Session 61

Manish has a question. Do disciples go through the stage where they become powerful gods and they create their own worlds and live in that for a million of years? Do they have to curb this desire in order to go beyond the complete liberation? Do they get these god-like powers?

Well, first of all, I am going to tell you very honestly, I don't know. We are currently in the human domain, we know only what a human is capable of knowing and that is a lot actually, we know a lot. But there are some things which we can know only when we progress beyond humans.

The situation in which we are, are we not capable of many things compared to the other creatures? For example, there are limitations to our consciousness right now, we can see only a few things, but if we compare our abilities to the less evolved creatures, we are surely able to do a lot, we have more powers. If the evolution progresses like this, you can now project it in a certain way where it is going, there will be more capabilities. What kind of capabilities? You will come to know.

If you want, you can take the stories on faith, there is no harm in that, because you will see a lot of commonly held beliefs about what really happens once the human step is passed in the evolution. Yes, more powers, more freedom, more bliss and we are closer to the light because we are the light. So the Jeev, the expression of the universal memory comes very close to the absolute. This is all possible.

Now he is saying whether they necessarily go through this and there is my opinion here and it is only an opinion, I cannot say really what happens. It is possible to skip all these light beings and god-like powers because you have the freedom. I have the power to dig up the mountain nearby, this is a big power that I have and I even have machines to turn the mountain into a pit, but I am free to not do it. If I see any utility in that, I will do it. If I want to make a road through it, a tunnel through the mountain, yes I will do it. But if I don't see any use of it, I already see there are infinite universes, so I don't really see any use of making one more, I simply go and occupy one that is already there, if needed at all. I don't think such a powerful thing needs anything actually. I have the power to skip everything, I don't need to go through all that circus of creating this and creating that and helping this being or that one. I can skip it all. That is my opinion. If you want you can skip everything, you can skip some stages in the evolution, but yes because of the freedom that we get, it is all available to us.

Someone’s question - do you need to learn everything that all the masters say?

Okay, I will tell you a secret, it's a very big secret, but it is an open secret, all of them say only one thing. All of them are saying one thing in different ways, remember this secret. What is different is opinions, not the truth, the truth is one, we don't need to study all of that, we don't need to study all that is outdated and the languages that are lost and their interpretations, which are too many. You will find the same poem interpreted in 20 ways, now which one is right? Tell me, I am going to give you the 21st opinion here, how will you know it is the right opinion? It is so interesting that these people whom we call ancient uncivilized beggars, had access to philosophies that are so advanced that even the highly educated people don't understand them, they don't have this knowledge, it is a kind of paradox. Not only we, every generation thinks that they are the most superior kind, this is human nature, hubris is human.

I am not going to give you my opinion, I am going to give you something which will stop all these questions forever, look at your experience, and know everything and then you will understand everything that everybody has said. Can you tell me how much time it takes to translate the Ashtavakra Gita and Avdodh Gita? Can anybody guess?

Ashu is saying years. I'll tell you if you don't know what is written there it is going to take years because you will study the dictionary, you will read this book, you will then go and study this pandit, that pandit, this interpretation, you will need to visit this library, that library and because the book is rare you won't find it anywhere, it is not available on amazon.com and you get all the cheap stuff from the Wikipedia and Google which will waste your six months and so on. It took me only seven days to translate both Ashtavakra Gita and Avaduta Gita. If you don't believe me, go and just read the book, I have published it, the links are on my blog. If you know what they are talking about it will take you a few days, it took me seven days. So is it a miracle? No. Am I somebody who is extraordinary? No. I simply know what they know, that's all. It took me seven days just to find the proper words to translate what they are saying. I looked up the Sanskrit words and I did not even bother looking at the Sanskrit, I simply took the English translation and I interpreted it. I found that it was right and then I wrote it down, that's all. So I am giving you a key, don't look at the books, don't look at all these poems that are cryptic. It is going to take you years to find out the meanings. I received many good letters praising this thing. I have never seen this kind of translation before and honestly the translation is usually one or two lines. Avadhuta has not said anything which needs to be elaborated in 500 pages, which these authors do most of the time. It can be said in one line.

I told you that day the truth is very simple. Yes, you can spice it up with all the commentary and all the metaphors etc. and then the message is lost in translation actually. My mission here is to clear the clutter, clear the mess, clear the dirt that has piled up on the ancient knowledge. The knowledge is not ancient, the knowledge is timeless, isn't it? The same knowledge holds in every time, all the time, in every era, the same knowledge is there. So, I gave you a key here. Get the knowledge. Forget these old books or people.

Choose a path, go to the nearest Guru, ask the Guru what is the ultimate truth. Start from there. You don't need to read anything. You don't need to know a single word of Sanskrit or Pali or whatever. Don't rely on interpretations. You need to get the knowledge. Knowledge is not in the books. I wasted many years studying the books. There is nothing in the books. If you ask me about some other great masters and if I have not done the study, then it will be purely a wild guess. So, I am giving you a warning like this. I am not going to say, I don't want to tell you. No, that is not the reason that I don't tell you. The reason is you won't learn anything. Ask me your question and ask me what I say.

Question - many times when people die, they are in an unconscious state like under heavy doses of medicines or drugs. But many of the near-death experiencers say that though the body is in the unconscious state, we are completely aware of all the things. So, is that true? There is no awareness at the time of death?

If you are not aware, the mind is going to create hallucinations, these colors and all. Not only colors, it will create a dream for you and if you go with the dream, instead of becoming aware you will be lost. If there is a dream, don't worry. Don't pay attention to the dream. Pay attention to who you are, which means maintaining awareness. It is not true that everybody will die in awareness. Yes, there are many people who die in awareness, who are very lucid while dying. And I have seen that this will happen only when the death happens in natural conditions, which means they are not under the influence of any drug. Even if they are in a tremendous amount of pain, the pain is natural, the pain does nothing to your awareness. Actually the pain will bring in awareness. You can use the pain to come into awareness. You can do it right now also. Right now you are just lost in your thoughts. Somebody takes a pin and pricks you. Complete awareness instantly. Full attention.

There are two factors here. How much is your practice? That is the first thing. Have you done any practices, any experiments at all in the waking state? At least, if not in dreaming or subtle states. Very few people do that. At least if you have done something in the waking state, you will have something to hold on to while dying. And if you have not done anything, your whole life was spent sleeping. In a spiritual context, you have never practiced awareness. Even after knowing that there is such a thing, I need to do this, even after the instructions were given by your guru, you did not do it. Then most probably, even if you die in natural conditions, you will lose all awareness. Because of the fear and because of all the pending desires, the mind will create a dream and then the next thing you know is the next birth. You won't know anything else in between. And you will be born with complete erasure of the memory. No memory of what happened before birth. And I think only one in a million dies an aware death. The rest, because they are not practitioners, cannot do it.

Now let us focus on the practitioner. If a practitioner is practicing awareness exercises, experiments in the waking state as we recommend, it is very simple, and if he is not given any kind of medicines that pollute the nervous system, then probably he will be able to maintain the awareness. The awareness will not be pulled down by the nervous system or the body, and he is not terrified, the mental condition is stable, then probably he will be able to maintain awareness and he can skip a few births there. He can directly go to the subtle state instead of the gross state, which means rebirth.

Now there can be a good practitioner and at the time of death he gets terrified because his guru is not there, his fellow practitioners are not around him. He is surrounded by worldly people who are crying and shouting and making a mess of the situation. So that brings down the awareness of the dying person. And for example, if he is in a sleep state, he dies in the sleep, or he dies in a dream state, he will get launched into some other world. He won't be able to maintain his awareness. And unfortunately, if he is on heavy medication, painkillers, anesthesia and all those drugs are in his body, then probably he won't be able to maintain the awareness, even if he is an experienced practitioner.

Now I will tell you something which is very interesting. If he is a tantric, belonging to the Shaiv community or the Shakt community, which is possible only in India, and in a very secretive environment, they are literally cults, they will take you in their cult only after a long test or something. They keep drinking all day. They are always under a drug like Datura or Bhang or something. But why do they do that? Are they drug addicts or are they spoiled sadhus or something? Yes, probably many of them are. But there are great masters in those cults, in Aghori and all those cults. What are they doing? They are preparing for death. They are trying to induce an environment in their mind which is similar to that of death, which is drunkenness, loss of awareness and projections of the dream worlds. That is what is going to happen.

Now because of their practice, they train their nervous system and their mind to remain aware in those states. Don't ask me how I know. I heard it only once from the mouth of none other than Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev. So you can say that, yes, there is some truth in that. But my logical mind says that, yes, there is a reason that they are doing it. There is a reason that they keep their nervous system in a certain state all the time. Probably not all the time, but most of the time. And there is a warning here. Please don't try to do that. Don't try it at home. This is very dangerous. Some of them will even ingest snake poison, cobra poison. There is some infamous video on YouTube where Sadhguru himself drinks the cobra poison on camera. Please don't do this. The poison, if you drink it, it's not going to hurt you. Only if it gets into the blood, it will kill you instantly. So don't do all these experiments which only the masters are capable of. What happens is, if you practice like this, you will die in complete awareness, even if the doctor has given you the strongest anesthesia. You will die in full awareness.

Actually, these people are always on the astral plane most of the time. What does that mean? They are always somewhere in the dead zone all the time. If you project out of the body and you have these tendencies or probably past life tendencies, you are bound to meet one of these tantrics. So they are usually attracted to practitioners. Who knows, they are dead or they are alive. We don't know all these things. Because I am not a master in these things, I can give you only this kind of general knowledge. I can tell you a story. That's all.

So my experience says that there are a few very gifted people who know that they are going to die probably months before their death. They make arrangements for death and then they leave the body in complete awareness. So hopefully that gives you some clues. Now I don't say that don't read these things and don't watch the videos and don't listen to Sadguru and other tantrics. You can. This is highly interesting. This is probably more interesting than any movies out there. Because you know there is some truth in that and that makes it even more interesting. There are books like Himalayan Masters by Swami Rama and by Sri M. There are books and then obviously by Sadhguru there are books. He is the great living tantric of our times. Don't miss anything. But let me tell you, not everything is true there. Sometimes the stories are made up just to attract a crowd and when the crowd gathers, they do their magic. They attract the crowd to turn them into spiritual seekers.

Shashank is asking, can we say that existence is only the ability to experience plus memory, nothing else?

Yes, you are right. Existence is experiencing itself and it is able to experience something and make sense of something only because there is memory. That means the experiences stick. There is a possibility in existence for this to happen and that is why I call it the universal memory. Nowadays, I don't even call it mind. I found that it is kind of confusing. So I'm calling it only memory. There is nothing else there except this memory and since it is the experiencer itself, it is the experiencer itself taking the form. Like the water takes the form of waves, the experiencer takes the form of structures in the memory. These structures in the memory are non-physical, non-mental, non-temporal, non-local. They are just emptiness and we are having a dream-like experience of objects which are created using the mind, using the sensory apparatus that we have. The sensory apparatus is made up of nothing but a self-organized memory only. It is amazing that this has happened and that is why we say don't waste your life. This happens one in a trillion times in this universal memory. Don't waste this opportunity. Know yourself.

Ashu is saying, you have already made an exceptional contribution to clear the mess in your blog and YouTube videos and such.

Thank you very much and now I depend on you guys to carry it forward. I usually ask people who take guidance from me to give it away, give it away for free, whatever they have learned. Let us accelerate this process of cleanup. Let us bring back the knowledge. So nowadays I'm not asking but just like I told you, I'm going to make a little bit of a structured course out of all these things. It is too random right now. This video is here and that video is there and this video is in Hindi and that thing is in podcast. I'm trying to make it a little bit more systematic and there you will get enough training to disseminate this knowledge in a similar way that I'm doing.

I'm not the only one. There are already great teachers that are doing it. If you go to my blog and check the list of teachers that I have, they are all like this. They don't believe in messing things up. They are not encrypting the knowledge now. They are giving it away. Like you listen to Rupert Spira and Swami Sarupriyanand and all. Are they making it cleaner and clearer or are they doing poetry and songs and encrypted metaphors of some kind? No, they are all cleaning it up.

So you can join the effort. That's why I say forget about all those things which you don't understand. It's not worth wasting your time there. Question everything and if you question properly, the answers are here in front of you. You have been given the means of knowledge. You have been told what is true and what is false, how to distinguish. Now just use it. Anybody with an average intelligence will be able to do it. Anybody from a housewife to an astronaut. Everybody has this potential to see. Yes, those who are kind of mysterious, they are going to make it mysterious but we cannot stop them.

Raja is saying, what we see as a red object is inherently all colors other than red. Red is reflected while all colors are absorbed by the object which means the object is anything other than red in color. Similarly, both our internal and external sensory mechanisms do not portray reality as it is. Can we understand that to know reality we must strive for awareness and only consciousness can make us see the reality?

That is a very good observation. Very intelligent observation there that the colors are not in the object. Who knows what is there in the object. The color is in your mind. I call it irreducible qualities and in the western philosophies they will call it the qualia which comes from quality. The qualities are superimposed on the objects by the mind. There are no objects, there are only qualities. So this is one important thing to notice that when I see a tomato what I'm seeing is a color and I'm seeing a shape, that's all I see, and both are created by the mind. Tomatoes are not present, there is no tomato and the smell and touch and taste are also created. There is no smell of tomato in reality. There is no touch, the soft and smooth touch of the tomato, it's not present, it is all an illusion created by the mind. There is no tomato, remember this.

What are these things that we see? They are projections of the mind. What is mind? It is just vibrations. It is a movement in the consciousness. And what is consciousness? It is me. The tomato is me. The experiencer. That is the only real thing. That is the only unchanging thing, which is appearing in different forms. It is not even changing, it is appearing. Remember, there is a difference between change and appearance. We see the appearance as changing, that's all. We don't see the foundation of the appearance changing. So this is the strong point in Advaita that it has finally explained everything. You don't need to pose this question: how did that which is unchanging and is zero/empty become something? You know it did not become anything. It did not change. There are only appearances. When I see a snake in the rope, does the rope become the snake? No, it is only a projection on what is a rope. And now the illusion has been seen, it is still a rope. Similarly, it is the experiencer before which Maya appeared. Right now, what you're seeing is nothing but experiencer only with an appearance, rope with the snake in it. And you will know finally one day, I was being fooled by these appearances, now I know these are the appearances. The appearance is not going to disappear, it will remain so after you know that it is just me. Look for the truth, don't get lost in the appearances. That is the message of Advaita Vedanta. It is right before us.

There is a comment by Shashank - I have different identities in different dreams and a specific identity in waking state. This identity is coming from a specific memory package that I experience in different states. Is it possible to gain an identity that is not dependent on memory so that it remains unaltered in every state and doesn't change with memory packet change?

Yes, it is possible to make a universal identity. And it is possible by making something which I call the memory bridge. Remember we are talking in the domain of illusion right now, so please don't tell me that it is all useless and wrong. Yes, it is completely useless, but it is interesting if you want to do all these experiments and know what this illusion is. When I enter a dream, I get a new identity. Now it is very similar to my waking state identity because the dream state is very close to the waking state. The waking state is a dream, the same thing is reflected in a night dream. Now I'll tell you how to make a bridge between the waking state and the dream state so you get a meta identity. By meta identity, I mean it will be something greater than the limited identity which you get in the waking and the very very tiny amount of identity that you get in the dream, which is very unreliable. You don't have any identity in the dream. It is just cooked up on the spot depending on what is appearing in the dream. So how to make that bridge? Awareness is your key. Maintain awareness when you get into the dream, and this awareness will bring in the waking state memory in the dream state. It forms a connection between the waking state and the dream state. You don't lose the memory of the waking state when the dream starts. This will be possible only when you enter the dream in complete awareness.

How will you enter the dream in complete awareness? There are techniques, I've described the practice of entering a dream state in complete awareness. How is it even possible to maintain awareness in the dream state and make this memory bridge? It is possible only if you are doing your practices in the waking state. If you don't practice in the waking state and simply try to do this kind of experiments in the dream, 99 percent time you will fail and one percent time, if you are really talented and you are determined, if your intent is very strong then you will be successful, but it will be totally unstable, you will get lost in the dream in a few seconds, but you will get a taste of it, that it is possible.

I'm giving you an example. You will forget your name, probably you will remember your first name, that is amazing sometimes it happens, people will call you with your waking state name in the dream, it is amazing and probably there is no last name for you. Have you noticed the last name is gone? You don't remember your phone number. You don't remember your email address and all these important things. You don't remember what your house looks like. These things were so obvious to us in the waking state, all gone. And similarly, you don't remember what are your desires, ambitions, jobs, family, that personality is lost. And you get a new personality. Like I said, you know it is coming from something, some other place, some other memory. Those memories overwrite the waking state memories. So if you do this kind of awareness exercise, you will get a state which is called the lucid dream state. A completely aware dream. And then this waking state memory can be mixed with your dream state memory to form a bigger personality. You don't need to destroy your dream personality. Enjoy your dream and you don't need to press your waking state personality there in the dream. You can become a higher being there. You can become the god of your dream.

Right now in the waking state you are actually dreaming. Your personality is created every morning. Since it is a sticky kind of personality. You remain the same person every day. Now for a spiritual seeker, it's a child's play to throw this personality and adopt another personality. It is very easy. Why don't we do it? Because of our attachment to this person. I am this, my name is this, my surname is this, my caste, my religion is this, my nationality is this. And my job is this, my profession is this. So because of this attachment and intense belief that I am only this, nothing else, you live your life in this limitation. Sometimes it is surpassed in a dream state but it is forgotten because this waking state ego is very strong. It does not let all those memories stay there. It takes probably one or two minutes after you wake up for your personality to be reformed. It is just a copy of yesterday’s. It is enforced on you and the waking ego will actually block everything that you saw in the dream. Why? Because no awareness and no control over the egoic activity. It has been going on like a machine for many years and probably many lifetimes. So it happens automatically. If you practice awareness, you will find that you get control over this activity. It will take commands from you and you will be able to remember your dreams in the waking state. You will be able to bring in the dream personality in your waking state just like you brought the waking state personality into your dream. You will be able to continue as the dream person in the waking state.

You can try that. It's very interesting. See what happens. First thing is your personality is going to change. People are going to wonder - who is this? Does not look like my husband, does not look like my son. Sometimes it will change your features also, the face, the body will change. Miracles are possible. Do try these experiments for your entertainment and also for learning that we live in a reality which is very malleable. It is plastic. It can be molded into any shape that you wish. And what is the key? Awareness is the key. Actually, I should add that we already have a big personality, a bigger personality. And this personality is nothing but your causal body. It has all the personalities in it, probably a million personalities. Now that is not all given to us right now because it is too much. You will turn into a complete lunatic even if a fraction of those personalities start manifesting. Yes, it is a virtual reality. Yes, not only you get a new body, not only you get a new personality, a new ego, new set of memories and the whole world gets created for you.

I think somebody asked me in the beginning of today's satsang, “Do we get this power to create the worlds?” You have that power right now also. If you doubt me, just check your dreams. Don't you create all the worlds there? Yes, it is kind of boring and unclear and it looks like a badly made movie because there is no story there and the characters don't act realistically. You are a budding creator already. Now if you develop this skill, which will happen as we progress from humans to gods to even bigger entities one day, you will become something which I call the greater mind or non-individualized memory. This is the new title that I've given it. It has the power to create something which is similar to this universe which we are experiencing right now. And not only that, it will create all the characters in it. Like I am one character right now created by this non-individualized memory layer of the memory. So yes, we are already that. You don't need to get the power. We have the power. You have forwarded your powers, that's all has happened. Brahma has become an ant now. We're crawling here helplessly. So get back your power. It's very much possible. It is a matter of time only. You will get it anyway.

Shashank is asking, where does the information change into experience?

No, the information is our concept only. Remember this, we do not experience information. Do we experience memory at least? No, we don't experience memory also. All there is right now, right here is experiencing, which means something dynamic is going on in the consciousness. You are incapable of explaining what it is. I should make it clear, it's unknowable. What is happening right now from the non-dual point of view? It's unknowable. If you look at it using our intellects. We are humans, we have a nice grown up intellect. Look at it. You will see only experience. Now, because it changes, because it sticks, because I can recall something and I see forms that retain the form, if something is square, it remains square, at least for a while. You see, this table is rectangular. Yes, it is going to maintain that shape for some years at least. And some forms quickly change. So why do we say it is memory? Because there's some stickiness to our experience. It retains a little bit, but ultimately it changes. And whatever changes, in a meaningful way, we call it information. So yes, the memory holds the information. We say it like this. Now, we will never see something called information because it is only a concept. It is our belief, or you can say, it is our tool to explain our experience, like a theory. The concept of the electron explains electricity. We never see electrons. We'll never see them. It is a made-up thing. Similarly, we do not see information. It is not there. And so this question should not arise - How does the information get converted into experience? No, it does not get converted into experience. The experience is of information. We do not see any process there. And I cannot even think of a process. Like, I could have cooked up a process for you right now. Look, this is the process. But no, you will never get convinced even if I do that. It's not possible. So this question not only assumes that information is real and then there is a process which is converting the information into experience, and it is happening in the chitta or in the mind or in the experiencer or somewhere. No, nothing is happening. Remember this. It is all an appearance. To study the illusion, we need some tools, memory or information are such tools.

“Look, I have this consistency in the experience. Do you see something similar in your experience?” And you say, “yes, I also see that”. Now we are sitting on the same ground. We are looking at the same view. And now we can talk about it. And we invent tools to explain our experiences to each other. Remember, this can get really involved. The theories become so sophisticated that they take on a life. They sound like they are real sometimes. Like gravity, for example. I think everybody on this planet thinks that there is something called gravity. It is a concept. And we use these tools, in a scientific way, to study what is going on. And we see there is some utility in these theories because we can manipulate it. Once you form the theory of the information, memory, and all these layers of memory, and how these projected bodies work and all, you can utilize it. That is what we call technology. And this is much better technology. I call it the technology of the mind. The outer engineering is very gross. It is very limited. And you don't stay here to enjoy the fruits of your intelligence. So you cultivate something which is much better and longer-lasting. You cultivate the technology of the mind.

Ashu is asking, how does the sensation turn into thought?

Basically, sensation is an experience. It gets converted into a mental activity at the end of it. Why is there a sensation in the first place? Because of something magical. It is called a sense, from which the word sensation comes. You can also call it perception. So there is a structure in the memory, which is called sense. The sense is like a transducer. It converts the incoming signal into something which can be comprehended and stored in the memory. But it is not a thought. It is called impression actually. It gets impressed onto the memory, whatever the sense is telling us. And then another layer picks it up from the memory and converts it into another activity. In Sanskrit, we call it vritti. So because the memory is one common background, like it is a blackboard where everybody comes and writes anything. I'm calling it a local memory. It is the memory in which all the senses are writing in the waking state. This is important. This memory is active only in the waking state. So all our bodily senses, the five senses plus some internal senses in the body, are writing on this local memory. There is another layer in the memory, which we usually call the intellect, buddhi. It also has access to the same memory. And there are processes going on in the intellect, which are - concept formation, naming, and finding relations between different perceptions and so on. You see, the intellect is doing a lot of things - what is useful for me, what is not useful for me, and passing it down to the ego for survival processes. And it is very complicated already. It reads whatever the senses have reported. And then activity of that layer is also sensed. And whatever we sense, are known as thoughts.

So usually a thought is another sensation, that's all. It is a faint copy of the original sensation. Sensations become sanskara, which means impressions. And the impressions give rise to thoughts. Not only thoughts, they give rise to emotions. And if they become sticky, they appear as impulses or desires. If they were useful for survival in the past, they will reappear as desires. And the desires give rise to thought and emotions. And finally, impulses in the nervous system are generated, reverse process now, and action happens in the world. Sensation is the reverse of action. So it is a very interesting process. If you think this is called conversion, then yes, it is the conversion. But remember, nothing is getting converted to anything here. It is all a chain of vibrations, a long chain of cause and effects, that's all. Nothing is getting converted into anything. Remember this, it is all happening in the memory itself. So all that must be done is the shuffling of some information from here and there, that's all. There is no separate thing like sensation, and there is no separate thing like thought. They are all activities of the memory, that's all it is, memory and its activities. There is a word for it, usually we call it mind.

This question comes because we have this kind of belief that, well, there are objects out there, and my senses are converting those objects into some signals, and there is a process which is taking those signals and converting them into like different shapes and colors and sounds and all, and then somehow I perceive these things. No, it is not like this, really. The object is a projection, the whole of it is in the mind, including your body. And then where are the senses? They are also in the mind, they are also a structure in the memory.

Shashank is asking, are chitta and memory the same thing?

Basically, yes. I mean, fundamentally it is all memory. Although in the tradition, we do not equate them, we do not say that chitta is memory. There is another word for memory in Sanskrit which is called smriti. And sanskar is also a very good word, but sanskar has a deeper meaning. It is not any memory, you see. Sanskar is the one that produces desires. But you see, there must be some reason that they use different words for chitta and smriti. And so what I have done here is that in the new series, I just killed the chitta. I mean, chitta is translated as mind, and in English, the mind is a corrupted word. Memory, everybody has experienced it, isn't it? Mind, nobody knows what it is. You see, the mind is a word just like consciousness and god and all those words which nobody has experienced but everybody thinks that I know it. So memory, well, it is kind of very solid. We can have a scientific study of it.

When you are on the path of knowledge, you have two directions. The first is you can go to the fundamentals. Keep dropping all these names, all these concepts, and you reach the essential. That is the recommended path, usually. There is another way, which is not recommended, where you go into the details. It is completely optional. You don't have to go there. If you have the essential knowledge, that is fine. You know who you are, you know you are free and eternal, and this is a happy ending. You can take the other path, which is endless. That is exploring manifested existence. And when you explore it, there will be as many concepts as there are explorers. Now, it is very slippery if you think you know all the names, and you believe that these things are true, and now it is my knowledge. Then, the slope is so deep here, the abyss is so deep that you will be lost forever in the maya. Don't do that. So, hold on to your essential knowledge, and then you can explore a little bit. Then, the names are not going to trouble you. Then, all this chitta and memories and this body, that body, these things are not going to trouble you.

And that is why I'm very careful. I don't give all the knowledge in the first sitting. You will slip and you will fall. All I can do is give you a simple knowledge of it, some names I throw around, and then I ask you to come back to the essentials. People have created all those concepts and all. They must have created it for some purpose. Otherwise, usually, we don't create such things. And as soon as I see that, no, the intellect is not yet matured enough to handle the concept, he is going to assume these as true. I bring him back. No, no, there is no such thing. You see, they are only appearances. It's only one thing. It is only one memory. Choose one word, you see. Choose chitta or choose memory. That's all. And you will be good. You will understand what is going on without invoking another concept.

Now, when do we want to make a difference between chitta and memory? There are two possibilities here. First, you jump from one philosophy to another. Then, you will need to adopt the toolset of that other philosophy, which you will do only if your favorite philosophy is not giving you any answers. And you will find that Advaita is kind of limited here when it comes to maya. Advaita has actually borrowed a lot from other philosophies to describe the maya, to even talk about maya. If you want to check the knowledge of maya in Advaita, you will be given this trigun principle, the three qualities principle, the rajas, tamas, and sattva. And they clearly say that rajas is bad, tamas very bad, stick to the sattva, which is the truth or something like this, a balanced state. And you will clearly recognize that they are giving you a message. Don't go into maya, it's bad. They went to this extent to explain the maya, only because they wanted the seeker to remain safe. The trigun does not explain maya. Don't even think like this. These qualities are present in every experience, more or less. All experiences are a mixture of these three qualities. Now, you cannot control it, you cannot do any experiment on it, you cannot exploit the maya for desire fulfillment or anything. So, what do we do? We jump to another philosophy where these things are elaborated. It is totally optional, you see. You can stay here, you will be very safe. No study, no confusion, use this formula. But if you are interested, if you are a curious explorer kind, which I think everybody will be on the path of knowledge, and you want to study all these things, you can jump to Samkhya, like I've done. There is smriti, there is chitta, you can call it a memory of some kind. It is almost like a substance. And I liked it a lot. So, I simply adopted it. And I found out that, okay, a lot of Advaita has adopted Samkhya philosophy in its elaboration of maya, like the concept of ishwara and all. Advaita is an atheistic philosophy. It was adjusted to suit the time. But yes, more and more entanglement will happen if you deviate from the essential knowledge. And yes, you can get lost. Have a very solid foundation of essential knowledge. And then you can tie a rope on your waist, and then you dive into different things. That is what I ask you to do. Don't take everything literally. There is nothing, there is no memory, there is no chitta, there is no mahat, there is no tanmatra, there is no matter, there are no forces, nothing at all. What is there? There is only you.

You can let go of it. You can say that I am not interested in details at all. And you ignore it, there are too many details, actually. I cannot cover all of it. What happened is, I listened to so many masters, probably that was a mistake, because I had no basis, I had no essential knowledge. So, I was searching like everybody else and I collected a lot of it. I studied a lot from the most ancient rituals to the most modern quantum mechanics, everything is here now. That is a problem for a newcomer. I do not serve everything to everyone. Sometimes a topic comes up, and then there are very intelligent questions like, what is chitta and memory. Now I must go and dig a little bit. You're going to get lost. So, just ignore it. Hold on to the essential knowledge.

Session 62

I wanted to ask you, are you trying to end the seeking?

Don't think that you are seeking something, think of it like a play. What is this knowledge all about? It is useless, isn't it? Nothing can be really known except what you are. So what we are doing is we are just playing with it. You will never find anything. What you find is the end of ignorance. The ignorance keeps ending, something pops up in your mind and then you seek and you see that there is nothing to find really. It was just my ignorance, it was one more dream and then you wake up. Yes, it was entertaining for a while. And that's all we do. All these courses that you are doing, are they useful? They are just a device to see that we don't need to know more than this, that is all we are doing. When I say join the course, that is because we are not completely established in our true nature. Every now and then there is a doubt - probably I need to be in some specific state, probably I need to be in a samadhi too. It looks like everybody's seeking samadhi and all those states, I also want it. You go to the guru and the guru says okay, do this, do that, and after samadhi you find out that I was always like this, it is just another tiny variation of my true nature which I am already, it is just another form of that.

We never find anything, we only find an end to our ignorance. Whenever ignorance arises, we go and search and we destroy it, that's all we are doing. We are not seeking anything, you don't have to seek anything. There is no seeker also, it is a play. Sometimes the intellect will say I want to know something and the seeking begins, the play begins, and then it ends very quickly on the path of knowledge. As soon as you have a question about it, it ends. If you keep doing it in darkness, then probably it will go on for a while.

Now you are asking me, is it true that the experiencer can know everything except itself?

What you are knowing right now is the experience. It's yourself, there is nothing except Self, see this, and if there is only Self and it knows itself by being itself, then what does it mean it knows everything? Now who does not know? The intellect, the so-called person, the tiny shape that it has taken, it does not know anything. And don't worry, even if it knows the whole universe, it won't know anything, there is nothing to know here, it is all illusion. Now you can say no, I can know the illusion, yes, the illusion is known as illusion only, not as truth, that is what we call the relative truth, that is also like a play. That's existence exploring itself, like how much can I become and how much can I see myself, that is what it is doing. So we play, whatever this tiny thing is doing, this human or whatever you want to call it, the jiva or the causal body or whatever it is, it is playing, it is exploring, it will never know anything. Why is that? Because it is all empty, it is so pure that there is nothing to know here, it cooks up something and then tries to grasp it and it finds only emptiness. In this play it thinks that I know something but no, it simply becomes itself, takes a form, it is all beautiful really, and a curiosity arises in this creature, this individual, it runs after it thinking that I don't know something, but all it knows is itself only in just another form. This has been going on since eternity and it will go on for eternity. Eternity means timelessness. So you will never know anything because you know everything as your own forms, and also because there is nothing to know in reality. This is kind of paradoxical, it cannot be grasped by intellect, but you can see that this is how it is.

Now you are asking, are there implications of this in terms of abandoning seeking, that will ultimately lead to nowhere?

All the seeking should lead to yourself, if it leads nowhere then you're seeking in a wrong direction, and then don't seek, don't go there. Spiritual means about the Self, about the spirit, about me, and that is the spirit of everything else, I am everything. Every search should lead to me. Scientists are searching for matter in the illusion, where does it lead to? Leads to me only, they find that there is no matter except myself, I am the matter and nothing else matters. Your seeking should lead to the same goal and if it leads to somewhere else that means you are lost, that means you need to find a guru now, you need to find a teacher who will correct your seeking. There is no need to abandon the seeking, just give it a direction, that's all.

Next question: The jump between seeing yourself as an object in the world and being the whole world seems to be very subtle. Is this true? Then, what are the implications there for the practice? You are not the world. You are both the world and this seer of the world. Isn't that true? Yes, it is. Is there anything else beyond this? No, there really isn't. You already have what you're looking for. Sometimes while seeking, there's a desire to find something, even though Self is never absent. And, as you said, that's ultimately where all your seeking will take you.

If you say that being myself and seeing myself as everything is subtle, then what is gross? Because there is nothing else which is grosser than this. There is nothing else which is subtler than this. Just like you said, it looks like that this is all there is, experience happening on the screen of the experiencer. Now, where is the subtle part? Where is the gross part? The gross part is probably where your awareness leaves you. That is why we have the awareness practice. And it is not very difficult.

Now, I'll tell you one more thing which normally we don't tell to the awareness practitioner. As soon as you come out of this grossness or this darkness a little bit, where the ignorance arises that I need to know something, I need to become something now, and so on, when you come out of this, you're back in awareness. Hopefully, you will remember my words, or you will read something, or you will listen to a video or something, or by yourself you can get back in awareness. You do not reject this darkness, you see it as a play. Yes, it happened, I went into this gross place for a while, and I got distracted by this thing. It's okay, it's fine. Yes, the ego or the person or the intellect wants to play. Yes, give it some toys, you see. Give it some philosophy, discuss it with your friends, or discuss it here in satsang. Let us discuss the gross also. I do that all the time, magic and fairies, subtle bodies and other worlds. Don't we do it all here? And do I lose awareness because of that? Because of this play that is going on? No, we allow it. I also sometimes forget that these things are not true, and then I get involved in it. But we don't really say that they are gross. As long as there is a duality and there is a rejection of what is happening, it is guaranteed that you will not be satisfied here. I want that subtleness. It is not yet so solid. I want it to be solid. Well, it will never be solid, let me tell you that. Which appears gross and solid is darkness. The darkness is happening on the screen of the subtle. The gross is happening on the screen of the subtle. The darkness is happening in the background of the light. Isn't it strange? Isn't it when I become unaware? Actually, it is happening in this background of experiencer. It is like playing for a while that I'll forget myself and I'll get involved in something, then it comes back. So, let it be there. And there is no need to make it into a failure. Oh, it happened, my awareness went away. Well, that is very natural.

But why don't we say these things to the seeker? I told you that we do not normally tell the seekers to do this. I'm not actually asking you to practice this. The practice is very clear. You need to be aware 24 by 7. We don't tell them because they will become complacent. They will become lazy. Oh, he told me it is okay to be in darkness. No, it's not okay. But if it becomes an issue for you, it becomes a problem for you, then remember this thing that it is all okay. Just pick yourself up from wherever, whenever the awareness arises, whenever the subtle becomes the foreground, and continue.

I'm finding that being close to yourself brings a lot of peace. I have less questions, I don't feel the urge to ask any questions. It just seems to be there, seems to be a lot of other things taking place. I think that's purely happening at some sort of a deeper level.

The deeper level that you are talking about is not about me. It is not even about you as a person. The person has nothing special. The person has no knowledge, the person has no power. It is a shadow, it is an image. So, what is happening is you are connecting to the deeper levels which is just getting away from the superficial, you see. It is the deeper thing that was always there. It was covered up by the superficial. What you are really doing is connecting to a deeper level. Every one of these illusory creatures have access to it because they're made up of that. That is our essence. The oneness will be made known. Your case is very typical. We call it the opening of the heart chakra. I think everybody must have heard about this. The heart chakra is the seat of emotions, and when it opens, it is exactly the same feeling that you're describing. I know it happened to me, and for me, it was just crying all day and all night. The superficial in me was destroyed. That appears as the opening of the heart chakra. It is because for the first time, you're so near to you. I'm talking in poetry here a little bit because our logical language does not go there. There are no formulas or equations here.

I can see your future actually. The future is - opening of the Vishuddhi, which happened to me after two years. It is not very distant. In the recent past, I could not speak to people. I could not turn my thoughts into sentences. I could not write properly. It was nothing special, no depth in my writing. Vishuddhi is the intellect. It will be the next that will be affected. Immediately, you will get great clarity. You will find that all of your talk, all of your words, all of your actions are now dripped in intelligence of a special kind. It is not street smartness. You will not be able to utilize it for anything else. You won't become a big businessman or you won't become a scientist or anything. But yes, your interest in the arts will grow. If you're interested in the arts already, your creativity will grow. This is the future for you.

Enjoy the experience. It is not logical at all. The logic fails completely. This is the purification of the layers of the memory, if you want to formalize it, or if you are on the yogic path, it is the purification of the chakras. The chakras are opening up. And no, you cannot open them by sitting and chanting the mantra. It cannot happen in one day. It takes many lifetimes. So enjoy it. There is no need to question it. It is very common. What is not common is knowledge. Because those who are here, they have a realization. They don't know what I have realized. And now the layers will start purifying. And they don't know why these effects are happening. Well, you asked for it. You asked for a change, and a change is happening. Now accept the change. What else can the person do? Accept, surrender to what is happening. It will come and go. So, this extreme love, especially for the teacher or especially for the path, or whatever, or it will also reflect in as love for God or the Ishwara or any deity. This is the essence of the devotional paths that you completely surrender, and they experience this love that you are experiencing. They experience this all the time. The only problem in the bhakti marga or the devotional path is that it consumes your life. I've seen it. It happens very rarely that they come above the heart chakra. Very rare. If they are very lucky, they will get somebody on the path of knowledge who will pick them up, that will transform them. They will take you to the higher layer, higher purifications. So, fortunately, you are already on the right path. Your intellect is already very mature. Now, it can happen.

Sometimes, the intellect matures before emotions. All combinations are possible. People ask me, "No, no, I don't want to lose this sweetness that I'm having in me, this love, this oneness I feel everywhere." I get irritated, because it is always there. The unconditional freedom is always there. The careless attitude is always there. “I don't want to become intellectual”. People will say like this, and that is a resistance. You will never lose this ability. Once the purification has happened, it has happened. What will happen with the awakening of intellect is - you will get a greater control over it. The confusion will be gone. Now, the sweetness is there, much more refined. So, that is my experience so far. This happens with you as you progress. Don't worry. It can take a few years sometimes. States of the mind come and go. You don't come and go.

Shrikant is saying, since awareness is a function of the mind, can there be awareness in deep sleep?

Yes. It is called the yoga nidra. You must have heard this thing. What is sleep? It is just a reduced activity of the mind. There is some misconception about the sleep that it is unconsciousness and it is lack of activity. No, it is not like this. It is a different activity. Take a look at your sleep. If you want an objective kind of analysis of the sleep, you just hook up the EEG on you or you tape yourself with a video camera and it will be a little difficult for you, but employ a camera which is filming the whole of your body and then use a camera which is focused on your face. You will see that whole night or eight hours of it, they're full of activity. There are sleep disorders like sleep walking and all those things you must have heard about. It is sleep, only that sleep paralysis is taken away because of the affliction, because of this disease. It's just like a misconfiguration that happens and the person starts walking and talking, because the nervous system did not shut down the motor system.

Anyhow, sleep is full of activity. There is not even one second in this whole existence which is devoid of activity. The only thing is since it is a different kind of state, the waking memory has nothing to do with it. The main function of the waking state memory is to keep us alive. What is there in the waking state memory? - What is your job? How to drive? Who is your wife? Who is your child? Who is your mother? What is your to-do list for today? Plus all that worldly knowledge, even spiritual knowledge and so on. That is the waking state memory. When the state changes, this memory has nothing to do with the new state. So, nothing is written in this particular area of the memory. You can take a computer metaphor here, that one program which is writing in one database, if it is put to sleep or you can say it is deactivated, and another program starts, it is not going to write in the same database where the first program is writing. It will have its own database, it will be doing something else. The operating system will devote more CPU to that program and it will have its own memory space. Well, it will do the work and then its job is over, the first program starts again, it starts doing its own thing. So, even though it is happening in one memory, these divisions have been made for proper functioning. It is not a dysfunction that there is no awareness. It is very natural.

It is possible to form a bridge between the memories, it is one memory. Why would it be impossible? If it were impossible, I would be really surprised. That, oh, it's not possible to form that bridge in that state, now that is going to grab my attention completely and then I'll start the practice to make the bridge happen. What happens here when you become aware while in the sleep state, the activity of the deep sleep which is actually very active, it starts getting written in the waking state memory. When you wake up, even though while asleep you won't think or do anything probably, there will be moments where the waking state takes over for a few seconds. This naturally happens, you will see that you're going through many cycles in the deep sleep state. Sometimes it will happen and it will look like that I'm aware and then back into the deep sleep state, but when you finally wake up in the morning, you will feel as if you did not sleep, you were wide awake from the time you went to sleep to this time. You will see that the dreaming also happened. It is very strange, it is so strange that we cannot even describe what it is, it is like watching 50 movies in a row. Do you remember anything after watching 50 movies in one day at high speed? Why does the speed change? Because different memories have different speeds, time is created by memory, remember this. When you get up in the morning, so many things happened, what happened, you don't remember the particulars, but you know only one thing, that I witnessed everything. You wake up like this.

Now the problem is, the mind thinks it is unnatural and it will shut it down, something wakes up in the mind, it sees it as a problem and it will shut it down, so it takes effort and energy for it to happen again and that is why we have the awareness practices of the deep sleep about which I have only mentioned a sentence there in the program, I have given you the three or four practices and the fourth one is the awareness in the deep sleep state which is I marked it as optional, it is not really needed. It's a very amusing experience, remember you are sleeping right now also. Why do I say that? Because sleep is the state in which waking and dreaming happens. I know some people may not understand it, they understand the states as different happenings. That is not my experience, they are all here at once.

Those who don't know what sleep is, they are going to call it unconsciousness or whatever they call it. You see, I never called it like this and nobody in ancient times called it like this. It is a modern blind belief. Yes, we have always seen the states as states of the one. Ancient people were very intelligent. All states happen at the same time. They're described in the path of knowledge series, the new series in English. Probably it is too much detail. One experience is like a thousand words, like they say. Go and get the experience.

Shashank is saying, a memory is in different layers and every state has its own memory. Like the physical body has its own physical layer of memory. Is this correct?

Yes, the layers are just a model. Why did I divide it or why did these all great explorers, they divided this memory structure into layered structures because it is easier to understand. Otherwise, remember, there is one continuous memory. We divide it on a functional basis and yes, every function gets its own memory space. The waking state gets its own local memory in which our waking experiences are going. Without the local memory, there won't be any waking state experience. And similarly, we have different kinds of memories corresponding to different layers in the memory structure.

My question is, though I'm on the path of knowledge and I have really understood the experience and experiencing and experience, but when I went to your Antarshuddhi series, I came to know there are many flaws in my mind. So, once you understand the experiencer, experiencing and all, do I need to work on all these things, like developing patience and developing trust and all other virtues?

No, purification is not about collecting the virtues. What you do is, because you have this realization now, of your true nature, you try to stay in that realization. And if your awareness is not cooperating, you are trying, but something or the other happens, like the tendencies, like you said, too many impurities for the awareness to remain steady, then you take on the purification. It is completely optional.

You take on the purification only if you find that there are big obstacles for remaining aware. So why do I prescribe it sometimes? Because we are kind of impatient. We want the awareness to happen quickly. We want that blissful state to arrive quickly. We don't want to waste time. So anyway, we are not doing anything else. We have devoted our lives to spirituality. So what do we do? We keep tinkering here and there. We keep improving some things or the others. So like you said, as soon as you see the impurity there, you apply those purification practices and the impurities go away and you will find immediately there is a good effect on your awareness. It is not made mandatory because, when you make things mandatory, you make it compulsory, what happens is the student keeps doing the rituals of purification, never reaches the knowledge, which you must have seen happens a lot. Yam niyam, asana, pranayama, pratyahara people keep doing that for 20 years. I say why? When are you going to get the knowledge? Why does it take so much time?

People cannot give up their addictions. People are addicted to substances and their bodies, their looks and relations, they're addicted to people, they're addicted to specific kinds of entertainment and even places and their countries and their national flag. Why and how to get rid of it all in one minute, one decision? The key is awareness. Do not wait for awareness to come after purification has happened. It will never happen. And that is why I say you start with the knowledge. Let the knowledge take hold in your impure mind, impure body. Don't worry. Don't spend so many years purifying this thing which is going to become ash. Is it going to stay? No, it will become dirt. Its utility is to achieve the ultimate, it is an instrument for that realization. So you focus on that first. And if that does not happen, if the impurities are preventing you from gaining knowledge, meditating, paying attention, being in awareness, and so on, then the guru will prescribe something.

You must have seen that there are some very general practices that I have given in the purification video, you will get very general guidance there. But usually impurity is a very personal matter. The impurities are different for different kinds of minds, you can say, different personalities because the constitutions of these layers and the afflictions there, they are unique. Normally it will require a some amount of awareness and it will require a strong will. Do we have that kind of willpower? No, it is all uncontrolled. That is why we keep doing all these practices, because we are perfecting this instrument. And don't worry, it is not going to bring on any kind of higher knowledge or anything. Higher knowledge is two lines. It is not a requirement to get knowledge. It is just a trick to accelerate in the different states that you probably want to be in, that's all it is. And that is why the path of knowledge works. If it did not work, you wouldn't hear the name, nobody would have kept it alive for so many thousand years. It works and therefore it is alive. Like the fire did not disappear because we have electricity or nuclear fuel. Why? Fire works nicely. It cooks our food. It is still there.

Session 63

Recently, somebody asked me if I need to do something special in order to join the program. Are there any do's and don'ts? Do I need to follow a specific lifestyle to qualify for this program that we have started? And you can see the reason behind this question is that when you join an ashram or when you join some programs like this, the spiritual training, there are always some rules. You will get up at this time in the morning and you will do this kind of practice in the morning. Then you will stay silent for one hour. And there are restrictions on the diet, you will not eat this and you will eat this. And there are more restrictions, even some of them are going to prescribe what clothes you should wear, what kind of shoes you should wear. So it is obvious that people will ask me the same thing. And I have few recommendations if you want to make it effective.

You are putting a lot of effort in this program, so if you want to make it totally effective, you can adopt a few things. But there are no restrictions about what you should eat or when you should sleep and when you should get up. And obviously there are no specific practices that are necessary in order for you to join this program. You are free to do whatever you do. If you're working, you can continue working. And this is focused mostly on intellect. So what I can recommend is stop pouring that which is totally unnecessary into your intellect for the duration of the program. Stop reading other books because it is just another load on the intellect. That much material is ingested in the mind and now it needs to process that also. You are already getting a heavy dose of philosophy from the videos. Now if you're reading some other book, probably there will be a mixture of it. Probably you will understand one and won't understand the other. And it is also possible that the terminology and the contents of the book that you're reading will conflict with whatever I'm saying. So that is to simplify this study that you are doing. And I would also recommend that you stop listening to the other videos or lectures while you are doing this so that your mind is saturated by what was said here.

We have a strange issue with the memory here that the latest content is kept. Whatever came before the latest is forgotten. You know this very well that if you memorize a list of words or your to-do list, you will remember the last one. The first 10 or 20, they will be dropped. And that is because our short-term memory is limited. My recommendation is taking notes. They are the extension of our short-term memory, that's all. That is why so much importance is given to writing. Write down whatever you hear, write it down instantly at the same time, just after listening or even while listening you can pause the video, write it down, that helps to remember things. If after listening to the video you switch to some other video from some other channel or you read something else which is totally unrelated to this, what will happen is that path of knowledge program will be overwritten by whatever you have just listened to. The latest will be retained in the memory more than the earlier things. So now it is a waste of time for you. You listen to me for half an hour and even for five minutes if you listen to something else, well the half an hour content is gone. It's replaced by something else. You don't do this as long as you have this job of retaining the content.

There are more ways to train the intellect. When you speak, you speak in awareness. The knowledge that you're getting from the video should be reflected in the speech. So when you form a question, it should be done in complete awareness. By awareness, I mean don't let the habitual stuff come in again. For example, the questions should be mostly about the content that you heard and it should not be like this that I am going through your series but I have these and these problems. My mind is like this or I'm not happy in my life. I don't know what jobs to do and all. It means it is not coming from awareness, it means the old memory is repeating here. The new is not being absorbed. So as soon as the old thoughts start coming, you should become aware, take a look, become the witness of these thoughts and then do not express them. Let them come and go. There is no need to take any action on these thoughts, especially in the satsang. Now it does not mean that you do not do your regular jobs and do not think your regular thoughts, you can. There is no avoiding them. You need to live your life and anything that is important for life should be handled, should be processed and then back to the content.

Now if you're doing one video per day, you will see that the content is very less but as soon as you start thinking about it you will see that there is hours and hours of information condensed in the 20 or 30 minutes video. You can go on writing but you can fill up many pages on the same topic without drifting away from the topic. For example, you must have done your introspection on the truth, the topic of the truth. Now a lot has been condensed in the one video. You can go on expanding on it in your mind on your paper in your writing. So I am recommending that you simply think about it. There is no need to note down all those things, you can note down only the main points. There is no need to write 20 pages on truth because you see it is like a string. You pull one end of the string and the whole string comes out with it. So what we do is, we keep the main points in memory and the rest is derived from it. There is no need to remember everything, if you remember the main points.

If you think more about it, you will see that it becomes your second nature to think like this now once you know what is true. You are not going to think in your old ways now. You are not going to think that the truth is that which was told to me by my parents. So this old stuff should be erased. Now that can happen only when you have absorbed the teaching. Now the new ideas are not new ideas for you, they have become the only ideas for you. The new ideas are not extra things that you know in addition to what you already know, they should replace the past. They should replace the old indoctrination that happened in our childhood. And if that happens, you will find that your speech is naturally changed. Now you are not going to talk about the old so much. It is possible but it has happened because you thought about it for the whole day or for one or two days. You were engrossed in these thoughts about what is truth and why it has been defined like this, why it holds like this. Cross-check it, test it, verify. If you want you can verify things as you listen to them.

Step number three is there where I will ask the questions, not you. That will be the test that you have verified it, otherwise I'm not going to know whether you know the truth of the statements that are given in the video or whether you have simply accepted them uncritically without thinking. So for that there is step number three. If you can prove some things to me which are key concepts that will be enough. That means you have thought about it, that means you have verified it.

So there are no restrictions on eating or sleeping but you see these restrictions are prescribed for those who are doing something and that involves the body and the energies especially. That is why all these restrictions are there. Why are they told to not drink tea or coffee or eat a specific kind of diet which is very light, easy to digest? Because the body is involved in the practice, because the energies, whatever you call them, activity of the life forces in the body, they are involved in the practice. So we need to maintain its purity, it needs to be purified. On the path of knowledge the body is not involved but you still need to keep the body healthy and do not eat too much, do not sleep too much and do not talk too much because they are draining, they reduce the intelligence. And yes if you are taking intoxicating drinks or materials then they are going to degrade the intellect in the long term so they should be stopped completely. If there are some diets which are totally made in a factory that contain a kg of sugar in one piece of the food they should be stopped completely. Cook your own food and you will see the change, you will see that the intellect is very sharp now, it is able to absorb new things and it is able to spend more energy there on the teachings instead of spending the energy in unnecessary things.

Our goal is to become aware through knowledge and if we are doing something which is opposing this goal then the result will be zero the net will come out to be zero and we'll have this delusion that I know so many things now but these things are just floating in the memory they do not take root, they do not change you, they do not change your speech or behavior and then you do not abide in the knowledge. Abidance is necessary. I come to know all this sitting here. I come to know all this simply by the way you talk. Speech is your door to the intellect, it is like a window into the intellect.

Some comments on suffering, thoughts and overthinking.

Thank you very much for sharing, and your observation about the thought is absolutely correct. That they are a kind of activity and we need not worry too much about the thought. When it is necessary, there will be useful thoughts; when it is not really required, they keep coming anyway. So we just become aware of this activity, just like there are activities of breathing and heart beating, digesting and all these activities are going on, the mind is the machine that is producing the thoughts. There is nothing wrong with it. But ignorance is in saying that they are my thoughts. There is the problem. The thoughts themselves are not a problem, you see, they are a natural event.

Now, which thoughts are a problem for an ordinary person? The negative thoughts, because that is suffering. Suffering is nothing but negativity in the thinking. The suffering starts from a bad experience. We are incapable of suffering actually, the suffering comes from outside. It starts from a bad experience, probably your desire was not fulfilled, probably something which you don't desire happened. This memory, which is also called the sanskara, this impression produces a thought. You can watch it very carefully. If you are aware, you will see all these mental events happening and this thought then repeats like a machine, it goes on and on. And the mechanism inside us sees it as very important because it's for survival. Something was not done for the survival or some threat was detected for the survival, somebody insulted you - not good for survival. So this will repeat and if it repeats in darkness, it is going to produce emotions. The thoughts trigger the emotions. As soon as you think negatively about something, that negative emotion is produced and it happens so quickly that people think that it is all happening at once but there is a sequence. And the emotions then produce more thoughts and slowly it is going to snowball into an action - you're going to speak or you're going to act on it. This will happen if you're not aware. People who are not mature will quickly take action at this point. So if it happens in a split second we call it the impulsive actions because the whole process can happen in a second. Usually it will continue for many hours, and if it is a negative thing we call it suffering.

So we don't want these thoughts. That is very paradoxical because the same mechanism that is producing thoughts is thinking that I don't want them. What it wants is a resolution of this situation. What it wants is that somehow the situation should get resolved and then I need not think about it again. The solution here is to observe the thoughts and see that a solution is not really necessary. It happened and now I need not drag it on forever. As soon as this thought comes it is like surrender, it is like forgiving. Okay, somebody said something, somebody did something but I'm not going to take it. I reject it or I let it be like this, this is technically forgiving that you let it go instead of holding on to it. So you encourage this thought, put more energy into it and you will find the suffering is gone.

It is very easy actually. I usually call it acting without actions. An action which is a mental action has saved you a lot of actions and their fruits. This is the standard operating procedure, you transform thoughts, impulses and emotions into good deeds, good karma, which means no matter what the state of the mind, your action should be a good action. Somebody insulted you, talk peacefully with love, this is good karma. What happens is, you are saved from the consequences. You can do something which ignorant people do like revenge or fight or whatever they do, it only increases suffering, it is not going to stop the thinking. Peace never comes by acting, peace arises by non-acting. This is the basic insight of wise people.

We prefer non-action, and it is necessary to become aware of the thinking process to not do anything and let it continue. If thoughts occur, let them continue. Now, as you live your life, you will find that these thoughts will be replaced by something else, because it's not permanent, the environment inside the mind changes very quickly. Sometimes we divert thoughts into something else, we pick up a book, we watch a movie, or we talk to somebody else just to get rid of the pattern of thinking. But these are dependent methods because you become dependent on external means to clear your suffering.

It is like a child running to his mother. Somebody hit him or somebody took his toy. When you grow up you cannot do that, so you run to something else which comforts you. It is the same immature behavior. But a mature man is going to settle it within himself. Don't run to anything, observe what is happening. The self-pity arises there that I am so poor, somebody is not behaving with me nicely and so on. I am not getting my desire fulfilled. So, it will act like a crybaby, it will demand attention from people. You know the story, it happens every day with you. Once we see this process happening in us, we just stop it using the power of will and the power of awareness, the light of awareness. And let it run like a mill. You're not giving it the energy, you're not letting it turn into action. It will lose energy and then it will be replaced by something else. If you say that I don't want to think, it is just another thought, it is just another reaction to what is happening. And this action, reaction, will continue in you. The suffering does not go away by opposing the suffering. This is another insight that the wise people came up with. The first is non-doing and the second is non-resisting.

You observed the thoughts and now the next step is not to resist what is happening there, non-doing, acting without actions, is going to minimize your suffering. And the second is non-resisting, which is probably more difficult than simply forgiving. When the thought appears, you should pay attention to it, which means it should bring up awareness, instead of lowering the awareness. The normal process is like this: when the thought appears, it grabs the attention. And the awareness goes there where the attention is. This is very natural. If your attention is on the seer, on the witness means you are aware. Your attention includes the experiencer, that means thought is not going to get an exclusive attention and that will reduce its intensity. This must be done especially when there are negative thoughts. Pay attention to what is going on and then do not resist. There will be resisting thoughts, yes, obviously, how can I say do not resist, you are not the doer. There will be resisting thoughts, now pay attention to that also. You see that this is happening as a reaction to my earlier thought and that will take away some energy from it. And so, that not resisting or accepting your own mind is going to terminate the suffering. I've done these experiments and I've seen that when I'm completely aware it takes only two seconds for the suffering to disappear. It is replaced by laughter. It is replaced by how stupid I am etc., very light thoughts. It looks as if I was watching a movie where the villain was beating up the hero and I was getting angry as to why this injustice is happening to my favorite hero. And when the movie is over, we laugh at our own thoughts and our own reactions to the movie because we got carried away by this excellent movie. Your life is a movie, it is Maya, it is an illusion. Well, we can get carried away, there's nothing wrong in it. We are here to experience life, so yes, experience it, but if you're intensely aware, this involvement can be dropped in two seconds. The awareness is immensely powerful. You see it is not that we like it, it is not that way it is some kind of you know religious matter that we prefer this thing, it is a requirement. Awareness is a requirement for humans, without it we are not really humans.

Why do we call the mind shameless? Because it does not stop. And so, the only way is to become aware, not to stop it. If you're trying to stop one layer, at the level of that layer, failure is guaranteed. Like you cannot use one emotion to stop the other emotion. One emotion went, another emotion came, emotions don't stop. Let me fill myself with love because I am hating somebody and that is not the solution. The love will be replaced by hate, it continues, it's like it's like a river, it flows. Similarly, thought cannot be stopped by thought, it will continue and actually it will be like a battlefield in your mind. One part of you attacking and the other part of the mind trying to stop it. The other part is now under pressure to express because you're not letting it express itself. So let it be expressed, do not act, become aware. Only the higher layers can control the lower layers, this is the rule of the mind. Emotions do not control emotions, intellect controls emotions, that I'm so stupid, I'm letting my feelings and emotions drive my action - this is intellect and that stops the actions that are generated from unnecessary emotions. Similarly, the thoughts cannot be stopped by thoughts, only something higher than the thought which is awareness can get rid of them. And even if you don't get rid of them it's okay, it is a mental environment, there will be some activity in it. Only a dead body does not think. So don't try to become a dead body, keep thinking, you are free and then you're also free to not act on each and every one of those random thoughts.

There is no doer at all. Who is intending that I should not think or I should become aware? You can see the intention, and if you can see the intention, that means it is not you. It is the classic formula that if it can be experienced, it is not the experiencer. So it is always the mind. The experiencer does nothing at all. It cannot be separated from the mind, but that is at the most fundamental level. The experience is equal to the experiencer. As soon as the vibrations arise, as soon as the mind arises out of this unity, they have already divided into two. In the oneness, there is no thought and there is no thinker. There is nothing, there is only oneness. You cannot call the oneness as the experiencer also. You see it is something which is beyond our ordinary language. That's why we call existence unknowable. Cannot be described what is there. So at that level, it is all one. We cannot even say that the experience is false at this level. We cannot say that the experience is an illusion. At this highest level, it is what it is, that's all. As soon as the mind appears, the intellect appears. In this sea of happenings, the division happens and you can call it the level #2. And at the level #2, all these concepts appear that there is a doer, there are thoughts which are not my thought, there is the experiencer and it is not doing anything, it is simply watching and the experiences are happening. Here also there is no doer and so on and this is the level two where the division has happened in oneness, which is the experience and the experiencer. Now there is a thought that I am not the experience because that is how it is seen. The “I”wants to take the side of the experiencer. Usually when you are in total ignorance the “I”is going to take the side of the experience. I am the mind, I am the body, I am this object, that object which is the cause of a lot of problems.

Now you can enter level three also where the “I”is real, where the doer is real. This is the level of our everyday life, the society. We call it the transactional reality. In this level, you need to act as if you are the individual, you are the one who is responsible for all your actions, all your speech and thought and usually people will see you as a body, somebody, you also see people as bodies. You do not say that you are one with me. Now it's not possible at a transactional level. There can be lower levels but we are not there, like automated robotic levels. There are intermediate levels like the animalistic levels, where there is some intelligence but not this much. There is a little bit of identity there but not like humans. And there are even lower levels where everything disappears, it is just mother nature now, laws of physics, that's all you see, or there is just growth and reproduction like the plants, they are much lower than animals.

You can go through this layered structure and you will observe that mixing of these produces confusion. If you mix duality with unity you will find that there is instant confusion. Everything is one but then who is doing? Who is observing? Why is the observer different from the observed? Why did that happen? Because you are mixing level two with level one. Level one has its own reality where nothing can be explained, it is beyond intellect. You can say level two is a little bit within the grasp of the intellect, where the existence is now divided into two, they are mutually exclusive categories. The experiencer cannot become the experience and the experience cannot become the experiencer. We have gone through all this kind of analysis, which you will encounter as you progress in your program and I've given the reasons why that happens. Once you are at level two, use your intellect. You need not go to level one, here intellect is useless.

You think you are aware but you are not, because there is this subtle identification going on already that I am the one who prefers positive, I am the one who will stop the thoughts. No, there is no one there, all of these are thoughts. “I am the observer” is also a thought, “I am the experiencer” - it is a thought at the level 2. There is nothing to do. Nobody to do. Nothing can be done. Once you know this, there is a surrender which happens automatically. I'm not saying that you surrender, you accept the thinking process, no, there is nobody there at the level 2, there is only the mind. At level 1 there is only emptiness. Do not mix them. I am not emptiness. As soon as you say I am emptiness, you have already slipped to level 2, it is already a thought. Truth is told by silence, not by words. You must have heard all these things, now, why don't you implement it? At level 2 there is no problem in thinking, as I said, it should be the right thought, that's all.

Yes, this thing cannot be solved at the level of thought or level of mind. It will remain the mind; it will not become anything else. There is no way out of it, and it is an illusion. There is no meaning, there is no purpose, there is nothing useful in the illusion. And that is a motivation to become free from the illusion. That is why, as long as this organism is here, you will need to tolerate this situation. And then, once this final thought arrives that I don't want all of this, that is your liberation. There are no more births in any form. That does not mean that the mental activity is gone. No, the individual is gone, there is no more identity when you are liberated. And the funny thing is it is possible right now also, but you won't do it, nobody will do it. Otherwise we won't stay here, otherwise the awareness will go boom like a nuclear weapon, it will explode and the energy will be so much that you won't be able to sustain a body here. It is good, really, because we have so much to learn before we go, before we drop the form. It is going to take many thousand years, so don't worry, there is no hurry, there is nothing wrong, really, as long as you do it in complete awareness. You live your life in complete awareness, the darkness is the problem, not the illusion. Illusion can happen in light, there is no problem. So yes, it will bring you to the wall that no matter what I think, well, it is useless. Yes, it is. Thinking is not living. Thinking is like an automated process, there is no life in thinking. You are life, actually, your real nature is life. It is this light, the experiencer gives life to all the experience. You're asking what is the relation, this is a relation. The experience cannot continue without being seen. You need a seer of the scene, that is why they are entangled. You see, the division is very artificial here, but what we have done here is we have tried to divide something which cannot be divided. And so there will always be a relationship.

I'll take you back to the original point: who is the doer? I told you to do this practice, that practice, listen to the video, but who is doing it? Well, it is not you. The experiencer is simply watching, this instruction from my mouth that you received is now impressed in the mind and the mind is mechanically carrying it out thinking that it is good for me. Remember, nothing is good for you, nothing is bad for you, it is simply happening. And just like you said, your seeking is a part of the dream, your seeking is not going to take you out of the dream. Remember this, the end of seeking is the end of the dream. How do we end the seeking? It is already over.

Do you really need to watch the videos to do that? No, the videos, the program, this satsang and all the gurus and all the books, they are meant for the mind only. Experiencer does not want to learn anything, there is nothing there which can learn anything. Learning is a process in the memory, you remove the bad parts of the memory, replace them with something else, this is learning. What is it going to do? It is going to accelerate your evolution, it is going to liberate you, you mean this creature which is thinking. You see, now we are at level two, three, and four, whatever you want to call it. Let us not confuse the doer with the experiencer. The experiencer is not a doer, it has no intention of doing anything also, it is the witness of all intentions, all desires. Intention means a desire only, it looks like intention means something which is mine, no, it is not mine, I'm only a watcher, I'm only an observer of whatever intentions are appearing here randomly. Some of the intentions are useful, and these are called teachings. These are simply seeds that the guru is going to drop in the ground of the mind so they sprout, they replace ignorance with knowledge. Nobody's doing it, you think I am gaining knowledge? No, the “I” has no clue what knowledge is, and the ego does not really want knowledge.

We need to be very creative when we disseminate knowledge. It is made into a song, it is made into a Gita, it is made into a story which is colorful, all the gods and goddesses are there, they're fighting, they're killing the demons and all. Well, the ego wants that, and in the story is a message which is now accepted, it's like medicine coated with sugar. The child is not going to take the medicine, it's bitter, it is coated with sugar. On the path of knowledge we remove a lot of sugar, it's very bitter. You will say, well, it looks like there is no purpose, this is a rejection by the mind, it is rejecting the medicine. So when this happens we see that the intellect is weak and then we recommend another path to that seeker. If the intellect is strong, there will be a thought that yes, knowledge is good for me, even if it is bitter, even if it completely destroys my ego, I'm going to get it. This is a matured intellect that even if I don't want it, even if there are lower tendencies that reject the knowledge, I will get it. And this happened to me very late because I kept rejecting the knowledge. The knowledge is in the air in this country, we breathe it every day. What happens is we reject it, we do not accept it. It takes a long time to simply accept for the mind that whatever I am is in darkness. And the guru will come down to your level, you don't need to worry, it is not that you will need to stay on the level #1 all the time to get the knowledge. No, knowledge is a mental activity. Knowledge is in memory, the guru comes down into this level two, three, four, five wherever you are and the dose is given there. That is what we are doing right now when I talk about the program. It is a completely intellectual activity. Experiencer is not doing the program. So let us stick to something which the mind can understand at this time that which is true is beyond understanding. Nothing needs to be done at the level one. Don't even try, it's not possible.

But, at the level of mind some things are possible and the intellect decides what needs to be done on the path of knowledge. On other paths like the devotion path of devotion etc the emotions decide because now the guru needs to go down this layer. You like love, you like affection, you like let us say compassion and friendship. Yes, the guru is going to go there and deliver the message, love everybody, think of everybody as your brother and sister and so on. You see, that is the teaching there which everybody knows. Now if the intellect is too strong, the intellect is going to reject this thing as nonsense. Now there are even lower layers, for example, the path of action where the ego decides what is right and wrong. There is no right and wrong in emotions, whatever I'm feeling is always right, isn't it? There is no right and wrong in the intellect, no ethics there and there is absolute absence of right and wrong in the experiencer, it is all accepting, it's all one for it, no difference at all. So on the path of actions, the ego decides what I should do and then the guru drops down there, tells what is right - help others, be non-violent, do not cause destruction of the environment, and protect your country, this is your duty, that is your duty. Do your job, take care of your family, reproduce, produce more children, this is what the ego likes, ego likes all these things. So the guru says do everything selflessly, not for yourself only, and then you get this sugar-coated pill. There are even more lower layers, let's not go there, something which is completely mechanical can be done.

Even matter can be affected. Why is it even possible? It's all one, only the level of organization is different. And as we go down, it gets less and less organized. But then it gets more malleable also. That is what wise people saw. I think I have just drifted into another topic here, but it is very interesting that the guru can go down to this level of dead matter. It can be made to evolve. Why is it possible? Because that has already happened. It has been done by Mother Nature already. You need to just boost it sometimes and then evolution happens. Simply by sitting in that place. I usually call it Guru Pradesh. And in English, you can call it the Guru regions or sometimes I call it the guru field because it's easy. This field extends throughout the universe actually. At the lowest level, this field is equivalent to the primordial energy which we call vibration. These concepts are not totally different from each other. Vibration is some other reality, human is something else, my intellect is something else, experience is something totally different. But no, there is a relation. It's all connected. You need the eyes of a Gyani, you need the eyes of a knower to see these relations. As you grow, you will see all that and all your doubts will disappear and what will remain is surrender. Just like I said, all I can do is surrender, I cannot do more than that. Yes, just surrender and therefore surrender is the fastest path compared to any other spiritual path. You can surrender right now, you will be taken in a Ferrari to wherever you want to go, whatever you want to do. Yes, Shakti will be your driver, she will drive you.

What has happened is, the level of organization has grown so much in humans that we think we are in control, we think we are in the driver's seat and that's why it gets delayed. Otherwise, you are already ultimate. It is already perfect, all you need to do is surrender. So knowledge will lead you to surrender, knowledge does not lead you to some understanding which is great. No, it leads you to unknowing. I don't know anything and whatever I came to know was all illusion. Just like he said, all this knowledge is just you know part of the dream, we know nothing really. Why is that? Intellect is not satisfied with this answer. Let me tell you, there is nothing to know, it is pure emptiness, it is so pure that there is nothing to know, and that is why Avadhuta is calling this mind shameless because it cannot accept the simple fact that there is nothing to know.

I feel I don't necessarily understand all of it. I'm 100% committed now as far as being true to this path following through your teachings, your suggestions and that would be my form of surrender because I do not think I have definitely come to this point now, reading books, acquiring knowledge. I see the fallacy through it. I know that it is something that has to be let go of.

It is the problem in itself and if you even ask the question - I'm interested in the truth, truth is what I'm after, actually there is no truth. Either truth is just another object or another thought. What is, is indescribable. It's beyond truth, it's beyond any experience. No attributes in it, it is all empty, it is the nothingness that gives it that all potentiality, it's that singularity, it's in that nothingness all possibilities exist, but it itself is empty. It's not even the truth but it has to be understood. If I look at myself in terms of acquired knowledge in life, it was purely through the actions. At a certain point of seeing things if I observe them for long enough I come to the point I say yes I now believe this but that's just an arbitrary line somebody's able to convince me by showing me whatever and I accepted that belief and that belief becomes a foundational block on top of which other beliefs are layered and this structure is immense, out of nothing all these layers have been built and they're all based on beliefs, things that you've accepted to be the truth without actually knowing it. There is no truth, there is no false, these divisions are again made by the mind for its convenience.

What is happening here is that you are struggling with the old. I said many times - let go of the old now, you have the new knowledge, you have the realization of the Self and oneness already, but the old tendencies are too strong. We'll try this path of knowledge for a while and if it fails, I’ll recommend another path for you. Hopefully the mind will get adapted to the new and all this confusion will disappear. You cannot call it confusion because you are very clear about what you are saying but looks like something is being searched for. It looks like the seeking has not ended yet. There is a little bit of seeking left in you, we will try to drive it out slowly. There is no hurry, that is our job here.

People have this kind of belief that knowledge is going to solve all my problems. No, it does not. It does not solve problems, so they look for an alternative. Will surrender solve my problems? No, it does not solve the problems. Surrender will solve the suffering, not the problems. Remember it is a forgiving, attitude of saying yes. Experience is a great teacher. We are grateful for this experience, even if sometimes it is negative. Without these problems, you will learn nothing at all.

What is the use of this life? We will be like plants and animals if we don't get these lessons the gurufield is giving us. For a person who is not on any path, whose life is in darkness, their problems also happen in darkness, and their solutions also happen in darkness. But they will keep repeating the same thing because learning is absolutely zero there. They also have the same problems that we have. It is not that we have more problems and they have less. It is a cycle. It is a pendulum, it keeps swinging. This is the nature of this experience. It is never stationary, and it is repetitive, cyclic. So at the level of problems, mother nature is not going to give you a concession because you are somehow spiritual. It's not a special thing, you see.

What is the difference between a spiritual seeker and somebody who is in complete darkness? A seeker is learning, that's all. We are learning from our problems. What do we learn? That the problems need a practical solution and suffering is a side effect. Now problems that we face in our lives are an effect of attachment. We are too much attached, we are too afraid, you want a lot of comfort here. And I'm not asking you to be in discomfort. No, that's not the message here. I'm not saying that we live in poverty or in violence or without anybody, a lonely life. No, you need to be active in your life. You need to try to solve the problems. Whatever the body demands, whatever the ego demands, they need to be met and it will happen anyway. So there is no point in doing it any other way, the fight will happen.

But we are also growing while we are doing this. That is the only difference between somebody who is not on the spiritual path and somebody who is aware of what is going on. As you progress, you will get more problems. Yes, you heard right, actually that is fortunate. You will be tried and tested, and it is also arranged by the gurufield. Why is this happening? Because you wanted this. You wanted an optimal life when you signed the agreement to be born as a human. Now you see, we are venturing into metaphors and you are the doer, so don't confuse it with other teachings. Higher teachings should not be invoked here. This is a different level of understanding.

You're doing spiritual practice, you're following this path since many lifetimes and then you met your guru, the representative of the gurufield office. I'm making it a story, so don't take it so literally. You said look, I've tried this path, that path, and this guru, that guru, this country, that country, I spent 20 lifetimes in Tibet. I am NOT growing. Give me another package. This time I want an optimal package. I want to utilize my life for growth and then the file goes in the gurufield office and they prescribe you something. You come down here with that package and it says you're going to get a hundred problems. This is your life and you say why, you think I made a mistake. I should have taken the life of a plant or a butterfly. Well, what a nice life that is, nothing to do, just spread my wings or spread my leaves. I get the food, there is nothing to do all day, you sit there, how blissful it is. Yes, there's no doubt the plants are the most blissful creatures in this universe. Just look at the plants, so much bliss there. But no growth, you asked for fast growth, that is why you are getting this. You will be given that which you can handle. You will not be given that which you cannot handle.

Now it is very funny that we try to solve the problems by using the tricks that we learned earlier. That's not going to do any good. You need to learn something more in order to solve those problems. And then you seek the solution, you find new gurus, new teachers, new philosophies and then once the problem is gone, your growth has happened, you have grown a little bit, you evolved a little bit.

I was always complaining - I never do anything wrong in my life. I'm always friendly (except one or two times in my life), so why do bad things happen to me? This is not working. I got the best job but I'm not happy there. I got all the money but no happiness. I must have done something really wrong to get these problems. But no, I'm actually living a comfortable life. It is a lesson that I'm getting. I'm not getting the problems. So every time I learn a lesson, a new problem appears. This is very interesting. So yes, learning will solve the problems. If you learn the lesson, the problem will not repeat, this is guaranteed. You have problems with your partners and relations, why? You never did anything wrong in your life. You are not that kind of person who has harmed anyone, or harmed somebody in the past lives, you don't have those tendencies in you. You don't have this kind of intentions and desires in you. You have anger and all but anger is okay, anger is natural, it's emotions, we are not rocks, we are humans. But you don't do the actual harm, that is not your intention even when you're angry. So why are these relations so bad? They are not so because you have done something wrong, they are your learning package, they are the problems sent by the gurufield on your request, that is how you're going to learn. As soon as you solve this problem of relations or whatever you are going through, it is not going to repeat, it will never repeat. I solved all these problems by turning the demanding relationship into a giving relationship. Such problems never happened again in my life. Now it's always a giving relation, I do not demand anything and all problems are gone. As soon as I demand something from somebody, I have seen that my lesson is so severe that I get punished instantly.

I'm just giving you my example because probably everybody has this kind of story but they don't see it from this point of view that I am seeing right now. I'm sharing it with you because this can happen to you someday. When I demand something and even if it is justified like I paid money to somebody and he did a poor job or delivered a faulty product etc, if I call that fellow and in anger I demand the needed service, if this is my attitude, I instantly get a kick. I'm slapped by the universe for doing this. I get the fruit instantly or surely in one or two days. And then I think, why? What is wrong with the universe? Nothing. It is my lesson. I asked for this lesson. So what do I do? I pay that fellow more money and I get the thing done again, or I go to somebody else, pay them more money instead of asking for my money back or instead of fighting or launching a complaint or something. I cannot describe what is happening here. It is almost like a miracle sometimes. So much coincidence. Extraordinary events will happen to make it wrong, which I made right after like a lot of hard work. Something extraordinary will happen which will ruin it. Why? It will bring you to tears. This is my lesson.

Hopefully I did not venture too far away from the point that the surrender is going to lower your suffering. Surrender to the lesson. Accept the lesson. That is why we are here. We are not ordinary, we came with more challenges. Yes, we don't have all these simple challenges of poverty or bad health or even mental disease. We live in a peaceful area etc. We have something bigger in front of us. It is mostly about stirring the comfort zone. If you are on the path of knowledge, the challenges are intellectual and emotional. You are probably suffering because you're not creative enough. I cannot create like this great artist. That is your suffering. This kind of life was chosen so that we can accelerate evolution. You can go back and choose a simpler package. This is not a rule. “I just want to sit in my next life and watch TV”. Yes, that will be given to you. What is the rule? In this universe if you don't evolve you devolve. If you are not going up, the river of entropy will take you down with its flow.

Let us assume it is like this, that the river of entropy is going in one direction and you are in the river. If you don't swim in the other direction you will be taken with that flow. This existence is like this. This physical world is like this: if you come here and you don't learn, you don't struggle to swim upwards, you will be taken with the flow of this lower world, which you must have observed by now. If you mix with ordinary people, you will become ordinary, this you must have observed. You involve yourself in pleasure-seeking activities and you will become like them. Suffering will hit you because the pendulum swings very quickly, as soon as you try to get involved in some kind of material benefits or pleasure-seeking activities, or you try to suppress your pain, you don't want to cure it, you just want to get rid of it instead of taking a proper path, and that is going to cause degradation, that causes devolution. This is my experience, and so we have no other option but to climb the ladder of evolution. And every time we ask for a comfortable ordinary life, we devolve a little bit, and that is why a seeker is always climbing uphill, there is no downhill for you, there is no comfort for in your life, by which I mean not physical comfort, you will be given everything to face the next challenge, next lesson, and I see that it is with everybody. Everybody's fighting their own battle. The problem is, they don't know it, they keep repeating it, and that is the only difference between an ordinary person and a seeker. We know it, we have taken this challenge, and we are aware enough to progress to the next lesson. If it can be done by surrender, yes, let me surrender, if it can be done by compassion, yes, have compassion, forgiveness, if it can be done by knowledge, yes, I get the knowledge of how to detach from objects, know that they are illusions. How will you know it? There's only one way - knowledge comes through intellect. Now why do I have a poor intellect? I don't understand any of the teachings. Well, sharpen your intellect. The gurufield will do the arrangements for you. Otherwise take the other route, fall down, there's no harm, the gurufield is very neutral, it will make that arrangement also. You want to devolve? Okay we'll make it quick and easy for you. One injection and you will turn into a plant.

It is possible to convert your problem into your challenge, and I sometimes say it in one line, which is not my line, it is some saying in some Buddhist text - obstacle is the path. You must have heard this. Obstacle is your path. The obstacle is there so that you can progress beyond it. Check what your obstacles are. That is your next lesson. I'm kind of shameless when I talk about my own problems, there is nothing in my life which is not public actually, everybody knows. For me, it was always anger, lust and pride, too much of it. There is no greed, I don't want too many things and there are no intellectual deficiencies, I can learn anything, sometimes I learn it very quickly, there is no other issue really. Love is not a problem, I'm loving and kind, but there are few things. The whole story of my life revolves around solving these problems. Every time I face a situation it is surely about these problems.

When I use words like gurufield and you sign this agreement and all, that is a story. It is all me really. The guru field is also me. There is nobody else. So why do these strange things happen? Sometimes they are miraculous things. A storm comes and it bends the electrical poles, by 180 degrees. Can you imagine? Storms never hit this area and people are wondering why did that happen only where I live? The whole jungle is flattened, all the trees are broken and it happens once in a hundred years or something. What is the effect of it? The power goes off for four months. Now what is the lesson here? Probably I'm too much dependent on these things. Probably I forgot that I need to learn things and I am engaged in devices and things that are based on power supply and internet. So for four continuous months I blamed the power company and everybody got their power restored except me. Except this one house, I'm telling you. Something unexplainable will happen when you have decided that I want this lesson. If it is about a relationship, somebody will leave you, somebody else will just interfere in your relations, suddenly your mother and father will become angry and go against you. Miracles will happen like this and you will keep cursing something or the other until you realize that it is my fault. Till you come under the surrender or you accept the lesson that I need to change, the power company is not going to change, the weather is not going to change, I need to change.

With each problem we accept and we grow, this is the purpose that we have chosen. Now don't cry there in the corner, fight your way up, face your challenges and become an example for somebody else. There are more people coming on your path. You will see a long line of seekers that are going to follow this path. So what did I do finally? I made learning and sharing as my life-goal. I learn and I share whatever I learn. Nothing else is happening here, no big plans, no big objectives, no ambitions. If I have this I'm extremely happy, if I don't have this I'm busy doing something else and I see it is always my fault. It is not a miracle, miracles do occur one in ten times, which is a real lesson, and it is completely normal for me that good people will start lying to me suddenly. It happened to me and I saw this problem as my own reflection. I tried to solve my issues or I tried to gain things by lying in the past and this is still getting reflected to me. No, he will never do that, he will never lie to you and yes, exactly that person lied to me. So I was placed in these kinds of difficult situations many times and I saw that there is no way out of it, you need to accept, surrender, it is my mistake, because I'm getting this lesson. I lied so many times in my life and it is still coming to me as a karmic consequence. You will find that if you are surrounded by problems, it is your fault. It feels very bad when I say that but I normally do not sugarcoat the teaching, it will be given directly to you, and if you see a resistance in yourself, that is the problem.

Session 64

Can experiences of mystical phenomena such as the one induced by drugs be considered knowledge?

Even though what is experienced by the taker is illogical to an external observer?

Yes, why not? Because knowledge has been defined as organization of the experience in the memory, formation of relations among those experiences. The definition does not say anything about the source of the experience or the method of induction of these experiences. So any experience can be organized in the memory and as long as it is useful, which means it is meaningful for the person who has organized it, it will be called knowledge.

Probably somebody else may not see it as knowledge. The other person may see it as ignorance, but for the one who has experienced something which the other person has not experienced, it is knowledge. Probably he does not have proper concepts or words for that, because that is the characteristic of the mystical experience, because their nature is not like our daily experiences, a language is completely missing to describe them. So whenever they are described, they are translated into our waking state language, which is the language of survival and then it is diluted. So sometimes this affects the organization of the experiences because they are floating somewhere, they do not have a solid foundation to be organized and so most of these experiences are distorted and then forgotten. So this is true for the projected kind of experiences and the dream kind of experiences also. They are completely subjective, which means they cannot be verified by somebody else, but it is knowledge. The definition of the knowledge is silent about the truth of the organization. So the knowledge can be organized in a fashion which leads to ignorance, it is possible. That is what we call ignorance or blind beliefs, experience is neutral really, it is not true and not false.

When it is organized in the mind, the intellect divides the experience into two categories - true and false, depending on its own criteria. So sometimes whatever is organized, in whatever way it is organized, can be labeled as true, when it is not. This is how blind beliefs arise. People see the same thing. One person sees the truth, the other person sees something else, simply assumes things. That depends on his past knowledge, that depends on his intelligence, etc. So it is a complicated matter.

We see it completely from the subjective realms of the one experiencing, especially for abstract knowledge, not dependent on physicality. For example, a master talking from the perspective of unity, he or she is experiencing.

I don't know what you mean by “subjective realms”. What I see here is that all knowledge is subjective, there is no objective realm at all. If we agree about something, this is my knowledge and you agree this is also your knowledge, then we call it the “consensus knowledge”, not objective. There is no objective knowledge, there is no objective realm, there is no objective experience. All that is experienced is completely subjective. It is another matter that sometimes we agree about what is being experienced and that is very useful for survival. Our day-to-day life depends on that and so we give importance to the so-called objective knowledge because it helps in survival.

Now what about abstract knowledge? Yes, that is also knowledge. You can play with the concepts, you can play with the logic, you can use the same logic and same arrangements of concepts on completely abstract experiences. How can there be an abstract experience? It is possible. Whatever there is in the memory, is actually coming from our direct experiences through the senses but there is something more in the memory. There are ideas, there are concepts, there are abstractions and so the same logical process can operate on these higher level experiences which are solely constructed in the memory. It is possible to do that. Mathematics is a very good example of that. Although if you trace back the abstractions, somehow you will find they will be connected to the perception. It is very interesting. You can do this kind of exercise, a homework, find the most abstract idea that you have, that knowledge and try to see how it came about, try to see whether it is founded on any perception or not. At least I have found that yes, there is always a foundation of perceptions. Humans cannot do purely abstract things, they need to start from the perception and probably that is true for every other creature.

Next question, what is the relationship between knowledge and understanding? For example, one can experience but not understand.

There are three words here, knowledge, understanding and experience. It is possible that one can experience but not understand. But can one know and not understand? Is it possible? When I say I know something, is it possible that I don't really understand it? Then that is not knowing. Yes, there was a perception, there was an experience and it got stored in the memory but it did not form any meaningful relations. So both knowledge and understanding are absent. If I say that I know about this particular experience, that will be a lie, that will be an assumption that yes, I have a knowledge of it. It's not possible. Unless you have a totally different definition of the word “understanding”. Some of the teachers have a different definition of knowledge and understanding but from the perspective of our series, the path of knowledge series, these two words mean the same thing. If you know, that means you have understood. If you understood, that means you know.

But experience and knowledge, yes, there can be a disconnect between two. One can experience but one may not understand or may not know anything. For example, when you take your child to a museum, you and your child are looking around in the museum, the experiences are exactly the same for you and the child but you understand and you know, the child does not. The understanding and knowledge of the child is very primitive, very small. He understands it from a very limited perspective but the adult in the museum understands more, has more knowledge. You can say that the owner of the museum or the professor in the museum has the highest kind of understanding about what is in the museum. So yes, experience can be the same, knowledge and understanding can be very different. For example, if I show you a code of software, probably you will experience everything that I'm experiencing but if you are not in the field, you don't have the past experience, you don't have the knowledge of that field, then nothing will be understood. So there are three words here, experience, knowledge and understanding, out of which we assume that knowledge and understanding are synonyms, they are one and the same. Some teachers may make a distinction but then that is their matter.

Question, are observations that are paradoxical and contradictory knowledge?

Yes, seeing a paradox, seeing a contradiction in the experience or between two experiences is also creating a relation in the memory. It is possible that the two experiences or even the same experience with different faces of it can be contradictory, can be paradoxical, but still it will become knowledge. A very simple example is a movie. You are affected by the movie, when the characters in the movie are fighting, you are excited and when the characters are crying or they are sad, you start crying also. You also become emotional, sentimental. You completely know that whatever you are watching is not true, while you know that it is having the same effect as any real situation can have. This is a contradiction, a little bit of a paradoxical situation. Fake things should not affect me, but they are affecting, this is a paradox and this is our knowledge also. We are totally comfortable with it. We don't say that look I don't know what is happening, no, we say - I know what is happening. Yes, it is paradoxical. It is not that the paradox is forcing us into ignorance. If you know what the paradox is, you are in knowledge.

So does this mean that as long as the criteria for knowledge is met, then any subjective experience can lead you to the truth. It just has to be internally consistent to you. If this is the case, then there are as many paths to truth as there are seekers.

No. All experience is subjective experience. There is no objective experience and truth is not determined by consistency. The criteria for truth determine what is true and false. The criteria for truth, if it is adopted on a path, will lead to truth, not your internal consistency.

For example, my idea that a flying elephant likes carrots is consistent because whenever I see the flying elephant, it is eating carrots. Is it true according to my own criteria for truth? Probably not. If your criteria keeps changing with consistent experiences, then there is some problem there. That means you will never arrive at the truth. The true and false are mixed. Actually it means you don't have any criteria for truth. And it is very amazing that ordinary people who are not trained like this, who are not told that, it is very important to have a logical and justified criteria for truth and only then you will find the truth, if they are not told like this, if the training is absent, then you will find they keep changing the criteria for truth.

It happens mostly for people who are very emotional. There is no logical process going on there. There is no rationality in them. And so their criteria keeps changing, keeps jumping. For example, they will buy a product if they like it, if it appeals to the emotion and let us say their criteria says that if the product, e.g. clothes are from such and such company, they are not good, but their emotions are telling them that I am going to look good in this kind of clothes. I will be appreciated, everybody will like me or I like it. Then this criteria that this company does not produce good quality clothes will be turned into something else. This truth will be discarded and the other truth, other criteria will take over.

Every second their truth will change with their mood or whatever is the requirement for them. They don't like a person because of criteria X. Now that person becomes rich overnight. Now the criteria X will be relaxed and the dislike will turn into like because the second criteria is overtaking it. Now the bad qualities of that person who was disliked will be seen as favorable qualities. It can change the mind like this. Remember the mind is very flexible and very powerful. It can do anything.

I have seen this happen in the case of very seasoned seekers also. That is why on the path of knowledge on the first day you are given the means of knowledge, on the second day you are given the criteria for truth and then you are not allowed to change it. If you say, no I don't like this criteria for truth, then it is like saying bye bye to the path of knowledge. What is our criteria here? Anything that changes is false. It is just one line criteria and it is the strongest one in this whole universe. I have never found anything which is stronger than this. So the path of knowledge ensures that you arrive at the ultimate truth. Truth is not dependent on what you think is true.

You will find that as soon as the path changes, the criteria for truth changes and what is true for one seeker becomes false for the other seekers who are on different paths. And that is the whole root of this war of philosophies. Why? Because their criteria are different and I am not saying they should have the criteria which I am having. You are free to have anything because it is purely subjective and arbitrary.

The criteria for truth is purely subjective and arbitrary. You can make your own criteria and once you adopt it, try to see how useful that is, because loose criteria will land you in trouble very quickly. It happens with science, it happens with religions, it happens with dualistic philosophies where the criteria are loose and they never reach the ultimate truth. An ordinary person has no criteria or has ever-changing criteria for everything. They spend their life in delusions of all kinds. Only a seeker on the path of knowledge with a very strong criterion is actually closer to the truth, actually knows what is going on and therefore we are freed from ignorance very quickly.

How can I stop reacting to the world and emotions? How do you deal with this?

Remember, don't try to manipulate the normal working of your mind. Do not try to manipulate what the mind naturally does. Your mind is naturally producing emotions, your mind is naturally producing reactions to the situations. Don't try to kill it, don't try to destroy this very natural happening. Why? First, it is impossible. You can try. Second, that which is producing emotions is the layer of the emotions and feelings. They are doing this kind of activity. Now if you try to suppress this activity using the same layer in the mind, it doesn’t work. Remember the mind is not a monolithic thing, it is a layered structure. Let us say, the ego reacts to some situation and then you use the ego to suppress it, it's not going to work, it's more egoic activity. There is an emotion, there is a reaction to something and you try to suppress it using another emotion, not possible, it is just more emotional activity. The first emotion will come back. So the law of the mind says that only a higher layer can control the lower layer. The highest layer is awareness, at least in humans. Awareness controls everything, the agya controls everything. So as soon as there is a reaction to something, you need to bring it under awareness.

She is asking, does this still happen to you?

Yes, why not. You see, there is anger, fear, jealousy, all these things are there, love, curiosity and pity and so on. The finer emotions plus the intellect filled with all kinds of impurities, it is there, plus there are all kinds of people around here. They keep pressing your buttons, they keep triggering you, they keep irritating you all the time. Life is happening, this is life, now we need to deal with it.

How do we deal with it? Not by surgically removing the stuff that is going on in our minds, no, we don't deal like this, you become aware of it. Sometimes actions will happen as you react to things, sometimes you will say some things or you will do something, you take an action, sometimes the actions are very important, they must happen, no problem at all, either you will learn something from this activity, the consequences will happen, you get the knowledge or you make your situation better. This is life, don't try to escape life, hiding behind spirituality of some kind. Spirituality is not a means to escape our daily lives, our daily struggle, let it happen and become aware of what is happening.

I don't have any other solution unfortunately. This is the long term solution, it is like becoming mature in your mind. Do you want to remain a child or a teenager who is again and again making the same errors? No, you want to grow up, become an adult from the mental point of view, you want to keep all the features of your software while using it, don't want to disable things there. Become accustomed to the mental activity of all kinds, become aware of it, even if you think it is wrong, you become aware of it, there is nothing wrong in the mind, it is another thought.

I suppose the struggle is that I feel as though I should be above this now.

You are already above everything, you are the experiencer, you are the Atman. Sometimes you will forget, now don't blame yourself for forgetting, it's not productive, because it's just more mental activity, it is more reactions. Stay in remembrance, it is very easy, it is very straightforward, crystal clear that I forgot, now here is the awareness, I am back in awareness, let the activities continue in the awareness and don't blame, don't torture the mind, because it made a mistake. It's not productive. You will find something amazing that you come in awareness and all these reactions, all these emotions will stop, they will disappear like fog in the sunlight. That is what I mean by control, the control is not destruction of the mental activities or mental abilities, it is like governance, it is like you are governing it, you allow it, but you say no, I am in charge, this is called growing up.

What about the saints, what about the great gurus, I have never seen them become angry, they don't become lustful, they don't become fearful? Let me tell you a secret, there is nobody like this, except if that fellow has done something to the mind and stopped those processes in the mind, which is possible, nothing is impossible here, it is all software, but that person now does not remain human, has already either progressed beyond human or has regressed, because now no emotions there. What is the use of that mind where there is no emotion, is it human? No. Or you have progressed so much that you see that those layers are completely ineffective now, but that does not happen, normal evolution carries the older stuff with it, so even the gods and goddesses have all the human qualities. What has happened there is, the godly qualities have taken over the human and animal qualities, that's all has happened. It's not that they don't have it, the causal body stores everything, all the tendencies. Let us not mess with the causal bodies here, we don't do this on the path of knowledge, we become aware, we let the higher tendencies govern the lower ones, this is the rule of the mind. Next time you are troubled by the emotions and negative experiences or negative thoughts and reactions of all kinds, just remember, it is very natural. Remember, that which is opposing, that which does not want this kind of mental activity is also mind. A part of your mind which is still under darkness probably, bring it into awareness also, that there is this wanting, there is this non-acceptance in me which gets triggered whenever something happens. Bring it under awareness and now the whole of it will be in light.

There are very subtle parts in us that take some time to come under awareness. Subtle things that are going on in the mind, it looks as if it is me, but remember, nothing that comes and goes is you, nothing that is an impermanent experience is you. If you remember this much, everything is easy. You will be able to get hold of even the most invisible kind of activity. And the more aware you are, you can shine more light on these hidden things. Sometimes it happens that even before the tendency or the thought or non-physical and non-mental action comes into being, while they are trying to come into existence, I know it, I become aware of it and now it is as good as not happened because it is terminated. As soon as we become aware of it, it cannot be sustained, especially if it is completely useless.

These tendencies are materializing out of the non-physical memory, whether they are emotions or desires etc., they can be seen even before they materialize. By materialize I mean they become your conscious experience. By the time it is a conscious experience or you are fully aware of it, it is happening in front of you, it is too late already. That is why I gave you the three stages of awareness, where, in the first stage you become aware of things after they have already happened. In the second stage you become aware of them while they are happening and in the third stage which is most important, is that you become aware before something happens. You know it so well that you are always aware and nothing happens now, now this is a very blissful state.

You will say then how will my life continue? It will continue. I have never seen a person, a seeker, a guru or a saint where life stopped because of awareness, no, it continues beautifully, most elegantly. Who says that the life will be impacted, the ignorant people will say like this, they don't have the first hand knowledge of what it is to be aware, and so the fear takes over that I will lose all the enthusiasm because I become aware and the desire is gone. Who will do the job, who will take care of my family? These are the questions and doubts of ignorant mind. I can give you only my example here, that I am practicing awareness and like everybody else, I am also struggling, it is not that I am always in light. I don't make an issue of it, I try to remain aware all the time, that's all I do, that's all can be done. Has life stopped? No, I am doubly busy, something or the other is going on, everything happens at the right time, if it is required, if it is not required it won't happen. That is my experience, sometimes it looks like life is happening on its own, problems happen on their own, solutions happen on their own, I just take the next step, that's all. I take the next step in complete awareness, if that is possible. Sometimes I let the tendencies express, nothing bad in that, if they are expressed in complete awareness, no problem at all. Sometimes you suspend awareness, it is possible, let it happen and then you become aware afterwards. Even if you become aware afterwards, no karmic residue is left, it is as good as it never happened, this is the trick.

Is there a potential of misunderstanding of direct experience that can lead to false knowledge?

Yes, there is always a potential for misunderstanding. You can misunderstand the teachings, which you know is a very ordinary thing, a very common thing, that keeps happening all the time. People misunderstand the teachings, and all people misunderstand each other. But yes, there can be misunderstanding of the direct experience also, and the potential is very big if the person is not trained, if the seeker is not trained.

What are we doing on the program here? Training. You were given the means of knowledge, the direct experience and the logic. Now check how you can fail here. Look at the guru. The guru has already failed in all possible ways, and that is why he deserves the title of the guru. He has misinterpreted, misunderstood the direct experience in all possible ways. And who corrected him? His guru. Only a guru knows that you have turned a direct experience into a disaster. Yes, it is possible. So, I usually give this example of the mirage. In the desert, you are very thirsty and you see water. Now isn't it your direct experience? Your logic tells you that yes this is water, if I drink it, my life will be saved, and yes, I should move to it. This is logical thinking, why not? I see the water, I want the water, I move to the water. It is my direct experience that it is water. How do we know that it is a misunderstanding? I know that I misunderstood, I made a mistake when I reached that place where I saw water, and there was no water there, just hot air. Another experience clears the first misunderstanding, nothing else. And once this experience is impressed on the memory, you are not going to run after the mirage again. So, those who are immature, untrained, and new on the path of knowledge are going to misinterpret their direct experience.

I will give you a very common example. It is my direct experience that I am inside the body, I am inside my head somewhere, I am looking through these two eyes, hearing through these two ears. It is a direct experience, isn't it? Can we deny this? No. And then the guru comes in, and there is a question by the seeker that you told me that I am infinite and I am universal, but I feel that I am this limited thing, something which is inside the head. Now you know the answer to this. The guru will tell you that if you cut open your head there is nothing in your head except the usual stuff, organic matter of all kinds, the blood and the sticky substances and whatever is there in the body, that's all there is, there is no “you” there. And second, what is your direct experience, is it that you are in the body or is it that the body is in you? Now here the correction has happened. If the seeker is bright enough to see, but if they don't see this probably they should not be on the spiritual path, they need to do more purification there. There is no direct seeing at all.

It is completely in the memory, they are polluted by their memories. No, I am inside the head, I see it only in this way. Now there the guru knows that, well, the person needs to cook a little bit, the person needs to run after a few more mirages and then finally he will know one day. He needs to suffer a little bit, this is spiritual suffering. Not knowing, misunderstanding, is like suffering. I know it is suffering because I came out of it and I see people suffer like this. Now this "I am in the body, I am not in the body" is a very elementary thing. But as soon as we rise to more complicated ideas, you can see that even the biggest, the most brilliant of the seekers fail. They misunderstand sometimes even when the direct experience is shown in front of them.

Are you not one with the tomato? I say. No, there is tomato, here is me, not one. And now nothing can be done, you see, no he will never become one with the tomato. So yes, direct experience leads to false knowledge, it is the job of the guru to correct you, you cannot do it, it is impossible for you to do it. Sometimes it happens by luck, by chance that we correct ourselves, some event triggers us into this correction, but by yourself, no chance at all, impossible. We'll keep living in that illusion for the whole of our lives, that is why it is so important to have a teacher, without a teacher no guarantees. Even your direct experience is of no use without a teacher. I have the means of knowledge, direct experience and logic, now I can know everything. Yes, there is a significant chance that you will come to know many things like this, simply by realizing that I got a proper means of knowledge, you will arrive at something by your own effort, your own analysis, contemplation, introspection, you will get many insights, you will clear a lot of ignorance. The problem is - you don't know what you don't know. You will assume that I know because it is my direct experience, and it looks logical to me, but since you are cooking, the next experience that uncovers the falsity of this one has not yet happened. You will keep assuming it as true or you will keep assuming it as my knowledge because the next stage has not occurred yet. So here the guru is very important, he can see this because he has made the same mistake. Obviously, we all make mistakes, a guru can save many years of your life, he can give you that experience in one minute or one hour, if you want.

This is the power of the guru, that is why we have so much respect for gurus, otherwise they are ordinary humans just like you and me, they have made the mistakes, they know how to get out of the mistakes. A book will not do it for you, remember a video will not do it for you, nothing in the universe will do it for you, only a master who is alive, in a body can help. These ancient people were not stupid when they said that you need somebody who is in the body, who speaks your language, lives near you and is not extraordinary, does not have god-like powers that you cannot even sit in front of. He can be your friend, can be your neighbor, he can be ordinary, that is the ideal teacher.

Session 65

It looks like that knowledge cannot be conveyed like information can. It must arise in the seeker itself. Is this true?

Knowledge is defined as organization of experiences in the memory. Can I do some magic here that your experiences get organized in your memory, simply by speaking here in the microphone? It is not possible. Information can be conveyed which is simply a pointing. All that we can do is point to your experience. And motivate you, encourage you to look at your own experience. Sometimes it is so fast that you think that I conveyed the knowledge. When I say look at your experience - is there an experiencer there? And the process is so fast here that you take a look and you see it. And you think that I told you about the experiencer. No. You got it yourself.

When I ask you - are you looking at the objects or are you experiencing the output of the senses? Now it is so fast. Given that your intellect is mature enough. And probably everybody can do this. Actually it is not that difficult. So far I have never seen anybody who said no I am looking at the objects. Everybody, 100% of them say that what is there is the output of the senses. I mean it takes a little bit of intelligence. That's all. Probably a child won't understand but a grown up person understands. Was that the knowledge that I gave you? No. You experienced it. And the organization happened in the memory. There was probably some ignorance there, misorganization was there. That was erased. Something new was organized. So no, knowledge cannot be passed on. Only information can be given. Pointing. And then if the student is ready to experience it, it will be experienced.

Now if I tell you - are you not in a virtual world? Are you not in a false world? A dream world? Now most probably you won't be able to see it. You will say no. I am in the real world. I am hungry. I am sleepy, I need to go to my job, I have a family to feed, I have problems and yes these objects are solid and real and so on. Now there will be a non-transmission of knowledge, you can say. Because there is no readiness for it. More pointing is needed. And slowly probably you will get it that you are in a dream of some kind.

By arranging the topics in this order, I have made it actually very simple. I gave you those concepts first which you can directly grasp without going anywhere. Sitting in a chair. And then slowly we move to those topics where it takes effort. The whole series is arranged like this. That is why it is recommended to watch it serially. Otherwise it's kind of difficult. You want to know Maya before you want to know who you are. Impossible.

He's asking, all experience is subjective. Then why is not knowledge also subjective? What is the objectivity present in knowledge that's lacking in experiences?

Remember, knowledge is an organization of experience. And all experience is subjective. There is no such thing as objective experience. And when you talk about objectivity of knowledge, that is a meaningless word. Objectivity is about consensus. Objectivity present in the knowledge, that is a meaningless phrase. There is no such thing. Objective knowledge, subjective knowledge, these are meaningless things. Yes, we have objective description and subjective description. That can be said. All experience is already subjective. The word objective is created. It is a result of social indoctrination.

How does one know that one knows? Isn't that also an experience? What's different about the experience of knowing that one knows from an experience that doesn't bring knowing?

Remember, as long as there is an experience and there is a memory and there is a process that is organizing the experiences, there will always be knowledge. This should be remembered. You remove the memory or you remove this organizing process and there can be experience without knowledge. This can be seen logically, although you will never see it directly. Because as organisms, we already have these things. It is actually not possible to stop the process of organizing. Even a baby is organizing something. Even a mad person, an insane person, is organizing experiences. Now you can guess that their organization cannot be called knowledge in the proper way because it's kind of meaningless. But something is happening there.

The difference between pure experience and an organized experience is that of meaning, that of relations between your past experiences. In a pure experience, almost nothing is organized. Almost no adjuncts are there. No covering is there from the past. The memory is there, but it's not involved. In the case of babies and animals, this process is not so strong, so memory is not involved so much. Their experience is mostly pure. I cannot say about the animals, but probably about babies and very old people, like with Alzheimer's. But it is completely meaningless. That experience has no meaning. It is called pure because it is not colored by your past memory. But that is how the existence is. That is how is the nature of the waves and the vibrations in existence. There is no meaning in that. They are completely pure. They are completely meaningless. That kind of experience can be had by a yogi also. They can detach the memory from the experience. And when you look at a tree, now it's no longer a tree. There are curly things and there are greeny things and there are beautiful shapes and colors. And it is very beautiful. It is as if you are looking at the tree for the first time in your life. Some of the monks or some of the yogis describe their experience - Every second it is new for me. Why did that happen? Because their awareness is so intense that they are able to leave the memory aside for a while. They don't let the memory bother them so much. And then even a blade of grass is amazing. For us, it is just an ordinary blade of grass. There is nothing new there. Why? Because the memory has corrupted the experience already. You know that it is not useful for me. You know that it is called grass. It is green and so on. So what? That's all. This is memory. Most of our lives are spent in memory. We don't get that kind of pure experience anymore. Now on the path of knowledge, we find that this kind of experience, which is not organized, is completely useless. It is like a thing of curiosity for us that there is a state where the memory is not involved. And we experience it and come back to knowledge. It is more important in the path of knowledge.

So how do I know that I know? You know that you have known something when there is an understanding, which means it is meaningful. It makes complete logical sense in relation to your past memory. If it does not, you say, I don't understand. I can experience it, but I don't understand. It is something new for me. For example, you hear a foreign language for the first time. You know it is a language, but you don't understand it. It is almost like a pure experience of sounds. That's all it is. So that is how you know that I don't know this thing. Because it is not making any relation with my old memories, with my old impressions.

Why can't we call it simply ignorance that I don't understand? Ignorance is different. Ignorance is wrong knowledge. That's all it is. Ignorance is also an organization. For example, you hear the foreign language and you say that he is abusing me. But probably he is just welcoming you. And he is talking very respectfully. But it sounds like he is abusing you because the word sounds like some kind of bad words in your own language. This happens to many people. So you need to guess from the gestures and facial expressions and so on. But if you cannot, then you will simply assume that someone is fighting with me. And that is called ignorance. It's wrong knowledge.

What is the ultimate truth that a seeker fails to understand for which concessionary relative truths become a pedagogical necessity?

A seeker is going to fail in understanding many things. Some people will understand everything except the oneness. And some people will not understand oneness and they won't even understand the two-ness which is the first division. And some people will not even understand the concept of illusion and memory and so on. Because the ignorance is so deep sometimes, you will need to find out what they can understand and then you drop down there. For example, if I tell somebody - you are not the body, but probably the attachment with the body is so strong that they will say no, I am a woman. Yes, the body is not important, but me being a woman is more important. So you drop down to that, yes, you are a woman. That is right. What will you be like if your gender is changed? Now that will be a shock to that person. And there you can find an opening. And that is how we proceed.

There can be various levels of ignorance. If you can grasp up to experiencing, then 99% of the job is over. I will tell you what my experience is. I have seen there is one thing which people do not understand. And that is death. Why is that? Too much fear. Too many beliefs around death. And the thing about death is that nobody comes back to tell you what death is. Those who come back, nobody believes them. That topic I have seen is very difficult. Do not accumulate. Do not make relations. Do not reproduce like rabbits. Do not die for your country or something. There is no point. And I keep saying that. No, they cannot understand this. Because death is a kind of curtain beyond which the ego cannot see. Probably your intellect will be able to see something. But ego cannot see beyond death. That will be a very difficult thing to tell somebody. So sometimes I skip it totally. When I say, look, you are the experiencer. There is no time there. And it was not born and it won't die. People accept these things. I was never born. And they will even understand the eternity of the experiencer. But they cannot accept that death is also an illusion. That is not true. There will be death. And I am not sure that I will stay there after death. That is true actually. Nobody stays after death. Death is complete destruction of the ego. The identity, the person is gone. That is the truth.

People fail to understand that there is no person right now also. Even right now you are dead. Think about it. If you are not born, then you can only be dead. Once you understand there is no ego, there is no identity, then death goes away. Not before that. And it will go away for a few minutes and it comes back. As soon as the satsang is over, death comes back. And with death, the person comes back. The whole ego comes back. Leave it. They will know it one day.

What are the aids that a seeker can leverage in order to become receptive to understanding the ultimate truth?

By aids, do you mean something external? No, that is not recommended. Don't use anything external. The described qualities of the seeker, that is what is needed. No shortcuts.

Can the mind draw back into ignorance after coming to know the absolute essential nature?

Yes.

Is this because of accumulated tendencies, energies, desires, subversions of the mind?

Yes.

If so, then it implies that liberation/freedom is not there because ignorance keeps on reappearing. Is this so?

Yes. It is called impurities, if you cannot stay in awareness, the awareness is going to come later. Why is it so difficult? Because of impurities.

Does access to greater knowledge about the illusion come to the seeker once the essential nature is known?

No, that may not happen. Things like god-like knowledge, past lives, a particular part of the illusion, the way it is, no, that may not happen. You already know who you are, but you don't have any god-like knowledge, you don't have any past life knowledge. You are still bound with the body. By you, I mean the organism, the entity, the memory structure, the layered structure, is bound in limitations.

There is no magic in knowledge. It is not going to open the doors of perception so that you can see the whole universal memory and all. But you can see the illusion of everything. It will happen as the structure evolves. It will happen as this organism evolves. When they evolve, bigger and bigger parts of the memory come in picture and that is the knowledge about the illusion. You are calling it greater knowledge of illusion and that will be translated as the knowledge of the universal memory. Essential nature has nothing to do with it.

What we call the knowledge of the illusion is actually illusion itself. There is no knowledge in the illusion. Anything can be created here. Anything can appear. Why am I insisting on the model of the memory which is like this and not any other random model? Because, any other random model can also appear to you. Who knows? That is why we call it a model because it is completely random. It is not true. There is no truth in the models. Just like theories in science, they are not true. Tomorrow I can replace any theory with something new and better. Everything, all the science books will become trash. It's possible. In a similar way, knowledge of the illusion can become garbage instantly as soon as you get another experience. And another experience can appear anytime. You see, this model is use and throw. The models are presented there in my series, so don't worry about that.

I have all that fundamental knowledge, why is there still an illusion? People ask this kind of question. If you think there is an illusion, then the fundamental knowledge has not been understood. You think you have the knowledge, but this thought is telling me that you don't have the essential knowledge. Nature of essential knowledge is such that it removes all doubts about what is true and what is false. When you ask, why is there an illusion? That means you are acknowledging that there is an illusion of some kind and I am trapped in it. That means you don't know what is true, what is false.

For me, there is no illusion these days. I was so much interested in how the illusion works. That is how I gathered so much knowledge about it. It is a big science in itself. As soon as I came to know that the reality is something else. The reality has nothing to do with how the illusion works, what it is. The reality is that it's not there and precisely that is why it is called an illusion. And from that day, I lost all interest in the illusion. I was doing this experiment, that experiment and this entity and that entity and I was in this occult practice and that occult practice. Everything was dropped. But you see, everybody needs to go through this kind of ride. They need to go through all these stops before the final stop happens. So I still support that. Actually, I go into the illusion. It's kind of very interesting. And then I go into the relative truth also. That is very boring, but yes, people come with problems like - “I am suffering. My children are not behaving. My mother does these things to me and my boss is lying to me. He is paying somebody else. I am working”. And then I go into that also. I get at least five or six questions per day and most of them are about relative truth, where people have assumed that their lives are real.

If I say, no, your job is not real. Your mother is not there, really. Your mother is just a thought in your mind, probably I am never going to hear from them again. They will just delete my app and then they will stop watching the videos and all. It is not helpful. Does not make them progress in any way. Because they are far down there. So I go there also. And sometimes you can see the fakeness of those answers. Most of you who are advanced enough can see when I talk about these materialistic things, you can see the fakeness of that answer because it is cooked up on the spot. I say what is needed. That is delivered. Like a placebo. Probably they will never know what I said. Probably they will never progress. But I don't have any other option, you see.

Does knowing one's essential nature mean the ending of all appearances for the seeker as well as the eye of the seeker?

No. Since the illusion never happened, it will never go away. This is a cryptic saying, but we will talk about it in the episodes on illusion. Something which is not there, it does not matter if it goes away or not. If it matters to you, you are in the illusion. You have not understood the illusion.

Can we become infinite when we evolve further?

You cannot go to zero, and you cannot go to infinity. Both are impossible. You cannot become everything, and you cannot become nothing. Both are impossible. Why is that? Because you are already that. If you are already that, you cannot become that. If I say my coffee mug is white, I want it to become white. Is it possible? Not possible. On the path of knowledge, you simply realize that I am already that. I am already zero and I am already everything. Everything is zero. Zero is everything. That leaves nothing to seek after this. If you are still thinking that one day I will become everything, what does that mean? That means there is deep ignorance.

Things are evolving, getting more and more complex. There is more and more information and a greater understanding. So if you talk about that evolution, maybe a billion years from now there will be such an advanced civilization that will have an understanding that encompasses or comes close to that infinity.

Remember that whatever looks like an evolution is also an illusion. Nothing is evolving. So there is no possibility of becoming something. There is a possibility of realizing that I am everything already. And then if evolution happens, it is okay. If it does not happen, we don't care. The illusion is such that it can reverse the evolution also. Many people have said that there is no evolution. What you see is a cycle. Because if there is evolution there will come some saturation point somewhere that everything is now evolved. It's not like this. Things go up and then they come down. From the perspective of the path of knowledge, really there is none of this. It's just futile exercises of the mind that don't really serve a purpose.

You see, because it is so interesting, our intellect is drawn to it. We want to know what this evolution is. And then we go and study and construct a theory, make the model. That is what I have also done. There is nothing wrong with that. The problem is that we start believing that this is going to happen. And that covers up our fundamental knowledge. Nothing is happening really. There is no rule in Maya, it can all disappear today. The intellect is so active that it has not given up, plus it is so limited that it thinks there is some value in it. Intellect is so advanced that it can grasp something about the illusion, but it is not advanced enough that it can give up the idea of the illusion. All these ideas that are about the illusion, they should be dropped. Like I am a human, like there is evolution, there is progress, there is a chance that I will become something, or people will become something, or this whole world will become something, some kind of paradise or whatever. All these ideas should be dropped.

But the intellect has its own momentum. It takes time. So whenever I see a question about the illusion, it kind of fires up with all its knowledge there. Then it wants to write about it, then it wants to talk about it. The progressive paths deal with evolution, not the path of knowledge. There is nothing evolving here. And if somebody says, I need to evolve, then you will hear laughter from the Guru. But it is a serious thing for somebody who is in the Kundalini tradition or the yogic traditions. They are busy evolving.

For us, evolution is true. For us, illusion is true. For us, the human birth is true. For us, there is time. And so, you see, it is paradoxical. So we accept that there is illusion. Yes, there is. I am trapped here. Some kind of bondage is being experienced. And we hope for a better experience one day, while fully knowing that it is completely meaningless. You can say that on the outside we are clothed with the knowledge of the illusion, inside we are naked with the knowledge of the absolute. There is no problem in exploring the illusion. Keep reminding yourself that it is an illusion. I am already everything. And this everything is exactly empty. So we walk on this very narrow path, where on one side there is illusion. I need to take care of the illusion. I need to feed my body and all these things. On the other side, we know completely that nothing is really happening. How is this being managed? I don't know. I know that I am not doing it. I am not managing it. I am not in charge of my life anymore. And when I was in ignorance it was still like this. Why has nothing changed? And the answer is very simple, because nothing appeared, nothing changed.

So here we see the limits of the intellect. The intellect does not accept these things. And the ego, well, the ego is kind of hopeless. It will never accept these things. So drop all your hopes here. Abandon your hopes to convert the ego into something better. It is not possible. You can do something about the intellect. It can become silent after a while, after asking this question, that question. It takes two or three seconds to come back to the knowledge. In between, it can go through the whole illusion if it wants. The intellect is very powerful in humans. But it will settle down into emptiness. And that is where it likes to stay most of the time because it is blissful there. There is nothing to know there.

It's very difficult to see where one is looking. When you're just seeing basically, you can't see the words for the forest or whatever the saying is. What do you see? What are the primary obstacles you think that I have in front of me that I need to work on removing? Because obviously you've seen from a higher level, higher perspective.

There is no obstacle. But there is resistance. What is the difference? Obstacles can be seen, they can be cleared quickly. For example, you have a job that consumes your 16 hours and you don't get time to watch the videos, write the articles and all. This is a big obstacle. You see it, I see it. We do something to remove it. There is something called resistance where the seeking goes on and on. You don't know why, and I don't know why. So we let the resistance show up. Resistance can be a fear of some kind. When we don't really know the cause and we cannot see it. And that is why I say, keep walking. One day the resistance will be brought forward. And once we see it, we kill it. Not before that.

I think I know what it is. I think it is definitely fear. It is fear and it's fear of loneliness. The absolute loneliness of the one. I think that's what it is.

Not a big problem. Intellectually you know that it's not loneliness. The concept of loneliness does not apply to absolute existence. The experiencer is not lonely. This is something at the level of the ego. Now we wait for the ego to get purified enough, the seeking will be dropped one day as soon as it is purified. Is there a magic trick, some kind of pill there that can get rid of the fear? There is none really. As it is said, humans or this creature cannot do anything. There is no doer here. There is only an observer. And there is the intellect that can make a little bit of sense of what is being observed. And that's all that can be done.

If it is completely in the domain of the Maya, like I said, if your job is troubling you, your relations are troubling you, your dog is troubling you, even God is troubling you, something can be done about that. But if it falls on the border of the Maya, the very process that goes in the creation of the illusion is involved here, which is the process of identity. Because there is you, there is everything. Otherwise it's not there. So, many people have this kind of fear - what will happen to my family if I become spiritual? What if I lose all motivation, this multi-million business is going to suffer? Who will take care of the business if I become a yogi, sannyasi? And these fears are manageable, but when it comes to the existential fear, something which cannot be operated upon, you cannot do anything about it in worldly terms, then you simply leave it. You continue. Keep doing whatever you are doing. If you are seeking, yes, keep seeking. Although you know there is no point in that.

What is the point in writing all those articles and watching the videos? It's a complete waste of time. But you guys are doing it, it's a good thing. What are we doing here? We are waiting. Why am I doing all these satsangs? What is the point of it? It's a complete waste of time, isn't it? There is nothing to be said and nothing to be heard, but yes, we keep doing it. There are some resistances. Even the biggest guru on this planet, in this physical world, will have something. Otherwise, he won't be able to stay. The body will be dropped immediately. If there is no desire, if there is no resistance, if there is no fear, the play cannot continue. If the actor refuses the role, it's not possible to have a drama.

We say, everything happens for the good, the seeker is not ready. There is a resistance and it will play out in whatever way it can and then it will be extinguished. Just like the candle burns till there is wax, the lamp burns till there is oil in it. You need to cultivate a little bit of surrender here. It's fine. Yes, there is fear. Yes, there is loneliness. Now, I surrender and hope for the best because these things are not in human control. And I see there is a surrender there. There is also fear but it is overridden by surrender. An overblown intellect cannot surrender. That is why we continue. That is our resistance. If we surrender today, all this game, all this seeking will be gone. All these videos, all these books, all these debates and questions, answers and such things will be gone.

So, what I suggest is - it is something which is beyond our intellect, let it be. Why is this happening? Why can't I surrender? There is nobody there to surrender. The surrender happens, it cannot be done. It's a lot like love, it happens. You cannot force somebody to love you. You cannot force yourself to love somebody. These things are very natural. Humans don't control these things.

Session 66

Is illusion happening in the greater illusion?

You can do this kind of hair splitting on the illusion that this illusion is bigger than that illusion, but it is all one illusion. If we think that there is a greater illusion, it will be our imagination, but we split the illusion into parts, like we say that the waking state is a smaller illusion, when you die or when you get out of the waking state, it will be a bigger illusion. Not in terms of its illusoriness, not in terms of its falsity, bigger in terms of possibilities and there are more possibilities there. The waking state is the most illusory state in terms of falsity. The waking state is like the most false state there can be, there cannot be anything more gross than this state and there are finer illusions above this. When you get out of one illusion, you land in another illusion. You can guess what kind of illusion you are in by looking at your freedom. If you are absolutely bound, then you are in a very lower kind of illusion. If there is a little bit of freedom there, you don't feel bound, you have more possibilities of expression and experiences, then we call it a greater illusion or a finer illusion.

I don't know any words for it, but if you take the concept of heaven or paradise, that would be a very fine kind of illusion with almost no bondage. Still it is limited, still it is an illusion, there is no suffering there and it will always depend on our state of the mind. If there is too much ignorance, we will find ourselves in very constrained illusions, very small and lowly, gross illusions. You can call it hell if you want, the Narakas. Different traditions will tell you different kinds of them and the highest number of Narakas that I have found are in Buddhism. There are many actually. We can create one if you want right now. We can create a heaven also if you want right now. So we are already free from the illusions, that which is bound in illusions will remain bound there. It changes. Sometimes it is lower hell, sometimes it is higher hell, sometimes it is lower heaven and higher heaven. So earth is considered as a higher hell, just emerging out of hell. That is why it looks like it is biased towards suffering.

No matter what you do, the earthly world, this world turns into something nasty, something messy. It does not matter what you do, it is biased towards increasing entropy. The whole of this universe, not only this earth. So that is why it is a very good learning opportunity because you are always on your feet. It does not give you time to relax. Some people ask me, why can't I simply live a comfortable life? If you want a comfortable life, get out of here. Why are you here on this collapsing bridge, the burning bridge? You are sitting on a burning bridge, you are sitting on a collapsing building and you are expecting comfort. That is stupidity. So get out of this higher hell, lower heaven. Actually it is very beautiful, isn't it? It is just in between actually, but not a place to become comfortable. If you want to be comfortable, then you will need to be a dead body because a dead body is the most peaceful thing here. That is why we call it the death world.

Death is a reality here. It is an escape from this world. Nobody escapes from here till death lets you go. There is no point in coming back. You come back here because of unfulfilled desires. There is no problem in unfulfilled desires, the problem is in calling these desires as mine, and that immediately pulls the causal body back in the world because I need to fulfill it because it is mine. This attachment, the clinging, the identification with that in which the desires are happening, that is the cause of expression of desires and then we are back in the same experience. And not only we are back, we are back with all the memories erased, everything is erased, like you must have fulfilled all your desires a thousand times already, desire never goes away, it is a karmic impression on the blueprint which you call the causal body. It is activated again, energy flows through it again and then it wants to come back again and that is what is happening, that is what we call the repetitive existence.

There is no problem in taking birth here also. Human life is a very beautiful experience. The problem is you don't know what it is and you are doing it like a machine, repeating it. Especially when it has become a suffering. So what do we recommend? You take the experience, you learn from the experience, never come back. If you want to come back, come back with an intention to help others or with an intention to become a master of this world. By that I don't mean you cause a mess around here, mastering the world or mastering a plane of ignorance is to control it so much that you can produce your own. You come here, know the workings of it and you produce your own hell, the learning lab and then you send the causal bodies there for experience and growth, a training ground. It is already happening, there is no need to do it.

I will tell you an interesting thing which very few people know and it is about the occult. Why is this world the way it is? Like I told you, it is biased towards suffering, a little bit. You will see that there is a joke that the bread always falls on the butter side. Why? Why can't we simply make it something in which the bread falls on the dry side, everybody is happy. Let it fall, no harm done, it does not happen like this. It is going towards complete destruction. Even the scientific theories are going to tell you that. Everything will become a huge pile of dirt of subatomic particles of all kinds. Why was this made? And very few people know this thing that it was created out of the bodies of the gods.

This is a notion that is found in some of the occult paths. Where are we right now? We are in a pile of merged bodies of many gods. Who are these gods? Maya, the illusion is a very interesting place. You can go on exploring this, there is no end. And I like this interpretation a lot, because at one time you are going to ask this question, there will be a time, how to build such a magnificent place where everybody gets to suffer and everybody gets to learn from the suffering. I also want my own illusory cage, prison, where I can stuff causal bodies into and then they kill each other, fight with each other, use each other and then they learn, they grow out of it. What is the recipe for producing this kind of thing? I don't want to give you the whole recipe, I don't want you to experiment with this, don't do this. What happened is some of the entities who became masters of this layer of illusion, who became masters of the physical world, decided to merge together and form their own world and now what we are seeing are the remains of those gods. This illusion, what I call the greater mind, is a merging together of many entities. They are not gone, they are there, nothing is destroyed, it's all there in potential form.

I don't tell this because it's too far away from the path of knowledge, it's not a topic in the path of knowledge. Sometimes I remember these things and I say it, so you need to take it with a grain of salt that something like this has happened. You can invoke these gods, every culture on this planet has a formula, has a code word, has a spell, spell means a word actually in the ancient languages, spell means a kind of formula or a kind of password that can be used to call these gods. Because we are a part of that, our causal bodies. Not this body, don't confuse myself with the body now because we are in the occult field, the body is an instrument. Use this body to invoke that which created this body.

We have lost this very very ancient knowledge. It is so ancient you cannot put a date on it. It is so bold. So what has happened is all these great entities who crossed, who became masters, they decided to form their own training school, school for growth and evolution and all these entities they merged because their minds are huge, the causal bodies are almost infinite already and they all merged together and whatever is produced out of this ground, the very fertile ground of potentialities, possibilities and desires is actually manifested out of these combined field of gods and goddesses.

So everything that appears here has all the properties of all the gods and goddesses. Gods and goddesses is probably a very old phrase and you can replace it with entities. They are very evolved entities. We all have a spark, a tiny blend of all of these. We are actually these gods and goddesses and therefore because we are that, we can summon them anytime. That is what an occult practitioner is doing. Remember that there is no right and wrong in this universe. There is no good and bad and there is no evil or divine. It is a blend of all. Remember they were all great. So if you want to invoke something which is demonic, you can call it and it will rise out of the sea of melted entities in a demonic form. It's fine. It's okay. As long as it does whatever you want it to do, it will fulfill your wish. Similarly, you can call up something good also. And these labels are given to these entities depending on our ignorance. They are all neutral really. They just want everybody to grow and progress. These gods, they want us to become gods. There is no other reason. There is no other purpose to give birth to something as messy and fascinating as this thing called our universe, our greater reality, if you want to call it. There are many universes here.

So what is the use of this knowledge actually? It explains many things. Like there was a question once somebody asked me when did the first causal body arise? What is the mechanism which gave rise to the first birth? We are born because of our desires. What is the cause of the first desire? Where does it start? And the answer is very simple that it starts automatically. When we see very advanced creatures here, when we see the non-physical entities that have been here for millions of years, we cannot find a reason for their existence. How is it even possible that this causal body is a million years old? Who put the desires in that? Who put the seeds in that? It is doing the same thing again and again.

Sun, moon and these things were considered as entities by the ancient people. There is a sun god. How is it possible? It is a manifestation of the particles of one of the entities. It has produced not only our sun, it has produced many of these stars. So you must have seen this thing, the stars are the angels. We say this to children just to keep them busy counting the stars. But there is something beyond mythology, there are some secrets beyond these simple childish beliefs. Why do we call the planets gods? And there is a layer of the mind assigned to planets in the Vedic system. Why is that? They are gods actually. The stuff that we see is actually a manifestation of the desires of some entities. We can call them primitive entities, but they are extremely powerful. That is why you see people in India worshipping the planets. You cannot do anything about these gods and goddesses, we are too tiny. The thing is, occultists, tantric, know how to utilize them. Because I was produced from your seed. I have the right to demand from you, like a son would demand something from the father. Similarly, we have the right to demand things from the gods and goddesses. When you are standing in the magical circle, you do not pray. People on the street, they do that kind of praying and all. The occult practitioner or the magician does not pray to gods. He commands the gods. There will always be an invocation that I, in the name of such and such, invoke you and I command you to do this for me. And if you are a good magician, exactly that will happen. How is it possible? What about the physical laws? What about the natural laws? What about the laws of the mind and the Maya? You have bypassed all this.

We are all destined to become such gods and we will produce our own universes. When you explore like this, you will get answers to all questions. It is not an illogical question. It is not an illogical answer. It is full of wisdom. How do I get all these answers? I search for the dark corners of this world to find the answers. You will find the answers in the most unexpected places. You go to the Himalayas and you find they are selling Rudraksha. One day you will find somebody who is very old in a shop and is selling Rudraksha. If you are a curious kind like I am, you will ask that fellow, who was selling Rudraksha before you? And he has a story. In India, everybody has a story, you see. Nothing is without reason here. And then you dig deeper and you will find there is a mystery behind the Rudraksha.

Why only this seed? Why does it grow only in that Himalayan region? Why can't I plant a tree of Rudraksha here and become a millionaire? What is the significance of it? So you will need to go and search like this. If you are interested, explore. What are you going to do for the rest of your life? It is an eternal life. You spend it studying the illusion. There is nothing to do for a seeker. What am I doing with all this time? Just dig into the illusion. Every day I get something even more fascinating. It takes a long time actually. This kind of knowledge is not gathered. You will see, you will hear all these things. So dig into the illusion and you will find that it is fascinating. It is never-ending because you can ask the question. Invoke a god, a demon, out of this plane of potentiality. You can ask him, who was there before you? Who is your father? There will be an answer. That I was created by the seed or mixture, blend of such and such and such. You will get very ancient names. You will get the names out of which our alphabet is formed and so on. So that is amazing. The occult field, if it is used properly. Unfortunately, it is being used by lowly people for lowly things. Not to know the secrets of Maya. We are not exploring the mother properly here. We are doing the lowly stuff with the magic. Therefore it was lifted from this world. As the masters saw that the time is coming, which is of complete darkness, where it will be misused, everything was removed from here.

Even some of the saints and priests and even the rishis were given this task to remove the knowledge from this world. Some events happened which burned down the entire libraries and books and destroyed all the temples. Temples were storehouses of knowledge. They were like libraries. Like the lab of a scientist, it is a temple. So everything was removed. There was so much, especially in Egypt, when you see the Egyptian buildings, they are so old that they cannot put a date on it. And there are various mythologies, various myths that there was an underground library there. There is an entrance below the pyramid. There is this and there is that. What was there? And everybody will tell you that there were books. Nobody will tell you anything else. They won't say there was gold. Yes, the books probably were covered in gold and all because knowledge is the most valuable thing. They were covered with gold and jewels. These entities were guarding all these things.

Some events happened which led to destruction of everything. And that is to save the world. The gods did not want this world to end even when it crossed its expiry date. This monkey is given another chance. You will find there was a reset like we reboot our PC to get rid of the stuff in it. Something like that happened and that story is found in all the mythologies all over the world. Yes, there is no proof of it because the gods don't want the proof to be there. They operate in a mysterious manner.

So I have given you a key here that if you want to know, all the knowledge of the Maya is here right now. All you need to do is find the favor of a good god. This won't happen probably in this age. If you isolate yourself from the world, purify yourself and you promise not to use the knowledge for worldly benefits or to cause harm here, probably one of these entities which formed our smaller illusion will be happy to give you the knowledge. Because you see they also want to pass it on. They are actually looking for potential creatures that can hold knowledge. Nobody wants to die off really. So if you want you can take that path. It is a valid path. It is a very good spiritual path. It depends on the person. If the person is corrupt, he can corrupt the entire path. Even the path of knowledge got corrupted many times. Somehow it was preserved by the gurufield. The gurufield is nothing but something similar to whatever is causing the illusion. Probably I should stop here because it is getting really crazy.

Manish is asking, are not the greater minds formed spontaneously in the universal mind or is there always a need of gods to create a greater mind?

That's a very good question. The natural way is that they are formed out of nothing and it is a gradual process of timeless evolution. Just like the trees grow naturally in the forest and they form the forest, sometimes we want a specific kind of garden and then we bring the trees from here and there, special trees, then we plant those trees, we just take care of those trees and produce the garden. There are many ways to produce greater minds. One greater mind can split off like a cell division. It can split off from another greater mind and take on its own path. What are the greater minds? They are just evolved causal bodies. Who knows? Your causal body, my causal body, probably there are already gods. They are here just to check what is going on. It is so old, we don't know. There are all possibilities there. If it grows by itself, yes it's okay. The universe is exploring itself, so why not? Sometimes there is an intention to do it, like in a planned way and that is what happened.

Now what kind of illusion we are in, you know this part of the illusion, what kind of illusion it is? Without going to the old occult myths and occult knowledge, I am going to guess according to my own experience. Why do I believe certain things about this illusion? You can believe anything you want because it's an illusion, you are free to do it, it's like a story. Just like a story writer or movie director creates an illusion, we can do that, we are free. Don't need to feel stupid about this, it's a very good thing. Let your imagination go wild, it does not matter if you are in the path of knowledge, that's kind of a boring path, isn't it?

So what do I think? I think it evolved naturally. This part of the illusion is very big, it's infinite, we cannot see it in our lifetimes. So it was grown by itself but then it was hijacked by a group of entities who saw the potential in it, it was occupied, it was brought under control, colonized and they have sown the first seeds here. They turned it into a learning lab and they are also called the protectors, they are trying to protect this universe here. And that is why nothing odd happens here unlike other universes. If you travel to other universes you will see you have more freedom, here you have the freedom, it's not that we don't have freedom but it is being guided, there is a guidance here which is not present in many of the areas in the universal mind where there is total chaos, do whatever you want, it's like this. So why do we say like this that every few ten thousand years or something mega avatars arrive, we are all avatars but something much bigger than us arrives and cleans up everything, why do we say that? Who is this who arrives? Who is in charge here? And many wise men will tell you that there is a field here, there is something which is in charge, it does not want things to go too bad. That means our world is under protection. And so sometimes they do this clean up, they are so efficient in cleaning up that all this knowledge is also cleaned up.

Now you cannot invoke the demons, can you? No, you can invoke a dead person from somewhere, that's not a demon really, if you invoke a demon then the whole world will start shaking. It's kind of difficult to control these things. All we have are stories, all we have is beliefs, you can believe anything you want and you can join the army of these protectors and you can devote probably a million or two million years to just to keep things as they are.

But ultimately Maya wins, ultimately the impermanence wins and it is all gone, so this will also go away. And probably they are just utilizing this opportunity that is present here to turn it into a learning ground. And I see it because I see both the flavors here. It is meant for entertainment, like everything in the Maya is meant for entertainment only, it's a play. But there is a hidden part in this world which is meant for growth and knowledge. If you are a seeker, if you are listening to this talk, if you come in this satsang and you have this great desire to gain knowledge, you are already in this kind of portion of our universe which is involved in growing. The rest, their job is very simple, they are here to experience and enjoy, that's all they do. They are not interested in knowledge, they are not interested in evolution, spiritual stuff, nothing. They cannot be disciplined and so we leave them, we pick those who are in this business of growing up.

And therefore we cannot simply make a law here that from tomorrow everybody should join my program, it cannot happen. Even if I invoke the biggest god here, he won't do it. He will say, ask anything else, ask for a big car, ask for promotion in your job, I can do that. Don't ask me to turn everybody into a seeker. That is not our thing to do. That is a very interesting part of spirituality here. Even though we call them gods, they are bound by certain rules. They cannot do some things which they are not meant to do. There is protection here.

Why don't we tell these stories to everybody because they are crazy. They don't know the meaning of this story. That's why we don't tell them. So no miracles here. All there is, is business as usual in this Maya. Are demons a miracle? Are gods a miracle? Whatever they do, is that a miracle? No, it's business as usual. Real miracle is that humans have forgotten what they are. They are in complete darkness. We are children of the gods. Look how lowly we are right now. We are running after stuff. We are eating dead bodies of animals. What? Why? Time is like this, isn't it? You don't want to be like this. That is why we are on a spiritual path. That is why we want to come out of this mess. Somehow it happened. We don't want to point fingers - the gods failed. No, they did not fail. It is exactly as it should be.

“Now you left me here in the darkness. Who will give me the knowledge, it's gone?” No, it was just hidden. It was just kept in the corner so that it remains safe. Is there anything hidden here? Like in this satsang, do you find anything hidden? No, you get more than you want actually. More than you expect. Knowledge is not hidden. Yes, those who cannot see, they will see only death and destruction. They will see that this world is going down the drain. But it's not really. Everything is happening perfectly. The knowledge is not in books. The whole field is here, present now. And if you want it, it is at your service actually. We can demand knowledge because we inherit it. Go and invoke the gurufield. Go and invoke the masters. Demand knowledge. Ask for the knowledge. You will get more than you ask.

Is there a group of people of your level where you sit and share your experience? Not like this group where you teach and we learn. Are there people like you out there who are as knowledgeable as you?

Yes, you will be surprised that there are thousands of people who know so much that I am like a child in front of them. And yes, I am always in contact. The contact is not physical. There is no need for physical contact really because we are all one. We are all inside one universal mind. How to establish the contact? You can also do that. It takes a strong desire to know. Desire is expressed in the form of questions. Question is a very powerful thing in itself. You keep that question in your mind and you will become a part of that field automatically.

So there are more knowledgeable people. I get probably 1% or 2% of what they know. Sometimes I get to meet them physically and then there is an exchange of one or two emails or phone calls or sometimes meetings. Nowadays I am not meeting anybody. I used to go and run around the whole of India to find people but now I am not doing that because of the modern means of communication. And then I found that they are all reconnected. All I need to do is ask a question and everything is given minus the stuff that is harmful for me. Like the theory is given but the practical is not given. And I learnt many occult tricks when I was exploring. We are not supposed to bypass the rules. So normally I let whatever is happening naturally.

But yes, you can also do that. You can also grow up. The more you know the easier it becomes to know. And the more you are in contact with all those, your circle becomes nothing but seekers of all kinds, then it becomes easier to connect to all kinds of people. Initially I was very shy. Won't talk to people, won't talk to teachers. Simply listen. Okay, you wrote this book. Okay, I'll read it. Never approached them. But not everything is told in the books. I gave up shyness, which is resistance in the mind, you keep talking to these people and they will tell you whatever they know. But don't laugh at them. Sometimes they will tell you things that you won't be able to accept. But on the path of knowledge we simply listen. We don't judge too much. We know everything is possible in Maya, so we don't judge. But we do not act without thinking. And this is how you progress.

One day there will be a time where you will be connected directly to the gurufield where all kinds of knowledge is there. What was my achievement here? How could I do it quickly? I'll tell you the secret. Do not reject any knowledge. This is the secret. “No, I am on this path. No, I belong to this religion and I am shutting my doors to everything else. And no, my guru said this. Only this can be true. Nothing else is true in this world”. What is this? You are actually logging off from this website of knowledge by saying this. You are rejecting the gurufield. You are saying, no, I am not interested in you. Why will they come? Why will they extend their help to you? I think that was my achievement that I did not reject anything. You will find me reading everything actually. You will find me talking to people from all parts of the world. And I have actually exploited the internet like anything. The job of the internet is not to serve you entertainment and the news. That is all garbage. The job of the internet is to take you to those people whom you cannot even imagine to meet in this lifetime. That is what I exploited. Whenever I see an opportunity, like - there is a volunteer place here, would you like to join? I am the first one to join there. Is it about science? Yes, I am the one who will join the project. Is it about the occult? Yes, I am in your circle now. I am in your cult now. I want to talk about these things now. It is all very public. I don't hide these things. And would you like to know what is written in my religious book? Yes, I am interested in your religious book also. There are stories after stories. Yes, I am interested. Never reject the knowledge. All that will remain in your life will be such people. Now you can say that I don't know anybody else except seekers, in this world. I have forgotten everybody except seekers. That is my world now. What will happen if you live this kind of life? Well, you can guess. You will never be born in ignorance again. All these entities, they will help you. As soon as you are dead, you will be surrounded by all kinds of seekers. So the environment is very important. Push yourself into a favorable environment, reject that which is totally unimportant for you, which is not your goal, and accept everything that you think is knowledge. Accept the false also, there is no harm. What can happen at most, that will turn out to be false. No problem. Now I know one more thing that this is false. You will get all these things. You will get the techniques. You will get the mantras. You will get everything that is helpful for you in your path. Yes, you won't get a technique to manifest gold, that is not allowed. You won't get a mantra to kill somebody, not allowed. If you keep looking for such things, for these kinds of siddhis or powers, you will attract that kind of crowd around you. And then that is the reason for fall, you will be kicked out of the proper path. If you are in the flow, well, it becomes very fast for you. If you go sideways somewhere, get distracted, then nobody will help you. Instead of knowledge, you will get all kinds of ignorance and then you will get karmic fruit of it. When I say accept everything, there will be a lot of learning, lessons are also taken.

I got a lot of my superstitions removed like this by very knowledgeable people and my own experiments. Now, you see, there is nothing to be afraid of here. I am comfortable with the path of knowledge and Patanjali and Shankaracharya and I am comfortable with all kinds of demons also. I don't say go away and I'm OK with all kinds of gods also. Most welcome. You see, my door is open. How can I help you? So yes, that kind of attitude will help you if you want to progress in the illusion, otherwise you already know that you are whole and complete in every way. Nothing needs to be done here. Some people think that my path is so pure that there is no place here for the dead people, demons and gods of any kind. Remember, the purest person alive that was on this earth was Gautam Buddha. He was after pure knowledge. What do we see? All kinds of gods, goddesses, dead people and all kinds of creatures from all the universes were present when he was speaking. How is it possible?

You will see that Buddhism is such a dry path. There is no god also there. It is an atheistic path. Nobody worships anybody. What are these gods and goddesses doing there around Gautam Buddha? You will find statues, you will find pictures, you will find stories and so on. There is a hidden angle there in Buddhism, which is a mystical angle. And no path is free from these mysteries. Why? Because that is the normal thing. That is the normal business in the Maya. Just like I said, what is abnormal is people don't believe these things. They are so much in darkness that they don't know where they are right now. My house, my job, my TV. End of the story. Is this life? No. Even a prison is better than that. Ultimately, we are imprisoned by our own ignorance. There is a lot of freedom here.

Some people are very intelligent, their lives are free. But what is the problem there? Whatever is written in my physics books is true. We are in the solar system, there is a galaxy here, that's all there is. Why? You see, your physics book is like the mosquito that breeds in the rainy season and dies in seven days. That is your whole physics. In front of this giant Maya, which is eternal, it does not count. It does not even exist. The knowledge that is here since eternity, you are rejecting it. So yes, you will be bound to the physics book for the rest of your life. The interesting thing is, physics is not saying anything different from what I am saying. Is it? It is wonderful. It opens up this bigger possibility. Instead of learning from this possibility, you reduce yourself and that is stupidity. I don't know what kind of karmic bondage that fellow has with science that instead of growing, he has shrunk himself. It is not the knowledge really, it is the person.The key to knowledge and growth is to open yourself to the possibilities. There are infinite possibilities. We are free to pick the best.

Session 67

Can we say that an experience of the void is also just another experience? A bit devoid of objects. Would be grateful if you could clarify.

Yes, the experience of the void will be an experience. If you cannot experience the void, then there will be an imagination of the void and that imagination will be an experience. Some people like to imagine the experiencer as space, nothingness, but that is wrong. The experiencer cannot be even imagined. It's not possible. There is no image of it. It is not even void. It is so empty that it is not even a void. If a void appears in front of you, it is some kind of experience.

Experience, local memories and non-substantiality, how are they all related to each other?

There is just one experience of something which is non-substantial, non-local, non-temporal. We call it the memory, non-physical non-mental. It is possible to have a localized experience of a small part of this whole memory. This is the relation. Why is there this local memory and local but limited experience? In my view, it is just a stage in evolution. These limitations are going away, we will be able to have bigger and bigger experiences and finally there will be complete dissolution of the memory. But those experiences, as they become bigger, are less meaningful, there is less to learn from them. So there is another reason that we are having a limited experience, that is to have more meaning, more stability, more learning and the more gross form we take, the more limited the experience becomes, the more limited the senses become.

Can the experiencer shift between the different localized memories and experiences while remembering or giving prominence to one particular localized experience and memory?

Remember the experiencer is unchanging. There is no question of shifting of any kind there. It does not shift and remember the experiencer is infinite. There is only one experiencer. It is already experiencing all the local memories, all of the universal memory and everything there is to experience.

How is it that all experiences are of changes in memory including the experiences of senses?

If nothing changes nothing will be experienced. The senses are reacting to change. If nothing changes they will react to nothing. All we get is an experience of the change. This is our direct experience. There is nothing in our experience which is not changing.

Now when you say that all experience is of memory we can immediately see that the changes are happening in the memory. The memory is not a static memory. This non-physical non-mental memory is not a static thing that everything is imprinted on it like a book and then nothing happens there. No, it is vibration. Most basic form of the memory is a vibration and it is changing. Some of the vibrations arrange into patterns and they stick for a while. When they stick for a while we call it memory. There is no substance here. All we have is vibrations. Vibrations of existence.

Whatever happens in our lives, whatever events that are happening in our life are stored in one of the layers of the memory and when we recall these things we are using only that layer of the memory, to play back those memories. Like I'm looking at the objects and it is coming through the senses, the experience of the objects. We say the lowest layer is the layer of the physical world, the lowest layer of the memory. Similarly I can sense this body through many senses, the heat and cold and weight of the body, without these five senses also. I know there is a body and that information is coming from the layer of the body which is a layer in the memory. It is an arrangement of structures in the memory that is being recalled here or that is being sensed here by the senses. Similarly thoughts, desires and emotions are coming from other layers in the structure.

These are vibrating patterns and they are the memory. Now what about the events that happen in your life? They are stored in another layer and we call it the layer of the intellect where we are able to play back these memories. There is another layer which is the layer of the causal body from where we are able to get our dreams, when that layer plays back or when the activity happens there we see it as dreams. In the daytime the layer of the causal body is also active and it is sending the desires and preferences down these other structures.

What happens when somebody loses their memory? There is nobody here, you have already destroyed the person, there are only these layers in the memory, that's all there is. Nobody loses the memory, nobody is forming the memories, these memories are not my memories and those memories are not your memories. There is no person, keep this in mind all the time. There are no personal memories. What happens is because of a fault in the nervous system or because a fault in one of the layers the recall stops. Memories don't go anywhere, memories are where they were before and when this fault is rectified, e.g. a surgery is done or the medicines work, memory reappears. Sometimes we think that we have forgotten everything about the past, but then we see a toy or we eat something which we ate in childhood, everything floods back, all the memories that we thought were forgotten come back. It is possible to recall any of your lives like this, they come back. Memories are never destroyed because they are not physical.

These memories should not be confused with the episodic memories that we recall in the waking state, it is a mental activity, we call it a memory because the experiences are getting stored there in the form of knowledge and all the events, but that is just one layer, that is just tiny portion of the whole universal memory. We have so many things in the universal memory, there is the entire world and our universe there are people, there are bodies, there is this body, there is a nervous system, there are various layers in this nervous system, this mind of the individual and there are higher layers in the in universal memory that are not individual. This is an illusion, this is all constructed out of possibilities in the vibrations of this existence. It is all probable, it is all virtual, it is all non-existent. We should start from this base and then everything will be clear.

When I stop recalling the memory is gone, when I recall the memory, it is here, but no, that is an activity in the mind, that is not what I mean by memory. Memory is something which is fundamental. It is not something I recall, my phone number or what was written in that book, no, that is an activity in the mind, in the layer of the intellect, and it is very unreliable. The person dies and everything is gone, there's nobody there to get it back. What happened to all those experiences? From where they came, to where they went? That is a question which this tiny person won't understand right now. That is why you are a spiritual seeker, you want to know, and there are ways to know.

How can one understand the appearances arising out of the empty potential correctly?

They are all illusory. That will be our basic understanding: all that changes is false, and therefore all that is arising out of the existence is false. This should be our understanding. Why do we call it the potential arising? Because it is not real. If it is not real, it can only be a possibility. There can be only potential. Sometimes the potential is manifested and it is experienced, and then it falls back into the sea of potentials. And that is why everything is changing, because it is not there. See, if it were true, it would be unchanging, just like the experiencer. Because it is not there, there is only potential for appearance. And as soon as this potential is expressed, there are other things that need to be expressed. There is infinite potential. So, it changes into something else, another potential thing. And this is the nature of the experience. We say that it is an appearance and we say that it is an illusion. Plus, we can say that it is a potential of some kind because it does not stay as a single thing.

How does the other thing arise? Why does one experience turn into another experience? Because there is a potential for it. And this potential is being expressed like this, in the form of change. The change is seen as vibrating patterns. They keep changing, they keep appearing and disappearing. So, this is how it needs to be understood. If you say that it is real, then you will need to find something which is stationary out of which this reality is being generated. And you do not find it. You will find only emptiness. If it is coming from emptiness, it must be a potential thing. The mechanism of it can be understood. There is a possibility that we can understand how this is happening. But why this is happening and from where the potential comes, that is unknowable. That cannot be understood. We know only this much: that it is empty. We know only this much: that it is potential. We know that it is manifesting in the form of change. That's all we know.

It is me, that is possible to know. It is me. It is the experiencer only that is taking the forms. And now there is no difference between the experience and the experiencer here. And we say that it is one existence which is appearing as many. It is not becoming many. There is nothing there to become in two. It is only appearing as many. Why it is doing it, that cannot be known. It is the nature of existence. It has infinite potential. That is why it is appearing as whatever it wants. And there is an order to the appearance. And the order to the appearance is because there is an order to the apparatus through which we are witnessing the appearance. And that order is called the memory. It is structured. There is a possibility of unstructured experience also being witnessed through unstructured parts of the existence. But it is never registered. It is never really experienced. There is no meaning in that. It is as good as the experience of complete darkness because there's nothing there except static noise. That is also called the unmanifested existence. It is a theory that there is something which is unmanifested. We also call it Shesha. And it is sometimes shown as a very big black snake with five heads.

Experience will seem to be changing but only when it is seen as separate from the experiencer. In the oneness, there is no change. This seems to contradict other statements like experiencing is all there is. Isn't experiencing also change, just like the granted that the experiencer is the unchanging aspect of the experiencing since they always come together? Could you expand on and explain what this oneness without change is like and how you know it if there was no experience?

Nothing is changing; change is an illusion. Everything is the result of this change, which is illusory. So what is changing here if it is an illusion? How can anything change in reality or in oneness? How can one change into many? It never happens. There is no change, and the one does not change into many. That is the bottom line. If you mix duality with unity, you will get this kind of confusion. At the level of oneness, there is no experience and there is no experiencer separately. This is seen in the experiencing where the experiencer dissolves into the experience. It is seen as empty. If you cannot see it, don't worry. Because your present experience is the experience of oneness, and it is already empty.

The changes that happen are a mental activity. They are happening in the wholeness. And when the attention goes to the mental activity, then it looks like something is changing. But no, it is an illusion. Therefore, nothing is changing in oneness. It is non-dual. You will never experience oneness. Because if you could experience oneness, it will become a changing experience. So the oneness is not an experience. It is not a state of the mind. There is no mind there. There is no person there. There is no experience there. How do we know that this is all there is? Because that is what we find when we investigate. We do not find two. We do not find a separation between the experience and the experiencer. It cannot be known as an experience. Oneness can be known by being oneness. That is what we are. Our essence is non-dual experiencer.

Session 68

Is the last thought before death so important?

Honestly it's not important. The most important thing that should happen at the time of death is fearlessness and peace. Whatever you are thinking will be of no consequence. I have said this somewhere and I don't remember now, but the correct word to use is “state”. What should be our state while dying, not the thought. The state should be peaceful, fearless and detached. And most importantly it should be full of awareness of what is happening. That is important. That is possible only when you have spent your life like this and you know it is an important event and just like you are present, fully present and ready for any important events in your life, you should be fully present and ready.

There is a problem with death that there is no schedule for it, it does not announce its arrival and so you should be always ready. It can sound a little bit negative that why should I always be ready for death? Should I concentrate on my life or should I simply keep thinking about death? So this kind of misunderstanding can happen. That is why I don't say these things, especially to newcomers. When I say that you should always be ready for death, I don't mean that you keep thinking about it. I need to die next second, or tomorrow, or I need to prepare for it. You need to be aware and detached all the time and that is what will prepare you for death. It does not matter, whenever it comes you are always in this state. Be fearless. So this is the state that is recommended when you are old enough to die. There is no recommendation for young people, although death can happen at a young age also. But usually even if they are aware and even if they are detached, the life energies are so strong in the young age that they take over. After a good long life lesson, the mind is prepared by living in awareness. You can get a good control over the life energies as they change in the event of death. Some people are not going to understand it and honestly I also don't understand it. I am simply repeating what my teachers told me. What are these life energies? You will know this when you do the experiments of the dreaming and projected states or of the deep sleep state. When you do these experiments, you will see that there is a very distinct change in the life energies while the states are switched. And the whole game here is to get control of these energies. Eventually they will put you to sleep or an unaware state and habitual state automatically.

You should be aware that this forces us back to sleep, into some kind of habitual existence. You should be able to get hold of these forces, the life energies and turn them into something that you want. Make use of your awareness, make use of your intellect and turn the event of death into an event of liberation.

I know this cannot be done by people who are new, who are doing the practices for the first time in their whole existence as a causal body. These experiments are prescribed so that you get a taste of these things. If you do the experiments, if you are successful, you can make it your practice and if there is a next birth, then you will be born with these tendencies, you will find a teacher and you will get an intense training. Once you get the training, then death is child's play for you. These things are being done by advanced seekers. I don't claim that after listening to my videos and doing a few experiments, you will become that advanced seeker, but who knows, it is all there for you to try out, and sometimes it looks like that I am discouraging people from doing all these things and yes on the path of knowledge we don't do anything.

Even if there is a next birth, we are okay with it. Even if death happens in odd conditions that we don't want, we are okay with it. Because it is a learning experience. Next time you should be careful. If you have the awareness, if you have the knowledge and you could not control the event of death, not a big problem. Next time you can control it. So we simply discard all the illusory activities on the path of knowledge. What I have done here is, I have mixed the practices from other paths, especially the yogic paths. You will find this kind of mixture happening in even the most pure paths like Buddhism. They have adopted practices for death and for other states even though that is not mainstream.

On the path of knowledge we are supposed to die like any other ordinary person and with added qualities of freedom from attachment, complete detachment and peace. If you live a life like this, you will die like this. Your afterlife, which is a wrong word really, you can say after death experiences will be in complete detachment and peace. You will get the blessings of masters if you are aware enough and it has certain advantages.

Now there will be questions like what if I don't do it? Is there any problem? No. That is why we don't put so much weight on it, on the path of knowledge. Because your whole life was lived in knowledge. These impressions are impressed on the causal body already. Your everyday practice is good enough for the causal body and it does not matter how death has happened, except in extreme cases. If it happened naturally by old age or disease or something, then the next birth has all the imprints of the previous birth. If you have lived your life intensely in awareness, it is possible that you will be born as a seeker instantly. There won't be any delay, probably a few days of delay or probably less than a year of delay depending on whether a proper body is available at that time and age, and then you will be born with qualities of a seeker already built in.

I remember my case. People thought that this child is kind of unfit, he is not like others, that's what I got. Wherever I went, I got this comment, you are different, you are not like others. I thought that they were insulting me, they were joking about me. Sometimes people were very clear about it, that by different I mean that you are going to do something different, you are going to do something great in your life. I got these mixed comments and very quickly I came to know, yes, there is a difference, compared to other people. That means I was born with this imprint. I cannot explain it, nobody can explain it. Because nothing extraordinary happened, there was nobody extraordinary in my family or around me, just the average family. None of my siblings had all those tendencies, not even my parents. Almost everybody was ignorant, with no desire to know anything. So it is odd that the birth happened in such a family, even with past life practices. Later on I came to know that it is the karmic machinery as usual. The karmic stuff is so deep and dense that probably there was no control over this. But yes, all the imprints were present. Probably this will be the experience for many people. You are different, you don't fit in this factory of society where everybody is expected to be the same.

This is what is recommended on the path of knowledge. Keep doing your practice, keep your awareness on as much as you can and just like the seasons happen naturally, day and night happen naturally, you will progress naturally, there is no hurry. Everybody needs to get their karmic fruits, even those who are highly aware, they get a choice to delay it, but you cannot destroy it. You can choose the prarabdha for your next life, but you cannot say that no, I want this to be gone forever, I don't want consequences, that is not possible, according to me. You are going to anger Maya very much if you try to mess with these things.

And that's not really growth, you see. I don't want the fruits of my actions, that means you don't want to grow, you don't want to learn. Birth in the higher species, whatever it is, higher bodies, higher worlds, yes, that is also possible, but after a million years, you will be kicked back into something lower, because that is pending, because of your sadhana, you could delay that fruit for a million years, but it's never gone. These are advanced topics and are clearly beyond our experience right now. Whenever you are ready for the advanced, you will see that a guru is already present to guide you. Gather good impressions, that is the key.

How will I remember this in another life? Will this knowledge stay in the causal body?

Yes, everything stays in the causal body and it does not matter if you do not remember it like you remember yesterday or your last week or last year. There is a good chance that you will not remember anything at all. It is not a bad thing. Impressions work, even if they do not reach the intellect, they are working right now also. You are a person right now who is a sum-total of all your previous lives. You can see it. We have the inert matter, we have the active matter, we have the cells, we have the DNA, we have the organs, we have the animal nature, the plant nature, we have the human nature also and there are some hints of higher nature in us, of what is coming. Isn't everything present already? Everything is present. You don't remember what happened when you were a single cell or you were a plant, you were a bird or fish or probably many of these thousands of lives. But you chose a body which remembers all the bodies. It has the imprint of all life forms.

There was a very old but very good movie called “Jurassic Park”, the very first one. What they did was, they crossed the dinosaur DNA with a frog's DNA and they produced only female dinosaurs. The owner of the park and their chief scientist was very confident that they are not going to breed, they are all females, they are not magically going to turn into males, and then they start breeding and they take over the park. The main character finds eggs in the wild. How is that possible? And there is a very good explanation in the movie, one of the characters says - “nature finds a way”, and it was a very famous dialogue in that movie, famous line. And yes, nature finds a way. Even if you don't want, even if you don't remember, even if you are not progressing, nature will find a way, just like some female dinosaurs, turn into males.

And similarly, this will happen to you that even if you don't remember what you are, even if you don't remember all of your lives, exactly that will happen which is necessary. Nature finds a way to push you on the evolutionary path. If you are stuck, it will find a way. So there is no need to worry that I don't remember anything. That which needs to be remembered, it remembers. The dinosaur knows how to turn gender into a male. Remember that we are nobodies, there is no person, it's an illusion. Nobody is in control really, I talk about control, but it's something else that has the control, not the one who thinks I am in control. And so, those things are happening perfectly already.

Why is a yogi in such a hurry or he is kind of anxious? I want control, I will do it myself. Nature is not doing it, I want it now. Why is that? And I mean it's not a bad thing, you can try it. And he stays there in the cave and prevents all kinds of sensory experiences from entering his mind, and locks himself up in the cave. Sometimes there are some extreme practices where the fellow students place a big rock in front of the cave. There is a narrow cave and the person needs to get into the cave and a rock is placed to block it. Probably there is only water, there is nothing to eat also, probably dry fruits, something like this, and the person goes there.

In the darkness of the cave there is no light and there is no sound, our physical senses are rendered useless. Remember that is the only way to change the state into a projected state, that we forget the senses and this is a kind of extreme way to do that. You can use a floatation tank also and the same thing will happen. So the cave environment, extreme darkness, lack of sound, lack of food and lack of people, puts the mind into such a state, it wanders into a projected state.

Now for one or two days, nature is going to put you to sleep, but after that, some kind of miracle happens. You are not in a waking state anymore because the cycle has been disturbed, there is no sunlight to tell you when to wake up, there is no noise to tell you when it is daytime, no people, the whole machinery is kind of broken. I mean, we force Mother Nature to take extreme steps and the whole machinery is cut off. The whole machinery is reset, of waking, dreaming, sleeping, no tiredness also because you are not doing any work and even the digestion is on hold because you are not eating too much, just enough to stay alive. Everything is kind of broken and this is a signal to Maya, Mother Nature that, well, start the death process, it is as good as death.

This is what will happen at the time of death. The senses are cut off, the body enters a kind of stagnated state, it is not doing any kind of metabolism, the person becomes something else. You will see this, observe the dying person, especially when dying from old age, the body also changes and you will see that there is a glow on the face of that person, does not look like that terrified, diseased thing, there is a smile on his face, there is light in his eyes, suddenly there is awareness. This will happen to those who die naturally and have lived a very good life, it won't happen to everyone. If the person is kind of greedy, evil, violent, ignorant fellow, no chance, he will die screaming or in complete unconsciousness.

Back to the cave, there the conditions have been made artificially as if it is the event of death and the causal body then withdraws and drifts into the subtle body and it connects with some other world which is suitable for after death experiences. Some people will say it is a park, some will say it is a temple or it is just void with light in front of me. It can connect to any of these virtual reality scenarios, sometimes it is an airport, for those who are very modern, it takes the form of some kind of transition place, railway station probably. If you have the awareness and if you have the intention, there you can meet your guide. This resembles a lot like the South American spiritual journey. Something similar is done there. Actually these extreme practices are a part of all the cultures in the world. Now it is all destroyed obviously, they were a part of this. What is yogi trying to do here? He will enter these states to get an experience.

You need only one experience you see. Probably two, and when the actual death happens, you simply retrace the earlier experience with full awareness and you end up in the same park, same airport, same railway station, same temple with your guide there ready to receive you. There is no fear, there is no messing around, no fussing around, you know exactly what is happening, you have full control over the energies, they don't put you to sleep.

You can compare it with going to an ATM. You went to the ATM for the first time, you did not know what buttons to press, probably you pressed the wrong buttons, probably your transaction failed a few times. But once you did it, next time it took you only one minute to withdraw cash from the ATM. One shot learning because it's so easy, the ATM is not a complex machine that you need to master for twenty years, it's not like a musical instrument or something like programming the computer. Just press the buttons.

Death is extremely simple, it is like this: disconnect from the senses, the world is gone, the body is gone, and connect to some familiar experience where there is somebody there to receive you, probably there will be many but your guide is the most important person there. If you never practiced, if you are not associated with any tradition and worse if you are born in a spiritual desert, in a country where there are no guides, nothing is there in the name of spirituality, then the death will be non-optimal. All these traditions were set up so that you join an ashram, you join a tradition, a lineage so that you get all the masters of the lineage to help you or you stay in a very spiritual environment where the whole country is like this. It is all destroyed from this country now.

Many people prefer to die in a holy place. They prefer to die in a temple. Why? Because they want an aware death. They wanted this death to be their last one and that was the environment there. But now it is nothing. People want to die with all their gold and cash. Who is going to get what after I am dead, who will run the business, the materialism, capitalism and whatever ism has taken over. This is the age of darkness. So they die like animals and they are born again, in the same environment, the same tendencies which they exhibited at the time of death. So it is unfortunate but you see this knowledge has been left. We don't do it but we know about it. That's what we do on the path of knowledge. That we have an idea of what is going on here, what is this cave practice, what is this dream journey and we try to find something which is easier than this, that is we live a good life, full of awareness. Do not worry about what is death and what will be the experience there, just be ready for death all the time.

Every second of life is stored in the causal body. Probably the causal body is also not worried about this kind of detail, the whole of the illusion is a memory. So everything that has happened and everything that could have happened, everything that is going to happen and the probabilistic future, all the timelines, they are already in the memory. Now you can imagine it must be some kind of infinite memory. There is no medium of storage, the medium is emptiness and so the emptiness has all the possibilities, it does not require a medium, it is all already there because the existence is timeless. So whatever events that you think are mine, my life, it's not actually mine, there is nobody there who can claim it, everything is already there in the universal memory, which is also called the Akashic records. It has every possibility, not only your past life that actually happened. Now who can say what happened? Nobody can say. But it has everything that could have happened. Probably everything is there. So what influences us for a particular lifetime, that is a mystery. And obviously, that which is very strongly impressed will be and most probable, it will have more influence, that will dictate our experience in the next life. Memory has everything that is going to happen in the future. But what will actually materialize, that will be determined by the karmic residue, is a complex process and I don't claim to understand everything. But the more I say, the more questions I start getting. Ultimately, I say I don't know what it is.

How is it possible that all the pasts are there, even those which were not experienced by me? We cannot understand what is there in the past, just like we don't understand what is there in the future. Everything is there. And so it is not possible to grasp it with a human mind, with our intellect. So what materializes is a tiny part of it. And nobody is in control really, there can be awareness. There can be a little bit of steering. But no, there is hardly any control there. Control is equivalent to going to the bathroom. You need to go to the bathroom. You can delay it for five minutes. You cannot say that for the next one year I am not going to go to the bathroom. It's kind of impossible. So that much control is there. Mother Nature allows that much delaying or swapping of experiences. But ultimately it happens in a mysterious way. Nobody really understands it.

That's why we drop all this cave business. That's why we drop all these extreme practices and we go with that which is most natural. And nature knows what to do. We don't. We have very little knowledge and it is amazing that you are operating a body of trillions of cells. It is an ecosystem. You are operating a mind which is equal to 100 supercomputers and you don't need to know anything about it. Isn't that beautiful? That is freedom. Imagine if you had to press all the buttons, all the levers and all the tiny activities of all the cells. Imagine if you had to control all these things and remember all these things. How to operate the mind? Okay, I need to be angry now. Now write a program to become angry. And you spend the next 10 years developing that program. It will be kind of hell. So we are so fortunate that everything is happening without any control, automatically.

Similarly, all this death and birth business is happening automatically. You don't need to control each and everything. I am not against it, but I find it foolish that people attempt to know their past lives. There are millions of these lifes, which one do you want to know? Okay, I want to know only the immediate past, the latest. And you do all these experiments. You know the cave is a very good method, only that you change your intention to experience your past life instead of experiencing death or other worlds or meeting your guide or your favorite deity. Instead of that, your intention is changed to, "I want to experience my past life," and you make a journey for that. You do that kind of ritual under the guidance of a good master, and you will get a past life. You see there is no shortage of people who claim that I got all the knowledge of my past life. Sometimes it happens naturally also, sometimes it happens when you are extremely sick. And not only you see the whole of your present life but you see some of your past lives. If you are a good meditator, it's possible to do that. And what do we see there? Do we see the truth? Can we see any truth in the illusion? No, we see another illusion, depending on our karmic residue or impressions, stored impressions, the strongest impressions, you will be given a story by mother nature. We are habitual of always assigning an agency to all these things but there is no agency there. But because our mind works like this, we always want to know who does these things. So what I do is, I use the word Maya or mother nature, same thing.

Mother nature provides you with a story which is consistent with your present life, something which is highly probable. And it shows you that look this and this happened, but did it really happen? And I'm 100% sure that no, because in this existence nothing is really happening. It seems to be happening, it appears to be happening but it's not happening really. So all the memories are already there of all possible lives that could have happened. Something is picked from this infinite storage and is produced in front of you. Remember that the present experience is all that is, there is nothing like past experience, there is nothing like future experience. It is the story that we tell ourselves, the story of a past life and according to this belief a story will be constructed.

If you believe that there is no past life, nothing will be shown to you. This is possible in the traditions which do not believe in reincarnation or past life, they get nothing, because there is really nothing there, there is only probable stuff. You come back with a story - I got all the knowledge of my past life, this and this happened. I misbehaved with this fellow and that's why I was made an employee of this fellow. Now he's misbehaving with me. He's my boss. I was like this and so I'm getting the fruits of it now. Or the story that I did something great in my past life. I learned so many things and that is why I have all these talents and abilities here today.

Remember, all of it is an illusion. It is probably more illusory than our current life. At least there is some solidity here. There is some cause and effect going on here. But whatever came up in PLR is like a dream. Probably it happened, probably did not happen, nobody can be sure of it. And the funny thing is, once you know your past life, you don't want to look at it again because it's very ordinary, probably you're ashamed of what you did in your past life, so nobody does the experiment again, nobody repeats it. Those who are kind of very curious, I don't find such people nowadays, will want to cross-check. They have heard this theory that it is cooked up by mother nature. It's not my real past life. I want to know my real past life and they do it again. And this time, it's very funny, you will see something else, not the exact same playback. Probably resembling the previous story. Instead of a fighter plane pilot who got killed in a war, now you are a normal cargo pilot who got killed in an accident, a similar probabilistic story. You come back with that experience and now you see that it does not match with my previous experience that I got about my past life. Which one is the right past life? And at this point the advanced seekers will start laughing at you and the masters will start laughing at you. You're fooling yourself with this past life stuff.

Yes, it is a foolish thing but everybody needs to verify it at least once in their lifetimes. If the beliefs are very strong about the past life, the person thinks that I probably landed in another of my past lives, not the life that happened just before this one. I accidentally got another life of myself. You go there again and this time you say I want the (n-1)^th life, not a random life and again you get a story which is more or less similar because you had a strong intention to repeat the experience. You wanted a repetition, so you will get a repetition and that simply enforces your belief that finally I found my real past life not a random sample from the memory where everything has happened and everything has not happened at the same time.

Maya will trick you like this. The more you engage with Maya, the more trickery you will find there. You will probably think that I'm cooking this up. So yes, get your own experience, get your own knowledge, do your own experiments, and share with me. Tell me what happens. And that is why on the path of knowledge, we don't explore the past lives or the future lives because yes, you will get a glimpse of it. It is all an illusion. Everything here is an illusion. The illusion will be cooked up according to your needs. Now, the worst thing can happen is that you can delude yourself into believing that this is the real stuff. Nothing is real here. Even this life is like a dream and will be forgotten like a dream. Nothing is of any consequence. Nothing is of any use. So what do we do? We just get rid of the whole thing. We drop the whole package of lives and births and deaths, whatever. Now you want to be in a state where there are no more births, no more lives, no more of these bodies, whatever forms. You want to stay in a pure state. That is our goal, not the past life or the future life. Just get rid of the whole thing. It's all illusory.

Now, you will land in another illusion which is probably more manageable where you are not tricked into thinking that all these lives are real. They are all dreams. Now you enter a dream which is more manageable where all these things are not happening and do whatever you want to do because there is a lot of freedom here. This is the state of a liberated seeker. This is the state of a master. What are they doing in that state? Isn't that boring because nothing is happening? That is another story. You see, because I am not there, I cannot tell you. Mostly, their mission is to pick people from different worlds and help them, pull them out of their dreams.

That will remind you of another movie - The Matrix. What was Morpheus doing? Morpheus is a character that is modeled after a guru, an Eastern guru, probably Buddhist bodhisattva or something. He is pulling people from the Matrix(dream) and he is looking for somebody who is special. That is what all the gurus are doing. They don't just sit there and enjoy disembodied existence. They're back in their jobs immediately as soon as they are liberated. What do they do? They send this kind of probe down. You see, the movie Matrix has all these metaphors there. If you watch it two or three times, you will get everything which is already a common knowledge in this country. They are sending the probes down looking for those who are ready, who are unfit, who don't fit in the society and they get a call, a phone call on a Nokia phone and they are given instructions. Those who follow the instructions, they are helped, they are pulled out. Some are prepared to do this same work eventually.

Check our 8-step program, isn't it like this? I'm also doing the same thing. This is my training, you are going to do the same thing. Don't worry, you will do exactly the same thing. This is destined to be like this. Yes, you can say, “Oh, I have rescued enough people. Now I want a life which is not so busy. No need to teach people, no need to instruct people, no need to be there when they die on the virtual railway platform, no need to pretend as their deities and whatever they expect after death and so on”. And yes, that is also possible. You can take a break of a million years and then back on the job, pulling people out of ignorance.

There is no life and there is no death, and there is only ignorance. The rest is an illusion. Just like in a movie, there is a main plot, and the writer then cooks up, imagining all the characters and all the sets and situations that can execute that plot. All the movies are written like this, and it will be exactly like this for every movie, that in the first 30 minutes, the ground will be prepared for this plot to be executed. It doesn't matter really. Anything can happen there, you can say that is the probable past. Then the plot happens, and then the consequences unfold. Every movie is like this. Every story is like this. If you don't use this formula, nobody will watch your movie. In the end, there is a twist or something is left for the next part of the movie. Something similar is happening here. It doesn't really matter what kind of lives you go through. The plot is that you get liberated in the end. Hardly matters what you do in all these lives. Thousands of lives, they are just supporting sets and illusions created to arrive at this point. After that, well, there are part two, part three, and four and whatever, and they also don't matter. Your future lives also don't matter.

Some have seen this and they have taken a permanent break. We call them the dissolved minds, which is a phrase I use mostly for those minds that are no longer in any kind of illusion. They have gone completely, extinguished completely, and right now we don't understand why anybody would like to do that. But everybody will do that one day. The screen goes blank. That is the best place for an experiencer to be: blank screen. And even if you don't want it, it will happen. For probably many infinities, it will remain blank. And then the drama starts again. So, it is something which is beyond our intellect, beyond our knowledge right now. I can talk about only these things which are already in public. Your experience can be different. You can come up with any other kind of story. Yes, okay, that's fine. In the illusion, everything can happen. And yes, that is one of the possibilities that there is only one life, and then nothing is there. And those who believe like this, exactly the same will be manifested. The Maya is actually commanding, but she is also giving. She respects our will. What is not possible here? Everything is possible. So, on the path of knowledge, we see this, and we stop worrying about what is happening. We rest in our true nature that goes nowhere. Nothing happens there. It is perfectly empty and pure and stationary and unchanging. That is our home. And we sit here and we watch the drama. Maya is cooking up something every day, and we watch it.

Why are there questions - What will happen? What will not happen? What to do about death and birth and all? When will I get liberated? Is my life already destined? What kind of karmic stuff do I have? We don't worry about all these things. There's nothing like this. Your command will be respected. A seeker has more power than an ordinary person. Why don't you issue a good command there? Settle the issue completely. This is a hint for those who are ready.

Session 69

What are some ways that we can help sharpen the mind? I know this is already happening, but how to speed up this process?

The only instrument that we have to gain knowledge is the mind, especially the intellect. And if that instrument is not functioning well, there is no hope of getting any knowledge. The best possible way to sharpen the mind is to be in the company of the wise and intelligent people. That has worked for me. If you stay with the stupid people, it is a guarantee that you will become stupid. It does not matter how sharp you are; stupid people are going to drag you down with them. This is a very natural thing. Be with wise people as much as possible. Expand circles to include very wise people. By wise, I don't mean the big and famous names. Probably they don't have time for you. There are wise people everywhere. All you need to do is check who knows more than me, who thinks more clearly than me, and get in contact with those.

I keep getting a lot of emails. Now I understand why, because people think that they are going to get some answers from me. And there was a time when I was sending out emails like mad to people. I joined the communities online. I joined the forums, then I joined the mailing list, and I attended satsangs. I talked to people, sent out the emails. I read whatever books people recommended to me. This is what I have been doing for many years now. I am kind of slowing down now, but because I feel everybody is repeating their stuff, that means probably now there is a point where nothing more needs to be done here. So, as soon as you get to a level where the other person is, you will find that the flow of knowledge will stop from that source. So all you need to do is don't be satisfied. You simply jump to the next level. Meet those who know their subject well. And in spirituality, you need to know many subjects, actually. Philosophy is not becoming expert in one subject. Philosophy is knowing as many subjects as you can in a broad way, not in a detailed way. You get the essence of it.

You can employ the means of knowledge that I gave you. There are only two ways: direct experience and logic. Everything is polluted, you will know not to trust people. Do not trust everyone. And this is how we get rid of our conditioning. This is how we sharpen our intellect. Stay with very positive, knowledgeable people. And yes, books are also very good. Read the books that sharpen your logical abilities. Read the books written by other philosophers. But, do not believe what the philosopher is saying. It is his truth, his knowledge that he is communicating. You need to see how they argue, how they make points, how they define things, how precisely their definitions are constructed, how much thinking goes into the arguments that they present, and how they refute other arguments. You need to just copy them initially. I did the same thing. I copied the great minds. Learn how they think. Read quotes from great scientists and great people and other great personalities who just fought the system that is designed to keep us stupid and ignorant. So, get out of the system as soon as possible.

Now, I don't say that you stop your school. I don't say that you stop going to college, don't do your job. I'm not saying this. Find out what is true, and then continue living your life normally. Being with intelligent people is the fastest way. It will speed up your progress. Reading books is recommended, but not any kind of books, you have read a lot of books that preach things. Don't do that. Read the books that increase your logical abilities, teach you to think. And do not believe rumors. Do not act on random advice, even my advice, my suggestions, you need to question it. So, the formula here is open-minded skepticism. Be open-minded. Let everything come into your mind, but filter it carefully. Is somebody trying to brainwash me? Is he trying to sell a product to me? Is he trying to rule me and get money from me? Or is he fooling me by telling me that after death you will get virgins or heaven or something, or is he asking me to do something nasty? All these things must go through your filter of skepticism. And then it will just shoot you in the orbit. Once you know how to filter the truth from the false, you will be in orbit. This is how I progressed. There is no shortcut. But yes, there are tricks. And just like I told you, they will just shoot you in the orbit, heights of intelligence.

We are not born with this ability to think rationally, like we are not born with the ability to sing or play an instrument, or to cure people, do surgery, or fix machines and all. But we are born with potential. Obviously, there is a potential to be something like this, and intelligence is one of the potentials that everybody's born with. It can be improved. I'll tell you one more formula: the more you know, the more intelligent you will be, and the more intelligence there is, the more you will know. This is another formula. I have seen many intelligent people, but they are focused on a narrow field. They are kings in their field, but they are completely stupid outside their field. They have not focused on overall knowledge, on a wider knowledge, their growth is cut short. There is an imbalance in their personalities. That should be avoided. You can become a master in one skill. That's not a bad thing. But if there is an overall balanced growth, that will be called intelligence.

Some people know how to rob a bank or how to kill people without getting caught. But you see, that is not intelligence. That is extreme stupidity in my view. It's a misuse of your abilities, actually. So yes, all these people who assemble big armies and have big bombs to kill millions, these people are extremely stupid. Wisdom is lacking there.

How to know what level I am to jump to the next level because knowledge is infinite and something new appears when observed? All we get is information, and one must have the ability to do this, ability to distinguish truth without any prejudice.

You are at a level about which you know. So, if there is a question in your mind of which there is no answer, you know that there is an answer to that question, then that will be your next level. I have never defined any levels of knowledge. What I have defined is a progression from ignorance to knowledge. More beliefs you have, the more assumptions and indoctrination you have, the more ignorance there will be, and the lower your level will be. So, what we do here is identify what my next question is? Where is my next ignorance? What is it that I don't know? That will be your next level to jump to. Jump to that level immediately. Don't keep asking those questions. You should go and find out, hunt for the answer. And as soon as you know the answer to these questions that you have right now, you will be ready to jump to the next level.

You should ask. Express yourself. Don't worry about what he will think. What are people going to think? I'm so stupid or what? Asking questions doesn't make you stupid. Not asking them makes you stupid. This is like a formula again, that those who ask, they look like stupid for two minutes. And those who don't ask, they remain stupid for the whole of their lives because they never asked. Because of some fear or some laziness, probably.

What do you want? Just tell me. You see, knowledge will be served to you. No, there are no levels or anything. You see, don't let these kinds of beliefs take hold in your mind. You told me that knowledge is infinite, right? So when do we reach that high level? If it is infinite, we will always remain at the bottom level somewhere. There will always be an infinite amount to know in front of you, so don't worry about the levels, worry about the ignorance. What is your ignorance? Express it. And there is actually a test for the ignorance that the more ignorant you are, the more you suffer and the more you make people suffer. Just look around. Look at your tendencies, are you dissatisfied? Are you frustrated? Are you violent, angry? But I don't think anybody in this room will be like that. I'm just giving you an extreme example. And if you see that your conditions are like this, yes, there is ignorance. You're probably at level number zero. And if you look at your material condition - if you are sick, you are not well-fed, you are living in a filthy environment, you're poor, your family is good for nothing, great ignorance there, because those who cannot fix their material life, how can they dream of achieving any kind of spiritual success?

Now, I'm not saying that become a millionaire so that you can progress in the spiritual world. No, come to a level where life is not a struggle anymore. It is now easy to come to satsangs, to read books, to go to the programs, to travel here and there, and to set aside time for your practices and all. Make your life comfortable. This should be kept in mind: your life conditions are an indicator of ignorance. Now, check greed, lust, pride and hubris etc. Are they present? They are indications of ignorance. Get rid of them completely. Check your intellect. Are there no questions at all when you go to satsang or when you read the books? Do you come empty-handed without any questions? That means only two things: either you are hyper-intelligent and you understood everything, or you did not understand anything at all. Mostly there won't be any questions if the teacher is good enough, but sometimes there are questions, and if you don't express yourself, there will be a hole in your knowledge. Accept that I did not understand something, and there is your opportunity to clear that ignorance.

If there are resistances in your mind like, "No, I don't need to know this" or "I am not interested in such things, I am only interested in the occult and calling demons and whatever," then you will remain at that level. You will not progress beyond that. So, as soon as you get a question, you see a hole in your knowledge, try to fill it. And I have seen that the more you know, the more you will know that I don't know. So, knowledge is something which is never complete.

Now, I'll tell you something funny: on the path of knowledge, you will never get any knowledge. You should be ready to accept that. All you do is keep reducing your ignorance, and whatever is left is your knowledge. The more beliefs you have, the more ignorance you have, the more empty you become, the more knowledge you have. This is reversed in the path of knowledge, but yes, there is a lot to know, obviously. Find out ignorance, get rid of the ignorance, and if you need help in that, well, you can go to a guru and ask for help, that please tell me where is my ignorance, and the guru will do your scanning from top to bottom, like a CAT scan of your mind, and the guru will find out where is the ignorance and will prescribe a suitable path. It's not magic, it is just knowledge. The guru knows so much that he can just take a small interview and he comes to know everything that is needed. It is possible to do that. I also do that many times. I usually have two or three questions before I interact with people, and I come to know at what stage they are. It is very easy actually, anybody can do it.

Session 70

The question is, even though information conveyed by spiritual teachers is not considered as a valid means of knowledge, it can still point us towards gaining our own knowledge through direct experience. That being said, do you have some suggested readings from great teachers for a beginner level seeker?

I have read a lot of spiritual books in the past and most of what I had read was incomprehensible. Perhaps now that I have gained my own knowledge, I will be able to understand what these masters were teaching. Many people ask me about the books and unfortunately I don't remember even one title. Actually I have read hundreds of books myself.

Ultimately I found that the books prepare the mind and sometimes the books have trivial knowledge also because in the beginning the seeker is actually not seeking the most fundamental, there is not enough knowledge there to ask the fundamental questions. The seekers are trapped in trivia in the beginning. When I meet a newcomer I get these kinds of questions: what kind of meditation is good for me, or how to get this power and that power, or how to have this kind of experience or that kind of experience. They are never going to ask me such questions like how to verify the illusion of the experience. This can be called a high level question, and even higher level questions such as what is the meaning of oneness or what is the meaning of existence being non-dual.

These are various steps of knowledge, and I need to tell you that I have taken you to the final level here already. Now, if you want, you can go down the levels and look at the books again. You can go down and look at the trivial knowledge again. When I do that I find it totally boring actually. I have seen one thing which is very interesting, that is the experiences of other people. Sometimes I like to read those experiences or watch the videos where people are describing their experiences. My favorite series is the “Buddha at the gas pump" series by Rick Archer. You get to look into the mind of others. They open up their windows by describing what happened in their lives and sometimes you get some rare insights also. He interviews ordinary people mostly, although some of the interviews are with popular gurus also. But you know what those popular gurus say, they are all repeating the same thing.

So unfortunately, I don't want to prescribe you the standard texts. I can not tell you to go and read the Rig Veda. I cannot tell you to go and read this Upanishad or that Upanishad or this Gita or that Gita. To comprehend even one word of these scriptures is kind of impossible without interpretation. The interpretation will be done by a master, not necessarily a master who knows what is written there. They are very good at deciphering the meanings of these words. That's all they know. They know which word means what. Sometimes they also know the context, which is a good thing. Sometimes there will be 20 different interpretations of the same word.

If anybody is interested, they can do this kind of study. Go to the source and try to see what the sources are telling you. Sources of non-dual wisdom are the Vedas and the Upanishads. Every other book is a derivative of these two. Now Upanishads are not big. Sometimes you can print them on one page, but they are like a zipped file. When you expand them, well, it can fill up a whole book there. Still I don't recommend that because it is plain and simple really. That old language is beautiful, it is the most precise language on this planet. Still the interpretation makes it muddy and then whatever comes out of the interpretation is probably more inaccurate than the real text itself. I have done that on my channel and there are two or three books that I read. Please go through them. There is one book called Zen teachings of Bodhidharma. Highly recommend it. I have done the reading, I have done the interpretation, whatever little I could do. And there is a book called the Rebhu Geeta. I read it just to show that interpretations are bad.

And there is a book called the Mandukya Karika. I read it online, and there are some more, they are on my channel. So just go and watch the first few minutes, like 15 minutes of those and that is worth your time and after that please don't watch them. It is a complete waste of time. You will see that books are not a source of knowledge. Don't waste your time on books. Nowadays, I don't have a single book in my house. My house used to be full of books of all kinds. Let go of books. There is nothing in the book. If you are interested in books, I would suggest that you write your own book. Write your own Geeta. Write your own Upanishad. Nobody is stopping you. That will cause your mind to open up like anything. I am a big fan of writing, not of reading. There are reasons for that. Those who have known me for many years, they know that whatever I say is not because I like or dislike something. It is because there is a deeper reason there. It is not that I don't like books. I like them. The smell of a fresh new book is lovely. These recommendations, they mean something. Whatever I say is meant to push you forward a little bit. Even if it is one inch of progress, I recommend it. So I can recommend 20-30 books, but I don't do that because I would waste a lot of time and money of many seekers. You will never know anything new from the book, never ever, concerning spiritual knowledge. I always mean the spiritual books, I am not talking about anything outside spirituality here.

If you read spiritual books and you can understand them, you already have the knowledge. If you already have the knowledge, then is there a need to read? You gain nothing new. That day I was saying that even the biographies of great masters are completely useless, especially of the Indian masters. Some people say I read the biographies of the masters to get inspired. Well, 90% of what is written there is false. All these masters lived a very ordinary life. When you read the biographies, it will be like he killed 20 tigers and he could throw an elephant with his fist and so on. He could lift a mountain and he did this miracle and that miracle and this God appeared to him and gave him special knowledge and so on. Why did they do that? Even the so-called spiritual books are full of such stories. They lived a very ordinary life according to me. Then their disciples came and made them extraordinary by making up these stories. You read one paragraph, who was he when he was born and who was his guru and what was his contribution and what did he do, what books he wrote and that is the end, nothing else to see there.

Yes, I was talking about the interviews. They are very inspiring. If you are interested, go and watch the interviews. Yes, it will be a complete repetition. What I have found is, it is highly entertaining if you interact with people like this, one-to-one interaction, either discussing spiritual matters or teaching. That is a lot of fun. Plus, it is a good use of your time. If the other person can learn even a few concepts here and there, even the trivial things, the level zero things, it's OK. It's fine. We all grow up like this. That is very interesting in my view. The book is dead. The author is dead. Now what is the use of that?

Leyla is saying, it has gotten boring watching those videos since gaining my own direct knowledge, but I guess the real question is what is next? What is there now?

Yes, when the pitcher is full, it starts splashing. That is my recommendation. When your bowl is full, it starts spilling. Don't read, write, or listen. Speak, let others benefit from the wealth of knowledge that you have collected. That is service. Because everybody is me, that is my benefit. Some people think that it is an upliftment of society. No, it is not. Society or human civilization, whatever it's called, which is probably just gangs of organisms trying to survive, is going to remain the same no matter what. It has been like this for millions of years and it will stay like this for millions of years. Yes, sometimes we see things go up and sometimes they go down. It means nothing. Spiritual service is not for social upliftment. It won't happen.

What will happen is individual upliftment. That is more important. Focus on the individual. Remember, there is no country, there is no tribe. These are human constructs. In this illusion, the individual is the reality. Growth of the individual is the real growth. Don't do social service. Don't donate money. Some people are trying to plant trees, some people are trying to revive the rivers, I have seen this. In the big picture, it amounts to nothing. Look at the Sahara Desert, it was the greenest part of the planet 25,000 years ago. It used to rain all the time there. It is a completely dead place now. It had many civilizations there. They achieved heights in their time. The Atlantis, Egypt, or Mediterranean civilizations. There is evidence for that and I keep looking for that and I see that it's all ruined now. What is the use of trying to fix a burning bridge? Rescue people who are on the burning bridge and who want to be rescued, who are desperately looking for a way out of this impermanence. This is my suggestion. The tools have been given to you.

Without experience, there can be no understanding. It just muddies the water further. Direct experience opens the door to understanding, interpreting what masters of old have said. Sometimes the books are more confusing than your direct experience. Sometimes I don't understand why they wrote this thing, which is of no use for a seeker and then why they had to encrypt it so much that nobody could understand for the next 3000 years. Complete waste of time.

Sometimes I give an example of the Windows operating system. When you need to get something done in Windows, like set up a network, what do you do? You get simple instructions. Click here, do this, write something here, type this number, type this IP address here and it is set up. Load this driver or update this driver. It is done. This is a typical manual of any operating system. Now imagine if I write this manual in a language which is 5000 years old. Imagine if all the words of this manual have 20 meanings and imagine that you need to read 50 books which are 500 pages long, big fat books to get your network configured on Windows. And imagine that the whole thing is encrypted in some kind of vague language. And imagine that the mouse is called this God and the keyboard is called Goddess with 101 hands. Now she has O in one hand, she has I in the other hand and there are numbers in 10 hands. What are you going to do with that? How are you going to configure this network in your lifetime? This is what a typical scripture is. I am not only talking about the Indian scriptures. I am talking about all the scriptures in the world. I don't know how they survived. Probably the ancient people had too much time and yes that is right, isn't it? Their life was very simple. And let us say there is a book of 20 verses. Now it did not matter to them if it took 20 years. These 20 verses were whole and complete and that is the whole and complete knowledge. Now this is the modern age. We don't have time. We don't want to waste time.

In India autobiographies are not meant to be accurate. Very few people know this. In India the history is cooked up. It is not meant to be accurate. Even the so-called modern history is written by governments, not by historians. And the ancient history which really matters is not meant to be accurate. Try to search for a simple thing and you will never find the facts. All you find is opinions. Books do not tell you the truth. History is completely false. Autobiographies are the history of a person. Now, I am not saying that this will happen only to the ancient masters. This happens to the modern masters. Try to read something on Osho. If you read Wikipedia on Osho, he is presented as a criminal there. If you read the autobiography given on the site of Osho, he is presented like he was a god. Who has the best biography of Osho? Nobody. When I look at him, I see a simple person. I don't see anybody who does miracles or who commits any crimes. When you give people a little bit of rice, they cook it up. They turn it into a dish. This is the saying here. You give them one sentence and they keep adding to it till it becomes a big rumor of some kind. Similarly, people got glorified because they said something of value. Just get that thing which they said and then leave the rest, leave the non-essential.

Never write your own autobiography. I am telling you, you write 20 pages and if you return after 200 years, let us assume you are a great person, you will find that those 20 pages have become 2000 pages. What have they done with Gautam Buddha? Simple man. Simple realization. His message is very simple. He actually wiped out garbage from India. Complicated things are garbage, always. He simplified everything down to two or three sentences. After so many years, thousands of years, what do we find? Full libraries devoted to what he said and nobody has a clue what was actually said.

Vidya says, this knowledge is the most simple and everyday experience. Now how is this not taught in schools?

The school is not meant for knowledge. Please try to understand human society. It is made for survival. Schools have a social function. Not meant for any kind of knowledge except a little bit of language and a little bit of mathematics or science. That's all that can be gained from any school. That can be done in one year. You don't need to go to school for 12 years. It is a complete waste of time. Don't send your children to schools. Many people are not going to agree with me. So please do whatever you like to do. But this is my opinion.

Give them the knowledge of at least three languages. Three languages are necessary. Give them the knowledge of basic arithmetic. That is all they need. And then give them at least two skills. Use those 12 years to teach them a good skill. Make them a master in those skills. If they can learn more, better. Nothing else is needed. If the child likes a subject, well, he will go and become a master in that. If he does not like it, life is cool anyway.

Recently, I saw an interview on YouTube where a person of Indian origin who is now settled in the Middle East, was telling his experience with the degree mafia in India and the Middle East. Now I think many people already know that in India, you need to pay a little bit of money and you can get any degree. This can be shocking for many people. How is it possible? And I'm pretty sure that this is possible in every country, only that in some countries you need to pay more. You can just buy any degree that you want. He was talking about it and he said that not only the universities and schools, but even the education department, the ministers, clerks, peons, bureaucrats, government servants, are all part of this degree mafia. They will even get you to appear in a fake exam and they will simply put the question paper there and they will give you the answers also. Please write them down. Just for the record, that record is submitted to the university. It can be an exam conducted in, let us say, 1980 that is all stamped and put there and you are given whatever kind of degree you want that dates back to 1980. It is all stamped and nicely recorded in the university records. You pay them some money. You don't need to be a scholar to get a degree.

I have seen this with my own eyes. We used to burn our blood to pass the exams. We used to parrot these books so that we could write the exam. What other people did was simply buy the degrees. Not only degrees, you can buy the questions that are going to be asked in the exams. I have seen this happening since my childhood. I lost all faith in the education system. You must have heard me saying very bad things about education. This is not education, this is everything except education.

Yes, the child gets an environment there. He gets friends there. That is also very risky. Go to school today and you will get all the drug addicts there. There are all kinds of people there. So if you send a very good natured child, who knows with whom he will become friends, what will happen to him. Yes, there are good people also. It makes the child street smart. He knows many things now. He gets friends. It is a social interaction. In some countries, the child will also get guns and will kill other people, other students in those schools. It is a terrible situation. Fortunately, spirituality is not taught in schools. Schools are not meant for knowledge. Please open your eyes and see the poor condition of humanity.

Anil is saying, truth is preeminent. Knowledge is a utility. Information is cluttered distortions.

Very nice, yes. Ask anybody around you what is truth. They don't have a definition of it. Ask anybody about knowledge and the means of knowledge, what constitutes evidence. Nobody has a clue. You go and ask a professor in the school, you see absolutely zero knowledge. There are millions of students that do the master's degree in science and technology and all. Every year, the education factory churns out millions of so-called scientists and engineers. Now this country should have become a heaven by now. No. Most of them are fakes. Most of them don't have any knowledge of anything.

I remember a very funny situation that happened. I met somebody with a master's in philosophy and obviously I was interested. I did not ask any other question except what is the definition of philosophy and that student could not answer it. Then I went on to tell my definition of philosophy that the “philos” comes from the root word which means love and “sophia” which means knowledge, the Greek words. But he did not agree on this definition. “No, this is not written in my books. So I don't agree with you”. You go and ask the greatest spiritual student about what is spirituality. What is the meaning of Adhyatma? Probably 90% of people will fail. Some of them will come up with a very good definition but all of them will be different. Nobody is going to say it is about me. Whenever somebody asks what spirituality is, I say it is about me and they leave the room. Nobody can believe it. It has to be something about invisible stuff in the sky. It has to be something for which you need to climb Mount Everest, they think. Only people in this satsang, only the group, pure experiences can understand why it is about me, nobody else in this whole universe. When I see this, I am amazed. It is amazing, isn't it?

Schools are meant for survival only. Just send your child to school so that he survives because he is not going to get a job otherwise. Because of what governments are telling him to read and parrot. You are under the claws of a government that knows what to teach. That is a big joke, isn't it? Especially in India, the government consists of complete idiots, not only in India, everywhere. The highest person will be the lowest educated. Yes, sometimes we get somebody who is educated, but they are completely ineffective. The illiterate person is kind of a hero. He will manage everything. He will do all the wars and he will pass all the laws and he will do all the politics nicely because politics means how much can you lie, how much money can you shuttle in the Swiss bank. That is what politics is. So they are experts in that. A nicely educated fellow from a good family will be killed instantly, will be made fun of, will be a complete failure in a high position in our society. People respect power and money, not education.

Why are people mad about getting a computer science education? Not because they like computers. There is nothing in the computer to like, except if you are a very techie person and you will love these machines. But an ordinary person does not like it really. They are terrified when they see a computer, and cannot understand what it is. But they want a degree in computer science and they will pay whatever money they have, sometimes millions are paid to the universities for getting admission to these courses. Why are they doing it? For money. Because right now that is paying money. Similarly a person wants to become a doctor simply because he/she can earn a lot of money, not because they are kind and compassionate towards sick people. So yes, your child will survive somehow in this system. And I don't want to give my opinion here, but survival is a very easy thing. Buy some land. Make a house. Grow your food. That is survival. If you have a lot of land, well, you are very lucky. And you can just kick the whole society out. You can stay there. I see that there are talks of farming communities, self-sustained communities and I like this idea a lot. I know some people who are doing this. I was very impressed by that idea. You don't need to make your child a slave of society. You need to make your child independent of society. I know very few people will achieve this.

Leyla is saying, is it important to pass on this knowledge to the children?

Knowledge about survival is very important. Spiritual knowledge is not important. When the fruit is ripe, it falls. If you impose spiritual knowledge on people, children, it has bad effects. That is why it is not given in schools. Only those with the ears and eyes can see. Nobody else. And I think children should not be burdened with any kind of knowledge till they are ready to learn anything. They should play. That's all they should do. Eat and play for 10 years at least. There is no need to put them under the burdens of the books.

Sending them to the school for 8 hours per day is a big torture for the child. They need to be set free. It was like this in the ancient times. At the age of 12, s/he was sent to the ashram where s/he learned whatever the guru taught - Survival skills, Agriculture, How to start fire, How to make weapons, How to raise a cow, How to kill people. All the survival skills were taught and obviously those with the right tendencies were given spiritual knowledge. Actually everything was spiritual only. I am not going to go into that detail. It is not possible to bring back that thing. I say please don't come to the path of knowledge if you are less than 35 years old. It is a waste of time. You will know nothing. You will understand nothing. If you understand something, it will be wrong. If you try to implement this knowledge in your life, it will be a disaster. You will lose your mental balance. Life will become unbearable. Go to school. Go to college. Earn money. Buy a degree. Get a very nice girlfriend or boyfriend. Produce some children of your own. Once you are 35 and you have this inclination towards knowledge, come to the path. I will tell you. And it will take you 5 minutes. It is so easy.

Laila is asking, why 35?

The human body goes through cycles of growth. It is not really 35. It has to be some multiple of 12. You don't need to believe me. Different bodies probably have different kinds of cycles. But I have seen it personally and I have heard about it. Probably there is some obscure book there on astrology where you will get human cycles because astrology is about natural cycles. It is like numerology and there is some cyclic pattern in this body. Why? It is really made up of patterns. I am not surprised that this is like this.

It has to be 36 actually, a multiple of 12. At the age of 12 hormones are activated. Before that the man is a girl and the woman is a boy. No difference. After 12, something important happens in the body. This continues till the age of 24, where people decide to marry mostly. They used to marry off the children at a very young age in India. It has its advantages and disadvantages. It became a social evil, it was banned. The next age will be 24 where the body is at its peak and it is very suitable for worldly activities. The next figure will be 36, hormones become weaker and the intellect rises. Before that, the person is very immature. There are young intelligent people there but very rarely they will show any kind of maturity. The next age is 48 where the spiritual knowledge is complete. Then the decay starts and at some age, let us say 96 or something, the person is ready to leave. Probably it is different for men and women. If you pay attention, you will see all these cycles. Otherwise you won't. This is not common knowledge.

Similarly, there are cycles of this planet. There are cycles of the solar system and there are cycles of the galaxies. There are cycles in the greater mind and there are cycles in the universal mind. There are cycles in the causal body. People found that out simply from direct experience and logic sitting here but it is all forgotten now. I can still identify some cycles but not all of them. At the age of 36, the intellect is mature enough, the hormones are weak enough so that your concentration becomes good and you understand things, especially things of the spiritual nature.

There is a pre-knowledge phase where the person is absolutely confused and they go through two stages, that are - I know everything, and then the crisis that - I don't really know anything, and then finally when they know something, well, it looks like a kind of misadventure but that needs to happen. That is how it is done. The onion needs to be fried in hot oil to make it taste good otherwise the onion just makes you cry. This is the life of a person, nothing extraordinary there, everybody has the same story.

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 youtube. 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