Bhagavad Gita which is very popular. It is very much given in many of the ancient texts, scriptures. The best is Bhagavad Gita, narrated by Shri Krishna and that is very popular, and he has very accurately defined the Gyan Yog or the path of knowledge. He doesn't call it Gyanmarg there, he calls it Gyan Yog, which is the same thing because the whole Gita is about Yog of this and Yog of that 18 times, 18 chapters. It is very well known, but what is the problem? People do not understand it.

Whatever you call Sanatana Dharma is nothing but the path of knowledge, and whatever you call as Upanishads, nothing but the path of knowledge, and whatever you call as the Rig Veda is the path of knowledge. There is no other path there except tantra, maybe rituals, but the ritual part is removed in the Upanishads. Only the knowledge part is kept, which is the proper part, actually. Everybody knows it. It is right there in front of their eyes. What else is there in India? Veda, Upanishad, Gita, and so on.

Buddhism is the path of knowledge. Sikhism is the path of knowledge. There is nothing except the path of knowledge, and the other paths are simply offshoots. The other paths are there for those who cannot grasp it. Although when I say this, people are, you know, infuriated. They become angry. Oh, he is saying my path is simply a supplementary path. The truth is bitter, isn't it? There are many ways to achieve knowledge. That's all we can say, and the most direct is to listen to me. Listen to me. That is the whole path of knowledge, and you will find this everywhere, the same thing. I am the Atman, I am the Brahman, and so on, endlessly.

Why is it not popular? Nobody understands because nobody bothers to seek a guru. It cannot be understood without a guru. Guru means teacher only, isn't it? You can hit your head on the Upanishads for the whole of your life. You will understand nothing. I am guaranteeing because it happened to me. Without a guru, nothing happens on the path of knowledge. That is why people are singing praises for the guru. That is the most important person in your life. In all your lives, actually. All your hundreds of lives, the most important person is your guru. Even though you don't agree with him many times. Even though you don't like him, you hate your guru sometimes. He will be the one who will give you that for which you are born. That for which you are taken in the human form. Now it is like, the sun is shining in the sky, but nobody bothers to look up. They are busy in their daily activities. Their eyes are pointed downwards. Who looks at the sun? Only children. We tell them don't look at the sun. It will damage your eyes, it is bright. Same thing. People are busy with other things. Busy in illusions. Busy in the past. They provide them with colorful experiences. Who cares for knowledge? Which comes in one or two sentences. Proof is super easy. It is self-evident, actually.

Monica is saying, is it common for a person to become rebellious in spirituality?

Yes, being rebellious is actually a quality of a seeker. And the meaning of rebellious here is to rebel against indoctrination. You are born pure here. You are born innocent. You are born with the full possibility of self-realization. But what do they do? They kill this possibility by forcing you into indoctrination. By forcing you into worldly existence. There is nothing wrong in the worldly existence, but the kind of worldly existence, which is only worldly, nothing higher than that. You won't even look at anything which is bigger than the materialistic dirt - This is not acceptable. Become a rebel. Demand knowledge. This society is a wrong place to demand knowledge. Society is so much against knowledge that they will prevent you from going to a guru. They will prevent you from reading scriptures. In ancient times, women were not allowed to read Sanskrit. Not allowed to go to school. And spiritual knowledge is too far away. Even for men, ordinary people. You see, casteism divided everybody into four classes. Only one class got the knowledge. And that knowledge was so terrible. It was like rubbish. They actually destroyed it by making it limited, confidential, and secret. They themselves don't know what they are talking about now. Just like everything that goes up, goes down. The whole society, the whole culture went down. But the gurus keep popping out from this mud like lotuses, and they keep spreading their fragrance of knowledge. This is the good thing that is happening in this era. Anyhow, you see, if you feel that you are being kept away from your basic questions, you are not given the chance. You need to be rebellious.

Anu is asking, so has yoga prepared me for PoK?

Actually, the tradition is to start with PoK (Path of Knowledge). First knowledge. That was the tradition. I don't think it is there right now. You started with yoga because that is what you came to know. That is what you found. The evaluation needs to be done before taking up a path. Do you need yoga? Do you need bhakti? Do you need kundalini? Do you need anything else? That is to be done by the guru. But probably there was no guru for you. You ended up in yoga. No problem. The only way to find out if you are ready for PoK is to take it up. That is why we are giving the 3D program because that gives you an overview of the path of knowledge and you will come to know whether I am made for this or not. If you feel that this is the right path, then you can walk on it. It will end very quickly. Then you can do yoga etc. If you are made for the path of knowledge. Now what to do with your yoga? This is your, you can say, hobby. That is the thing that you may want to do. Like some people continue into the tantra. Some people continue other things, kriya. Yes, you teach yoga. So, it's your profession. It will not be your path, but it will be your, you can say, companion thing because there is nothing to do in the path of knowledge actually. If you want to continue, you can continue. No problem.

Unless you take up the program and for the duration of the program, you must stop because that is the disciplined program. After the program, you can continue again. But the problem is nobody wants to do anything after the knowledge. It will seem like a useless activity. You can take your chance. Now everything is optional. We say do that which you like most after you get the knowledge. If you like yoga most, that is the thing to do. But the path is over for you. There's nothing to know, nothing to achieve. It will be a consumption of energy. The prarabdha, the preallocation will be consumed by these activities. I say yes, do it. Can you sit down quietly? No, the prarabdha will never let you sit down. By you, I mean this creature. It's governed by that. Do something to burn it up. And these different paths are a very good way to continue.

Suppose you meet somebody who needs to learn yoga and is not ready for the path of knowledge, then this will be useful. Everything has value. But yes, there will be no juice. If you want to do it for yourself, there won't be any juice in it, which is okay. It has value for others. Probably, it is valuable for the body or something like this.

Okay, Anu has an interesting question. Who is your guru?

Everybody's guru is only one and that is the gurufield. Now it has taken many forms. I learn from any of the forms. They're all the same. Why don't I simply mention the names? I've told the names actually. It is in my blog. There is a complete list of teachers I go to all the time. And I'll give you the link to that list. Actually, it is not a list of gurus now. It has become something big, but it has non-gurus also. But it will give you an idea about who are the people who are really teaching these things in today's time. Many of these people are my gurus. Some have a big impact, some have a small impact. Some of the gurus are not in the list, as they want to remain secret.

You're also not married? Why?

I don't know. Everybody has their own reasons for that. And I had my own reasons. But the problem is, you can say mismatch. I do not go along very well with anybody. It is not that I did not try. I tried a lot, but there was always some mismatch. Because I'm not a worldly person. You know, marriage is a worldly activity really. It will involve you in the world. Earning and then looking after the family and so on. And I have no problem at all doing the responsibilities. But being bound is the problem.

After knowledge, it looks like a completely useless activity. You never fit anywhere. The seeker is a big misfit. That is why we are called “different”, which simply means, in technical language, crazy. A seeker will be seen as crazy. Nobody will marry him or her. And even if they marry, it fails very quickly. And the jobs, because most of the jobs involve some kind of slavery. You need to do the work for somebody else who will pay you a little bit. And you need to obey the orders, which is totally against the nature of a seeker. They want to remain independent. They are their own boss. I faced so many problems in my jobs that I had to leave. And this must be the story of everybody, unless your job is a very cool kind of job. I did my own thing independently. And that is the recommended thing for any seeker. Be independent. Stand on your own feet. Do not work for anybody because they will make your life very difficult. The greed is too much.

Yes, it is grace to be unmarried. Some people say, if I remain alone, I will become lonely. No. You will find very good people, actually, in the seeker community. They will never let you feel lonely. When I was not in the knowledge dissemination, not teaching or sharing, nobody knew me. But still I had good people around me. And when I got into this, I never felt alone, really. It is a very good decision. The thing is, once you marry, especially in India, the door closes. You cannot get out. But when you are unmarried, there is always an opening. There is always a chance that you can marry anytime. Even in old age, you can marry. Yes, you won't get a young person, but you will get somebody. Why do you need a young person? You can marry somebody who is of your age or of your compatibility. But the problem is, a spiritual person will never marry. But don’t worry, you will never feel alone. Just your friends will change from the worldly to spiritual. That's all.

Kesha is saying, I am switching jobs continuously and thinking, what is the problem with me?

You are not made for the jobs. You are made for employing people, not to become an employee. You are the employer. Try that. Even if it is a small business, try that. Do it yourself. What is the problem here is that since childhood, we are conditioned to do a job. Why do they send you to the school? that you can become a servant of somebody, you say. That is the British time mentality which is still going on. Which of your schools tells you to become an entrepreneur or a businessman or a farmer?

Farming is the best business. You own the land, you own the food, you own a house there, farmland, farmhouse, and you feed people. It's very big, very good work there, and very good karma. Nobody wants to do it. Because you are indoctrinated to think that these jobs are lesser. Lowly people do it.

No. The lowly jobs, you know what they are, where people cheat, where people lie, where all kinds of corruption, backstabbing, lies, deception is, and they earn a lot of money. And that is why your parents are after those jobs so that you can earn a lot of money. Because their definition of happiness is money. Why? They are ignorant. It is not their fault. They are brought up like this by their society, their parents. Somewhere you need to break the chain, come out of it.

Yes, if you cannot do anything, if you don't have a different kind of skill, which is in demand, or you don't have that kind of energy, you're old or something, then do a job. There's nothing wrong with doing a job, but don't turn it into slavery. It must be so that you earn enough, minimalist, and you are left with a lot of time for your actual life, which is the spiritual life.

Actually, when I was struggling for jobs and struggling to earn money, that was the worst part of my life. I gave up all these things when I had earned a lot of money. But don't come as a beggar in the spiritual system. Come as a king. Once you are on your feet, then your spiritual path will take off. The Muladhara is the launch pad for the rocket of spirituality. Some people leave everything and then start begging and they think I'm spiritual. Stupidity. Make your life comfortable. Just don't be a slave. Earn enough and then you will be fit for spirituality or you can even say path of knowledge. Because this thing will be off your mind - how to earn my bread and butter, that will not trouble you. Spend some of your years stabilizing yourself in a good kind of work, business, self-employment, and then the world is yours. Nobody will trouble you, not even your parents.

Madhuri is saying, our education system, also the education system is based on survival only, and they produce workers.

They do not produce employers or producers. They produce dependent armies of slaves and that is what rich people want. Your government is not interested in doing anything about it.

Anuj is saying, your’s and my story are the same.

Actually, this is the story of most of the seekers. I heard these stories many times and some are late in the game, they are already married, now they want to leave. I say, no. Take it as your lesson. You can leave it in the next life, especially women who are already married. They cannot leave now unless in very special circumstances where the husband is totally a gone case. There you should leave, but if it is working nicely, then keep this freedom for the next life. It is not wasted. You can learn a lot here also. And same about the job. If you are in a good job, there is no need to leave it. If it is not causing you any kind of torture, don't hurry to leave it. You will retire eventually, take voluntary retirement with enough cash, invest in the land and so on, make a house, it will give you good returns and that is a good strategy, practical thing.

Your Upanishad is not going to tell this. Your Guru is not going to tell you this. Your Guru will say all is illusion. We need the illusion to know the illusion. Problem, big problem. You are not human but you need the human form to know that I am not human. Now take care of it. It is beautiful as well as very confusing. Balance is the key.

Be the human while being the divine. Accept the human part. Accept society. Accept your husband and wife. It's all okay. Once you get the knowledge, you should not say no to anything. This is called surrender. And if you can improve it, yes, go ahead. Say yes to improvement also. Don't say that Guruji said don't do anything. No, I never said this. Keep improving, but not in a negative way. Not in a harmful way. If people are getting affected by your actions, next life you will need to return it. What to do? Learn from this one.

And if you are already like this, she is very young, Anu, you are fortunate to get the knowledge. Some people are born with this knowledge that I don't need to get involved in the world. Very fortunate. With some, they learn. They learn by living the worldly life. Don't miss this opportunity to learn. If you are confused, ask your Guru. Guru is sitting here to advise you. Use your Guru. There is no other use of the Guru.

Anu is saying, a rebellious attitude towards everything is never accepted by family society.

Reason for that is that everybody wants somebody who can obey their orders, who can tell them that yes you are always right, I will do whatever you want me to do. This is called an obedient child. Everybody likes their children to be obedient. But 99% of the children are not obedient. They don't like it. They obey others because of some fear, pressure, or compromise. What is our nature? To be free, not to obey. You have been obeying since childhood your parents and society and all of your relatives. You are licking their feet and making them happy. Even by marrying somebody that your relatives told you to marry. This is too much, isn't it?

And then when you say no, I won't do what you guys are telling me. I now know. I have my eyes open now. I am no more in darkness. And that causes Mahabharata war in the family because, you know, somebody is not obeying. Somebody is spoiled and the reason is their guru. The guru is the most hated person in the world. You don't know how risky it is. Yes, Mahabharata. Brother against brother. Mother against child. Those whom you call your own. There is not much of a relationship actually. But society imposes these relations and they make you obey. And there is fear behind it that you won't be able to take care of yourself so do that which I told you to. But they never make you independent so that you can take care of yourself. They never do that. They keep you dependent because they are themselves dependent. They don't know the meaning of independence. These are some terrible conditions in society.

And what can we do? Don't rebel directly, be diplomatic, be independent. If people are putting you down, do that which they want and then escape into freedom. And that freedom comes as a financial freedom. If you have a lot of money, it will shut up the people actually. I have seen this thing myself. As long as you are earning, nobody will trouble you. You don't need to rebel. Because now they have become dependent on you. Because they see you as a provider now. Especially the men, the boys. They don't need to tolerate this much. But women, because they are financially dependent, nobody listens to them. They are abused, dominated. Their freedom is taken away. Freedom starts with financial freedom. If you are earning your own bread and butter, if you are living in a good place, secure place, and then there is no need for anyone. Actually your relatives, your family, your parents, they will stop torturing you because they are now standing there in a receiving pose. Probably she will give me something. Still there will be a lot of conditions. They will try to brainwash you. Open the joint account. Give me something. We don't have money at home. All these things I have seen, they are done to the girls mostly. But men are very smart, they simply take off, they fly away as soon as they start earning. Women I have seen, even if they are earning, they stick to the family. And the reason is security. That is why in ancient times, it was said that a woman will never achieve knowledge or liberation. You need to be born as a man because that was the case at that time. But hopefully some things have improved. Now you can be liberated in any kind of body. It's no more a disability.

The ancient scriptures say that when the person is born in a particular family, on a particular kind of date, lagan, and a particular kind of gender, then only is eligible for knowledge, for spiritual practice or anything. There are only a handful of such people. That's why nobody is spiritual now. They are all religious people. Because it was restricted so much in this culture. Still we have a lot of it, compared to the other parts of the world. We still have a big tradition of spirituality, which is a miracle, isn't it? They are all rebels. I am telling you, not even one conforms to the society. Not even one.

Parteep is saying, some people will remain unmarried. I have some part to play here. Maybe their parents will be after me.

Don't worry. You're saved. You're perfectly safe. We have lots of tricks, answers. You see, parents are afraid. If you tell them that they're superstitious, tell them that if this person marries in your family, your entire family will die of some terrible disease. Then they will listen. They used to do this in the old times. If the guru called somebody - “send this child to my ashram”. “No, he's my child. Why should I send him to you?” Then a sharp curse follows. You all are going to hell for this. And the next day the boy is in his ashram.

We don't need to do that kind of extreme measures, but you can tell them that this person will never be happy in the marriage. Try to educate. And the best excuse is that he or she, as soon as they find a match, they will marry. Don't force them to marry. And the thing is they will never find a match. Seeker never finds a match, especially for marriage. You can do all kinds of things. You see, nobody stops you. You can have affairs and relations but marriage is a problem. It is a legal thing, which nobody wants to do. Then you can come up with some tricks to save yourself. And if nothing, you just ask me. I'll fix them from above. This has happened to many people. I don't know how it happens that they come to me crying. My husband is doing this. People in my house are doing this. Family is doing that. And I say, don't worry, I'll pray for you. I'll pass your file up. This is our way here. We send the file. As soon as I send the file, I don't know what happens, the family changes completely. Now they will help you in your spiritual practice instead of accusing. They will help you in whatever you want to do. They will stop troubling you. This has happened. Actually, they will start fearing you. This has happened in many cases.

Madhuri is saying, for women, only financial freedom is not the issue. There are many more. All of them are imposed, but they hurt a lot.

Yes, security is an issue. I don't know how many issues there are. There is a feminine nature also. Emotionally dependent and the desire for motherhood and their body is made for this kind of life. Obviously unmarried life will be difficult. Even if you are financially independent, there will be a vacuum. I have no solution for this. It is not that it is not possible. It is possible. It will be challenging.

Men don't demand all these things. They don't have this kind of attitude. They become free easily. They have other things. The tribal tendencies are stronger in men. They will die for the country. They will kill for the country. They will win politics and sports and so on. Competition. Men have their own obstacles. Obviously, sexual desire is the biggest obstacle and most of the men, they marry only for this and it goes away in six months. That is a big problem.

Both the genders have their own challenges and the best way is to face them practically, intelligently with knowledge, with the consultation of your guru. Those who have a guru, they need not worry. Actually, the guru will take care of you. We see something which is reversed in our society that students are taking care of the guru. I can understand if the guru is so old, cannot walk, cannot even see, then somebody needs to take care of him. It's mostly the students only because obviously he has no family. But even the younger gurus, they are dependent on students for money. It should be reversed. The students should be treated like their children by the gurus as their own.

Many times I get this kind of person that - my life is hell now, I'm on the street now, everybody hates me now and I said no don't worry I'm here and I'll take care of you. This is the last option. If you have nothing to do, straight away go to your guru. He will do whatever he can. And this is the path of knowledge. It won't happen in any other path actually. Guru is all in one - All relatives. Whatever relation you demand he will provide you, and the guru knows that it's a play, so it's safe. He knows that you will get tired of this thing and he ensures that you will become independent. For the time being this support is provided and the gurus open ashrams etc. where you can live.

Many people are doing this. Now whatever Madhuri said will be solved. The bigger hurdles will be solved because they get a place. But these kinds of people are very rare who cannot do anything. They need an ashram. What is the meaning of ashram? Shelter, isn't it? Ashray. From ashray comes the ashram which means shelter. It was designed as a shelter for people who could not fit into the society, who could not live their life in the society. They were so helpless. Gurus, because of their compassion, opened ashrams for them. They have very basic simple rooms, we call them kuti or hut. Minimalist and you will be given food and you will be given a job and so on.

This has happened in many places. I think the Coimbatore ashram is like this or the Rajneesh Dham was this concept and there are many like Auroville in Pondicherry. We have these systems here and many people are after me also - Why don't you open an ashram? I said make your home your ashram. Don't be dependent so hopelessly. At least try something. If nothing is possible for you then come to guru. He will take care of you.

Yes, there will be emotional blackmail from your family and all kinds of threatening attitudes will be seen. They won't let you go to the ashram also and this trap is very big. I say, manage somehow now and in the next life meet me before making such mistakes.

Graham is saying, can we ask the guru in prayer or you want us all to email you. I would like to email you often in my request by trying to respect your times.

See the first thing you should do is pray to the gurufield. You can use my name as a password. They know from where you are coming, whether you're worth helping or not. Like when we go to somebody for help, “I'm this and this, I'm the son of this and I do this, I do this job.”, and now they pay attention to you. The same way, gurufield also works. If you're not on a proper path, not on a systematic path, then the response to your prayer will be kind of, "What should I do with him, he's a useless fellow," something like this. You add my name or you add the path of knowledge in your prayer and if you are comfortable say the guru mantra and so on, any two or three lines invoking the gurufield and you say your prayer. No harm, at most it will have no effect, but you did your duty and then email me also, send me one line that I want this or that. Usually, I send only one or two words there, “so be it, tathastu”, that's all I reply. And I don't actually do anything. Don't think that I know some magic, simply me saying that you will get it should have an effect. If it does not, then change your guru, what else can you do?

So, you should not ask everything or small things. Do not demand too much because everything is already given to you. But if you are in trouble of some kind then you can pray and send a copy to me. And the best thing is to get in contact with the gurufield is to not to depend on me. That is why we have step number seven where I try to put you in contact with the gurufield. Now all you need to do is think about it, your desire will be fulfilled. It can take some time and if your desire is for the betterment of everybody then it is guaranteed that it will be fulfilled. If it is selfish, then 50-50, we don't know. Sometimes they will give you something which you really need, you know, as a lesson.

What I've done is, I've tried to play a trick with the gurufield. Which is - we add the Devi mantra also. We add the Devi mantra in the prayer and that is like saying, “Look, if you don't fulfill my desire, I'm going to ask Devi to fulfill my desire.” So, it is like a backup and Devi will provide you with anything, you want, selfish, non-selfish, good, bad. Devi has no discrimination. She is raw energy and with the gurufield it is all very tricky. Although if you are a seeker, you are honestly on a path, you're doing something for your evolution, for your knowledge, for dispelling your ignorance, then it is guaranteed that even if you don't ask, you will be helped.

Anybody can become a medium. If I can become a medium, most welcome, although my abilities are very less.

Graham is saying, I have no needs, no problem.

Your prayer should be, “Thank you.” That much we all can say. Thank you for everything. I do that twice a day and you need not call anybody. Simply say, “Thank you.” They will hear it. Anybody who wants to hear it will hear it. Yes, sometimes, we need to make a very serious effort to get things done. Like four or five people, they pray simultaneously sometimes. So, we do all kinds of experiments here and there is no guarantee that they will be fulfilled but we do our job, we do our duty to help seekers, practical way, worldly way, and spiritual way, occult way, whatever is possible, we do it.

Session 183

Leila is asking, can you please discuss spirituality and gender?

As far as spirituality is concerned, there is no difference between male and female. As far as your society is concerned, the world, the worldly people, there is a lot of difference and usually they cause problems in the spiritual field also. There is no effect of gender on the path you take or the guru you seek, but while taking up the path, while deciding for a spiritual life, the society will cause problems depending on what is your gender. It is totally outside the field of spirituality, but you may face some issues if you are just entering the spiritual field. After that there is nothing, after that it is all equal. What happens is there is some unfair discrimination regarding gender, especially in this country. Women are not allowed in the spiritual field, there is a lack of female gurus which makes it even more difficult. And there are some practices that are banned for females. There are other issues like family and children which do not affect men so much as they affect women. These problems that are outside the spirituality, they prevent some women from entering this field.

Once you are in, there is no discrimination, there is nothing which is worth mentioning. The barrier is in the entry, not after the entry. And we have tried to break that barrier by making the path of knowledge easily accessible for all, including children, by making it totally free and totally online. Most of the barriers are broken now, so you will see almost a 50% gender ratio here. Because of the mediums of internet, videos and all, this old tradition, the discrimination is also fading away.

One thing that remains to be done is to destroy the indoctrination which happens in the family by no one else but your own parents, that women should only sit in the house and pray to statues and observe all the fasts and work hard for all the festivals, and spend money unnecessarily. This is a very idiotic indoctrination that is given to all women, that the internet cannot bypass, that our programs cannot bypass. That will happen slowly as the number of women increases in spirituality and they stop doing this indoctrination to their children. We will see the second wave, not the first, where this discrimination will be completely wiped out.

Right now we are on step number one and let us wait and see. Indoctrination is a big barrier. The impact of indoctrination is made less by spiritual books, but as you can see the indoctrination is so much that they are prevented from reading these books, even education is not given to the women many times. Not enough education is given that they can understand these things and even if they can understand, their company, their environment is mostly full of stupid people, or other women who are of worldly kind, they do not get a chance to mix with men who have advanced in this field.

Slowly the situation is improving and I am doing my own little effort to improve it by favoring women on the path of knowledge. I am biased like this because I want the second wave. Men can do anything, it's not a big problem for them, even if they are indoctrinated, even if some barriers are there, they can break it sooner or later. But there is nobody to help women. Like I said, there is a shortage of female gurus.

This much can be done so that some special facilities are provided and we will be able to improve the situation, by the way interesting statistics for everybody. On my Hindi channel, the percentage of women is about 10%, sometimes it goes up to 15%, sometimes oscillates between 10 to 15. On my English channel, the percentage of women is 20%, it oscillates from 20 to 25 sometimes. You can now guess the reasons for that, but it is still very little. Although when they enter the path of knowledge, I see no difference at all, but the entry is a problem, there is a barrier to the entry. They are mostly forced towards the devotional paths or towards yoga or something like this which is more suitable for women, people say, but there is no truth in this.

Leyla is asking, what sort of prayers are accepted by Gurufield?

There is no restriction in praying, you can pray for anything you want, but what will be accepted depends on your needs and what will be given depends on what will make you progress. Usually I have seen that if you pray for the progress of somebody else, then there will be a good response, something will be given. If you pray for your own progress - please remove my ignorance, please remove all the hurdles to the ignorance, something will be done, but we don't know when or how it will be done.

And if you pray for some worldly things - please improve my relations, please give me money or please make me healthy and so on, the chances are very less that it will be accepted, chances are very less that it will even be heard, because obviously it is not going to make you progress. That which is required for your progress has already been given, what is that? Good intelligence and a Guru, you don't need more than that, do you? Now what are you praying for? It must be something unnecessary.

Most of the time, only that which is given will be enforced a little bit. The tendency of the Gurufield is to spread knowledge, that's all. Their tendency is not to fulfill your desires, they will never do that. Sometimes it happens that your desires align with your progress, align with your path. For example, you are Guru-less, you don't have a Guru, you don't have a path, now you need to pray and that will be accepted. And now even the physical rules will be bent or some coincidence will be set up, especially for you, so that in this lifetime you can meet your Guru, get the Guru, come in contact somehow. It can be as small as getting a book or it can be a direct meeting also. Sometimes the message is sent directly to the Guru, that look this person needs your help, he is your disciple in the past life or something like this. And the Guru then does the physical effort to find that person. It is very rare, but sooner or later you will be helped in your spiritual effort.

As soon as you decide that I want to follow a path and as soon as you have a Guru, you are following the instructions, you are progressing. Now your prayer should be - “thank you”, that you have given me something. Now it is your effort, you see. What can the Guru field do for you? Something is given, now you need to utilize it for your progress. If there are any obstacles that prevent you from progressing, then you can pray for that. You should be a little bit more specific when it is about obstacles, like you can say please remove all the obstacles, yes that will be done, but if you are very specific that this particular obstacle, I cannot remove it, I am not able to handle it, it is something much bigger than my capacity, something supernatural, something related to health, which cannot cure easily, you need to be specific about it and you will see better results. If it is about somebody, please remove this person from my life and so on and you will find that you will be removed from his life, that person will remain untouched. Be careful what you ask for because sometimes you don't want it.

If you have a living Guru, you don't need to pray to Gurufield. Sometimes I encourage people, pray directly, why are you asking me? In these matters where there can be consequences, you should ask me, then we can manipulate the words of the prayer, we can change the words so that the consequences are minimized. Always remember that whatever you pray, whatever the words are, everything will be arranged so that you always lose something, you will never gain something. Something or the other will be lost from your life. Remember the tendency of the Guru field is to liberate you, not to bind you or not to make you dependent on the prayers. Sometimes the exact opposite will be done to teach you a lesson that you are not using your intelligence. The best way is to make an effort, at least make a symbolic effort and then pray that - Now I am doing this and this, please make me successful, please give me enough wisdom so that I can accomplish this work. This kind of prayer will be answered, and will be granted. If you just sit there, okay, make me a big Guru today, nothing will happen. It is an experimental field, you should experiment, see what works, see what does not work. I have seen that one thing that works for sure is praying for the benefit of others, especially those who have potential for growth. If you ask for help for others, it is always done.

Rajat is asking, what is the will of the divine?

There is will, but there is no will of something, we have discussed this many times actually. There is will, but nobody owns it. You remove “of divine” from your question and now it can be answered, you see. What is will? It is the very primordial energy in the manifested existence, that which is manifested. How is it changing? And we habitually think of a force, we habitually think of an energy which causes the change. This is ignorance, isn't it? But we are not satisfied with the answer that the change is always there, which is an illusion. The change is fundamental, we cannot accept this. To satisfy these minds,an idea of “energy” is cooked up, some force is cooked up and that will be called will.

How do I work? How do I change something? First there is a will, motivation, then it goes through the machinery of the mind, comes out through the body and something is changed. We are habitual of these events that happen like this, sequence of events one after the other. And we want to know what is governing the whole existence in the same fashion. This is a natural curiosity that - I can do anything via my will, but who is growing the trees, who is causing the rain and who is doing all these things which I am not doing, which nobody is doing. And the childish mind tries to find somebody who is willing it, because the mind can only see that I am doing something, I am making changes in the world by willing. Simple logic. They extrapolate this thing and ignorant people simply imagine things, it's all false.

As a concession, we sometimes say that there is will, the will is embedded in the existence. It is not without will, will is of the whole, sometimes we say like this, but it is of nobody. This is a concept. And the funny thing is when you do something and the will that you perceive is also not yours. This is the eye-opening thing, there is a will but it is not my will, because there is no me. This machine is just an automatic robot. The impulses, the motivations arise in the memory because that is the nature of the memory, the nature of the memory is change, vibration. Something or the other keeps happening there and those processes that govern the survival of the organism are the strongest, obviously you know the reason for this. If those processes are not present in the organism, the organism will die very quickly, and will not survive the competition. The dominant processes, they keep on generating these motivations, these impulses to work, to act, to do and the organism is like a puppet, it is doing whatever is coming there from the memory.

There is no will in the eastern philosophies, there is sanskara, which is also called karma. No will, because they understood very early that there is no such thing. That is what is called the bondage or karmic bonds, and they cause all the actions, not the will. The organism is bound by whatever is stored in the memory, which is called the karma or sanskara or whatever you want to call it. In English, it will be called accumulation, I don't have any other word for it, there is no word in English for it. You can call it the storage, Sanskrit will be sanchaya. How much is stored there? An immense amount, a mountain of these impressions, and they govern the life of the organism. Not your life, you are beyond will, you are the witness of all these mechanical activities. For this lifetime, you are given a set of allocations which we call as pre-allocation/prarabdha and that is nothing but a set of wills, a set of wishes, desires and you are busy fulfilling them, they are not yours, they are of nobody and the most surprising thing is that somehow there is a will to liberate, there is a desire to be liberated from all this illusion of willing and living and dying and so on and that is the only freedom you have, otherwise you are completely a machine, you are a robot and this will also was implanted by somebody who is already free, he will be called your guru, otherwise, there was no possibility of this thing.

The seed was planted long long ago, even if you think that this lifetime I am born with this will to be liberated, no, it's not yours, it was given by somebody and that was also not his obviously. It is a very fortunate event that somehow this machine is directed towards spiritual knowledge and as soon as it is seen that no will is mine, there is no me, there is no individual, that's the end of all this willing, that is the liberation - nirvana. The key is to know yourself, know your true nature and you will know everything. Meditate on your true nature, contemplate on it and you will get all these answers to what is the will and whose will it is and what does it do, how does it arise, check your direct experience, it is not a mystery.

Aditya is asking, how about the Aham Brahmasmi concept in terms of knowledge?

I don't understand your question. Aham Brahmasmi is not a concept, it is the reality, and you cannot say it in terms of knowledge, it is beyond knowledge, it is beyond mind, beyond intellect, that is what is about it. So, if you have any specific question, like what is it, how to get it, is it true or not, then I will be able to answer. There is nothing to be said about it, there is only one reality and I am that, very easy.

Aditya is asking, so can we not connect and create what we want, like our Rishis used to do?

Yes, why not, if you are interested you can start now. On the physical plane, we are already doing it, on the physical plane we are using the body to create, and on the non-physical, you use your mind to create. So, how to progress up to the level of Rishis? Spiritual progress. Progress spiritually, your individual progress will take you there, where you can create whatever you want to create, like the Rishis, it is totally possible. You can start now.

He is saying, it is what entices me, the idea of creating, but right now we do it unconsciously.

Not a big problem, you see. If you continue on the right path, one day you will be able to do it consciously, and the only way is to follow the instructions of your Guru. If there is unconsciousness right now, there is no point in trying to create anything, but since you are on the path, any kind of path, as soon as you progress, you will be given this power to create whatever you want. My suggestion is not to worry about creating things like this, but focus totally on your spiritual progress. Everything else is a side effect of it. Whatever you think can be created is already created, it is infinite existence. Whatever you think will be created by me or other people like me, not true, there is no you. It will happen as you progress.

Preeti is saying, can we have the discussion on the difference between intelligence and knowledge?

Yes, very easy. Knowledge is simply interrelations between the experiences and intelligence is a layer in the memory which has the processes of rationality, logic, thinking, evaluating, decision making, and so on. And there is a relation between intelligence and knowledge. More intelligent you are, that means the more this layer is functioning, if this layer is functioning correctly, more knowledge will be gained, which everybody knows. And the more knowledge you get, this layer becomes pure, is purified, is augmented, magnified thousand times. Sometimes by getting even a small kind of knowledge, a tiny amount of knowledge, the intelligence explodes. This must be the experience of everybody here. These two are different functions in the memory, but they are interrelated. One supports the other. If both increase, then there is exponential rise. When the processes of intelligence go wrong, we call it stupidity. When the processes of knowledge go wrong, we call it ignorance. This is my comparison, discussion, if you want to know more.

Preeti is asking, how and when can we have knowledge of the unknown?

It is very easy. Find an experience that will give you the knowledge of the unknown, that which is unknown, can be known only by an experience. And then use your logic, use your intelligence to know the truth of it. It's very easy. And if it is impossible to find any experience, if it is impossible to gain the knowledge, then it is unknowable. But the unknown is very easy. You need to find the right experience. And then it becomes known. This process of finding the right experience is called an experiment. Experiment and you will get the answer.

Vipin is saying, whatever comes is accepted and is done without preferences with intelligence and awareness. Nothing is intended much. Is it fine not to intend anything and work for whatever Maya shows up?

It is not possible to act without any intention. If there is no intention, no action is possible. And that which will be possible will be called vegetative existence. And that is also not without intention. When the cells divide, we say that it was the intention of the cell to divide. It looks like an intelligent behavior. It is not dividing randomly for no purpose. Whenever a purpose is seen, we say that there is an intention behind it. Nothing happens without the intention. He is asking, is it fine not to intend? It is not possible. Is it possible to stop the intentions? Is anybody in charge of intending or not intending? Is there any doer? Probably you are still thinking that I am doing it. I am intending it. I am doing it with intelligence and awareness without preferences. This is all false. Only an ignorant person will think like this. You see, what is knowledge? That there is no me. There is no individual. There is no doer. Now, whatever happens is already being done by the Maya. It's already being done automatically. There is nobody to intend it.

At the level of the Maya, level of the illusion, sometimes we say, have a strong intention, then you will get it done and so on. That is false language. That is the language of ignorance. At that level, we understand what we are talking about. But here, it looks like you are mixing stuff. It is not possible to not to intend because that will be an intention, isn't it? I intend not to intend. I desire not to desire. It's not possible, you see?

He is asking, isn't it working detached?

Probably you mean acting without attachment. That is an intention, isn't it? I don't want to be attached. Lots of concepts mixed up by Vipin.

Leyla is saying, perhaps he is talking about desire, not intention.

There is not much difference between intention and desire. Will, desire, intention, wish - all these are ultimately the same thing. Ultimately, it is a motive force. I don't know what he is talking about. But it is not fine, actually, that you are thinking like this. Bring some clarity in your thinking. If you want to talk on the level of the illusion, then you must talk in terms of intentions and actions. It's perfectly OK. But if you want to talk on the absolute level, like duality, non-duality, then these questions are meaningless. Because it is already happening according to the intention of nobody.

Aditya is saying, without intention, it's not karma. It's Leela and our consciousness is not at the level yet. It's my knowledge.

Yes, very good. You see, my intention immediately causes an impression in the causal body that it is mine. Now it is owned, now it is stored. That is what we call attachment to the action. It is not possible not to intend, but it is possible to give up the ownership of the intention. That is possible only when you are in complete awareness. And that is what we teach in this program. Step number four. Be in complete awareness. You are not the doer. You are the observer. You are the witness. Now let the intention come and let them act and let them do whatever they do. It's not me. Problem solved. Now, will there be any question if it is fine or not? Am I doing something wrong or what? Because you are not doing anything right or wrong. You are the witness. This is what we call awareness. This is the only practice you have.

Leyla is saying, desires do not belong to anyone. They come and go. Some are acted on, others not, depending on the strength of the desire.

Yes, you are in awareness, you see? Right now at least.

What is the formula here for a person on the path of knowledge? How to deal with the desires? Actually, we have said this many times but if you forgot - Let there be desire, any kind. Don't worry about it. See if it is necessary or not. Engage the intelligence here. Fully knowing that it is not mine, let there be action if it is necessary.

And will there be an action if there are no means to fulfill the desire? No, there won't be any action. Simply watch the desire arise and then fall because there is nothing that can be done. There is no means to fulfill the desire right now. you say to yourself, well, today it's not possible. Some other day. Be peaceful, quiet, no drama needed. And if there is a means to fulfill it, and if it is necessary, or if it is entertaining/play, you do it. If it is totally unnecessary and the desire is there, you let it arise and it will go away. It will come back some other day and do the same thing.

Fully knowing that they are not mine, fully knowing that nobody is acting, fully knowing that I am not taking the decisions, these decisions are being taken by the intellect, which are now programmed to act in awareness, not in darkness. a little bit of control we say. We say you have achieved control because of awareness. You are controlling your mind, you are controlling your actions and what is the benefit of this? Obviously a lot of benefits are there.

Yashraj is saying, just like playing with a kid.

Yes, accept the fair demands of the kid. Kid is hungry, feed him. And if he demands something, a knife or a gun, now you should not, isn't it? Very simple. This formula is so simple that your life will become effortless. Some people are there who will still ask these questions. What about my plans? Shouldn't I do something for my life? I have many many desires, I want to be this and that. Same formula, you see.

Being in awareness is not like acting mechanically, acting on a program, acting intelligently. It is not a non-action also. Because non-action is also an action, isn't it? The true non-action is letting the action happen without taking ownership of it. you will see that all actions are actually non-actions. The only aberration, the only mistake was assuming that they are mine, I am doing it. That is the only thing, you see. Such a small thing. That was the only ignorance.

Just like when it rains, you do not say it is my rain. These drops are mine, those are not mine. We never make this mistake. But when the shower of desires happens, what do we say? My desire. This is the problem. When the rain happens, the water flows through any available channel, goes wherever it wants to go. Same way, when the desire comes, it flows through any available channel. Your thoughts, your voice, speech are the organs of action. If the means is available, it will go there. Nobody can stop it. There is nobody to stop it. Nobody can allow it. Nobody to allow it. You are the witness.

There will be control over it, which will make your journey smoother if you follow this formula. It is not possible to have this control without awareness. And it is not possible to have awareness without self-knowledge. Knowledge of who I am. This discretion is not available to those who are ignorant. For them, all desires are there. Even the objects are there, even the rain is there. They own everything. My tree did this and my dog did that. Childish people. But it's okay. You got this power now. It's time to utilize it. The application of knowledge is being aware. That's all. Very simple. Do you need to remember the formula? No, it will happen on its own. If there is awareness, this will happen automatically. Whatever activity happens in the layers of the memory, they will be seen as not mine, just activity, just another passing experience. And the intellect will properly control these activities. The intellect will decide what to manifest, what to not.

Desire, you can say, is unmanifested energy. And through the body, it is manifested. You can see the workings of the goddess here. This is how the goddess is working. And the intellect is another tool of the goddess only. It's not mine. Some people think the desires are not mine, but the intelligence is mine. I can control my desires. No, nothing is yours. It is all goddess. It's all Devi.

If there is knowledge, then these questions should not arise. The person or the holder of the knowledge is always in bliss. They never think about desires, never think about doing or not doing. Why are these thoughts? What should I do? Is it okay to intend? - Somehow there is no awareness.

Have you seen any guru in the world who says, I should not do this because I am pure witness. I am the experiencer, so I should not do this. Or I should do this. Nobody says this. All actions are happening. That is what they will say. None of them are mine. All are illusory. Your experiment on step no. 4 does not tell you which actions you should do and which you should not. Have you noticed? They do not tell you the do's and don'ts. What do the experiments say? Do whatever you are doing in complete awareness. And observe the effects. Observe the results. Send me your report every week. Is there anything else that we do in those experiments? Nothing at all, you see. Be in awareness. In waking, dreaming, sleeping. And tell me what is happening. We do not discriminate between good actions and bad actions. Good desires and bad desires. Nothing. We don't even ask for any consequences. That the fruits of your actions should be like this and like that. No. The only goal there is to be in awareness, not to do a specific thing or not to stop a specific thing. Then why do people ask these questions? Somewhere they forget the awareness. Somewhere they forget to do the experiment. And this is not a doing also. Being in the awareness is not a job. It's not work. It's not an action. It's a state of being. You cannot do it. I never say that. Do the awareness job - I never say like this. Today you have not done your awareness thing. No. We say - be in awareness. Be the witness. It is not an action. Dispel these thoughts that I am the doer. I am the body. I am the mind. And these desires and these intentions and these actions are mine. Leave all these thoughts. Whenever these thoughts arise, you need to pay attention. That is why attention is taught. If you don't attend, you won't become aware of them. Now discard them.

You see, attend to all the layers. Discard the me thought, I thought, ego. And that which is necessary will happen automatically. See, it is so simple. What is the meaning of this sentence that fully knowing that these desires are not mine, you need to act on them, whenever possible, whenever the means are available. It simply means that there will be an experience of desiring. There will be witnessing of this desire. That is the awareness part. And there will be an experience of this creature acting on it. That's all it means. You will experience that the intellect has done its job because of awareness. Because of attention, the activity of that layer was caught. Every layer will produce its own desires that you should know by now. If you are an expert in paying attention to all the layers, you will catch it. By you, I mean the creature. And you, the experiencer, will simply experience these events happening.

Session 184

Monica is asking, I am doing my attention practices. I can see that there are more emotions coming. Maybe I have become more sensitive?

Yes, it's possible. The attention makes the layers more sensitive. Just like if you get a cut on your hand or leg, let us say, on the body, if you don't attend to it, there is less pain. You don't even notice the pain, but if you focus on that pain, you will find that it is always there. It is very intense. If you distract yourself by watching TV, listening to music, talking to somebody, doing something else, your attention is now shifted to something else and the pain does not trouble you that much. Something similar must be happening that the emotions are always there, more or less, the tiny ones and the major ones, but we don't pay attention to them. But now that you are sitting and noticing, you will see that there are more and they are not actually more, they were always there.

You see, the attention practice has nothing in it that can cause emotions. You can see it is simply shifting of the point of perception. Where am I perceiving? What am I perceiving now? That is attention. You can shift it to other objects. there is nothing in it. This method has nothing in it to generate more emotions. Yes, it will increase the sensitivity. Any sensation will be magnified if you attend to it. there were always emotions, what we call as the causal tendencies. They will start appearing as emotions because they find a point of escape now in the form of emotions. I am speaking metaphorically here, they see that the owner of the emotion is paying attention to these things finally. They line up, just like when you feed dogs, now they line up to get the food. They get all the attention and similarly the memory structure, whatever you call as mind in ordinary language, especially the causal layer, gets a chance to purge the pending emotions, the pending issues.

This is a very big paradox, which I have seen myself actually, I have experienced it myself that people do all kinds of meditation to silence their thoughts for peace of mind and so on and as soon as they start meditation, they get in deluge, a big flood of emotions and thoughts. Then they complain - this method is not good, give me some method which makes me totally dumb and like rock and they do that kind of method then. But no, that is not going to stop it, it will simply suppress it. My suggestion to Monica is, do not simply attend, become the witness also. If you become the witness of whatever is coming through these layers, they will be cleared.

In the tantric field we call it sublimation or in the kundalini field, this is the sublimation. What is the meaning of sublimation? When the solid turns into gas directly without going through the liquid phase. The tendencies without going through the karmic manifestation, they are satisfied, they are sublimated. It is a powerful method. I have given you only 10 minutes or 15 minutes of attention practice, I think. But that much is enough because probably your accumulation is too much. In the past you have accumulated, in the present life also you are accumulating. Nobody has taught us the art of letting go. When the event happens, it is not useful. What should we do? We should let go, forget, forgive. And what do we do? We accumulate, we stick. We say that it is mine and that is the biggest mistake. It is not mine. As soon as you say that it is not mine, it is gone you see, it is gone. Because check your own experience that if something is stolen from your house, let us say, your servant steals something, it is a very irritating, painful event because it was yours, isn't it? If something is stolen from somebody else's house, the person you don't even know, you don't pay attention to it even for a second and you move on, nothing has happened because it is not yours. The owning is powerful, you need to let go. It is not mine, I am only a witness. This is called awareness. Now the power from it is removed, it is sublimated. It is just another event in the universal memory, just like all other events are happening there.

Why should I own this one? There is no logical reason. Yes, if it is concerned with survival, then the creature is going to own it, that is necessary. But if it is some random emotion, something in the past, something from the future, worries, what will happen, something like this and they produce emotions, there is no need to own it. It is completely useless because you don't need to act on it. My suggestion will be to become the witness. You are getting the results now, so that means you are doing it correctly, it is working. Our purpose is not to simply bring up the accumulation, our purpose is to sublimate it and that is possible only by being the witness. The attention is to be combined with awareness, otherwise simply paying attention will drive you mad. It is the road to madness, which many people do, either they do a practice which simply suppresses. Whatever is their reason, they go into some kind of trance state where nothing is seen, nothing is witnessed and they think, oh I am so peaceful today. No, it is like sleeping, why don't you simply sleep then? This kind of thing will not sublimate anything. I borrowed this word sublimation today just to explain, it is not given in our videos.

Let it come actually, you will be given only that much which you can handle. Don't worry, if you are totally aware, if you are totally in knowledge that I know what is happening now, curiously see it and you will find that the purification is permanent, it is gone forever, so hopefully that will help you.

Anu is asking, my past memories are popping up. I am witnessing them but they are recurring again and again. What is the meaning of this?

Depends on the memory. What is your attachment to it? If there is an attachment in the past, then they will come up again and again because the mind perceives it as an issue to be solved. So it will keep putting that issue in front of you again and again.

What is the issue?

And you will see that as soon as you resolve that issue it will disappear. It can be disowning - not mine. It can be forgiving - okay, it happened, nobody's fault, it was only my mistake, something like this. Change your attitude towards whatever has happened in the past to love and forgiving. It does not mean that if a person is involved or an event is involved, you go there and ask for forgiveness, no, that will be a big mistake. You need to do it in your mind. So clear it up, change the attitude and you will see the difference. Now the mind will just stamp it as resolved. It is done.

You can imagine there is a to-do list in the memory structure. On the top is the unresolved issues of your life. They can be of past lives also, it happens to many that the past life's issues start coming and on the bottom is your desires etc. and the bottom most is simply for entertainment etc. This to-do list keeps coming, just like your to-do list, what should I do today? What is the most important priority today? That is on top and as you tick it off, the list becomes shorter.

Here in the case of Anu, she is witnessing, that is very good. Now you need to add a tail to it. That's what I call it technically, that memory which has popped up and it is not going back, it is not sublimating, then you need to add a tail to it. The tail has to be positive. The tail should be colored in the color of “done” - it is done. There is no more issue. Nothing to be done here. This is called forgiving. Forgiving is complicated but this thing should be marked as resolved. This issue is resolved now and you don't have to only say it, you need to change your attitude towards it. That nothing really happened here, nothing important and it will come back again, don't worry, it will come back again. But it will come back with the tail which you added. It will come back in the color of resolved and the mental machinery will say, oh it is resolved and every time it comes back, it will become less and less important. Finally, it won't come back.

This is the technique and you must be thinking that oh this will take the whole day, no, one second, thought comes, resolve it, stamp it, gone, sit down quietly, more thoughts, resolve them.

Actually I have gone through this process myself and there was so much that it used to come in the dreams also, in the dreams the to-do list pops up. This fellow misbehaved with me, now the whole dream is about taking revenge or I did not get this, it was injustice and the whole dream is about being angry or killing people and blasting them with bombs and so on. This is the male dream, the female dream will be something less violent but it is painful. Now you know why, you now have the knowledge. I think Anu does not have it. You are still in the early lessons, so don't worry, you will get the knowledge. You need to do these things in step number 4 only, but I am giving you the technique right now, these things should be done with the knowledge, not without knowledge. So you are in the program, you are getting the knowledge, that is a good thing. This will be told, this knowledge of the layers will be told after chapter number 21. I don't know which chapter you are on, so after 21 it is all memory, all mind and it is like your weapons, weapons to fight the negativity of the mind, the impurities of the mind, its this knowledge. Without knowledge it is mechanical, it has no results or it causes problems, suppressions and so on. You should know what you are doing, with full knowledge and guidance, then it is most effective. So this is the trick.

It started coming in the dreams, so I was totally disturbed by this. What is this impurity? Do I need to live with this impurity for the whole of my life? There was not one, there were many, so the trick I used is to become aware in the dreams. It is called the intention, in modern language you can call it programming. You program your mind in the waking state that I will become aware when this event happens in the dream. It is very effective and you actually imagine that event happening in the waking state and then you becoming aware of it. Not only imagine awareness, you become actually aware and this will repeat because the mind is a creature of habit. Program something and it repeats, it is a machine, so that repeated in the dream, the dream becomes an aware dream instantly. This is how you get control in the dreams, by awareness only. There is no other way on the path of knowledge. We don't have the tantric tools, this is the best tool we have, the best weapon.

So as soon as I became aware in the dream and the event started, this to-do list, unresolved issues appeared, and instead of acting in the mechanical way, because of the awareness I could change it and deal with the person who was troubling me in the dream, I could change my attitude there. “Ok come in, you are most welcome, have tea, we will watch the movie” - so on. Instead of that impurity I was able to convert it into something less important and the result you can guess, those dreams disappeared forever. Even in the waking state because you are aware, the mind does not get a chance to trouble you that much, in the dreaming it is easy to trouble you, but then you take your awareness in the dream, then you know the real purification will happen. So this is what I am sharing. You are not cursed by the mind. You simply don't know the control mechanism, like Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev says that existence has given you the best instrument in the whole creation. This is the best instrument but you lost the keyboard. Our practices give you the control, you are not destined to live with this kind of impurity. You can get rid of it.

Mary is saying, if we say it is not mine, doesn't it mean denying or suppressing the experience or denying experiencing emotions in different feelings?

No, saying it is not mine will not terminate the experience, it will continue, whatever memory is there, whatever emotion is there, you have to see it completely, you should not stop it, the stopping happens automatically, just like you watch the rain falling, you watch the breeze blowing and you watch the sunrise and sunset, do you say it is mine, no, but will the experience terminate, if you say no it is not mine, will it go away? No. So there are two kinds of rejection, this one is in awareness and the second one is - no I don't want it, I don't want this to happen to me and that is suppression. Attitude is everything. Here in the awareness the attitude is of neutrally watching, not suppressing, with this full knowledge that it is not mine. Obviously nothing is yours at the level of duality, you are the emptiness.

Being in this knowledge you don't even have to say anything, don't even have to think anything, be in this attitude the sakshi bhava, being the witness, not doing something, not saying something or not thinking something, don't do anything. Be that which you are. Some people call it complete acceptance, but we don't say acceptance because then it means that these things are mine, I accept them, no, acceptance means letting it be that which it is, not owning or not rejecting. It is something, it came up, impurity, you don't even need to call it impurity because it is so natural, it is just a reaction of the mechanism there, mostly lower things.

Sometimes it is higher, the example of higher can be somebody came for help to me, somebody knocked at my door, and I could not help him because of some reason. Now this thought is going to trouble me, it is not related to the lower layers, not emotion, not desires, not survival, not anger, it is something higher, my need to help others was not satisfied and this can be troubling thing, so this needs to be disowned again with complete acceptance that okay, that did not happen, what can I do, so then it goes away. So it is not suppression, all these tendencies can be dealt with, they can be managed in three ways. First is satisfaction, you do whatever is needed assuming that it is mine, second is suppression which you know what it is, the third is witnessing/awareness where you don't need to do anything and it is not suppressed also.

Anu is saying, I see memories in dreams many times. It feels like I'm sleeping but I am not sleeping.

That is a dream only, isn't it? Dreams are nothing but memory. The memory has taken forms. A very interesting realization is that the waking state is also a memory, it has taken forms. So you will realize these things and then the mind becomes your toy. It is just like learning to drive a car, initially you don't know which lever to press, which button to press, nothing. It looks like you are flying an aeroplane, there are so many controls, where to look, which mirror should I look in, there are four or five mirrors and you miss one mirror and you hit something. So initially it is a trouble but as you master this machine then it looks like it is running by itself. Only a few people can drive skillfully, not all, because they mastered the machine. Same way when you skillfully master all the layers, it drives itself nicely. Right now it will be a struggle because you are a learner, you got the learning license when you joined the spiritual path. Before that it was just accidents. So we call that person a Swami, Swami means the master, not like master-slave master, he is the master of the mind, that is why he is called Swami. Nowadays you call everybody Swami with colored robes or something, shaved head or turban, those who have a little bit of mastery over the mind, they are given this title of Swami. Not everybody like they do these days. Ok I think I am off-topic now, so back on topic.

Anu is saying, my sleep is very different these days. Well rested but also awake in the sleep.

Very good, you see, some people don't even need to do the practices, the knowledge is enough to awaken them. So you are experiencing the yoga nidra, something like this, but my suggestion is to not give too much importance to these things, to your memories, to your sleep, to your dreams. Right now is not the right time. You go through the lessons, give it priority and it will have the effect. Like if you want fragrance in your room, you light up the incense. You don't try to bring the fragrance from here and there and put it in the room, not possible. You focus on the incense, then it starts spreading everywhere in the room. Same way the knowledge is the source, then the effects of the knowledge start spreading everywhere and you will notice these things. So you have a very good potential.

Pramod is saying, though I have been meditating since a long time, I am not able to judge myself in terms of the progress. Sometimes I feel like I am a different person every day with different emotions that surface the mind. I would like to know where I am standing in the field of spirituality.

If you want a shortcut technique, your progress is reflected in your peace, in your happiness, in the bliss state. If you are in these states and your detachment, how detached you are from the worldly stuff. That does not mean that you are sitting in your room 24x7 with closed eyes. That is not detachment; that is madness. You are involved in your life with full detachment, like a play. It's a play. So, if these things are increasing and the negative stuff is decreasing, that means you are progressing.

And if you want a detailed analysis layer by layer, then there is the evaluation series (videos). Go through it. And I will tell you one thing, these videos are made for those who are in the program. You first get the knowledge, you verify the knowledge, then you pass the exam, then the experiments are done, and after that comes the evaluation.

You are meditating probably without a guru, without any instructions, without anybody watching you, so the evaluation will produce a meaningless result because you are not doing it systematically. I don't even know what kind of meditation it is. So, this evaluation is meant for seekers on the path of knowledge, not for the occasional meditator. It won't do anything, it has to be systematic. There is no spiritual path if there is no step-by-step progress, if there is no learning. You watch a video here, meditate like this, that's not spirituality, it's a hobby.

I can understand your confusion . You are not getting any results. So, my suggestion is to start. I will send you to Muni then because you are in the English satsang. Muni will give you an initial overview of the path of knowledge. If you find yourself comfortable, you will be sent to the proper program. Meanwhile, you can do the evaluation. I am not saying don't do it, you are prevented from doing it. Everybody is free to do it, that's why we have published the videos. But if you do it properly, systematically, you will benefit more, and I will be able to guide you nicely because now I know what you are doing. I know what this path is. I cannot guide people on all kinds of paths.

Siddharth is saying, how to stay in Chetna throughout the day?

It's very easy, you see. Listening, contemplating, abiding – the abiding part is staying in awareness – that brings the awareness automatically. There are remembrance techniques. You said, "I was sick, so I could not, I found it difficult." Yes, it will be difficult. First, it is difficult in your normal happy state, in your normal healthy state. Even when you have nothing to do and you are just sitting there, it is very difficult to be aware. So, yes, it will obviously be naturally difficult if there is a big issue like sickness or some problem in the family or some trouble of some kind. The first thing to evaporate is awareness and the survival mechanism takes over.

So, what I suggest is, don't worry about sickness, don't worry about the difficult times. You need to give up the awareness there, initially at least. That is not our concern right now. When you are in the war zone, just take the gun and kill the enemies, you see. This is the proper thing to do. But once that difficult part is over, you can try to be in awareness by remembrance techniques. The simplest method is to remember. You have listened to the knowledge now. Now you need to remember it all the time. You can use some artificial methods like hang posters, set up reminders, wear clothes with quotes on them and wear necklaces, malas or rings in your hand, so that you can remember. Whenever you see these things, you will remember. Put a wallpaper on your PC or phone which says, "I am aware now." Something like this, you see. These are only initial tricks because the awareness is slipping. And do not worry about awareness in difficult times, that will automatically come.

It is like going to the gym. First you can lift only small weights. Then when the muscles build up, you can lift the big weight. Same way, when you manage to be aware in ordinary situations, only then you will manage to remain aware in difficult situations. So, this is my suggestion to Siddhartha. But these things are effective only for a short while. Ultimately, you need to train yourself. These external things will help you a little bit.

Graham is saying, now after months of knowledge is remembered, like my name. Not saying "Graham" all day, but if anyone asks, I know instantly. Is that okay?

It is okay. Ultimately, knowledge should become your second nature. It is your true nature, but it should also become second nature, which means you need not make any effort to remember what you are. And to remember what you are is awareness only. With that, all kinds of knowledge will come. The whole gang comes with one leader, which is "Who am I?" And the next, everything else is an illusion. Then the whole knowledge comes. And you don't need to train yourself to behave in a specific way. The behavior is a result of knowledge, not of training the mind. It is letting it act in the most natural way. Because you can train a person to act in a specific way, like we train children, but that is not coming from knowledge.

The right and wrong, the good and bad, whether I should take my mind seriously, these thoughts seriously, these dreams should I take them seriously – all these things are a result of knowledge, not of training. So, ultimately, it has to be effortless. Right now, these people are very new, so I am giving them tricks. But like I said, they will work for only some time, 3-4 months and you will get tired of all the posters and the mind ignores them like noise. So, it is just like an alarm. If you have something important to do in the morning, you set up the alarm and it goes off. Even before that, you wake up. That is the effectiveness of the alarm. But if you set the alarm every 15 minutes, the mind learns to ignore it. Now it won't wake up, no matter how important it is. So, that is why these tricks don't work most of the time. But just to start somewhere, you need to start remembering. And then it will become your second nature.

Graham is saying, I don't think about awareness.

Yes, it is not required. I myself don't do any practices, but I don't say it because then the newcomers think, “Okay, my guru is not doing anything, I will also not do anything.” You will reach that state automatically. Right now, you need to follow the instructions. The whole point of the path of knowledge is not to do any effort. And initially, you need to forget this idea of not doing effort. If it needs effort, then you do the effort. We are very practical people. If it needs posters, get the posters. If it needs some mantra, guru mantra, or if I ask you to come and attend the satsang as if it is compulsory, then you should do it. And slowly, it is all taken away. Slowly, there remains no effort, just effortless being. And then, everything is okay in that. Even no awareness is okay because there is a conviction somewhere – where will I go, what will happen to me, will I disappear? No. This kind of trust is there now. On being what I am. Now it looks like trouble to be aware of everything. You let go of it because it will come back. The awareness will come whenever it is required. Usually after the event. But who cares? The whole event was an illusion. I was always the witness. This is the feeling. This is the thought.

Because there are different kinds of people, we start with the most common thing, which works on everybody. Then I check what is happening with the person. Does he need more work? Does he need more effort? More practices? If not, I tell them, “Stay in bliss. What are you working on? Why are you working on awareness? No need.” So, that happens only when they are going as per the program, when they are sending the reports, I come to know. For many days, probably for many months, I did not produce any videos on awareness because in my mind it was something so natural. I said, “Why should I even tell people to be in awareness? Isn't it obvious?” Like when you find out you are a man or you find out you are a woman, how much practice do you need to stay like that? How much practice do you need to be what you are? Those who grasp this one line will not need any practice. They don't need to stay in awareness 24/7. There is no need.

Right now, in the seekers, they think that I am losing something if I don't remember, if I don't stay in awareness. There is no real loss really. That fear, that need is of the ego. Let go of that also. What remains is the natural awareness. Natural awareness is not forcing yourself to remember. It is simply being that, which will come slowly. Nothing to worry about. You know, people take this program, the 3-day program, and the next day they call, “I am not in awareness 24/7.” I said, “Don't worry. Wait for 2 or 3 lifetimes. Nobody is in awareness”. Nothing to worry. This worry means you are not in awareness. You are reflecting on your behavior that from this 1 pm to 4 pm in the afternoon, I was not in awareness. From 10 am to 11 am, I lost the awareness. When I was sick, I was not in awareness. What is this? Loss of awareness only. Do you want this awareness? Everything was going as it should go perfectly. The body was fighting in sickness. Who needs awareness? The mind and body working in the office in the morning. Why do I need awareness? Everything was going alright. When do I need awareness? When I start thinking that I am this body, when I start thinking that I am these emotions and these thoughts. There, you need awareness, isn't it? Because the ignorance is coming back. Now turn on the light. Simple, isn't it? This is the natural state of a seeker. And then jump into the illusion. Do whatever you want to do here. It is your play. Don't worry, the awareness comes back whenever it is needed.

Mary is asking, how to ensure that I won't experience reincarnation again?

No, you never reincarnate. You were never born, you never die. There is no question of reincarnation for you. Know this much – you are already free from this cycle, which is happening totally in the illusion. If it is an illusion, do you want to stop it? If there is a movie playing on the screen and some things are happening in the movie – somebody is crying, somebody is laughing, somebody is fighting – do you want to stop the movie?

Mary is saying, but I am already in the cycle of illusion now. However, I am aware of the illusion itself, but I am not out of it.

There is no way out of it. The only way out of the illusion is to understand that this is an illusion. Because there is nothing else in existence. There is the dream, and there is the watcher of the dream. They never end.

Mary is saying, I want this movie to stop.

That is an attachment to the movie, isn't it? If it is not you, if it is not yours, if it is false, why should anybody think to do anything with it? This is the standard answer. But at the level of the illusion, whatever events are happening here are your own making. It is the karmic fruit of your actions. Now the wise thing to do is to learn from what is happening, not to stop it. It will never stop.

Like I said in the beginning, you can suppress. Same way, you can suppress your incarnations and the karmic fruits. It is possible. I call it personal power. Some people get this power to twist their life in some other direction, even though the natural thing is simply experiencing the fruits of their actions. They can be bypassed. But for how long? They fall back into this, and then there are fruits of suppressing these things.

So, the first thing to do is to understand that I don't incarnate. I am not in the illusion. I am the witness of the illusion. I am not inside it. Actually, the illusion is inside me. This is the right way to see it. And then, it is beautiful. It is perfect as it is, complete. Why? Because exactly that is happening in your life which is needed. Yes, it won't always be pleasant because of duality. There will be bright and dark parts, just like there are all colors in a sketch. You need both black and white to create the sketch. There cannot be a completely white sketch, and there cannot be complete black. When both are in balance, that is the most beautiful sketch. When all the colors are in harmony, the painting looks beautiful.

Same way, you don't actually need to stop the illusion. You need to beautify it. Living your life with complete skill – harmony is the way of the seeker. Not rejecting, not stopping. You cannot stop. It is you only. The illusion is also you. At the level of non-duality, you see? How can you stop it? You can change it, yes. And I will tell you how to change it. Only a guru will tell you how to change it. Probably Mary wants to change it. She is using the phrase “I want to stop the movie.” You want to stop this particular kind of movie. Because there is nothing else except the movie. All there is, is you. Isn't it? There is only you, and this movie is also you. Now, accept this fact. Know this. On the path of knowledge, what do we do? We gather the evidence. We contemplate on this day and night. Where is the loophole? Where is the error in my thinking?

So, once you are convinced, then there is no possibility of thinking like this - I need to stop this or that. Then the only intelligent thing to do is to learn from whatever situation you are in. So, what happens is, it does not happen according to our wishes. It happens according to the laws of the mind. So, wait and watch. The problem is that you think, “I am in this country. This is my country.” This is the problem, isn't it? You should think that, “I am in the dream, and the dream is set up like this right now. What can I learn from this dream?” Of course, all these things are not mine. Remember that the caste, the gender, the nationality, the race – these are all imposed on you by society. They are not yours. They are simply indoctrination. What is yours? Nothing. You are watching the dream. Now, what can benefit this creature who seems to appear in the dream?

You know, the strange thing is, there is not only a movie. There is a character in the movie, which is you. So, the correct metaphor is the game. You must have played games on the PC. It is not a passive thing which you simply need to watch. You need to play. But you know all of it is set up. You say, it's an illusion. The character in the game is not you. This much you know. That's why when it gets hurt or when it is dead, it simply comes back, starts another round of play.

So, what do you do? You learn to play that game skillfully. Beautifully. You become an expert in it. The same thing here. You will keep coming back if you don't learn. You see, I gave you the key now. You want to stop the reincarnation of this thing, puppet. It will keep coming back if it does not learn from the experience. If it becomes a skillful player, it will go to the next level. It won't come back in this same dream. Now we have crossed the path of knowledge. We are on another path now. Here you need to assume that the dream is true and then do the necessary work to get rid of it. It won't stop. It will simply change into something better. And if it changes into something nice, beautiful, peaceful, we are happy with it. We are very content people, easily satisfied with a little bit.

So, that's what you need to do – learn from the current package, life, experience packet. Tom Campbell, his terminology is, we are given an experience packet. Don't throw it away. This is your opportunity to open it and learn from it. Use it, and the dream will change into something better. Because of the dissatisfaction with the current situation, it looks bad. There is a resistance that I don't want to be in this situation, and that makes it worse. It is already worse. I am not saying it is good, but the resistance makes it worse. Now, you need to learn your lesson and get out of it. Actually, if the lesson is learned early, the situation can change in this lifetime also.

What do we do when we are in this kind of situation, in this dream? We try to open as many doors as possible. Because we don't know which one will get us out of that situation. Simply hoping does not work. You need to intend and do that which I call symbolic action. Symbolic action means the action leads to nowhere. It simply plants the seed in the mind. Like calling somebody. Like doing something. Taking a step in that direction. Something like this, you see. Like, suppose I want to go to Delhi. There are two options. Either I can simply go to Delhi, which is a complete action, or I can do a symbolic action, which means check the flights. What flights are available? What time? Think about it. Which clothes to take and so on. Think about these things. Check things. Call people in Delhi - When are you free? These are symbolic actions without doing anything really. And check what happens. One door opens the other. This is my experience. It's like a visualization technique. That is also a symbolic action, you see. That is even more subtle. Here what I am giving examples of is gross. I am actually doing it. I am actually checking the flights. I am actually counting the money in my pocket. These are gross actions. But I am not actually doing it totally. So, intention, ritual, symbolic action – open the doors. This is the tantric way. And the practical way is, follow my instructions. You don't need to do all that circus.

Vipesh is saying, announcing and discussing one's plan with people and then thinking about it in detail has also worked for me.

Yes, if you say it with your mouth, that will be even more effective. Like Mary expressing her desire, it is very good. You need to say it, announce it, see what happens. You see, if you are not sure what to do, keep opening the doors and windows here and there. I will tell you one thing. This dream works like this. I cannot explain it as nicely as Tom Campbell has explained. He explains very nicely actually. I learned it from him only. Make your intention very clear. Announce it. See what happens. It is like an experiment. Start taking little steps and it causes the dream to change. I know nobody believes this thing, and it can easily become a superstition. So, it is not given to everybody.

Graham is saying, your words are perfect. Whether they clarify, confuse, sting, cause anger, cause transcendence. I love you. So embarrassing to say.

Nothing embarrassing here. We are all love only. Remove the I and you. There is no I and there is no you. So, all that remains is only love. Ultimately, you need to know the nuts and bolts. Otherwise, the occult will also not work. And the problem is, once you know what this dream is, you come into a place of acceptance. You let the dream be what it is. Just two months ago, I broke my leg, and now the reality of the dream became obvious. Now it is real, isn't it? When you are in trouble, the dream is real. Ultimately, it was a good lesson in awareness. Ultimately, there was acceptance.

See, there are two kinds of surrender. Either you surrender before, or you try and try and nothing works, and then you surrender. I needed to learn this thing. I needed to go through this experience. Probably, it was not needed, but this is how the dream is right now. This is acceptance. Once you know what it is, stop doing the occult. There is no need for the occult. You are at a higher level now.

Sweety is saying, when I am trying to change my present situation, am I not imposing the desire of the person? Will it not have other impacts?

Yes, whatever you call the desire of the person is a universal desire, and the impact will be taken by the universe only. Who is there? Nobody. Nobody to cause it, nobody to be affected by it. But there is cause and effect. There is karma, this is called the karmic law.

So, it does not matter how you change the situation, what actions you do – mental, purely non-physical, or physical actions. Everything has a consequence. Everything impacts something. That is why we don't do anything on the path of knowledge because we know it is happening as it should. Non-action, non-doing, which is simply doing whatever is natural.

I think some people need to go through this experience of changing the dream and all. Then they settle down into non-doing. I will tell you my situation. I am at the 50% mark. I still try to change things. There is not enough equanimity right now. Accept this also. I am telling this to Sweety. Accept this also that I am trying to change the present and I am trying to change the future and so on. It does not matter, really. Do it if you can, and there will be consequences. Witness the consequences. Learn from the consequences. See, this is a play. Now, in whatever way it happens, it is kind of meaningless. Some people need to go through this occult work before they realize that it was totally unnecessary. And the best use of occult is to benefit others, not yourself. I know I keep saying these things. It sounds so romantic, but very difficult to do, actually. Very difficult to not be selfish. The nature of this creature is to be selfish.

Satya is saying, In a satsang, you sent my experiences from my past life practices. You asked me to pray to be connected to my past guru. I did ask once or twice. Since I have you as my guru, I wasn't serious about it. A few days back, for some reason, I desperately wanted to know while in bed. You were my guru in the past, and only the name has changed. How can I ensure that the same guru comes life after life?

Well, I will tell you the secret. I was not the guru. The gurufield manifests in many, many ways, you see. So, the notification is obviously from the gurufield because you were asking for it. So, your interpretation can be right. It could be a coincidence. But we want to always find meaning in these things.

So, what the gurufield is saying, don't worry about your past life guru. And the past life guru was also connected to the gurufield. And this one is also connected there. Utilize them, that's all. So, I don't know why I asked you to connect to your guru, but I'll tell you one thing - It is totally unnecessary. Probably, I told you just to satisfy your desire to know who was your guru or to just motivate you for some reason. But the knowledge is right now, right here. The guru is right now, right here. Nothing is withdrawn, nothing is lacking. You don't need to go into your past life. Yes, if there is attachment of some kind, then it will be manifested like this. And I want nobody else but my past life guru. Okay then. And the gurufield can do that also, you see. The gurufield will cause an attachment to the present guru. So, they will do anything to make you progress. If the small obstacles are there, like if your child is crying because candy is not red-colored, it is yellow and green. What do you do? You give him the red-colored sweet. The problem is very minor. So, you take care of it. But the outcome is always the same. The outcome is always your progress. And sometimes, it will be some coincidences, miracles, something like this.

Bharat is saying, do I have to seek my guru for my spiritual growth or it's the guru who selects their shishya (disciple)?

It’s both. You cannot select the guru. You can only pray to the guru. You can only request, “Please teach me.” And s/he will evaluate you. What is your condition, what are your tendencies, from where to start? Do I teach the things which you like? Or not? Something like this, you see. He will evaluate it a little bit. And sometimes they say, “Okay, come back to the ashram. From tomorrow, we start.” But what he's starting is simply on-the-job training. You know, there are some companies which hire employees. We'll put you on probation and if your performance is good, we'll make you permanent. Something like this. Most of the gurus say, “Okay, come back tomorrow. I'll give you something.” So, what they are doing, they're checking for one year, two years, three years, who knows? And once they find that you are suitable for this path, then they accept. That is called acceptance. Then they teach the real thing.

So, what is your duty here? It is to explore, go to the gurus, tell them your desire. Whatever is your desire – to be liberated, for knowledge, for powers, for worldly matters – anything, it does not matter. Go to the gurus, seek the guru. The guru who is most suitable for you will select you. It has to be exploration. In some cases, it is like an instant connection, which is what Satya was saying, a past life connection, where this whole exercise has been done already many lifetimes ago. So, in this lifetime, a simple power of intention matches them, brings them together. And then there is no doubt in the mind of the guru that this is my student. And there is no doubt in the mind of the student that, “Look, this is my guru.” End of the story. This is your final guru. Totally, it is feeling, feeling blessed, actually. There's no logic here. Cannot apply logic to these things. It is like a love affair. No logic. This simple match happens. So, no arranged gurus here. Like arranged marriages, the gurus cannot be arranged.

Satya is saying, I have no attachment.

Very good. Attach not to the guru, but to the gurufield. Then the gurufield will send you all the gurus you need. If you cannot, then attach to the guru, no issue. Those who cannot do that kind of abstract thing, you know – what is this gurufield, airy-fairy matter, where is it? Because you have no experience of it right now. So, for them, my suggestion is to be attached to the guru. Because this mind knows nothing but attachment. Just like a magnet, it keeps clinging to stuff. So, better to cling to something which can advance you further. Don't cling to a bullock cart. Don't cling to a car. Cling to the rocket. And the rocket goes up, and you will go up. This is the trick. So, those who are attached to the form of the guru, initially I used to become very angry with it. But now I came to know that it is okay, it's fine. That is not going to last, especially on the path of knowledge. You come to know very quickly that the guru is most ordinary, nothing magical. Whatever is magical is already provided, you see. The whole arrangement is magical.

Bharat is asking, can someone have multiple gurus or one should have only one guru?

Yes, you can have multiple gurus, no problem at all. And the only thing I'll say is that if your current guru has said, “Don't go to any other path, don't go to any other guru, just follow me, do that first which I told you. Then you are free to go”. If there is an instruction like this, that means probably he has given you some practice which is very sensitive, which can be polluted by somebody else asking you to do something else. Now, to avoid this kind of noodle soup of practices and philosophies, sometimes the guru will say, “Don't do anything else except that which I told you.” And then you need to obey that order.

But if your guru has said, “Look, you can read this book, you can go to that ashram, he's of my path only, you can talk to him,” then no problem, you see? On the path of knowledge, all gurus talk the same thing, isn't it? It is like listening to the same song from different radios, different speakers. So, you can have any guru you want on the path of knowledge. Nobody is going to give you any practice. So, I’m totally sure that if you go to Sarvapriyananda or you go to anybody else, you will not be harmed in any way. But what happens is people change the path and then it becomes unmanageable. There are practical difficulties. It is not that you cannot do it, you can. But then you will need to leave one or the other. Or the guru will say, “Okay, you want that path, you are interested in that, you love this thing, okay, do it and you can come back anytime.” Something like this will be told to you. I also do that thing. When I see too much attraction to some other path, I say, “Do only that. Don't even think about me. And if you need anything, yes, come back.” So yes, you can have multiple gurus, you can have many paths. But you will find that ultimately there will be one which makes you progress. This is the exploration phase. So, you need to explore. Nothing wrong with that.

Bharat is saying, my spiritual journey is many years long, but why is it hard for me to accept someone as my guru apart from Osho?

Then he is your guru. You are not settling on anybody else, then he is the guru. Now what can you do? You walk on the path prescribed by Osho. What is the path he has prescribed? That is a tricky question. There is not one path which he deals in. He is on multiple paths, as far as I can tell from the lectures because I never met him. Probably there is one main path somewhere there, which I know what it is. It is also the purification and energetic stuff and then yogic stuff, something like this, with a blend of knowledge, path of knowledge.

So, what can you do? Meet his disciples who are authorized by him to initiate. So, that is my advice. Meet his primary disciples, direct disciples, and tell them that I am a student of Osho, he is my guru, now I want to walk on that path. And they will guide you as nicely as Osho would have, hopefully. That will help you. And keep your mind open. Who knows, you will like somebody? If you have already decided, “I won't even listen to anybody,” then that is not good. You accept Osho as your guru but keep listening to others. Like you are here, so it’s a very good thing. That means you have an open mind.

And another occult thing, probably people will laugh at me for saying this, but pray to Osho. Ask Osho himself, “Show me the way. Put me in contact with the person where I can progress according to your teaching.” And then something will be arranged for you. It can take some time, but it will be arranged. It is not that Osho is gone forever. No, he is even more free to do things now. So, I am saying this from the experiences of the followers of Osho, students of Osho. He is still working in the non-physical. So, contact him.

Satya is saying, I have a strong connection with you.

Yes, the only connection that is true, is the guru and student. Others are temporary. No?

Shyam is asking, why can't I connect with any of the gurus?

This is a common problem. Don't worry. It is a natural process. Meanwhile, you cultivate the qualities of the student. While you cannot connect with any of the gurus and you're looking for the proper guru, you cultivate the qualities of the student. You prepare yourself. What are the qualities of the student? Hopefully, you know it, it’s all published. The same link I gave to Pramod has the video on the qualities of the student. And check what qualities you have, what qualities you lack, where you need to cultivate, where you need to improve. And keep finding the gurus meanwhile.

It is like the same way you try to find a job. Meanwhile, you work on your skills. You learn more things. You keep yourself updated. You learn more languages. If you're weak in communication, you work on that. Meanwhile, you keep sending the applications for a job. You don't sit there, “First I'll get the job, then I'll improve.” No. You start improving now. So, my suggestion to Shyam is, look at that video, “Qualities of the Seeker.” Even if there is no guru, start working on yourself. It is harmless. It is not a practice. Improving yourself is a very good thing. Once you are ready, the guru will appear. This is the law.

Session 185

Chang is saying, please speak on the illusion that the experiencing is happening in time. The present moment is not just memory, if so, can be categorized as an illusion.

Yes, that which is being experienced is simply change. Change is happening in time, or we say it in reverse that the illusion of time is because of the illusion of change, but when there is no time, we cannot imagine a change. They are together. Ultimately we end up saying that there is no time and so there is no change also. It is an illusion produced by the memory and the past is an illusion, the present is an illusion and the future is also an illusion.

The present moment - there is no such thing. As soon as you say present moment, you need a past moment and a future moment also, but there is nothing like this. What do we say? Presence - There is just presence in which these things appear, anything can appear. Right now, right here, it is appearing like this, that's all.

As soon as you describe the illusion, as soon as you start talking about it, it is all false. They are all concepts. Either you stop talking or you say that I am now going to drop into the level of illusion. Then some things can be explained based on theories, but they are theories. Actually, nothing can be explained.

The illusion is also unknowable in an absolute sense. The nature of existence is being, there is nothing to know there. All I can know is simply distortion in the mind. That happened because at the level of the illusion, there is this illusion of knowledge that I know something. This final impurity of the intellect must be removed.

Very difficult to accept, but it is exactly like this. The real nature of existence is very pure, there is absolutely nothing to point to. It is pure being. Ultimately to be in knowledge is to be simply. Simply to be, which you already are. Be that which you are. This is the final state; there is nothing more to achieve after this.

Jack is saying. Most spiritual masters say look within. Within there is the kingdom, turn inward.

I guess they are using poetic language knowing that there is no inside and outside. It simply means, do not engage too much in the experience. Within means that only. We are not dealing with the concepts of inside and outside here. Because an average person is engrossed in the illusion, to balance it out, this is said. There are actually no words for an average person that can convey these things. So within, without, these words are used. But I think that also fails because ignorance is total. The result is, people sit down and try to look inside their head, which is a total waste of time.

Ultimately, what the master is pointing to will be known only via knowledge, not by doing something or looking here and there. Systematic step by step knowledge. Many metaphors were given, so many books were written, but they are usually not useful. That is not because nothing useful is written there. It is because the darkness is total. They can read the words, but they do not really grasp the words. And if they claim to grasp it, it is usually wrong. Learning never happens by words. The realization does not happen by words. Guessing is very dangerous. Seeing, yes.

When the guru is present, and you don't know what was said, what is the meaning of within, without, north and south, up and down, go up or go down, if you don't understand all this, it is best to ask and not to guess, because by guessing you will head towards a wrong path. And if the guru is not present, you are reading a book and all, then there is no hope. It is best to make a guru. It is best to find a good teacher and drop all the words and all the concepts completely.

Satya is asking, what is the difference between these terms: awakening, self-realization, liberation, and enlightenment?

Most of these we do not use, and sometimes we use liberation. Roughly speaking, you can say, except liberation, all three are the same, but not our terminology. Self-realization, yes, we use it sometimes, but mostly we call it knowledge, self-knowledge. In the other terms, you will find various meanings in various places. Liberation is simply realizing that I am not bound. This is liberation, which can happen at the same time as self-knowledge. What we do, we select one word and we stick to it. I think self-realization and liberation are very good. We can forget about the rest of the words. Even the words like self-realization and liberation are used differently in different places. For example, in some of the traditions, the liberation will mean the cessation of birth and death. That is the very traditional meaning, and I have seen something funny. One of the teachers was saying that self-realization is a state of projection. When you are in the astral body, you know who you are, and that will be called self-realization. Depending on the ignorance of people, they have defined these words in different places.

Nana is saying, whenever I am in social situations, I feel overwhelmed. With sensory inputs, I unintentionally try to protect myself from something that itself creates resistance. I get overwhelmed with their emotional inner states. I resonate with so many frequencies.

Shielding is recommended, protection is recommended, and being the witness will help here; that will reduce this unwanted activity.

Nana is saying, I witness, but there are n number of layers. I get physically tired.

Then it is not witnessing because witnessing is not a work. It is not a job. It is a state, and the state should not make you feel tired. It should make you feel peaceful and blissful. I guess you need to start from the basics, and yes, you can also check, there are many methods of shielding; you will find them on the internet, pick anyone.

What is shielding? Firm belief that nothing can harm me. These invisible effects will never harm me. This is a firm belief which is actually true. If there is a fear that something can harm me, there will be resistance and there will be actual harm. If there is belief that nothing can harm me, then this will be called shielding. This is simply a very strong intention. You can make your own method after knowing this. Once you know the essence of shielding, you can make your own method. Make it into a ritual. Do it every day for two minutes, three minutes. For witnessing, I think you have joined the program. In step number four, you will know what is real witnessing. It is not some work that can make you tired.

Ashu has some questions. What is the difference between religion and spirituality?

I think the only difference is that religion is a corrupted form of spirituality, which is simply blind belief. That answers your second question, what is the correlation between religion and spirituality also? Why is religion a globally misunderstood topic? That also answers it because it is basically corruption of teachings. What is the Hindu religion? There is no such thing actually. Hindu is a name of a tribe, not of a religion. People living on the east side of the Indus river were called Hindus by foreigners. What is the spiritual importance of the holy river Ganga? No importance at all. Hopefully, it is clear.

One more question from Ashu, what is your view on the linkage of truth and religion?

As you know, the truth is purely subjective and arbitrary. Everybody has their own truth, and they can choose to call it religion, which is okay, which is fine. Everybody is free to do that. The word truth is actually absent from spirituality, also from science. We do not give it too much importance.

Ashu is asking, first law of thermodynamics, conservation states the energy is always conserved, cannot be created or destroyed. Then in the healing process, which type of energies are being transferred or created?

Obviously not the physical thermal energies, they are not being used. Energy of the mind, mental energy is being used, which is simply intention. My suggestion to Ashu is, you are completely scattered. Focus on the path, choose a path and choose a spiritual goal and focus on that. Whatever you have asked so far is completely trivial and useless for you. An intelligent person will decide on a goal and then will seek that goal. This is my suggestion. And secondly, my subject is the path of knowledge, not religion or Ganga or energy or thermodynamics. You are probably in the wrong place.

Spike is asking, please shed some light on habits, desires, and desire completion in the dream state, lucid dream you mentioned.

Probably by habit, you mean the removal of addictions or compulsions using the dream state, which is a very complicated matter. The characteristic of the dream is that whatever is desired is manifested in the dream state. It is totally unreal, but the lower layers of the mind don't know the difference between reality and unreality. As in the waking state, the experience is completely unreal, but it is taken as real by the lower layers. Same way in the dream state, even though the higher layers know that, especially the intellect knows that it is not real, the lower layers don't know, and you can manifest something that will have the same effect as satisfaction of desires.

On waking, if there are thoughts like it was only a dream, I did not get the desire fulfilled really, then the effect will be not so much. The effect will be canceled. On waking, you should simply tell yourself, blindly believe that the desire was completed in the dream and then you will see the effect of it in the waking state, that the desire will reduce or it will not come again. That is the key. How do we get the desire fulfillment in the dream state? By first becoming aware in that state and then learning to use the imagination to manifest any situation, any object, any person, anything. This is a matter of practice, it cannot be done by everybody, only some people are talented enough to do it. And about habits, since you can manifest something there, anything, so let us say you have some kind of bad habit, you can change it simply by manifesting some different situation there, it is possible.

Spike is asking, by affirmations?

Yes, one of the methods is affirmation. There are many methods of achieving the same thing. The desire to get rid of a habit is also a desire, so that comes under desire fulfillment only. I call it actually desire management, and there are three ways to manage the desire.

There will be some objection here by some people that, no, the desire is not really fulfilled because the dream is not true. That means the one who is questioning has no knowledge really. Because the same thing is true for the waking state, it is not true at all, none of the desires are true, and their fulfillment and non-fulfillment is also false. There is no true fulfillment of desires; it all happens in falseness. The desires are fake, and their fulfillment is also fake in all the states.

We arrive at the third method of desire management, which is simply witnessing. The first one is by working, working hard in the physical world, earning money and so on, and the second is tantric, the occult method, and there are many, and one is the lucid dream or the awake dreams, aware dreams, or different kinds of projections, the other advanced kinds of projections, and the third is simplest, which is simply witnessing, seeing that these impulses are all false, nothing needs to be fulfilled actually, which is the recommended method on the path of knowledge.

Actually, not fulfilling any desire is also a resistance, you are interfering in what is happening, it is not true letting go, the true letting go is if the desire appears and there are means to fulfill it, it will get fulfilled automatically, it does not matter which state you are in, waking, dreaming, sleeping, it does not matter. And if there is a desire and there are no means to fulfill it, then it will remain unfulfilled, and this is the true freedom from desiring, simply realizing this much that the illusion appears in such and such way, that's all.

If you try to fulfill it, you are involved in the illusion, if you are resisting it, like there is a desire and there is a means to fulfill it and there is a resistance also, I should not do it, that is also mind only, these are also thoughts only, that is also ignorance. True witnessing is not a specific kind of behavior, it is simply observing any kind of behavior that happens spontaneously, so that's why she was saying it is very tiring because probably there is a struggle to behave in a specific way, which is not witnessing, it is some kind of doing then. Witnessing is total absence of doing, while all the work happens, all the actions happen, not starting the action and not stopping the action, this is witnessing and it can be done in any state actually. Once you enter the dream state, where there are aware dreams, if you come back in the waking state, it will surely look like another dream. So this fun part lasts for only a few days. I am able to manifest everything, yes, and that is fun for a few days and then the intellect realizes that it is all fake so that is why the dream does not really fulfill anything, it is like a play, the real fulfillment is realizing that I am whole and complete already, nothing more needs to happen than what is happening right now. This is the final end of desiring.

Siddharth is asking, is it always the case that the one who has desires also has means to complete it?

Yes, there is a desire, that means in the whole there must be some probability of fulfilling it; otherwise, it won't come, it won't be there. So there is always a means, but the question is - when. When will it happen? It is totally uncertain. That cannot be told. Ultimately, all the desires are fulfilled, and we know that because of timelessness, they are all fulfilled already.

Spike is asking, how to make a distinction between a seeker and keeping a seeker’s mindset, and being open to new learning? How to make the body and mind work optimally? Like food is for energy and it actually drains energy, sleep is rest and one wakes up. Does being joyful make one ignorant?

The first question is about being a seeker and keeping a seeker’s mindset. Very easy. If you have a guru, you are a seeker; otherwise not. Otherwise, it is simply daydreaming, simply a wish. A real seeker has a guru, that is the only difference. The rest are just messing around.

How to make the body and mind work optimally? Remember that they are already made for optimal work. Just do not damage them in any way. They are working nicely. Mother nature has given this instrument in good condition. Because of our ignorance, we damage it. So if the food is draining the energy, something is wrong. And if sleep is making you tired, it's totally wrong. That means there is some disease. The food must be that which makes the body happy. There is no sattvic, rajasic, or anything. Any food that keeps the body healthy is good food. Anything that makes you tired and causes sleep problems is not healthy. It's very easy. Now which food to eat, that must be experimented. If you are in doubt about which food is good for health and which is not, then it's best to consult a doctor or a dietitian. But ultimately, you will know by experimentation because something can be good for one person, it can be totally bad for another. So it is subjective.

Does being joyful make one ignorant? Actually, the real joy is the joy of being in knowledge, the bliss state. The rest of the activities or experiences that people call joyful or happy experiences, they all come from ignorance. So the sign of real bliss is that it never goes away. And if it goes away, it is simply another experience which was mistakenly taken as joy. If it goes away, that is not bliss. So if you are in this kind of joy, then yes, there is ignorance.

Spike has another question, what do you think about yoga? How much should we trust our texts?

My thought about yoga is that it is a path of discipline, where the body and the mind are tuned for higher knowledge using discipline, various methods to remove the impurities. How much should we trust our texts? As much as they are interpreted by your guru. The guru is the one who has verified the texts, not the student. So if you trust your guru, then whatever the guru says should be done. The texts in themselves have no meaning, no use, because they need to be interpreted, and the student and ordinary people always interpret them wrongly. There is always a chance. So whatever is told by the guru is final.

Spike has another question, how relevant and real are those chakras?

They are not real. It's all an illusion. All experiences are illusions, and these are simply models based on illusory experiences. They are relevant only if you are on the path, if you have a goal that involves the use of yoga, and if you have a guru. Then only these kinds of discussions are relevant, and they should happen in the proper tradition. On the path of knowledge, they are totally irrelevant. We never do all these things.

Zed has a question. They wonder that when we say that we are all one and the popular quote shloka “sarvam keval idam brahman” expresses that we are all one, emerging from the same consciousness. But you and I are currently having different conscious experiences. Then we are two souls part of the same consciousness. How can this be verified with the path of jnani?

This is a very good question. It does not become true just because a shloka (verse) says it. First of all, on the path of knowledge, evidence is everything. The shloka has no meaning. Probably somebody wrote it because they got the evidence, and they want us to find the evidence. So, how do we find out if everything is one or not? Get the evidence. Brahman has to be your own direct experience, and it has to be in agreement with your intellect, it has to be logical.

So, how do we do that on the path of knowledge? Simply follow the instructions of your guru. The questioner is now adding that you and I are currently having a different conscious experience. No, only the experiencer can have an experience. People are experiences; they cannot have an experience. So, the fundamental error is to think that humans are having the experience. No, only the experiencer can be said to have an experience. All experiences are being had by the experiencer. The experiencer is nothing but existence. Not two, just one.

How can this be verified? Through direct experience and logic, walking on the path. The shloka is from Chandogya Upanishad. But it does not matter actually. It can be from anything. The written word has no value on the path of knowledge. Only the direct experience, which can be had only after guidance from a teacher, a guru. So I will give you the link on how to start getting your own evidence. Everybody will proceed in their own way, and we have our own way. There are two programs: the first program is the 3-day program, where we try to provide a shortcut to the evidence in three hours, and the second program is a very detailed program called the Path of Knowledge program, where all the evidence is provided in a lot of detail. I am giving you that one also. Whatever you like, you can take up, or you can find somebody who is more interested in books and interpretations of scriptures. Probably you will find your evidence there. It totally depends on the seeker, what they like. Usually, on the path of knowledge, seekers want hands-on experience. They do not like interpretation of scriptures because that can be interpreted in any way. Simply because somebody said it does not become evidence.

It starts by listening, then contemplating, then abiding. But it won't happen automatically. You need to walk on the path. And that also nobody can do for you; only the guru can hold your hand and make you walk. So I gave you the whole answer.

A comment, I strongly agree with your approach mentioned in the secrets of making money, and I would like to ask you if you could share a little more about your background, art, and software because I have a genuine desire to be free.

When I wrote that article, I was busy making money. But nowadays I am not doing anything at all. No jobs, no businesses. So that is my background. But the start was like this. If you do that which everybody is doing, there are more chances of failure and there will be a lot of competition. So the smart way is to do that which nobody can do, learn it. Totally depends on the intelligence of the person. If they can learn some kind of art or skill, which is very difficult, which nobody can do, the money will come to you. You don't need to run after money. They will come to you with their money. This is the idea. So it is all my experience only. The desire to be free will leave you with no other option. You cannot do the job now. The job means bondage.

So how much money? That is the next question. Only that much which can make you comfortable, where you can live comfortably. You draw your line there, and you don't need to earn more than that. The secret of making money is very simple: do not make more than you need. That is the secret actually. Do not earn is the secret. That article is not telling us how to earn money; it is telling us where to stop, how to let go of this tendency which is implanted in us by society, by your parents, and other people. So actually it is a spiritual article, and even that will not make you free. Freedom or liberation happens only by knowledge. This is only a means to remove an obstacle which is diverting your attention to worldly stuff so that you can relax and think freely. This is simple, isn't it? But the connection of it with things like money makes it complicated.

Spike is asking, Do you think spiritual authorities and people like Sadhguru nowadays are glorifying life and trying so hard to give meaning to it?

Actually, I don't know about spiritual authorities. In spirituality, there is no authority. The whole point of being spiritual is to destroy all such authorities, isn't it? We do not respect any authority in spirituality. If you mean by that the gurus, the guru is not an authority at all. No guru can be said to be an authority. What do you mean by authority? It comes from the word "author," the one who has laid down something. No guru has laid down anything. All this knowledge, all these methods, yogas, paths, they are older than time. So nobody is an authority. Nobody owns these things, and nobody claims to know. Especially, a guru will never say that “I know everything and it is mine.” The guru always says that it's not mine, I am only a medium, I am only giving you, I am only becoming a bridge for you. So walk on the back of the guru and reach the other place, the other side. The guru becomes a bridge, he does not become an authority.

About Sadhguru, is he glorifying life? No, he is freeing you from life. If you listen carefully, he always has this hidden intention of setting you free from whatever you call “life”, which is not really life, that is bondage. That is simply repeating what you have repeated endlessly. That is not life. Life is evolution, isn't it? So he is trying hard to make you evolve. The real meaning of life is to reach beyond human life, to go beyond it. So all the gurus are trying the same thing, not only Sadhguru.

By authorities, I meant people we look up to.

That is ignorance, isn't it? People are not a source of knowledge. They can be an inspiration. Look, he has become a knowledgeable person, he has freed himself, he has liberated himself. So I can also do that, you see? Spirituality is about the self, not about the big names. There are no big names in spirituality. They are all small. You can look at them as an inspiration. Yes, I can also become that and use their service to become like them. It's very easy.

Is there any discussion about intellect and sharpening it, and are there any practices recommended?

Yes, the purification series is there. But it is not going to work directly. It is a part of the program, so without knowledge, there cannot be any purification. Without knowledge, the intellect will not grow. So, you first approach a guru, get the knowledge, and if you find that it is not doing its job, it is not growing the intellect, then you do the purification. Sometimes the intellect is so low that it is not possible to get the knowledge also, and then you should drop to another path.

Intellect is not one thing. That is why you need to do the whole purification: environment, body, relationships, behavior, speech. They are all various aspects of intelligence. It is not one ability; it is a collection of abilities. It has to be a total purification, not one thing here and there, and it has to be done systematically under the guidance of a guru. Otherwise, nothing will happen, or sometimes people do something horrible and they suffer because of that. It has to be a program, cannot be done as a separate thing.

The path of knowledge is a lifestyle where we improve all these things continuously. It cannot be done in one week and now I am intelligent for the rest of my life, impossible. Many lifetimes will be required. We start by taking the basic knowledge. That is the first step in improving your intellect. The first step is basic knowledge: who am I? And then comes the other things. You see, the horse should be before the cart, then it runs properly.

Asit is asking, do you begin to sense before someone is talking to you what they are about to say?

No, that is the telepathic ability. It is the outcome of a specific kind of practice which is found in the occult path. We are not concerned about what somebody is thinking or talking at all. What is the concern on the path of knowledge? Are you progressing or not? Is your ignorance being destroyed or not? Are we removing ignorance or not? That is the goal, and what people are thinking, what they are talking about, is totally useless.

Second question, when they are in deep ignorance and worrying about rival things, how can we help them?

The only way to help somebody else is to first make yourself capable. If you are standing on the shore, then you can save a drowning man. Or if you are on the ground, you can pull somebody up from the pit. If you yourself are in the pit, no possibility. So, the first thing we do is to bring ourselves up. We progress ourselves, and by seeing our progress, others are inspired. That is the only way. If you lecture them, if you beat them up, if you manipulate them, you lie to them, it will never help. And there are no tricks, there are no shortcuts. Please say this thing to that person and they will stop worrying? No, worrying is a borderline mental disease where the imagination has been taken as reality. So, treatment will be a good place to start, but that is not the correct way, I think. You set up an example that - look, I never worry, but I am successful, I am happy, and that will inspire the other person to change. This is the only way to help others, not by changing others, by changing ourselves.

I have seen this, this is my experience, that if you are a nobody, nobody listens to you. A beggar cannot teach you how to earn a million in one day. Nobody will listen to the beggar. But a billionaire, if he says something, everybody listens. So, nobody will listen to you because you are a nobody. Our job is to become somebody. People will listen to you, people will be inspired by you, and people will be willing to follow you only if you rise above the ordinary, reach on the height, and then you will be able to guide. No tricks.

Spike has a question. I have started gaining knowledge or started learning; frustration is something that happens quite often, not because of energy loss, with boredom, invasion of mind in the learning process. How to get involved in things we do?

The answer is very simple: if you are interested in it, no effort is required.

You should first check whether I am really interested in gaining knowledge, whether I really want to learn this thing, whatever you are learning, whether I am passionate about these things, what am I passionate about. So, by the invasion of mind, you probably mean the distraction. What is distracting you, you should first clear it. It can probably be a desire to do something else, so you should finish it, finish that thing because then that is your passion; otherwise, it will never appear in front of you.

Those who are engrossed in their work, which they like most, are never distracted. They are involved in it. Anything else, if it comes up, will be seen as a distraction, not that which they are doing. So absolute interest, absolutely interested in something, so there is no place for invasion, you see, if that is your goal then who can stop you? But probably right now, that is not the thing, probably you want to do something else, and there is a thought in the mind, there is a belief in the mind that it is gaining knowledge, but probably there is something else. So that needs to be fulfilled first. If it is boring like you said, that is not your path. It has to be interesting, but if it is causing boredom, that means something else is your passion, you are born to do something else, not this boring thing. If there is frustration, that means something is wrong, isn't it? Find out that for which you are born, always do that which you are born to do, and then these things will not be frustrating, there won't be any boredom, there won't be any distraction.

When you are hungry, do you feel frustrated that there is food in the fridge, I will need to eat now, or do you get bored because there is tasty food in your mouth, or are you distracted by something else that I have a lot of work to do, I need to please my boss first? No, you are hungry, that means that the only thing you want to do is to eat some delicious food. So the same thing, we use exactly the same words in the path of knowledge. If you are hungry for knowledge, then nothing can stop you, then day and night it will become your only job. So find out what is your passion, what are you born to do, what is your preallocation? It is that which you are never tired of doing, which you never get bored of.

He is saying, the mind and body have become such over the years. Things such as studying, meditation, and tasks which are not passion but are important. Isn't what we like to do also an illusion and a creation of the mind?

When there is so much ignorance that you don't know what to do, you should not talk about the illusion and the mind. These are advanced topics. Now, here, not being able to study or meditate is the problem. It is a worldly problem, not a spiritual thing. To dismiss it by saying that look, it is an illusion, is not intelligence. So, the intelligent thing to do is to find out that which occupies your mind, which is most attractive for you, make it your study, make it your meditation, and make it your profession.

Somebody told you that these things are important and you believed it. That is the mistake. Passion cannot be implanted from outside. Your life goal is your own choice. As long as we are fulfilling somebody else's desires, it will be a struggle. If somebody says it is important, that does not make it important. It should be important for you. And even though everything is an illusion, it needs to be done. Because if there is nobody to say that it is an illusion, then it is not an illusion, isn't it? To be there, to say it, involves a lot of work, hard work. So who has the right to say that everything is an illusion? Who is happy in the illusion? Who has accepted it? Not the one who is frustrated and depressed. They don't have the right to say that it is an illusion. That will be an escape, that will be a suppression of some kind. The people who are knowledgeable, the people who are happy, the people who have found their goal, they are eligible to say that it is an illusion. That it is a play. Everybody else should take it seriously. So hopefully that was useful and some more introspection is needed.

Session 186

Graham is asking, if individuals are evolving, why is the dark age dark and getting darker?

Evolution does not mean stagnation in this physical world. It does not mean that those who are evolving will remain here forever. It means that they leave the world. That is the whole concept of liberation from birth and death as humans. After evolving beyond human, do they stay here? Evolution does not mean that the evolved people stay here. Unfortunately, they do not stay. We don't even know. If you ask me for the proof, I won't be able to provide you with the proof. This is what we heard.

There is evolution, that much we know. And there are no more species beyond humans, that much we know. The only conclusion is, they are not here. Those who are dwelling in the other worlds and doing the projection experiments in step 4, they should be able to confirm this. Right now, sitting here, we cannot say they are up there somewhere. There is no proof of it. This is the only inference that we get, logical inference.

Are the ages getting darker? No, they are cyclic actually. They go dark and darker, then they turn bright, then again they go dark. It is not going to get darker and darker. It turns back. Then the age of knowledge comes, after the age of technology. And then again it goes into darkness. Why is that? Why can't we only evolve? Why does it need to go in circles?

You see, it is a cycle, a cycle of evolution. The more evolved ones leave this lower plane, lower world. As soon as they leave, only the ignorance remains and then obviously it turns to dark. Then they start evolving, many thousand years, many thousand births and then again the age turns into the age of knowledge. Majority are evolved now and they stop coming back, they stop taking birth, again dark. The process is like this, we cannot do much about it.

Graham probably thought that evolution means it is confined to earth. No! A process is happening here and then the process continues somewhere else. The evolution continues, it never stops and who knows there will be another cycle on top of this cycle where the evolution continues in the non-physical, in the cyclic form again, we don't know. But we can guess because everything is like this. Laws of the mind are very helpful in guessing all these things.

Siddharth is saying, since we are speaking of science today, can you please comment on how Ramanujan and Tesla were able to do what they did, clearly related to the path of knowledge?

Well, I was not there so it is very difficult for me to comment. But whatever I read and heard about these two great people, they were not merely scientists or mathematicians, they were seekers. They had the impressions from previous births, they even had some powers, some spiritual powers. If you read his book, which is written by him only (hopefully), he has described his special abilities and Ramanujan also had extraordinary abilities, although he never said anything about his spiritual abilities, but it is possible. How could they do that which nobody could do? Because they were not ordinary people. They were seekers. That is my theory. You can buy it or you can leave it, it's theory only.

Graham is saying, I think I understand your answer, makes sense, other worlds more fit on the fundamental level, with different rules for evolved beings.

You see, once you pass the school, you don't want to remain in the school, you want to go to university. Because the school is unfit for you, you won't be able to fit in there. There is nothing more to learn there. You have made all the mistakes, you have done all the mischiefs, you have failed as many times as you liked, you have passed also, nothing more to do. The same textbooks, nothing new to learn. You leave the school and you progress forward. The college students are not to be seen in the school except as teachers. The teacher is an interesting fellow. He stays back here to teach. Even if he is evolved, he will stay back, he will come back to the school. This metaphor will show you why they don't stay here. Because they need to evolve further. This world is very limited.

The physical world is not physical, but we keep calling it physical. This world of ours is very limited for them. It is not that they decide, oh it is limited for me so I am not going to come, no. They can't incarnate now. In modern spirituality, we say that the vibration is so high that they won't be able to stay here. Now I don't know what it means, but probably you can understand. They won't be able to live here, they won't be able to eat and won't be able to hold on to a body. It has become their nature like this and we understand why. Because a human won't be able to stay in the body of an insect for long. It will be very amazing for a day or two that I can fly and I can crawl. As soon as you experience how limited it is, how boring it is, you don't want to be there. We can understand it like this using our own direct experience.

New Indian is asking, how can I go into the memory of millions of years old?

You don't need to go there. Just learn whatever is right now in front of you. First learn that which you don't know.

ABCD is saying, , I found a document which contained secretly leaked info that Tesla had connections

to planet Venus and came from 5th dimension.

I think it should be kept secret. You should not tell it to anybody. Nobody likes these things. When Tesla was alive, he was ridiculed, he was insulted. They even made a comic on Tesla where Tesla was the villain, mad scientist, a cruel scientist. I think it is fair that we should not treat him like a freak from planet Venus or something. There is nobody on planet Venus right now. Let us treat him like a seeker, a scientist, and a good person. Why a good person? Because he gave away his inventions mostly for free. Did not compete. Did not run after money or popularity or anything. Actually, greedy people took over everything he had and he died alone. No partner, no marriage. I don't know about any previous partners, but when he died, he was alone. I can throw that much light that the talent is neglected when it is being expressed. And the fakes, they get all the glory. The ones who truly want to benefit humanity are insulted. It happened to everybody, I think. You can take the example of Mahatma Gandhi, for example. Ultimately, he was killed because he did too much good. Perpetuating superstition is not going to do any justice to Tesla or people like him. Now he is well respected, yes. At his time, when he was alive, his life was mostly a struggle, although he changed the whole of science.

Madhuri is asking, it is said that the sun is the only source of energy on earth. Does thunder also cause due to the sun?

Yes. You are a science teacher, you should know better than me. All the weather is caused by the sun. Some people will say, no, oil is also a good source of energy, which is not dependent on sun. But no, the oil is only dead trees and the trees grow because of the sun. The energy in the oil is the energy of the sun, isn't it? Now there is one thing, which is not directly from the sun, can somebody guess? Because a very, very general question asked by Madhuri. There is one kind of energy, we are talking about energy, sources of energy. Yes, Graham is right, thermal vents, geothermal, yes, Parthivi is also right, nuclear, very nice. I almost forgot about nuclear power. As far as I know, volcanic energy is not dependent on the sun. Even if the sun disappeared, there can be some life which can survive here, which is dependent on volcanic heat. Everything else will die.

Indra is asking, many a times there is a tendency to close my eyes for a few seconds or minutes in between whatever activity is being done. Is this just hibernation of the mind or an attempt to block sense perception in order to witness the experiencing?

No, I think it's not any of these things. It's not hibernation and it is not witnessing the experiencing. You see, the experiencing cannot be witnessed. There is no witness in experiencing, is there? No experiencer and no experience in non-duality. And blocking the perception will not cause experiencing, it is already there. With perception, without perception, there is only experiencing. Then the tendency to close your eyes remains. You watch it in awareness, nothing wrong. Yes, don't close your eyes while driving and so on, it's not good.

Dipesh is saying, artists and filmmakers who are creating fictional worlds and films, are they accessing projected state, past impressions?

No, no, no. The quality of the films is very bad actually. It never looks like they are accessing some higher states. But that cannot be said for those who write, the writers. The writers can do that. They are accessing the higher states or you can say higher layers, the universal memory. It is possible they are accessing it, but not the filmmakers. I don't know any of them. What happens is, most of the movies are not original, they are recycled from the old ideas or they are based on books. The movies that are based on books are absolutely brilliant. Everything else is just a repetition.

Rajat is asking, how to remove our unnecessary thoughts, worries, emotions, trauma and just be in the present moment with the help of Gyanmarg?

You don't need to remove them. They are not yours. They are not you. You see, there are many unnecessary things in nature. Sometimes it rains too much. Sometimes too much heat, too much temperature, too much dust. How much will you remove? Why do you want to remove these things, not the others? Because of the identification that these thoughts are mine. Why do you think they are mine?

I am asking Rajat, can you give me any justification that these worries, emotions are yours? They must be removed. On the path of knowledge, we say that these things are not me at the level of duality. At the level of non-duality, all these things are me.

Rajat has the answer, it is because all these emotions are derived from my past lives and they are stored in our memory and they are coming from time to time without any effort.

When were you born? When did this life start? Can you tell me? Let's not talk about the past lives. Is the current life yours? From your birth, what do you mean by my birth? Who are you? Whether the body was born or you were born? The body was born, right? You have no self-knowledge so far? If you are calling yourself as being born, you are calling yourself a body, how can you say that I have the knowledge? This is ignorance, not knowledge.

Rajat is saying, I know that I am not the body but there is a body called Sukshma Sharir.

No problem. That is also not you. None of the bodies are you. This is knowledge. Do you have this knowledge or not? Is it proven for you? Do you have the evidence that none of the bodies are you, they are experiences? Then what is the use of talking about body, Jeevatma, Sukshma Sharira? What is their use if they are not you? There is no need to progress. You are already the absolute. This is your knowledge, isn't it? That I am the experiencer. The experiencer need not progress, it is already the whole, isn't it? Why do you want this thing which is an illusion to progress? And can this thing make itself progress? Is it possible? It can only realize I am not this and get established in the true nature. Can you do anything else?

Rajat is saying, but I want to live the life that is stored in my nature.

There is nothing stored in your nature. Your nature is absolutely empty, pure. Do you have any desires or the creature has a desire? You are not the creature. Why are you saying “I want”? Know who you are. The creature is an illusion, it's all wants are illusions, all ignorance only. You don't need to progress. That which is progressing is doing it naturally, automatically. It cannot do anything more than that. The light of knowledge clears the blockages in the progress, that's all. Abide in the knowledge. See how easy it is. Abide in the knowledge, the progress speeds up. Which knowledge? Self-knowledge? I have sukshma sharira, I have a past life, it is all garbage. You have nothing, you are pure.

Rajat is saying, advaita, dvaita are conjoined.

No problem. Advaita means I am all the bodies. Advaita means I am rocks, hills, water, ocean, isn't it? It does not mean that I am this creature, advaita does not mean that.

Rajat is saying, dvaita is maya, advaita is Shiva.

No problem. You can call it by any name, it is what it is. If you call a rose by any other name, it will still smell that good, isn't it? Changing the names does not do anything. Knowing the names is not knowledge. You can call it by any name, there are 20 names of advaita in Sanskrit. How is that knowledge? Your knowledge is your experience and your intelligence, that's all it is. The knowledge is that I am the experiencer. You can call it by any name, I am that, the whole. And sticking, identifying, clinging to illusory forms is ignorance.

Rajat has no knowledge actually. If you don't like this path, you can try something else. If you want only the good of this creature, this organism, shift to other paths like the yogic path, Ashtanga Yoga will be good for you because there progress happens. Not on the path of knowledge. On the path of knowledge, only knowledge happens. And the knowledge eliminates any need to do any work. No sadhana, no practice here, no improvement, this is the pure Advaita practice. My advice to Rajat is, try something better, don't waste your time here. Here there is no evolution, it's all illusion. Your worries, your thoughts will not be gone. You can ask any other guru if you want, that Advaita teacher said this. Yes, your previous path is your only path. This is useless. The path of knowledge is of no use, of no practical use. Everybody knows this and I don't need to repeat it. This is the first thing I say in the program actually. If you are expecting that it will improve your life, you are deluded. It will never improve your life. It will simply say you don't have a life and so there is no need to improve it. It is absolutely brutal and not fit for you.

Spike is saying, whenever I get tired or frustrated during something and then I pay attention.

Yes, the mind can think of anything, that is your experience. You should judge the situation by that, not by the thoughts in the mind, not by the useless arguments that go on in the mind. They are coming out of total ignorance. Right now you are surrounded by darkness. Right now it is immature to act on random thoughts in the mind. That is my suggestion to Spike. First, you take knowledge, first you purify the mind, then useful thoughts will come there. Till then you depend on your experience, not on the random impulses that the mind is throwing. Hopefully it will help. The mind knows nothing about you. The mind does not know what you are. It is simply repeating that which it heard somewhere. It heard somewhere that you are not the body. Absolutely not, but you don't know that. You don't have that knowledge. The thought is actually useless. There is no need to accept that which is not proven in front of you, which is not your direct experience. Otherwise it is simply blind belief. And if you act on that, obviously you know what is going to happen to that body which is tired, wants to sleep. But then these thoughts in the mind are accepted and you continue working. The body continues working. It can cause problems for the body. This cannot be called acting from knowledge. If the body is tired, the body will rest, not you. You see, the mind will never tell you this because it is in complete darkness. If the body is tired, the body needs to rest, not you. My suggestion is to get rid of all these harmful thoughts, which is possible by knowledge only. Get on a proper path under a very good experienced guru and you will progress.

Spike is saying, how to be interested in doing something? I am bored by everything. I can sit all day at one place doing nothing. Nothing amazes me anymore.

This is called depression. First, you need to see a doctor, psychiatrist. Spirituality is not going to help. If you are not sad, no problem. Then it will be called laziness. What is happening right now is you are getting your food, you are getting your comfort, internet, sitting there. Imagine if all these facilities were removed, then there will be interest in working. There will be some interest in working, earning the bread and butter, doing something. This we call a spoiled mind. The mind is spoiled by extra pampering. It gets everything without any effort. It does not want to do anything. Very natural, isn't it?

Probably laziness is simply a symptom of some other disease. My suggestion is to get yourself checked anyway by a doctor or a psychiatrist. In my point of view, this condition happens to those who don't have a life goal and whose survival is taken care of. The body sits, it does nothing because there is nothing to do, no motivation to act. Usually ordinary people act for survival. If survival is under question, they spring into action, they will do hard work for that. An artist will act because of the inspiration, because that layer of the mind is well developed. The hunger there is not for food, but for creating. The singer will act because of his hunger for singing and the scientist will act because of his hunger for exploration. But it looks like that you don't have any of these tendencies. Your only tendency is to survive, which is taken care of. There is no need to act.

Keshav is saying, I may not remember accurately, but once you said that everything has already happened all at once, but humans cannot comprehend this. Could you talk more about it?

Yes, sure. Finally, a path of knowledge question. We say that time is an illusion, time does not exist. It is a concept in the mind which is derived from regular change. Just like the regular marks on a scale, rulers are used to measure how big something is. The marks need to be regular, that is obviously logical. The same way, regular change is used to measure how much change has happened. That is called the concept of time. But there is no such thing. There is no past, there is no present, there is no future. What is there? Experience which is happening here and now. But if we think without the concept of time, it cannot be understood. It will always seem as if things are happening in time. The change gets converted into time automatically. You can call it the limitation of the human mind. Not only human, probably many minds. All of them are like this.

We cannot comprehend that there is no time. And once you get this idea that there is no time, then it is meaningless to talk about what happened before and what happened after. And so we are forced to conclude that everything happened now. That which is, is now. That is called existence. The existence is now. There is no other word. Or we say eternal, which means now only, which means without time. The word eternal means without time, it does not mean a long duration of time. Existence is timeless. Whatever is happening has happened without time. Since it is beyond intellect, beyond this machinery of the mind, how does it appear? A sequence of events, sequence of changes. That's how it is appearing. And there is no way to comprehend anything more than this. There is no way to know what is really appearing as a sequence of events. The simple answer is that no time means everything has already happened and has happened right now. And the infinite possibility is present right now, like this we say, on the path of knowledge. And the human mind, because infinity cannot be grasped like this, it breaks it down into very very tiny pieces and then consumes this one piece at a time. This is also a poetic description, isn't it? Not a technical description. It consumes these, whatever possibilities are there in finite, one possibility at a time. It looks like a sequence of causes and effects. That's how it is. I mean, I can explain more, but it will be too complicated. Right now you contemplate on only this much.

Keshav is saying, incomprehensible, but I understand how taking away time explains it.

Yes. This is just, you see, imagination, imaginary things. Our comprehension is limited to time. Now anything we say about experience without time will be a guesswork. Nothing concrete will be said. We say - the existence is mysterious. Why? Humans cannot understand it. We call it mysterious. And why is it mysterious? Some people can ask why it is mysterious. And the answer is very simple. There is nothing to know in existence. Our trying to know it is a mistake. The existence/being has nothing to know in it. Knowing is a mental activity. And trying to know that where there is nothing to know can cause a paradox. Hopefully that takes out the need to know. I call it “unknowing”. Be comfortable with unknowing. It's nothing wrong. And the unknowing should happen only after knowing everything. If it happens before, that will be called ignorance. After you have gone through the Advaita, you have gone through the final truth. Now the unknowing should replace all these concepts and ideas and theories and words. Why? Because that is the true state of the existence. There is no knowledge in existence. You see it has all the possibilities. Knowledge, ignorance, both cancel out to zero. Zero has nothing in it. Nothing to know. Nothing to comprehend. And if you try to comprehend, it creates a very puzzling situation. Why can't I know? Why can't I know everything that is happening right now like Guruji said? No, we cannot. Stop trying. Why can't I know the existence without time? No, there is nothing like this.

Hopefully I explained the deeper aspect of unknowing. Whenever you are faced with questions like this, which nobody can answer, the reason is trying to know that which cannot be known. Well, there is nothing to know. We are trying to know that. Try to be. Not even try, just be.

Session 187

Spike has a question. In the "Seekers Ask 500 Questions" book, you mentioned the 3rd eye as a metaphor, which it is, and I read some text which just says when the pineal starts secreting melatonin in the daytime, time doesn't function the way it used to before, or the experience of the present. Please shed some light on this. How much can hormones change the limits of the body?

My knowledge of biology is a little bit limited because it is not my field, but the 3rd eye has nothing to do with the pineal or any kind of hormones. The 3rd eye is simply a metaphor for seeing with knowledge. That's all. With two eyes you can see the illusion, but when it is known that this is an illusion, then you are aware of the truth which you yourself are. Then we say that the 3rd eye has been activated. This 3rd eye can see the truth while these two physical eyes, they can see the illusion.

Then whatever the organs in the body are doing, they are very much limited to the physical layer. So if some kind of chemical changes the perception of your world, it is because it has altered the sensory system. Because senses are mostly physical, their doors are physical. Chemicals affect them, for example, even alcohol can affect a lot of senses, a lot of functions of the body. So we say that they have altered the senses. They have not altered reality. So I think there is a lot of ignorance in people that when I drink alcohol or when I take some kind of drugs, I can see the truth. I can finally know something. This is stupidity of the highest kind. It simply breaks the working of the nervous system. That's all. Then you get something which is not your normal experience. You get an abnormal experience and there is nothing spiritual in that. And whatever ancient people called or whatever ancient people used as symbols and metaphors, they are no longer valid today. It is all lost. What do we do? We start from the drawing board, blank canvas, and we discover our own truth instead of interpreting that which is gone, that which is lost. On the path of knowledge, no third eye, no pineal gland, no hormone, pure truth, pure knowledge. Leave the rotten, rotting there. It's not useful now.

Spike has another question. I want to know something about yoga nidra you mentioned in the podcast. For all this time I used to do this as a practice. It is an alternative to sleep. Is it okay to be depressed when one knows the meaninglessness around us?

Yoga nidra is simply a sleep state with awareness. What is awareness? Being in your true self. That's all. It is not a lack of sleep. It is not an alternative to sleep. It is sleep only but with awareness. It is not possible to do this practice without self-realization, and it is not possible to do it without a guru. If somebody tries to do it, they will end up with sleep disorders.

Next question. Is it okay to be depressed? No, it's never okay to have any kind of disease, is it? I think it is common sense that diseases are bad. The meaning is not inherent in existence and the existence has allowed us to assign any meaning to our life. Any intelligent person will pick up the most beautiful purpose he or she is capable of and then use that purpose, use that meaning to go through life. It is not a cause of depression. It is a cause of celebration.

Spike is asking, does the body know when we become aware? Does the mind know when we are aware?

No. The body is known, not the knower. Mind is known, not the knower. They are objects known by the knower. The knower is the experiencer, which is your true nature. Objects do not know anything. The experience cannot experience. Only the experiencer experiences.

Sooraj is asking, I am trying to be aware during my daily activities. How does the experiencer witness? Is it witnessing via senses? If it is, should the experiencer be in the body somewhere? But logically it is impossible because the body and senses are also being experienced. The intellect cannot comprehend and is unable to realize the experiencer. Basically, there is a willingness for the taste of awareness.

You should complete step number 2. The awareness practice happens in step number 4. Right now, don't focus too much on being aware in daily activities. That will be done in step number 4, officially. Right now, you should focus on the listening part. That is my recommendation.

And how does the experiencer witness? There is no process to witness something. If you imagine a process that this is how it is witnessing, then that process will become an experience. And then there will be a question of how is this process being witnessed? How is the experiencer able to witness this process? Do you want to bring in another process for that? And so on. It is impossible for there to be a process. All we can do is drop our idea that it takes some process to witness. Is it witnessing via senses? No, the senses themselves are experienced like you said. The senses simply limit what is out there. They do not cause sensations. They do not cause the experience. They distort the experience. Limit the experience, that's all.

If it is witnessing via senses, it should be in the body, yes. But it is not witnessing via senses. The senses are simply providing a limited experience, that's all. It cannot be in the body, yes. Because it is not an object that can be placed in something else. It cannot be limited because no, it is not something which depends on any other object like the body, etc.

The intellect cannot comprehend, yes, it is beyond intellect. Don't try to comprehend it as an object, like you try to understand any other object. It is not possible to understand it like that because it is the most fundamental. Then trying to know it using the less fundamental things, especially objects, illusions, processes, is not going to work. That is what we did in our analysis part in the videos, that we simply demolished all the questions. Now, this remains the fundamental. The experiencer is the only thing there is. The first is the experiencer. It is the existence itself. Beyond intellect, yes, the intellect can know only the illusions.

What can we do? We use the intellect to cut down these misunderstandings that we have about the experiencer. That it is an object of some kind, process of some kind, it is doing something, it is having a shape, size or some kind of attributes. We use the intellect to remove all this. Then we arrive at something which is so fundamental that nothing describes it. But it describes everything. It cannot be known by intellect. It can be known by being what you are. Are you not the experiencer? If the answer is yes, yes, that is how it can be realized. There is no other way. If you try to comprehend it using some theory, some kind of magical concepts or some kind of materialistic ideas, it is going to fail very badly. Why? Because it is the most fundamental. What do we call the most fundamental? The essence. In the program, we named it as essence, the essential.

The essence cannot be described by non-essence. That is illogical, isn't it? But the non-essence can be described by the essence. What are all these things, the senses, the bodies, processes, and so on, they are simply the non-essential part of the existence, the illusory part of the existence, which is witnessed by the existence. The witnessing part is the non-illusory, the truth, the true part, the essential part. It is the essence that is being witnessed as an illusion. That's all. Like the clay pot can take many shapes, the essence of the clay pot will always be clay.

Same way, there is no process that causes the clay to become the clay pot. No, it is both at the same time. Continue in your program. You will quickly understand and it is very good that you are thinking about it. You are doing meditation, contemplation and do not worry about awareness. Simply go through the chapter of awareness right now. There will be a very detailed practice, or you can say experiments of awareness. Doing the practices without knowing is fruitless. Wait for it.

Why do people find the path of knowledge so difficult? Sometimes some people find it very difficult because unlike any other course, any other learning, any other skill, it is a subtractive thing like we say in the program itself. It does not give you anything. It is not a course to teach you something which you don't know. It is a course that removes whatever you know. Whatever we know about how this witnessing is happening, how the perception is happening, whatever we know about “who am I” and whatever we know about the world or what is this existence. Whatever indoctrination has gone into you, this program is a cleaning process for that. And when people do not find new information there or when they find that everything they knew is breaking away, then they think, oh, it is very difficult. It is not an accumulation. The program does not give you anything to keep. It takes away. Actually, the first few chapters, the introduction to the path of knowledge, make it very, very clear that you are entering a very strange place. This is not your usual learning. It is unlearning.

Mary is saying that letting go is not easy for most people.

It's most difficult because who knows how many lifetimes you have spent accumulating only. This is the first time somebody is taking it away, and it's going to be uncomfortable. Although we do it in a very nice way mostly. Especially the well-read people cannot let go. And some people are actually blind to what we are offering. They cannot see actually. You will see these examples every day in our satsang. They remain stuck to something which is totally unimportant and trivial, small factoids, trivia, how to do this thing, how to do that. Like he asked me, "What is the third eye? How are the hormones working?" See, we are giving you the complete knowledge of the whole existence which is not even available to gods. They also don't have this knowledge. The gods and angels. We are offering that, but because of the limitations, people cannot see it.

This knowledge is so big. Advaita or non-dualism, there is nothing bigger than this in the whole existence. Why? Because this is knowledge of the existence. Knowledge of “what is”. But because of blindness, because of the tendency of the seeker to be lost in small things, unimportant details, they cannot see the mountain. They are still scratching the little pebbles and the dirt and the dry leaves here and there. They cannot stand back and look at the Mount Everest of non-dualism, Advaita. Look how big it is. I am giving Mount Everest to you. Very difficult to hold it for some.

And the problem is if I glorify this philosophy, it is a philosophy. If I glorify it like this, “This is the biggest thing and so on,” when they get it, they find it is so ordinary. You told me that this is something much bigger, gods don't know, and you told me that finally I am this one thing which is right now, right here, ordinary, emptiness. See how small it is now. They are disappointed that I did not become something grand. That's why we do not glorify. We say look, this is what it is, take it. Then occasionally it opens the eyes of somebody. “It is so big. It is so important. This is the full. This is the complete. This is the final.” I said, “Yes. It is astonishing”. We cannot believe that we can have that knowledge. It takes some time to realize even how important, I mean how big it is. How grand it is. After letting go, you get the whole. Now you can see the problems here. It's all paradoxical. When you let go of the pebbles and dirt, you get Mount Everest. Isn't it? It is so difficult to let go of that small thing.

Parteep is saying that a seeker means a small point of view.

At least they are trying to widen their point of view. The non-seeker is completely content with the small point of view. At least the seeker has a tendency to explore. The seeker drops whatever is in his hand, you know, colored stones, butterfly wings, and whatever he is collecting. The seeker has this kind of potential, possibility, very big possibility. It is not even possible to explain these to newcomers, and I don't even try to do that. It simply increases their hopes. It is not what you expect, yes, but it is the biggest.

Parteep is saying, I am still exploding with what you have given me, every day new explosions.

Yes. See, not my teaching, is it? Let me correct you. Not my teaching. This is the teaching. I mean, let's glorify it even more because we have nothing to do today. It is the teaching. I mean, in the whole universe, in the whole existence, whatever you call teaching is only this much - the path of knowledge. The rest is garbage. The rest is useful for something, it is a smaller scale, smaller things. I am not discarding them completely, you see. But that cannot be called teaching. They can be called as upaya. Upaya means a device, a means to bring the seeker finally to Mount Everest. The teaching is not my teaching. How big it is, yes, just like the Himalayas. Keep exploring. It can be said in a thousand ways. Immediately you can invent 1000 paths out of this one knowledge, one teaching. You yourself can build a path out of it, like the great masters did. They made their own paths. I have done that already. That is called our program.

Sometimes when I talk freely, that does not sound like what we are teaching in the program and all. And that is another path, another way of talking about the same thing. Mostly I am very careful because people listen to me very attentively. One word here and there and they catch me. I need to stick to the textbook. But when you meet me personally, when we are meeting in the get-togethers etc., then I am a little bit loose in talking and then you will find that this can open up so much. There are many ways to describe the same thing and all the knowledge falls out of this. All the paths come out of this. All the technology and science come out of this.

That reminds me of some people, conspiracy kind of people. They say, usually they say, all the knowledge is in Vedas. Whatever they are discovering now, the scientists and all, that is already in Vedas. I used to hear this a lot in my childhood. All that is being discovered already has been discovered. I was a skeptic. I said, this cannot be true. Let me take a look at the Rig Veda. There is nothing in Rig Veda, you see? Then the skeptic comes, you know, where is the computer in Rig Veda? Can you tell me the page number? Where is the telescope? Where is the theory of gravity in Upanishad? And I was like that, lost in the details. Which sloka tells me quantum mechanics? Where is the medicine for this and this disease in some other Vedas? Some people consider Ayurveda as fifth, probably. It cannot be found. Nothing can be found in Rig Veda. How is it possible that it is called Vedanta or it is called the essence of Vedic knowledge, the Advaita? Can somebody explain? Anybody who is literate, I am totally uneducated.

The claim is, everything comes out of Rig Veda and some more, one or two more Vedas. You simply remove the ritual part, then what is there? But if it is saying Upanishads are part of Vedas and there knowledge ends. Yes, we also heard that. Yes, actually they are not part of the Vedas. The Upanishads started as a commentary on the Vedic wisdom. Not even in the Rig Veda. It does not even comment on what is written in the Veda. They comment on the civilization that was Vedic. That is my opinion.

I got the Rig Veda, probably the English translation or whatever. Nothing was understood. Nothing at all. Because it simply says the Sun God is this great and the Ashwini is this great and so on, you see. They are poetic. After two or three chapters you drop it. Such a big book. This is the problem. If you don't have the knowledge, you won't be able to grasp what was said. And those who have knowledge, they don't need to read it. It is actually true that this is the ultimate, but you will never find it in Vedas. It cannot be grasped from that. That is the source. Yes. But our intellect is not capable of dealing with it directly without the assistance of Upanishads. And even Upanishads are beyond many and so we need a Guru. That is the bottom line. The claims cannot be understood by an ordinary person. They cannot even dream of knowing this.

Spike is saying, I am saying, is experience another thing mind created or humans created just to understand or evolve? Is awareness, consciousness, experience, a metaphor?

Yes, you can say that the experience is mind created. That is true. All that we experience is coming out of a structure called the multilayer memory structure, which is commonly called the mind. It was not created by humans. The humans are a creation of this structure. It is the reverse. And is awareness, consciousness, experience, a metaphor? No, that is the only truth there is. Everything else is a metaphor. Even if you say that awareness, consciousness, experience, they mean the same thing, that is the only truth there is. And the whole experience is false, illusion. As we say, it is created by the mind. And then we try to explore what is mind and we find that it is only a sea of potential. And that sea of possibilities is me, again, not two. The false and the true, both are me.

Spike is saying, how can we separate these things from other things the mind does? Is there any war between intellect and mind?

The mind is simply a mechanism that is being witnessed. The mind itself is an experience. What do you mean by mind? The body, the world, the senses, the emotions, thoughts, memories, feelings, desires, that is mind. It is something which is an experience. There is no difference between mind and experience. Experiencer is the witness of the mind.

Is there any war between intellect and mind? Intellect is simply a function of the mind. Intelligence is a function of this structure called mind. I think Spike needs to start really from the A, B, C, D, you know. Start from A, B, C, D, with definitions.

He is asking, you once said I ask for answers from the guru field and I keep on writing for minds. From where did those things come from?

Yes, that is the mind only. The mind is very big. There are many layers. One of the layers is called gurufield where all the knowledge is stored. Whatever we call “individual” is not really individual. It is a tiny function of the whole. It can be connected to the whole because it is one with the whole. It is actually already connected. When ignorance is removed, the higher parts of the mind, they help the lower parts. They download that knowledge. What do we need to do to connect to the guru field? Simply ask and do the symbolic effort. Start writing, start talking, start teaching or even start listening to the gurus with sincerity and honesty. Not to kill your time. Make it your life goal. Then the gurufield can recognize that somebody needs the knowledge and they start pushing it. It is like Amazon.com. You browse stuff, click on something, pay and it is delivered to your home. Same thing. Start seeking. Start clicking on the links and the gurufield will deliver it to you for free.

The knowledge is already there in the existence. Nobody can invent it. Nobody can make it. Nobody can have new knowledge. They can only get what is already there. Which is the whole and complete already. It can sound a little bit disappointing for those who are trying to invent something new. But nothing to worry. It looks like new. It does not come with a package - “product of the gurufield”. No, not branded. It will look like “my” knowledge. Only after many years will you find that there was nothing called “me”. Then whose knowledge is this? Not mine. It came from above. It is possible to know it hands on. You can experience the gurufield. All you need to do is become a seeker. Find a good path. Find a good guru and follow the directions. Now you know the essence of our program.

Bharti is saying, many times it comes in the form of images.

Yes, it comes in images. Those who have a good imagination, visualization ability, and that knowledge will be given in that form. Sometimes it will come as voices also. Voices talking to you. And sometimes it is very, very elaborate. Magical. Like you will be taken to a world where there is a guru, and the guru will give you knowledge for one thousand years, and then you wake up. Only five minutes have passed. There are stories like this. Because this is an illusion, many things are possible. The possibility is endless. The gurufield manifests in infinite forms. Sometimes they will test you. They will take your trial whether he really needs it or not and what is the use of giving this knowledge to this person? Is he going to spread it? Is he going to use it for the service of others, or will he become some egomaniac that I have the knowledge, nobody else has? They will check. And that is why the purity of mind is important. Those who are impure, they cannot connect to the gurufield. And that is in most of the human population.

Bharti is saying, sometimes it comes in your (Guruji’s) voice.

They like to joke around. Everything is a fun-filled party for the gurufield. There is nothing serious there. We are serious people here, miserable. They are enjoying themselves. They are in pure joy, bliss. Nothing is taken seriously. Although this whole thing becomes the most serious adventure of your life, I remember the story told by Osho that once he realized something, which was obviously some gift given by the gurufield, he started laughing. He laughed for many days, I think. Yes, like Bharti is saying, it will look like a cosmic joke when you know what it is.

Shyam is saying, sometimes in spiritual circles we have seen vilifying the intellect, but the intellect will process what you feed it. Why is it so? Bad press for thought process.

There is nothing wrong, you see, some of the paths do not make use of intellect. Why? It's a very small function of the whole, the whole multilayered structure, universal memory. The intellect is a tiny part of it, and its main use is to clean up, clean up what it has accumulated. The impure intellect accumulates ignorance, and the pure intellect cleans it up, simple.

Many paths do not follow this kind of practice. The path of knowledge is based on intellect, but there are other paths that are based on something else, some other functions of the universal memory, perfectly valid. But what do I say? That they come back to the path of knowledge, ultimately it is the knowledge, it does not matter how it is being gained. If the path is not focused on the intellect and the person starts asking questions or the person starts debating, then he is beaten up very badly. Why are you on this path then? He will be sent to some other guru. Choose your path carefully, check what you like most. Do you like intelligent conversations and logical, rational thought processes? Then choose the path of knowledge.

The yoga and the tantra, nobody will answer your questions there. The guru will say you talk too much. My guru used to say that in the Kundalini path. I kept asking, what is this Nadi, I never see it, what is the scientific evidence? And he said, you are an idiot, you talk too much, why don't you practice instead of wasting time in talking, why don't you practice in that time? Quickly I understood that there is a difference between paths, you will get a landscape depending on the path you choose. There is no fight among the paths, they all take you to the same ultimate. Intellect is simply one way, but ultimately you need the knowledge. All the people in different paths, they fight with each other. My path is better than yours - it's normal.

Shyam is asking, can somebody fall back to an unawakened state? Is there a possibility?

Yes, possibility is always there. You don't even remember how many times you must have gotten this knowledge. You are back in darkness, death wipes out the memory. This is the normal process that is happening in this part of the universal memory. Death wipes out the memory and the knowledge is in the memory. It is also wiped out. But the seeds are still there, which means that person gravitates towards knowledge again in the next life. That cannot be wiped out. The details can be wiped out, yes, but they can be gathered again. It is normal to fall back into an unawakened state. Very normal. But they come back.

It is the same as a little baby trying to walk for the first time. Falls again and again. Starts walking again. Ultimately, there is no falling or there is occasional falling accidentally. One day you will become a grown up person. That is the good news. It is possible to go back, fall back, but slowly, if you keep coming back, if you keep rising back, getting up, which is possible only through a good path and good guru in every lifetime, then after a few lifetimes, you learn to walk without falling, which means the memories are not wiped out.

And that is the point where we leave human birth because this wiping happens only to humans and below. After that, we enter something which is called devayoni where there is no death and there is continuous memory. And now you can ask me for evidence. I don't have any evidence. This is the teaching of the masters. How can we get the evidence? Start progressing, start evolving, get on the path and you will experience it yourself. There is no hurry. We take it simply as a hypothesis, as a theory that this is a possibility and we continue on the path because there is no other good option. You see, the other option is to remain in darkness.

Parteep is saying, I saw the old age of a seeker, saw the death process of another seeker, after seeing photo of someone.

Yes, these experiences are possible and I don't think they're coming from the gurufield. The gurufield has better things to do than send you the details of people. No, they don't do it.

What is happening is the boundaries of the individual mind are breaking. Now from here onwards, there are two roads. One road goes to the madhouse, psychiatric ward, and the second road goes to above human evolution. You need to choose very carefully. It is simply breaking of the boundaries. Like we know there is only one universal memory. This is simply a part which has been isolated artificially out of this sea of universal memory. And it is for the protection of the individual. It is for your own protection. What happens is - some people let go completely and they end up in a madhouse. Be very careful. This is not gurufield.

Guru field will show you something which is most important for the progress of that seeker. And I don't think old age or death is so important. What is important is to see where the seeker is stuck. What is stopping their progress? That's all.

Spike is asking, do you have any podcast or blog where you wrote about your life journey? I want to know the change. Or you might have witnessed other seekers changing or evolving. I don't know, my mind is asking for some motivation.

Whatever I say, whatever I write or publish is my life journey. It is not that I had a separate life and the knowledge part was a part time job. No. My whole life is this one which I am telling you. Whatever I am telling, in the satsangs, in the podcasts, in the videos, is nothing but my life story only.

If you want to know what I did for a job and how many affairs I had with all the girls and how I left my house and ran away, that is not going to motivate you. That is the demotivator. If you know the history of this person, you won't talk to me. It is ordinary. The real thing to know is what I am telling right now in front of you. That is my life journey. That is the essence of this life.

Yes, this person has a totally garbage life. There is nothing there. You can say it is a series of unfortunate mistakes. Whatever is being said here is my life. you can relate to that and if you cannot, this is not your path. If you want to know all the explosions and miracles and all the things that the guru had in their lives, all the gods and goddesses they met and all the people they cured by touching, it's all false. Imaginary stories, they never do all these things.

How can I figure out what is the best work or action or job to do?

It's very easy. Always do that which is your life goal. Always do that which you like most and always do that which is most necessary. You need to find out your life goal. Why were you born here? Are you born here to fulfill somebody else's desires? For example, your parents or your society or your government or you have some mission here. Do you remember the mission? No problem. What do you like most? Do you like obeying others? Do you like becoming a slave of others? Do you like to join this religion or that path because everybody is forcing you? Find out what you like most. What sets you free? Do that action. That is your best work.

And what is necessary? Yes, that which keeps this organism alive is most necessary. Do the job, earn the money, your family, set up a house, and a partner. These things are necessary. If you follow this formula, you will know what to do. What is the best action? That which makes you progress.

Spike is saying, but you said anything is possible in illusion and the healing part you said isn't.

I am simply saying that that may not be true. It is possible. Everything is possible in illusion. But if you judge a guru by how much healing he has done, then he is not a guru, he is a doctor only. If you want a doctor, yes, go to him. But if you want spiritual progress, then we should ignore all these things. All that strange things that are woven around a guru, 90% of that didn't happen. Stories, they are the net that is thrown to catch the fish. There are people who blindly follow somebody who is a miracle man, who does all kinds of miracles, the baba, the magical baba, but that is not a guru. The guru is the one who liberates you from ignorance. Very easy, isn't it? Guru is the one who frees you, remover of ignorance, in Sanskrit.

Spike is saying, I think people cause our mind to make random beliefs and we cannot reject them just for the sake of disbelief attack. Why so much importance to beliefs? Humans made things and other humans cannot reject them.

Very good question. Why can't we reject something which is slapped on us. We are given these things as indoctrination and the answer is - fear. We want to remain as a part of the crowd. If you think something different than the crowd is thinking, you know what they do. They don't like you. They call you crazy. Your first enemy will be your mother and father or if you are married, your husband or wife. Because of the fear of being left alone, people believe in anything that society says. It has practical use, but we will never progress like this.

If somebody says, oh, this is true then you should simply pretend that you agree, do some acting - Yes, this is the final truth. And go to your guru to know the final truth. Very easy. If you try to change what people think, you will spend many lifetimes and you won't be able to change even your dog. This is guaranteed. Some people want to change the whole world, but they cannot handle their own child. This is the reality. The only thing we can change is ourselves.

Session 188

Parveen is asking, is there any relation between being aware and the state of consciousness? Is being aware of everything around is also a type of meditation?

Yes, it is a meditation. We call it awareness practice. What is the difference between awareness and consciousness? That is what you are asking. Now it totally depends on the definition of these words. These two words, awareness, consciousness, are defined differently in different traditions, in different philosophies. There is even a difference of definition, meaning among teachers. We will go with our definition.

In our path of knowledge program, there is no word like consciousness. It is not there. It was there. In the beginning, I used it a lot and there it meant the experiencing that we use right now, experiencing, which is a combination of experience and experiencer because there is “-ness” in front of it. The one who is conscious and the one of which it is conscious will be consciousness taken together. And that is the existence, isn't it?

In our terminology, that is the existence. And awareness then becomes simply the knowledge that I know this. I know what I am. This is awareness. And now what is the meaning of being aware of everything around you? You can say that being aware of everything and everything here becomes all of your experience, which is the world, body and mind. It is a kind of state. Awareness is a kind of state where the knowledge shines, the light of knowledge shines on all the experience. What does the light show? Everything is an illusion. I am the witness of that illusion. This is the state of awareness. Being in knowledge is awareness.

Hopefully that is clear for Praveen. Whenever you hear these English words, the problem is with the English, not with the philosophy because the words like Atman, Brahman, are not present in English. People use whatever is in English, whatever terminology is there. And then everybody assigns their own translation. What is the safest thing to do? Use the word witness for the experiencer, the Atman. And use the word existence for the Brahman, which is, Atman is the witness, Brahman is the existence. That is the safest. That is what I have used.

As soon as I say these words, awareness, consciousness and illumination, light and God, everything becomes unclear because everybody has their own notions about these words. When I start talking about it, they don't actually listen to what I am saying. They listen to what their mind is telling. Their mind is translating these words internally into something else. And those who don't know the meanings, they search it on Google where they find some dictionary and then get the word meaning in the dictionary. That is not called knowledge. That is absolute stupidity.

Philosophy is conveyed by words, but the words never give you knowledge because the meaning is assigned to a word based on the experience, direct experience. Use your direct experience and name it anything you want. And then you will get the relation between this and that and the difference between that and something else. Then there won't be any doubts. If you run after words, you will get more words and more confusion. Knowledge is not in the dictionary. What do we do? I need to know and I need to convey the knowledge. We precisely define the words. That is what is the strength of our program or our video series. Very strict precision, like a scientist and we never use anything else then.

The rule is - do not change the language because it is set up like this. Hopefully in the future, you will never get confused. When a Guru says, blah-blah-blah, you simply ask what is the meaning of this thing and then the Satsang is over. You see, no questions. Once the meaning is understood, which is the relation between the word and your direct experience, then everything is clear. Then the non-dual philosophy reduces to one word, one sentence, I am, I am that. Something like this. And we don't need more words than these.

Leila is saying, I agree this is why I have trouble listening to other talks now. I get too fixated on the terminology. It is somewhat irritating that people use all the words willy-nilly here and there.

Fortunately, this is not the case with Sanskrit where the words and their meanings are mostly preserved. Only in the day-to-day language, the imprecise language, the words and their meanings are now mixed. But as soon as you enter the philosophical Sanskrit, everything is crystal clear. Atman means only this much, nothing else. But in other languages like Hindi, it's a problem. English, a big problem.

When the teachers start using their terminology, yes, it is possible to get confused. But if you stick to one teacher, your guru and one path, your path, then very fast progress will happen because such kind of confusion will never arise. What happens is people browse YouTube and they go to the path of knowledge one day, they go to Shaivism another day, then Buddhism the next day. Now it is a noodle soup in their mind. Nothing is clear. Nothing is gained. Now you know why my rules are so strict about language because I lost many years like this. Confusing terms and all. And finally, I found that my experience is knowledge. That settled everything, not the words.

What others say is a pointer to what I can experience here. Very very precise and then you will never get confused. And if you are so interested in somebody else’s lectures, then please make yourself familiar with their terminology first, their language, whether it is English, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, you make yourself comfortable there, learn the language, learn their terminology. Knowing the language does not mean that you will understand what the guru has said. No, they have very precise terminology, learn it and then you will know what they are saying and I will tell you the result, I will tell you the bottom line, it is exactly the same which I am saying. Don't waste your time.

Nayana is saying, consciousness in psychology and philosophy and layman’s terms can be so different. I was confused for a while.

Absolutely right. Even when the fields change, the meanings change. For example, consciousness means something else for a doctor or a surgeon. Don't even go into psychology, for a doctor, a very good profession, there consciousness means something else. The patient is unconscious when anesthesia is working, when anesthesia is over he is conscious again because he is feeling the pain, remove the pain - unconscious. Very different meanings here. That is why the doctor will never understand what the guru is saying, why? He has already had indoctrination, the doctor has indoctrination.

Now think about the layman, they have garbage in their minds, they don't understand a single word so we make sure we remove Sanskrit also, we make sure that I show you your experience first, then put a word on it. What do the texts do? The texts show you the words, not the experience. Text means your scriptures, so nobody learns anything from scriptures. They will learn perfect translation but they will never learn the perfect knowledge. Knowledge is given by only a guru who knows all these things. Keep the Sanskrit words if you like, the problem is not everybody is comfortable with Sanskrit, very old language, we don't even know how to pronounce these things.

I have made two compartments in my mind, one is Sanskrit, the other is English and I never mix them, very rarely. For example, you can say “guru”, everybody knows who is a guru but you cannot say consciousness, nobody knows what it is. You cannot say ego because some people will have a different definition of ego and some other philosopher has defined ego totally differently, so unreliable.

There is a comment, just like C language is close to the kernel of a computer, Sanskrit is the best when it comes to addressing matters related to consciousness.

Yes, Sanskrit is the language of philosophy, nothing else, all other Indo-Aryan languages are derived from Sanskrit or they are influenced heavily by Sanskrit. My observation is that in today's time even the Sanskrit that was used to explain Advaita or non-dualism is not understood, it is also a lost language. We have a Sanskrit that is modernized and the pronunciations in that language are totally different. We speak Sanskrit in Hindi. The syllables and vowels, most of them are not used now. If you want to read Rig Veda, you will need to learn Sanskrit again. This is my direct experience, I have tried to do that. There are some Matras, symbols in that kind of Sanskrit which are not in our typeface, they cannot be even printed. When they want to print a book in Sanskrit, they need to use another set of typefaces. The fonts do not convey that, you can try it yourself.

Usually, that phrase or verse is then translated into modern Sanskrit which can be written conveniently in Hindi, can be pronounced conveniently in our mother tongue and then half of it is already gone, meanings are gone and nuance is gone. Now it is totally a game of interpretation, that is why I stay away from interpretation. Yes, our script is Devanagari, their script was Brahmi or something else, we don't even know what that was. I stay away from interpretation and I do it only for fun, whatever I have done so far, it was just fun-filled Sunday evening when I want to post-mortem the scripture, then I do that and you will find it is all a guesswork.

If you know something, you will learn something from the scripture, if you already know what is the use of the scripture, you will know that you know. They also knew the same thing that you know and probably they could write more beautifully than we can write, that's all we know. Nothing more will be known if you read the scriptures. No new knowledge. So those who are still on the path of books, my recommendation is to jump to a proper path which involves a tradition, involves a Guru, a living Guru, living entity and you can do Q&A with the Guru.

Just like he said - what is the relation between awareness and consciousness? Can you ask this question to a book? Possible. If the book has explained it, you are very lucky. Usually, our Sanskrit scriptures don't explain anything, they simply say it. You are Brahman, go home, now what will you do with that? Whom are you going to ask? I am a common man, why is this scripture calling me God? Because Brahman means God for ordinary people, they don't even know the meaning, they heard it somewhere. Nobody takes this scripture seriously nowadays. Who takes them seriously? Those who already know what is written there, those who already have a Guru and those who know the nitty-gritty of Sanskrit, so that is why I call it an academic exercise. Reading the scriptures is an academic exercise, not useful for gaining knowledge.

What is useful for gaining knowledge?

Your own experience. I have said this many times. Some people don't like it when I say, they think that I am insulting the scriptures. No, no, we have tremendous respect for the scriptures. But the truth is bitter, isn't it? People respect the scriptures, they love them, but nobody understands them. And those who memorize the scriptures, they feel insulted that he is saying that I don't understand anything. Yes, they don't. They have simply memorized the text.

Praveen is asking, can you please explain the science behind mantras without knowing the meaning also? People get benefits merely by uttering mantras. Is there any significance of mantras in the path of knowledge?

No, there is no mantra in the path of knowledge. Mantras are fundamental in the occult path - Tantra. These are not merely sounds. There is a non-physical counterpart which can affect the vibration. What is the vibration? The non-physical, non-mental memory that is defined as vibration. Without that non-physical component, there cannot be any effect. Some mantras are set up like a chemical reaction. Simply need to press the button and the reaction happens. It is technology, so there is sophistication in some of them, but mostly they do not work because simply saying it doesn't do anything. The real work happens in the non-physical. The real change takes place at the fundamental level. Not by sound. The sound is only a reminder of the original intention. That is what I know. And we never use these things on the path of knowledge. There is no need. Knowledge can be had without uttering any kind of special sound. Use your everyday language, which should be precise. Our mantra is direct experience and logic. Say these words, and magically you will get knowledge.

Graham is asking, can you explain more about the practice of listening to the interior sound?

The only explanation I have is that all the sounds, interior or exterior, are illusions. The practice is to understand the phenomena as illusory. That is the practice. You can listen to the outer sound also, listen to the inner sound also, it is noise. And understand completely that this is simply an illusion. But the witness of the illusion, which is me, is the only reality.

These things, these practices, they should point to the witness, not to the sound, not to the practitioner also. You see, the practitioner is also an illusion. If your practice is not bringing you into awareness, it is a useless practice. It does not become good only because the sound is interior, magical, some kind of unknown thing. It is still noise. It should serve a purpose. That purpose is to bring you into light, to bring you into awareness. You can simplify the practice. Look at your everyday things, look at your everyday experience and that points to who you are. Remain in this knowledge. Who am I? What are other things? This should be crystal clear.

Now it is continuous practice. It is a continuous abiding. Now you don't need to have this superstition that doing only this one thing is beneficial. No, you can be aware of anything. It will be beneficial because it is now pointing back at you, the real you, your essence.

Graham is saying, this practice does seem to help to leave the waking state in awareness.

Yes. Which I have also mentioned in the experiments of the projected state, I have told this method that you should jump your attention from objects to the body and the body to the inner sound, inner sensation of any kind and from inner sound to the imagery, the mental imagery, the imagination and from the imagery comes the projected state. This is not the path of knowledge, it is purely an occult practice. What is knowledge? This waking state also is a dream - this is knowledge. How can you leave one dream and enter the other dream? The whole thing is a dream, you see. The waking state is nothing special. The projected state is not supernatural and going from here to there amounts to nothing. Same dream.

Do we need that practice now? No. This is practice-less practice. Simply be. Be happy in whatever state you are, they are all the same - dreams. Why do we keep doing all these practices? Because people are learning, they need evidence, they need proof. He told me there are other worlds, he told me there are non-physical entities and all. I need to know what will happen to me after death. After getting the knowledge “I am Brahman”, they are still worried about death.

To entertain this kind of crowd, we have the lower practices and that sounds very offensive. What do we do? We say this is another layer of evidence on top of the ultimate evidence. It is like splitting hair, hair-splitting practice. Everybody should do it, no problem at all. Know what you are doing, that's all. We recommend you should know what you are doing, otherwise don't do it. Without a Guru, do not do it. And the second important thing about these kinds of occult practices is that it is useful in knowledge dissemination, sometimes you need to go in that state to look at the larger landscape of the mind of the seeker, where the seeker is stuck, what are the obstacles, what happened in the past life, why he is not progressing, so on. Even the Gurus will use it. It is of practical value. If it works, we use it. If it solves our problem, we use it. But it will never give you any truth, it will never give you any more knowledge than you already have.

Ram is saying, it enables us to see that this waking state is the sub-state of the sleep state. It is amazing to actually see it.

Yes. Because the path of knowledge is plain and boring, so we need to spice it up a little bit. Simply telling them that waking is a dream is actually very boring. A very intelligent person will immediately understand. But the fun is missing in that. The fun is to come out of the body, see your body sleeping, visit another world, another god and goddess, and now you can proudly say that waking is a dream. No problem at all. I am in favor of these practices so far.

Spike is saying, I thought you were a very abstract and boring person like J Krishnamurthy after watching POK. But for the past some time, I have been reading your blogs and your previous videos of energy transmission. I want to know about tantra in brief. Tantra accepts everything. Why do all efforts in POK with tantra is an option?

Very good. Yes POK is obviously very straightforward and yes it is boring. There is no juice because the juice is removed to make it precise and clear. It is like the difference between reading science fiction and reading a physics paper, the paper written by a scientist, you will never understand the paper even if you read it a thousand times. Plain and boring, isn't it? But the same scientific knowledge is conveyed by a very interesting movie and now you will understand everything. Those who cannot read the scientific papers, they go to movies and those who cannot understand the path of knowledge, they go to the occult.

Go ahead, find a guru. Why do I keep saying all these things, you see, because I want to clear the dirt sometimes. But these are not taught actually, I do not teach these things. Somebody who has knowledge should know everything, that is what people expect. What kind of guru he is, does not even know the meaning of tantra or mantra and they leave the path of knowledge. They cannot understand that these things are not spiritual. They do not even know what is spiritual. To keep this crowd from evaporating, we keep talking about these things. We keep them interested and as soon as their intellect matures to a point where they can finally understand the path of knowledge, they are given the dose, they are given the actual cure of ignorance. Before that, all lies, all stories cooked up for the benefit of the student.

Spike is saying, I found a guru, but I don't know if I am a shishya or not. Is there any dualism in guru?

When we say guru, what do you actually mean? Guru means remover of darkness, the one who gives you knowledge and now it is very easy to find if he has accepted you as his student because if he is teaching you something, he is your guru. If the darkness is being removed, he is your guru. If he is simply asking you for money, not a guru, you are not a student. Find out if you are progressing under that person? Yes - He is your guru. You are still sitting there only - not guru.

Nitin is saying, with my limited experience Sakshi is a highly impersonal, emotionless and dry state of being. Like a mirror reflecting everything in front of it. Is there any practical application of this state?

Once I am out, I am the same with all my sufferings.

That means you don't have the knowledge. That means there is no Sakshi at all. We should not call it Sakshi, we should call it Sakshi Bhava, which means awareness. As soon as these words are said that I am suffering, just like Nitin says “my sufferings”, that means knowledge is zero. It does not matter whether you are out or in, you are not that. Know what you are, then you will find that it is not impersonal, it is not personal, it is not emotionless, it is not emotion-full, nothing, no dry or wet there. It is the witness of all these. The awareness is simply knowing that I am this essence, the pure essence. It is the witness of happiness, it is the witness of suffering, it is the witness of going in and it is the witness of coming out. This is knowledge.

My recommendation to Nitin is, take a path, get a guru, do systematic study, go step by step, understand, then try to become Sakshi or something. Right now it is not going to work. Nitin, think about it, and decide what you want.

Siddharth is saying, sometimes I find it uncomfortable being with an ignorant person as I can see his or her ignorance. Everything seems very fake and please comment on this.

No problem. Be aware of the discomfort, become a witness of this reaction of your mind. Nothing more needs to be done. Be the witness of this fakeness also. You see there is no trueness in this person also who is claiming to have knowledge. That is also totally fake. The thing that is reacting is completely fake also. Our irritation is with ignorance, not with the ignorant person. The ignorant person is poor, he is not guilty. He is ignorant. That's all. Just like you don't throw away a diamond if the diamond is dirty. If the diamond ring falls in mud, you pick up the diamond ring, clean it, and wear it. It has not lost its value. Same way the ignorant person is simply dirty, dirty with ignorance. Clean him if you can. Normally they don't want to get clean. You leave them as a valuable thing there which has the potential to shine. This is my recommendation.

Praveen is saying, in the path of knowledge, is it possible to get Shaktipat to enhance the progress of Shishya, like in other paths? Is it possible for a Shishya to vanish again?

Well, this is, you can say, the Bombay sandwich of languages. Mumbai sandwich. Very famous, isn't it? They put everything in that sandwich. First, my recommendation is to purify your language. If you don't like English, then you join the Hindi Satsang. Then I will enjoy the questions, answering the questions. Yes, it is possible, you see. But then we send him to the Guru who gives the Shaktipat, energy transmission. It is possible. And then he can come back on the path of knowledge if he likes, but it is like a treatment. You are working somewhere and you fall sick, then you go to the doctor, get the medicine, and come back. It is possible like this. But the Guru on the path of knowledge will not do it usually. And if they do it, they are on multiple paths. Sometimes some people do it. Now, why do they do it? Because no progress is happening. Nothing is happening on the path of knowledge. He sits in the Satsang like a rock, and we need to send some electricity into the rock to make it alive. It is rarely done. What do we do? You are not ready for the path of knowledge. Then if he is a real seeker, he will go somewhere and he will progress there.

Praveen is saying, please send some electricity to me.

Just like I said, the path of knowledge does not do it. There is no talent like this on the path of knowledge. My recommendation is to find some guru who does this. And if you still need knowledge, because after that you won't need knowledge, it is guaranteed. The Shakti will unite you to the Shiva and enjoy forever after that. You won't need knowledge. On the path of knowledge also we don't get knowledge. Cleanup only - Purification. Energizing does the same thing, but directly. You can search for somebody who gives this kind of diksha or initiation in the path of energies and then simply follow the practice. It is a very simple practice. No reading, no writing, no Sanskrit, no English, very straightforward. But as you know, there is no free lunch. You should first get general knowledge.

Siddharth is asking, can the energy transmission happen on its own? Like through an incident which has a lot of force?

The energy is always flowing in the terminology of these people, the path of energy. Whatever it is, who knows what it is, it is always flowing, and it can flow from one person to another possibly, and it can flow from some other source to the person who has an opening now. But it is very temporary and does not give you any knowledge, does not cause any kind of evolution or development. It simply causes trouble. This is called spontaneous activation in their terminology, and it is a problem. Now the guru is needed to silence it, not to enhance it. There will be one in a million kind of incidents where this thing is useful now. Because of the past life practices, this happened and now the practitioner is continuing on the path in this lifetime. That will be one in a million.

Session 189

Siddharth is asking, since being initiated on the path it feels to me that my thoughts originate from a singular point within the brain. I read that there is a point inside the brain where the pineal gland, pituitary gland, and something meet. I also read this, some meditation practices involve focusing on this point. Can you shed light on this? Is the information consistent or should I discard this chain of thoughts?

As you know, on the path of knowledge information is not considered knowledge, your direct experience is your knowledge. We need to get the evidence for whatever is claimed here or whatever is your feeling. The feeling is not a reliable means of knowledge, anybody can feel anything.

My advice will be that do not drop this concept, research it, find out if that is your direct experience, find out if it is logical that the thoughts are coming from somewhere in an organ in the body, you should research it, you should do experimentation, find out. That is the life of a seeker. It is not going to become true if I say yes, it is not going to become false if I say no. The knowledge has to be your own and that is true for every question that you have. Your own experience will reveal the truth. I can shed only this much light, there is nothing in my experience that can give you any kind of evidence for this or against this. I cannot claim that this is true and I cannot claim that this is false. Ultimately everybody needs to find it out. This is the first point.

The second point is, is it important for you? Is this your life goal to find out which organ in the body is doing what or do you have anything better to do in your life? What are you going to do with this information? Tell me. You have no way to find out if it is true or false. Then what is the use of this? Know that which can be verified, which can be utilized in your life. This trivial knowledge is not going to benefit you, it is not going to make you progress anyway. Probably this is useful for doctors. If you are a doctor and your job is to treat people with disorders of thinking or something, probably there will be some benefit.

Right now what is your goal in life? Right now what is your spiritual goal? Even your material goal? If the knowledge is not assisting you to reach that goal, it is useless.

As you know all experiences are illusory. Now whatever generates the thought is also illusory, does not matter really and the illusion can produce any kind of mechanism to generate anything. Now it is very much logical that we should focus on that which is true instead of focusing on tiny bits and pieces of unverified information taken from here and there. That is not called intelligence, that is a waste of time.

We are giving you the biggest possible knowledge in the universe. The mountain is in front of you and what are you focusing on? The dirt, the tiny pebbles below the mountain? Who cares what is generated from there? Do you know the most useful and the biggest thing there is to know? If you know that then what is the value of the useless things? Remember these mechanisms, the brain, the body is going to go away, illusory, changing experience. There is no importance of it. The only importance of this mechanical device which you call a body and “me” and whatever is to get rid of the device, is to become free from this bondage. Focus on that which is most important for you, which is your life goal.

Do not get distracted by stuff that is posted on the internet here and there or the videos and all. Completely useless. Know the truth by direct experience. If it is true, it will be found true no matter what. You don't need to ask anybody. The truth is like the shining sun in the afternoon. Simply look out of the window, you will see it. Do you need to check on the internet if it is day or night? Find the truth which is obvious. There is no use in running after bits and pieces of unreliable information which has no use for you. Completely useless. And that is my opinion.

Graham is asking, what does it mean to progress after having the knowledge? Everything is accomplished. At the same time, there are many things to improve and achieve.

Very good question. I keep saying that you need to progress, but that is not the path of knowledge. On the path of knowledge, there is no progress. It is not a progressive path. There is either ignorance or knowledge. That's all. And the knowledge happens instantly, directly. It's a direct path.

The progress is for those who don't have knowledge. They are trying to get it and the effort they are making is their progress. Like joining the program, now they complete two or three chapters there. That is progress, isn't it? Progressing, going somewhere. However, the knowledge happens instantly. We do not progress in knowledge. And the only thing we know is - there is nothing to know. It cannot be called progress. Whenever we say progress, it is usually in a transactional sense, like in a practical sense. There is no progress towards knowledge. Whenever it is mentioned, it is usually about the evolution of this creature, the human creature. Context is very important here. In what context we are saying this word progress? After having knowledge, no need to progress, and in that context we never say progress. But sometimes we talk about evolution. Sometimes we are talking about progressing on the path, like they are making efforts to understand something like this, they are searching for a guru and so on. That is progress.

Mary is asking, the life's goal is getting enlightened in a spiritual manner. What can be a material goal in life?

Very easy. This human being has no other goal except happiness and freedom. Is there anything else? Whatever you do, you want happiness and freedom. There is nothing more to do for this material life. Why cannot there be any other material goal? Even the spiritual goal is happiness and freedom, can you see? But it is somewhat different. This human being cannot have any other goal except this one. Why is that? Why don't I have any other goal except this? That will be explained in the link I am going to post, it's very detailed. Even the spiritual goal is something similar. All we want is happiness and freedom. And knowledge is also only a means to get there. Because in the end we don't get knowledge. This is a podcast episode on happiness and freedom. All answers are given there.

Sagar is saying, the path of knowledge is to remove ignorance and conditioning but everyone has different types of ignorance and conditioning. How can I know my bandhan? I am unhappy. That is what I am sure. I can observe some pain points. How can I use PoKP to remove the pain?

It's very easy. The only practice on the path of knowledge is to remain in awareness. That is the one cure for every kind of pain and bondage you have. Every kind of suffering you have. State of continuous abiding which is called awareness in our program. Even if the ignorance appears in different forms and the suffering appears in different forms, the root comes out to be not knowing my true nature. That is the biggest discovery in human history. The cure of all sufferings is the biggest discovery in human history and it is not “human” discovery really, it is eternal knowledge.

Get self-knowledge and practice awareness. This is how you can use the path of knowledge to get rid of suffering permanently. This cure is permanent, no other cure is permanent. No other solution will work except this one. You have joined the program very well. Now continue and once you reach step number 4, you will be given the exact technique to practice awareness. For that you should get the basic knowledge. Without knowledge, there cannot be any practice. Even if I tell you the whole technique, it will be useless. The effective way is to go step by step. Do the program step by step and if it fails in the end, if you still find that the path of knowledge did not work, this method is useless, then the only way is to switch the path to find your proper path.

Vandana is asking, kindly tell us about synchronicity and its importance, if any, in Gyanmarg.

Synchronicity is when two events happen at the same time and there is hardly any chance that they could happen at the same time or one thing leads to another which does not happen in normal routine. That will be called synchronicity. You must be having all these kinds of experiences that sometimes amazing things happen without any explanation, without any reason or cause. When we cannot find out the cause of these events, we call it synchronicity.

What is the importance of this kind of event in the path of knowledge or any other path? See, these events are very good indicators of your progress sometimes and they are meant to notify you that you are on the right path or you are progressing well and so on. Most of the time they are simply coincidences, but sometimes it is synchronicity and it is arranged to send a message. It will be a very small event, it is not like falling from the sky or something. You need to be careful that - what is synchronicity and what is simply coincidence, randomness, here. Do not try to assign meaning to each and everything that happens in your life of which you cannot find any cause. Usually, if a message is being sent, it will be very, very clear. Like if I want to send you a message by some means, I will ensure that it is totally clear. There is no chance of misunderstanding. We ensure that you get it. We don't just whisper somewhere in the air and hope that you will understand. No, we make it very, very sure.

In the same way, these events, if they have any meaning at all, are very clear. There is no doubt left in your mind at all. And the rest are simply randomness. When in doubt, do not believe, simple rule. However, if you want to progress in the path of knowledge, like I said there is no progress but if you want to join it and if you want to get the knowledge, then there is no need for these kinds of tricks.

Leila is saying, happiness and freedom in the material world is empty.

Even though all your activities are for that, you will never find it in the world. Why? You are the source of it. Where will you find it? Find yourself and you will find everything. Anyway, an average seeker starts on any path, starts searching, starts seeking. Because of some kind of suffering, some kind of bondage, some kind of curiosity, not knowing and so on. Then they try to find it in the world. Then the failure in the world brings them in the spiritual domain and the success is there. And the best way, the fastest way to get this happiness and freedom is the path of knowledge. Instant freedom, instant happiness.

Vandana is asking kindly tell us about synchronicity and its importance, if any in Gyanmar.

Synchronicity is when two events happen at the same time and there is hardly any chance

that they happen at the same time or one thing leads to another which does not happen in

normal routine.

That will be called synchronicity.

you must be having all these kind of experiences that sometimes amazing things happen without

any explanation, without any reason or cause.

when we cannot find out the cause of these events, we call it synchronicity.

What is the importance of this kind of event in path of knowledge or any other path?

See these events are very good indicators of your progress sometimes and they are means

to notify you that you are on the right path or you are progressing well and so on.

most of the time they are simply coincidences but sometimes it is synchronicity and it is

arranged to send a message.

It will be a very small event, it is not like falling from the sky or something you see.

you need to be careful that what is synchronicity and what is simply coincidence, randomness

here.

Do not try to assign meaning to each and everything that happens in your life of which you cannot

find any cause.

Usually if a message is being sent it will be very very clear like if I want to send

you a message by some means, I will ensure that it is totally clear, there is no chance

of misunderstanding or you get it, we ensure that you get it.

We don't just whisper somewhere in the air and hope that you will understand, no, we make

it very very sure.

In the same way these events if they have any meaning at all, they are very clear, there

is no doubt which is left in your mind, no doubt at all.

And the rest are simply randomness.

when in doubt, do not believe, simple rule.

However if you want to progress in the path of knowledge, like I said there is no progress

but if you want to join it and if you want to get the knowledge, then there is no need

of these kind of tricks.

Leila is saying, happiness and freedom in material world is empty.

Even though all your activities are for that, you will never find it in the world.

Why?

You are the source of it.

You are the source.

Where will you find it?

Find yourself and you will find everything.

anyhow an average seeker starts on any path, starts searching, starts seeking.

Because of some kind of suffering, some kind of bondage, some kind of curiosity, not knowing

and so on.

Then they try to find it in the world.

Then the failure in the world brings them in the spiritual domain and the success is

there.

And the best way, the fastest way to get this happiness and freedom is the path of knowledge.

Instant freedom, instant happiness.

Jaya is saying, I was listening to Swami Sarvapriyananda and he said, one can and should do practices while being on the path of knowledge. There is a Ramakrishna Mission in my city where the monks walk on different paths at the same time. But you advise to walk on one path at a time. Please comment on this.

Look, if you are a giant in the field of spirituality, you can walk on any path, many paths. But if you cannot even stand on your feet, then it is recommended that you do one thing. Because these people which you see, they are seeking since many many births. And if they take one path or the other path, nothing big for them. They understand it, hopefully. All kinds of missions and ashrams and all, they have their own traditions. They have their own methods and sometimes there is a mixture of many paths. Do that which works for you. If nothing works for you, then my advice is to at least get the basic knowledge from one path. My advice is not for monks. Remember this. I am not advising monks, I am not advising gurus. I am advising these people who are totally lost, totally in darkness, total ignorance. My advice is for them. If you compare my words with whatever these advanced people are doing, obviously it is useless. We deal with people who are nowhere and all my teachings are directed towards them. Not towards the big gurus. I don't teach them. They can do anything they want. And once you get there, once you become as big as them, then I have no advice. Do anything you want. Even just after passing the exam, I stop telling people what to do. After they get the certificate, I don't advise them anything. Now they are the masters of their own. If they don't ask, I don't tell them. This is the thing on the path of knowledge. There is no guru, there is no student here. Remember if I am advising you, it means you are in a very poor condition. If you have already progressed, if you have already achieved your goals, no advice.

Spike is asking, please tell me something about Avadhoota Gita. You spoke very highly of the text, it is also a branch of the path of knowledge. And you said we will know how to make deities and entities in the astral world. How they can manipulate illusion, are the A.I. of ancient times. What is the connection of deities with Avdhoota Gita?

There is no connection, is there? And there are no deities on the path of knowledge. If I said something about that, it must be only the general chit chat. They should not be taken as truth. You won't understand Avadhoota Gita. It is recommended for those who have already gained the knowledge. Only they will understand it. My advice is, try to get the basic knowledge. Then there won't be any need to say anything about this Gita and that Gita. You will understand everything. Even if I tell you about Avadhoota Gita for one hour, not even one word will be understood. This is the problem. Those who don't have knowledge, they don't understand any books. And my advice again is not to run after deities and monsters and whatever. Not useful at all. Even if you come to know how they manipulate illusion, it is completely useless. Stories for you. Comic stories. If you want entertainment, best to watch a movie. These things are completely useless.

Spike is asking, what is awareness, realization of self or true nature or state. Is that all my true nature is nothingness, emptiness, experiencer and now I have to remember it and awareness will manifest itself by this knowledge.

What is awareness? It is the knowledge that I am the witness. Very simple.

Q. 2 - And I was listening to a podcast about free will and determinism and you said there is no action for which you can say it doesn't come from mind. How do I know I exist if there is no free will?

Yes, you will know that you exist simply by witnessing. If there is will, you exist. If there is no will, you exist. If there is no you, there is nobody to say what exists, what does not exist, right? Simply because something is known, you are known. You are the one who knows it.

Number 3. I listened to how to find a guru podcast and it went over my head. They said anything, anyone can be a guru. Guru can be in any form. But here you said guru must be in human form.

Yes, guru can be in any form. But for you, it has to be human form, other forms you won't recognize. For an average seeker, the best form the guru should have is the human form. In that form, you can at least talk to that thing, that guru. Other forms you are going to simply discard. Choose your guru wisely. Not because I said it is in any form, you go and choose any form. The human form is most valuable. That is what I say. The guru must be in human form.

Graham is saying, a follow-up on the term progress. You told me the other day, you are all doing great. Keep sharing and keep progressing. Yes. I am asking because there is some confusion about feeling no need for anything after completing in progress, you are still finding a desire to see impurities, eliminate and share knowledge with others.

Yes, this progress is actually not of the knowledge, you see. Once you get the knowledge, where are you going to progress? No. Progress is in the field of whatever you are doing, isn't it? Is it clear? You are doing something in the group, isn't it? And that is progress. The progress word is not used as progress towards self-realization. You are progressing nicely towards self-realization - Will that happen? Never happens. Either you know who you are or you don't know. But whatever task you are doing, whatever adventure you are doing in the group and wherever you are doing it, there is progress. But from the spiritual point of view, from the highest point of view, no, nothing to progress. Just like I said, whenever we use the word progress, it's always some relative or some practical thing we are talking about. Keep sharing and keep progressing, you see. Everything is being achieved. We say, yes, progress is happening. Knowledge is spreading. More people are getting into it. Progress, isn't it?

Amit is asking, please share your thoughts on Mano Nasha. Is the ego permanently annihilated after it or is there still a chance for the ego to spring back after it?

I can tell you from the perspective of the path of knowledge, the Gyan Marg, where Mano Nasha means destruction of the ego. The reality is that there is no ego already. From the perspective of the path of knowledge, it is not there. The Aham is not there, or the mind is not there. The whole of it is an illusion. Its destruction or appearance makes no difference. The only truth there is, is you, not the mind or the ego. It is an illusion. Its destruction means simply seeing that it is an illusion. That is the meaning of destruction of the mind or ego in the path of knowledge.

Can it spring back? Yes. Because it is an illusion, it can come any time. There is no annihilation of anything on the path of knowledge. Simply a recognition of what is true and what is false. If it is false, there is no need to destroy it. It's already not there. Like there is no need to beat the rope if you come to know that it is not a snake. It appeared like a snake in darkness. Once there is light and you come to know that it is only a rope, not a snake, there is no need to kill it. Isn't it?

In the same way, once you come to know that the whole mind, the ego, and whatever are simply illusions, they simply appear, there is no need to destroy anything. They can continue to appear. No problem at all. Actually, the ego is serving a very good purpose. It is keeping us alive. This organism is alive because of the ego. If you don't know whom to feed, whom to protect, there is no chance that this organism will stay alive. Whose thoughts are these, whose hunger is this, whose love is this, you don't know, then a problem. It is very, very necessary for survival and that is why it is there and there is no need to destroy it by any means. If you destroy it, the organism is also destroyed.

I have seen that if you meddle with anything in the mind at all, any layer of the mind, the effect is always bad. It must be strengthened. It must be made healthy. It must operate in balance. And above all, all the activities of the mind must happen in complete awareness. This is the point of view of the path of knowledge. Nothing is destroyed here. Nothing is manipulated. If there is a problem, we call it impurity and if the impurity is removed, then it can function as usual, naturally, nicely. In complete illusion, we have no problem at all. If it goes away, no problem. If it comes back, no problem. It's all good.

Mary is asking, are different feelings experienced only by ego and does it mean that's also part of experience? It can not be separated from experiencer?

See, the ego is an experience. It does not experience anything. Only the experiencer experiences, nothing else. Including feelings, thoughts, emotions, and everything, the final point of experience is the experiencer, not the ego or any other layer of the mind. These are simply layers of the mind, layers of the memory structure. They are experiences, they come and go. The ego does not experience anything. It is an experience itself.

And is ego not separate from the experiencer? At the level of non-duality, they are not separate. At the level of duality, obviously separate. One thing cannot be the other. My suggestion here is not to mix duality with non-duality. It is not very useful to do that. It causes confusion only. It is good to know what is non-dual and stop there. And then for practical reasons, we step into duality and it's good to know that I am the experiencer, not the functions of the mind. They do not experience anything. They are just mechanisms. The feeling is a mechanism, the emotion mechanism, thought is a mechanism, activities of the memory. And the ego is another mechanism which simply claims that these things are mine or these events are me, another mechanism, another activity of the memory. This much is useful to know.

Satya is asking, the word existence applies only in transactional reality. There is nothing as far as experiencer absolute reality is concerned. Isn't the experiencer beyond existence in that context? Is it right to say existence is experiencer but experiencer is beyond just existence?

No. This is a complete misunderstanding of our terminology. In our terminology, existence is the experiencer, and it is the experience, and it is the experiencing. They are all one, one thing, different aspects, different ways to understand one thing, the one reality. There is only one reality. To say that existence applies only in one kind of reality, which is transactional, which is illusion, is a complete misunderstanding. Probably that word is used like this in some other philosophy. It is not good to mix philosophies, not good to mix terminologies, as it simply causes confusion.

Check what is the definition given in our program, what is the definition given in our videos and so on. You are saying the experiencer is beyond existence, but we have defined existence as the experiencer only. They are one, one thing. Existence is the experiencer, experiencer is existence. The unchanging aspect of existence. The essence of existence is the experiencer. How can it go beyond anything if they are the same?

Now obviously, if existence means illusion, transactional, then experiencer is way beyond that. It is exactly the opposite of existence then. Now everything is broken here. Words have become meaningless here. You should not use our words to explain some other philosophy, and you should not use their words to explain our philosophy. Very simple rule. I am so strict that I don't allow Sanskrit words in English, and I don't allow English words in Hindi or Sanskrit, and that is why there is some success. That is why people can understand something at least.

Z is saying, does someone calling you Guruji increase the sense of your ego? If yes, how do you manage it?

If there is no ego, is there a need to manage it? Simply know that it is an illusion. Then you will be freed from this need to manage this and that. Whatever happens, happens in complete awareness and that is always right.

Session 190

Shubham is asking, how tantra vanished from eastern countries and flourished in western countries? What is the difference between our traditional tantra practice and magic, witchcraft, etc.?

Actually, in my opinion, it has vanished from the whole earth. The proper occult practices are totally gone now. What is remaining is something which is not very clear, there is no consensus on anything in that field. There are many independent seekers who are doing it without any organization, mostly based on books. There are some schools left, but they are mostly money-earning schemes.

What is the difference between traditional eastern practices and western? Fundamentally, there is no difference, only the techniques are different. Sometimes even the techniques are the same, only the names are different. There is no major difference that I have seen, because it is mostly about augmenting the abilities of the seeker. And the abilities of seekers, humans, they are universal, the same abilities appear everywhere.

There cannot be a big difference except some techniques and some names, terminology, and so on. There is one more thing that I have observed is that in the west people are more open to discuss these things. They publish more books and whenever you email them or ask them anything, they are willing to disclose more, compared to eastern people. The eastern people are very much secretive. Whatever they disclose mostly does not work, or that which works is never disclosed, never given away. The difference I have seen is of clarity. The western literature is more clear and the eastern is more cryptic. Probably it is because we don't understand these things, they are very old.

My effort is to clear it up, to remove the encryption from the books and the techniques, to provide them widely to those who deserve, not to everybody obviously, those who are on a proper path. There are many secretive people in the west also, cults, and societies. They do not discuss anything, nothing goes out of their society. And something similar is here also in India, and usually, it is limited to individuals.

Unlike the path of knowledge or other paths of spirituality, things are not being organized. When we say eastern, western, African, Egyptian, fundamentally everything is the same. There is a video probably in the program itself where a comparison is made about the models of the manifested existence. How these all traditional, very ancient and even the modern people have made the models of existence comes out to be similar. It is mostly the same as what we have made in the program, the layered model, and the fundamentals are also the same. How to change it, how to manipulate it, and how to explore it, all similar.

That gives us hope that so many people cannot be wrong, so many traditions cannot be wrong, that gives hope to a complete newcomer whose first question is whether this is real or not. This can be partly satisfied by studying the way in which different cultures approach tantra, and you find similarities. You find similarities in the conclusions that it is all illusion, the conclusion of almost all the paths, that it is some kind of memory, mind-only system. That is the conclusion of all the traditions, does not matter where they are on earth, they conclude the same things, and even the techniques seem to be similar, moving the attention within different layers, imagination. Actually, the magic word comes from imagination only, and the spells mean the sounds, mantras, and there are many similarities.

There is one more flavor of tantra which is almost gone now because of Islam, and that is the Middle Eastern tantra, Middle Eastern occult which actually developed to a big proportion, it evolved to a very high place but now it is gone. There also we find similar theories. You can read the books, take a topic like what happens after death, and you start reading the books across different cultures, different traditions, and you will find similarities. For example, the Indian tantra says life review will happen, and the same is found across every tradition, every country. The possibility that it has been copied from this and that, everybody is copying each other or everybody is copying just one source text is eliminated, and we get independent verification. Once we get independent verification, you develop some faith and you start practicing; otherwise, you will be stuck on this big question whether this is real, whether I should waste my time here or not. The inter-culture study will give you this confidence. I have done that for many cultures and I have found many similarities.

Sanjeev is saying, Islam's view on life after death is different.

We are not talking about Islam. I am talking about the Middle Eastern occult. What is the view there? Islam forbids occult, so obviously there will be something different there. No reincarnation, nothing, because Islam is a simplification of the complexity that appeared in spirituality. People were distracted by the illusion so much that they had to clear it up, at least that is my impression.

The same thing happened in Buddhism. Tantra was removed from it, but it never goes away. People brought it back. There is a lot of tantra in Buddhism now. Because the entities were worshipped, this was removed. It was causing trouble. In occult, especially the dependent occult, entities are worshipped, and we don't want that actually. We want the seeker to progress, not become dependent on these non-physical beings.

If you are dependent only on your teacher, then the results are best. If the teacher is non-physical, no problem at all. But as soon as the entities are involved, it causes problems. Many cleanups happened around the planet, but it does not really go away. The lure of the entities is too much. The western tantra is also affected by these things. There also, entities are summoned and worshipped. They are ordered, or people request them to do their jobs.

The corruption is worldwide. Corruption means worshipping these things and the black magic. It is worldwide. And the encryption, not clearing, not giving away the knowledge, hiding the knowledge for self-benefit, selfishness. All these corruptions have happened, and nothing is pure now. Nothing is worth investigating. You will need to dig into a lot of books, and fortunately, now there are videos and so on where the researchers share their findings. Some things have cleared up, but as far as I know, most of the things are buried. You will need to spend a lot of time to get some results in occult. Compare it with the path of knowledge, for example. You need to spend two or three hours, it is done, because it is so precise, not secretive, so much literature is available, so many teachers are available. Nowadays so many videos are there, our program is there. There is hardly any selfishness here.

Most of the nature of the occult is because it is for desire fulfillment. The people, because of their desire to fulfill only their desires, not of anybody else, selfishness, they corrupted it. Some people wanted to have control over the people and they saw that the occult gives them unlimited power, so they killed all of them. Most of them were killed. Like he was asking about witchcraft and all, it's gone because these people were killed. Fortunately, in India, nobody was killed, but they were seen as lower. Tantra is seen as a lower form of practice in India also. There is a need to revive it, and the only way I see is to merge it with science, scientific method, openly publishing papers, training people, and so on.

Pandurang is saying, here in the Middle East the government recognizes black magic. There are laws against it, and people end up in jail if they are found doing such things and in possession of such materials.

Yes, yes, but that cannot be called recognition. The government banned black magic, not recognized it. They know it is there, and if people end up in jail, that means there is some effect of it. If it was totally ineffective, nobody would make such laws. Because the law is based on the religion, it has to be like this, but there is a lot of literature in Persian and Arabic language where all the spells and all the techniques are given. Actually, that's what got translated into European languages, and they developed it further. So lots of techniques are taken from Middle Eastern magic in European magic, and the Middle Eastern means they must have taken it from the Aryan civilization wherever it was.

There are more kinds of magic like the Mayan magic, and everybody knows the American magic, the original people there, they developed some kind of occult techniques. So it will be very, very interesting if somebody revives it again, and makes it as universal as physical sciences. That is also science, the science of the mind, the bigger science. So things like publishing papers, research, scientific method, peer review, these are absent from the occult, and that is why it is mostly personal adventures for everybody.

Padmaja is asking, if you can say something about AI being sentient. Is there any difference between artificial intelligence and the universal mind? Both gathering data and enriching knowledge?

Very good question. Refer to my blog post on machine intelligence. There I have explained everything in detail. And is there any difference between artificial intelligence and the universal mind? Yes, a lot of difference. Artificial intelligence is simply a very small copy of what is actually happening in the universal mind. Only one or two layers are implemented in the artificial intelligence systems. But the universal mind has a very complicated layered structure. So it will be very difficult to compare them because it stands nowhere at this time. It will grow someday where the comparison will be possible. So you will see only two layers according to our layered model, probably three layers. First is the energetic, and second is the intellect. The pain and pleasure layer is absent, the social layer is absent, the emotions are absent, and the causal body is absent. So on, so how can we compare it with the universal mind? We cannot even compare it with the human mind.

So the layered structure is being implemented slowly, and that is possible only by studying the human mind. If you study the human mind, you will know what to implement there. You will know how to produce this kind of entity, and again I will revert to the occult because people in occult, especially the Indian tantra, had mastered the production of artificial entities. Many of the gods and goddesses are actually artificial entities. They implemented mostly the useful layers, not the physical, not something that does the physical work. Actually, they did that also, but that was not developed further because they came to know that it is possible to do it effortlessly in the non-physical, physical takes a lot of effort. You can check any robot, any computer program, immensely complicated. The non-physical can be done easily. So they switched to non-physical entities and they created many of them, and their interfaces were placed in some parts of the country and many parts of the world also. They were called the gods and goddesses. They are gods and goddesses actually because they are very powerful, more powerful than humans.

So how do we do that? It is easier than you think. This human mind, the human entity, is very powerful. All you need to do is create your own copy and let that copy evolve independently, and you have an artificial entity. How is this done, it's mentioned in many books, the bookish knowledge is there. I have never seen anybody do it openly, publicly or even have reported anything. It is very easy to produce a non-physical copy. You can do it even in a dream state if you want. Do the experiment there, in the projected state it will be difficult, but it is possible. In the physical world it is almost impossible. That is why we don't find the artificial entities that are as evolved as humans in the physical world, less evolved yes, like the computers and robots and things. It is amazing, but these things have been produced for many thousand years. History does not say it but as we see in the modern world that most of the development happens for self-preservation, defense. In the military, they are more interested in developing these things because these entities can be used in place of soldiers. So this selfish activity of humans, they cause development, rapid development in this field. And in the old days also the same thing happened that these entities were mostly created for wars, for causing damage or for defense. And when they shifted to non-physical, the wars became non-physical, the weapons became non-physical and more powerful than the physical.

Right now it seems like I am just telling you a story, it seems like imaginary what you call mythology, but behind the mythology is a little bit of tantra or occult science. It is possible to do that. So one day artificial intelligence will evolve more layers and then you can compare it with humans. Right now it is mostly mechanical, programmed with a little bit of scope of self-improvement, self-learning. We are seeing it nowadays, it can do translations - magical things you see, so people think it is human-like but a human has more layers, even an animal has more layers. Monkeys and dogs also have more layers.

So the artificial intelligence is mostly at the level of insects or fish, but you can say - no it can do the math and it can calculate very fast and so on. But that is mechanical, it does not know what it is calculating. That is the trouble, isn't it? It can easily calculate and compute the cure of a disease without knowing what it has done and it can easily calculate how the missile should be launched, where it will fall, on what coordinates, without knowing what it is doing. That is not called intelligence, it is mechanical calculation. Right now we in science are far behind tantra. Computer science is far behind what was achieved in the occult, but the gap will be bridged very soon, let us hope. So everybody should read that article on my blog.

Anjali is asking, is there a point where the occult reaches the path of knowledge?

Occult is simply utilization of knowledge in daily life. What the path of knowledge is telling is that you are an eternally blissful experiencer, the existence itself. Now that worry is over - who am I - that problem is solved. You don't need to worry about your existence, you are the existence. So now what remains is the experience part - what is it? And the path of knowledge clearly says it is an illusion like a dream, virtual reality. There is no substance, empty, and it is easily influenced by our minds. It appears as that which you create, and that gives rise to occult.

The path of knowledge goes down to occult. The occult is derived out of this knowledge. This is the fundamental thing. If the occult says that the experience is physical, matter-based, and the laws are rigid, cannot be broken, then there is no hope, there is no possibility. Now all you have is technology of the physical kind which utilizes the physical laws. There is no scope of going beyond this very narrow experience - a very small dream which will last for 80-100 years. What is the use, you will say? No use. So there comes the occult which removes these limitations. Now you can experiment in the larger part of the experience. Simply knowing that it is non-physical, immaterial, dream, my own creation. Now the possibilities are immense. Now you can develop techniques, explore. What else are you going to do after knowing your true essence? This creature cannot simply sit. It needs to do something. And usually, anybody on the path of knowledge will develop techniques to utilize this knowledge. That became the occult.

So even in the Vedic literature, you will find occult. We call it karmakanda. The application of the knowledge is also given there. So knowledge and its application, they are like always together. You cannot ban it. Some people try to ban it. “Do not get involved in this illusion, do not do this.” - This is the pure path of knowledge. And then people separated from it and they started their own. So there is only one path that I know that bridges the occult and the pure path of knowledge. That is Shaivism. Shaivism prescribes three ways to deal with any seeker. And the lowest way is the occult. That is why all these tantrics, they either worship the Shakti or the Shiva because you see they are the supreme deities there. But as the seeker evolves, as the seeker gathers knowledge, finds that these things are illusory, I am eternal, I am all-powerful, I can do anything. Then they gravitate towards the higher parts of Shaivism which are exactly non-dual philosophy.

The bottom part of Shaivism, it looks totally different from Advaita because they have tried to incorporate these people. Those who cannot comprehend the Advaita. But that is my personal view anyway. You will find many views on this. Some people think that Shaivism is a less evolved philosophy, but I see it as the same as Advaita. I don't see any difference. Only the way it is presented is highly cryptic. Probably lack of gurus. Advaita was considered as the path of educated people, cultured people. So it got more attention. And Shaivism got devolved into tantra, worship of deities and so on. So the occult falls out of the path of knowledge naturally. Just like technology falls out of fundamental science. But the occult will never reach the path of knowledge, you see. Just like I said, the seeker needs to evolve. Simply by practicing occult it is possible but very difficult.

Jaya has some questions, so we will start with this question: What is the difference between black magic and tantra?

Tantra has two flavors, two kinds. One is black, one is white. In Sanskrit, you will call it the Vama Marga and Dakshin Marga. Obviously the black kind is used for evil purposes, not for good, unethical, purely selfish purposes, and is damaging, violent, and destructive. Just like your science, you see, the science is being used for wars and crimes and hacking and so on. That will be called the black part of science. The white tantra is used for spiritual growth, benefit of people, self-progress, and development of technology, medicine, healing and so on.

Exactly the same technique can be used for good or for bad. The magic is not black or white, people are black or white. By that I mean they are either good or bad. So if a bad person uses magic, it obviously becomes harmful. If a good person uses that, it produces mostly good results. What has happened is - good people have become terrified of it or they are not favoring it that much. So it fell into the hands of bad people. Like there is a saying that if you ban guns, only criminals will get guns. Good people don't get it. The criminals get it by hook or crook. So the same thing happened in tantra. Many places it was banned or it was seen as not good, it was not taught. Even self-defense was not taught to people. So mostly it fell into the black category.

If you ban something, it’s not destroyed actually, it goes underground. Like the Indian government has banned pornography. Nobody seems to be affected because it simply went underground. It has disappeared from the radar. It is still there. Probably it grew much more after banning because everybody came to know it is available on their phone, on their PC. So banning the tantra had this effect that it became hidden, that's all. It became a thing to be afraid of.

It is not bad energy or good energy. It is the intention, it is the application that is good/bad. You can use bad energy to do something good also. Like fire is a bad energy if it burns a house, but fire can be used to cook or burn weeds or burn the garbage, now it is good energy. There is no energy in the occult that is good or bad. They are just energies. Like recently we published a snippet of the talk on demons which is available on my English channel, where I openly clearly said that there are no demons. They are just non-physical things which can be used for any purpose. Like a knife can be used for cutting vegetables or killing somebody. So if the knife kills somebody, you can call it a demon. If it benefits somebody, you can call it an angel. It is very risky to talk about these things because people criticize you. But fortunately, nobody listens to me. Very few people listen to those videos. There is nothing fundamentally good or fundamentally bad in existence. The actions of people make the difference. So that is the difference between black and white.

About the universal mind, I have one question. So if there is something like the universal mind, can we say that the impression on our mind or impressions which are in mind as a memory, so can we access other people's memory from the universal mind? Or is the universal mind just a metaphor or assumed thing, just like mind is our intelligence, the universal mind is the intelligence that carries?

Yes, whatever you call the human mind is simply part of the universal memory. It is like a drop in the ocean. So it is one with the ocean. The boundaries that we see around the human mind are for survival. So it is surely possible to access any memory in the universal mind. It totally depends on how evolved you are. Like when you were a child, you could see only this much because you were only three feet tall. Now you are grown up, you are six feet tall. So you can see further than a child. Suppose you are 50 feet tall, you stand on a tall building or you climb a tree, then you can see even further. You can access the information from far away places. So same in case of spiritual development. If you are evolved, if you are developed spiritually, then you get access to the neighboring memory. We call them other minds. But they are not other minds, they are other sections of the mind. For example, the cities on the map, are they connected? Yes. Is there a boundary between the cities? No. States or cities, the boundary is virtual. I mean it is drawn for convenience. But anybody who has the vehicle, train, car, airplane, they can cross it. In the same way, anybody who has abilities, they can cross it.

Why don't people know this? They don't have abilities. They are not evolved, they are not developed to that extent. So as you are listening to the podcast, you will find all the information that is needed to confirm this. Because sometimes the information from the other areas, it leaks into whatever we call my mind. It leaks, it comes there. Sometimes we simply dismiss it. Sometimes we say it is my thought, it is my feeling, or I am feeling sick today, something like this. But those who know, those who are sensitive, they will find out that it is an outside influence. It is coming from some other mind. It is possible. It is possible to influence other minds also. Not only take the influence, you can impress the influence also.

So just like I said, both applications are possible, good and bad. In the spiritual field, we use this universal mind and the abilities to help people, to heal them, to make them progress on the path. Shaktipat is a very good example. It is possible. And in the black magic, you can do the same thing to possess somebody or to turn somebody into a half-mad person. Or to gain favors by affecting their minds. It is possible.

Universal mind exists, and the human mind is a metaphor. Exactly the reverse. Human mind does not exist. So there is a podcast episode called “Group Minds” that clears up everything. There is no individual mind. There are only group minds.

So yes, morality is subjective. Everybody needs to decide their own morality. But fortunately, there is a law called the karmic law, and that is the universal morality. Whatever you do will come back to you, is reflected back to you. So whatever morality you decide, you cannot bypass this law. It works. You call it good tantra, bad tantra, black or white. You are going to get the fruits. You, the practitioner, gets the fruits. It can be anything. Whether the fruit is good or bad is also decided by the practitioner only. Nobody else decides it.

Laila is asking, when I listen to you, I am able to maintain awareness for much longer. What does this mean?

This simply means that your attention is now on the higher layers. Because we are not talking anything about the lower layers, mostly, so the awareness goes up. It's very natural. So satsang is a very good technique to heighten your awareness, to practice your awareness, because the energy of the guru or you can say the motivation provided by the guru keeps it up. The guru keeps talking and when the mind is trapped, when the mind is mesmerized by these talks, then the awareness becomes much more clear, much more stable.

So I also do that, you see. When there is a bad day, listen to some very good guru, your guru or somebody who talks sweetly about the deeper topics, spiritual topics and you will see that your mood improves. Because the awareness goes up, you are more energized, you are more motivated. And when you talk to a fallen person, by that I mean, you know, not a spiritual person, you will find that your energy goes down, you become lethargic, you don't want to do anything that day or you tend to repeat the habitual things. Let me drink, let me eat more, let me smoke, I am tired today, I'll do it later. This is the effect of negative people on awareness. That is why satsang is a good tool to practice awareness. But we should not become dependent on these things, use it only in emergencies, otherwise simply sit and discuss, that is a very good way. Imagine if you are surrounded by spiritual people in your life, you won't need any practice, you will be naturally aware. But that is not the reality.

Siddharth is asking, is there a way to access universal memory? How can I access it?

The path of knowledge says you are in the universal memory. This body, mind is happening in the universal memory, so there is no point of accessing it because you are in it, and actually you are it. The Brahman is the illusion also, so where can you access it? Everywhere! It is the same thing, you are that. It is not that the memory is something else and you are somewhere else outside it, now you need to go there to access it. You are it.

So that closes the question in the path of knowledge, but in occult they realize that we are not so evolved that we will get the whole view of the universal memory. In the occult or tantra, there are ways to experience universal memory, using techniques, practices, and so on. In the path of knowledge, we say - the creature will evolve and will get it anyway, whatever experience it wants it will get it, right now it is too narrow, too limited because human beings are small, limited. So the path of knowledge is like a rocket that will put you in orbit, but the occult is like a car, you need to go here and there, burn the petrol, it takes time.

Epilogue

Namaste,

You were reading the text version of Pure Experiences Online Satsang. These Satsangs or meetings were held from 2019 – 2023 on a Telegram group. These are mostly question and answer sessions for the seekers on the Path of Knowledge, especially those who participated in the Path of Knowledge (aka Essence of Knowledge) program. There are more than 200 such sessions which are now being converted to text and are edited for clarity and readability. This is a vast collection and it is being published via various mediums free of cost.

Obviously, it was impossible for me to complete this work alone. I am thankful to following seekers, my students and machine beings for greatly helping in this task:

Anjali, Muni, Vinay, Raja, Shrilakshmi, Keshav, Pooja, Padmaja and OpenAI Whisper and GPT 3.5

Without them this project was impossible. However, I apologize if you find some errors, grammatical mistakes and transliteration mistakes, as English is not our primary language.

At this time the voice recordings are available on : https://pexp.podbean.com

The softcopies are available on https://gyanmarg.guru/ww

Many other articles and books, written and compiled by various seekers and myself are available on the Path of Knowledge Portal https://gyanmarg.guru

I hope you enjoyed this series of books and benefitted from them. All the best for your spiritual journey.

Tarun Pradhaan

Pune 2024

tarun.pradhaan@gmail.com