Session 211

There are before and after situations when there is no knowledge, the illusion is taken as the truth and it continues with this assumption in the mind of the seeker that it is the truth. After the knowledge, the illusion is seen as false, but it still continues as the illusion. Simply knowing that it is the truth will not stop it. All that happened was the ignorance was removed, but the existence remains as it is.

I will give you another example here, a metaphor, let us say you are watching a movie for the first time and you don't know that it is a movie, it is a drama or it is simply pictures on the screen. You continue to watch that movie as if something real is happening in the movie. When the actors cry, you cry, when they laugh, you laugh, when they are angry, you are angry. This happens to everybody in childhood and somebody tells you look, this is simply pictures on the screen. At that time, you will stop looking at the movie as if it is true and you will see the reality of it, which is simply an illusion, but the movie will not stop, the movie will continue to play as nicely as it was playing. Those who assume that knowing the illusion will simply make it disappear, they are still ignorant. They don't know the actual situation.

I will give you another example. Let us say you are dreaming. In the dream you see many people, you also see yourself, a small version of yourself. You see all the buildings, all the cities and probably your relatives and everybody is there. But after waking up, you realize that nobody was there, it was an illusion. But what were you looking at when you were looking at the dream? You were looking at yourself, your own mind, that's what. I am looking at my own illusory forms that simply appear out of the infinite potential. They are little bit lawful, ordered, there is order in that appearance and therefore we are fooled into thinking that whatever is appearing is real.

The Advaita point of view is simply this, that there is only you, which should be called the existence and the existence has the capacity to observe itself. But since it has no qualities, it can only observe that which is potential, not real. Because it is potential, it is false, it is not there. And so whatever is observed is an illusion. Because it is simply emptiness, there cannot be anything real to observe in it. It simply dreams within itself. That is also not very accurate to say. We say we don't know what is happening and there is simply emptiness, which is me, and there is simply a dream, which is also me.

And all that which is imposed on this experience and the experiencer is simply ignorance. That this thing is doing that and this part of the dream will be real, that part will be unreal and things like that. We are so much involved in the dream that we assume that our lives are also real. And we conduct our lives as if they are real and nobody is disturbed by these things, that it is false. It is all perfectly set up, there is nothing wrong in that. It will never go away because it is timeless, I am timeless, the existence is timeless. No matter how much knowledge you get, it will never go away. Because what is knowledge? Absence of wrong ideas, that's all it is, an absence. By knowledge we do not mean that you come to know something new, no, that will never happen. You drop anything that was old and incorrect, that will happen, yes. So ultimately knowledge is simply purification of the mind, purification of the intellect.

Let us take another question by Paramjeet. My goal is oneness, how to stay with or as oneness 24 by 7? I understand that I am the oneness.

Then there is no need to stay as oneness because you are already the one. Now all you can do is, whenever you start thinking as if you are a person, you can ignore those thoughts, that's all can be done. Whenever thoughts try to convince you that I am separate, I am a person, I am a human being, that can be dropped and whatever remains is oneness already and if we cannot drop it, it is still oneness.

There is no point in struggling to be oneness. This tendency to struggle is the problem, the problem is not that you are not one, that is not the problem, it is impossible to be two, three, four or whatever or to be separate from the rest, it is impossible. What is the problem? If you want to do that by some method or some tricks, that's the problem. You are naturally that which you are and these thoughts that I am something else, they are unnatural, they are the product of ignorance, so you leave those thoughts as soon as they arise.

Even if you cannot, sometimes they arise, sometimes we need to act in the world and we don't remember that I am the one and at that time there is no need to struggle and there is no need to blame this body-mind that it forgot to be one. Even if there is forgetting, the oneness is still there. So the whole problem is struggling to be one instead of simply accepting oneness. We don't need any practice, we need only surrender, no practices are needed.

You need to convince yourself about the knowledge, verify the truth of it and then be naturally in this knowledge. Whenever this made up false pretension of being the human or being a form, being the body-mind, when these thoughts starts clouding you, you can slowly, gradually, smoothly come back to knowledge, which means nothing, be nothing, be silent, be in the bliss, that is all you can do.

Siddhant is asking, what do you think about the law of conservation of energy?

It says that you cannot create the energy, you cannot even destroy it or more precisely it says that in a closed system, the total energy will remain constant, it can be distributed here and there, can change forms, heat can become electricity, electricity can become heat but the sum total of this number will remain the same. Now how to interpret it from our perspective? What is energy? It is simply change, the amount of change, measure of change. Now can you create change? No, it is already there. Can you destroy change? No, whenever you do something to destroy something, all you are creating is change. When you are trying to create something from nothing, you are actually changing it, which means there must be some change before you try to make the change appear. Only a change can make another change appear and only a change can make one change disappear. You see how logical it is. So the change is already there, it can be converted into various forms, the same change which we call vibration appears in many many forms from heat, light, electricity, thoughts, everything is simply vibration which means change and no, it cannot be created, will not be destroyed, so it is perfectly in agreement with our model and obviously the scientific model is perfectly correct.

The only problem is that the materialistic model assumes that in the beginning a big ball of energy was created, it appeared out of nothing. There is the problem, they don't know that the conservation law cannot break in the beginning of the universe, otherwise it is not a law. So that has happened because they think everything in terms of time, what kind of time, linear time that it must have started somewhere but no, the existence has no start and it has no end, time is an illusion that simply appears in this existence. We are still teaching this caveman kind of science to our children in the school which is simply a disaster when we have much better models now.

So yes, energy if you translate it into change or vibration will produce the same laws. Now there are some people who will think that look, the laws do not change, so that is true, if the laws do not change that means according to our definition they are true. The laws apply to mathematics, the laws simply describe the illusion using mathematics and they describe only that which is not random, which is ordered and they describe only that part of the illusion which we are capable of experiencing. It will happen that the laws, especially the laws of the mind, laws of the memory, they cannot be broken but that still does not make our experience real.

For example, there are laws in a video game, there are laws in a movie and there are laws in the dream also, very less but they are there, but that does not make the video game and the movie and the dream real. Presence of the laws does not guarantee reality, why are they not changing then? Because the constitution of the mind is like this, it is made like this and it is operating under these laws and so the laws appear to the mind as unchanging but it is equally possible to have an experience or a world where there is a totally different set of laws, it is possible.

Existence is infinite potential and it is possible to have many worlds where there will be different set of laws, yes those laws will remain the same in that world but as soon as you move to another world you will find totally different laws but you will still find laws because the order is the law and the law is the order, without the order there is no meaningful experience and this order is called the law, by order I mean the opposite of disorder, opposite of randomness. So if every world has its own laws, are the laws true? In a small area of the memory, universal memory, you will find a set of laws that never seem to change but as soon as you switch to another area in the memory you will find another set of laws and actually you don't need to go that far, when you take the small part of the universe you will find different set of laws are applicable.

Ultimately you will find there are no laws because you will see that the conservation of energy is applicable only in a closed system but the universe is not a closed system, that is the problem in this law, it is simply assumed that the universe is all there is, that is the materialistic point of view, it is not a closed system and unfortunately we don't have any way to find out these things right now, we don't have any traditional experiments to verify that the universe is not a closed system.

Next question is by Vipin, everything is projected which is the Brahman but how to feel love with everything?

There is no need, the definition of love is that everything is one, it does not mean a feeling or emotion, there is no need to feel it, there is no need to have any kind of emotions about it, as soon as you know everything is one, your actions will be loving by default, automatically your actions will become loving because somehow you cannot harm your own parts, you cannot harm yourself.

Again there will be purification of the intellect here, not appearance of strange emotions or feelings, no, in the path of knowledge that does not happen, simply disappearance of stupidity happens, which is hating everybody, unnecessary violence, unnecessary selfishness.

A little bit of hate is needed, a little bit of violence is needed for protection, self-protection and a little bit of selfishness is needed otherwise this creature will not survive, but when I say unnecessary, that means doing that in ignorance which is more than needed, unneeded action, that will stop, there is no need to shower in the love all the time, that is unrealistic expectation, just be in the awareness, that is much better than being in some kind of feeling which comes and goes, false feeling, be in the truth, that is the teaching.

So those who are expecting that you know some kind of positive change will happen simply because I am the Brahman, no, because you were the Brahman before also, the only positive thing that happens is ignorance is gone, now whatever is happening is perfectly okay, it was perfect before, it is perfect now. Everything is one - does not mean that we love everything, it is impossible, it means we accept everything as it is, acceptance, not some kind of feeling.

Yahia is asking, what can we do when the knowledge is understood intellectually and logically but the body doesn't believe it? I had some success being in the witness and I know myself as just consciousness for extended period of time, the fourth part of PoK program was enough to make me live this truth in the presence of experience, all of my body and emotions were absorbed in this knowing, it was a realization for me within inside out after that.

The body has no intelligence of this kind, the body only knows how to survive, how to grow, how to reproduce and that is perfect, it should be like this. You are trying to impose the intelligence of the higher layers in the lower layers, that is the problem, this is not the problem that the body does not believe it or the body does not react in some special way to what you know, that is not the problem. The problem is the expectation that somehow the knowledge will do some kind of miracle and the body will start doing something else, it will still become hungry, it will still become tired, it will still become old and it will die.

My suggestion is to be in knowledge in whatever way you can. Emotions they need to play, thoughts they need to come. Like I said, if you are in awareness, the unwanted will be gone and when you are saying knowledge is understood intellectually, no, the word intellectual means that somebody told you something and you don't have any experience behind it, that is the meaning of the word intellectual but whatever knowledge we get on the path of knowledge is experiential, so that is the problem. The thought is still there that nothing is appearing in the world because I know something. See, it is already like this, whatever is shown is the current experience only, nothing unusual is shown, the knowledge is from your current experience. There will be a tendency in the mind to think that nothing unusual happened so it cannot be true, it can be only intellectual but actually in the 3-day program or in the path of knowledge program also, all that is shown to you in front of your eyes is your own experience.

And this experience is evaluated through intelligence. What kind of intelligence? That which is purified of notions, assumptions, imaginations, indoctrination, we leave that out and we see things as they are. Nothing intellectual is given on the path of knowledge, actually the intellectual knowledge is simply a collection of facts, data which is given in your school and colleges, no experience behind that knowledge. Your first president was this, your third president was this and this king killed so many people and they call it knowledge! It is simply information which is stored in your mind and people are very quick to believe that that is the true knowledge but if I am showing that which is in front of their eyes they call it merely intellectual.

What can be the reason for it? There is some impurity that means the old thinking is still there that something needs to happen, something unusual needs to happen in order for my experience to become real knowledge. No. If it is true, it is true now, it was true before and it will remain true after this, nothing unusual needs to happen, nothing needs to happen to the body, to the mind, to the world.

He is saying, in the state of truth the body believes the knowledge.

No, the body has no beliefs, the mind has beliefs, beliefs are wrong thoughts, so probably a little bit of ignorance is still there that the body can believe something or the body reacts to the knowledge, probably because of the knowledge there was a silencing of the body-mind which is natural, it comes

in a state of bliss because a lot of load was thrown away, a lot of burden was dropped, so for few days it may seem like a different kind of experience. For example when you carry a big weight on your shoulders when you put it down you feel relaxed, in the same way there can be a psychological effect of clearing of the impurities but that does not mean that the knowledge is intellectual and it needs to happen all the time, that side effect need not happen all the time. The way the body and the mind is right now is perfect, if anything unusual happens in it that is the problem that means there was some impurity, there was some change, there was some clearing somewhere. Something broke in the mind because long ago it was stored and solidified, so that can cause a little bit of side effects but expecting that these side effects will last for life and that only signifies knowledge, that is the sign of knowledge, that is ignorance, that cannot be called an intelligent conclusion.

Leyla is asking, is love acceptance?

Yes you can say like this - I am one, there is only one and that one is I am and in spite of all the differences, all the variety and all the confusion going on in the world it is me. It's fine actually, when we accept like this, that can be called love. It is actually called unconditional love. In spirituality we do not use the word “love” so much, we use surrender, unconditional surrender, unconditional love because we are not asking the world or the people to change in any way, we are accepting everything as it is. Saying that it is me only appearing in various forms, now will that mean that we stop doing that which is necessary? No, if you see a cockroach in your kitchen, it is me, yes but you need to kill it, unconditionally, you see? Your enemy who has attacked your country, you need to kill, and one who is hungry and sick, you need to save his life. Unconditional, do what is needed, this is the real love.

And what is the distorted form of love? Asking everybody to behave as you please, you want something and that must happen all the time. That is called madness, not love, there are some mental issues with that person. Do this because I love you - you must have seen this. Or if you don't do this I will not love you, this is called conditional reflex, the creature is simply trying to survive by saying these words - I love you. Either he or she is trying to get something from the other or they are trying to protect themselves or obviously they are trying to reproduce. Little bit of security, little bit of pleasure and that is called love in the human world but in the spiritual world simply accepting everybody as they are and doing that which is necessary is love.

If you are a mother you will understand that you accept all your children as they are but sometimes you punish them to make them behave properly, that is also love, you are not going to punish somebody else's child to make him behave properly because there is no concern there. Violence is also a part of love. Now it is very tricky for those who do not have knowledge, because it is your conditioning that after knowledge a seeker should become like a saint, should not become angry, should always be loving, if somebody slaps him he should show his other cheek, slap me here also, that is your brain washing by the society. Yes, there are people like this, one in a million will be like this but not practical you see, that kind of love is not practical. I am a big fan of Krishna, he killed left and right when it was needed and he loved intensely when it was needed, he did everything that a human is capable of doing.

So yes there can be other forms of me who are simply silent and praying and somebody runs a road roller on them and they do not say anything, that is a possibility but that is not really the path of knowledge, here we are practical, we know what is love, we have accepted everything as my own part, my own form and still we use intelligence to act, we do not have disrespect for the saintly qualities but we know that they will arrive at the right time when you will leave this world, not before. Before that you need to survive a little bit, minimally, we do the minimum to continue in this world and this world is a dual world, all good and bad will be here and we accept that also. There will be a mixture, it cannot be all good because there is a duality, it is based on the vibration, vibration is both positive and negative. Vibration means it will go in one direction then it will go in another direction like a pendulum and that is also me, I am the good and I am the evil, I am the saint and I am the sinner, everything is me and this kind of attitude is called unconditional love, surrender, acceptance.

Let go of your conditioning about what these words mean and check your experience, you need not behave in a way which people have prescribed, they don't know anything, you need to behave from your knowledge, what does your knowledge say, I am one but the play is going on like this, it is all false, the multiplicity that you see is all false. If somebody is behaving nicely, it is false, nobody is nice, somebody is behaving badly, false, nobody is bad and this machine, the body-mind will react accordingly, if it wants to love somebody like in an emotional, physical way, it will do that, if it wants to protect, defend, it will do that. That is also false, that is also an illusion, that is a part of the dream.

What can you do? You can minimize this excess, do not do it in excess, that much can be done, it cannot be stopped, like he said, the maya does not go away simply because you know it is maya, all you can do is stop the stupidity which was happening before knowledge. You cannot stop the illusion but you can stop acting stupidly in the illusion, in an irresponsible way. That is possible for a human, we cannot change the illusion, it is not possible because there is no doer here, it will change itself, that is what we know. The good will not remain good and the bad will not remain bad, knowing this fully you accept everything as passing, impermanent, that will bring peace in your mind and that is the real treasure, bliss, being peaceful internally is your earning from the path of knowledge, otherwise you will never get anything.

Like he was saying the body is not behaving as I want it, no, are you behaving as you want it? You are peace yourself, you are bliss yourself, is this being reflected in your mind, in your actions? Then the knowledge has done its job.

There is a line between taking everything literally and applying it in the life and thinking intelligently

and improving things in the life which were imbalanced in you. That's all you can do. Where do you want to draw the line, it is your choice, you can do it to the extreme and then you will get the fruits of it, and you don't do anything at all, you remain as solid as a rock, even after the knowledge has happened, that is also not good. So we do whatever is possible for this creature, depending on the desires, if you have a very intense desire to change something in the body and the mind, yes, go ahead and do it, it is not going to make any difference. Your criteria should be - is it producing suffering? Yes, change it. Is it producing happiness, is it neutral? Don't do anything about it, don't fix it, if it is not broken, this is the law, it is perfect as it is.

The only thing the creature wants is freedom from suffering, otherwise it is already free from all points of views and the suffering is caused by simply ignorance, not because the situation is bad, because the people are bad, because the body is not as you please, the suffering is because of ignorance, you change this much, you change that much which makes the suffering disappear, there is nothing more to do, everything is beautiful, everything is perfect, suffering is the problem and that is the problem only for this creature, not for the experiencer, not for the existence, it is completely in acceptance. You see, when I say my nature is love, can't you see that I am completely in acceptance, the experiencer never rejects any experience and it does not want any special kind of experience, so it is already unconditionally

loving, that is my true nature.

The only problem is the suffering that is created in the mind and that is because of not knowing my true nature, otherwise the suffering is an illusion, we don't even want the bad illusion, we want only good illusion, yes, act wisely, that's all. Wisely does not mean a specific kind of behavior, it is not a command, wisely means use your knowledge, use your intelligence and depending on the circumstances do your best, it is very simple.

Jayesh has a question, I have a little personal question, I recently lost someone dear to me, probably more than my parents, there wasn't any attachment, any bondage, any obligation to look after them, love is all there was, now after this information and knowledge about life, world, people we know, there is still some sort of suffering.

You don't want even that much suffering, so look at the nature of this suffering, you are saying after all this information and knowledge, the information does nothing, you need to have proper experience, so if you do not have this conviction that I am bliss and there is no such thing as death and all that you learned, all that you heard from teachers, gurus, from books, if there is no conviction, if you have

not verified it yourself, then there will be two parts in the mind - one will say look this is the reality, there is no death and I am peaceful, I am blissful, but the other part will say look there was a loss, I am not getting that which I wanted, I lost somebody whom I loved and that somebody was real and this one who wanted that person is real. These two parts are there, now is this a good condition? No, there is suffering, yes, because the knowledge is not absorbed completely, it is still at a level of listening only, you heard it from somebody, but probably you did not realize it, the meaning of the word realize it to make it real. Realize.

How to do that? With your own experience and with your own intellect.

Now it will happen that sometimes you will forget the knowledge, that is why we have the awareness practice, probably you are not doing that and even those who do the awareness practice, they forget to do the practice and the old tendencies start running in the mind, that is actually suffering, so the root cause of this problem is that you are not on the path, you are not on the proper path, you are not walking systematically, probably you heard one or two things, but that is all that has happened. The hot pan comes in the picture again, after touching the hot pen, you will never repeat it, you will never touch it, because it is real, the hot pen is real and will you complain that no matter what I do, I go and touch the hot pen again and again, every day I touch the hot pen, if somebody says don't touch it, I go and touch it, will you say like this? Never, because the experience was real for you, that you got burned by the hot pan, it was a real experience, it is impressed in your memory and you always remember it. In the same way who you are should become a truth for you, otherwise this practice is of no use. If you don't know who you are, what are you trying to be aware of? And if you are not doing any kind of systematic work, if you are not walking on any spiritual path, if you don't have any teacher, any guru, then yes, this whatever you heard will remain as information, like you said intellectual knowledge.

You have never seen it and these kinds of questions will be there, that I know everything but still I keep doing the same things. What does it say, either the first part should be wrong or the second part should be wrong. If you know everything, there should be automatic stopping of all the suffering or all these actions and if the suffering is still there, that means the knowledge is not there or you are forgetting it, even if you realized it, you are not making any effort to remember it or to put it into use in your everyday life.

Jayesh is saying, I am having a hard time realizing, I use this loss as a trigger for awareness practice, before this I was quite content, maybe this suffering will take me to knowledge.

It looks like you have devised your own practices in your mind, which will do nothing. Those who think that by doing tricks like these - I will use this loss as a trigger for awareness - they will progress, no, it does not work like this. All you need to do is follow the instructions, walk on the path, if you are interested in the path and if you cannot then take something else. Creating your own imaginary practices, assuming that this will do this, that will do that, because I know everything, it's not intelligence. Only a guru can take you to knowledge, the suffering takes you to the guru.

There are millions and trillions of people who are suffering, do they become knowledgeable? Do they realize their true nature? No, the suffering wakes them up a little bit, probably that which I was doing is not good, now let me find somebody, let me find the answers. This path is not for you, try something else, that is my instruction also, purify your mind a little bit and then you can return to the path of knowledge. There is no problem here, some things work for some people, sometimes they do not work

for everybody. Do not waste your time, do something which works, which is suitable for you, where you can learn something and if you cannot learn anything, simply try to live a good life.

Yahia is saying, can you mention what are some simple practices for awareness?

A full practice routine is given in the program. Can I simply tell people to do it and they will do it? No, you need to go through the whole program step by step, that is necessary, you need the knowledge. You need the knowledge of what you are first, then you need the knowledge of what you're not, so that you do not confuse it with yourself. Once all these things are revealed, awareness is possible. That is our technique, the technique is step by step, disciplined and what is the expectation of an average seeker, that some kind of miracle should happen and I will come in awareness by chanting this mantra or by worshiping this deity or something like this or doing a mechanical robotic exercise of some kind. That is not our path, we go very systematically and then a routine is given for both meditation, awareness, purification, wherever there are impurities that need to be purified and then a little bit of awareness shows up in this lifetime.

This is how it is, knowledge takes no time but this creature does not really want that, there are lots of resistances, obstacles, impurities and then a little bit of awareness arrives. So yes, lifelong practice is needed and that is your choice, if you want you can remain as you are naturally, no practice is needed. Like the hot pan example, automatically you will do the right thing, automatically there will be awareness. There is an old story about the lion and sheep, the lion was told only once that you are the lion, did he keep practicing all of his life to remain a lion? No, you see, the superman needs to know only once that he is superman and he can do whatever he wants for the rest of his life, he can use his superpowers. Why do we need practice then? There are probably some impurities. Normally we don't need that kind of strict practice, it is simply remembrance, bringing back the mind into knowledge again and again and again, to undo that which it was doing before. That takes a little bit of practice but just like the lion, you don't need to do so much. If the lion gets a thought one day that probably I am the sheep, I need to eat grass and there is a practice to become a lion, he is a stupid lion.

Don't think like this. This is the practice, become aware. Oh these thoughts are coming. They are just old programming, old habits. That is the practice, what can be more simple than that? But yes we have made it a part of the program, those who are interested in going through that program will see the benefits. Don't be the sheep, this is the practice, don't be the ordinary man, be a superman. Now some people are not convinced that the practices can be so simple, yes they are so simple, for those people who cannot believe that the practice is so simple, the spiritual life is so simple, it does not even take intelligence, for them I can make a convoluted practice, no problem at all, you get up in the morning,

stand on your head and run for five kilometers and chant this mantra and then repeat I am not the body, I am not the mind. I can make it so complicated that finally they think it is doing something. Exactly that has happened for many many paths that are not based on knowledge. All they have is practice and those who are practicing they don't know what they're practicing. You can see that kind of drama happening in the land of spirituality, people don't know what they are doing. Knowledge comes first then comes establishing in the knowledge which is very very simple.

I have given you three alternatives - you can simply be what you are as much as you can, join the program and do that kind of routine practice or I can give you something so complicated that it will become another struggle for you. The end of the spiritual path is knowing the ultimate truth. You don't really need practices. That which is practicing is an illusion, will become dirt, so what is the real practice on the path of knowledge? Live a simple, joyful, fulfilling, pure life. That is the practice. These words - mindfulness, awareness and this and that samadhi, were invented for people who cannot live a simple life, who are not peaceful enough. They are given this kind of placebo medicine. They probably have too much energy, cannot live a simple life, cannot be silenced and we cannot force the silence also. The silence is the final achievement of a seeker, not awareness. So we give them something, we keep them engaged and we say yes you are doing good, you are walking on the path now. But the guru is simply waiting for that person to stop. Like the petrol in the car, when exhausted the car stops finally. So these practices are simply given to burn the petrol, which we call prarabdha. We keep them engaged - do this, do that, you will be happy, you will be immortal, you will become a god. Like this, we lie to these people that this will happen and that will happen.

That which you are has already happened. What will happen is pure illusion, it is all false. But yes the mind likes the false more than the true. This truth is boring. So why not? Like I said, the illusion will continue. Now what to do? These tendencies are turned towards a good direction, they are given a direction where you can keep doing whatever you want, whatever practices you want and still remain on the path. And I have seen that the awareness practice is the best because your mind thinks I'm practicing something, it is going to do something. Very nice for this creature and on the other hand there is always a remembering of who you are. You see, two birds - one stone. That is why we have also adopted this practice of awareness because people always demand practice even if they know that it is not needed.

This is not needed. Only knowledge is enough. Just verify it thoroughly, convince yourself, remove your doubts completely and nothing will be needed. They know all these things but still, probably I'll forget this thing, probably I'll forget who I am, probably my guru will stop talking to me if I don't do anything spiritual. What is spiritual? You need to learn these things because there is a little bit of conditioning there, which is manifesting. I can see this and then it is given, some dose is given, some kind of proper instrument is given, which simply fixes this. And normally we cannot fix these things, so we simply let it run till it stops. You can stop now if you want.

It is human tendency to tell everybody that I know something and it can be a practice also. The guru says go and teach because probably the guru knows this person will never sit quietly. Some direction is given to the mind in order not to fall back in the trap of illusion. It is necessary. You came to know that I am the silence because somebody spoke to you, he was not silent, he told you this thing, he wrote the book, he made the video. It is a kind of sacrifice in my opinion, that the guru breaks his silence so that the student can become silent. He has to help others, to serve. This is called compassion, love, kindness.

This is something more than simply exhausting/burning up your energies/desires. Something more than giving a direction to the mind and this is a real thing now and that is why nothing is asked in return, it's only given and the guru is saying that yes I can live my life peacefully, others are just illusions, although they are my forms but ultimately there is no knowledge and they just don't know this. That is not a big deal in this universe, there will be billions and billions who will always remain ignorant, so why should I do it? The guru can say like this but what is the tendency there, which is called the Bodhisattva tendency, that if I can remove ignorance from one person, my life will be fulfilled. This is the tendency. When there is a fire in the grassland, you must have seen those big hills where there's nothing but dry grass and sometimes they catch fire. What do we do to stop the spreading of the fire? We burn a little bit of grass around the hill, that's all we do. The burnt grass does not catch fire and the fire stops. It's a very good technique - fire stops fire. And in the same way the speech or the action stops the action, makes you silent.

Everybody is not told to teach because we do not observe this kind of tendency in them. Very few people have this kind of tendency. The rest want to be silent/peaceful but many want to practice. So yes, why not? Practice then. Our goal is to become free from practices, not to do them. And the practice is always like this especially on the path of knowledge, which frees you from the practice. It will always be like this and the awareness practice is the same. Ultimately it becomes your second nature, which means you become habitual of it and there is no need to do it, unlike other practices.

Siddhant is saying, can we say that the whole universe is one single organism?

You can say that as a metaphor. What is an organism? You know there is birth, there is growth, there is

some activity, it does something, then there is death. And look at the universe. You don't need to look at the whole of the universal memory, just look at the physical universe. It appears, it grows/evolves, it does something, who knows what then it disappears. So as above, so below. Same thing is happening at all the levels probably. We don't know about the beginning and the end of it but we can guess, we can use the logic. Because it is changing - that alone is a confirmation that it will disappear and because it will disappear that alone is the confirmation that it appeared. How and why is not important. That which is the tiniest, is doing exactly that which is the biggest. Same thing. And we know what is that, what is that same thing. One word for this thing is - survival. So metaphorically everything is doing the same thing, they are dancing the same dance, small memory is doing that, the big memory is doing that, and the universal memory is doing that. No difference.

But what happens if you start calling the universe an organism, the ignorant people will say that look they call the universe an organism, now the universe can be good, it can be bad, it will think like this, it will do like this. Why did the universe create? Created all these relatives! And why did the universe create this kind of job or this kind of country? And now you know what happens, this is madness. So we'll never say that the whole thing is an organism because those who don't know the meaning of the word “organism”, will try to use their limited understanding to know what it is and that will be a very very wrong picture. They will try to impose the qualities of an organism on the universe. The organism is whatever they see around them - people or creatures or whatever, a parahuman, some kind of big human in the sky. That is why this is a dangerous word. The word organism means something which is organized. In that sense it is an organism.

He is asking, is information about the background of a student and his past experience helpful for spreading the knowledge?

Sometimes it is necessary but most of the time all you need to know is - whether that student has accepted the path and whether the student is ready to listen to the teacher. That's all we need to

know and we can proceed. If he has done so many practices in the past, so many paths and all, we

don't really need to know, because the path of knowledge will wipe out all that. Totally unnecessary. If that fellow was on the path of knowledge and did not succeed then we can still try once more. We can do something, try to find out what happened but usually the background is not so important. The guru is eager to remove the ignorance. Now there cannot be any excuse that this fellow has no background or this person has some different background, he's not suitable - we cannot say like this, we simply try to do our best.

Look, this is the experience, this is the experiencer, this is the illusion, this is the existence and we provide all kinds of evidence, we show all the experiences we can show and we hope that that person will adopt the path and that it will be fruitful. So you must have seen this in the 3d. In the 3d program we simply start talking. We do not ask for the prior job experience and which guru you visited in the past. Very rarely. Sometimes it happens that the person is not getting even one sentence of what I'm saying and then a curiosity is there - why? What happened here? Why is there such a big disaster here? Then we want to know, why are you like this, cannot understand I am not a chair, I am not a table. What is wrong with you? Then we ask what did you do or sometimes he's asking some other questions, like how to turn the stone into gold. No, you are the experiencer, focus on this, try to know what you are. No, tell me how to contact the ghost of my father who died. And then we need to ask some questions. So you still want to know or do you still want to see your father? Something like this. We check the background. Usually we don't need to check it 90 percent of the time. Those who contact me or the other teachers here, they have a clear will to know, otherwise they don't contact me. It's highly boring for these people. It doesn't really matter what the student has done in the past. If he's ready to receive the knowledge, he gets it. We are not trying to change the past, we are not trying to fulfill their expectations. What are we trying to do? We are trying to seed the knowledge. Look, this is called knowledge, this is how it is, this is what we do in the path of knowledge. That will be a seed. So we simply assume that this person is a raw blank slate and we try to seed this knowledge, we try to make an impression in this memory which is blank and this also helps the teacher to concentrate more on the knowledge and less on the paths that person was on. You do not assume things. Like somebody can say I've read all the scriptures, now tell me the last thing. There are people like this. So we always start from the beginning. You do not even ask how many scriptures you read because then the teacher can become biased. Probably he knows everything about maya, I'll simply give him the knowledge of the oneness. It is possible, we take shortcuts sometimes when we come to know that the person already knows but we don't really know simply because the student has said that I know, it does not guarantee it. We do not have enough time to take a test there, to conduct an exam there, so we continue the scripted program. It is scripted. All this is done for some good reason, it's not a shortcoming of the program, the script runs like this. Without asking about the background or anything and we do not give them any expectations also like nowhere in the program we mentioned that you will become this or you will become that, nothing like this, no promises. In short the desire is the criteria and how much they want the knowledge is the criteria, not what they have done so far.

Session 212

Discussion on exam questions -

Mention five advantages and five disadvantages of the path of knowledge.

This is a very subjective question. Everybody will have their own opinions about the path of knowledge. We can say that there can be some disadvantages from the point of view of some seekers. For example, the path of knowledge has the disadvantage that it requires a high level of intelligence. It is not for common people. And then it requires a lot of study, writing skills, communication skills, and so on. Nowadays we don't require it, but still we require some knowledge of Sanskrit or old texts. So like this, we can find out some disadvantages of the path of knowledge. There are no practices here. There is no self cultivation here. Like this, people can find out some “problems” in the path of knowledge. But if you do not see any problems here, no disadvantages, then also it is OK. Because it will be very, very subjective. For many people, there are only disadvantages here. Because it does not give you any powers, any strange experiences, anything that can fulfill your desires. Nothing is achieved here. These qualities, characteristics of the path of knowledge can be viewed as a disadvantage by many people who are not ready for this path.

Which qualities are desired but are not absolutely necessary for a seeker?

You already know the qualities that are necessary for the seeker. The first is intense desire for liberation from the ignorance and curiosity to know, open mindedness. All these things are necessary. Then there comes a long list of qualities which are preferable, desirable. But some of them can be absent in the seeker. Like the ability to get the essence of the lecture in a few lines. Because that can be learned. You don't need to have it ready-made in you. Critical thinking. If there is a little bit of physical illness, it's OK. It's not absolutely necessary to be an athlete to get trained on the path of knowledge. You can have a normal body, but that is not the case for other paths. For example, the yogic paths and all where you need a very fit body. So like this, we can find out some qualities that are not absolutely necessary. That can be cultivated with time. As you progress on the path, you will get these qualities.

What is the truth? Can there be subjective truth?

According to our definition, it is the classification of experiences. Why do we need to classify them? In order to act. That's all. This definition has been given. We start from here. And we find out that all the experiences get classified as false. And only the experiencer remains. Which is the truth? And the second part of the question was, can there be subjective truth? And yes, all the truths are subjective only. It is a subjective and arbitrary classification. Depending on the need, necessity. And we knowingly choose a criteria which takes us to the ultimate. We do not choose anything which is smaller. We do not compromise here. When it comes to the choice of criteria for truth. So unchanging is the truth.

Why is existence empty?

When we analyze the existence, experience, experiencer, we will never find a reason. Because reason is something which is man-made. Which means it is assumed. In existence there are no reasons for anything. Then the little intellect of the humans, because it can see some reasons in its everyday life

which are actually connected to survival only, tries to project, impose a reason on the whole existence. So why is it empty? Why is it like that? Why? Intellect wants to know the reason. But it is an impossibility to find a reason. Existence is experience and experiencer. Now you try to find the reasons for these two faces of existence and you will never find it.

Reason also means the cause. The “why” also points to the cause. And when we say why is existence empty, we are actually asking what is the cause of emptiness in existence. That can be one meaning of this question. What caused emptiness in this whole existence? And as you know, there are no causes in existence. The cause is simply an invention of the mind. It is an illusion. All causes are illusory. There can be an infinite series of causes. If I tell you one cause, you can always ask what is the cause of that? And there will be an infinite series of causes. Which is totally illogical.

If existence were yellow, you could ask why is it yellow? And I could have answered something silly. But then you can again ask, why is it like this? What is the reason for the reason? So ultimately, existence simply is. Emptiness is existence, existence is emptiness. There is no why. It is just like saying, why is the circle round? Round is circle and circle is round. There is no why here. That is what it is. You should be very careful about the play of words here. When we say emptiness, we are actually pointing to the existence, not to any quality of the existence. The existence has no qualities at all. It is devoid of qualities. So those who think that emptiness is a quality in existence, no, it is substance-less. Emptiness is equal to existence. It's not a quality.

Sky is saying, I am doing the path of knowledge program. So far I have done a few lessons. Existence's possibilities are experiences. So can we choose those possibilities and how? What are the limitations?

The choice means that there is an agency. There is somebody who does the analysis, relative advantages, disadvantages, things and so on. And that is called a person. But you will learn that. There is no person. It is an illusion. So whatever this illusion does is also an illusion. So whatever choices it is making is simply an illusion. What is your essence? The one that is witnessing all these, all of this drama. And it does not choose anything. It simply accepts everything unconditionally. Whatever kind of experience is presented, whatever appears, simply witnessing. So my suggestion is to continue in the program. Till you get to the chapter of self-realization and oneness. And all these questions will be answered. Why is there no person? Why is everything an illusion? Try to investigate the reality of the person who is making choices. And you will find nobody. You will find only processes happening. Processes of decision making. Process of liking and disliking. Depending on the past impressions. Like a program it runs. And then there is a process that arises. A thought arises. And this is my choice. This me and mine, who says it? Who takes this responsibility of choosing something after the choice has happened? There is a process that runs after everything has happened. And it says it is mine. It is required for survival. The body-mind is a machine. It does not say anything. Body-mind is not an entity. It is a collection of patterns. Vibrating patterns. It is the ego. The process of the ego. The layer of the ego. That activates after everything has happened. And says it is my decision. This is my choice. There is nobody there. So her question was, so can we choose? “We” means what? You could have asked, can I choose? And what is the “I” here? You need to know. You need to define the I first. And if “I” is the ego, that is an illusion. If I is the experiencer, then it does not make any kind of choice. It is simply a witness of all the illusory choices.

Sky is saying, at some point ego is making a conscious choice to learn what you are teaching. Or being gravitated towards self-realization. That is what appears to be the case.

Ego is not making a choice. Ego is claiming that it is my choice. That is the definition of ego. The process that says I and me and mine. The process that owns some events in the mind or the body in the world. That is called ego. So what is the meaning of conscious choice? The choices are not conscious. And the ego is not conscious. It is simply an activity. Only you are conscious. Only the consciousness is conscious. Which does not do anything, it is not the doer. So it simply appears that the individual is doing something, deciding something. Then it decides to get the knowledge. We can say like this. But it is the relative truth. From the absolute point of view. It simply happened like this. And then the claim was made - I did this. So since you are new, we can give you some concessions. Okay you are doing it. It was your choice. Very good choice. Now continue on your path. If I tell you that there is nobody there to do anything, then probably everything will stop. So usually for new seekers, this concession is given. The truth is that there is no doer, there are no choices, there is only illusion. But for newcomers, because they cannot understand this thing, we say okay you choose because you have the ability to choose. You choose something good and progress. Do something. That much can be allowed. But as you progress, you will drop all this “I, me and mine”, they will be replaced by being. That's all. Simply being. My essence is simply being. Whatever happens here is simply my own false appearance. That's all. This is basic knowledge, essential knowledge. So till that happens, you can continue choosing.

Can we choose those possibilities? Yes you can choose those possibilities if you want. How to choose them? That is called the intention. Make an intention. That whatever is beneficial for me should happen. If you don't know what to choose. You can choose something which is general. Whatever is most beneficial for me, let that happen. Very simple. Make this intention very very strong and the choice will be made. Probably you are asking how to arrive at the correct choice. This must be learnt by experience. The actions that are producing happiness and freedom, they are good choices. And the actions that are producing suffering and bondage, not so good. Follow the compass of happiness and you will see that this will lead to good choices. Check whether this choice is going to produce long term happiness, long term freedom, and that must be chosen. So this is the answer at the relative level. And at the absolute level it is completely meaningless. This is something like the free will question. Many people ask this - Do I have free will? And the immediate answer is if you are doubtful, then probably you don't have it. Why are you asking if you have it? Why are you trying to confirm it? The answer that is given here is for the relative knowledge, for the newcomers. Yes you have the free will. Now use it to will something good. Something beneficial for everyone. Something beautiful. And that is the step forward for them. If you simply tell them no there is no free will. Probably they will find some other path where there is free will.

This business of lying is very common. This is called incremental knowledge. Or I have called it multilevel knowledge. As the student progresses, bigger and bigger doses are given. The bitter truth is told incrementally. And then I said that the path of knowledge is not a multilevel teaching. The final thing is told in the beginning. Then there is a bomb blast. And now you need to make sense of it. Why was this said? What is the evidence for this? What are the means of knowledge? What gives you the evidence? Now the whole process of the path of knowledge starts. It's like a circle. You start from the top. Then arrive at the top again. This time with all the evidence. Verification.

Now you understand the presence of the first lesson in the program. That gives you complete knowledge in a few words, in 5 minutes. That is the complete knowledge. Then why do I need the whole program? Because that is the process. Evidence gathering. Verification process. That is why I say in the beginning - Those who could understand what I just said in the first chapter, they need not continue the program. Who should do it? Those who are still asking. Those who still have some doubt about what was said. Now that doubt will be cleared step by step. Then you must be wondering why this madness, why don't you go step by step? This is the tradition. This is how it is presented in all the scriptures. Thousands of years of teaching style is like this. So I was very much impressed by this style.

Because it evolved after many thousand years of teaching. There is an advantage there. Going backwards. I tried to copy that. Probably it's not that perfect copy. But still some effort was made to go backwards. In the 3D program we start from the bottom, not from the top. And some people find it very easy that way. But on the path of knowledge program we start from the top. That is why it is difficult. So those who have not done 3D so far, they should do the 3D first. That will help.

Sky is asking, so is ego making any choices called Karma?

Yes you can say that. Karma means actions. And actions happen only when a choice is made. So we do not call it a choice. We call it desire in the traditional way. The desires appear and the actions happen. That is what we say. And Karma means that only. Strangely there is no word in the scriptures or anywhere which is about choosing in the Advaita philosophy. The Sanskrit word would be nirnay. And it is never mentioned. That concept of making any choices is totally absent from this philosophy. So you will need to do this kind of manipulation of the words. Which word fits the words like choice? And the best word is will. And the will simply means desire. So yes all the actions arise from the will. And they result in some kind of experience, good or bad. That will be called your action. And the ego is held responsible. You make some kind of mistake and who gets the punishment? Usually the body-mind gets the punishment, not the ego. The ego then later on says that I got punished. It is a totally fictitious entity. There is no ego. Suppose you fail in the exam and your parents slap you. Who gets the punishment? The body. Not the ego. By mistake you put your hand in the fire. Burning candle. Whose action is this? Egos? No. But still it is an action. And who gets the fruits? The body. Then the ego says oh I got burned. I got punished. And then the whole story starts. It was not my fault. It was somebody else's fault. And the illusion then perpetuates like this. Like layers of the onion. Ultimately there is nothing inside. All are layers of illusions.

Probably right now you won't understand what I am saying. But the working definition of Karma is actions done by the person, not the ego. It is very strange because this is our everyday experience. There is a will to eat junk food and the body suffers. And who takes the responsibility? Nobody. In that case the ego should say it was my decision, it was my choice to eat that kind of food. But it says - no it happened. It is the fault of the shopkeeper who gave me the stale food, bad food.

So it is very tricky you see. This is usually seen in marriages. It is their choice to marry. And they say my choice was correct. But this person is very different from what I expected. So you see, ultimately it is a complete drama. Most of the time this thing which says I, me, mine remains intact. Nothing happens to it. Continues to do that. But the body and mind suffer most of the time. And not only that the body and mind is the one that enjoys the good fruits. And the claim is again taken by the ego that I did this, I did something good, produced happiness, achieved something.

There is a very good metaphor given by Francis in one of his talks, that the ego is like the joker who takes the bow after the acrobat has done his show. That is the ego. Those who have seen these circus shows, the joker is the comedian. He fails at every performance. That is his acting actually. He makes people laugh. But then he comes on the stage in the limelight. And takes the bow. That I am the one who did all the performance. This is a very good metaphor. Very accurate. Nothing is done by the ego. Still it is the one who claims I did it. But yes, the newcomers will never understand these things.

Actions happen and the doer appears. We all know why it appears. Because it is needed for survival. It is needed for functioning in a society also. Probably the society is the one that reinforces the ego more.

Because now there is a need to separate the individuals. Who did what? The law and the system need to know. Whom we should blame. Whom we should praise. And this whole society then enforces this wrong idea of there being a person. Probably the animals that live alone do not have that much of the ego. Because the ego arises by looking at other people. Then a similar concept, similar imagination is made for the self. Just like others are doing their jobs, others are willing and acting, there is one here that is willing and acting. See how beautiful this explanation is - Ego arose as a reaction to society. As a survival mechanism. Evolutionary pressure to separate itself from the group. Those who want to learn more about this psychology can learn about this thing. There was no ego in the beginning. The humans did not have an ego. This is the story given in our scriptures. Indian scriptures. And it was a heavenly age. Then the ego said I am separate. And then everything became hellish. So what is self-realization? Simply destruction of the ego. You become that which you are. And kick out this joker, clown. And you are again established in bliss. This is the whole self-realization.

Now I remember that one of my gurus said that you have an ego problem. I said what? I don't have that kind of problem. I am a very polite person and so on. But the correct meaning of this word was not told to me. Because I was also new. Could not understand anything. So my guru said work on your ego. Kill it. Destroy it. And then I said how? But I was never told how. I was sent home. Go home. You will never understand. You are stupid. That's what my guru used to say. So I went home and I simply meditated, contemplating on what this is. Tried to read about the ego and so on. Finally got some clues that it is a survival mechanism. That is coming in between you and the real you. You and your true nature. This joker is standing in between. So that is why it is called ego death. Self-realization is also called the ego death. And nothing to fear because nothing dies. Because nothing was there. It is simply a realization that there is no person. I am the universal, not the personal. This is self-realization. And yes, the newcomers struggle a lot. Just like I struggled. Then I told my guru after one month, why didn't you simply tell me that I am the universal? There is no ego? And the answer was that you are stupid. You won't understand these things. See, if we simply tell somebody that you are universal, you are the universe, you are the Brahman, they will listen but they will not understand.

He is saying, can we say ego is a conceptual, fictional, theoretical self we created by our own mind?

Yes, everything is like this, not only ego. All experiences are illusory. Created by mind, fictional, theoretical, concepts. What do these words mean? Imaginary. And what is the purpose for that? Survival. Once you progress, the ego is no more needed. And we are freed from this limitation of being an individual. You can achieve this right now, right here, thanks to the path of knowledge. Otherwise, Mother Nature is actually taking you to an egoless state. It happens every night also. It's kind of a useless state, isn't it? Fully operating from the ego and fully knowing that it is a fiction, it is imaginary

is the correct way. And nobody told me this either. This path of knowledge can be very confusing. You guys are so lucky you get all the pre-cooked answers, but I never got these answers directly. So, that is why there are questions and answers, you see? Because I want to ensure that you did not simply hear me. You understood it. And sometimes those who answer wrongly, we need to pay more attention to these people. Mostly on the path of knowledge, the gurus don't do anything. You see, they simply sit and wait for the question. And the one who has more ignorance will ask more questions. So obviously, that is an automatic process. And the seekers are given tiny doses which do not give them answers. They give them the method to discover the answer. This happened to me many times. But nobody has that kind of time nowadays. It is a big deal that you are doing this program where everything is told directly. Imagine if I played like this. Go and discover the Ego yourself. Come after two months and find out who is looking. Come after one year. These are the means. Direct experience and logic. I don't know what logic is. Okay, study for five years, come back. Most of the time this happens on the path of knowledge. Imagine, nobody will know anything like this.

Sky is saying, Ramana Maharishi said - ask who am I. Answer is I am Brahman. Intellectually I understand it, now what?

No, there is no such thing as intellectual understanding. Direct experience and logic. Now that. You heard it. Now find out why that is true. How will you find out? And there is your path of knowledge. You can see that Ramana Maharshi is doing exactly that. He is not taking you step by step. He is not doing any multi-level teaching. He is telling you directly. Now it is the job of the seeker to find out why that is true. And if you cannot find out, this path is useless. And that is why in the program also I say that, if you cannot verify the teachings, leave the path. Leave the program. Leave the Guru. No hope. That is how brutal this path is.

Listening is the first phase. What is the Guru saying? Now contemplate on it. Verify it. And then abide as the Brahman. These are the steps on the path of knowledge. I tried to replicate those steps in our path of knowledge program. Exactly like the tradition is. However, it is very funny that people think I am not traditional. Where will you go? Can you invent a better teaching method? Can you invent a better philosophy? No. It's all traditional. Simply changing the words in the language does not make it new. Simply putting it online does not make it new. This is age old. Since the beginning of the universe, this is how the Guru teaches the student. There is no better way. So, continue in the program. All kinds of evidence is given there. How to find out I am Brahman? Everything is mentioned in clear detail. And if you cannot understand, we have the Satsang.

Unfortunately, you cannot go to Raman Maharshi and ask this question. Why did you say this? That is why there is the importance of a living Guru. Not only living, he must be approachable. You should be able to talk to that Guru. You must be able to sit with that Guru for one or two hours per week at least. Just like we are doing. Then these questions - this Guru said this and that Guru said that - are worthless. Pay attention to what this Guru is saying who is alive in front of you. Did you miss the teachings of the one who is talking to you? Where is your attention? There are much better teachers. But they are no more. They are reduced to a book. The book does not talk in Satsang. Worthless. Talk to somebody who is alive. Living embodiment of the Advaita knowledge. Then there is some hope of progress. If you are still trying to find the knowledge in the dead wood, which is the book, the strange symbols in the book, which is the writing, no hope. Pay attention to what is taught. And it is simply showing. It is not teaching really. The whole program is showing. We do not say, we show on the path of knowledge. How do we show? Simply by pointing. The Guru points. The Guru never tells you the knowledge. So saying I am Brahman does nothing. Useless. Then I cannot show you the Brahman also. I can only point. Where is the problem? Why can't you see that which is in front of your eyes? I say don't look there, look here, that is all I do. There are some who can take the pointing. And some keep looking at my finger. Look at your experience. Look at that place where the finger is pointing to. That is the proper way to study on the path of knowledge. Look at your own experience. Utilize your own critical thinking. Your own intelligence. To check what was said and what is. If you have a doubt, you must ask. If you do not ask, you will never progress.

Now you understand my mistake when I went to my Guru. I never asked. I demanded - Tell me this, tell me that. And the Guru always said, you will never understand, you are stupid. So it took many years for me to ask a proper question. And the proper question was, How to know that I am not any experience, I am not a body, I am not any thought or ego. How? How to know that? And that day the Guru smiled. He did not call me stupid. He said, now you are ready. Finally you asked something which is intelligent. Then he said, we know everything by four means - Your experience, logic, scriptures and Guru. That was the end of the path of knowledge.

End of path of knowledge because the Guru and the scripture can be reduced to experience and logic. And everything appeared simply before me. Actually I have done this kind of experiment with somebody. I think I said in one of my satsangs that I did not tell him who you are, I did not tell all this complicated philosophy. I simply explained the means of knowledge. Look, this is the means of knowledge, what can you find out right now without any biases? After cleaning your slate, what do you see? And you know what happened? That fellow came up with all the advaita. He was intelligent. Anybody, a reasonably intelligent person, given the means of knowledge, will derive the whole advaita in five minutes. So as homework, some people can try that. In the 3D program, we take three hours. It is actually three minutes. Knowing the truth can be so simple, so easy, so fast. What is preventing you?

You are not asking the right question. And the Guru cannot say like this. Please ask me this thing. That will be a very very comical, artificial way to teach. So the Guru simply waits for the right time, you see? You are given one lie after another and then one day the right question comes. That is the end.

But I have seen that there is more sense of achievement in that kind of technique. If I tell you everything, you are the Brahman, now go home. Then the value of that knowledge is not really grasped. It is not appreciated that much. Yes, I am Brahman, I have to go to work tomorrow. I don't have money. Nobody respects me. Nobody loves me. Now what? It will become just another trivial fact that you learnt somewhere. So the Gurus are real geniuses. They will make you realize who you are. And then they will make you appreciate what you have. What did you get? This is part of the Guru training, isn't it? So why are we not doing like this? We are doing that also, you see. And that happens later. First the knowledge is given. Then we wait for the student to realize the value of that knowledge. Because, you know, probably it will be trashed. So we wait for the suffering to arise again. And then the student comes back. You told me I am bliss, I am happiness, I am this. There is suffering. Okay. Do you realize what you learn? Do you realize its importance? Is it that important for you that you are using it in your day to day life? What? Do I need to use it also? Yes. You were told about the awareness practice. What happened? No, no. I cannot do all these things, you see. I am very busy.

So you see, nothing was understood. Nothing was appreciated. If knowledge did not become the most important thing in your life, probably nothing was understood. So that is called the seeding of knowledge, which many people have heard many times from my mouth. Seeding of knowledge. We are interested in that. We cannot force people to appreciate it. We cannot force people into some kind of practice. We seed it. And they come back. Those who are ready, they will come back. Then the cultivation happens. Those who are not ready, they go away. They are lost somewhere. But the seed will remain. They will search and they will find exactly the same knowledge everywhere. They will probably realize that I wasted my time. But nothing can be done. So those who have made spiritual life their top priority, they are very lucky. Probably they are more lucky than those who simply heard it.

Session 213

Discussion of questions of a test follows.

What is the final result of the destination of the path of knowledge?

The path of knowledge does not lead to any kind of knowledge, it leads to agnostic position, agnosticism where the knowledge is discarded in favor of silence, this is known to very few people because they are at the starting point of the path of knowledge, as you reach the end which will come very soon, you will find that there is nothing worth knowing, there is something which is worth being which you already are, that is the end of the path of knowledge. It actually self destroys in the end, very beautiful.

If there is perfection in existence, why is there so much ignorance?

Ignorance and knowledge are needed to complete the existence, without ignorance we cannot call it complete.

Names and forms are always present with the essence, why are they false?

They are present but they are present as changing, their nature is impermanence. One can say that the clay pot is always present with the form of pot and name of pot, then why are you saying that it is not there? Because clay can be present in any other form also, if it is present in a hundred forms then which is the true form? That is the question. That is where the logic comes in, if you simply observe the clay pot in isolation you would think that there is only one name and form then why are you saying it is false? That will be the question. But look at all the forms of the clay and ask this question which one is the true form of the clay and then you will find in this metaphor there is no true form. Your intellect may say no this form is true, no that is true, now tomorrow there is some other form, which one is true? Then you will get negative knowledge here that no the forms do not define my experience of clay pot, they are made on the spot by the senses. Change the senses and the form will change. Change the language and names will change. So they are all false.

I wanted to make this point that when we are born in this world, what do we see? We see a consistent world, objects, people, animals, they exist. Emotions, thoughts exist and because we never see anything which is totally different from these, these are the forms taken by the existence in the case of the physical world and we do not get any opportunity to see anything more than this and that is why this belief becomes very solid - this is true. This is how everything is. But all you need to see is that these forms are changing. Even though there is a consistency imposed on the forms and then it becomes obvious that we are looking at something which is false, illusion.

Existence has no form, or start and end, then how is it known by direct experience?

The definition of existence is experience and the experiencer, or you can say combine them into one, the experiencing. Is it not here and now? Nobody will say no, everybody will say yes, this is how it is, this is how existence is known by being here and now. In philosophical language we say it is self-evident, no evidence is needed. How can we say something is self-evident? When its negation actually proves it. If we try to say there is no existence what happens? These words are heard, these words become the experience and they are heard by the experiencer. Denial proved it, that is the hallmark of self-evident things.

I am the existence, existence is confirming it, existence is affirming it using this form, this little human form. Now do we need direct experience of some kind of form or its start or its end, do we need to

look at the objective experience? What is the question saying, why can't we see existence as an object, because objects have form, objects have a start, objects have an end, but existence has none of these. So it should not be there, that is what the faulty logic is saying. But yes, it is not there as an object. It is the ground on which all the objects are present, all the experiences are present. It is not a subject matter of perception, you can say it is the perceiver, using some other words, not our standard terminology. Not the perceived but the perceiver and whatever it perceives is also itself, its own illusory forms. That is the essential knowledge. Knowledge of the existence is the essential knowledge and it is self-evident, nothing is needed to prove it.

Experiencer is everywhere, true or false?

It is non-local, and once you say non-local, you should not say true or false, that is the trick in the question. Why do we say it is everywhere? Because that is the general language, that is an inaccurate language. Omnipresent. But what is the technical language, what is the language of philosophy? It is non-local, means the words pointing to locations do not apply to the experiencer. Not only to the experiencer, to the experience, to the existence and all the fundamentals. As soon as you use the word “where and when”, these do not apply here, they apply to the objects.

This should not be taken as true that it is everywhere but it is also not false, so that was the trick in the question, the bottom line is that the places appear to it, it is not found in places. Anyhow, poetically we say that it's everywhere, it can appear as anything, so what do we call it omnipotent, it can create anything but that leads to so much confusion. That leads to ignorance. This kind of language is not really accurate. What is the accurate form of that omnipotence? I can appear to myself as any illusory form, that is the correct way to say it. That is how it is said in the advaita, but you see systems have become corrupt and there is a problem now.

Why are all experiences localized in the head?

Experiences are also non-local, there is simply this illusion and it is simply a characteristic of the humans that it appears like this. Now there is an interesting thing - those who are doing the projections, practicing the projected states, they will see that sometimes there is no head, no body, you are simply floating point and then this belief breaks that experiences are in the head, because when there is no head, where will you put your experiences? That kind of practice is very much effective in removing all this ignorance about the experiences. You will know what illusion is when you step into the illusion.

What takes forms?

I take form, the experiencer takes form. Here we have risen to the level of non-duality actually. In duality, we say the experiencer has no form, we have separated it from the experience but in the non-duality we say that it is only me who is taking forms. That is correct to say, then you should not mix the levels of duality/non-duality there. Yesterday you said I don't have any form, how can I take the form today? No, climb to the another level here, from here it is all me, this should be kept in mind. Some questions are asked from a non-dual point of view, you should use your intelligence to decide.

In which world do we find the layers of the memory?

World, body and mind are in the memory. Do these layers of the memory reside in some special world out there above in the sky? Remember the diagram of the layers, we extend the layers and globes are drawn, little earths are drawn on those extended layers and then we show the senses and the bodies. The layer will appear as a body in that case and whatever the senses are sensing in that layer that will appear as a world. All the layers have their corresponding worlds. You can say it roughly like this. It is not so easy but you have been given a little bit of idea of what is happening. What is a world, what is a body, how to know them in terms of the layers in the memory? You have been given this kind of little bit of idea, a starting point in the program. But yes, it is not wise to say that the layers appear in some kind of world, some kind of dimension.

Where does the evolution of the layers lead to?

It does go to dissolution and then starts again. There is no dissolution for the Brahman, there can be dissolution for the Jeeva or you can say the individuals are dissolved and re-appear, and dissolve again in a cyclic way, till infinity. This is also not known to many people because when they start the guru tells them look , your goal is dissolution/liberation/complete annihilation/nirvana. This is very frightening to some people, but yes, some students want this kind of thing and we also say - you are going to be liberated very soon, in one hour. That is all simply a drama. The reality is, there are no goals, no ends, no beginnings, nothing is achieved. It is beautiful and perfect as it is. Nothing needs to happen in the whole. Whatever looks like an evolution is simply a part of the dream. There are seeds of evolution and dissolution otherwise everything would have dissolved by now. Given the infinite amount of time, the logic says that, if it were a single one-way process then everything would have already dissolved by now. It has been present since eternity. Why are all the individuals not yet dissolved completely? What are they waiting for? They cannot do that. New new ones keep appearing from the bottom.

So it's simple logic. One should think about these things. I am Brahman in which all these bubbles are arising and disappearing. It is very clearly mentioned in the scriptures also. Whatever arises is just like bubbles, waves, foams, rise and fall. Anyway liberation is a very useful concept. It's a liberation from ignorance only.

The one that wants will be gone. This fire is started in the heart of the student simply to make him progress towards the non-individuated layers and nobody remains to know that I am dissolved. The logic does not really apply here, it is a matter of choice and even if you don't choose it, dissolution will happen. And even if you strongly desire that it should remain dissolved like this, finally I achieved it, it won't remain dissolved, new forms will keep appearing from that which got dissolved. Ultimately the individual has no choice. Whatever is happening, is happening. Just remember, it is whole and perfect already. Whatever you think, whatever you desire, whatever is your goal has no importance at all. Know this and be happy.

Siddhant is asking, what is space according to you?

One word answer - illusion. A concept and it is created as a double illusion. It is a way to arrange information in the mind. Space is due to memory, a way to arrange information and yes, you can arrange information in various ways like one after the other which will be called one dimensional space, as in mathematics. You can arrange the information in rows and columns which will be two dimensional. It will need two coordinates to describe what is where, which experience is happening where. You can arrange it in three dimensions also and more than that, if you want. It totally depends on how the mind arranges the information and the resulting experience will be experience of space.

Like your room. How neatly everything is arranged. The location is a result of this arrangement. A map is created of all the information and the way it is perceived will be called space. It is an irreducible according to this definition - tanmatra and that is why the akasha will be called a tanmatra, panchabhoota. It's interesting. Time is not called tanmatra, but space is, because they are one. Space and time are one - arrangements in the memory of information.

Modern science proved it, they are one, space and time are not separate. Space seems to be unchanging but that was again proven wrong by the theory of relativity. It has a geometry which changes according to gravity. So it seems to be unchanging, that is an illusion. Even that can be said about time. Time itself changes. It goes away in sleep, it changes in dream. There is a different kind of time in dreams because the memories have changed, the experience has changed. Very simple. There are so many things that seem to be unchanging but are complete illusions.

Session 214

Paramjeet has a question, although I got the answer already. All experiences are illusory and are always one. Then why are I/we trying to get some different kinds of experiences which may be in other states?

That is a matter of personal preference. This activity is happening in the dream and the dream can go in any way. So when you say when I or we, that means the mind, that means this creature and it cannot remain without doing anything. Doing is its nature but you are absolutely still. You are not the doer and you are not trying and there is no desire in you. So everything is exactly as it should be. That which is silent, is silent. That which is active, is active. That which is active is trying to get this experience or that experience. It should not matter. All experiences are same, illusory and that which is trying to get the experiences is, desiring the experiences of different kinds, is also illusory and this is how it has been

all the time.

Nothing has really changed. When there was ignorance, the mind was entangled in the experiences. It wanted this, it wanted that. When there is knowledge, the same thing is still going on. But now the difference is that there is the knowledge that it is not me. Now everything is okay. This is the desire of the person, not of me and it can desire anything it wants. A desire to not take any kind of experience or to continue in one boring experience forever is also a desire. That is also a choice. So in the dream the decision is not made from the truth, the decision is made from the false. All decisions are ultimately false and illusory. So it does not really matter. In truth, no decision is made because there is no activity there. The true never makes any decisions, never runs after this or that and the false cannot stop making decisions, cannot stop choosing and is always found to prefer this or that. The knowledge makes only one difference that now everything is happening in bliss. Now the right action is happening and if that action is providing any kind of happiness to this creature, then it will go for it. If it is an experience of an unusual kind, then also it is a play.

Look at your current experience, it is also of an unusual kind. There is nothing normal in this experience. The ignorance is that my presence as a human is perfectly normal and then I need something else which is paranormal. This is ignorance. Fully knowing that this is also an illusion, this is also a strange experience of being a human and then desiring some other experience, perfectly normal.

Where is the ignorance? Knowing that I am choosing, I am running after experiences and I have an attachment to different kinds of experiences than the worldly experience and that should not happen. This all thought is ignorance.

Graham is asking, can some physical desires get resolved by my energy practices, for example could sexual desire be resolved by bringing male and female energies in one body mind together properly?

I have no idea about the energy practices and I totally have no idea about how to bring male and female energies in one body. On the path of knowledge we say that desires will get fulfilled if they are absolutely necessary, they will be fulfilled automatically and that includes any kind of desire, if the right time has arrived it will fulfill itself, that is the most natural way. And then manipulating some kind of energy or something, I have no idea about it, this sounds more like occult practices than the energy practices because the energetic path like the kundalini and all, they are not focused on desire fulfillment, only the occult or tantra is focused on desire fulfillment and there the cause of desire fulfillment is not energy, it is intention. So hopefully that is a satisfactory answer although it is totally off topic for me.

Vandita has a question, direct experiences can be interpreted differently according to filters one believes in. How can one differentiate a subjective direct experience from an objective direct experience?

So as everybody knows there is no objective direct experience, all experiences are your own. Roughly we can say like this that I don't know what you are experiencing, you don't know what I am experiencing. Although the experiencer is one, the knowledge about what is happening is separate. So if there is a good amount of overlap, if one interpretation agrees more than 50% with another interpretation, then we say that we have a consensus in the experience. It means your experience matches with my experience. Your subjective experience is mostly like my subjective experience. And now you can project it outside that the outside world is like this, which we both are seeing and then the illusion of an objective world appears.

If there is no consensus or the consensus is very less, then there is no agreement and there is no direct experience which is objective. It is always subjective but because there is some agreement between the experiences, because they are coming from the same kind of senses, there is a base reality which is formed by comparing the basic experience. But as we go deeper into the interpretations, then it becomes totally subjective.

For example, when you start playing a song, everybody will agree that there are sounds and everybody will agree that it is a male or a female voice. That much interpretation is overlapping, because ears are mostly constructed in a similar way for humans. But as soon as you say that it is a good song, a melodious song, then the agreement may start breaking because maybe the other person does not like that song. There the interpretation will be different. He will say no, this is not a good song. It is not melodious at all. It does not match my mood. I do not like this because some other comparisons are being made in the memory which are not present in the first memory. So the consensus breaks. Now you can say that there are sounds but you cannot say that they are melodious sounds. But let us say, instead of taking the human as the other person, you take a dog. Now the dog will not experience it as music. He will interpret it completely differently but there will be little bit of agreement that he is hearing something, you are hearing something. Right now there is no agreement about that. If you now compare your experience with the experience of an ant, the ant is experiencing the sound probably as vibrations of the ground because the ant is mostly on the ground. So the whole body of the ant is picking up these beats of the music. It is like an earthquake or somebody is walking and the ant will run away, probably thinking that some big creature is coming. There is no agreement at all. Now the experiences are totally subjective.

This is seen very clearly when you speak some other language which the person you are with does not understand. If somebody says a joke in Chinese, nobody will laugh if they do not understand it. So was that a joke? Was that funny? We do not know. Those who understand that language, they will start laughing. So all experiences are basically subjective and there is an overlap due to similar structures

of the layers. The more difference there is between the structures, memory, senses, the less objective it becomes.

So what is the conclusion of this analysis? All experience is mind created. There is nothing which is out there. There are no objects. There is only a subject, which is you. Whatever is seen is being filtered by senses and by whatever we call impressions, sanskaras and also by knowledge. Like I gave the example of the Chinese joke, your ignorance of Chinese will not enable you to grasp it. So whatever impressions are there in this structure, they will determine the final experience. So all experience is actually illusory and subjective. And it is me looking at myself in various ways, different ways. So if you want to make a pie chart of subjective and objective, you will see that 90% of experience is subjective. The overlap is very little and the overlap becomes even less as we go towards higher layers. So maybe you are in the same world that everybody is in, but still you will experience totally different things and the other people there will experience completely different things. You will see your father, mother, dead relatives and so on and the others will see probably monsters, will hear voices or will see lights, sounds, colors. Why is that? Because the higher layers are probably seen completely differently in different people. As we go towards the physical, mostly the experiences start merging into objectivity because they are now shared and that is why we call the objective world or this physical world shared reality, a shared experience. Because this dream is being shared among individuals, otherwise there are infinite possibilities that will appear in infinite varieties.

Fortunately there is a possibility that the patterns will make copies of themselves and when the experience is filtered, when the vibration is filtered through these patterns, the creatures will experience something similar that produces a stable world, just like our world. Here earth is a stable world and there is an agreement, so it is more meaningful. This kind of shared experience is very rare, it is very rare, although there is a possibility but the possibilities of having different experiences are more than the possibility of having a shared experience. Like if you throw two stones, what is the probability that one stone will fall on another stone and they will stack up? Very little, but the probability that they will scatter here and there is almost infinite.

How fortunate we are that we are living in a shared reality, you cannot call it a reality, shared hallucination, shared dream. This can be treated as a major power, like an occult power, super power. So this human birth is a matter of luck, you must be really really lucky, this structure must be so lucky that it found it. Now, many things are possible, now life is possible, now knowledge is possible, now meaningful experience is possible.

Vandita is saying, sometimes sharing can also be imposed, like in movie show experience.

You can try to convince people that this experience is like this but it is very difficult to convince everybody about it. Even in a movie, most of the people will not agree on everything, some will say the movie was good, some will say the movie was bad, some will say no this part was good, that part was bad, some will say this song was good, that song was bad. So even in the movie they will have different interpretations but what they will agree on is the basic things. The senses saw moving pictures, the ears heard some sounds, that much can be agreed. What is happening in society is that people are being brainwashed to agree on things so that they can fit into society. Remember that if you do not agree with the society, you will be thrown out. So look at the society, everybody is wearing the same clothes. There are countries where every man wears only black or blue jackets and every woman has red or pink or something like this. You can check the TV shows, the movies, the news, why everybody needs to wear only one color.

People are trying to conform to each other, I am like you. As soon as something changes, the agreement is broken and now they feel afraid. So why is everybody singing prayers in the temples, even if they don't like it, they want to mix, they want to mingle with everybody else. As soon as you are born, your training starts. You need to be like everybody else. Even if a slight difference is seen, people are worried. Look at the seeker, he is totally different and that is why the worldly people will call you crazy because you don't want to mix. So those who are in the society, they are bound, they need to remain the same, they all need to have the same skin color, same hair style, same clothes, same language, nothing should be different. Same food also, same drinks also, they should watch the same TV show and they should support the same politician, otherwise what happens? Chaos.

That will be called a very artificial society and that is how the most modern societies are. They are all based on a forced perspective, there is very little freedom and when you compare other countries with India, India has the most freedom you will see. Everybody can dress in whatever way they want, everybody can speak any language they want, they can eat anything they want, they can have any kind of politics, any kind of religion and spiritual path. I have never seen this much freedom in any other country. Even these tribal people, they are not so free. That is why when somebody, say, a foreigner

arrives in India, he sees only chaos. There are no rules here. That is the disadvantage of so much freedom. Everybody should see that how forcing the objective experience or materialism denies

us our freedom to experience anything.

Graham is asking, why is ending the cycle of birth and death a goal?

It's impossible since everything has already happened, isn't it? Even from a relative perspective in time, if it did not stop, wouldn't it start again automatically? That is not the goal on the path of knowledge because here the knowledge says that I was never born and I will never die. My essence is birthless and deathless. So the question itself is assuming that it is a goal. That is not the goal. The goal is destruction of your ignorance. Has it happened? Yes? Then the goal is achieved. Now can we stop the cycle of birth and death? Then the question is whose birth and death? Because there is nobody, there is no person here. The person is an illusion. So whose birth and death? So if you stop it, will it start again? How can you stop that which is not there and who is there to stop it? If there is no agency, if there is no person and that is why having this goal is meaningless. Really no. There is no birth and no death. What do we need to stop? Stop believing in that which is not true, in whatever is happening. Because it simply appears to happen. That is okay. If there are attempts to stop it, it's perfectly okay. People are free to do whatever they want to do.

If you assume that I am born, then it will be possible to stop it. Because then the assumption will turn into now I am not born. But both are equally false. They are different kinds of dreams. In one dream you are saying look I took a birth here and there. In another dream you are saying finally I am free from birth. But can the dream stop? The dream will never stop. The dream is not in time, it is timeless. The dream appears with a complete timeline, with complete history, including death and birth and everything, rebirth, and so on. That is how the dream appears, with time. So some different kinds of assumptions can be taken in the dream. And the dream modifies itself, but it will remain the dream. Nobody is born, nobody dies, nobody can stop anything, nobody can start anything. Simply the possibilities are appearing, disappearing, it's a never ending game. So on the path of knowledge our goal is to realize this much. All is whole and complete. That is me. And here we should stop. Then there should not be any questions after this. There should not be any more assumptions after this. Some people will say look I achieved the knowledge now, I am the whole, I am the existence. Now let me stop the birth and death, but you can see there is still ignorance. Because knowing that I am the existence, the question of birth and death should not arise now. And the thought of stopping it should not arise.

As the knowledge becomes stable, all this thinking stops. Why is there no practice on the path of knowledge? Why are there no more goals? Because if you think deeply, you will see nothing needs to be done, nothing needs to be achieved, nothing needs to happen, nothing extra is needed. That is the conclusion of the knowledge. And if there is still something that needs to be achieved, there are more goals now. That means there is no knowledge. Probably these things were heard - I am the existence, I am the experiencer, there is one experiencer and so on. But that seeker never thought about it. The contemplation is missing. What are the consequences of finding out that I am emptiness with possibilities that was not thought about? Those questions were not asked and the mind simply jumped into some other desire. Ok, I got the knowledge, now next. This is the condition of many seekers. If you could simply contemplate, meditate on the implications of the knowledge, nothing will be left. There is nothing to do after this. This is final.

Session 215

Graham is asking, how to tell the difference between a dream and astral projection to another world.

It is very easy. Usually the dream is meaningless, has very little rules and you can change it as per your will. But another world, if it is a rule bound area, it will be very regular, it will be lifelike, there will be laws, rules which you cannot change and it will be a more stable experience. It can be repeated. It will be very difficult to repeat a dream again the next day, but if you are visiting another world, it is repeatable, you will get the same world. The entities in your dream are simply your projection, but in another world the entities will be independent, they will be “real” entities. So these are the differences.

Riyaz is asking, is Reiki and Pranic healing or self-healing allowed in the path of knowledge? Why is Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev against it?

I don't know what is allowed and what is not. Once you get the knowledge, you can decide on your own what you want to do. These healing practices are not a part of the path of knowledge. They are not the basic teachings in the path of knowledge. They are important in the occult path where the manipulation of the illusion is the goal. On the path of knowledge, we need to simply understand that it is an illusion. All experiences are illusory. That's all.

The path of knowledge is simpler and more basic. So nobody will allow you or disallow you. There are no opinions about these things. You can do pretty much whatever you want on the path of knowledge, except when you are learning, you should not mix the paths. When you are taking guidance from the Guru, then you should not mix the path. Once you have achieved the knowledge, which only the Guru will decide whether you have achieved it or not, then you can do whatever you want. There are no rules here.

So why is Sadguru against it? I can only guess that many Gurus are against using the so-called powers in the world. There are some good consequences of using the powers in the world that the person will be healed, the person will pay you money, the person will be happy, and you get a lot of name and fame also because you can touch the person and you can heal that person. It's a miracle. But there are then long-term consequences of this action. So what is the middle way here? The middle way is you put the Guru field in between. You put somebody who can approve your actions case by case. Can I heal this person, can I heal that person, you know, take permission before you do it. So how to do that, that is another matter. But once you have the permission, then there will be very less consequences.

Some people have no idea what they are doing, what will be the consequence. You are meddling in somebody's karmic journey. His pre-allocation said that he is supposed to die and you revived that person. That is some serious meddling. So what is the difference between a healer and a doctor? The doctor does not get that much consequence, you see? Because he is within the laws of the illusion. In this world, the physical world, the laws are not meant to be broken. That is why you should always take permission. First you should take permission from the patient also. Then you take the approval from above. Is this work happening for the greater good? Is it following the protocols of secrecy and is it covered up nicely or you are openly doing miracles and like this, you see? So yes, there is a limit up to which healing can be just like the work of a doctor and there is a limit when you cross it. It is a serious manipulation of the illusion here, the physical world.

It can be done for demonstration purposes to advance science and so on and it can be done for specific cases where the disease was not meant to be there but it is there and the remedies that are ordinary, that means they are within the laws, they failed. That can be done in that case whether it is accidental and it can be done in cases where the patient is innocent, no karmic fruit to be taken there. So it's case by case. Probably Jaggi Vasudev is saying that people do it without this kind of discrimination. They don't use their discretion when they are healing somebody. Okay, give me this much money, I will do anything for you. It is like this and sometimes even these astrologers are seen as doing that. They say give me this much money, I will fix your planet's/stars. That is meddling but fortunately nothing happens. In the case of astrology it is completely fake most of the time but this healing because it is more physical in nature, you see the pranic body and so on, they are mostly physical, so it has an effect.

Everybody should use their judgment, the path of knowledge says nothing. The path of knowledge tells you simply that all actions have consequences. Be ready for that. There are certain rules in the society, where the doctor does not get any responsibility of curing or if the doctor gives an injection and the patient dies, let's say, there is side effect or simply dies because there is no way to save, then nobody will put the doctor in the jail, if he is a registered doctor because they are given a special permission but these healers are not given any permission, probably I don't know but Ayurveda is recognized as a healing method legally but we don't know about these other alternative healings. So their karmic load is not taken away by the society, they are not immune, so what do they get? They get all of it. Doctors will not get anything because it is a special agreement, they have the right to meddle in the bodies of others. Even if something goes wrong, nobody will say a single word to the doctor. And same way, if the responsibility is shared with the guru field, the society won't recognize it but probably the guru field will recognize it and they will put the limits on it. You cannot do this and that but you can do something small, harmless but usually we don't have this kind of system nowadays. So hopefully that answers the question why some gurus are against it.

Anybody who knows healing, it's a tremendous power, and if somebody has it, they will never use it. They will let that person die peacefully, sometimes let that person suffer. Why? Because it's not real, your death is not real, your suffering, your disease is not real. So use of powers implies ignorance and probably that is why also many gurus are against it. I have my own rules here that I allow healing and sometimes I also recommend when there is a potential in the person, the patient. What kind of potential? He or she can become a seeker or can progress on the path, any spiritual path. I do not discriminate on the basis of path of knowledge or any other. They have the potential. Then we get a license - we meddled into this person but that is for the good of all because if one person progresses, it is good for the whole of humanity. We have an excuse or a proper justification but normally the healers who are doing it professionally, who are taking money, they are doing it for money and they do not have any justification. Whenever I recommend somebody for healing, it has to be done without charging, without taking a single rupee. I know what will happen if you take money from seekers, there will be consequences.

I know this issue of healing is very complicated. Everybody should consult their own gurus from whomever they learnt and do it case by case. Do not accept all the cases. If you think that it is safe to cure somebody, go for it. Actually mother nature will give you some hints just before you start healing. There will be hints given to you that do not come here. There are some cases like this. So the healer must have this kind of sensitivity, which will come with experience.

Suraj is saying, what does it literally mean when you say look at things without your indoctrinations

and beliefs? How to observe everything as it is?

Actually it is not possible to observe everything as it is without knowledge. Which knowledge? The essential knowledge. That is the most important step to take before you can overcome your indoctrination and beliefs. What happens when you get that knowledge? All your indoctrination and beliefs are destroyed. Without it there is no way to go beyond your indoctrination. How to observe everything as it is? Actually you are observing everything as it is but there are layers and layers of ignorance on top of it. So what does the path of knowledge do? It will remove those layers one by one.

Now even though everything will appear exactly as it appeared before, there won't be anything in between you and that which is appearing. That is the process.

How to start? You should choose the path of knowledge and you should choose a guru and start following the instructions. Very easy. It is the fastest path. If you want to take shortcuts it can be done in three or four days. If you want knowledge in a lot more detail it can take six months. It totally depends on who is teaching. Some people can take years and years also because they will make you read all the scriptures and Sanskrit and so on but we follow a very fast method.

Yahiya is saying, I have heard you talk in a podcast about some rule, law or miracle that when the student is ready the teacher is ready. What does this exactly mean or how can this knowledge, law be used in a useful way? Should we trust the unusual coincidence to be signed from existence or what?

Like this story of Paramahansa Yogananda and Sri Yukteswar.

Yes, it is often said and it must be the experience of many people, that unless you are ready

for knowledge the teacher will not be seen. Even if the teacher is standing in front of you and delivering the lecture you won't get it. And usually the teachers recognize this, that this is not the right time, I cannot teach this person. So the teacher waits for the student to reach that state where we start seeing the qualities of a seeker, or qualities of a student, where the right questions start appearing. When the student is in a pose of surrender, when the student is sitting in a receiving pose and then the teacher appears.

So is it a miracle? It is 50% miracle, 50% effort. If you do not do the effort the miracle will not happen. There are people who are actively searching for students, I am also one of them, so how do we do that? We spread the net, we simply announce - you will get this kind of knowledge from here, from me. Do they all apply for it? No they never, 1000 people listen to me, only one comes asking for knowledge, for the rest this is merely entertainment. We don't mind, but the one who is coming for knowledge is the one who is ready. Sometimes they will come for some other thing, family problem, job problem, money problem and so on. Because in India a guru means he is the Google of the universe, nowadays ChatGPT of the universe - ask anything. But the guru does not mind, the guru has the eyes to see who is ready and then the knowledge is given to that person. Because the knowledge is given without checking also, then we check the effects, what happened. If nothing happened, if it was not appreciated, well, not ready.

That is the trick that I use many times, because I am not that advanced to find out that the seeker is ready simply by looking at his face or looking at his email, nowadays we do not even see people, we see only emails and telegram messages. So it is very difficult for me, there is no real life contact, there is no time to interact with people. They had this kind of luxury in the past, they used to keep the student in the ashram for, let us say, five years and then the guru could decide, now you are ready for this knowledge. But we don't have that luxury, so we have used some shortcuts. Yes, their lives were not so fast and there was not much struggle in their lives, so even their desires were very tiny desires, nowadays you have a mountain of desires and they keep increasing every day because you see a new thing on the TV and you want it. So it is very difficult for gurus now, so they have upgraded their net, now we try to catch people who are not even ready according to the traditional definition.

I see one or two qualities and I say yes, do the 3D and we simply tolerate those who are not ready, it is a torture to deal with people who are not ready. So what is my score? My score is - whomever I select, 10 out of 2 are not ready, sometimes 3, depending on the weather. There are methods to find out who is ready and the teacher appears, then the teacher recognizes the student and the student recognizes the teacher and why is this a miracle? Because for some people who are ready, they can recognize their guru instantly simply by looking at their face, simply by listening to the words of the guru or from the content of the teaching. Yes! This is for me, they know it directly. And that cannot be explained by any logical way, so we say it was a coincidence, but there is an explanation that it was pre-allocated, that was the pre-allocation and these great people like you named, they have a relationship since many many births. They are destined to meet. The coincidence is mostly very very funny in these cases because then the usual means need not be employed, the teacher appears directly in front of the student - I am your

teacher. This is how it happens for great people, for ordinary people there is this ordinary way to find out who is your guru and for the ordinary teacher there is the ordinary way to simply check, experiment with the students.

I can tell you that on the path of knowledge there is a long list of qualities that must be there, so there is an entire video on that in our program, what must be the qualities of the seeker so that some teaching can be imparted to that seeker without playing hide and seek kind of thing, without hitting in the dark and the gurus prefer these kind of students because effort needed is very less, it takes very less time. You can say that it is more productive, more profitable.

He is saying, Isn't honesty enough? I am talking about dealing with unprepared students with honesty.

It is on case by case basis, if some potential is seen even though the person is not ready, cannot understand a single word, then the guru decides what to do with that person, sometimes it is simply taking a chance, ok let us start and we will see where it goes and sometimes the cases are so hopeless that the guru tells the student - no this path is not for you. I am the latter kind, that sometimes I simply tell the student no, don't come here, this is not for you. Actually what happens is when you tell them directly, it is my experience, that they feel bad, they are offended and so we need to be polite, little bit, I am not that polite. Little bit, that look I am going to give you this thing or apply after five years, lies, sweet lies must be told to them that you have this impurity, first I am sending you to the great guru who will clear the impurity, then I will teach you something simple. Like this you see, you need to see from the social and psychological perspective also, sometimes you cannot do that thing and then you are brutally honest. I have told many people, what do they do, they change their name and they come back to the satsang, it is a waste of time.

Yes, honesty with compassion, some kind of sugar coating is needed, otherwise the guru will end up

spending a lot of time on something which is not productive. Sometimes the students are harmed by these things. Those who are very much involved in the illusion, if you tell them this is illusion, your all relations are illusory, there is no person also and their whole life is based on that illusion, they are devastated and then we lie to them that look it is not really true, this is spiritual mumbo jumbo, continue with your life. The guru has a bigger duty than simply giving the knowledge. Giving knowledge is very easy, isn't it? Record the video, let them watch the video, let them write the lessons, I check them. But dealing with people is something very difficult, so anyhow there is a whole guru manual to deal with people.

Session 216

Paramjeet is asking, practicing I am nothing or I am everything is not hard but when doing it practically in real life it is a little harder sometimes, please advise.

It will be a matter of practice only. Just like when you start riding the bicycle it is not that easy. You will fall sometimes, you will take some time to learn it and it will be very difficult in the crowded place and on turns and on uphill but eventually you will learn it and then the bicycle will ride itself. Same way when you learn to drive a car it is very difficult. What levers to press, where are all the buttons and all and when something comes from front while you are driving at a speed it is very hard to control it but with enough practice you become expert in that.

So you have started this practice since only one or two months, one month probably. Wait for three or four years at least, you will become an expert. The more you practice the faster you will master it. So those who are thinking that today I started the practice, no results at all, so hard. It is not magic, it will take time and how much time it will take depends on the interest of the person, it depends on the effort although it does not take effort but the effort is initial effort to let go of your ordinary routine life and remain in this light of knowledge. This is like breaking the old habit, you are habitual of living in darkness, now it will take some time.

Keep doing the practice, that is the only solution. The shortcuts were told, what can we do to remember it easily and so on, reminders and all. So initially people practice all these things, you can also try those things. You can practice being aware, but you cannot ignore your day to day life, that will not

be possible and that is not also recommended. The awareness is not going to interfere in your daily life. Just do the same things that you do every day, but in awareness. It is not a job which must be done after leaving all the jobs, after completing all the jobs. No, you need to do all your daily activities in awareness knowing fully that I am the witness and whatever is happening is happening automatically through this body and then whatever is experienced is totally false. Simply keeping this awareness on and doing all the activities normally, this is the recommended way and initially there will be problems like he was saying that my awareness goes away when I am doing something important or some difficult situation is there. So there is nothing to worry about. Just solve the difficult situation, just complete your difficult work, whatever you are doing and then come back in awareness.

These will be initial issues and then more practice will enable you to remain aware in those difficult situations also. It is a step by step process or you can say it is a gradual process. It will not happen overnight. The knowledge happens overnight, yes. The knowledge happens in a few minutes. It is simply shown that look this is the truth and then the awareness takes its time. It is a matter of habit and for some people even the knowledge verification will take time. When they are listening to me or somebody else, they will understand that look this is like this, my essence is the witness and whatever it witnesses is illusion. That day they understand this, next day there are doubts and after one week they forget. So for some people it will be a difficult matter to even verify the knowledge. Then they are told to think about it, meditate on it, contemplate about it, and spend time on it. Why does that happen? Because they are very new seekers, newcomers. They are not ripe enough to abide in the knowledge immediately. Not only do they go back in unawareness, they go back in ignorance. Many times it happens. They go back to their old identification with the body mind, fully forgetting the knowledge.

That is why we have all these activities like satsang, like the program where the body-mind is forced to break this habit of ignorance. That is why those who do the program face very little problem because for six months they are involved in nothing but the path of knowledge. So those who are ready, they will face no difficulties, they will complete the step by step procedure and they will abide in awareness whenever the ripening happens, whenever the right time arrives. That will be continuous unbroken awareness. That is the waking state. We are now making the effort to bring awareness in the dreaming and projected states and sleep states and so on. That is the advanced practice. So that will take time. Everybody has their own abilities and they proceed according to them and they all take different times.

Knowing is very simple. Then implementing it in your life, it takes a little bit of time and effort.

Those who are made for this, they don't do any practice. They know what I am and they know what is illusion and they are simply happy with whatever they are. They are not trying to be aware in waking and they are not trying to mess with their sleep and death and whatever, in the occult practices. They are happy with that state also. It is perfectly natural. So there are many kinds of seekers and in this setup of pure experiences and Bodhi Varta and all that, we are helping all kinds of seekers, all kinds, starting from the simplest possible to the most advanced possible seeker, all get directions. Totally depends on the interest of the seeker. How interested you are, I have seen so many people, they are so interested that they want to come here and practice. They want to stay with me here and practice and I say okay you are very much interested but that is not really required. So totally depends on the intensity that will determine your success and that is true for many people, in many situations, not only in spirituality, in science, in arts, in your business, in your job, in your day to day life. So everything depends on how badly you want it.

He is saying, my other question is about the ego. I have come to realize that a lot of things are just built on beliefs and that includes the self itself or sense of identity. So in extreme cases of awareness, it is like even the thought processes, even all the assumptions or what is going on in the mind is based on the assumption that you are liberated, there is no person, there is no person whatsoever, there is no identity whatsoever. But in other cases, I don't even know how I switch from that to another and my question basically is whether that self is real or not, what can we do about it? I know sometimes it looks like it's an illusion already, even the idea of ego is just an idea, it's just a concept. But I don't know, there are people who look like they have more egoic tendencies than others. I mean, what can you contemplate about this Guruji please? I don't know, I don't even have a specific question, sorry, thank you for your time.

Some people have more egoic tendencies, some have less, it is perfectly natural and when you are practicing awareness, the ego is also seen in the light of awareness and that should not be suppressed. If it is more, simply watch it more, if the egoic activities are more, you need to pay more attention now, you need to become immediately aware and should not suppress these activities. You will find that they will reduce, the egoic tendency will reduce like this because you are watching it.

Ego should not be killed, it should be controlled. Control means that it is a very important activity of the mind and it should be utilized wherever it is needed, but it should not be encouraged when it is not really needed. So simply sit and watch when it is not needed, watch the play of the ego and when it is absolutely necessary that action must be taken, that action must also happen in awareness. So many people think that the ego is a problem in awareness, no it is not a problem, the awareness is above the ego, it does not replace the ego, it illuminates the ego and the person need not disappear and the body mind need not disappear. This illusion should continue as it is or probably even better and it will become better once it is illuminated by the awareness and you will know this with time, you will know this with systematic practice, hopefully that answers your question.

Paramjit is asking, may I ask you to explain some of the tendencies of Bodhisattva?

Although we do not know it directly, but we can guess logically a little bit. What is the Bodhisattva tendency? The first important tendency is to help others. They do not have their own desires or they have very little desires and the main desire is simply to serve others.

And the next tendency is that they do not want to disappear, no dissolution is expected or is desired. They have known that this play is the best play and they like to play it. Can there be no worldly desire? Can there be no intellectual desire there? That is not true according to me. They can have worldly desires. It is a play for them. They can have intellectual artistic desires, even spiritual desires. They want to know the scriptures and so on. It is possible and they take on these desires simply to sustain in a body or in a lower layer. They create these activities for themselves so that they can manifest there. The layers of mind are simply activity of mind. There is no actual structure there besides the activity. The layers will be perceived as activity only. So they start these activities and depending on where they want to serve, they take on the activities.

Now, a good example is Amitabha or Alokiteshwar in Buddhism because the Bodhisattva concept

comes from Buddhism. Manjushri, look at Manjushri, he looks like a prince and why are they so much involved in physicality when they are Bodhisattvas? So there are many wrong notions about Bodhisattvas that they are like beggars on the street and monks and they live in the Himalayas and all. No, anybody who has exhausted their own tendencies and is now holding only one desire to serve, they are entitled to be called Bodhisattvas.

Now the rest of the stuff about Bodhisattvas does not really matter. This one quality overpowers the other qualities and they will assume any form, they will assume any shape, any world, anybody in order to carry out their agenda which is liberation of all living beings.

Why did I say any form or any shape? Because they can do that, they can appear as animals or objects also. This is very funny but we cannot provide proof of that. But in order to facilitate their play, it is play. To liberate all people, all organisms, all creatures is simply a play because that will never be completed, you see? So they know these things and they come up with very creative ideas and very funny ideas. They do not make it serious, that is one more quality. That when they play like this, they are never serious about it. They will make some twists, they will make it like a suspense movie. So many of the gurus are heading towards Bodhisattvas, the rank of Bodhisattva. So I know one who had a lot of qualities of Bodhisattva and he is the Osho, Rajneesh. Because I could study him more, I know what qualities he had. So that will be very very shocking to many people who have a very pure image of Bodhisattva. No, they have no limitations. You can identify them like these. There is one more person that I heard about recently who resembles like this and that is the guru of Ishwar Puri Ji, Huzoor Baba Sawan Singh. If you listen to the story, as told by Ishwarji, you will see how playful this character was. He lied so many times and he uplifted so many people and he lived a simple life. He earned the money and so on. He was very practical about money and things, but he could appear in the battlefield and

rescue the soldiers, his own disciples from the battle and so on.

So for a Bodhisattva, no work is a burden. If it is helping a student, if it is helping their disciples, they do it. They will never say, I am such a big guru, why should I do this? They will also come and clean your house if you want them. They will arrange for your food. They will fulfill any of your desires if they can in the limits of the illusion. God puts limits on the Bodhisattva, the Devi, illusion, the laws of the world, they limit. They will break the laws now and then when required because they are so powerful, but normally they do not use any powers.

So I can go on like this. Even one whole book can be written about this thing. Probably there are already books. Those who are interested, go and study. It's a very interesting topic. And you will see whether I am heading towards this kind of Bodhisattva position. If you do a self-evaluation, use our latest app for evaluating. There are some questions about Bodhisattva tendencies and I have seen that few people are already showing those tendencies. They have started the play. They are letting go of their human nature little bit, little by little. Sometimes it is very wild. Tendencies will be seen early in your seeking. Whether you want the whole knowledge for yourself, do not even want to talk to somebody else about the knowledge. Somebody is asking you for help and you say, give me money or I don't have time to help you. And now the chances of becoming the Bodhisattvas are less, but if spirituality is your top priority in life and the earning, eating, drinking, you are doing it in your spare time, that means there is a lot of potential. So I can identify these tendencies and I guide these people to sharpen them, to cultivate these tendencies. It is not very difficult to find it.

Vandita is asking, whenever there is a notification in the phone, one or the other digit is seen repeating three or four times on the screen. This is happening a lot.

It's very good. They are signs from the universe. Why do they happen? That when you take an important decision in your life, usually there are signs. If you have a past life guru, which many of you must be having and they have this method of communicating using coincidences, a coincidence is created. It is very easy to create inside this illusion. That is why they use this method a lot. A coincidence is created, which is not your normal everyday random life. It has a special meaning which your mind can recognize. You pay attention and you can see from the numbers that you can guess from the numbers that what are they trying to communicate, what is the message and everybody interprets

the message very differently.

Usually this will happen only when you have taken the right decision in your life. Let's say you have chosen a guru and these numbers start appearing. That means your decision was right. You have chosen a path or you have chosen a new job, a new partner and all these important decisions are taken and sometimes these people are notified that you have done a good job. What if you make a mistake?

There are notifications for that also, but they are not so obvious. Usually they do not interfere. When you have already made the decision, then the guru will not interfere. The guru wants you to make the mistake and learn from it, unless it is a very bad kind of mistake.

Graham is asking, can you talk about the role of love for the seeker and in the existence?

The seeker should know that I am the existence and then love becomes this knowledge of oneness. Very easy.

Swapna is asking, how and why desires arise?

Desires arise in the mind, which is a storehouse of impressions. What are these impressions? They are your past experiences, past actions, past likes and dislikes, they are all stored in the memory. And if the creature wants to work, this body-mind wants to do an action, there must be a force, there must be motivation to start that action, that motivation is called the desire.

So the desire starts from the memory and ends in an action and then the actions, they have fruits, there are some consequences of these actions, that is your karma and that gets stored back in the memory. When new desires arise, suppose the action was fruitful, it was positive, then the mind wants to do it more. It was negative, then the mind says I will do something else, not this one, that is also a desire. To not do this action is also a desire. Because this is a force, this is what is called life, without this kind of activity, the creature will simply sit there, will not do anything, will not eat, will not drink and obviously you can guess, there won't be any life. So this activity of desiring enables life, it is the most important action to stay alive. You do not know how many desires there are, try to stop breathing for a second and you will see that there is a big desire to breathe, although that action is happening automatically, we do not pay any attention, do not eat for a day and you will see there is a big desire to eat. As long as the life processes continue without any problem, we do not even see the desires. When do we start seeing desires as problems when they are not fulfilled.

Now suppose you get a desire because of your past impressions or you have seen somebody doing that action and the mind says I will also do it, these kinds of desires which are not your own, they are very difficult to fulfill and then these unfulfilled desires cause suffering. Suffering is simply a thought that I could not do this, the mind is punishing itself, the mind is saying the desire was generated but it was not fulfilled, so it produces punishment and when the desire is fulfilled it produces a reward which is what you call happiness.

An ordinary person thinks that is happiness but it is simply the reward produced by the body or the mind because a desire was fulfilled and as soon as that reward is taken, it is experienced, more desires come, now I want something more. Why is that? Why does it never stop? Because life never stops, the creatures who do not desire anything, they disappear, they die out and the natural selection selects only the structures or the creatures or the mind that produce continuous desires so that this life can be sustained continuously.

So that is why we say desire is the main force, it is the energy behind life. Now you can choose your desires, remember some desires are coming from outside, you saw your neighbor driving a new car and then a desire comes to you, I should also buy a new car, remember this is not your desire, it is not coming from your own experiences or your own actions. It is coming from somewhere else, it is a fake desire which is imposed on this mind. There is expectation of happiness there but normally it is totally unnecessary, your life is running very nicely without this new car. You can choose, you can desire not to act on that.

And how is it possible to have only the correct desires? It is possible when you are aware, this is simply mental activity of some kind, when will you become aware? When you have the knowledge of who you are, you are the one who is desireless, you are the one who is witnessing this play of desires, fulfillment, unfulfillment, happiness, reward,

punishment, suffering, you are the one, once you know this, you can separate the desire from yourself. You can either stop it or you can continue fulfilling it, then it becomes like a play. How many desires I want to fulfill today and like this, now the arising of desire is not a problem because it is simply entertainment and you will slowly see that in the light of awareness, the desires burn away. Only those will remain that are absolutely

necessary for life and in the end they will also disappear, which means this creature will disappear, it will die and it will never be born, at least not as a human, why? Because desire is the cause of birth also.

So awareness looks like a small practice, easy practice but it is the most powerful practice in this universe. How will you become aware? Start by self-knowledge, self-realization, know who you are, this is the beginning.

Paramjeet is asking, sometimes when I pray to guru field, start with Guru Brahma and I say my guru is Tarun Pradhanji, please help I feel connection at my crown chakra and feel very different kind of joy, peace and questions answered, thanks for being there for me.

You are most welcome and those who pray sincerely, lovingly to the guru field, they will be given this kind of signs but you should not become habitual of these things, should not become

addicted to the guru field. Live your life normally in complete awareness. Those who are expecting that why don't I get all these sensations and strange experiences like numbers and all, there is nothing wrong, you need not get them, everybody has different requirements so they are given different experiences. You got the knowledge, that was your requirement, isn't it?

So all the coincidences were arranged for you to come here and get the knowledge and that is the bigger miracle than feeling something tingling on the crown chakra or this chakra or that chakra. That is boring compared to what has happened to your life. If you get these kind of sensations, simply enjoy and forget about them, they are not

the big thing. You see the numbers, simply say thank you and then continue with your life, do something better which is fulfilling your pre-allocation, service, and so on. Do not make these sensations and whatever smells and tastes you are getting as your goal, they have nothing to do with spirituality.

Session 217

Paramjit is asking, without grace nothing is possible on the path. How to get grace?

It is not possible to get grace, it is already there. You need to remain open to it. That means surrender and how to surrender that we have discussed many times.

Keshav is asking, life is perfect as is but is there any benefit in gaining knowledge of pre-allocation?

No, there is not much point except it will give you some peace of mind because ultimately whatever you know, whatever you do, the same thing is going to happen. This is called destiny. It is pre-destiny. Simply knowing what is going to happen is not going to change anything. No benefit is achieved but it will give you a peace of mind that whatever is coming you know and so you will be stable but you won't be able to avoid any events that are already pre-allocated or any karmic fruits that are going to come. There is no avoiding that.

There can be two kinds of people. Those who want to know the pre-allocation so they can bypass it, avoid it, change it and there can be a second kind, those who simply want to know, curious what is there in my life, what is coming. In the first case there will be no benefit. Simply knowing it will not change it. In second case you can say that I know what is going to come, I know what is going to

be in the journey and so you will be stable, peaceful, so you can call it a benefit if you want. If you can do that, if you can remain stable, peaceful and in a state of acceptance without knowing anything past future then that will be an achievement. That is the real benefit. How can you do that? Awareness. Be in awareness. Then without knowing the pre-allocation or without any kind of anxiety you will be able

to sail through without any problems.

There is another issue that once you know what is going to happen it will kill the suspense in your life.

It will become somewhat boring because you already know. It is just like watching a movie when you already know the story. The fun is spoiled now. So if you take your life as a play, as a movie, which it is actually, it is your play, then not knowing is more adventurous, there is more fun. So there can be many points of view about this thing. Some people will say I don't need to know everything that I am going to do. I need to know a few things, important things like whom I am going to marry, in which company I will get the job and at what time I will die and who will be my guru. I want to know all these important things. There is an objection to that also that the things you think are important are the least important. Who is giving it a tag of importance? Ego. Look, your marriage is least important. Your job is the lowest priority from the spiritual point of view. So those who think these events are important like death and so on, they are ignorant. That is why they are trying to know it. If you have the knowledge, you will know that death never happens to me, marriage never happens to me. Anyway, a seeker is not going to make that kind of mistake even if it is pre-allocated and the job and these things are simply things to be done in the spare time. A seeker knows what is most important, isn't it? Are you trying to find it in your pre-allocation or are you trying to find the important things in the future? Then it's already too late. You are already in ignorance.

So as you progress, the pre-allocation, future, destiny, it all becomes meaningless. The more ignorance there is, the more attraction is there towards these things because the attachment is still with the body- mind and the pre-allocation is applicable to the body-mind. Back to the body mind, it totally depends on where you are on the ladder. Those who are at the bottom, we encourage them, okay go and find your pre-allocation. Those who are already up there, what do you want to find? You have found everything. What is important for you now? Simply watch, because the best play is already produced and directed by Maya herself. She is the best play writer. What are you going to change now? There is nobody to change anything.

Kriesin is saying, I heard Sadhguru say that for most people, Lakshmi may happen and Durga may happen but Saraswati never happens. Does he mean that people lack knowledge?

Yes, probably he means that but you see, probably there is another meaning that they do not

seek knowledge. What are they seeking? Wealth, money, power, Durga represents power, isn't it? Influence and so on but they are not seeking knowledge and the reason is that they think I already know. Is there anybody in the world who says that I am already rich, I am already most powerful? No. But most of the people have this delusion - I already know everything. So probably that's what Sadhguru is saying. Have you seen anybody compete for knowledge? They compete for jobs, they compete for money, they compete for women, partners. Is anybody competing for knowledge? So the Saraswati dimension is completely absent from the society. That is what he means. There is a little bit more degradation nowadays that people are very proud of donating money, food, and so on. They are not proud of donating knowledge. They will charge a big fee if they want to teach something. But yes, you can take the bread and butter, food, they will donate it. Have you seen people donating phones or computers? Very rarely, very rarely, because these are the means of knowledge, you see? So it has not touched them so far. The most important thing for most is basic survival.

Sandesh is asking, what are your thoughts on different Yantras which Sadhguru sells at the lakhs of price under the name of God's grace? Is there anything strong like Yantra which can liberate people?

No, they do not liberate people. They can make some seekers progress a little bit. What do they do? Those who are on that kind of path, those who are surrendered to the Devi, they get benefits from it.

What kind of benefits? Mostly worldly kind, success in life and less misery. So what they are doing is they are trying to trap people. Although those who want liberation will never want these Yantras, isn't it? They want liberation, so they are not for people who want liberation. They are for people who want success or you can say supernatural powers, super powers. So that is why they are able to pay that much money. Will it happen? Will everybody get returns from that Yantra? No, very few people get it, but many people will get some kind of extraordinary experience and some people will be amused. But a few people will get impacted by it, that look, there is some truth in spirituality. So they will take up the path. Which path they are going to take up? The tantric path, not the path of liberation. So we are talking about the bottom most layer here of the society. If they have lakhs of rupees, that does not mean they are evolved. They are still rich animals. So Sadhguru is targeting them because no other possibility is there. Their only possibility is worship and these kinds of miracles, superstition, and so on. And what is happening is that their money is now channeled into charity, schools, environment

protection, drinking water etc. Sadhguru does not keep it in his pocket. So even if they are fooled by these things, because for most of the people nothing will happen, but they get satisfaction that we have paid for something nice, something good.

You see we have published the books also and now the English version of the Path of Knowledge book will be published very soon. It is the same content which is available on YouTube and other videos and the program, but some people still buy it. They already know what is written in the book. Why do they do that? Because it feels good that I have given my money for something which is spiritual, something

greater than simple survival. So the same process is happening at the Isha Foundation and it will happen like this till the end. And after that, you can guess, after that it will become a shop, business. They will still sell these gods and goddesses to the idiots for probably 10 lakhs now and they will buy it. So that is the disadvantage. That is why we do not do these things, because we think about the long term. I am also creating Yantras. What are these Yantras? The best Yantra is the human body, human mind, it is the best natural intelligence that is already created. But what are we doing? We are simply programming them and releasing them in society. That is the best way.

On the path of knowledge, we do the same thing. We try to uplift people, but our method is totally different. We are using the living Yantras to bring people out of ignorance. That is why you have step number 7 in your program. Now you can understand. The plan is very big. The plan is not to tell you that everything is illusionary and you are the Brahman. You already know all those things. This is also called the wheel of Dharma. It is being spun, it is rotating since the beginning and we are simply giving it a little bit more push. That is all we are doing. Sadhguru is doing it in his own way. So all the best to him.

So according to what you said, Murthi Puja is also somewhat fooling people.

You don't need to fool people, they are already fools. So if they think that I am going to benefit from these things, they will buy it. They will spend their time on it. And if 1 out of 10 benefits or progresses, their job is done. So the intention is not to fool people. The intention is their progress and the progress of ordinary people also through charity and so on. There will be fools who will expect too much from these things. We cannot change that. There are big temples that are constructed simply to fool people. That look this deity is going to give you everything. Just give it a little bit of money and food. They are the real businesses here. Places of worship all over the world are simply businesses. Most of the population is very much ignorant and they don't have any desire to come out of ignorance also. This will continue forever. If you see that there is a tendency in these people to worship things, you can exploit that to make them progress. That is a trick. They are tricked into spiritual progress by offering another way instead of going to the dead deities because in the temples mostly the deities are dead, there is no consecration there.

A tantric will offer them something else which will make them progress plus he will get the money. So remember that the Sadhguru is on the tantric path. Although he knows everything about everything but right now he is doing this thing. So you can call him a Mahaguru because he is walking on two or three paths at the same time. He is in the path of knowledge which is obvious but nobody wants to listen to that thing. So he pretends to be a big tantric which he actually is. Then people listen to him. Then they come in. Then he is seeding the Shaiva path, Shaivism and the Shaakth path, the worship of the Devi. Then Kundalini and Hatha Yoga and now you can see that he is trying to work on all the layers. He sees that people want to go to temples. They want to worship these statues. So he built his own biggest Shiva statue, probably in South India. As soon as the people come in that area they progress one inch, little bit, 0.001% progress, simply because they are in this kind of guru field. So this has been happening for a long time in India that those who are not ready for spiritual progress are also given something. There was a time when every street in South India had a temple which was consecrated and what was that kind of obsession with the temples? They were all tantric temples. They were not for religious or devotional purposes. Now everything is reversed. Now there is simply blind belief.

Why are there so many? If you go to Cambodia, which was a part of the south Indian empire actually, you will see thousands of lingams everywhere. Why was that kind of madness? What is this lingam? The prosperity was so much. People had so much money and time that they could do all these things. Now how many yantras do you find in India? Hardly any. And like Sandesh said, only those who are rich can afford consecrated ones. Those who are poor can afford stones. They are just stones. Even if they worship it they are worshiping a stone. So how many tantrics are there that can consecrate the lingam? Hardly anybody. Sadhguru is probably trying to revive it. He is training his own people. But I think that golden age will never come where in every street there was something which caused progress in people, which gave them the spiritual environment. Now it is not possible I think in this age.

What are we doing? We are using the modern yantras like your phone, your PC, whatever is possible. It is being sent to you. This is called the grace of the guru field. He was asking how to get it. No. It is being given to you. Sometimes it is forced on you. But you don't want it. That is the problem isn't it? Nobody wants it. The guru field is everywhere and they are working even at the levels of animals. They want the animals also to come in the human category. But we do not see all these things. It is all hidden.

Shrey is saying GCR is also a yantra made by Guruji.

Yes, more are coming. Every app that you use, every website you visit, every group you join is a creation

of the guru field. Actually there is too much grace. You will get bored of it.

Siddhant is asking, if everything is layered structure. Can we say that the layers of heaven and hell exist?

Yes, actually there are many such layers. Heaven is defined in a Tantric way. A world where there is prosperity, happiness, desire, fulfillment of all kinds, beauty, technology and knowledge. That kind of world will come in the category of heaven. And hell is where these things are lacking, opposite of that. So how many are there? Infinite. There are as many worlds above as there are below. Why don't you get to see all these things? The reason is you are trapped here. There are too many. You visit one and they are all the same. You will get the idea.

How will you end up in the place that you want? That is the law of attraction. Convert yourself into that kind which is suitable for the heavenly worlds and you will automatically reach there. This is called evolution. If you fall down to something which is suitable only for the lower worlds, the hells, you will automatically reach there. So this is the secret of going to other worlds. Change yourself and the world changes. You cannot remain what you are right now and expect to get a glimpse of it. Even if you get a glimpse of it, it will be like a dream which we call the projected state. So there are many traditional ways of going to heaven but the best way is self-development, self-evolution.

Siddhant is asking, is it true that we are always evolving or devolving?

Yes, because of impermanence, nothing is stationary. We have only two ways, either go up or go down. This is a choice that you have. There is no choice to remain as you are because if you remain as you are, it is devolution. You can imagine that this whole universal memory is like a river and if you want to stay where you are, it won't be possible. Either you will go down or you can call it up but there is no option to stagnate here.

Session 218

Graham is asking, how should I deal with my desire to be with the Guru?

Just like you deal with all the desires? Know that they are simply illusory activities of the mind. If it is really important, it will happen automatically. If it is not important, simply watch this activity coming and going. Be in awareness. This is the solution for all the desires.

Vandita is asking, is Mooji saying bring your heart to your mind similar to the experience of oneness?

Because the heart here means the experiencer, so it means know the experiencer. Mind means knowledge, intellect. The word heart comes from the terminology of Ramana Maharshi. He called the experiencer or the atman as the hridayam or heart and the mind is simply that which thinks. So think about the experiencer, which means be in awareness, self-inquiry.

Sanjay has a question, is it right to infer that the term love as used in a spiritual context is synonymous to experiencing or oneness?

Yes. The definition of love is to become one when there are no differences. So at the highest level, everything is one and that is the same as love.

There is a question from Satya that what does spiritual independence mean?

I never heard about this thing. We can talk about the independence of the person, but that which is spiritual is already independent, it is already free. So the person can be freed from ignorance, that much is possible, that much independence is possible. Probably when you become free from ignorance, that will be your independence. You are not dependent on others to know what is true, what is not.

Swapna is asking, why does knowledge in some situations become very difficult to apply?

It totally depends on the situation. Where are you trying to apply it? Usually the truth is completely useless in this illusion. In the illusion, only the knowledge of the illusion will work, not the truth. So let me know where you are trying to apply it. Probably at the wrong place. The use of knowledge is in liberation from the illusion. That is the application.

There are effects of knowledge and those effects like peace, bliss, higher intelligence, evolution, they can have a little bit of beneficial effect on the person. But if you try to apply the knowledge that I am not a human, I am not a person, try applying that in the case of your family or your business, it is impossible, not only difficult. There you must behave like a human, there you should be a person and there is no other choice also. How can you behave as an emptiness or experiencer? It has no behavior at all. So the knowledge cannot be applied inside the world, it can be applied to get rid of the world.

Sandesh is asking, what are your thoughts on Upanishads? How can one comprehend the true lessons from it?

That is simply a summary of the knowledge that is embedded in the Vedic literature that are Upanishads. And in my opinion it is very compressed, encrypted, difficult to understand, very old language but they are a very good source. And how to comprehend it, how to learn it? The best way is to approach a Guru who knows what is written there, who has actually experienced it. It will not be possible to understand it if you read it. Even if you have a good knowledge of Sanskrit, you will understand nothing.

It is the same as the case when you have a good knowledge of English but you are given a book of philosophy or mathematics or physics, you won't be able to understand a single line. It will take many years of study under a teacher to comprehend what is written in that book of physics or biology. You will understand a few words here and there but you won't become a student of that subject simply by reading.

Systematic study under a teacher is the only way, there is no other way, there is no other shortcut on the path of knowledge. This is a shortcut. If you start reading things, especially old books, it will take you many many years. You sit with the Guru and it will take only one hour. So what people think is a shortcut - I will buy a book and get all the knowledge, is actually a shortcut to failure.

Anika has a question, what can help to spread knowledge to as many people as possible?

We do not want many people, we want only those who are searching. Become available to those who are searching and how to do that? There are many ways like start publishing, your own channels, your own groups and those who are interested they will come and if one person is benefited they will go and tell somebody else and so on. This is the only way here, there are other ways but we do not employ those things. When you advertise that I have this knowledge, I have that knowledge, I can give you this,

I can give you that, then a lot of deluded people start coming and they will waste your time. Although we want more people to benefit, we do not want too many. You know the working of the Guru field, they do not allow advertisement or manipulation of any kind. So service, that is all they want, they want you to simply serve. Then it is the job of the Guru field to send the proper person to you. This is not our responsibility fortunately, to find the right person, this is the responsibility of the Guru field. They keep sending the people and the good thing is these kind of people are very few. So our job is very easy actually.

There are other Gurus who can employ different kinds of methods. They are called the public Guru, you can say popular Gurus. So their job is not to spread knowledge, their job is to spread awareness of spirituality. Usually these people are so busy that nobody can even talk to them, nobody can ask the questions and if they can ask questions, there is a very big fee for that. Lot of money must be spent to even talk to these people. What will happen if you become popular, the same thing will happen, nobody will benefit. Everybody has their own methods and their own missions. Our mission is to pick those who are ready and to leave those who are not ready. Even after giving the knowledge, I find that they are not ready for it, so we leave them because when the time is right, they will progress.

Sweetie is asking, once the truth becomes evident, is there a need of learning any other ritualistic practices?

Totally depends on your desire. If you want to do something and it involves some kind of practice, then yes, learn it, use it. If you are trying to do a ritualistic practice to know the truth, then it will be a useless practice. But if you are trying to achieve something else, then you should learn it first properly,

do it under the guidance of the guru.

What is the ultimate goal of the guru field and why?

I don't know why, but their goal is spreading knowledge and light. Why are they doing it? It is a play actually. If you really want to know the reason, it is just like a play, they are playing with it. You can ask the same question to somebody who climbs a mountain, what is your ultimate goal and why? They will say, my goal is to climb the mountain. But why? Because it is a play, its sports. Same thing, they are players.

Sandesh is asking, I have experienced lucid dreaming a lot of times, is that any spiritual experience or is it just a dream?

It is just a dream. It simply means that there is a high amount of awareness in the dream. There are no experiences that you can say are spiritual. There is no material experience and there is no spiritual experience. Whatever you are witnessing right now is also spiritual. There is only one kind of experience and that experience is a completely fabricated illusion. So everything is actually an illusion and if you want you can call it a spiritual illusion because it is you only. You are the illusion also and you are the witness of the illusion also.

Chit has a question, when everything is one, what is the point of this whole drama?

“Point” means you are asking for a reason, and there is no reason. The drama means play or leela and you can say the reason for the play is to play. The reason for the drama is to enjoy the drama, enjoyment, entertainment but that is not a very accurate answer. The answer is - in this existence there are no reasons, no causes, no purpose. It is purely existing. Then the human mind creates all the reasons, purposes and so on because of its limited intelligence. It wants to know why it is there but in reality everything simply is. Different people are given different answers depending on their ability to grasp. The highest answer is that the reasons, causes are simply illusory but if they cannot understand it then something else is told like it is a play. If that is not also graspable then they say to get happiness, to become happy, bliss and some people cannot understand that also. So they are told something else. Totally depends on how much progress you have made you will get different answers.

Chit is asking, can we really grasp reality as it is because even to know that you need to be there and that may be your individual point of view?

Yes, it is possible to grasp the reality and that which is trying to grasp it is seen as not there. When the “I” disappears, reality appears. When the individual point of view disappears the universal point of view appears which was always there. It was hidden behind this ignorance that “I need to know”. When this “I” is gone and the need to know is gone. Whatever is, will be shown. It shines. It is already here. It is hidden behind your ignorance. On the path of knowledge everything is known. All the questions are destroyed completely.

Vikas is saying, are our Indian Gods like Kali, Rudra, Bhairav, are just creative ways that our ancestors depicted as the inner states of awareness, in that they are pictorial representations of emotional states, for example anger, violence?

No, they are personifications of the powers of the universe, Rudra is nothing but Shiva only which you are, so your own form, Bhairav - same, Kali - energy or you can say vibration in our terminology which is also you. You are pictured in many ways because you have taken many forms, so where do you find this kind of deities in the tantric field, these all names are coming from the tantric field and whenever they assign a name to something, it is always some kind of power, they have identified this kind of energy, this kind of activity in the mind and they assign it a name. Rudra actually means fierce, it does not mean angry and Kali does not mean violence, it means the survival tendencies that are found in every creature, so this is a big subject and totally beyond the path of knowledge, by beyond I mean not covered in the path of knowledge.

Satya is saying, I am assuming you will transcend your existing identity to universal identity.

Your existing identity is already an illusion, it “disappears” and the universal identity means nothing, it is completely empty of any identities. Some people will say that my identity will shift from the body to something big, Brahman, experiencer, no it will be gone. There is no transcending, you are already that. Simply remove your ignorance, there is no need to transcend to anything. You do not need to change your identities from this to that, all identities are false and the belief that I am down here, I need to transcend somewhere is simply ignorance, you are already the ultimate, you are already the highest and it has no identity at all, it cannot be identified as one “thing”.

Session 219

Discussion on questions asked in a test :

How can we say the experiencer is omnipresent when it is invisible?

We never say it is omnipresent. Sometimes we say it poetically, but the correct word is non-local. The concept of location or space or place is not applicable to the experiencer. That's all we say, because the word omnipresent gives you an idea that there are places and there is an experiencer, a thing called experiencer is everywhere. But no, there are no places. This is a common misconception. I don't see it in every place and how can it be everywhere when it is invisible? So this all points to a lot of ignorance in the person when they are asking like this. It is not an object. Don't try to imagine the experiencer as an object which is filling everything in the universe. It is not like this. Sometimes we give an example of the screen which is everywhere in the picture. It is behind the character, it is behind the background, it is behind the foreground. So it is everywhere, but it is not to be found in the picture. It is not the picture. So this kind of confusion happens when you take the metaphors literally. Nothing can be said about the omnipresence or location of the experiencer. Poetically, you can say anything once you understand. So I'm omnipresent, yes, but behind that is the entire knowledge of who I am.

What is the role of a person in knowing the experiencer?

Role of the person is to let go of this concept that I am something real. Ultimately it will be known that there is no person. So what remains is the experiencer. The person does nothing. It is not an agency. Person is not an agent for even doing this. The falseness of the person can be known. I am not the body. I am not the mind. I am not this fictional entity called person. This much can be known. It is known by “no one”, something strange. And how is that possible? Only the existing concepts are removed from this person, including the concept of the person itself. So emptiness into emptiness. The space in the claypot dissolves in the surrounding space. Very beautiful poem in Upanishads. This breaking of the clay pot is the role. A claypot is the person itself.

In how many ways experiences can happen?

There is only one experience as the existence knowing itself in these illusory forms. That is the definition of the word experience, that which is manifested.

What causes vibrations in the illusion?

The definition of the vibration is binary change, there is no cause of it. Never mistake the cause for definition. Definition is answering the what question and the cause is answering the why question. So I think the answers are already there, but according to me, the illusion is first and the vibration is simply an explanation of the illusion. The vibrations are not caused in the illusion. The vibrations do not happen in the illusion. They are a scientific explanation of the illusion. Ultimately, it is a theory, simply a concept to explain away the illusion, why this is happening, and it is a very beautiful theory. It explains everything, it satisfies the intellect and that is the quality of a good theory. It is satisfactory, but it is not true. There are no vibrations. Simply, it is an intellectual tool, mathematics, that's all it is. Illusion is and then everything is manmade, you can say, human ideas, concepts, thoughts, that's all. They never find the cause of vibrations because they are not there. And moreover, there is no cause of illusion also. It is me. I am not caused, I am acausal.

Objects are also a layer in the mind, but why are they separate from me and appear solid?

We have taken the physical world as a layer of the mind, but anybody who does not know, who has not gone through the program, will doubt it. No, no, they are solid. They are outside me. Mind is something which is inside me, isn't it? So this question will be asked and it is often asked, how is the universe mental? That's what people say when they hear this idealistic view of existence. And you will see that the Advaita favors an idealistic view, although ultimately it says non-dualistic, but it climbs on the shoulder of idealism a little bit. Ultimately, it will say, no materialism, idealism, nothing is true.

The question is assuming that they are separate from me. The question is asking how they are separate from me. So there is the problem in the question. There is this assumption. Don't we show you that nothing is separate from you? That evidence is given in the program that nothing is separate from me. And the problem here is not knowing who I am. Lack of self-realization. So the person who is asking the question is still thinking I am the body. And yes, things are separate from the body. That is true. They are separate from the body, but they are not separate from me. Everything is in universal memory. Separation is an illusion. Everything is an experience.

The main point is whether they are separate from me. And the question itself is saying they appear solid, which means they are not solid. They appear solid. There is nothing there which can be called solid. Solidity is a perception. What kind of perception? Mental perception. Apparent solidity is also me. When we inspect the objects, there remains nothing but perception of objects. And the perception is happening on the same screen which is me. So no separation, no solidity, no separateness. This is the full answer.

There is one question. When others perceive it's affecting or causing harm to them, how to deal with such situations?

If the person is not asking you to do good, do not do good. Their behavior is showing this, that probably the person does not want you to do anything. Do not interfere in their matters. Focus on your own life. That is my point of view, that is my advice. Ultimately, you have to decide using your own intellect, your conduct in the world. The path of knowledge does not recommend anything, usually. But my personal advice is not to deal with people at all if it is not necessary. Don't do it.

Paramjeet is saying, I still get emotions even though I know at the same time I am in awareness.

So what is your question? Everybody gets emotions. Is it good to have emotions during awareness? I mean anger or something else. It is not good and it is not bad. It is what it is, an illusion, activity of the mind. Whatever is appearing, becoming a witness, is being in awareness. Ultimately, good and bad must be decided by the seeker. What is causing harm? That will be usually called bad.

Kapil is saying, maybe observe the emotion, recognize that they come and go and do not stick to you.

Yes, simply observe. The actions must be performed after proper evaluation, using your intellect, thinking on it. If the actions are impulsive and they are coming from emotions, that is also not bad, but there will be consequences. On the path of knowledge, we are very reluctant to call anything as bad because then it will become a command - don't do this. That means the person has no intelligence to decide what is good and bad. But on the path of knowledge, we assume that the person has the intelligence to decide, so nothing is told.

Session 220

Muni is asking, can you please talk about the parallel universe and existence theory? It says that each one of us is living many different lives simultaneously.

As you said, it is a theory. And from the point of view of our metaphysics, it's completely wrong. We never call the universe parallel. We call it an illusion. The assumption that there is something real and it is happening in parallel and there are actual people that have actual lives there is simply imagination. It's not even a theory because it's not provable actually. It is not falsifiable. So it is not even a theory, not scientific. What is the fact? What is observed? What evidence do we find?

Actually there is no universe and actually there are no humans. When this is said, all speculations are gone, destroyed. What is the evidence? That's what we always talk about. We are always presenting the evidence because the path of knowledge is evidence based. It is not theory based. So unfortunately, there is no evidence for this. And not only this, there are probably 20, 30 such theories which are completely based on imagination, nothing else. So we never call it science. What do we call it? Speculation. Because there is ignorance in the mind of that person, he is cooking up these things. That's all it is. There is only one existence. It is full of possibilities, infinite possibilities. That's all. We are not living a life. We are witnessing a dream which is eternal. There is no life. Because life is a dual word. Because when you say life, there is death. When you say birth, there is death. And the time period between the birth and death will be called life. But there is no such thing. So we do not have even one life. It is a continuous presence, witnessing itself. This is the essential knowledge. And then why do we need theories when we know? We don't need theories. Who needs them? The ignorant people. Because they do not know, they come up with very funny theories.

Sheikh Shah is asking, which came first? The experience or the memory where all experiences are stored.

Experience is fundamental. Then there is this theory of memory which is used to explain it. Why do we say that the experiences are stored? Because they can repeat. They can be recalled. So we construct a structure where they are stored. Actually there is nothing like this. So experience is fundamental. And then we imagine the memory to explain it. Memory is simply an explanation of what is happening. Can something else happen? Yes, anything is possible here. Usually when we are talking about science, we assume that our models are true. And then we go in reverse. Then we explain the experience, the final output of the memory. But when you observe it, your direct experience will say that there is no memory. There are simply experiences, illusory experiences. Then the intellect tries to understand what is happening. And will make the models and so on. This is the scientific method.

Actually experiences are not stored. They are simply appearing. When something repeats, we simply label it as storage. But this model of memory is very convincing. It is so convincing that it is the only model that has been working for many thousand years. The model of the memory. Its names are changing. Throughout time in different cultures, the names are changing. Today we are calling it memory. But it has many different names. So which came first? There is no first and there is no last. Because time does not exist. First means there has to be time for things to come after one another. But no. Even if you take the model of the memory, it is exactly there when the experiences are happening. The memory will never be seen before the experience. Have you seen it? And there is no experience but I can experience memory. Then there is the experience of memory. It is impossible. And the experience is never seen after the memory. So that makes it clear that there is no such thing as memory. Simple explanation of what is appearing but very useful explanation. And then we can convert it into technology that can be used for the benefit of people. That is why we make the models. They are not true. Even the models are not useful beyond a certain limit. For example, the models you make of the waking state are not really useful in the dreaming state or in the projected state. You can make a model that underlies all the states which a human being can experience. Actually human beings don't experience, but let's approximately say this. So as soon as you leave this experience of being human, that model which looks universal will be useless. Ultimately there are no laws. They simply appear like this. Yes, the model of memory only satisfies to some level after that questions arise.

Sandesh is asking, I learnt a lot from you but sometimes I wonder what if the teachings here or from Vedas, Upanishads are totally opposite to reality. What if we are only evolutionary creatures, nothing else? If this is the case, what will happen?

Don't worry, nothing will happen. Human life happens completely in falseness. So if something is proven wrong, nothing will happen to your life. What will happen if I don't get knowledge? Nothing at all. Because your life does not depend on knowledge. It depends on the illusion. It depends on that which is false. So look at your history or look at all the places where there is complete ignorance. Right now also 99% of the world is under the darkness of ignorance. What is happening there? Nothing bad at all. It is going smoothly. So not knowing the reality is not a big problem. Not being able to function in the illusion is the problem.

That is why these teachings are only given to those who have this kind of curiosity. Who want to know what is beyond life. What is beyond our everyday struggle. And you will come to know that whatever is the case, whatever is the reality, it has no relation to what is happening. It will continue happening in the same way no matter which statement is taken as truth. That is what is actually happening. Many people have their own versions of truth. So one version is that vedas and upanishads are the truth. This is one belief. We call it the belief system. Blind belief. Out of 100 beliefs, this is one belief. So what is happening? Nothing. Has something changed in the world because somebody has one more belief? Nothing changes.

Now that is not the path of knowledge you see. Whatever is the teaching from these books is not the path of knowledge. The path of knowledge is concerned with destruction of your ignorance. What is ignorance? Removal of all that was assumed as true. Remember this sentence. It is very important in the path of knowledge that it is simply removal, purification of whatever is deposited, whatever was accumulated as true, false, this that, it is all cleared and that seeker then becomes agnostic. He does not become knowledgeable, wise or anything great. He becomes free. That is the goal to become free from ignorance.

So those who assume that these ancient books are the only reality, they are not on the path of knowledge. There is a big assumption there. Blind belief. Blind faith. To become free from these concepts is the goal on the path of knowledge. So what will you know? Nothing at all. That which was taken as truth will be destroyed. That is why this path is not so popular. What do people want? Something spicy and colorful and suspenseful, mysterious and look at them, they all have their own versions of reality. How is the world functioning then? It is functioning perfectly as it should function because it is all illusion. In the illusion, there is no place for truth. Like we say on the path of knowledge, the criteria for truth are arbitrary and we have also chosen a criteria for truth. And we have also chosen a criteria for truth which is totally arbitrary and subjective. Many people are shocked when I say this in the lesson on truth. The definition of a truth will start with this sentence that truth is a classification of experiences which is arbitrary and subjective. Now who will agree with this definition? Nobody. They want a specific thing to be true which is impossible. It will always be subjective. On the path of knowledge, there is one criteria which gives you the truth. But as you progress on the path, you will come to know that it was simply a tool, a logical device. And then in the non-duality, you drop the truth. What do we say? Nothing is true. Nothing is false also. There is truth. There is false also. And there is a lack of both also. And what is the meaning of this statement? Don't use this statement. This is the meaning. Stop using it. That is why we never say unity. We say non-duality.

We don't know what it is. The agnostic will say, I don't know what it is. Somebody will say, look, there is duality here. No, no, non-dual. So ultimately the path of knowledge will deny all the knowledge. That is called the pure state, pure mind. That is called freedom. What good is this for your everyday life? Useless, isn't it?

Siddhant is saying, there is no thing in our experience that is unchanging. Then how do we know? Who knows that things are changing?

You see, there is nobody who knows anything. Correct? Is there anything which knows anything? You cannot call the experiencer as “who”. Because the word who will point to an individual. And the experiencer is not an individual. It is the stationary background on which changes are happening. Will it know something? No, it does not know anything. It is a witness. It is witnessing. In some of the literatures, some of the gurus, they will call it a knower. But there the definition of knowledge and knowing is totally different. For example, Rupert Spira will say “knowing”. But we do not say, in this context, we say “experience”. Witness of the experience. It knows nothing, actually. It is simply witnessing. Because knowledge or knowing is also an experience. It is a dual word. Because there is not-knowing associated with knowing. But the experiencer is non-dual. There is no non-experience. It is always there. What will we know when there is a perception of changing phenomena? All that can be said is everything is changing. You see, nobody will know it. It will be perceived like this. Some people will say that their perception means there is knowledge, isn't it? Remember that the knowledge says that nothing is changing. Your knowledge is that the changes are illusory. Ultimately, we have to say something. So we say there is a potential. There is a possibility of something appearing as a change, isn't it? But at the level of duality, we say there is a changing aspect. That is how it appears. Remember, it is an appearance. Change is an appearance. So ultimately, nothing is known. And who knows nothing? Nobody.

These steps are taken to reach that not-knowing. Just like I was saying right now that the goal is to let go of these concepts. If you hold on to the concepts, there will be eternal chaos in your mind. You won't get peace. Rejection is peace. Not accumulation. Renounce.

So how do we know? Nobody will know. There is nobody to know anything. All that can be done is that this something which says I know something can be dropped. This is a big achievement. If you can drop this individual who claims to know this or that, it will be an achievement. And yes, it claims to know that things are changing and they are false and so on. Ultimately, there is nothing. Emptiness. And if you say something about emptiness, it is no longer empty and therefore meaningless. So silence. Silence is the perfect answer to all questions.

Paramjit is saying, illusion knows that illusion is changing. I am the witness.

That is a poetic way, yes. Poetic way or a metaphorical way of saying that. The change is an illusion. It is known in the change. It is known in the illusion. Remember, all knowledge is negative. If you come up with a positive statement about something, look, this thing knows that thing. That will be torn down. That will be shot down by pundits of non-duality. If it is a negative statement, yes, most people will agree - Negative. No change. Nobody knows. Everybody is satisfied now. Everybody is happy because no claims are being made. The false accumulation or the false concepts are dropped at the end of the path of knowledge. You can drop it today if you want. And you can get established in the pure silence. But you won't do it because the intellect is very active. So what do we do? We cut the intellect using the intellect. That is the use of intellect to make it stop questioning through direct experience and logic.

Nitya is saying, please share your views on abortion, feticide, infanticide.

My views are very simple, you see. That whatever you see as happening in the society, the right and the wrong, should be governed by the society, not by the seeker. Where do you fall? Are you a social person? Are you a worldly person? Or are you a seeker? First, you know your position. Where are you? And then we can decide what is right, what is wrong. Because probably that is what you mean by the views. When a person takes a position, then the meaning of the word view is, obviously, whether it is right or wrong, ethical or unethical. That's what you want to ask.

Nitya is saying, if advice is sought from us.

Yes, I know these people, they will come to seekers and gurus to find out whether something is right or wrong. Why is that? They don't know these people. They don't know what is right. Ultimately, it is all subjective and arbitrary. If there is an abortion, does it do any kind of spiritual damage or social damage or anything emotional damage? If yes - wrong, isn't it? That is the criteria on the path of knowledge. Anything which causes harm is wrong. So, was there a loss of life? Yes, wrong. Was somebody hurt? Yes, wrong. Non-violence is the criteria.

It has to be decided on a case by case basis. For example, let us say there is a woman and there is a child

which is going to be born. But the child is completely damaged. Let us say has no head, no arms, nothing. But it is a living tissue. It is a living piece of meat. Now the doctor recommends abortion. Now it is completely justified. It is completely ethical.

Let us say there is a victim of abuse, rape and all. Emotional damage has already happened. Now the parents ask for abortion. And it is completely right in their point of view. Completely okay because we are saving a life. Under these cases, whatever is thought of as unethical becomes ethical. Is killing unethical? Totally depends on the reason behind it. If it is a terrorist, criminal, yes. Completely ethical.

Killing innocent people? Unethical. Normally your society will decide who is a terrorist, who is a criminal, decided by people collectively. And they can decide anything, arbitrarily. Same way, people decide on abortion etc etc. in an arbitrary way.

From the point of view of non-violence, greater harm has to be avoided. If you have avoided a greater harm, it will be called non-violence, even if it is violence. But you see, there is no rule like this. There are always exceptions. Actually there is no rule. There are only exceptions. Everybody has their own right and wrong. But probably some worldly person has asked you for advice. And then, on a case by case basis, how much harm it was causing. You should ask this question. Was it harmful to the mother? Then right. Otherwise wrong. Because it is violence. And I will tell you one thing. Nobody will agree with you. What do they agree with? Their own biases and stories. First they make up their mind what is right and wrong. And then they find the justification. And then they will come to you to find justification. Let me see if this spiritual seeker has the right answer. And they will try to match their view with you. Oh it does not match. This person knows nothing. Not spiritual at all. I will go to the other person. Oh there he matches with my view. He is always right. So you see, there is hardly any intelligence in society. Mostly when people ask me these things, I say you decide. You cannot think or what? You decide what is right and wrong for you. But obviously that will be very rude. You will need to sugar coat your answer.

Shyam is asking, in Gyanmarg do we aim to drop the mind or achieve super consciousness? Referring to the debate of nothingness infinity as the nature of existence?

No, the mind is already nothingness. And the super consciousness is already present. Infinite. And your true nature is that. So do we need to drop something? No, it is already not there. Do we need to achieve something? It is already there. What do we need to drop? Our ignorance. What do we need to achieve? Knowledge. That's all is the aim on the path of knowledge. Not dropping, picking, achieving.

It will never happen. Something will be known as not true. Something will be known as true. It will be seen that the thing that I wanted is already there. And it will be seen that the thing I wanted to get rid of is already not there. This is a very simple part. Nothing is done here actually. People are very lazy here. We do not do any kind of practice. Because it will be known that nothing needs to be done. It is all perfect as it is. This is the knowledge.

Siddhant is asking, what do you about shakta tantra?

You see, all the tantra is shakta only. Shakta means coming from Shakti. Is there anything which is not coming from Shakti? Anything at all? No, everything is. So then what is Shaiva tantra? It is, you see, shakta only in a different form. Only the name changed. There are many forms after that. So what do they do there in the Shaiva? They worship the personification of Shiva as a yogi, as a dancer, as what not. And the lingam, which will never be done in the shakta tantra, the proper shakta. The lingam is not worshipped nor it is utilized in any way. Do people know these things? No, they don't know. How do I know all these things? You need to join the tantra bodhi program to know the secrets. I know so much that if I start talking, whole night will be over and you will know only 1%. Why is that? Just now I said we want to drop all the concepts and knowing is there. Not knowing is the goal. So now we need to change the goal because the path has changed. You have changed the path. So the destination is different now. According to my classification, there are two kinds. Not the Shaiva and the shakta and all this. They are very old classifications. The tantra is dependent and independent. Both are worship and use of Shakti only. There is nothing else here in this existence which can be used.

Siddhant is asking, is the guru field also a Shakti?

Everything is Shakti. Everything is Devi. There is no example of something which is not Shakti.

So this question should not arise. Join the tantra bodhi program. You will come to know what it is.

This secret is so big that we cannot tell it in public. So why is there a question? Because you do not know the meaning of Shakti. We do not reveal so much to people who do not know. Why? Because you see, they will start experimenting and then they will cause harm to themselves or some other people, somebody else. So the path is very, very secretive. You will never know everything. But in tantra bodhi, you will tell just enough to silence your mind so that you drop all the questions regarding the illusion. That much will be told.

Shyam is asking, determinism versus free will, what truly decides our life?

The answer is very simple, act as if you are free to act using your intelligence, rationality. Act according to the necessity. Do that which is necessary and that is the practical solution. Never worry about whether it is already determined or not determined or random. We never worry about these things. If it is determined - illusion. If it is free - illusion. Illusion can appear in many forms. So a wise man, a very intelligent man, acts as if he has the control over the decision making and actions. This is the intelligent way to act. Whether the cause is determined or not, ultimately a person must act. We sometimes say that free will is an illusion. But in the illusion, only illusion works. Nothing else will work. So we act as if we are free to decide. If you come to know someday, no, no, it was determined. Nothing will change in your life. You will continue acting in the same rational, logical way. Then you will come to know that determinism is completely an illusion. So you are in charge of your life. You decide what happens here. Start acting wisely, intelligently.

I'll just add that who debates on all these things? People who don't have anything to do in their lives. Useless people. They keep debating. Those who have something to achieve, something to do, they simply do it. They do not worry. Do I have will? Free will? Caged will? Imprisoned will? This will? That will? No, no, no. We don't have time for that.

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