Session 91

What is a no-mind state or dropping the mind according to the path of knowledge?

First of all, the mind is not defined in our program. Sometimes I use the word mind just to talk unofficially, informally. If you want an informal definition of mind, it is memory plus its processes, the universal memory and its processes. That will be the definition of mind in the context of the path of knowledge program and in the way this path of knowledge is presented there. The memory and associated processes is a direct translation of the Sanskrit Chitta, Chittavritti. Because there is no English translation of Chitta, sometimes I use mind, but that is not correct. And the processes of the mind or the processes of the memory, they are the Chittavritti. So when you combine these, you can say it is mind in English, but you will never find this meaning in any dictionary, because everybody defines it differently in every philosophy.

There is no mind, we do not discuss it. We say it is memory and we say processes in the memory, which is an attempt to translate the Sanskrit word Chitta and Chittavritti. That is all there is. That which is thinking is called Mana in Sanskrit. And then there is no corresponding word in English for that also. And that where the emotions are happening will be called something else. And again in English everything is mind. That which remains after death is called the karana sharira, causal body, but in English it is again a problem with the words. So I drop the word mind and we have only memory and the processes in the memory.

Now what is no mind according to this definition? There should be no memory and there should be no process in the memory. According to our philosophy, that is impossible. The memory cannot disappear and the processes never stop. Because the mind is not a static thing, it is vibration. It is a vibrating pattern, that's all the memory is. If it stops, that means there is nothing. The essence of the mind comes out to be emptiness. The activity of the mind is the mind. There is no separate thing called mind in which the activity is happening. So Chitta is Chittavritti. The Chitta will not exist without the Chittavritti, it is never seen without the Chittavritti.

What will be the experience? No experience because all the experiences are mediated by the memory. Whatever is in the memory is being experienced. This is told in a high amount of detail in our program. Insane amount of detail is there about how this process is happening. Senses are patterns in memory. Your body is a pattern in memory. Thoughts are patterns in the memory and so are emotions and everything else. The causal body is also a pattern and the greater memory, universal memory, they are all one sea of memories. It will never stop. But its essence, its foundation comes out to be emptiness. It has no substance.

You will never see the memory. You will only see the activity which appears as various experiences. I am calling them as irreducibles or in Sanskrit it is called the Tanmatra from the Sankhya philosophy. So that is what we experience and then we cook up a theory behind it, we imagine that there is a memory and there are processes there and there is vibration, there are patterns there like standing waves. I call this memory non-physical, non-mental, NPNM memory and now you must be thinking it looks imaginary. So yes, it is all imaginary. They are theoretical concepts. Although we can find a lot of support for this model.

Everything is changing. So there must be a smallest change. There must be vibration. If everything is moving, yes, there has to be movement and so on. This is at the level of duality or you can even say at the level of memory, at the level of illusion. This is studied under illusion. The mind is studied under illusion. There is no truth in this. We do not worry about it. We use the relative truth and then we study it. So it is impossible that these things disappear. It is impossible that the experience can stop. What is possible is that one or two processes can be attenuated, which means they become so small that they go out of the limit of perception. That is possible.

Can you call that no mind? According to our definition, no. Out of the millions of processes, this one or two have gone down. That's all that has happened. So no mind is also a concept where it points to that which remains if all the experience disappeared and it comes from Buddhism. There is no such thing in Advaitha or yoga also. There is Nirvikalpa Samadhi in yoga, but then it is kind of controversial because it is like sleep. You cannot claim that the Nirvikalpa also is a state of no mind, according to our definition, because if it can come and go, that means there is some activity there. If it faded into nothing, then there is nothing to bring it back. But then Nirvikalpa Samadhi comes and goes. You can come out of it. It is not a permanent Samadhi. So there is something which brings out the seeker or the meditator from that state. What is that? A process. This process must be on and the memory must be there in the latent form without getting expressed too much and so on and it must be happening only for the local memory, which is the seeker's memory, which is being expressed right now as the seeker, but it is continuously being active in the other creatures, in the other seekers, in the other people everywhere. So what was stopped? Nothing at all. If you take out one drop from the ocean and say the ocean is calm now, it is not meaningful. So when I sleep, the activity of the waking state drops, but the activity of the other states increases. That is another matter. But I do not say that there is no mind. I only say that this is a state of sleep. That's all I say. So according to me, the no mind is simply a symbolic concept which points to that which remains when no activity is present, which will never happen.

So you can guess now, what will be present if there is no experience? Emptiness will be present. Can we put the word emptiness and presence in one sentence? No, it's kind of impossible, but the emptiness has a presence in it, but it is never seen without the experience. That there is something which is present is actually reflected out of the experience, otherwise there is no knowledge of it. The teacher is trying to point out that look, your true nature is not that which is appearing or disappearing. It is mind, and your true nature is that which is no mind. Look at no mind. It will not be possible, because there will remain nobody to look at what remains. There will be no knowledge of it. That is why we say that the existence is unknowable, because it will always appear as two. It will always appear as duality, one experiencer and the other experience. And the experience will always be seen as the mind or the memory and its processes, appearing as names and forms. There is no way to know anything more than this. The rest is inference.

There is an existence which is without the experience and the experiencer is an assumption. It is there. And when they both merge, it is called the experiencing. That is the most natural state of existence. Experiencing is nothing but existence. It is a dynamic presence. Why dynamic? Because that is how our intellect can interpret experiencing. Something is happening, it will say. Something is witnessing something. That is the minimum that can be said about existence. There is nothing else in existence apart from experiencing. So for your purpose, you can say that is no mind. Because there is hardly any thinking there, there is hardly any emotions there or whatever comes is thrown into the flow of experiencing. We do not sit down and say, okay, this is mind, this is this process, or whatever. We never say that. Why? Because there is nobody to say it. There is just an experiencer on the screen of which some shapes, forms, sounds come and go. There is no thinking. And you can say there is no knowing also.

It is like a child witnessing and you will say, how can I get into that state? And the good news is your current state is like that. You don't need to get into that state because that is your current state. Experiencing is your current state. And if you focus on it, if you attend to it carefully, you will find that it was always my state, which is the state of this existence. It is my state because I am the existence. So why does it look like the states are changing and there are different kinds of activity and sometimes different kinds of state? Because our attention is divided. We never pay much attention to experiencing. We are lost in the objects of experience. Our attention is captured by the sensory objects or sometimes by imaginations, daydreaming and thinking processes. For some people who are not seekers or who never meditate, their attention is grabbed 100% by objects, by senses. They are oblivious of their own being, they are like a robot. They will say that I am in a waking state, but no, there is no trace of waking there. There is no awareness at all.

A spiritual person with a little bit of awareness knows that something is going on and some witnessing is going on. That much is there. But somebody who is trained in meditation or awareness will be in the state of experiencing most of the time. And even if you slip out of it, you will know that it never went away. So we call this in Sanskrit the Sahaj Samadhi, which means natural samadhi. How to get into this natural samadhi? You are right now, right here in the natural samadhi. Why don't you know it? Ignorance. How to clear the ignorance? Get the knowledge. How to get the knowledge? Walk on the path of knowledge. How to do that? Those who are in the program, they are doing it. Those who are not, you can ask. So it's very easy. It's the easiest thing to do. Why? Because it's already there. No mind is already there.

The mind appears as an illusion and grabs the attention and then the ignorance starts and you're dropped into the darkness of the Maya. This is a complicated process, isn't it? Very complicated process is happening. Ignorance is a complicated matter. What is the truth? It is just a presence. The existence is witnessing itself. Done. Truth is one line. Look at the illusion. How great it is. It's huge. It's infinite. Look at the false, it is amazing. Don't worry about the no mind. All there is you. You are the no mind and you are the mind. You are everything in between. You are not in a particular state. You are in all the states. States are in you. The states come and go, you don't come and go.

How will you know that? Right now you think that I come and go in sleep and I come and go in my dream. There is a different me in the dream. Probably there will be no me after death and probably there was a different me in some kind of heaven or hell. All these assumptions and beliefs will be destroyed on the path of knowledge. I am not a state. I am the witness of all the states that come and go eternally. This does not stop. Don't try to achieve a state where something is stopped. That is stupidity. There is nobody who stops it and this cannot be stopped or you can say it is already stopped. Nothing is really happening. There is only one state there which was called Turiya state in Sanskrit in one of the Upanishads. So that is your real state and all that is changing is unreal. There is no need to stick to the unreal, is it? I will stop this thing and then I will be in this state, that will be my real state. No. All of them are unreal. You have no state. It can be said that I am no mind because the mind has states and the no mind has no state.

Pandurang is asking, why do we feel rested after sleep? Is it possible to give some kind of rest by meditation?

Well, I don't think there is a spiritual reason for that. You go to sleep because the body is tired and when the body gets the rest, you feel rested. There is no magical answer there, there is no spiritual answer there. Can you do the same thing by meditating? Yes. Sit down in the chair, close your eyes and there should not be too much mental activity, should not move your body too much and then you will see that the heart rate will drop and the breathing will drop and then after 20 minutes, 30 minutes, you will feel rested. But it is not a substitute for sleep because sleep is a far more complex activity than simply sitting and meditating. Those who don't know sleep, they will try to substitute it with meditation, which has very bad consequences on health. Sleep is a state which is full of hyperactivity. For the body, it is more active than the waking state. There is a lot going on in the body in the sleep. All the regeneration happens in the sleep. In the waking, there is disintegration. In sleep, there is regeneration. If you don't sleep, your body will probably be lost in a few days. Plus the memory does the maintenance work. Maintenance happens in the nervous system and memory. So that's why if you don't sleep, you will become mad, you will go insane if you don't sleep for a few days. Not only the body will suffer, the mind will suffer also.

Plus, there are some more activities that are happening which are not in the knowledge of an ordinary person like dreaming and projected states, and there is an activity in the causal body because the memories are transferred from the local memory to the causal memory during sleep. You can witness it actually. It is very funny. It is like fast forwarding the whole day in 10 minutes, even faster. It goes into the causal memory at this speed. You can witness all these things only when you are aware in sleep state. This data center kind of work is going on. Like a factory, it goes on automatically and it goes on in cycles of about 20 minutes. And if you take an EEG of your sleep, you will see there are rhythms of sleep. So even though you cannot know it from the EEG, those who are totally ignorant will find the EEG very interesting because it is hyperactive. Sleep is not inactivity. No, it is a different activity. Probably those who are in a waking state, they are more zombie-like, less active than sleep.

Sleep has more activity. It is very interesting. You will not be able to substitute all that which I said, which happens in the sleep using 30 minutes or 20 minutes meditation. That would be stupidity. If you want to rest in daytime, take a nap of 30 minutes. That is all the body needs to do a little bit of maintenance and then comes back. There are favorable points in the sleep state where you can wake up and still feel rested. Cycle one, cycle two, cycle three and you wake up at that time and you will not feel drowsy or drunk. You will feel alive. You get up at a wrong point in the sleep and you won't be able to get out of your bed. There are interesting points in the sleep where the dreaming happens and probably everybody knows this. This is called the REM cycle and there are interesting points in the sleep where the subtle body projects out of the gross body. The out of body experience happens. There are all these highly detailed observations, only yogi knows about it. Those who experiment on their mind, they know about it.

If you get up at a particular time every day, then your rhythm pattern will be fixed. If you go to bed at a particular time every day, then your rhythm will correspond to the clock, the physical clock and that is what we exploit when I tell you the techniques. If you don't want to depend on the physical clock, you should make your intention stronger and everybody must have noticed this that intention controls our internal clock. There is an internal clock in the memory.

Suppose you have an exam on the following day and you decide to turn on the alarm at 6 o'clock in the morning because there is an exam at 8 o'clock in your school, you will find that exactly at 5.45 you get up and you wonder why the alarm is not sounding, maybe I am already late and then you check the time and there is exactly 5 minutes left for the alarm. This must have happened to everybody in this world. The intention to wake up at 6 o'clock was so strong, because of the tension, stress of the exam that the mind could not afford to lose this and there is a process there that will wake you up. How does it know that it is 6 o'clock? How does this thing know that it is exactly this time? It is amazing, isn't it? We know why this happens but ordinary people don't know. We exploit this rhythmic sleeping pattern and we do all the occult experiments, meditation, and awareness experiments when we know what we are doing. Those who don't have this knowledge, they are like hopeless meditators, nothing is successful if you don't know what you are doing. So for those who are interested, there is a lot to do in sleep. Don't just sleep, it is a waste of time, there is a lot to do in sleep. When you are in the Turiya state, well, you will feel like a god which you already are.

There is nothing new here. It happens every day but you don't know. Ignorance is rampant in this society. Nobody knows. Doctors don't know, the psychologists, they are totally blank about sleep. Nothing is known. An ordinary person like me knows, like I can write a book on sleep, a thousand page book. How is it possible? Direct experience and logic. Use the means of knowledge that were given to you and you will know everything about everything if you are at it.

Shilpi is asking, if existence and Experiencer are the same, then why is the Existence unknowable?

Experiencer is also unknowable. What do you know about the experiencer? It is not this. It is not that. It is not found here or there. It is not in time. It is all negative. The negative knowledge means that we are clearing the beliefs. Whatever is believed about the experiencer will negate it. And that is all you will know. You will never know what it is. And the only positive statement you will find about the experiencer is that it is emptiness. Now you are going to laugh because emptiness itself is a negative word. It means absence. It means there is nothing. So intellect cannot grasp what it is. Why? Because it is existence. It is beyond intellect. Intellect is a product of the experience. Remember, intellect resides as a layer in the memory. Memory is nothing but vibrating patterns. And they are all false. They are all illusions. Can the illusion know that which is true? Is it possible? The truth can know the illusion. That is possible. And I know that already. The experiencer simply witnesses whatever there is, perfectly knowing that is not me. Or that is also me but non-essential me. There is no way to know the experiencer.

You can approach this problem from the other angle - you can check the definition of knowledge. Knowledge is an arrangement of experiences in the memory. Is it possible to have any experience of the experiencer? No. No shape, no form, no weight. Nothing in our ordinary kind of experience or even the extraordinary, nothing is possible. Otherwise it will also become an object. It will become an experience. Then you will wonder now who experienced all these things. So it is impossible. If there is no experience, then nothing goes in the memory. There is nothing to relate to. No relations are formed and therefore no knowledge. How is the experiencer known? It is self-evident. You cannot deny that it is there. But it will never be known as an experience. It will be known in its own light. Like the moon is known by the sunlight but the sun is not known by anything else. The sun is its own light. Similarly, the experiencer is the light that shines on other experiences. It is not known as an experience. Or you can say it is not even known.

All that the intellect can know is an experience. And so we say, the truth cannot be known. You can be the truth. You cannot know the truth. How do we know that it is true? Because you know everything else is false except it. Only the experiencer shines all the time and that's why it remains all the time. Everything else is an impermanent illusory dream. And therefore, that which is known is false. That which is unknowable is the truth.

What are you searching for? Not the truth. You are only seeking destruction of your beliefs. You thought something else is true and then these beliefs, assumptions, imaginary stuff that is stuffed in the imaginary memory is removed. It's a process of purification. It's a process of removal, negating. Then whatever remains, you don't worry whether it is true or false. You just be it. You have come home. Now drop the luggage. There is no need to carry the luggage on your head. Being is more important than knowing. Because ultimately nothing is knowable. You think I know the experience? Nobody knows what it is. Knowing happens in a relative way. If you are not happy in not knowing, you will keep searching and there is no happiness there.

An ordinary seeker needs direct experience otherwise there is no way to believe all these things. You know the vibration, right? Everybody knows the binary vibration, there cannot be anything smaller than this. Everybody understands these things. The universe is binary. It is a computation. That which stores the information is memory. The objects are nothing but information. Because the senses react to that only. The senses provide us, not with objects. There is a teapot here. Now the senses grab the teapot, make a smaller teapot and then give it to you. Look, copy of the teapot. No, there is no teapot. There is only information that is picked up by the senses. That is all. Now you understand why it is an illusion. Now you understand why it is some kind of simulation in the memory. What you don't understand is why it appears like colors and shapes and nobody understands it.

Why is red red and why is blue blue and why is circle circle? If all there is is information, it can become anything? Yes, that is right. But our instrument is like this. The human instrument, the human memory is constructed like this. It has evolved to perceive this information in a similar way. That is why objectivity is possible. If everybody gets their own instrument, then there will be no consensus. Don't worry. It will happen in other states of the mind which are not concerned with waking or survival only. There, there are different instruments and you will know things which cannot be known in the waking state. But the states of the yogi or the jnani are not limited to waking. Actually, waking is the lowest state for the jnani. It is the most unnatural state to be in because the body is the primary thing here. It is the lowest possible state for the yogi. For an ordinary person, it is exactly the opposite. They think that the waking state is the conscious state. So we laugh at them. Those who know sleep, they will know all these things. Those who don't know, they are at the mercy of this thing.

What happens to the memory after death and also after enlightenment?

Nothing happens to memory. It is forever. Why is it forever? Because first, it is not there. And second, there is no death. Death is an illusion. How is it an illusion? It is left as homework for you. It is so simple. As soon as you know the layered structure, you will know why it is an illusion. I do not preach you that look, you are immortal. There is a difference between the word immortal and eternal. You are eternal. There is no doubt about it. You are the experiencer who is eternal. What is the difference here? Why do we never say that the experiencer is immortal? We say that immortality can be achieved by only mortals. The word is not applicable to the experiencer. Eternal means that which is not in time. And immortal means that which exists for a long time. It is not true that the experiencer exists for a long time. It is eternal. It does not exist in time at all. Time exists in the experiencer. It is the existence itself.

So what is it that is immortal? The memory. It cannot be destroyed. But why immortal then? Why not eternal? Because it changes. It is an illusion that changes. But it changes forever. Why does it change forever? It's very funny. There is infinite potential in existence. And the potential keeps appearing as memory, as vibrations. And that is why this play goes on forever. So you can say the existence is eternal, but when it appears in time, it takes forever for it to disappear. Because it's infinite, it takes forever. It takes an infinite amount of time to go through it. And that will be the biggest cycle, which will never happen, which will never complete. And there are then smaller cycles in it. So now you get the idea. It's all a big vibration. It has all the modes of vibration. It's a standing wave. Existence is a standing wave. The wave is a virtual wave of potentials. And you can exactly get the idea of what it is when you look at the Schrodinger wave equation. It describes the same thing. It describes the whole existence. You can make an equation for the whole existence. So it's a tiny equation, actually, a small equation. The whole existence fits into one line.

What is death? It is a tiny event where that which is made up of food becomes food. So that's why it is left as homework for you. Nothing happens to memory. It is immortal. It keeps changing in the same way. Even if you know you are not the body or you are not this and that, after self-realization, nothing happens to memory. Your world will remain the same. Your body will remain the same. Your attitudes, your likes and dislikes, they will remain the same. And your relatives will remain the same. Now that is disappointing.

Can Gyan completely destroy Maya? Maya means, there is nothing. Maya means illusion. Maya means that which is not present, which only appears to be there. So if that, which is not present, can it disappear? Is it possible? That which is not there, can it be destroyed? No. It's amazing, isn't it? See how beautiful that equation is. Amazing. So it is given this title of the most beautiful equations. There are some more beautiful equations like Maxwell's electrodynamics. And there are some more beautiful equations. So those who want to know all these things, they can Google it. It's all solved. Knowledge is here.

Why is there a Psi symbol there? Psi as in psychology. Psi means psyche. Psyche is the soul or spirit. It’s kind of encroached into science now. The symbol has remained from the occult. They have taken it as it is from the occult field. He is a very nice fellow, actually, like him. You should read the book written by Schrodinger, which is called “What is Life?” It's his book. And there are more books by him, amazing books.

No amount of knowledge can destroy the illusion. Gyan cannot destroy the Maya. There is already nothing to destroy. What is destroyed is your ignorance that it is real. That is what you assume. You think the world is real, the body is real, I am real, my relatives are real, my desires and thoughts are real, my prime minister and country is real, and you do a lot of stupid things under the spell of that ignorance. That can be destroyed. And then the peace, fulfillment, satisfaction, bliss arrives simply by knowing it's all an illusion.

Sometimes people suffer from physical chronic pain for years, no medication or therapy seem to help them. Is there any hope for people with such suffering on the path of knowledge? Are they suffering because of the past life karmas?

No, there is no hope. And the path of knowledge is not about treatment of disease. It is about knowledge. It is about knowing your true essence. So those whose bodies are broken or diseased, they should go to a doctor, not to a Gyanee. Gyanee has nothing for them. He is asking, are they suffering because of the past life karmas? Who knows? Say, you are running on the road and you fall down and there is pain, there are scratches, there is a little bit of blood here and there. Is it because of karma or simply that the road is slippery? Nobody will know. It's not possible to know it. Most of our actions and suffering are kind of accidental. But, there is a way to know what suffering was caused by past karmic things. Suppose you hate dogs. There is no reason. You hate dogs. And one of the dogs crosses your path, you hit the dog and the dog bites you and there is suffering now. It is because of your karma, right? Because there was no reason for you to hit the dog, there was no reason for the dog to bite you. It is because of your impressions that are in the mind. What is the impression there? I don't like dogs.

I have given an example there. People don't like other people. They don't like people of other races. They don't like people of other religions and men don't like women and women don't like men. They marry and all these things result in suffering. I wanted a fair girl and I got a dark colored girl and now his whole life is suffering. And he turns the life of the girl into suffering. And now it can be said that it is a karmic thing because the memory is manifesting as a preference in that mind, in that person. What is going to happen? The karmic recoil, the bounce back in the memory, it is reflected back in the memory and in every cycle of your sleep, whatever you did in the daytime, hating, loving or whatever goes back in the causal body. It is called a causal body for a reason and now it will keep affecting you for the rest of your life. I said the memory is immortal, whatever form is taken out of this memory, it will keep suffering. Yes, that is karmic.

That can be understood very easily. You're going nicely, happily for a shopping trip and the car breaks down. It is suffering, isn't it? That is not karmic at all. So 90% of stuff in your life is kind of accidental. Stuff happens, isn't it? And 10% is your own doing. This 10% we need to fix our attention on. We need to become aware of this tiny bit that we have taken from the storehouse of the causal body, which is called the prarabdha in Sanskrit, hopefully there is a name in English, I don't know, but that, which is given to you in the beginning of this life. That much preference, everybody is born with and you can see in the tiny babies, they have preference. They prefer a particular colored toy. They don't like a particular kind of animal or friend or person. Who puts the preference there? It is their own preference. Some are very shy. Some are very fearful and some are extroverts and they run out of the house as soon as they start walking. Why is that? So anyway, there is some truth in that. Some of our suffering is because of the impressions that we get and the rest is life as usual.

What about children born with disabilities?

Again, you know, it is just mother nature. I don't think anybody will decide to be born with a disability. No, it's not possible. Even the causal body will not do it. It will appear as a dislike for disability. There are tendencies in the causal body and none of the tendencies wants to be of suffering. It does not want suffering. That much is clear to me. How does it get into a disabled child? The body is produced by the greater memory, right? Causal body does not produce a physical body. This body in the physical world is being produced by the physical world, not by the causal body. The causal body attaches with this body and a full book can be written about this process of birth. I have given you the overview in my podcast. There are two or three episodes on the process of reincarnation.

What happens is there is a choice there for the causal body to choose a body and sometimes because there is ignorance there, it picks a wrong body or after picking the body, a genetic disability appears in the child. Now because of one reason or the other it continues but 99% of the time the child will be dead as soon as it is born. Why do we see an increase in the number of such children who are born with disabilities? Thanks to development in medicine. It is because we are now able to keep these children alive and because we are social and because we are so sophisticated, they don't die. Why don't we find disabled kittens and puppies and disabled birds in the wild? They are also born but they die instantly, within seconds. Even the mother bird or the cat will not be able to feed it. It dies within a day. This mother nature is amazing, there is a foolproof thing here that nothing will survive if it is disabled and so it is perfect. Whatever life happens here is perfect already. Life is miserable for humans because they have separated themselves from nature, because of their “intelligence”, they are cut off from the already intelligent thing that is running the show. So we get a kind of chance to learn here and then what should we do? Should we kill the disabled baby? No, it will die automatically. You don't need to kill anybody.

We have a law system here, in all the countries mostly, I think. There was no such system in the past. People survive very nicely in the presence of violent people and criminals. How is that? Because everybody knew self defense. Everybody had a sword or arrow and bow. Everybody knew how to kill, cut the throat of another person. Do you know it today? No. And those who were violent, they got killed in the young age. Because you can kill one fellow, you are violent, let us say, you kill the other, you kill the third. And now all his brothers and fathers and daughters, they are going to kill you immediately. There was no “law”. I mean, mother nature is the law. You can call it lawlessness, but this is perfect. Today you cannot defend yourself, that's why you need to hire somebody to defend and you need to pay your money to them. They don't actually defend anyone. They do damage control or something. After the damage has happened, the police arrive. Have you seen it? There is no prevention of crime, there is execution of criminals. That is your defense. You must have noticed, there is no department of war, there is a department of defense. They become active only after the war starts. Only after the bombs are dropped and millions are killed, the military wakes up. There is no proactive defense, or if it is proactive, it is called terrorism. Anyway, I should not go into that, because this is a satsang, but mother nature knows best. If you let mother nature do her thing, there won't be any disability, there won't be any disease, there won't be fat people, there won't be stupid people, and there won't be any crime or war.

Being in Gyanmarg, you decide your own morality, you decide your own ethics, and whatever happens in awareness is always right. You will never do any violence, you will never lie, you will never treat anyone badly, you will never insult, and what is the fruit of this kind of purified action? Nobody troubles you. You are always happy. Everybody loves you. If you get some odd cases where people attack you, kill them instantly. People are going to crown you as a hero. So anyway, it is kind of very difficult to do that in the present scenario in our society because it's all rotten. So what we do, we do the minimum. Sometimes we follow society because we are connected to society, and the rest of the time we are on our own. We don't worry about what is happening there. Don't go and vote for people. Don't do all these things which the ordinary people do and you will be safe and sound and happy. The life of a spiritual seeker is concerned with the self only, not concerned with anybody else. Do not do good. Do not do bad. We are nobody. There is no doer also. There is no person. All there is, is a dream in which very strange things are happening and you are the observer of this dream.

What do we need to do now? Nothing. You are already blissful, you are whole and complete, you are already free. Nothing needs to be done. Whatever is happening is happening. Oh no, but I can get into trouble, I can get killed and I will die, I am getting old and all. And that is not you. That is the dream. And when all these things are happening, you can be aware like this and let them happen. Let go of them. Nothing important is happening here. And if you think it is important, it will immediately happen, without you even thinking about it. There is nothing here which has not already happened. So these kinds of talks, they look nice in the satsang, but as soon as you get out of the door, you will see that the world is real. Now act in the world as if it is real. That is the teaching. In the Maya, become the Maya. There is no other way. In the dream, become the actor, dream character. There is no other way. If you are tired of this game, this dream, do not take birth. It is possible.

How to do that? Program your causal body. It is possible. How to program your causal body when you don't even know what it is? Get the knowledge. Who gives you the knowledge? The one who has already done that. He will be called your Guru. So our lives are not limited. It is possible to twist this dream into anything you want. And that is the path of Occult. Manipulate it so much that it becomes heaven. That is what they call going to heaven. You don't want to come back here, you want to go to heaven, right? And no amount of worship or charity is going to do that. Change your source code, which is pushing you back into the physical world all the time, it has been doing it for millions of years. Change the preference there. Preference should be not for the world, not for the body, not for a dream of this kind. And then it will find some other way to express itself.

The expression never stops. The causal body will become bigger, will find something else to do or will dissolve. It will grow so big that it starts resembling a greater memory. And all the causal bodies that have preference for each other, they merge together and they produce the whole universe. Previously I was telling you that this universe is made out of bodies of gods. That is what it means. These great masters, they have merged together, the causal bodies, because they have long ago decided not to continue in the human form. They have grown so much now, they can merge together and form entire universes.

How do we know that? You are in such a setting right now. Explore this thing. You will find the traces of that memory which was once like us. Like if you see the pattern of biological evolution, you will find that the same qualities evolve again and again. A famous example is the eye. The eye has evolved in different kinds of creatures in a different way. Same thing keeps appearing. No matter what kind of organism it is, it will evolve this vision property, vision quality. Another very good example is, no matter what phylum it is, they evolve flight. One of their kind starts flying. It is there in the insects, it is there in the fish, fish are already flying in the water, it is there in the birds, reptiles, even mammals like the bat or flying squirrel, there is flying snake and everybody knows the flying dinosaurs, they are reptiles.

How is it possible that the same thing appears no matter what kind of creature it is, no matter what lineage it is coming from, from the tree of life? Now, anybody with a spiritual eye can see that it is a memory. It expresses exactly in the same way all the time. After millions and trillions years of evolution, the same thing will appear. Suppose you discover a planet which has no life but has good conditions for life and you make a super computer and calculate some things about it. You will be able to predict what kind of life will evolve there. What will the creature look like, you will be able to see it and if you don't have that kind of technology, just use your mind, it already knows what is going to happen. The future and past and everything is already there. How is it possible? It is in the memory. You can explore the memory. You will probably know the essential things, not the details. It is amazing. If it is not memory, then nothing can be known. No past can be known, no future can be known, even the present cannot be known because present is also memory. It all looks like a fantasy.

Yes, this is not Advaita obviously. It is Occult, very closely related to Advaita because it's all knowledge. I do nothing here and you come to know so many things and now there is no difference between the path of knowledge and Occult. Sometimes I talk or think and all this knowledge gets downloaded. The only problem is that our waking memory is associative. There has to be an association there already, otherwise you will never grab the thread in the Akashic memory or the universal memory. There has to be a seed in you and then if you keep thinking on that seed, you will grab the thread of that kind. And who puts the seed? Obviously the Guru. If I never told you anything about universal memory, there is no possibility that the knowledge will come to you. Absolutely impossible. So yes, people say that you say all these things which do not make any sense. When the Advaita is silenced, the Occult speaks.

Satya is asking, what is Turiyatita, that which is beyond Turiya?

You already know what it is. It is the Shunyata. The Boudh person will call it Shunyata and the people who read Upanishads call it Turiyatita. I never use this word, it's kind of difficult to say also. So Shunyata is better. That is what I am. That is what existence is. Because Turiya is also associated with the states, right? It was called the fourth state and that caused a lot of drama. I have given you so many states that you will forget this drama about Turiya and all. No such thing. This is all old stuff now. Yes, you can fit all the states into three. That is possible. You put awareness in there and then you get the Turiya. How to go beyond Turiya? there is no need. You are already beyond all the states. You are actually beyond awareness. If there is no awareness in these three states, are you still not there? Most of your life is spent like this already. Without awareness in any of the states. Shunyata is always there. So all this matter has been solved now. Don't worry. What is this? And what is that? Don't need to worry. Look at your experience and then you can name it anything you want. You will get no knowledge from the words. You will get knowledge from the experience and then give it any word you want. That is what I have done. People read all kinds of scriptures. They know words, but they don't know what it is. Why? They cannot experience it. What do we do in our setting in the Pure Experiences? First I give you the experience, then I give you the words and that is why you understand everything. So yes, do not go with the words. Go with the experience. Name them whatever you want.

How would you explain Hitler and Holocaust?

History. False. There is no such thing as history. It's an illusion. Don't worry about it. You already know that 50% of the history that you read in books is already false thanks to the politicians who write the history. You think historians write history? No. Politicians write history. Those who are in charge, those who are in power, they write the history. You simply read the book and what are you told? Believe the history book. How do you know what is written in the history book is true? You will never know. Those who are in the ruling class, the ruling party, decide what goes in your history book and you simply read it and assume that it is true because it was given to you by a teacher. The teacher knows nothing, the teacher is teaching you because he was paid money for that. He is not really interested in history or knowledge. He is interested in money.

So who gives you history? Nobody. I will never tell you any history. Nobody knows history. Because it is not there actually. There is no evidence for it. Why did ancient people write no history at all? There are so many great sages, those who can make the Advaita and Sankhya could not write the history, you will say. Their thinking was like me, that if I write something about history, tomorrow that book will be burnt and a new history book will be written. I already know this. I can write today's event very nicely, that today's satsang happened and these people were present in the satsang. And somebody will attack this place and they will just burn the books and they will write their own history that we are the superior race who settled here. Let me tell you, this has happened since millions of years and this will continue to happen for millions of years and there is no history. History becomes myth, mythology.

Why has that happened? Because wise people knew all these things, it is impossible to preserve history. Even if you write it on a stone somebody can always write something else on the stone. It has happened in Egypt. So somebody built the pyramid and somebody else came there and buried his body there. It is a tomb now. Archaeologists and historians know exactly zero about pyramids. Yes, a spiritual seeker will be able to know something about them but not the historian. There is no way that they will come to know anything about it. So after 2000 years, somebody else will bury their body there, who knows. Wise people in ancient India knew all these things, they know how the human mentality and human society is. So they did not bother to write it. What they did, they converted the story into a lesson. All of your itihasa is actually a teaching disguised as history. All the Mahabharata is actually a big teaching. Everything they say is a teaching. And the biggest, the most famous part is the Bhagavad Gita, which is nothing but teaching of all kinds. Somehow it survived. Because it is not history, no politician touched it. And actually whoever attacked this country, they translated it into their own language and took it to their country. All the philosophies, sciences, arts, everything originated in India. A lot of it is destroyed now. People say there were buildings made up of gold. It is possible because this country was so rich, so technologically advanced. Why don't we see it? There is no trace of it. Still you can find some things. Those who have eyes to see, they see. You think that which is told to you is right? Think again. Nothing is right there. And you know the nature of the Maya that in a flip of coin, it can turn everything that has happened into everything that has not happened.

I'll tell you something interesting. Somebody asked me how to go back in time and find the history. And I told them the technique. And the technique is very simple. The occult is just the intention plus your ability to read the memory, which is also called the Akashic memory or Akashic record, or I call it universal memory, everything is there already. It is non-physical, non-mental, timeless. The memory creates time. Memory is not in time. So you can go there. You can check the records. Then I said that, but do not consider it as truth. And the person said, why? What is the use of that? I said, it is an illusion. The records will be created according to your need, according to what you want to read, you will read. Remember the Schrodinger equation, it is the same thing. The manifestation happens according to your choice of measurement. Whatever you take there, the memory is going to react with it and it will produce an outcome. Yes, perception is subjective, Drishti Srishti.

Right now also, whatever is your internal instrument, that is what is being given to you. Do you know what is out there in the world? No, you don't know. It is reacting to whatever you are measuring using your five senses. You go to the past, which is not there. It is all present. But you can ask, what was there 4,000 years ago? And it will react to your abilities, sensory instruments and whatever, and it will produce a result. Now, you will be very happy that finally I came to know the real past. No, somebody else goes there and asks the same question and he will be given a different answer. Now, they both start fighting, whose history is correct? None of it is correct. And we want to confirm, okay, let me go back there and ask the same question again. What happened 4,000 years ago? And hopefully this time, you have grown a little bit. You go there after one or two years. And this time you get a different picture, you get a different story. Now you will be very happy that finally I found the answer to this question. But there is no point.

The Gyani knows whatever there is simply by sitting here. The Gyani does not do this kind of effort. We know it already. Why am I not going and searching the history in the Akashic record when I have the ability? I know the outcome. In Maya, you find only Maya. What is the use of that garbage that you find in the historical records? They tell me nothing. It only reacts to whatever I am expecting. Actually it wants to please you. So those who want to know their past lives, they are so excited, I will know the past life and they go. Twenty thousand years ago I was this person, and he was very happy. Is that right? No. It will always be a princess of some kind of warrior or some kind of superman or something. Why does nobody say that I only dug ditches and I only cut the grass my whole life? I was a donkey two lifetimes ago? Nobody. Everybody is Cleopatra in their past life.

Nobody wants to be uncool. Nobody wants to be a donkey. Nobody wants to be an insect. Why? This Akashic memory is you, remember. The universal memory is you and you want to please yourself. Remember, I told you there is a tendency in this memory that it does not like suffering. It knows that if I tell him that he was a donkey and he carried the load all day and then he died because somebody beat him up, he won't be able to tolerate it. He will commit suicide. “Oh no, my life is kind of a waste. I was a donkey fifty lifetimes ago”. There must be a reason people want to know their past lives. The reason is they want to feel good. If you go with this intention, I want to feel good by knowing what I was, what kind of king or prince I was, then the UM is going to produce exactly that for you.

I get a lot of queries like, how should I view the past lives and all. And they are not at all happy with my answer that it is garbage. You don't even know your present life. You don't know what you did ten days ago. When I ask them, what did you do ten years ago? Silence, crickets. Ok ten days ago? Nothing really good or important. They want to know their past life, which was ten thousand years ago. I'm telling you there's nothing good, nothing worthwhile. It was garbage like this one. This one is best because you have gained some knowledge in this life. This is your best life. Get the most advanced technique in the universe and you will get garbage only.

It is like Wikipedia of politics. You want to search about George Bush, you will get garbage because his countrymen write Wikipedia. So after one thousand years, George Bush will be the amazing warrior, the Great Bush, like Alexander the Great. Why is “great” in front of Alexander when he killed so many people and looted every country? Why not the “great” looter? Somebody is writing these things in your history books. Ashoka the Great. No, he killed millions actually. Why does your history book never mention the great murderer serial killer Ashoka? Who is writing that book? Does it happen the same way about your past lives? Yes. There's no past life. There's no future life. And there is no present life. They are all series of dreams, mind created illusion, just like your history book.

Another question is, Adi Shankaracharya had left his body and entered into a dead king's body in the return. Would like to know if this is a possibility?

Yes. In Maya, everything is possible and probably he was trying to demonstrate that to somebody. People have done that, lots of masters and great masters and saints and rishis. They have done miracles, a demo, that it is Maya. You want to see? Yes. They demonstrate it. What do people do? They worship them. He is God. I have seen, even Raman Maharshi has done that, Yogananda has done that, hopefully Vivekananda also. A lot of people have done that. They are the great masters of Advaita. Don't be an occultist. People tell me. The great masters are doing it already. Not only Shankaracharya, lots of them have practiced this. Occult has become a bad name, although Maya is the same. It responds to the gyani in the same way it responds to the tantric. No difference. Why do you prescribe occult experiments in the path of knowledge program? A lot of people are asking me. They are not occult experiments. They are a means to get knowledge. They are a demo. What is Maya? Those who are interested, please do it. It's possible for you. You are not simple. This human is very capable. We are infinitely capable.

Another question is, what is the difference between itihasa, history and mindless speculation?

All are the same. If you like history read Lord of the Rings or something like that. Read Mahabharata. Much better. You will learn more by reading Mahabharata than reading your textbook of history. Guaranteed.

A lot of near-death experiences report such positive experiences of Akashic memory of meeting ancestors or loved ones. Probably just a trick of Maya.

Yes. Memory is reacting to your intentions. If you were stuffed with this belief that after death I am going to meet my ancestors and all, that is what will happen. Like, what do you get in the night dream? You meet your own fears and expectations. You are in love with a girl and the girl is present in the dream. Not only this dream, all the dreams and daydreams also. Why is that? You love your grandmother and she won't be there in your near-death experience. Is it possible? No. The first thing you will see is your dead grandmother and you will be very happy that she is there. And the UM is so powerful that it will project something which is very real. It will be more real than the living grandmother. She will be at the youngest possible age. She will be the fittest and she will be the happiest. How is that possible? Remember, it's all you. You are creating your dreams. Do you want to really meet somebody who is dead? Yes, it is possible. It is possible right now also. You want to meet somebody who is alive? Yes, that is also possible. Same dream.

Universal memory can produce that also. You want a true copy of you, sitting beside you? Yes, that is also possible. Remember whatever you call ‘you’ here, in the relative world, this body, mind and person, it is a memory. Copy, paste, done. Who can do this? Anybody, any of you can do this. Why don't you do this? Probably there is no need, probably you don't want to do that. It will be scary if your copy is sitting besides you. By the way, on the Hindi wiki that I am writing, this technique. If you go to the page of the tantra, this technique of creating your living double, is given there. You can try it, you can practice it. Why did I do that? I want to show you what it is. Is the Maya going to leave you? No. You are eternal, Maya is eternal. Now what are you going to do with it? Sit down on the clouds and sing forever? Because you are free now, liberated. You are going to progress. If I can create something, I will. Remember that the gods can create everything, obviously, and it has already happened. You are sitting in this kind of arrangement right now. I am calling it an arrangement, not a creation, because most of it happens naturally through the intentions. Nothing will teach you more about Maya than the direct experience of it. So the path of knowledge terminates in the land of occult. Amazing, isn't it?

Technology is the outcome of science or knowledge. You cannot stop it. If you don't want to do the practical thing, somebody else will do it. You discovered the nucleus, you say I don't want to make a nuclear bomb. But no, somebody else will do it. Technology cannot be stopped. As soon as there is knowledge, there is application of knowledge. Which is Technology. What is tantra? It actually means technology in Sanskrit. Tantra means engineering or technology. Tantra is the technology of the mind or the memory, how to manipulate the memory to get what you want. Why don't the great people do this all day, no, they know it is fake. They don't even want this body, which is kind of fake. So it is possible to get rid of the fakeness and be as pure as you want. You remain in the unmanifested, that is the purest.

What will happen to the rest? It continues as it is. Remove one drop from the sea, will the sea disappear? No, nothing happens to the sea. It goes unnoticed. Whatever liberation is, you are giving up the body or you giving up maya, does not even scratch the surface of maya. So what do we do? We adopt the attitude of surrender. Accept the illusion. It is you. But do not accept it as the truth. Accept it as an illusion. What is wrong with that? Movies, plays and all the games on your computer are illusions, but you accept it. That is the right attitude of the gyani, surrender and accept. Do not blame this life, do not blame this body, do not misuse this body, it is beautiful. Do not run after past life, future life. Create your life. What do you want? Tell me. You are highly capable. Maya is yours. Why are you suffering? Why are you a slave of maya? Ignorance. Nothing else.

Even now we find siddhas who can read past and future very accurately, but all they are doing is interpreting maya only and that too based on our memory records. Gyanmarg is bypassing all of this maya. Once we have understood maya in waking state through gyanmarg, then why would we need to read past, future or causal bodies as these are all forms of maya. Is this interpretation correct? Yes. You see all these lower tantrics and jyotishis and whatever. They read the past, future and some of them are very talented, they are successful in that. The yogis and gyanis do not do that. They are the most advanced but they do not do that. Why is that? Because there is no need. I say the causal body is also not me and then why do I need to read it? There is no need. I say there is no time and then why do I need to go back in time, read the future and all? Isn't this already perfect as it is? I already say that you will not be able to know even a single thing in the entire existence. Remember the existence is unknowable. So whatever happens here or appears to happen is also unknowable.

What will you know in the end? Even if you know the whole of the future, you know nothing actually. So the gyani sits and enjoys the show. Like, you are watching a movie and somebody plays the last part of the movie. Are you going to watch it now? Is it worth watching? Someone dies in the end, that is played in the beginning. It is not worth watching now. So the gyani knows all these things and so we leave the mystery as the mystery. Yes, we uncover it so much that it does not become suffering. Like I say, you are not suffering because of your past life. That much knowledge is okay. Do you really need to know what will happen for the next 10,000 years? No. Even if you know it, will it happen like that? No. Nothing is useful in Maya. It is fully for entertainment purposes. Don't take it so seriously. It's total entertainment. What is worth doing in Maya is the knowledge. It is all right here, right now. Knowledge is everywhere. Those who want the knowledge, they get it. Those who want the Maya, they get Maya, ignorance.

Session 92

A seeker is asking, I have noticed changes since gaining this knowledge. Even though I am aware that this is an illusion, I still find myself caught up in the world. Is there something wrong with me?

As you are saying that you have gained the knowledge and the knowledge says that I am perfectly empty, I am perfectly unaffected by anything that I am witnessing. I am a pure witness. This is the knowledge you must have gained. Now how can you say that there is something wrong with me? That is contradictory. It is contradictory to say that I have gained the knowledge and then to say that something is wrong with me. That which I am, nothing can go wrong there. There is nothing there to go wrong. It's absolutely nothing. So there must be something wrong with the person, the person is getting caught up in the world. Can the person do anything else? No. That is the nature of this instrument, this machine, the body-mind machine to get caught in the world. It is made for the world. It is like a lock and key. The world and the person are made for each other.

So is there anything wrong if it gets caught in the drama? Will there be a world without drama? Is it possible? It will be a dead world. It will be a desert of nothing. So nothing wrong. And then let it get caught in the world and when it is out of the world, you just stay with your awareness. What will happen is, in the time of disturbance, the awareness will go away, but it will come in the time of peace and all you need to do is hold on to the awareness as soon as it comes. Abide there if it comes. If it goes away, there is nothing to do. There is nobody to do anything. Let it go away. There is nothing wrong. This is how the dream is set up. Witness everything that is happening and obviously if there is no awareness, the witnessing part will be absent and only the happening part will be there, but absolutely nothing is wrong there. Accept the world, accept the illusion, accept the person and accept whatever it does.

If it wants to laugh, yes, no problem. If it wants to cry, no problem. If it is angry, no problem. So once you are in awareness, just hold this idea that I accept whatever happened with this person or the human being, which I am witnessing. Remember, I am not a human, I am witnessing the human. This is the state of awareness and then hold on to this for as long as you can. If it goes, no problem. It will come back. Hold a very strong intention that I wish to be in the awareness, no matter what. Don't try to control what is happening in the world and there must be some control over what you are doing, but there is no control over the consequences of the actions. When the awareness is there, you will find there is full control. You will see that nothing is happening.

Actually, this is the complaint of some people who are practicing awareness. They say, I don't want to do anything. I don't want to say anything. Even my job is boring. Everything is boring. Why? Because of the awareness, no action happens. But then I ask, how did you come to the satsang? You wanted that. And how are you alive? You are eating, breathing, sleeping. Yes, that is happening. So I said, yes, this is how it should be. Whatever is necessary should happen. Whatever is unnecessary will not happen. There is nobody to decide what I should do. The decisions are already made. Everything is already pre-decided. You need to witness it happening. If there is a desire to do something and if there are means to do it, yes, go ahead, do it. If it is absolutely unnecessary, no need. The awareness will take care of it. So this is a new way of living. The old way is living in the ego. Living with a sense of control and resisting whatever is happening or running after clinging to whatever is happening. I want more, more, more of it. That is the old way. New way is whatever happens, absolutely okay, I am witnessing it. Whatever is necessary, that will be done. And whatever is the consequence, it's fine. This is living in the now, living in the present moment. And yes, it will not be perfect initially and we don't care because whatever there is, is perfect already. So in the beginning it will slip. Sometimes there will be awareness, sometimes there will be a world, sometimes there will be illusion. So what? Nothing wrong. There is no need to scold yourself. No need to beat yourself saying that I am like this, I don't have awareness. That is also mental activity. More mental activity beating itself. That is not awareness.

We should not doubt our knowledge that this thing is getting caught in the world. It is not a problem of knowledge. It is just a habit, the old habit comes up. So with time it will happen that whenever you decide to be aware, you can be aware. This is not an accurate statement but this happens to me that whenever there is a need to be aware, the awareness is there. This has happened many times. When there is no need, the mind does whatever it does, the body does whatever it does. This is completely letting go. I have not made the awareness a big deal. If it is there, yes, why not? If it is not there, who cares? It will come by itself. But this intention, you can say it is spiritual intention, this sankalp is working. That is all you need. You need to hold the spiritual intention that let there be awareness when it is needed most. So that's a new method. If you want to call it a method, if you want to call it a practice, yes, that is a very good practice, well balanced practice.

Remember, the awareness will not arrive with effort and it will not arrive if you are very lazy, if there is no intention also and no symbolic effort is made. What do I mean by symbolic effort? You need to do something as if by doing so the awareness will be there. You need to show up on time and then whatever happens happens. This is the symbolic effort. Fully knowing that my effort is not going to bring awareness, I cultivate this habit of doing something to bring in the awareness. Please do not count the beads, please do not do the mantra or nothing like this. It should be just a strong intention. Don't depend on external things as a reminder. You have a built-in reminder already, use that. If you use something external, it will be like a wheelchair. You should get up and walk. This ability to be aware all the time should be cultivated within. That's why no helping things were given to you. No mantras, nothing.

Next question from a seeker is, the attachment I have with my children is so strong and the fear of losing them is ever present.

Well, that is also a doing of the ego, the person, the individual and is there anything wrong in that? No. The creatures who don't have any attachment to their offspring, what will happen to them? They will be dead within days. So Mother Nature has made this arrangement that a mother must have a very strong attachment to the child. So strong that sometimes the mother risks her life to save the child. This arrangement is already there and you can see it is perfect. Without it, survival cannot happen. Fear of losing, no problem at all. That means you should be always alert and then on top of this, you need to be aware. This is also happening as a perfectly good mechanism of survival. Why is there a resistance here? Why does it sound like she is complaining? I can understand that the mother says I hate my children and I never think of them wherever they are. I want them out of the house. That is a problem, isn't it? And yes, if there is over attachment, it has become a mental issue, it has become an impurity in the mind, then you need to be a little bit careful. Be witness to whatever is happening. It is all okay.

How to perceive the self witnessing experience within?

If you don't understand all these, the experience, experiencer, experiencing and existence , that business, then continue watching, continue listening, continue the program. That's all the first lesson says. It introduces the definitions and then it will be shown to you. So it happens to some people, they want all the answers in the first 10 minutes. It's not possible. So there is only an introduction in the first 10 minutes and I gave you an escape gate for those who already know what that is. There is no need to do the course, there is no need to do the program, if you have done it many, many times and then you can get out of there. But those who could not understand what was said, they must do it. Or those who need details, those who need the vocabulary, those who need a systematic introduction to non-duality or non-dualism, they should proceed.

So yes, there will be questions. It will be like this. You said about the experiencer, now can you please show me that? Yes, that's what we do in the whole program. We do the same thing again and again and again. So continue the program and just to clear it, just to give you a hint that it is impossible to perceive the experiencer. It is that which perceives. It is the one who perceives. Or you can say it is the ability in the existence to perceive or witness and therefore it cannot be perceived. It cannot become an object for itself. It will remain the subject or it will remain that which it is. Do not try to find it as something else which it is not. It cannot become an object of the senses or anything else. So many people have this problem of accepting because they are indoctrinated to know everything as an experience. When they encounter something which is not an experience but it is still there, they do not understand it. The whole existence is like this actually. The whole existence cannot be experienced. Only the illusions are presented to us, not the existence.

A seekers is asking that, we have learned that it is Brahma's Sankalp, that this whole existence has evolved?

Well, I will tell you one thing, there is no Brahma in Advaita. It is Brahman and because of this confusion we have dropped the Brahma. And the Brahma is one of the three Gods whose job is to create. Brahman is equal to the existence, equal to the whole. These words evolved or you can say as the philosophies developed and came into being, all these words were coined to represent one thing or the other and they match a little bit but cause a lot of problems. So we drop them. Now what is this Sankalpa? It is the spiritual intention that I was talking about. If I say intention then you will confuse it with your everyday intention. “I intend to drink tea today”. This is not a real spiritual intention. A spiritual intention happens at the very fabric of existence where there is the vibration, it affects the vibration, it biases the vibration in a specific way and that produces an effect and that effect is seen as manifestation. It is very easy and the whole occult is based on spiritual intention. The intention is supported by imagination, a dream, daydream. The word magic comes from imagination. So there is a link. And to support this intention we do all kinds of rituals, imaginations and sounds and whatever is possible, yantra, mantra, tantra and whatever we want is then created. So to create everything, same mechanism.

Who is Brahma? Obviously it is the existence itself and it holds the intention to manifest. You can say poetically, there is nothing wrong because when logic is of no use, when your intellect is of no use, you take the help of poetry. The poet goes where the gyani cannot go, remember. Some things cannot be explained by intellect, some things cannot be explained by logic, there is no direct experience of it.

Who holds the intention? Who does the creation? Nobody will know it. You will never know it. So poetry, this is how it happened. So take it with a little bit of salt and if somebody says that yes, it has happened like this, they are pointing to the very core of creation, how it happens. Remember you are the existence, you are the Brahman, you can create anything you want. So what the Guru is giving you a hint how to do it. Spiritual intention is the key and how to do it, that is secret.

Even if the physical outcome of my activity is exactly the same, whether I do it with or without awareness, I suspect there is still a difference. Wondering what is it? Could it be that with awareness I do not accumulate karma or sanskars in my unconscious mind and without awareness I do?

Yes, you answered your own question beautifully, accurately. When in awareness you will find that you do the same things, I mean is there anything new to do? No. But you will feel so light, this is one of the effects. There is lightness, it does not look like a trouble, it does not look like a burden. Even if there is something which you don't like to do, like cleaning your house or cooking or going to the grocery shop and something like this, which is boring, even that becomes very light and like a play. So what is happening here? Because there is no resistance and there is no expectation also, whatever happens you take it, like a child. A child never plans his day, gets up in the morning, starts running and whatever happens, happens. But as soon as we attach the ego with what is being done, then as you said, it goes in the account of that person, you can say, the individual account. Otherwise it's in the account of the universe, a child does whatever he does, then it goes in the account of the universe. That's why we say that children are a form of God, they are exactly like this. As soon as there is a development of the individual or the ego, this survival process, stamps everything as me and mine, then the account is opened and now the universal memory takes your actions and puts it into your account. You can reverse it simply by becoming aware - they are not my actions and the consequences are not being taken by me because there is no me.

In the path of devotion, this is expressed as whatever is done is done by the God and whatever fruits are there, they are absorbed by the God. Not mine, I don't even wish and it is 100% accurate actually, nobody has this free will, nobody does anything, there is nobody there to do anything, it all happens. But as soon as you say it is mine, it is my work and this achievement is mine and all these things, both positive and negative, then your account gets filled with all these actions, these impressions and you start feeling very heavy because what if I do something wrong? You can see the consequences in your mind and body of this one thought, so when you are just doing it, then it happens naturally, you do it as best as you can, that's all. We have a little bit of control over what we do but no control over the consequences, so accept the consequences. When there is acceptance and there is awareness, the account starts diminishing and you will notice something very amazing that as soon as there is an action, the fruits will be manifested immediately because this register is empty, so you do one thing and that is manifested instantly and for the ordinary people, there are millions of entries, so it is a queue, you do something today but something which you did 20 lifetimes ago is manifesting now and it looks like there is no control, it looks like total randomness.

The universal memory is a perfect computer, it never does anything wrong, never. We are in ignorance, so we think that something wrong is happening to me, I wanted this and I got that. Don't worry, you got that because in one of your lifetimes, in the past, you can say, you wanted that thing, that's why you got it or you did something, the fruit is coming now. Like you will see, I am so good and I always say truth, I never lie and I am so helping, loving, but I always get these bad people, humiliating, insulting and angry people around me, but I have never done anything wrong and now you can recall the queue, there is a long queue of fruits, you will reap them, you will take them and it is still not late, you can start being aware now, how can you be aware? You need self-knowledge, you need self-realization, otherwise what are you going to be aware of? As what? For self-realization, you need a spiritual path, the best path is the path of knowledge and nobody else can tell you except your guru, it will never happen without a guru. So when all these things come together you progress quickly.

Will it be possible to experience the whole existence as me? I am everything there is, I mean I would gain knowledge, but is it possible to experience it?

Yes, you are experiencing the whole of it as the experiencer. The experiencer is the one who is experiencing everything because there is only one of it. Why are you asking? Because you don't know what you are, you don't know that I am the existence and I am experiencing everything. You are still looking from the eyes of the person and therefore you will never experience it. As long as there is this person, there is an attachment with the body, this whole of the experience will never happen. What is the whole of the experience? When everything there is, is experienced at once, what will be the experience? It is a difficult question. Now those who have not gone through the program, they will wonder why. I wanted to experience everything. You are telling me, I will get nothing, I will get blank, nothing, Shunya. How is it possible? You will say. So, go through the program. Know what is existence, know what is experiencer, it's already there. All the knowledge is here. What are you trying to experience? The experience that you are having right now is farthest from the truth. It is a dream. It is a limitation. Now, yes, the mind has a lot of trouble accepting that I will not experience everything, but the mind does not know, isn't it? The intellect has no clue what it is talking about. You want to gain knowledge of the existence? Impossible. Knowledge is of illusion, always. So continue, you will get the answer directly.

Can you please share a few examples of occult practices?

For the seeker on the path of knowledge, occult is very simple. It is the pure occult. As I told about the spiritual intention or the sankalp. Practice it. See what happens. Hold the sankalp to get through the program easily, quickly, smoothly. Something like this. Hold the sankalp so that whatever effects are happening in the layers of the mind, in the memory, and then manifesting in the body and whatever it is causing, should clear up quickly. Sankalp must be realistic, let it go quickly without causing any problems. Something positive and something which is related to spirituality. If you hold the intention like, please give me 10 kgs of gold tomorrow, who knows, it can happen. But chances are that it will not happen. Something which your life is already aligned to can happen. Try that experiment. Because I know that your life is aligned to spirituality now because you came here, you talked to me. So that is obvious. The rest of the things in your life, I don't know. So whatever you are aligned to, if you are an artist, if you are an engineer, if you are someone who does work, just because that is your life, you enjoy, it is your pleasure, align the intention with that.

“Let me create something beautiful” - hold that intention, spiritual intention. It is just a deep longing or a deep desire. There are ways to hold it, but I am not going to go there. Manifesting spiritual intention, that is a good practice, try it. Just like I said, don't do something which you are not aligned with, which is not your life goal, nothing of your concern. Like, Please kill the terrorists in that country, who cares? You kill one and ten will pop up. So don't do something like that. It should be very personal, and it should be top secret. Don't tell anybody. Because the intention is diluted by other intentions.

Why is occult called occult, hidden, because everything is hidden there. Never share anything except with your guru and other occult practitioners. They know not to interfere in your intention, but ordinary people don't know. So that is one practice. The other practice is, I have already given it to you. Try the experiments of the dreaming state. And again, the spiritual intention is of a lot of use. And I mentioned how to do it, in step number 4. So listen to that video. Same thing about the projected states. That is kind of pure occult now. You leave the world, you get a body, you do whatever you want. There cannot be anything more pure than that. But your intention should be to gain knowledge, that's all I want. Actually that whole practice is biased by my intention.

What is my intention? Nobody should be harmed by that practice. That is the first thing. Second, anybody who tries my method, that's not my method, but I have tailored it for our program, should get the fruits, should get the knowledge. There is a secret intention, which I am not going to tell you, but it is there. It is for your protection. So try, try all the waking state, dream state, projected state and sleep state experiments. You will get an immense amount of knowledge. Experimentation brings a lot of knowledge. If you are fearful, if there is a resistance in you, just let me know. Why is there fear? Because that is an impurity.

How are you going to spend your life? If you don't do anything, it is a boring life. Do something. And obviously you are on the path of knowledge, so gain more knowledge. You utilize the occult to gain knowledge. You will think that this looks like a new invention. No, we have been doing this for many thousand years. Almost every guru has one finger in occult. I am not saying he has a full hand in the occult, no. His pinky finger is dipped in occult. Anybody, even religious people, are deep into occult practices. Even scientists know this thing. In India, we do not make this distinction. Science is occult, occult is science for us. I was surprised, but not so surprised, when I saw that during the Chandrayaan mission in the ISRO HQ, some sadhus were present, including Satguru Jaggi Vasudev and Shankaracharya and all these people were present there. Have you seen anything like this in any other part of the world? The occult people were present in the biggest scientific experiment in India to land something on the moon. I don't know what they were doing, but it's kind of interesting. So these things are not opposite. Spirituality does not oppose occult. Occult is not against spirituality. Science is not against occult and so on. In the minds of the ignorant, there are too many beliefs, too many distortions and they cook up anything and they say anything about these things. It is not like this. These practices should be enough for you.

Should I not do any planning?

There is nobody to plan, but there is planning. So remove the “I” and your question will become, should not there be any planning? That's not possible. You can see. There will be a little bit of planning for everything. You get out of the house and then you plan where you are going, what you are buying and whom you are meeting, but remember there is nobody who does this. That's all you need to remember. That is your practice. So there is planning, but there is no planner. It's like this. And whatever is necessary will happen. If you ask me, should I do it or not, it's meaningless question. It will happen when there is a need for it.

What are enlightenment experiences many people talk about? Isn't it realization rather than experience? Can you say something about it?

What are the enlightenment experiences? I don't know. There are a garden variety of side effects. You are right. It does not matter on which path you are. They will happen. The side effects happen. Why? Because something is changed in the layered structure of the memory. Whether the ego gets killed, the person disappears or the clear glass that separates you from the experience is broken and then you are one with everything and so on. And whatever you say happens and you can see the future because the memory is all over the place. The boundaries have disappeared somehow for a while. And don't worry. That thing remains for a while and then everything becomes normal.

I say that the mind adapts. It adapts to the new condition and then everything is normal. By normal, I don't mean that it will become old and boring. Whatever is happening becomes a new normal. So, they are talking about the side effects of realizing something. On the path of knowledge, we realize something every day. And why don't you see the effects? Because there is inertia in this layered structure. It totally depends on how much you have accumulated. If it is heavy, then it will take a lot of time to manifest the side effects. If you are light, if you are sensitive, like a feather, well, it will blow you away. That's what happens to many people. Otherwise it is tiny, subtle and is very nice sometimes. If you have impurities and fears and who knows what, then it is problematic. It is painful. And obviously, if you do the experiments and all, there will be effects. We do the experiment to get the experience. That is how we are going to learn something. So, yes, there is realization and there is experience, yes.

The problem is sometimes you don't know why it is happening here. You can see the importance of Guru. Because if there is nobody to guide you, nobody to explain what is happening, either you will leave the path because it is too scary or you will go mad because it is the tendency of the mind to cook up a story. This has happened, that means I must be the God in the past life and this is happening because I must have killed somebody and so it cooks up imaginary things without you noticing. There is nobody to notice actually, so it happens. The Guru is the one who takes a stick and breaks the delusion. This is how the Gurus operate. They are neutralizing agents and many people must have noticed this. Somebody writes a long message to me, this happened to me, that happened to me and what is my answer? One line. “Don't worry, it happens to everybody, nothing unusual here. Continue the program”. What does that do? Breaks all the delusions. And what if I write, “oh my God, what has happened to you? You are so great and you are now special”. That feeds the delusion, that derails the practice. So even if it is a truly extraordinary experience, I go and pour some cold water on it so that you remain balanced, so that you are not blown away by the Maya.

Maya will do whatever she can to continue the illusion. The Guru is not against the experiences, the Guru is not trying to stop Maya. The Guru balances everything. Sometimes the Guru will take you to the negative. You are having too many good experiences, okay, go and clean the ashram now. Go and get firewood or whatever. So from heaven or hell, Guru brings you back to earth. Yes, there can be hellish experiences. People have them. So again, neutralization happens.

Nowadays, there are a lot of healing modalities. What are they?

Nowadays there are less because of the allopathic methods, scientific methods. We don't see all of them, healing methods, but in the ancient times there was nothing but this. What we see nowadays is a distorted form or corruption of the ancient healing practices. And I can tell you, there is only one simple formula behind all the healing methods. On the surface they look different because of peacock feathers, but the seed is spiritual intention. That's all there is. There are two things that you need to combine to heal somebody. First is secrecy, second is intention. People will think, no, I have given away the formula, no, it is open mostly. People don't know, they are lost in the rituals and whatever they do to support the intention. And some people don't have intention, they simply do hollow rituals, knowing nothing about how it works. And so it does not work. And so, it has become infamous.

People think it is superstition and yes, it is superstition. If you don't know what you are doing then what is it, it's superstition, isn't it? You need secrecy and you need very, very strong spiritual intention and then you do something to hold that intention. Make a drawing on the wall and whatever you want to do, please don't kill the chicken or goat for that, it's not recommended and that is not the proper way. You are all powerful, you are the creator. Only thing is, you have lost the keyboard of this machine. You have lost control because of your ignorance. So utilize this formula. Do not make it public, whatever you are doing. Even do not make your disease public and the less people see it, the more chances are that it will be healed, it will go away. Like he said about the planning, keep your planning secret because then you can use your spiritual intention to manifest it, whatever your plan is. As soon as your planning goes in the air, everybody has heard about it, then your intention will become weak because your planning is already manifested in a way, there is no room for change there now.

Similarly, if you have a disease, you go to the doctor, the doctor takes the x-ray and writes a report and twenty people come to know that it is a cancer in the last stage, and now no amount of intention will do anything, nothing, because there is a protection mechanism in the illusion that if it is witnessed by many, then there is a huge resistance to change it because it looks like a total breaking of all the physical laws, so it is not allowed. If it is hidden, if nobody knows about it, if it is in the margin, it is a small thing, then it can disappear, the biggest cancer can disappear, there is a chance.

So why is there no scientific research on the occult? Why is there no mantra which works for every person, every time? Now you can guess, the occult does not work like this, it is not a public affair. The magicians perform on stage, the occultist does not do that. Why? They know it won't work. They go in the deep jungle and they find a cave, go fifty, sixty meters down the cave and they set up their experiment there and now there is some chance that the maya will not bother you, you can do whatever you want and if you go and tell everybody about the results, don't worry, nobody will believe you, they will say you are kind of crazy or something. “I saw this, I saw that” - nobody is going to believe you, why? Because that is also by design.

Maya does not want her secrets to be public. Maya is feminine, so you know how she works. When I tell you that she is a woman, you know half of the story already, what is going to happen, you need to please her and she is also a mother, she takes care of the body-mind thing, the organism is created by her. She does not like all this interference in her personal matters, so that is the trick to heal anybody. Start with yourself, that is going to accumulate the least karmic consequences, if you do all the experiments on yourself and there is nobody to get the fruit, you are the only one, you get nothing much, but if you are healing 20 people per day, then I don't know what will happen.

What is Samadhi? Some talk of Savikalp and Nirvikalp, what are these?

See we don't go in these ancient words now, I have removed them for a reason, they have a lot of meanings, so much so that they have become corrupt. What do I call the natural state of the existence? It has only one state and that is Experiencing, with capital E, and it is not an action, nobody is doing it, it is a state in which the existence itself is and that is your state because you are the existence, that is your state. And you can call it Samadhi if you want or you can call it the Sahaj Samadhi.

About the Savikalpa and Nirvikalpa, well, frankly I don't bother about these words, I know the meaning, the names, what they mean but I never went into the Samadhi of that kind. The word Vikalp is well known, isn't it? So with the presence of modifications and without the presence of modifications, modifications of mind. Savikalpa will be like that of a Yogi who is aware all the time, Nirvikalpa will be like a person who is asleep, there is nothing there to see, the sleep state but with awareness, where the awareness is turned to itself and there is nothing else to look at.

What is Experiencing? It is everything, we don't bother with all kinds of Samadhis because when I have declared already that there is only one existence and it has only one state, then is there any room for different kinds of Samadhis? There are so many, you cannot even count, in every tradition there is one kind of Samadhi but I like this word, Sahaj Samadhi because it means natural Samadhi and then because the existence is only one state, it fits, so I call Experiencing as Sahaj Samadhi, that is the only thing you need to know. If you want to know about other Samadhis, probably, I am not the best person because I have never done that and I don't even check the meanings nowadays because I know it is kind of useless, I am not on that path and I am not going to do it anyway, so I never check it. People ask me all these things and I tell them that you should go and consult that philosophy or that path in which these words are used and these words are used in the Patanjali yoga, and there is something very nice there which is called the Kevalya and that is probably much better word than Samadhi. Kevalya means aloneness or you can say oneness. That is very, very close to Experiencing, because in Experiencing there is just one dynamic presence, oneness, there is no you, no me, no experience, no experiencer and the mental activity is very minute, I am not saying there won't be any mental activity, whatever is there becomes minute, it loses any weight, becomes weightless. It is as if you are watching a movie in the dark room and you are getting scared of monsters in the movie and you are affected by whoever is crying there and whoever is getting killed, violence etc. But you turn on the light and you see that they are just transparent pictures. All the heaviness is dropped from that movie and there is nothing to really worry about what is going on, but the movie goes on, it is exactly the same movie but there is a lightness there, it is weightless, that will be the Samadhi. When all the experience is converted into Experiencing with a sense of presence, it is me, that's all remains.

Sama means balance, Dhi means knowledge. If you want to remove all the corruption from the word, go to Sanskrit and you find the real meaning of it. You need to sit between the experience and the experiencer and that will be Samadhi. What is that? Experiencing. If you go too much in the experience, you will get lost, that has already happened, isn't it? If you go too much inwards in the experiencer, again you will be gone, it will be like sleep. I have withdrawn all my senses and I have controlled my mind by my yogic practice so much that it does not bother me now. All the mental activities are within my control, that is the Anushasana of the yogic field, discipline. And now I can turn the attention only on this being, it is not the experience, it is the faint light of the experience, I turn it to that. It is a tiny bit of mental activity but we forget about it and then it is so pure that there is nothing.

We don't take the extremes, we sit in the middle. Whatever is happening is happening, whatever is witnessing is witnessing, whatever is dividing is dividing and so on. It is so natural. You can get a glimpse of the Experiencing right now. Like in the video of the oneness, when I tell you, is there any distance between you and the tomato or any object, when you try to find a distance between you, the experiencer and the object, you will never find it. In that instant you are in the Experiencing. It is so easy. You can try it now also, but it is best done with a little bit of guidance. When I guide you, then it happens naturally. If you try to do it, it does not happen. Should you practice all these things? No, there is no need. Realize that your state is Experiencing. It cannot be anything else. That is the only state the existence is capable of.

So how can we practice? We don't practice. Just stop being that which you are not. Stop being the divided experience. And you are in Sahaj Samadhi, it is beautiful, it is amazing, it is useless, there is no use in survival for it. So we don't do it. It gives you no knowledge except that it is all One. Everything is one which you already know. So I have not recommended any Samadhi practice. There is no practice.

Another seeker is saying that I have been trying to maintain awareness in waking state and progressing slowly with practice but not much success in dream state. I dream often and keep a journal. But rarely I get lucid and not for long. Can you provide some guidance?

You can go and watch the dreaming experiments and then probably you can try some of the techniques there. If you are doing it without any theory or without any realization, then it will be fruitless. Yes, you mechanically keep hitting it, it can happen one day. It is possible. But if you do it systematically, scientifically and in a planned way, chances are more. I came to know what layers are involved there. I came to know how the states change. I came to know the ins and outs of the sleep state and all these cycles that this body and mind goes through, you get all that fine knowledge which is needed for mastering these things and then it will come naturally to you. What is happening is, people go straight to the practice. I am not saying that the practice won't work, it will work, but it is hit and trial then. I don't know about what you have done in the past, who was your guru and what kind of path you are on, so what I prescribe is, get the basics, get all the realizations that are needed and then you will get the fruit.

Although these things are just side effects. On the path of knowledge, the experience of the dream and whatever, other worlds and all, they are just side effects. We don't use them as a goal, they are side effects. Goal is always knowledge and if you go for the goal, you will get all these tiny side effects. If you have talent and you simply start singing one day, you will find that yes, I can sing a little bit. Yes, you get one or two songs right and the really difficult song, no, is completely out of your range. Anyway, but if you go to a music teacher, if you learn the notes, you know the scales, you practice as the teacher tells you, after six months, you will be able to sing one line of the song nicely and people won't run away when you are singing. This is how everything happens in this world. It takes a systematic approach. It will take thousands of hours of practice and then you can call yourself a student of spirituality or a student of music. To become a master of music or master of anything, 20 years, 30 years, 50 years, are normal, and yes, those who are extremely talented, they will achieve it quickly.

Like a raw diamond, you need to polish it. That is the job of the teacher, guru. In India, the musical geniuses, the gurus who teach music, they get the same respect as spiritual gurus. You will be surprised why? Students of music go and touch the feet of the guru. There is a temple there of Saraswati and they do the puja and then they start singing or playing the instrument. It is a ritual which looks like going to a temple. Why is that? Because, everything was like this in the ancient time. Not only spirituality, everything was like this. Everything was given that high status. Now, it is not like this. If you want the shortcuts, go on YouTube and search for techniques of lucid dreaming and all that. On Google, you can search and probably you will get the shortcuts. Some easy methods will be given to you. It's all public. But learning happens only by doing, not by watching videos.

A seeker is asking, some people who by doing longer sitting meditations, their presence becomes too strong. It can be felt even when they touch me, any explanation? is that they become too light and that entity overlaps with others? How does the presence become too strong?

It is spiritual maturity. You can also do that. If you progress for 10 years, 20 years in your practice, your presence will also become strong and your presence can be felt thousands of miles away. People will say that I see you present in my room, not with eyes, I can feel you. It can happen. You can hear the voice in your ears. The same Guru appears in dreams and so on. It is a result of spiritual maturity only. Whatever the Guru says, is powerful, pierces like an arrow, it remains and you feel it, it is something which is given by Guru. Shaktipat is a good example. It is so strong that you cannot get rid of it now. On the devotional paths, the Guru sits between the eyebrows. What does that mean? You can feel the presence of the Guru there within you, if not Guru, the deity whom you worship or whatever. So my guess is that it is not only by longer sitting meditations, it is a consequence of long spiritual practice, very advanced practitioners will become like this. I have heard all these things. People used to go to Raman Maharshi and sit there and they used to feel what Raman Maharshi is feeling, which is nothing but bliss, blissful presence and they get addicted to this and when they don't go there, their life is hell. So the Guru knows this. They won't display it too much.

What's love? Is it a feeling?

People define it differently. Our definition is very easy. I and you are one - That is love. It is very simple. The knowledge that everything is one is unconditional love. And everything else is poetic. People use that word whenever they want to use that word. It is usually a deep likeness, deep attachment. I love this food and I love sleeping and I love that movie and I love that person or animals and so on. And there is just a relation of give and take. So they use this word everywhere they want and our spiritual definition is simply that there are no two. That is love.

A seeker’s question is, that experience of knowing something gives a lot of satisfaction. What is this phenomena? Can you please talk about this?

There is a reason for the pleasure that we get out of knowing something and the reason is evolutionary. Those who have studied evolutionary psychology know this. There is a mechanism in the memory or you can say in the mind which produces a reward when you know something, especially something which is useful for survival. So when you are hungry and you eat, you get pleasure and so on. This is the survival mechanism and there is an opposite process also. You can't find anything to eat, then hunger, it's pain or when you kill your enemies, you are big and strong, it gives you a lot of pleasure. When you are defeated, it is painful, it is a lot of suffering. Look at the face of a defeated animal, we become like that. And this happens in all the layers. This reward and punishment mechanism is in all the layers actually. Because it is so useful for survival. You marry somebody and you get a lot of satisfaction and pleasure. That is the layer of emotions. Somebody leaves you, somebody dumps you, well, you get the opposite. This mechanism is operating on that layer of emotions and the same thing is in the layer of intellect.

When you know something, when you solve a problem, when you achieve something intellectually, there is a reward. And when you are confused, when you don't know what to do, when you do not understand the mathematics or physics that the teacher is teaching you, remember how much suffering that is. Although you are comfortable, you are sitting in an AC room and the best laptop is in front of you and you are studying in the college where the rich people study and so on, but it is torture, it is a lot of suffering because the layer of the intellect is producing a suffering there, the dissatisfaction of not knowing. This suffering is probably the reason for you to take a spiritual path.

There are people, because their bodies are not good, they go to the spiritual master, because their relations are not good and so on, they find an escape into the spirituality. It happens, but I say welcome, no problem, I don't want to know why you are here, you are here now, okay, we will do something about it. But the real entry into spirituality happens because of intellectual suffering. “I don't know what is the purpose of my life, I don't know why I am doing the things that I am doing, it is so empty, I have everything under the sky, but there is no meaning in my life”. What is that? There is no reward there, there is no satisfaction there, there is void there and if that pulls you into spirituality, you will be surely, definitely successful. When this happened to me and probably many people, those whose lives are taken care of, well to do family and lots of money and there is no survival pressure on them, they do very nicely in spirituality.

I remember one line from Osho, he used to say, I am a guru of rich people. Why is that? Because survival matters, it will keep you engaged in the lower layers. I am not saying you won't progress, you will progress, yes, it can take a long time, but when all those relations are taken care of, when all those impurities are washed away, when you are healthy, you can worry about philosophy and advaita and all and then progress happens. So Muladhara, Swadisthan, Manipur, like this, and this was known since thousands of years. They don't teach you that which is at the top, they start from the bottom.

Start cleaning, start purification, fix your diet. This is Ashtanga Yoga, very, very systematic. Now we don't see it, people go and do the Dhyana, people go and do the meditation directly. What about the lower parts of the layered structure? Stuff with problems, you don't want to address those problems and you want to do that which is just one step below the Samadhi, is there any chance of success there? No. Because it's a mechanical process, if you keep doing it, keep hitting it, there is a side effect of it which nobody likes. So that is why I recommend systematic approach, start from self evaluation, what do you need, where is the problem, are you poor, are you not married, are you rejected in love and all, take care of all these things first and then the lower layers will let you do the spiritual thing, otherwise they push you. That is what we call resistance, we have names for that, but it is simply unsystematic, that's all it is.

So there is a reward in doing it and we exploit this reward, there is a deep satisfaction in knowing something, something is true or letting go of the ignorance, it feels very light, feels very nice. For those for whom it is painful, they never progress.

Next question is, Could you explain the state of wandering? Avadhutas who look like beggars, immersed in experiencing?

I don't know, it is kind of a lost tradition now. Most of them have become drug addicts and what not, there is a lot of importance on occult and things like that and less on the non-duality because Avadhuta tradition is based on Advaita, but something went wrong there I think. It was good for that time, it was on the peak where nobody objected to these things, it is not good for today's time, where you need to be in the system or you will be called a beggar. Yes, they look like beggars, you won't be called Avadhuta, and nobody will like to be near you because it looks so disgusting and if he starts talking about Advaita and all this, people think it is like a circus, it's a monkey dance for them, such a strange fellow is talking about these things. We don't pay attention to them now, there are few more traditions like that.

There is a basic reason why spiritual knowledge and tradition tends to get forgotten, lost over time, materialism taking precedence, why couldn't the opposite happen where most people would naturally crave to follow the spiritual path? Is this something like a universal law?

According to me, it is always like this. There will be very few spiritual people, very few intelligent people and the rest will be this crowd. It will always be like this. Sometimes it rises, we call it Satyuga, the age of truth, it rises for a while but I don't think it becomes 100% where everybody is spiritual. What happens is the majority, a big portion, at least the influential people are spiritual and now the rest are carried along with it, like they say the rising tide lifts all the boats. So that time is at the peak. There will be no thieves, there will be no terrorists, there will be no wars and so on but it does not remain for long because the seed of lowliness is always there and then it falls.

You see Ramraj and the time of Ram and there was that fellow, isn't it, who accused Sita of bad character. People never put locks in his kingdom on their doors but there were such people. How is it possible? And you know the time of Mahabharat, yes, there were good and evil, good forces, bad forces in this time, exactly the same condition. That is why we say if you get into a spiritual path and progress a little bit, it is an extraordinary thing. It is a big achievement because hardly anybody does this. Is materialism taking precedence these days? No, it was always in the front. Materialism is always the dominant one. Materialism started in India, we say like this, the Charvaka philosophy or the Sankhya philosophy or the Kanad and all these people. How is it possible? Well, it was there everywhere already, the Rishis in India formalized it, they turned materialism into formal philosophy. It is simply based on survival. Whatever enables my survival is the truth. That is materialism, isn't it? Like I am the body and I need lots of things to take care of the body. I don't want to know the mind, I don't want to know the consciousness or whatever you call it. They are illusions. What is real? Stuff is real, matter is real. Why is that? Because that helps in survival.

Actually, I mentioned that in our program at one place, that you need to transcend the survival to know something of value, otherwise you will remain there. You will remain in survival and you will think that that's all there is. That is the truth. I die, that is the end, nothing. And I was born, who knows why, but it is all matter, I am the matter, nothing else matters. This is always the dominant thinking, why? Because so much is connected to survival. Let me tell you, when you are hungry, when you are on the road, when there are wars and all, you will drop to materialism. There is nothing wrong there. Now your life and your family and your money, your gold is suddenly important. You will forget the non-dualism or idealism or whatever-ism there is, they are useless for survival, totally useless, but they are the true things. Because the survival happens in the illusion, the survival happens in total falsehood, you need to accept it. Otherwise you decide not to survive, which is our ideal goal, that I don't want material existence anymore, mukti, liberation. But as long as you are here, accept the illusion, because it will take over one day, it must be doing it every day.

Whenever you are troubled by your life, what is that? Non-acceptance of materialism. You must be materially wealthy, healthy and whatever, that's what we say all the time. You need to transcend survival, then the spiritual happens, then the possibility opens up. Why is there a majority of people, who know only materialism? Because the possibility has not opened for them. 99.99% will remain there, there is no hope for them. It is because of too much attachment to survival. Why is that? Because this place does not favor survival really, you can see it right now. Go out of your house and you struggle to remain alive. Anybody can hit you, anybody can rob you, any virus can get you and so on. Everybody wants your money, if you are a woman, yes double the trouble. So this place is not really made for survival. What is that movie or series, Hunger Games or what? There are so many movies like this where survival is the biggest thing.

So this place, earth is biased towards negativity a little bit, we call it one of the higher hells. Earth is a higher hell, it is very low in vibration, Mrityuloka in Sanskrit, the world of death. Nobody wants to die here and the reason is they think I am the body. Even when you know that I am not the body, you don't really want to die, do you? You want good clothes and you want good food and all and a materialistic person laughs at you. “Look at this spiritual fellow, he is afraid of death and he is demanding food but he says that the food is an illusion!”. So a materialistic person laughs at the spiritual person. What do we do? We accept the insult. This is how it should be. This is the perfect thing, 99.99% of the population will be materialistic narrow minded stupid idiots. No problem at all. They are evolving. They are going there and if you have taken even one step beyond materialism, that is a big achievement. You are in the 0.001%. Now it is your turn to laugh, isn't it? And I don't think they will understand.

Yes, this is the universal law. At least in this part of the universal memory, it has to be like this. You accept it. You climb the ladder of spirituality and don't come back. Don't come back here. This is not the only world. Go to some place where survival is not a problem. There is no body or you can have a good body which is not dependent on food or whatever. There is no gender and there is no race. There is no rat race. You can sit there for thousands of years and if you get bored, then you proceed. There is no end to this illusion.

Does this mean that what they experience is not love?

Marriage and worldly, so called, love is a mutual benefit scheme. People say, love of a mother is actually love, married people are all in love. From their point of view it is “love”. And I have no problem. We respect the feelings of that person. People say I love you and all they want is your body. But that is good. Isn't it? At least somebody has shown some interest in this body. That is a good thing. You are rich and they say I love you. All they want is your money. But it is good. Because if you are poor, nobody will talk to you. So it is all good. No problem at all. If the marriage is good for them, if the marriage is providing them with happiness or financial security, who are we to say that it is bondage? At that level of evolution, it is all fine, perfect.

Session 93

Can we consider experiencing as consciousness?

My recommendation is always to use the words that are used in the teachings. If you try to use something which is not being used then it will simply cause confusion. So as you must have noticed that in this particular flavor of non-dualism that I have explained there is no consciousness. And there is a reason which I often repeat that the words that are corrupt, the words that already have too many meanings are removed from our teaching to keep it pure, simple and easy to understand. And another reason is to get rid of your past conditioning. There must be a lot of past conditioning there around these words. You understand them or probably you misunderstand them in your own special way. Whatever was told to you that has become the meaning of that word. So it is just ignorance. And by dropping the words we drop the ignorance. And we start from a clean slate. We start again and we look at what is. We look at the experience and then we decide what word to use. We do not start from words. We start from what is. Whatever we can find around us starts from there. Experiencing is very clearly defined. Now there is absolutely no need to find another word for it.

The formula is - the less words you use the clearer it will be. Always use the same word for the same thing. I know that I also do not stick to this rule 100% of the time. For example I'll say Maya and then I'll say illusion. One and the same thing. But sometimes I use two words to talk about the same thing. And you can see that is the habit. But hopefully it is not confusing because the meanings are very clear. But it becomes very confusing if you do it all the time for every word. So purity is recommended. Purity of language, purity of definitions. And that causes sharpening of intellect, discipline of intellect and your job becomes very easy.

The next question - Is the mind the prime cause of dreams? Because sometimes I see many things which have nothing to do with my thinking process or till it is experienced? And why is there no sense of time while sleeping?

Again, we don't use the word mind so much except when we are talking informally. When there is non-technical discussion. So what is the cause of dreams? We first define a dream. Dream is a state of memory. There is activity in the memory that appears as dreams. So if you want to call it the cause, yes that is the cause. But then the same cause is applicable for all the states. The cause of all the states is just activity of the memory. And why do you see some things which have nothing to do with thinking process or experiences? This is a difficult question because usually the dreams have the same thing which has happened in the waking state. This is the quality of the dream. But sometimes the universal memory leaks into the personal memory. It happens sometimes that the experiences coming out of the dream memory are expanded into the universal memory. Sometimes into the causal memory, causal body. Whatever we call the causal body is nothing but just a bigger area of the memory. The smallest is the waking, dreaming is bigger than the waking, projected is bigger than dreaming, the causal is bigger than projected and the universal is much much bigger than the causal. And there are more layers in between which are all explained in our program. Sometimes it happens that the dream experience is derived out of one of these bigger memories and it looks like that I have seen something which I've never seen or I experienced something which I've never experienced. It feels like that. It is very common actually. Precognitive dreams are common and the dreams in which gurus or guides appear and give you some teaching, recommendation, messages are also common. Dreams in which dead people appear etc. Those dreams don't look like ordinary dreams. And all these things are not very unusual. It is amazing. And if you are having those experiences then it is a sign of good progress.

Why is there no sense of time while sleeping? Probably everybody knows that time is an illusion that is derived out of memory. The time is nothing but the distance between two memory locations. That is the definition of time, a comparison of two memories. And as you know in the deep sleep there is nothing much to experience. It is the state of the memory where there is less activity. And the activity is so removed from our ordinary experience of objects, bodies and people that it is not committed to the waking memory. The waking memory remains inactive. And other parts of the memory are active in deep sleep. Some people think that nothing is active, that is right from their perspective. Your experience is your truth. But those who can see the sleep state, who are aware in sleep state, will know that there is a tremendous amount of activity in the sleep state. But that never goes into the waking memory because it is not useful for everyday survival. Its use is totally different. So when we wake up we find no comparisons in the memory because there is nothing there. What do we find in the memory that I lied down on the bed and then probably I watched something on my phone or I was thinking about something and then the next thing we remember is I am waking up from the sleep. It is morning time and now I am feeling a little bit drowsy. And there is no gap in time. The gap is imagined later.

You can watch a child, for example, where this conditioning that there is a gap in my experience has not happened. The child goes to sleep, comes out of the sleep and does not know what has happened. He is perfectly okay, and continues as usual. So it seems that there is no time because there is no memory there. You can create the time if you want by remaining aware in the sleep state which is simply a consequence of being aware in waking. Remember waking is the lowest possible state. Waking is the most ignorant state of memory. Then dreaming is above it but that is also corrupted by the ignorance which is below it. And what is above that hardly anybody knows because awareness is absent. So we start from the bottom, we start cleaning the bottom part first and then dreams become aware, and now such kind of dreams can happen and then the sleep becomes aware. Then whatever happens in sleep is witnessed and you will be surprised what happens there. It is a totally new life, new worlds, new activities and then you will find there is some kind of time there.

How much time? That is another amazing thing that as you go higher, the speed of the change is different. The rate of change is different. Memory changes at a different pace. Let us say, in one hour of sleep probably 10 years worth of change can happen because it is going fast and when you wake up you think that 10 years have passed. The higher you go in the memory structure the faster it becomes. The vibration is faster and so the change is more. Since change is more, the distance between the memory locations is more. That gives us a distorted sense of time compared to the waking state. Waking state is the slowest. It is the most gross state. So the time is very slow here. From the point of view of the causal body, human life is just a blink of an eye. If you think that this life is very long and I have a lot of time, that is only our ignorance. That is in a relative sense only. From the point of view of the causal body the waking state is a dream that happens for a few minutes. Anyway, it's all mystical from here onwards.

Isn't being devoid of qualities also some kind of quality? Where it was seen that the experiencer has no qualities?

Quality is something which is a non-essential part of it. Qualities can come and go. For example you take a coffee mug and you paint it with blue color. Now its quality is blue. Then the next day you paint it white and then its quality is white. The essence, the china clay, is the same. So when I say devoid of qualities that means it is pure essence. Nothing has been painted over it. Now can we call it a quality? It is not very useful to first remove the word “quality” from the experiencer and then say that it is a quality. The sentence that it has no qualities is more clear. We don't need to add more to it. There's no need to make it confusing by using some poetic language. The whole existence is actually like this. The whole existence is devoid of qualities. Whatever we see as qualities is actually an illusion. And the illusion is also empty. Therefore the illusion is also devoid of qualities. This is perfectly good now. So it seems that the natural state has no qualities. And the illusory state is full of qualities.

That which is not changing is the truth. What is the definition of change?

I think I've already defined it as a comparison of memory. The existence is unchanging. There is no such thing as change in existence. But it is not static also because it is whole and complete. There is everything there. There are only possibilities there. Possibility means that nothing is actually changing. When I say infinite possibilities that means nothing is changing there. It's only potential of being anything.

So what is a change? When the possibility is expressed as a memory. And when we compare two memories which always happen in the present, there is no time in existence. When this comparison happens in the present time, if the content of the two memories is different, we say there is a change. You can witness it right now right here. Grab a memory of 10 years ago. Let us say a location in your memory. And grab a memory of yesterday. You will find a lot of change. And if you compare two memories of last week and this week there is less change. Because they are not so different. So change is just the amount of difference in memories. And actually there is no change in the existence. Change is also an illusion. The most basic change is a binary change. Something which has one state has turned into the other state. It can be anything. It's an abstract concept. That is the simplest possible change. And that is what we call the vibration. It is a dynamic thing, it repeats therefore it's called a vibration. And you will find that memory is nothing but a sea of vibrations. Everything is solved from here. All of the experience can be explained in a very precise way. This is the biggest science possible. This is the whole and complete science. Very simple.

You must have noticed that as we approach the truth, it becomes simpler and simpler. Truth is never complex. If it is not simple and elegant, probably it's not true. This is the basic principle in spirituality. The same is used very nicely in science also. If the theory or the formula is too complicated, it's probably wrong.

In an awakened state, knowledge is obtained through senses and mind. What about in a dream and deep sleep state?

Well, there is no other way to get knowledge. It is always senses and mind. Or you can say memory in place of mind. Remember, it is not called an awakened state actually. It is called waking state. Remember to use the exact words. Otherwise it will become a noodle soup of words. Awakened is a different word. We use the word awakened for a person who has the knowledge, who has the self-realization. It is not a state, it is just knowledge. And the waking state is obtained through the gross senses and internal senses that are in the body. Remember the sense pyramid. Those who have gone through the senses chapter, will remember the sense pyramid. The waking state has the least amount of senses. In the waking state, we use the least amount of senses. Usually they are only the five senses which are on the body. The whole of the attention is only on these five. And that also 90% is on the eyes, the sight. And the rest of the 18% is on hearing. And one or two percent is on the other. So sight is the dominant way to gain knowledge. And there are internal states of the body like hunger and all these things - Tiredness, sleepiness, balance, temperature of the body, pains in the body and so on. They are conveyed by the internal senses. Plus there are more senses that are active. Like your emotions are being sensed, obviously. Your thoughts and desires are being sensed. So all these senses are active. You can count them.

Everybody has the same set of senses. The higher you go in the layers, the number of senses increases. This is the rule. So you go into the dream state where probably some other areas in the memory are active. And there are now senses there. And obviously the dream is produced by the memory. So the means of knowledge is the same. Only that the senses are different, memory is different. And the knowledge gets stored in that location in memory, that layer. That's why when you wake up, you are able to see that the senses are different. When you wake up, you don't remember the dreams. That's why I have shown in the diagrams the memory bridges. You must make an intention, like a spiritual intention to remember the dream. This is done by many techniques. Intention is the best technique. But there are supporting techniques like writing down the dreams every day. So dreams become important for you. And all that is important is remembered. This is the law of memory. If it is not important, it will never be recalled. So that's why it is probably so difficult to pass the exams in school and college. It is totally useless. It's totally unimportant from the point of view of the child. We don't remember anything anyway. In deep sleep, hardly any sense is active which is relevant to our survival. So no knowledge is gained. So we say that deep sleep or memory is not a valid means of knowledge. It's unreliable. When you are in the waking state, all these other states are discarded. It's unreliable knowledge. That which is present here and now will be the knowledge. And you already know what that is. There is experience and there is experiencer. Only these two are present in every state. And that will be the knowledge. There is no other knowledge.

Next question is - we define change as a comparison of memory. Hence memory is more fundamental than change. But memory is vibration and vibration is binary change. How is this possible?

Actually, I've addressed this question and it is only a point of view. Remember that the vibration is a theoretical thing. Although it's a model, it is very useful. When I say the memory is changed, which is vibration, and I say that change is derived from memory, what we are talking about is one thing. We are pointing to one thing, but looking at the same thing from two directions. We're taking two approaches. What is that which I'm pointing at? It is something which is called non-physical, non-mental structure. That's all we know. It is not physical and it is not mental. And now there are ways to approach it. You can say that it is a memory or you can say that it is a change. But yes, I know it is not satisfactory, but it is a model. Models are not going to be satisfactory. The utility of the model is to explain the phenomena. It is not going to give you any truth. Always remember this.

For example, the theory of gravity defines the phenomena of weight, mass, rotation of planets and all, attraction of masses. That is the theory of gravity. Do we know anything at all about existence by using the word gravity? No, nobody knows what it is. So the same thing. What is it that I'm calling non-physical, non-mental? It is the existence. And since existence is fundamentally unknowable, we need to simply surrender our intellect and say, okay, I cannot go beyond this. And yes, there are more ways to see the same thing. That which is appearing, there are many ways to see it. So our model is one way. Either you start from vibration. You say there is change, change is fundamental and the memory is made up of vibrations. There's no problem at all here. Then you remember that, oh, he told me that existence has no time. It is timeless. It is non-temporal. So now you want to refine your definition. The change appears to be an illusion then. And then you say that there is a substance there which stores information. And then now we compare the two and the change is born. But I know it is not going to be satisfactory. This is cooking up something. And all theories are just cooked up hypotheses.

Do we see the vibration? Do we see the memory? No, we see irreducibles. We experience the irreducible and there is an experiencer. That's all we see. That's all we can know directly. That is the pure experience. And the rest is cooked up to explain what we experienced. So none of these things are fundamental. The experience is fundamental. That which is directly here, right now, right here, that is fundamental. And the rest is then science. Science means an attempt to explain the experience. It is amazing, isn't it? Simply by assuming something logical for which there is some evidence. There is evidence for memory, obviously. There is evidence for vibration, yes. And for the field of probabilities or potential, there is enough evidence. And we form a theory. We name it something so that we can talk about it. And we define the laws because, yes, it is lawful and then the magic happens. Now it is so beautiful. Everything can be explained. The best theory is that which has the least amount of assumptions.

What is our theory? It says there is binary vibration. Not any complicated vibration. Up/down, that's all. Being/non-being, you can say, like this. Existence pretends to be not there for a while and then it appears back. This is a vibration. There is no concrete example of vibration. It is an abstract idea. It's a concept. What can be the concrete example of vibration? Because there is only existence. It is one. So the one can become zero and the zero can become one. A beautiful analogy with computer science here. Existence is a superposition of zero and one. It is one because it is there. But its essence is emptiness, so it is zero. And when it chooses to be in one of the states, you can say that will be the first half of the vibration. And when it shifts back to the other state, then it is the other half of the vibration. It has become a complete wave now. It waves like this. “I'm there. I'm not there”. This is kind of a cooked up thing. But that is all that is possible in this emptiness. Emptiness says I'm empty. And then emptiness says, no, I'm appearing. And that is the basic vibration, you can say. That is the fundamental frequency. And yes, you will never find all these things in any of the scriptures and all.

Can meditation help poor people suffer less?

Spiritual practice is for spiritual matters like liberation, freedom from human birth, for powers or knowledge. Who am I, Finding the essence. Those are the spiritual matters. Helping poor people, diseased, giving them money, are worldly matters. Meditating is not going to help in worldly matters. Producing a little bit of sensation here and there in the body cannot be called progress of any kind. Why were you born here? For what? And I don't think anybody is born here to serve people. Nobody can serve people. They will remain miserable forever. This is how it has been since the beginning of the creation. There will be misery, suffering, ignorance. And even the great avatars could not fix it. And a tiny person with a tiny lifespan and no abilities at all, not like the gods who come down here but will not do anything. Yes, it will help a beggar here and there, but they will die anyway. They will die a miserable death. So find a spiritual goal. It should be about you and about your life, nobody else. Once you find the goal, which is spiritual, which can be achieved by spiritual practice, then the Guru comes into picture. Now the Guru will instruct what to do. You should not do anything willy nilly. Why do we do that? Because of this ignorance that whatever I am doing will produce some kind of magical effect on something which I don't know. Completely directionless, complete darkness. So my suggestion is to do some churning, Manthan, find out your spiritual goal. If there is no goal, then the Guru assigns the goal.

Another question from a seeker is, Why is Sukshma sharir or karan sharir memory access limited?

You want a way to access the memory of the causal body. Remember, the memory is right now right here. You don't need the subtle body to access the causal memory. It is whatever are your tendencies, whatever are your desires, likes and dislikes and preferences, the causal memory is present right here. Not only the causal memory is present, it is driving your life. So you can access the causal memory right now, right here. When I described the memory structure, basically 10 arbitrary layers, I told you that you should find evidence for it. You should be able to find the evidence for all the layers right now, right here. Otherwise, who is going to make imaginary models? If this is not useful, then what is the point in making those imaginary models of the memories? So, yes, you don't need a journey. You don't need a vehicle and you don't need a method to go to the causal memory, causal layer. Right now, right here it is there. It is driving your whole life. Remember, you are born to fulfill the desires stored in the causal memory, causal layer. Otherwise, there was no chance of birth. If there is nothing important stored there, or nothing which can be done in this physical world, then no birth happens. You know, that is classical liberation. It is there right now.

You get up every day in the morning and do something using your own will, we all do that. What is that evidence of? A lot of conditioning. And most of the primary conditioning is the influence of the causal body, causal layer. All the layers are right here, right now. Why do people call them unconscious, subconscious? That is all garbage. There is no such thing. We say it is present or we say it is not there. That's all. It is evidence-based. What is unconscious memory? There's nothing like this because you will never know it is there. Hidden memory? No, there is no such thing. Everything is here. You see from the eyes of the Gyanis, all knowledge is here and now. Otherwise, we don't even talk about it. Now, people will ask, where is the subtle body and all? Yes, you can experience it right now, right here. Techniques are already given.

How about smaller changes form complex structures which allow us to experience higher changes? Will this be valid?

I don't know about “higher changes”, but the simple changes assemble to form complex structures and it produces a complex experience. It produces a more meaningful experience because lots of information has been concentrated in one place. It produces a meaning and the mind runs after meaning. It discards the meaningless. It does not even perceive the meaningless. The meaningless or the random is discarded from the perception. Intellect has its own limits. Not much can be known about this. We should be very happy if we can describe a few things and we should be very happy because this model describes everything. All experiences are described like this. I have given you a list of processes also. Self-organizing process, the destroying process and cyclic process. Never underestimate the power of these simple processes which I have described in our program. It is the basis of all sciences. All, not only physical sciences, chemistry, social sciences, psychology, the occult and anything under the sky. This simple model can describe everything. All phenomena, normal, paranormal, natural, supernatural, everything can be described. Simple model of vibration and change. Here is one assumption. There is binary change and then the whole existence is revealed. It is a powerful thing. It has roots in Sankhya philosophy.

A seeker is saying, I went in the state of absorption inside. There is some process which wakes me up again. Sometimes it's a desire, sometimes thought, sometimes a body awareness. What exactly prompts us to wake up from absorption or to say deep sleep state? What could be the mechanism for waking up?

Well, the problem here is that you are assuming that the state will be permanent. Is there a reason to assume that? When the deep sleep is there, it should be continuously deep sleep forever or whatever you're calling absorption. It must be a continuous state of absorption forever. It's not like this. All these things are experiences. The states are specific kinds of experiences that we have clubbed together. Waking, a particular set of experiences. Dreaming, other experiences. And death and birth and all. They're just different experiences. And as you know, experience is ever-changing. Nothing is stationary in the experience. Everything will change into something. Never assume things which are not there.

Next question is, how do you define the word enlightenment? Which most so-called spiritual people are talking about.

We do not define it. As you must have noticed, it is completely absent from our vocabulary in the context of pure experiences. Just like consciousness and mind and blah, blah, blah. Soul, spirit. They're all corrupt words. They're meaningless words. You will get garbage if you start using these words. There's no precision there. And I cannot use the Sanskrit words, obviously. This is the English version. So we never use “enlightenment”. That is just light talk, useless talk. The goal of the path of knowledge is knowledge. I want you to know. I never call it enlightenment. It is a confusing word. What is the biggest knowledge? Knowledge of the self, who you are. Know who you are. And we simply call it realizing who you are. Self-realization. That's all. It is simple. No poetry, no rubbish, no mystery. What you are is not a mystery. No, you will never get enlightened on the path of knowledge. Sorry to disappoint anybody who is trying to get enlightened here. We don't like enlightened people. Knowledge, yes.

The path of knowledge starts from ignorance, ends in agnosticism, unknowability, surrender. And if you are reading this and that, it is a waste of time. But yes, those who are interested, there must be some kind of resistance there that I need to leave the program which has everything in the universe and I need to read some old book, cryptic book, which is difficult to understand. And I don't want something which is so easy and simple, straightforward. There must be something wrong here. Some resistance must be there. Now, I know the resistance can present itself in many forms. For example, the most common resistance is, my job is important, my family is important. Whatever I'm thinking or doing is important. And that for which I am born, that which is my life goal, I should not do it right now. What is this?

For example, you are very hungry and you are served the best food, five-star quality food. And you say, no, I need to search for something in a pile of trash. No, but you are hungry, your dinner is waiting, your lunch is waiting, best lunch in the city. No, no, I need something, I need to dive into the trash can. What do you call this? Why has this happened? There are many people like this. You are born to achieve freedom from this ignorance. Is there anything more important in your life than that for which you are born, than that for which you are hungry?

I'll tell you my example. If somebody told me that you will know something if you read this or if you go to this guru or if you do this technique, then I used to leave everything, eating, sleeping, jobs, and the relatives never mattered really. I used to leave everything for that little piece of knowledge, technique, method. I did not worry whether it is science or occult or this path or that path. I wanted it. When your desire for knowledge becomes like this, then you will be successful. When you hold your breath underwater and there comes a point when you can no longer hold it, how intense is that desire to breathe? Your desire for knowledge should be that intense. Look at other people who are writing, how dedicated they are. So they will be successful. Those who are diving in the trash can, no, no hope.

Session 94

Question: I had been thinking about the Satchitananda. I understand that such existence, chit consciousness or experiencing are the only verifiable truth. And in fact, they are the same thing. But I wonder where does Ananda come from? What does it mean and what is its significance? Is it the same as existence and experience?

Yes, it is the same. The Satchitananda is just three synonyms, three things which mean the same thing. So without going into the details of what everything means, Ananda means bliss. That which is the truth is also bliss, which simply means that there is absence of any kind of activity there. There is no change. There is no activity. There is no suffering and there is no happiness also. We should keep this in mind. It is peaceful, silent, empty. In the spiritual world, happiness is considered as a problem. It is a mental activity which is illusory. I don't think anybody will agree with this view at this time, but as you encounter that which is true, you will see it yourself that happiness is simply a reaction of the ego. If it is able to survive successfully, it produces a reaction which is called happiness.

There are two or three flavors of happiness. The first is bodily pleasure. You eat something, you feel nice, the sensory pleasure. And the second is emotional fulfillment. Somebody praises you, somebody says, I love you, you feel very nice. This is emotional pleasure. There is a third which is intellectual. You know something and there is a reward, like we were discussing last time. Somebody asked me, why does it feel so good when we know something? Why is there a drive to know? It is a pleasure to know. It produces a very refined reward, refined happiness, when we know something, and it is very close to peace. When you are troubled by a question, you are troubled by something and you get the answer which is satisfactory, you are peaceful, very close to peace. And there is this final peace of awareness. When you finally know what you are, your essence, your true nature, it produces a permanent peace which never goes away. This is called bliss, ananda, and this is not egoic in nature. You did not get it by doing something or achieving something or it is not dependent on people. You don't need people to make you happy anymore, and obviously, it is not dependent on the body, world or objects. That's why it is called true happiness.

There are flavors of happiness and the bottom one is the gross flavor, the body. Then there are more subtle kinds and finally the most refined is the bliss, ananda. It is the joy of being aware, that's all. It is very simple. Here you are in the state of ananda because it is your nature, it is your true nature to be aware, isn't it? What should you do to get to the state of ananda? Nothing at all. It is your true nature, just drop that which you are not. Stop searching for happiness outside. It's very easy. We are in a state of bliss all the time, eternally. There is nothing to do, nothing to achieve, nothing to get. This is called peace and this peace will reflect in your intellect first. The intellect will be the one which stops when you attain the awareness or the self-knowledge, self-realization. Many people must have found that thoughts are no more, hardly any thoughts, only the useful thoughts are there. There is no clutter of thoughts there. There is no noise in the mind. But yes, you still need emotions and you still need pleasures of the body. It's perfectly okay. Now after a few months, a few years, a few lifetimes, who knows when, depending on your impurities and purification process, the same bliss then leaks into lower layers also, like the sponge sucks the water. The peace permeates the emotions also. Now you are not troubled by anything that the people say to you. If somebody loves you, very nice, if they don't, you are in love all the time. The bliss, when it affects the emotional center or the layer of emotions, appears as pure love, unconditional love. The same bliss takes this form. Because you don't have anything to take from anybody, you start giving. Love is giving, not taking. And that is the biggest pleasure, isn't it? That is the biggest emotional fulfillment there is. And the same bliss then shows up in the body. Body becomes restful. Body sits there, does not complain.

You must have seen that those who are disturbed cannot sit for more than 5 minutes. While sitting, they are always looking here and there, what to do next? what to do next? And either their legs are jumping or their hands are moving around, scratching and looking at the phone every 2 seconds and so on. This is a disturbed body. The vrittis or the activity is random and without any control, totally wild, that it shows up in the body. And you must have seen that you cannot sit with such a person. They also make you restless. When you are sitting with a restless person, with a restless mind, you get it yourself. You don't like to sit there. But when you are sitting with somebody who is meditative, who has been meditating for a long time, you will find that they sit without moving. The same peace is transmitted to you. This is “mirror neurons” or whatever theory you want to use. When we see somebody peaceful, we become peaceful. When we see somebody happy, we become happy. When we see somebody lustful, we become lustful. It is our nature. So when you sit with a guru who is extremely peaceful, who is in bliss, you become blissful. And that explains the attitude of people who just want to sit with a guru. I want to be in your presence, people say. And that is good. You can get a dose like this. But your own bliss is important. You should experience it yourself.

So this is how the transformation happens. The awareness produces bliss, bliss produces awareness. Why is your mind running after worldly stuff? Because it does not know what is the source of happiness. It does not know the true happiness, the most refined kind of happiness. So it is running after gross. What is the solution? Let it run and you cultivate your inner bliss. Let the mind satisfy itself. Let the body satisfy itself. It is all okay. There is no need to stop the mind and body from doing what they are doing. You need to let it flow out of this memory. You are a memory structure. You need to complete the process and then you will find that there is no more need for it. This need to “get” happiness becomes more and more refined, and it is so small that you don't notice it now. It is not that the body will stop functioning, no, it will function. Actually I have seen the pleasures of the body become a hundred times. The sensitivity increases a hundred times in the body. The bliss amplifies the bodily pleasure. The bliss amplifies the emotional pleasure and yes the opposite also happens. The pains also will be felt hundred times more and the sadness, negativity will be felt hundred times more. If you are aware, you know what it is and then it's fine. It's okay, it's fine. That is how it is. So we do not become a rock when we are in awareness. If you become a rock, Mr. Spock, some problem, isn't it? There is some problem. You should become a bodily creature. You should become an emotional creature. You should become an intelligent creature and an aware creature. This is the whole development. Wholesome. You are whole and complete and the same thing should be reflected in the structure that you are incarnating in.

Some people will say, isn't it accumulation? It is a refinement. Accumulation makes you a rock. You find people are insensitive. You find people are indifferent. Their love is only selfishness and so on. That is the problem. That is the impurity. Not this. That which we are naturally, being, that is not accumulation. When you refine the body, mind, spirit, then it cannot be called accumulation, it is called purification and why does it look like that everything is amplified in me? It is because you have never seen yourself like this before. The glass is clean now. You can see through the window clearly. It was dirty and you could not see anything. Insensitivity was there. Now you can see even a tiny movement of your finger. You can sense even one hair on your body. This is the report of all the yogis and whoever has grown higher in spiritual practice. So it is all a consequence of knowledge. Bliss is a consequence of knowledge, knowing what you are. That is how we achieve it. Bliss is the culmination of spiritual pursuit.

A question on valid means of knowledge: We call something a valid means if it is based on direct experience. So let's say a particle physicist is studying particles, electrons, protons, which his senses are capable of grasping and he will use some tools to gather some impressions of such particles. Can using such tools be included as a part of direct experience? Can it be said that these tools enable, supplement the sense to have direct experience of these particles and thus can be used as valid means of knowledge?

What are your eyes? Your eyes are instruments. What are your ears? They are instruments. Your skin is an instrument. Your tongue and your nose are instruments. You are already using the instruments provided by Mother Nature, which are self-assembled for you. And yes, you can use any other instrument. And then whatever experience you get is direct experience. Perception happens through senses and senses are just structures that gather information.

Senses have three parts. The first part is the transducer part, takes the incoming vibration and changes into something else. As you know, in the nervous system, it becomes electrical pulses. There is a big science behind perception, every sense converts the incoming vibration, whatever form, into a particular format, but they are all electrical in nature. So from physical to electrical, subtleness has been achieved. It has become less physical when it is electrical. It is just energy. And then after transducing, there is another part, which is the memory, where the processing happens. The signals are arranged in a specific way. For example, the signals from the ear will be arranged in a one-dimensional way. That's why sound is only temporal. There is no second dimension in the sound. But the signals from the eyes, because the eye has a grid of cells, which sense the light, it is converted into two-dimensional form. It is like a grid. And then the input of the two eyes is combined to form a three-dimensional view and so on. The skin is a pressure sensor. The skin is a thermal sensor also, heat and cold. There are pain sensors. So these are all senses. The skin itself is a big sense organ. And similarly, the tongue has a few senses. The nose has a chemical sense. It senses the chemicals in the air. It is very sensitive. And the third part of the senses is the memory, where the perception happens, the local memory. The local memory is you. The experiencer becomes the local memory so that it can experience it. There is no other way to explain it. The experience happens in the form of this becoming, the irreducible. The experience appears as irreducible. It is me. When I see the red color, the red is me.

So yes, you can augment this process by another instrument. Like you are wearing glasses, let us say. The glasses make you see clearly. Now it is an instrument. You use a telescope and then the distant thing becomes clear. The telescope is an instrument. To get the information that is there, you will always find that the input is a vibration, the non-physical, non-mental vibration. That is what the instrument picks up and the output is you, the irreducible. That's all. And in between there are processes which can be anything. And this is called the direct experience. This is how we experience it directly. This is the chain of perception. The amazing thing is the vibration is also me and the irreducible in which I am experiencing myself is also me. It goes through a loop of reduction. It goes through a loop of limiting and formatting.

Why is there a system like this? And the answer is very simple. It is for survival. Most of the physical sciences are nothing but survival. We do it for survival. So yes, it is a valid means of knowledge. All the instruments are a valid means of knowledge. If the instrument is faulty, you get faulty knowledge. That is the problem, isn't it? Let us say if somebody is color blind, they won't be able to perceive color. If somebody is deaf, they will not be able to hear everything, so on. So our perception and knowledge depends on the instrument of perception.

Question: How did we conclude that the essence is emptiness? If I go deep down at the essence of anything, I end up with the unknown, not in current human knowledge. I don't know what is fundamental. Maybe shed some light on this. Even if I agree that there is emptiness, we will first have to define the term emptiness. Normally, we would define it as there is nothing there that can be perceived, inferred, deduced, etc. by direct senses or by tools. We humans will call such a thing as emptiness. Since we don't perceive it, not necessarily nothing is there. Since it might be something that is beyond our perception. So there are two possibilities. Essence is unknown till date. It is unknowable. Please help me get a clear understanding of this.

You have a good understanding of emptiness. Emptiness is unknown, yes. Emptiness cannot be perceived, yes. Emptiness is not nothingness, yes. There is the experience and the experiencer. And it is unknowable, yes. No matter what you do, it will remain unknowable. So the definition of emptiness is that, the existence has no substance. The existence stands on nothing. Nothing remains when the experience and the experiencer are removed. It is empty. It is like this even when the experience and the experiencer are present. Which will always be because that's all there is. Existence is nothing but experience and the experiencer. Have you ever seen anything more than the experience and the experiencer? Have you ever encountered anything anywhere more than that? Or has anybody else has any knowledge of anything more than the experience and the experiencer? And the experience part is illusion, which makes it empty by definition. Illusions are empty. The experiencer has no qualities. It is empty. So the existence is empty.

It is not nothingness. That is absolutely right. Nothingness means there won't be any experience. There won't be any experiencer. It is an impossibility because you need somebody to say that there is nothingness. And if there is somebody, if there is an experiencer there which is saying there is nothing, then already there is something. So nothingness is impossible. It will be an imagination that there is nothing. What is the direct experience? There is something. There is no substance. So what is our ignorance? We think that the existence has matter. The existence has a mind. The existence has objects, people and all these things, planets and suns and stars. The existence has gods and goddesses and disembodied creatures of all kinds. The existence has these and the existence that. It is all ignorance. And the refined ignorance says that there are vibrations. The non-physical, non-mental, binary changes. It is also ignorance. It is not true. I say that there is memory. It's not really there. There is no memory. And you say that probably there is something which is not in human perception, cannot be grasped by senses or intellect. Exactly. Senses only react to vibrations which are illusions. And senses themselves are illusory. The whole perception is an illusory phenomena just like I explained right now. The whole of it is an illusion. Whole of your life is an illusion. All the instruments are illusions.

So nothing remains there that can be grasped by the senses or the intellect. The intellect depends on sensory information. Our intellect is an accumulation, arrangement of the experiences. As you know, knowledge is an arrangement of experiences and the intellect is based on knowledge. Intellect is an ability to process knowledge and information. Logical inference, deduction, planning and thinking, imagination, creativity. It all depends on the senses and they produce nothing but illusion. Intellect itself is an illusion. Is it possible that the illusion knows the reality? It's impossible. The character in the movie on the screen cannot know the screen, cannot perceive the screen. If it can, it will perceive only the other changing pictures which are around it. It will never perceive the screen. Yes, but it can say, I am the screen. That much is knowable and that is a miracle in itself. It is a miracle that happens in one in a hundred thousand cases. One in a hundred thousand of these characters comes to know that I am the screen. This is called the spiritual seeker, awakened person. The dream continues, the movie continues, but there is a waking up from the dream. That is what is important. Rest is academic interest. If you are interested in these studies, you can talk about what is emptiness and what is this and what is that, which we do because the path of knowledge is study. It is a purely intellectual path, nothing else to do. So that is emptiness, unknowable, but full of potential.

Why is something appearing there? Because there is a possibility, somehow. It can be inferred logically that if there were no possibility of anything at all appearing, if there were no possibility of even producing the illusion, then it would be completely nothing. But it is not like this. There is an immense amount of possibility there and why is there, that can be explained. We can know why it is there and I have done that in the program. I have told you the mechanism of illusion. It is so detailed that you will get a headache. You will never ask a question in your life, that is guaranteed. The possibility is very true. Actually, the only truth is that there is a possibility, isn't it? There is nothing else except a potential to appear and since it is appearing to itself, there is this experiencing of it.

Why is there an experiencer? It is itself, that's why. Or I say sometimes that it is directly in contact with the experience. It does not need a process. Like I said, the experiencer becomes the red, there is no other way. And I know it is beyond intellect, somehow. The intellect operates on objects. The intellect operates on phenomena. It understands phenomena. It does not understand that which is. It is amazing that we can even talk about something that is beyond intellect. The knowledge fails. The language fails. What remains? Surrender. And as I said, the intellect will be silenced when it encounters this huge truth in front of it. It is like when you stand in front of a very tall mountain covered with snow, you are silenced for a while. Why is that? You have never seen such beauty. You have never seen such a huge, extraordinary thing. Sometimes you will start crying because it is so beautiful. That is what happens when you see your own face for the first time. I am huge. I am Brahman. Brahman means huge, isn't it? Brahman means the biggest. I am pure. I am infinite. I am eternal. I am this. I am that. And then tears of bliss. The bliss shines suddenly. This must be the experience of many people. You are silenced completely. This is the only interesting part in the whole path of knowledge. Rest is just intellectual, you can say, hard work, donkey work.

To be in constant bliss, we need to purify our mind. The lack of happiness or bliss is there because of the impurities. You need to let go of the impurities slowly, whenever, however you can manage. And the Guru can help you. “My desire is not fulfilled”. And the mind will keep running that desire in a loop. And everybody knows this. “Oh, he told me something which is so hurting to me. He said you are ugly”. And so it will keep repeating. And this impurity will cloud your bliss. It's not that your bliss is gone, replaced by sadness or suffering. No. It clouds. The sun never goes away. Only the clouds cover it up. But we don't like that also, our nature is to be happy. We are seeking happiness and freedom. This creature does not like it. However, don't stop the mind. Let it be, let it suffer. Let it be sad. Let it be angry or whatever it is doing. Because it's an illusion. Because it's not you. Don't worry about the mind. You are something else. You are the experiencer. You are the seer. You are the witness. But nobody likes it. Nobody wants to be the seer. They want the mind to be silent. They want the negativity to be gone.

I get this complaint that you tell me I am the witness, but I had to witness all these bad things. Why? You see, the maturation has not happened. So we prescribe something to such people. Purify the mind. But it is not necessary. The mind purifies itself anyway. What is prescribed is, especially by me, is that you stay in awareness and let the mind complete its natural process. Whatever our pending desires are, finish them. Do not cause any hindrance in that. Let forgiveness happen. People have done wrong to you. Now forgive and let the sadness come out. You were not allowed to cry. Now cry for weeks. Who's stopping you? Anything that does not cause harm can be called purification. All the enmity, all the anger should be forgiven by simply seeing that it is not me, it is a mental activity only. It is a reaction of the ego, which is perfectly natural, it is made for that. And so you accept. Accept what you are. Accept the whole being, from body to the highest layer.

There are ten layers. You need to purify all of them. Or you can take a shortcut. Simply sit on your throne. Don't do this donkey work. And then it will do whatever it does. There is a mechanism in the layers, they purify themselves. If you don't harm them, it will recover. Like the body. The body is a layer. And if you don't cause harm to the body, if you don't misuse the body, the body has a beautiful mechanism to rejuvenate, to renovate itself. It becomes healthy and fit within a month or two. Constantly keep hammering the body with toxins and impure air and whatever you eat and drink, non-human food, then it's going to break. You stop that and you will see, without doing anything, the body becomes beautiful, fit, healthy. It becomes light like a feather. You don't even notice it. So same about the other layers. Same about everything. That is purification.

When you don't notice these layers, it is called health. When they become so clean and transparent that you don't notice it is there, it is called health. Physical, mental, one thing only. That is complete health. You try to fix the body, no, it does not work. You need to fix everything. And there is a beautiful word in Sanskrit for that. It is called swasth. Swa means self, stha means to stay. To stay in self is health. Everything is perfect in the body-mind instrument. You stay in yourself. Amazing. That is bliss, isn't it? Health is bliss.

Question: When intellect takes over, emotions are going away. It tries to reason everything and finds everything is false. How do we still remain emotional?

There is nobody to remain emotional. The emotions happen on their own. If they are not happening, no problem. One day they will happen. There is nobody who is thinking. So the thoughts go away and then you are worried, I am not able to think. No problem. They will return. Everything is impermanent. The coming of emotions and the flood of emotions, impermanent. And the going of emotions, impermanent. You have more important things to do then worry about all these activities of the mind. What is the most important thing? Get rid of your ignorance. The rest of the side effects keep happening. Who cares? If there is intellectual activity, reasoning and all, no problem. It will also go away.

Question: Basic analysis of existence assumes that existence is one and everything. Thus, analysis of questions is not valid for existence. Is it possible to do this analysis without the assumption that existence is one and everything? Or is it that this is a fundamental experience and thus must be taken as a starting point for all analysis of existence?

There are many ways to analyze the existence and of course, you can define it in any way you want. You can do that exercise. It is an intellectual exercise. Pick a definition which you like. We are free to do that. There are no issues. In philosophy, you can define anything as anything and then you proceed with rational analysis. I define it like this. Now, what is the logical consequence of it? That is what we have done. The definition can be anything, but what is a good definition? That which is justifiable. It must be just and fair, satisfactory and then you can do it. Or as an intellectual exercise, you can define it in a way that you want. Like I said, without assuming the existence is one and everything, yes, assume it as something else and you start analyzing and see what kind of results you get. You are most welcome and what I suggest is you write it down. Don't think. Our intellects are not so disciplined yet that we can simply sit and think like the great masters or philosophers. Even they used to write it down. If you write it down, the thread of the logic remains intact, otherwise it breaks. The logic becomes illogical very quickly because the mind wanders away. Mind is free to assume, to imagine and to get the wrong direction and so on. So you keep writing about this. Write down the definition. Now put the seven questions. Now look at the definition. What is this? Now you write it down. “What” means the definition only. Where is it? Now you write it down. Look and write. Right experience and logic. That is the key. Look, write. Writing should be logical. And you send me the article for review. Now this is obviously outside the program. So do not write in the program. This you can do as a homework. Most welcome.

Actually, I recommend everybody to do this kind of analysis by themselves. You should do it by yourself. Let us say you think that I missed an important topic. Let us say ethics. What is ethical? What is unethical? Now you start writing. Open your diary. Write the topic. What is ethical? Define ethics. Now start writing your thoughts about it. Very logically, consistently and you will find this immense growth of intellect. You will become highly intelligent if you do this exercise. We call it manan. Contemplation. Writing anchors it very nicely. The ship will not float away. The ship remains where it is. It is extremely logical and very fruitful and very satisfying.

Just be an observer and let the mind go where it wants to go and do not judge. Just be the observer. You will notice one interesting thing that the mind does not go anywhere when you observe It. The mind floats away only when you are not in awareness. When you are unaware, the mind tends to float away. I don't see it as a bad thing. The bad thing is when you actually act on what the mind is saying. When you believe your mind, then the action happens. By you, I mean the mind believes itself. Isn't it? There is a limitation of language here. The mind thinks that my neighbor is my enemy. Perfectly okay. They are probably planning to kill you. But the thought is okay. It's not harmful. Now you take your gun and go and kill your neighbor. That's not okay. Because the thought was believed. It resulted in a wrong action. I gave you an extreme example. For some reason, I cannot think of anything positive. All examples are all grossly negatives. Do not act on the wandering mind. Let the action remain mental only. Do not translate it into a physical action. It has consequences which nobody likes. Nobody likes the unnecessary. The unnecessary should remain in the mind. Should remain in the intellect. No harm in experiencing an emotion now and then. But do not act on the emotion. Do not act on the imagination. If you want, you can channel it.

You see, the artist is doing it. The artist wants to be angry. So takes the role of a villain in the movie and now he can do whatever he wants without any consequence. It's all a play. Remember, the mind does not know any difference between reality and imagination. That is the foundation of magic. That is the foundation of the occult. When your mind grows to a bigger size in terms of memory, the memory area that is thought to be mind becomes larger, you can produce miracles. That is the occult. Right now you can produce miracles in your mind. So imagine, let the play happen there and you will find that if it happens in awareness, it's gone. It does it once and twice and then it's gone. Be the observer and let the mind play in the backyard of your home.

So I do that a lot and all the occult people do that. They create their own world. You won't believe it. When you are detached from the senses, the physical senses at least, the mind makes it real. There is no difference between this world that you are sensing from physical senses or the bodily senses and the world that the mind can create. It's all mind created. I am using the word mind because it's kind of informal talk now. It's the path of the occult. Don't worry, I am going to train you how to do that. Those who are interested, they can do this. You will notice very soon that, this is all that is happening, isn't it? That is all that is happening. The world is a dream, your life is a dream, it is an imagination. The dreamer is dreaming, that's all that is happening. When I say experiencing, existence is experiencing itself in illusory forms. This is the whole truth, isn't it?

What are these illusory forms? Imagination. Images are being formed of the self, out of the self. You see, when I say occult, it has a very deep root. It is based on truth. Imagination is the truth. Can you believe it? What you think is real is actually an imagination. One experience and it is done. We don't want to indulge in that thing, useless, it is already going on. The same thing is going on. Creation of the dream out of nothing, that is what is happening. You think it is my life, that is your ignorance. That is our collective ignorance. We are in a collective dream and we have assumed it as true and that is the biggest ignorance. We think I was born here, we think I am going to die, we think I have relatives and my money in the bank is real. No, it is digital dirt. Whatever you have gathered is virtual, dream stuff. It is nothing. It is empty. It is a play. If you play it as a play, if you take it as imagination, then your life is bliss, amazing, isn't it?

Question: please talk about when a seeker falls in love with the divine.

You cannot become a seeker if you are not in love with the divine. How can you become a seeker? You are in love with the world, yes, then you are not a seeker. I am not saying the world is not divine, world is that which is, world is me. As soon as you decide to take a spiritual path, it is your love only and the love then matures, it becomes deeper and deeper and broader and broader. The whole spiritual exercise is like falling in love, and remember, love is about giving, so it is just letting go, give away. Path of knowledge is the path of love. You are in love with knowledge.

Can anybody here imagine being ignorant? No. Do you want to go back to ignorance? “Let me be a worldly person now. I don't want any knowledge”. I am not saying there is a problem in being a worldly person, but the condition there is very bad. Nobody goes back from spiritual to non-spiritual, never seen. It happens only in very odd cases when there is a mental distortion that happens due to spiritual practices. Then the Guru sends them back to the world because the world cures madness through suffering. We are in deep love with the knowledge because that is fulfilling and as you know the knowledge is not simply intellectual. We go beyond intellect and only love can go beyond intellect. Your logic will never take you to that union with the divine. Logic clears the hurdles to the union. When Shiva meets Shakti, it is not because it is a logical process. It is a recognition that I am the Shakti, that I am the Shiva. It is a realization. The intellect has a job of making the way. It clears the way. The intellect lets the lovers meet.

Who is the villain? The villain is ignorance, does not want them to meet, keeps them separated. I am separate, you are separate. What is that? Ignorance. Actually, you blame it on Maya but you see the Maya is innocent, she is producing a dream, that's all. We have taken it as something else. “We” means the ego or the tendency to survive, that's all. That doesn't mean that we should stop survival. No, continue without ignorance. There is no problem at all. It happens. And now the whole life is a love affair. When you don't see the other as separate, you are in love. Who is loving? Nobody. Who is being loved? Nobody. It is pure love. It is unconditional love. So you must be thinking now he is talking a lot of mumbo jumbo but the topic is like this. It is totally illogical. There is no logic here. It is all poetry.

Why is it possible to love the divine? Because I am the divine. Ultimately, the divine loves itself. The divine is in love with herself. There is nothing else to love. Self love. Because it is not so satisfactory, it divides itself into two or more and then it plays the drama of love and separation. More fun that way, isn't it? Will you watch a movie in which in the first five minutes the hero and heroine marry and then for the next two hours they do nothing? No, you won't watch that movie. There needs to be drama. There needs to be a twist. That movie is more successful. She wants to watch that movie. That is what has happened. There is a possibility of that and that is what we are experiencing. We are experiencing separation without being separate.

The biggest force in this universe is lust. It is just a physical expression of the love that I am. Why is it the biggest? Because right now we are in that mode. Right now we have chosen to experience that kind of love. It is the biggest. You cannot argue about it. Many seekers will keep on taking birth here because their bodies are not satisfied yet. They will come back. Many seekers. So what is my recommendation? Don't hold it back. Get your desires fulfilled. It is all love. The body, the feelings, the emotions, even the intellect is in love. You will see immediately that you cannot fall in love with a very stupid person unless the stupid person is very sweet, innocent. By stupidity I mean almost a criminal mind, selfish person. Innocent people cannot be called stupid. More like a child. Stupid person is a harmful person. You will see in this it is not possible to love such a person. But a highly intelligent person, you want to be with that person. You want to read the books written by him or her. You want to listen to those talks. And this has happened to me. I spend most of my time like this. Because the path of knowledge is highly intellectual, we spend time like this. And if the energy in the head becomes too much, then you relax and do something which is more grounding. Like eating, showering, gardening, cooking, and if you have a partner, do whatever the partners do. It is all okay. It is life. It is love. It is all divine. The temple is our body where the divine resides. It is all one huge play. And the play is happening because we love this play. We don't need to stop it. We simply accept it.

Question: Can you please talk more about surrender, acceptance, and grace and the interrelation between them?

Surrender and acceptance are one and the same thing. How do we proceed on the path of knowledge? We discard that which is not you and that is a process of surrender, you can say. No, I am not the body. So sad. No problem. I am not it. I am not the emotions. And so on. You surrender all these things which you have accumulated somehow. You call it mine, me. And now we let go of it. You stay as the essence. You stay as the true nature. All the illusion is also me. You accept it. Why does it all happen? It is because of grace. You can find the interrelation between them.

Why is it not happening to everybody? Why is there no surrender in people or there is no acceptance in people? Some people are spiritual but they are searching. I want to get away from the illusion. I want to get dissolved. What is that? Non-acceptance. Why is that? There is grace but they are not looking towards grace. Grace is raining but they have an umbrella on. They don't want to get wet in this grace. So when there is grace, which is unexplainable, like everything else, you cannot know what is grace. It is a maturing of some kind. So when that time comes, the Guru appears and the Guru gives you the tools. The Guru is not going to make you surrender. The Guru shows, look, I am surrendered. Can you try it? Yes. And the Guru helps them. The Guru says, I have accepted. Can you try it? Yes. So we say that it is Guru's grace. But actually it is something else.

I don't think there is much to say about this thing. When you reach the peak of knowledge, you surrender. And when you see that it is an illusion, you accept. Discarding the illusion or discarding all that, which is not me, is also a mental activity. See it like this. The experiencer never says that I don't want Maya. The experiencer never says - take it away, I don't want it. It is blissfully experiencing. Who is not accepting? It is the ego, it is the mind, it is the mental activity. Grace is simply the event that causes this thing. The event is seen as the appearance of a Guru. Nothing at all will happen without a Guru. Yes, there can be one or two events in your life which look like grace. There is an explanation for it, whether you believe it or not. The explanation is your past practice which has happened under a Guru. You carry these seeds and they germinate in this lifetime and you get all those experiences of various kinds. Some people get powers and all, some people get abilities and that is because they have done this since many lifetimes. And there is a miracle, the same Guru appears in every lifetime, most of the time it will happen. I cannot prove all these things obviously, but grace is mysterious, there is no need to ask for evidence of it. Your experience is your evidence not others', your own experience. Others' experience is an inspiration.

Question: We can change the range of the attention, we can narrow it down to a single activity or we can go on including more activities in it to broaden it. When do we use narrowing and broadening of attention? Patanjali specifies using saiyam to understand many things. How can we understand the role of attention in the same way?

It is very easy, the narrowing must be done to train the attention. I have told you two kinds of attentions, which is the exclusive attention and the inclusive attention. So whatever you are calling the narrowing, I call it the exclusive attention. And when you say broadening, I call it the inclusive attention. In Sanskrit, Ananya and Samaveshi, there are many names. Attention is also called concentration. There are only two possibilities there, narrowing and broadening. Exclusive and inclusive.

When do we do the exclusive? When we want to train our attention. Why do we want to train our attention? Because you can say it is totally indisciplined, like a wild bird is flying away here and there. You need to cage the bird, wrong kind of metaphor, but you get the point. You need to train it to be fixed on something, a single object. For example, an external object, a candle or a dot on the wall. Then you train it to focus on a bodily sensation. For example, you touch your fingers and sit there, keeping your attention on this touch. Then you train it on something more subtle, which is the breathing. You cannot see the breathing, but you feel it. Then you go even more non-physical. You settle it on an emotion, a sweet emotion. Anything sweet, because obviously you don't want to concentrate on anything negative. Then you go even deeper in the layers and you imagine something. A picture, a flower, a light etc. and then whatever you imagine appears. Put your concentration there, put your attention there and then you will find that it never goes beyond that.

By the way, there are some people who report that whenever they sit in meditation they see a light or they hear a sound. Why is that? There is a simple explanation which probably nobody will believe me that they have done this since many lifetimes. The Guru told them, imagine a light in your mind and the screen of the mind and focus your attention there. They imagine the light or imagine a sound, a mantra, like om, and they hear this sound and they don't have any explanation. “I never did this thing and this is happening to me. I just sit with my eyes closed and listen”. You see this is your past impression showing up here. So anyway, you go from gross to the subtle and the non-physical and the mental and the Non-mental. That trains the attention. That's all. It's a discipline. It's a yogic discipline. How do you do that? You need to sit down for that and then the asana comes into picture. Your body must be healthy to sit down at least for 20 minutes. And if you have a lot of desires, what do they do? There is an eight-fold path now. You cannot sit because your responsibilities are not letting you sit. You don't have five minutes in your life to sit down. That means some things need to be fixed. So we have yam, niyam and pratyahara to stop the sensory overload. These are all prescribed. They are all medicines.

When you become a master of exclusive attention, you are told to do the inclusive attention. Which means you go on including things in your attention. And why do we do this? To get to the state of experiencing. You can say awareness also. That is inclusive awareness. It is not possible without awareness. And it is not possible without self-realization. Self-realization is not possible without a guru or the path of knowledge. So you see how elaborate this whole system is. How systematic it is. How intelligent it is. And it is happening since many thousand years. I am simply repeating all this for the current time. Inclusive attention takes you to inclusive awareness of everything. What is the state where everything is included in one? What do yogis call it? This is the state of samadhi. Inclusive meditation, inclusive attention takes you to samadhi. Amazing system.

How is it that everybody is doing all this circus and they don't get to samadhi? Nobody tells them how to do it systematically. It takes a guru. It takes somebody who has already done that. Otherwise there is no way you will come to samadhi. There is no way you will come to oneness, awareness or whatever you want to call it. Experiencing. They are all the same. That's why nothing moves without a guru. Now when I tell you like this, isn't it crystal clear? No doubt remains in your mind. Oh, he told me to sit down and close my eyes and do this thing, the japa and all. And there is a doubt in you. “Am I wasting my time here? What is going to happen? Am I going to get powers? Am I going to see a god or goddess?” Nothing happens there. Because there is a doubt. The job of the guru is to clear the doubt, give the practice and correct the practice. You will need to keep reporting to me or whomever is your guru that I am doing this. This is the experience. This is what is happening. I am getting tired or I have this unfulfilled desire and all. And the guru does whatever he can. He does the course correction. He keeps the train on the track. As soon as you are derailed, you are told to stop. If you are not progressing, you go back. Start from the beginning or start from wherever you are right now, whatever you have mastered.

Question: Should I not ask any question till the program finishes?

That would be amazing. That will be the ideal situation when the student is so surrendered that simply absorbs anything without complaining, without doubting even. Nowadays we don't find such students. Actually there are some people who never show up in the satsang also. They are simply absorbing whatever I am giving. That will be ideal. But no, our intellect is too over-active. We want to know everything today.

Question: If I am the experiencer, then what has tied me to this local memory right now? Maybe after some practices I will be able to experience other memories. But right now also I am the experiencer. So this should be possible right now also, but it isn't. Why?

Can you please tell me, who is experiencing the other memories? Experiencer. What is your complaint now? Isn't the experiencer experiencing all there is to experience right now? You need to convince yourself that there is one experiencer and it is the existence. That is the foundation of the path of knowledge, non-duality. You need to confirm it again and again that it is one. Keep doing it every day. If it is one, then it is experiencing everything.

“No, I don't know that it is experiencing everything”. That is probably your complaint. Yes, there are many local memories. What if you connect all these memories? Now everything will be experienced? Am I right? No, there will be no meaningful experience. Now tell me, are all these memories connected or not? That becomes a little bit theoretical. We know that all the memories are just one, one sea of memory. It is called the universal memory, the Akashic memory. There is no individual memory. The local memory has happened due to the necessity of survival. It has happened due to the necessity of having a meaningful experience, which is possible only by limiting the experience. That's all that is happening. That's all you are witnessing. Don't worry, it's not going to remain forever. Do you think it will remain forever? No, it will not remain forever and the timelessness ensures that it has already gone. Your limitation has already gone. You are timeless. The time appears in the memory. You are not appearing in time. So for you, everything has already happened. The limitation has happened, the freedom has happened, the unlimited has happened and everything else in between has happened.

Now, why do I want to experience every other memory? That is our tendency. We don't like to be limited. That is why there is this question. Although I am everything, although I am the universal experiencer and although all minds are already connected, right now, right here in the waking state I am limited to one. Remember, only the waking state. The lower layers are active in the waking state, because you are acting in the world, here you must be limited, else you won't survive. It is movementary. This wall is constructed around the area in the memory which I call as a local memory and it is forbidden to know anything else except that which your senses are telling. There the ego throws this question. You accept the illusion, you accept the limited experience while fully knowing I am unlimited. Don't give too much importance to what your ego is telling you.

How many can you count? I count only one. How many can others count? They count only one. What is the difference between these two knowledges of the experiencer? Because you cannot see the experiencer, you can only compare the qualities and they are exactly the same. Like the sky is blue for everybody, the sky is big for everybody and the sky is unlimited for all. And you conclude there is only one sky. You do all that which the intellect is capable of and then you conclude that it is the one.

Now I will tell you something which is not in the program, although it is there, but it is not so clear. You do this experiment of living in oneness, you do this experiment of being the one and you see what happens. Check whether you get glimpses of the other local memories, check if it happens or not. Is there anybody here for whom this has happened? A mother who knows what her child is thinking, a lover who knows my love is going to call me now. Tiny glimpses, is there anybody here who has seen the universal memory in action? Yes, This is the ordinary way to experience universal memory. Actually I have never seen anybody who has not gotten a glimpse of it. The universe is giving you hints all the time, especially those with the spiritual inclination, they get the hints all the time. So when you start living as oneness, these events are going to increase. Those who want to know what are the ways of knowing the universal memory, I know that it is like this, but there is no solid concrete evidence.

How to get the evidence of universal memory? It falls under the study of illusion. So I don't put too much importance on it, but you can do it. But this all comes under the occult, so we have conveniently removed it from the path of knowledge. Nobody likes this impurity in the path of knowledge. It deals with pure spirituality, which is the study of the self. Anyhow, these things are possible. I have given you the techniques, I have given you the tools. There are three ways in which the universal memory can be known directly. So your question is going to vanish. Right now, I can only say this much that using direct experience and logic, it looks like the waking state is a limited state. Is the experience limited in the waking state or is the experiencer limited? Yes, experience is limited. Right now you can see it and the experience is limited, not the experiencer. And that gives you a clue that whatever I am taking as my limitation is actually a limitation of the experience. It's a limitation that is created by the senses, nervous system, body and the need of the creature to remain alive. There is a belief that I am the experience, or that this limitation is taken by the experiencer.

Who does this? The mind does it, not the experiencer. Experiencer never says I am limited. It is happy watching the limited also. It is happy in the waking state also, which is the probably most narrow and most limited state that this memory structure can be in. That's why the goal of the seeker is to get rid of human birth. What is the goal of human life? Get rid of human life. That does not mean kill yourself, you can only kill the body. It is called liberation for a reason, because you are liberated from this need to be limited. Just make this spiritual intention that I don't want a human birth next time and you will never need to deal with the limited experience again. Remember, the experience will become meaningless when it becomes unlimited. So you don't want to give away this ability to be limited. It is a Siddhi. So if you are suddenly given this gift of experiencing everything, you will be lost. Your intellect won't be able to handle it really. Remember, you are given only that which you can handle right now in this staircase of spiritual evolution. So we don't want to lose this Siddhi of being limited. The power that you have being a body, the disembodied beings don't have, they are jealous of you. So, that's why humans command them.

Have you seen the occult people, they command these disembodied things, whatever they are, they are under our command. How is that possible? We are powerful because we have the limitation of the body, because we are able to take birth and because we are able to die. Remember, if you don't die, you will be permanently caged in the limited experience. Who wants that? Nobody wants that. Remember, it's all ignorance. It's all perfect already. It's all beautiful, whole and complete and as good as it can be already. Death is good, limitation is good, waking state is good, all the powers that you have are good. There are complaints because of ignorance. Ignorance of what this is, ignorance of what I am and ignorance of all this illusion.

That's why we tell you what you are, we tell you what you are not and we tell you the nature of the illusion. There is nothing more to know. Experiencer has nothing to say. But we don't say that oh the mind is stupid, it does not know. The curiosity is genuine. If you don't have this curiosity, then you will never progress. The limitation that the intellect encounters turns into curiosity, that is the key to progress on the path of knowledge. So keep asking the questions, keep studying, keep meditating, go on writing, go on doing your purification, and amazing things will happen. You are going to love your human life, you don't like it because of ignorance. It is already perfect, it is already beautiful, it is the self-love. Nothing else is happening here, it's a love affair with myself, I am the only one.

Session 95

Question: How does everything start from potential and spirals up to end in potential?

The bottom most layer is actually a potential, there is nothing there, and the top most is also the same. So everything comes from pure emptiness and then dissolves into pure emptiness. There is a better way of saying it that it remains a potential all the time but it appears as this multi-layered structure. This multi-layered structure is nothing but our experience. Any kind of experience falls very nicely, precisely into this multi-layered structure. If you know this layered structure of memory, the whole manifestation, the whole of it will be known essentially. It is the biggest possible picture, but the amazing thing about this is that it never happened and that is demonstrated by the top and bottom layers which are nothing but pure potential, which means there is nothing but potential for things to appear. It remains like this, only it appears to be there. Clearly it is beyond our intellect that why and when and how and all, answers to these questions come out to be unknowable or it seems that these questions are not applicable to whatever there is, we name it as the existence.

This also shows the grand cycle, the biggest possible cycle that everything comes from potential and dissolves back in the potential. This cyclic activity happens to the whole of the structure. The biggest picture appears and then disappears. Everything is coming from almost nothing and it is going into almost nothing and that again answers the question of purpose or meaning or goal, hardly any goal. If it goes into potential, if it turns back into nothing, for us, for our intelligence, it is nothing only, potential means nothing. So there cannot be any purpose. It looks like there is an apparent evolution that is happening of the patterns of vibrations that we perceive as objects, living things, non-living things and everything that is there, physical, non-physical, metaphysical. It has no purpose.

Why does it appear at all? And the answer is look, nothing is appearing. It remains a potential and this is again beyond our logical ability. How is it possible that it remains a potential while it appears so real and you can see now that the illusion is unexplainable. Not much can be explained at this level. Yes, you give me the illusion and then some things can be explained about it. Why did this happen? When the laws of memory come into picture, what are these states and the states come in picture, what are these activities and the activities come in picture, the vrittis, the avasthas and all these things can be explained very nicely. This is called the science of memory.

Question: How are all the involuntary activities like heart beating, breathing, digestion being observed by the experiencer? Is there any memory of these activities? What is the controlling force behind them?

When you look at the heart, you can see the heart beating. When you look at breathing, you can see the breathing and you can observe the digestion. It does not matter whether it is voluntary or involuntary. It is being experienced by the experiencer only. Who else will experience these things? And if I know that there is a heart beating, if I'm pretty sure that the heart is beating, then obviously it has been experienced.

Now the question is, how is it experienced? As you know, the how question points to a process and as you know that there is no process behind experience that we have already covered in the basic analysis of the experience. No experience is being experienced through a process. It is just there. This is also something which the intellect will struggle to grasp. If they are separate, why is there no process between them? What connects the experience and the experiencer? The answer is simple. That which connects the wave to the ocean is the process. What connects the wave to the ocean? Nothing. They are one and the same. And another example is - that which connects the gold ring to the gold is the process. Gold ring is the name and form, gold is the essence. So what connects the experience to the experiencer? What process? How is it happening? Well it is one. Experience is the Experiencer. When seen together, they are Experiencing, with a capital E.

Is there any memory of these activities? Yes. How else I will remember that there was a heart beating. What is the controlling force behind them? No, there is no controlling force. This is another assumption that some force is controlling these activities. No. Everything is happening on its own. If you can call it happening at the level of the illusion, we can say that things are happening. Actually they are not, but we cannot stay at that level for long before becoming insane. At the level of non-duality, there is insanity and intellect does not work there. So we drop down very quickly at the level of duality or the illusion. Various things are happening, it seems that they are happening.

When you are asking what is the force behind them, you are asking for a reason. It is the “why” question. Why is this happening? Who is controlling it? Who is doing it? The answer is, as usual, everything in the illusion is reasonless. No reason at all. No controlling force at all. If you assume there is a force, it will be an imagination because you will never find a force. What are our means of knowledge? Direct experience and logic. When you utilize both of them, you will never find a force that controls any of the happenings, any of the events they appear to happen.

Now, there is an explanation why it is a structure that has evolved to do that which it is doing. The cells are formed to support a life process. Why is the cell doing what it is doing? Answer is very simple. This is a possibility and that possibility is appearing there. And so it does whatever it takes to survive. The cells, the bacteria, the virus and all. What is the force behind it? Nothing. Whatever processes that I have listed that go on in any complex structure, any complex pattern, they are operating there. For example, self-organization and replication and destruction and so on. There are 10 to 20 processes that I have listed. Probably there are more, but they are enough to get a good picture of what is going on. The processes that I have listed are enough. So these processes are the controlling force behind it. The processes that I have listed, self-organization, the drive to remain alive, survival mechanisms. Because if they don't happen, if your food is not digested, you won't stay there. This structure will not stay there. If there is no breathing or heart beating, there won't be anybody. So starting from the simple cells, same process. The cell takes in some organic matter, air and whatever and then a process then simply replicates the cell. It makes an exact copy of it, the DNA replication mechanism. It is a process of self-replication. You can see it and that is what, you can say, is controlling this life process. And when they evolve more, the same intake of food becomes digestion. The same circulation of molecules in the cell becomes your circulatory system. The heart is just one of the organs there. The same oxygen that is required for the functioning of the cell becomes your respiratory system. The same mechanism has evolved, has accumulated more and more, and has become more complex.

In one of the talks I have said that all life is a digestive pipe. All human beings are just a pipe which digest foods. And supporting systems have evolved around this pipe of digestion. It is one way to see what a human being or any other creature is. Just a system that supports digestion. Now you will say, no, that sounds so depressing. I am not like that. So don't worry, you are not that. You are experiencing that structure. You are the experiencer. Body is a colony of microbes. I describe the body as an ecosystem of microbes. You think it is human cells, no. Everything is there in the body. Almost 70% of the cells in the body are non-human. It is an ecosystem that has evolved around this food pipe which digests food. And all the systems are supporting systems for this digestion mechanism, including the senses, which allow this structure to survive by sensing where the food is. Humans have hacked into this system and converted into a mechanism for knowing the truth of what they are. Now this is what I called a miracle. There is no other bigger miracle than this, that this food pipe is able to understand what it is. Is it even possible?

Remember all these things are illusions. Is it possible that the illusion understands what it is? When you ask a self-realized one - Who realizes the self? And the answer will be simple, the self realizes itself. This creature does not realize anything. It only knows survival. This is a survival mechanism, that's all. So the force that is controlling this mechanism is automated processes of survival. You already know the survival mechanism through evolutionary theory and in India we have known it for many thousand years actually. So the reason is probably much more refined than what is told in modern evolutionary Theory. The ancient theory says that it is the vibration, and the vibration forms stable patterns. And if the patterns do not have an associated process which stabilizes them, then the patterns are no more. You can see the survival of the fittest is ingrained in the non-physical, non-mental patterns, which I am calling the vibrating patterns. If that pattern does not form a copy of itself, it will perish because of the force of impermanence. It is a vibration, so it does not last. Vibration must come and go, otherwise it is not a vibration, it is a change. So it changes. Change means impermanence. So to counter the impermanence, it makes a copy of itself. Now you can see the procreative tendencies are ingrained at the level of the vibration itself. The strongest force that keeps all these creatures alive is the procreative force. That is why sexual desire is the strongest desire in any creature. You cannot handle it, you cannot stop it, you cannot do anything about it. It expresses no matter what.

Why? Because replication is the ground of all life. Without the replication, there won't be any stable pattern. Without self-organization, which means self-preservation, there won't be any structure. Take a group of structures and the one that is doing all the self-organization and replication will remain. Others will be carried away in the stream of impermanence, they will disappear. This is the natural selection at the level of the vibrating patterns. So the evolutionary theory goes very deep actually. It is possible to know the whole creation like this. One of my gurus calls it a Fundamental Process, and I use the same phrase. That is all there is, that is happening. That is controlling your digestion, breathing and all. The fundamental process of self-organization, replication and then dissolution. Why does it dissolve if it does so much to live? Impermanence, it is just vibration. So it builds up from and goes back into potential. Everything comes from nothing and goes back to nothing without any reason. If that cannot blow your mind, then nothing will. Amazing, isn't it?

Question: How does one deal with expectations? How can one bring these qualities in their actions, which are unconditional love, non-attachment and selfless actions?

Detachment. Selfless action. It means you are living in complete awareness. The my-ness is gone. That is called the ego. Aham bhav. The little self, the separate self which is trying to survive. So how does the detachment happen? By letting go of that which is actually not mine but is considered as mine. Let go of selfishness. That is possible only when you know what I am and what I am not. That knowledge of what I am is called awareness.

How to get awareness? Everybody knows probably, through self-realization. How to get self-realization? Walk on the path of knowledge. How to walk on the path of knowledge? Follow the instructions. You will be taken there. These qualities will, as a side effect, develop in you. Do you need to work on them? No, you don't. You need to work on knowledge. Know what you are. Get this knowledge first. The qualities appear. These are the fruits. They appear instantly after self-realization. When you know that you are the other person, what will be your treatment for that other person? Unconditional love. When you know that objects, gold and money are illusions, what will be your attitude? Non-attachment. All a result of knowledge. Do not run after these things. They are a natural consequence of knowledge.

What about the expectations? Expectations simply mean desires. They are not my desires. Expectation is simply the desire that somebody should do something or it should happen according to my wish. That is a wish. That is a desire. So, by knowing that no desire is mine, all the expectations drop automatically. They simply happen. Most of them are survival related and if it is a survival issue, it should be done and it happens automatically. Nobody is there to do it. Then you live in non-expectation. It's very easy. It is just like a feather light condition. You are under such a burden because you have too many expectations. All your relations are a miserable failure because of these expectations.

What is the reason for expectations? The ego. The me-ness. I want others to do what I like. This is stupidity. This is ignorance. Again, the solution is knowledge. Sometimes we need to keep some expectations there. Because I go to the shop and I pay some money, I expect the product. But if the expectation is not met, you simply forget it and do something else to get your job done. This is how life becomes. For practical reasons, you do it but if they are not met, you do something else. You find a solution to your problem in another way. This fellow is not behaving as I expected. Okay, just get rid of that fellow. Kick him out of your life. Get somebody else. And it is unconditional, obviously. You are not affected by it. It is purely practical in nature. It looks like I am becoming a rock. No, it is love actually. When you don't expect anything from the other, it is love. It is only a gesture of giving. Be whatever you want to be. And they will love you back for this. This is guaranteed. You don't become a rock. Don't worry. How is everything love only? How is everything selfless but still self-love only? Only that it is a bigger self-love. It is all-inclusive love. Knowledge is the key.

Question: Objects are formed out of emptiness. They exist only when sensed by another form and saved in memory. So to label some form as read by hundred forms, say human individuals, should not the perception of hundred individuals be exactly the same? Is this a permanent experience of the human forms?

This is what I call contemplation. Look at this. This is coming out of a very deep thinking process. For some time the intellect did not jump like a monkey and thought something useful. So yes, it is almost guaranteed that all human perception will be the same. It is almost guaranteed that the red seen by you will be exactly the same red which is seen by me. And why is that? Because the starting vibration is the same and everybody agrees about that. And the receiving end is also similar. The senses are constructed in a similar way. The format, the information is similar. And they end up in a system or the structure which is a copy of each other. You and I are copies, exactly a perfect match. There are tiny differences, but they do not matter. So it is almost guaranteed that the perception will be of similar quality. Like I can describe the red as a hot color. It is a color of violence and so on. And you will describe it in the same way.

There can be cases where the red will not be seen as red, but something else. Those individuals do not survive for long. There can be odd cases here and there, but we will never come to know. So normally, the experiences labeled red will be, mostly, be of similar kind there. Otherwise, it was very difficult to communicate. If I see a cow and you see a monkey, well, something is really wrong in the copies that were made. It is something very odd. But the interesting thing is, you see a red flower but the honeybee is going to see something else. You see a flower which is plain. There is nothing in the flower like a flat red color. Honeybee is going to see a pattern in the flower. The pattern is of some other irreducible quality there, which guides the honeybee to the nectar. It was shown by experiments. You can Google that thing that the honeybees see the flower in a different way than humans. There are ultraviolet patterns in the flower. It is amazing, isn't it? The honeybees can see ultraviolet light. They have compound eyes, a thousand eyes. So I am not expecting these structures, these creatures to see that which the humans see. Some creatures which have a thousand eyes cannot be compared to humans, what kind of mind will be the honeybee and believe me, they are as complicated as us. A society of honeybees and their intelligence is very much like humans. Never underestimate these things. Humans have this hubris that we are superior. They are the dumbest actually. They have a different life, they are aliens. Something interesting here, that yes, if the structures match, if they are copies of one another, then the perceptions should match, although I cannot actually directly prove It.

Question: What should I do as experiencer, so that I don't participate in the illusion of Maya?

Now look at this. A polar opposite question. You don't really know what experiencer is. You should not use this word. If you ask me, what should I do, I can understand this thing, that yes, the I is the doer and it must do something. Experiencer is not the doer. If you remove the experiencer, I can answer your question. If you want to keep the experiencer, I will say that no, the experiencer does nothing. The experiencer experiences, it is a witness, it will never do anything, don't even think about it. Nobody is there to do. But, what should I do? Yes, we will keep the I and now it will be meaningful.

You should not say - “illusion of Maya”. Maya and illusion are the same thing. So it will become an illusion of illusion, which is not correct. What should we do to get out of the illusion? And the answer is very simple. Know what is illusion. Know what is the truth. And then be the truth, don't be the illusion. Simple. If you think I am the body, then you are in the trap of the illusion. You are participating in the illusion. I am not saying it is wrong. No, it is not wrong but it is your wish to not do that. So know the truth, what you are. And probably you know it, but there is a confusion there, it is not certain for you yet. So you are the experiencer, which is just a witness. That is the truth. And now be that and you are out of it. You will find that the experiencer is untouched by the illusion. The screen is not touched by the moving pictures. A bomb explodes on the screen, but nothing happens to the screen. It is an illusion. The screen knows that it is an illusion and the screen allows any kind of picture on it. That is what is happening. So you be the screen, you be the truth and let there be illusion because once you become the truth, which you already are, just realize this, then we don't bother about the movie that is playing on the screen. And remember the truth or you or the experiencer does not do anything to stop the illusion. It is okay with it. It is content. Actually, it is enjoying the illusion. You can say it like this. It is in the anand or bliss all the time. Remove the illusion. There is no preference there. Experiencer is very pure. It is empty of any conditioning.

Who wants to be out of the illusion? Illusion itself. There is nobody there. It is an illusion only. It is an illusion that is thinking that let me get out of the illusion. Is it possible? If you think like this, it's a big joke, isn't it? The illusory individual will never get rid of the illusion by thinking that I want to be out of the illusion. And so, liberation is never achieved by effort. Amazing, isn't it? How can one simple question bring you to such a deep realization? Liberation from the illusion is never achieved by effort because the effort itself is an illusion. Because all this thinking, all this desiring that I need to be out of the illusion is done by the illusion itself. But that is useful because this effort brings you to the truth. There you realize that the effort was not needed. And now you are confused about what is happening, what I am saying. Yes, it is like this. Isn't that amazing? Whole spirituality is full of things like this. It's like onion or jalebi. Round and round and round, makes no sense. But ultimately everything is okay because self-realization has been achieved because of this desire to get out of the illusion. So the answer comes out to be that, yes, I need to desire liberation in order to realize what I am. Once the realization is there, the desire is dropped. The desire is seen as an illusion.

Question: how can we differentiate between discipline and control? Because control creates opposing thoughts of doing one thing or not doing.

There is a willingness in being disciplined, but control is unwillingness. That is how you differentiate. If I wanted to keep everybody in control, I would use the words like “obey my orders”. But that has not been done because seekers cannot be ordered to do anything. That is your freedom. That is your will. Free will. If you want to use free will. Yes, I tell you to do this and only then it will be useful for you. Now you are willing to be like that. Like, you want to play a musical instrument. Now the teacher says that you need to practice two hours every day. Play it like this and your desire to play that instrument, become the master of that instrument and produce a beautiful song, beautiful music. Your own desire is so much that you control yourself to do it. That is called self-discipline.

What has happened is because of politically correct language, people use words like - “I disciplined him”. The teacher uses the word in school that we need to discipline the students. What are they doing really? They are forcing the students. They are controlling the students. Without their will, they are stuffing stuff in their minds. That is not discipline. That is torture. Discipline has a voluntary vibe to it. It's a voluntary activity. School is not. If there are opposing thoughts of doing and not doing, it means there is no discipline. Yes, discipline has this understanding that if I do these things, it will be to my advantage. But there will be a fine line between this. In the military, there is a huge amount of discipline. But there is also understanding that I am being controlled for a reason. The soldier surrenders to the superior. There can be interpretations like this because in the human world, nothing is black and white.

Question: Will not the fulfillment of desires make us indulge in them more?

I want you to do this experiment actually. You should not believe me. Suppose you want to eat a specific food today. I want to eat mushroom pizza today, let us say. Because you like mushroom pizza. You order the pizza. You eat it. It is the fulfillment of desire, isn't it? Next day you get the same desire. You eat it the next day also. But how long can you do it? The desire is killed by fulfillment. Can you indulge in eating mushroom pizza all of your life? Rest of your life? Doing nothing else? It's not possible. So this is what I mean. One hint is enough to the mind that it has been fulfilled. There are ways to fulfill your desire without actually doing any action. I have given you the keys for that. Those who are smart will understand. In the dream or in the Iccha Lok, it is possible. For those who are interested there are solutions that have worked for thousands of years. You can use them. Those who want a simple life, continue with your simple life. Nothing is wrong there. What is wrong is ignorance.

Question: I forgive people but anger and resentment is still there. Is this natural to have these feelings when one hurts you?

Yes. It is very natural. Let the feelings be there and let them come and go. Observe all these feelings. Simply observing will get rid of them. And then you do the forgiving routine whenever it happens. That is also slightly occult. Do not try to stop these feelings. Suppression will not work. Suppression means it is now taken deep into the causal body somewhere. Deepest desires are stuffed deep into the causal body. We don't know how many million years it will take for the causal body to come back to that desire which you suppressed. This is slightly ignorant, I know. Giving too much importance to the illusion of this body, mind and causal body and all. But being a human, we have nothing else to do anyway. Do the purification. That is what I recommend after realizing the truth. Let the purification happen which is already happening. Support it. Remove the obstacles in the path of this river of purification. Don't build dams if it is purifying.

Question: Experiencer is only conscious. What stores experiences in memory? Or nothing is like this. If so, then why is there an illusion of past experiences?

There is memory, that's why. The memory stores the experiences. We call it the mind sometimes. What is it that is doing this storage of memory? If I say memory is doing it, you won't understand it. So let us say the mind is doing it. Now probably you will understand. It is a process that is happening. The impinging of the experiences through the senses on the memory is a process. It is a natural process that is happening. It will happen even if you don't want it. So as soon as there is formation of memories. There you have the past experiences. Experiencer is not doing it. Experiencer is watching this happening. Experiencer does nothing, as you know. As you have written rightly. It is only conscious. It only knows that this is happening. Whatever is doing it, is doing it. This process is taking place. In the case of humans, survival is the need. There is a need to gather experiences. If you want to get the reason for it. At another level of vibrations and non-duality there is no reason. But from the point of view of the human, at this level of the human, in the multi-level picture, humans have a need to survive. I need to experience where my food is. Where is my drawing room, my bedroom. What happened to me last year. Who wants to kill me. I need to remember all these experiences. There is a need to form a memory of it. Without a memory structure there is no entity. The human entity is trying to maintain itself. Obviously it fails in the end. But the process becomes like this, of gaining experiences, storing experiences for the purpose of survival only.

We have taken the survival process to the next level. And we use the same process of gaining knowledge, formation of memories and experiences, storage of experiences to gather knowledge. Knowledge of not only survival related things, but also of other things like arts, sciences, philosophy and spirituality. This has happened in the human form. That is why this form is so important. Even though we want to get rid of it, it is the most beneficial form.

Question: Is self-realization not enough, to be totally dis-identified from past karma?

I think it is enough. Whose karma is it? Whose actions are they? Whose memory store it is? Karma actually means memory storage. Not mine. There is nothing which is mine. This is the realization. You know the self and you know what it does and what it does not do. The owning happens in the mind. That is the process that is going on. The identity creation process. Ahankara is happening in the memory in the layer of the identity. So it is not me. That is dis-identification. This is happening in the layer of intellect. The responsible process is awareness. Awareness causes dis-identification. Whenever there is identification, you watch it. Let the identification happen as usual. And then there will be knowing that the usual thing is happening by identifying with whatever I have done in the past. Or whatever my memory is saying. And then it is cleared. It is not my karma. Your intellect will say this. Not mine. And then if you have the wisdom, you will not stop it. You will let it happen. If it is not mine, who can stop it? There is nobody to stop it then. So what do we say? The necessary things happen. Don't stop it. The stopping is also a sign of ignorance. The stopping is also a sign of Unawareness.

If I am about to kill somebody. Should I not stop it? If it is necessary, killing will happen. No matter what. If it is not necessary, it will not happen. This is how we answer such questions. This light of awareness shines on this action. If it is seen as unnecessary, it will not happen. And if the person is like a gangster who is trying to kill you and you have a gun in your hand, then the obvious thing will happen. The awareness will also say ok go ahead, kill that fellow. There is no ethics in awareness. Nothing is ethical, nothing is unethical for an aware person. That gives you the answer of what is ethical. That which is necessary is ethical. Simple. Everybody has different ethics, because the gangster who is trying to kill you, it is totally ethical for him to rob you and kill you. Totally ok for him. You do your action. Action happens without identification.

Some people are very much worried that if I disidentify that this is not my action, I should not do these things and my past and all is not mine. No life will remain. Who will live my life? Who will do the actions? Whose past will it be? I have good news here that everything continues as it is. Probably not so good news. But yes, a refinement of the actions takes place there. Disidentification with the past will set you free to do whatever you want. Right now you are not free from the past because the past is controlling the present. Right? If you disidentify, you will experience a freedom like never before. There are some practical uses of disidentification. That is why it is recommended. The past trauma and all these feelings of revenge can be gotten rid of. It is a therapy. Even though I am on the path of knowledge where these things are not done, I recommend it. Sometimes I will prescribe you some very strange things and processes. That's why when a person achieves some level of spiritual maturity we change his or her name also. Get rid of the surname and all these caste and race and whatever was slapped onto you by society. All that garbage is removed from you. This happens in the tradition and sometimes I copy that tradition. I do the same thing with you. If I find that there is a refinement that has happened in you, I am going to change your name. Self-realization is enough to kick start the process and then you support it using your intellect, boost it.

Question: Sometimes fulfilling desires turn into addiction. So how to go about it?

Remember there is a difference between Vyasana and Vasana. In Sanskrit we say this. Although they sound similar. Vyasana means addiction and Vasana means desire. How to differentiate between addiction and desire? Desire is a desirable thing. You want it. Addiction is not desirable, even by the person who is addicted. The person knows that this is bad for me but cannot help it. Addiction is not desirable even by the person who is addicted. Hopefully it will be understood. It is a compulsion but desire is not a compulsion.

What is addiction? It is an affliction. Do we call the desire affliction? No, desire is not an affliction. I desire to breathe right now. I cannot hold my breath. We do not say breathing is an addiction. Breathing is not an addiction. Similarly, eating is not an addiction. You need food every day but if you eat every hour, then affliction has happened. When you are fulfilling this desire it seems like an affliction. This is the time to stop. Time to intervene and not fulfill whatever you call as desire. It is not a desire now. It has become an affliction, a mental disease. All the addictions are mental diseases only.

The mechanism of pleasure and pain, the mechanism of reward and punishment has gone wrong in case of addiction. Remember that desires produce pleasure when met. Fulfilling the desire produces a reward and if that action is done again and again, not because it is necessary but only to get that reward, it becomes an addiction. The reward and punishment mechanism has gone wrong there. That is why the traditional way to cure the addiction is punishment. They used to put you on the electric chair for that. It was not long ago. There are better methods.

How do we do it on the path of knowledge? Awareness. Whenever there is an addictive activity in your memory structure, in your mind, bring in the awareness that this is happening. It is trying to get a reward for no reason at all, and that will stop it. So easy, isn't it? Awareness is the key to all the mental afflictions. Awareness is the key and therefore the seeker never gets any addiction, actually drops all the addictions. It is not a magical thing that you would never find a seeker with mental diseases and addictions, they are so pure. They are so charming because of that. It is a big power. You can say it is a spiritual power to not be defined, not be governed by these mechanical processes of reward and punishment. It is a big power. It gives you a lot of freedom.

What is the key to this freedom from addictions? Awareness is the key. What is the way to get awareness? Realize your true nature. How to do that? Walk on the path of knowledge. What is this path of knowledge? How to walk on it? Listen to the lectures. That's why I said in the beginning, if you keep a blind faith on the path of knowledge there is no need to ask any question. Nothing at all. Everything is going to go right in your life after this. But no, we don't recommend blind faith. We recommend a living faith. Check as you proceed in the program. Check what is happening in your life. You don't see any advantages. You do not feel light. You do not feel happy. You do not feel that I am gaining anything. Leave it completely. That's not your path. You find that sticking to the instructions or disciplining the intellect or participating in the satsang and listening to my talk is a pain. Well, it's not your path. It should be a pleasure. It should make you happy. It should be the only thing that you want to do in your life. Then the program is yours. Not only the program. I am yours. I am here to serve you. You need to say yes, then I become yours. So, yes, that is the key.

Question: What about conscience? Why do they feel guilty after the act, if they think it is ethical to kill?

It is again a psychology thing. What is guilt? The realization that I was wrong. The realization that whatever was done was done wrongly. Blame is taken. Self-blame. I am responsible for it. I will do something to correct it. This is the conscience. You can say that this is a purification process. How is this purification process happening in ordinary people if they are not on a spiritual path? Mother nature is doing it. Their guru is mother nature now. Their sadhana is life. Life is a teacher. You do something wrong and there is a process which tells you that it was wrong. It was not beneficial for me. It was not beneficial for anybody. I should not do it again. I say sorry for that. The words I am sorry come out of this understanding. You can actually see it on the face of the person. He will start crying and all. He will say I am sorry. That is the real sorry. If the person sends you a SMS or message on the telegram, “I am sorry”. Probably he is not. He is just trying to hide his mistake. He just wants you to not look at his mistake. That is the feeling of being sorry. But her question is slightly different I think. Yes, whenever you do an action, you cook up the ethics behind it, you justify it somehow. You prove that it is right and then you do it. Then you realize that this happened. It was not really ethical. It was a mistake. It was a wrong understanding. I was blinded by this desire to act like this and I just covered it with fake ethical reasons. So, ethical and unethical are completely cooked up on the spot by the mind. You will find it always like this.

That's why a spiritual seeker is not ethical. Don't ever take the ethics from somebody else. Develop your own, which should come from knowledge, obviously. Knowledge, if you have the knowledge, if you have the realization you are a proper seeker, then you don't need to think about what is ethical. For that you need to discard all that which was told to you is ethical. Throw it in the garbage. It's all garbage given to you by people who themselves are unethical. Whatever ethics they say is totally fake. It's all selfishness and manipulation. That is how a seeker is independent of society. We don't obey society.

Question: If no life remains, then how does it matter for awareness?

It doesn't matter really. Nobody is saying that you be aware. Spirituality is not Compulsory. Is it? What is compulsory? What is needed is a good life. What is your goal in life? Happiness and freedom. Not awareness and liberation. That is not the goal. What happens is, because of this awareness, you achieve these goals of happiness and freedom. So, right now you can assume that there is no life beyond human existence. You can assume, because obviously you don't have any evidence for that. But, don't you want this only life to be happy and free? Don't you want that? Many people will say yes. There is the end of everything after death of the body. The body is destroyed, nothing remains, which is not true actually. You don't know it. That's why you are assuming that there is no life. There is only life. There is no death. Death is an illusion. But let's not go there. Let us assume that the only life there is, is of the body. Body means life, assume this thing. But don't you want to spend this life in happiness and freedom? The answer will be yes. And awareness, spiritual knowledge, realization is just a technique to be happy and free. Actually, it is the only permanent technique because fulfillment of desires in the worldly pursuits does not make you happy and free. They keep you trapped in the world which must be the experience of the many. Otherwise, why are you here? You should be a worldly person then, right? So, if the awareness is not giving you happiness and freedom, don't run after it. It's completely useless.

We are not born to become spiritual. We are born to fulfill our desires and be happy. That is our purpose here. What do we see is - nothing is making me happy. Nothing is making me free actually. The world and human birth is actually a trap. That is what any intelligent person will see. Then they go to Guru because they see that the Guru is already out of it. Where else will they go? By reading a book, you don't get out of the illusion. If it was so easy, I would simply print a book. I won't do all these things. So, yes, awareness is a way. Self-realization is the only way.

Question: Can awareness be technique because technique comes from thought?

Yes. If your ego says that I will do it only if it is profitable for me, then yes, I'll tell you that okay, yes, profit from awareness. Use awareness as a technique. Many Gurus do that. Many Gurus will tell you the false first. They will lie to you that you will be happy. There won't be any problems in your life. You will become immortal and you'll never grow old, you will go to heaven and you'll be saved from hell. They are all lies. But that brings the fellow on the spiritual path and after realizing the truth, the seeker knows why it was told to me. Like, a mother tells the child, don't be naughty, the police will come and arrest you and the child stops being naughty. And when the child grows up, he's thankful to his mother that you saved me, you told me how to behave, that is why I could become a good grown up man. He never complains to his mother that you lied to me in my childhood. If you cannot understand awareness and spirituality, utilize it for your benefit. Make it a profit venture.

Question: Past is controlling the present. Can the past be erased if it can? Should I try to do it?

No, please don't try to do it. You can throw the past, that is possible, you see. Why do you do the hard work of erasing it if it is not yours? There is a better way. How is the past controlling the present? Because you have assumed that it is my past. If it is not your past, then can it control the present? No. You're free now. For example, why do you write your name as Paramjeet only? Who is stopping you from putting another name there? Your past. Isn't it? You have assumed that Paramjeet is my name. Now you are forced to write that name every time. If you say that, no, it is not my name. It was slapped on me, it was imposed by somebody else on me without my permission. My name should be Karamjeet from now on. Or Dharamveer or whatever. Now is your past controlling you? No, you're free to assume any name you want. Same about everything that was given to you by society and parents. You can throw it away. Why are you carrying it? Conditioning keeps you caged. You are a woman. You should not do this. You should not walk like this. You should not talk like this. What is that? Your past. As long as you assume it is yours, it will control you.

You need to throw it away. Don't try to erase it, even if it is possible. There are some techniques, but it is done only for the mentally ill people. If there is a mental disease, that memory must be erased, otherwise it is causing too much trouble. If it is something simple that was stuffed into you, it can be dropped today. Why don't you drop it? Why can't you see that nothing is mine? Why can't you see that you are free now? Ignorance. How to get rid of ignorance? Get the knowledge. How to get the knowledge? Walk on the path of knowledge. Now, I repeated it so many times that probably everybody knows how to walk on the path of knowledge. The answer is always knowledge, isn't it? It's amazing.

Question: Experiencer is free from all qualities, but bliss also comes under a quality. This seems to be contradictory.

No, bliss is not a quality. Bliss is the nature of the experiencer. Nature does not come and go, as you know. Nature is something which remains. Let's say the nature of water is H₂O, 2 hydrogen, 1 oxygen. It becomes cloud, it becomes rain, it becomes snow, but nature remains the same. The form changes, nature never goes away. So bliss is the nature of the experiencer. It never goes away. It's not a quality. Bliss is another name for emptiness. Can the emptiness come and go? Is the emptiness a quality of something? No. It is the true nature. So whoever told you that bliss is also a quality, was wrong. You need to check what is your nature. The experiencer has no qualities actually.

Question: You say ethics are subjective? If they are subjective, most bad people feel guilty after the act. But they repeat the act because of their nature. So ethics are universal. But is individual nature different?

Yes. It should be like this. But I am not sure that most bad people feel guilty. Otherwise they will never repeat it. I mean there is a contradiction in what you are saying. Individual nature is different. I agree. And therefore even if the ethics are universal, people twist the ethics to conform to their needs. It is a universal ethical thing to not to kill. Taking life is considered sin or is considered a bad action. It is unethical. But what do we see? All there is, is killing. Is it ethical to lie? No. Universally accepted that it is not good to lie. It is unethical to lie. What do you see? Everybody is lying. Including the spiritual people. So it is something in the individual that causes a twisting of the ethical principles. But bad people never feel guilty actually. Guilt is a very healthy process in the mind. And the criminal mind lacks this process. There is affliction in the criminal mind where it cannot feel guilty. It cannot feel compassion. It cannot feel whatever a normal person feels. And for that you will need to study criminal psychology. But they don't feel guilty mostly.

I have given you two categories of ethics and beauty. If you are interested, there are lectures on ethics and beauty. I have treated them the same. There is a universal category where the beautiful and the ethical is considered universal. Whatever that is. And there is a subjective category where everybody cooks up their own aesthetics and ethics. Just like everything else, the mind is more complex than you imagine. There are articles about it and there are lectures about it. What is universal and what is subjective. So please go through it. It is not that I have not covered it, actually I have covered everything under the sky. Many people ask questions without listening.

Session 96

Question: I understand that when people blindly follow the rituals and practices led to hide their ego being those practices. Does that mean that the practices of watching the breath meditation, anapanasati, vipasana, etc practices are useless?

Probably not, because a practice works only in a certain path and that practice is useless in the other paths. This is a rule that if you are doing a practice which is not of your path then it is useless. If you are doing something which is not told by your guru then it is not only useless, it can be harmful. This is like a medicine, just like you do not take a medicine without asking a doctor and you do not take a medicine if it is not needed, if there is no affliction. Similarly you do not take up any practice if it is not needed and if it is not prescribed by a guru and if the guru does not belong to a tradition then he is a self-taught guru, he has no previous training and then it can be a harmful practice. It can become harmful because if something goes wrong that fellow will not be able to support you.

This is the condition for many people that they read something here, they watch something there, they hear something from somebody and they start doing it. It is just like going to a chemist shop and buying some random medicine and eating it. Most of the time they do not do anything, mostly it is a waste of time. But sometimes they cause harm and after that they go on a hunt for a guru who can cure that problem. So whatever they thought is spirituality becomes just a random adventure. This happens especially with the occult practices, they pick up a mantra from somewhere and start chanting it. Not knowing what it is, not knowing what it does, they hope for a miracle of some kind, they hope for a firecracker show of some kind and some people end up in problems which go on for their whole life.

Similarly people take up the practices just to get an experience, just to see what it does, let me hold my breath like this and let me see what it does. There are some people who will delude themselves into thinking that by doing certain practices they will achieve some spiritual success, like they will become enlightened or they will get the truth and they keep deluding themselves that practices bring them to the Truth. No, it never does that. The practice is simply there to clear the hurdles to the truth which is already there, which you cannot see, it is closer to you than your face. So if it is prescribed by a guru, if it is done under a tradition, if there is a suitable reason for it, very justifiable reason that this practice is going to do certain clarification, or it can provide a certain kind of knowledge, only then it is useful, otherwise it is useless or it can be harmful. So never do any practice without consulting anybody.

Never do anything if it is not your goal. There are people who will say my goal is to become happy. I am not very happy in my life and therefore I am doing the anapanasati, but this is completely rubbish. This thing is not going to make you happy. Similarly, some people will think that I want to know myself, who am I? I am doing some meditation to go into different states of the mind to know who I am, and that is rubbish. So all these practices are simply trying to achieve something and if you don't know what these are then it is going to be a disaster very soon, either it is a waste of time or it is harmful.

What are the practices on the path of knowledge? None. Zero. Why is that? Because it is a direct path, it does not require any effort, it does not require any doing. Actually it cuts down the effort. If you are making any effort, the guru will tell you to stop, sit, listen and think. That is the practice, listening, thinking and abiding. It is the easiest one, it is the most straightforward path. Some people think that I will achieve my goal by doing something. They need to do something because that is what they see in the material world that nothing is achieved without doing, nothing is achieved without struggling and you don't get anything if you don't spend a lot of money, that is what they think and they bring this mentality into spiritual domain and they try to do something, try to make immense effort, make a timetable of enlightenment and spend a lot of money, travel around the world, it is all useless. The real knowledge is where you are and you don't need to spend one rupee to get it. No effort is needed, nothing needs to be done. This is the path of knowledge.

Yes, the scene is completely different in the other paths, which is why this path is the best. Now, those who cannot understand the path of knowledge or it does not evoke any interest in them, does not look like anything interesting that they want, they should do some other things, they should follow some other path and the proper way to follow the path is - mention your goal, find a guru who can bring you to that goal and then do something which is prescribed by the guru. Don't do anything which you think is the right thing and if you fail in that, if you don't achieve the results within a reasonable time limit, that means it's not working, the path is not working or your goal is not proper, then you need to switch. That is how we progress.

Question: What is the common link between experience and the experiencer? Because both are mutually exclusive, generally there has to be a common link for any two things to interact. So in this case, what is the link which connects experience and the experiencer? Is it part of experience or experiencer?

You will come to know very soon that they are one and if they are one, no link is needed. The common link between the experience and the experiencer is that one is the other. So I will give you a simple example of oneness. What is the link between the pot and the clay? What is the link between the wave and the water? And what is the link between the ornament and the gold? Now you can see that it is a matter of wrong understanding. You are taking them as separate objects or something like this. You are thinking that there is the experience on the left side and the experiencer on the right side and they are linked by something which is either an experience or some part of the experiencer. This is the wrong understanding and actually this is how the mind presents the whole existence to you. The mind has divided the whole existence into two.

What is the existence? Not two. And that is why this question is here, because of this belief that there are two. Now the mind is a very interesting thing. There is only clay which has taken a form. You cannot separate the pot from the clay. The pot has no separate existence from clay. We say that the pot has a dependent existence. It depends on the substance. The pot does not have an independent existence separate from the clay. But still the mind will say that it is a pot. And if you look closely, the mind will say, no it is clay. Which one is it? And now any intelligent person can say that it is both. From a certain point of view, the mind sees it as a name and form and from another point of view, it simply recognizes that I have created the name and form out of clay. The clay is appearing as the pot but there is no pot, there is only clay. So in philosophical terms, we say that the essence of the pot is the clay. The clay can take more forms. It can be turned into something else. It changes. But clay remains clay. The shape changes, yes. And anybody who has a little bit of insight into how perception works, will understand that the names and forms are created by the mind. The pot is created by the perception process, by the senses. And we simply say that it is created by the mind. There is only clay there. There is only substance there. The form is given to it by the mind and your conditioning tells you that it has a name which is - pot. Otherwise there is only clay. Unconditioned mind is going to see it as clay.

An animal or a child will not know what it is. They are going to see substance. Because we have overlays over the substance that is the pot, it has to be used like this. I bought it for so many dollars and so on. That is what a conditioned mind sees. A totally ignorant person will see something else. When you see things as they are, you see their real nature. So look at anything at all. Look at any of your experience and you will see that there is an essence there and there is a changing part there. And always the essence comes out to be the experiencer and the changing aspect comes out to be the experience. So just like the pot has no independent existence, none of the experience has any independent existence and that is why we decided to call it false. All the experience is false. In the end, whatever remains is the experiencer and as you know the experiencer has no substance. There is no substance there. It is simply looking. It is Experiencing. So we say it is empty. Essence of the experience comes out to be emptiness. Nothing remains of the experience when it is gone and nothing is seen. No qualities are seen in the experiencer. Because you are that, you know it surely. Nothing else is known so surely, so certainly other than the experiencer because I am that. No proof needed. No evidence needed. This is as solid as it can be. This is the most certain knowledge and that's why we say it is the ultimate truth. So when you discard that which is changing and consider only the essence, you come to the non-duality which is perfectly empty, appears in forms and that gives rise to the one sentence which appears in your first lesson - that existence is experiencing itself in illusory forms. That is the whole of the teaching. Of which path? Of all paths. What are all these practices going to do? They will show you only this much. The rest are adventures that are totally unnecessary. This is the whole of it.

Question: Is it only a limitation of language which creates doubt?

I would say that it is ignorance which creates the doubt. And then ignorance is expressed in language. Language means expressing something. Language is simply outputting whatever is the content in the memory. So ignorance creates doubt. And I won't even call it doubt. It is a conviction. An ordinary person, an ignorant person, is totally convinced that it is like this. The world is real. The body is real. Everything else is false. Everything else is philosophy. They think philosophy is just false. I am just cooking up this word philosophy and the truth is exactly opposite of it. They are so convinced of this that they don't even want to look at the truth which is exactly the opposite - what the philosophy says is the truth and whatever is assumed is totally false.

Language expresses knowledge, language expresses ignorance and they are just a shadow of whatever there is in the mind. Obviously the mind creates the illusion and then it is the one who will be responsible for saying that the illusion is the real one. So illusion over the delusion and over that hubris that I know the truth. And this is the condition of the present world. All of humanity is like this. It is like you slap your forehead when you see this thing and it is not wrong actually. I am not saying that it is the fault of somebody. We are all like this. We started like this. We started in ignorance. So what I will say, continue exploring the program. It will clear all your doubts.

Question: I am stuck with space. I see it as a canvas on which the whole illusion is projected but not able to conclude it as false. Please help me understand.

Space is an absence actually. You cannot experience space. You experience only objects and whenever the mind cannot perceive anything, it calls it space. There is no such thing as space actually. It is an absence. It can be seen very easily by an example - you take a paper and you make a hole in it. Now what are you going to call that hole? Space. The definition is that it is where something should be but it is not there. It is missing. There is a hole. How is the hole perceived? The hole is perceived as an absence. There the mind is expecting paper, but it is not found. So the mind says look there is a hole, there is space and now you can see it is a concept. Hole is a concept. There is no hole in the paper. All there is, is paper. What has happened is - there is your expectation because everything surrounding it is paper. It must be paper in the middle part also and your memory says that I have seen paper there and now I don't see it. Absence, it says. A comparison happens between the memory and the present perception and the intellect concludes that something is absent and that is seen as space. But it is a concept only. Whatever there is is already whole and complete. There is a hole in it that does not mean that the paper should be there. No. Whatever form your experience has taken is good enough.

So in the traditional terms this is called the Anuplabdhi which means absence, and this has been considered as evidence. It gives us knowledge. There being “not something” gives us knowledge. So let us say you are thirsty and you open your fridge to drink water and you see no water there. Somebody has taken away the bottle, your child or somebody. Now you are expecting the bottle and it is not there and then what do you say? The bottle is absent and the mind perceives a space there in the fridge. You will say the fridge is empty. No food today. Space.

Is it really true that there is a thing called space? No. It is an absence and it is a concept that derives out of the expectation of the mind and so it is false. What about the space in the room? Same thing. What about the outer space outside the earth between the sun and the moon? Same thing. What about the space between the atoms and particles? Same thing. Now those who are interested in science, they know that there is no space in science. It is a convenient hypothesis. In science, space is a very convenient hypothesis that totally depends on the coordinate system and you can pick any arbitrary coordinate system to define the space. It works. Strangely. It is not so strange actually. When you see the algorithmic nature of the perception that the perception is coming out of self-organized moving patterns of vibration, self-organization leads to some kind of organization, obviously. There is a meaning there. There is information there and the mind can interpret it. Mind can predict and it looks like it is following a rule and you can write down the rule, and that becomes a law of physics. So that is all there is. And so you can organize this phenomena in any arbitrary coordinate system in which you can write the rule. That is all space is. There is no space between earth and sun. There is no space between earth and moon and everybody knows there is no space between atoms.

They came to know that there is no space when the atomic model was being developed by Niels Bohr and all these people. They were the first to confirm it experimentally, the insight of philosophers like Emmanuel Kant and people before him. And in India, we have known for 10,000 years that there is no space. So they saw that the electron does not travel from one orbit to another, there is no way that the electron can travel from one orbit to another. It simply appears in the other orbit. When some energy is given to it, it will jump to another orbit, which is somewhat distant. It appears at a different position, different distance, and starts orbiting at a different distance. And it does not go through space when it does that. Now we know that it's not a particle, so it does not need to go through any space. But even if there is a wave pattern there, it does not go through space. There is no way. And why is that? Because there is no space. Then Einstein understood this even more clearly that in the fabric of the universe, there is no space. The universe does not happen in space. He has shown this very clearly. So all the scientists know this. All the philosophers know this. All the spiritual people know this.

And who does not know this? Ignorant people. And anybody with the right mind chooses to believe ignorant people. I am not saying it wrongly. I am saying it correctly. Everybody completely ignores scientists and all the wise men in this world, what has been known since many centuries and believes ignorant masses. How amazing is that? How amazing. It is like you are given a poisonous fruit and all the doctors are saying don't eat that fruit, you will fall sick, you will die. All the wise men, the old men in the village, they are saying, never eat this fruit, it is poisonous. And a village idiot comes, who is like half mad, and he says, this is the nectar from heaven, eat it. And a perfectly intelligent person with a good family and good education believes the fool, the village idiot is believed, and he eats the fruit. Now you will say that is impossible, but no, that is what is seen generally. All the teaching is ignored and they don't want to look at even the simple experience - “look at the hole in the paper. Is it real or not?” “No, I won't look at that. Space is real”. So, there is a problem there.

Space is a convenient metaphor, that's all. So those who want to know more about the illusion of space, I recommend the Transmissions series of videos. It will clear everybody's doubts. Like it is a culmination of 10 or 20 years of my study of space. We can handle time very easily. We can see the illusion of time in five minutes. It is a paradoxical statement that the illusion of time can be known in five minutes. Space is very tricky because nobody teaches you all these things. They teach you exactly the opposite in school, right? And when you see they are launching rockets into space. It is very difficult to let go of this concept.

Imagine if everybody understood that illusion, there won't be any need to launch any rocket. There won't be any need to travel from one place to another, which all these yogis and tantrics have been doing for many thousand years. They don't travel through space, they travel through memory. And how to do that, how to bypass space? I have given you the techniques, follow the program. You will not need to get out of your room. You can travel in the whole of the universe and all the universes without moving a single inch in whatever you call space. There is no space, there is no distance, there is no time. That will make you unlimited. Your beliefs limit you. Whatever garbage you have collected from the society, from the village idiots, that makes you limited.

Question: if seekers should have the ability of critical thinking and rationalized approach, then how should they perceive the tantra path, especially the paranormal aspect of it? Is there any evidence?

Critical thinking is needed so that you don't believe anything without checking, without getting any evidence. And rationality is needed so that you get the right knowledge. So that when somebody tells you something illogical you don't believe it. That is why we need all these qualities. Otherwise, how are you going to approach the truth if you don't have the tools? So intelligence is needed on the path of knowledge and it takes the form of critical thinking, logic, rationality and the ability to grasp things quickly, analyze and form the relations properly and set up proper criteria of truth and involves fact checking. Finding evidence. And so you need all this knowledge, like, which state of the mind is suitable for evidence, which is not. And I know that we are not born with all these abilities. Only a Guru can teach you, nobody else. Some people have very good abilities naturally, but many need to train their minds.

So how to approach the path of Tantra? And as you know, Tantra means technology, how to approach technology of the mind? Means are the same actually. It is amazing that the path of knowledge, science and technology, whether it is material technology or the mental technology, which is Tantra, have the same means of knowledge, which is experience and logic. We approach Tantra also in the same way. We experiment, we gather the evidence, utilize our knowledge of the illusion and form theories and models and all. Same thing.

You need a Guru there, without Guru nothing happens. You need to train your mind, probably more training is needed in Tantra than on the path of knowledge. Because you need to attain certain states of the mind, you need to hold on to those states. There is a strange experience where our everyday waking state intellect is incapable of functioning, because intellect works on previous knowledge, which comes from previous experience. And you have no experience at all of, what are called the other worlds, they are just states. The states of the minds, they are termed as worlds, why? Because they present a world that is not the same as this world. This world is a state of mind, which we call the waking state. So when you move into another world or another state, our ordinary intellect is incapable of functioning. We are like a helpless baby there.

And who takes you through this world? Your guide, your Guru, without him nothing happens. And if you do not utilize critical thinking or rational approach in Tantra, you will encounter many problems, so many problems actually that it becomes harmful. Because on the path of knowledge we don't do anything, we simply watch, we simply gain knowledge, we destroy ignorance. But on the Tantric path we are actually doing something, healing people, or looking into the past, looking into the future and all these things there, applications of that knowledge that you have gained. I know that there is no space, now I can utilize this knowledge as a technology and move through “no space”, move through the virtual memory, memory space. I know everything is vibration, now I can manipulate the vibration because it is me, yes, so I manipulate myself and the vibration changes and the experience changes. This is called manifestation, you can do whatever you want, you can get whatever experience you like, you can change things. This is technology, isn't it?

And how to do that? Experiment, conclude using logical analysis and do not do anything stupid, be critical of everything. Somebody hands you a mantra, now say it 1000 times, don't do it, they are stupid. Somebody gives you a yantra and then they tell you to imagine it before sleeping, don't do it, you don't know what it is, probably a device of slavery, they are trying to enslave your mind or something. If somebody gives you a statue of a strange deity, don't worship it, you don't know what is the force behind it. However, that is what everybody is doing. When I say that the majority is ignorant and stupid and that applies to the path of tantra also, they are doing each and everything there possible, it looks like they are trying to kill themselves and fortunately nothing happens because they don't know how to do it, they don't know the basics, nothing happens. It is like they are playing with plastic swords, so you allow them, but as soon as you find the child holding a real knife, now what are you going to do? You are going to take away the knife, you are going to slap the child so it does not do it again and fix the situation.

That is what has happened in the tantra, at least in India, that the technology was withdrawn, it was taken away because people are so stupid, no critical thinking, no rationality, no wisdom, no discrimination, no discretion there. What is right, what is wrong, they don't know. You can see that the magic is mostly misused, nobody uses it for anything good and hardly anybody uses it for knowledge, I am trying to reverse it actually. I prescribe occult practices to get knowledge, which is meant for that actually. Technology is meant for creating new instruments so that we can know more and the same is the use of tantra, we need to augment our mind so that we know more. It is for personal growth and I have given you the tools, I have given you the basics of tantra also, don't think that we exclude anything, the program is whole and complete, it has the seeds of everything. I am trying to reverse it. You can gain an immense amount of knowledge if you utilize the technology of the mind, and you can have a lot of fun also, fun is not prohibited, it is not forbidden. Fulfill your desires, the wildest possible desires, don't do it here, this world is protected, do it in your own world, create your own universe and fulfill your desires.

How? Follow me. Knowing the truth is like a baby's walk, it is very easy but mastering tantra is difficult. Now you will say why, because it is an illusion, it must be easy and the truth must be difficult? But no, it is opposite, just like everything else in spirituality is opposite of what you think. Truth is easy, just one word mostly, one phrase, aham brahmasmi, that's done, but tantra is very big. I am collecting all the tantric information on my wiki and I have started the work, very small step of writing articles on tantra which currently are only available in Hindi, so probably if I get time I will cook up something which is very basic but gets you started on the tantric path, scientifically, rationally, like we do here on the path of knowledge. Coming age will be the age of technology of the mind, so we need to prepare ourselves. Remember, even if you think that you have only 20 years of life left, don't worry, 20 years of only this life, but an infinite amount of life is left. This knowledge never goes away, whatever garbage you are collecting, it will go away.

Question: I have noticed that when understanding of experiencer and then of oneness happens in the body, the body and mental activities take their own time to settle, the layered structure is not evolved with this understanding, please tell your views on this topic.

You don't need to worry actually, it will happen anyway. I have seen some people where the settling or the quietening, going into silence, happens immediately, there are some tears, a long breath and then the person becomes very quiet, does not want to speak. The silence of the silent one, the experiencer, then affects the surroundings which are the mind, the body and the world. Silence is our natural state. Sometimes it happens quickly, sometimes it takes an year or two years, but then you will want to abide in silence, like I speak only when I get calls or when I am in satsang, I speak a lot because that is what is needed, you are not here to check how silent I am, that will be very boring. Rest of the time I don't speak, sometimes for weeks I don't speak and I never feel anything is missing. And if I am placed in a situation where I don't want to talk, where there are worldly people and they are talking garbage, it is painful, it is noise and I don't want to speak there at all, I run away from that place. You will become like this, you will prefer silence, you will prefer peaceful place, even physically, you don't like clutter because the clutter is just visual noise. Silence appears in everything that you do, all the senses become silent, you don't like loud music or anything which looks like series of bomb explosions, that is the music nowadays, so you prefer something melodious, refinement of all kinds happen because now the awareness is on, because now the silent one is in charge.

Question: Why is there distance between two objects, without space it should collapse everything into one, am I wrong to say this?

There are no objects, there is no distance, there is no collapsing, it is memory, it is an illusion. That is what you need to understand about your perception, it is all illusion, when you say that why this is not happening, why it is not behaving when there is no space, it should behave in a certain way, you are mixing the ignorance with knowledge, the knowledge is not complete yet, you don't know what are the objects, then you heard somewhere, from me or from somebody that there is no space, now the assumed reality of the objects is being mixed with the “knowledge” that there is no space and now this disaster has happened. Half knowledge is very dangerous, know the whole thing, how will you know the whole thing? First listen then ask. I mean, how many times I repeat this thing, first listen, go through the program then ask, which is the chapter on objects, go through it, wait before you ask the question, look for the answer before you ask the question, once you go through the material then you ask the question.

Go to your mirror and ask if there is space really, how can a 2D surface project a 3D space? There is no space in the mirror. You can move into a room, yes, but you cannot move into a mirror, why is that? The mind is telling you that there is a big space there, especially if you check a very big mirror like a bathroom mirror which covers the whole wall of the bathroom and you will see your bathroom is double in size now, you have a big bathroom now. How is it possible that I can move in the real bathroom but I cannot move in the mirror bathroom, although my eyes, my mind, my intellect tells me that there is space there, how is it possible? That will tell you that the space is a creation of the perception, it's not actual. How many people understand this thing? Hardly anybody, your everyday ordinary experience tells you the truth and we completely ignore it, this is called the projecting ability of Maya.

When you play a computer game on your computer, there is a lot of space and there is a lot of time, but there is no space and time in the code, the software is just vibrations, it is electrical pulses. How is the space and time there when the source code has nothing like that. You do not put space there, it's not a cooking show where they put everything in the dish and cook it, the programmer never puts two teaspoons of space, never puts one jug of time and we still get the whole experience of space and time in a computer game, especially if you have a VR headset. How is that possible? Space is simulated by your memory.

Question: We hear stories that bad tantric has impacted someone in a negative way, if they have such powers, how can an ignorant person save himself or herself from that?

Same way you save yourself in the waking state, I mean, in your everyday life. Do you go to slum areas or where there is a lot of crime? No, you don't. Do you travel alone to another city which you don't know? No, you don't. You are with somebody or you call them and you ask them to pick you up from the airport. Else you can get harmed. Do you go on a walk at 12 o'clock in the night to the park? No you don't, you take all these precautions and in some countries you need to carry a gun. Similarly you protect yourself from the bad guys, who are working in the mental domain.

Do ordinary people have any information on how to do that? No, because this is superstition for people, they are into all kinds of superstitions but not this one. If you are a spiritual seeker and you have even 1% interest in tantra, the first thing you will be told is protection. There is a technical word for that, it's called shielding, in Sanskrit I call it parirakshan, which means ways to save yourself. When you go into a village where there is a pandemic, how do you go there? Covered with a suit. You don't even want to breathe the air there. You protect yourself. When you travel to space, you go there in a space suit, you don't go into space naked. You will never come back. Same way when you go in the occult field, don't go without protection. But you can see thousands of people doing it without protection. That is stupidity and when they get possessed or when a tantric attacks them or whatever, whose fault is this? You have not protected yourself and now you are getting into trouble with the tantrics and all.

Now there will be some people who will say that look I am a very simple person, I don't even go to a temple, I don't eat the prasad and whatever they feed us, that's all dangerous. And they say that I still get possessed, I still get affected, black magic was done on me, why? And that is still ignorance, you don't know how many countless lives you have spent with countless people, you have many enemies, they recognize you in this life and they do something to you, or they do it only because they can do it, criminal mind needs no reason. Just like you know anybody can take a gun and kill anybody. All you need to do is protect yourself. Where can I find the protection method? It's all given to you. All links are on my blog and yes, you will find a lot of shielding practices, rituals and all. Whatever you like, do it, there is no hard and fast rule in the tantric field, occult field to do something in only one way. There can be 10 or 20 ways to do the same thing. It's very rich. I have given you the bare minimum, basics.

Don't go to a temple which is not for your path, don't go to a temple where women are not allowed, children are not allowed, do it at your own risk, don't eat the prasad, don't worship any deity, any murti, don't go in tantric experiments that are happening, stay away from tantrics and all, you don't know what they are doing. Protect yourself. Don't watch horror movies because you create that kind of vibration and attraction. You will feel this actually, you watch a horror movie which is really gross, made in hollywood and for two three days your mental atmosphere is totally polluted. It's so dirty, it's so damaging to you. People do this to themselves actually, I don't know why, and when bad things happen to them, this can be a reason. An ignorant person cannot save themselves, only a smart person will be able to do that. If you don't have guidance, do not do anything, and the shielding should be also done under a proper guru only. You always go to a doctor to do the surgery, just because you can handle a knife and cut yourself does not make you a surgeon. Just because you have a mantra and imagination power does not make you tantric. I know nobody understands these things. So I choose my students very carefully and I prepare them before giving them a practice and still they don't understand, they jump to the practice first. I say bye bye. I'm not going to guide you now, it takes a lot of discipline.

Question: Is silence the essence of purity?

Yes, you purify yourself and you will become silent. Purification shows up as silence and all the dirt in the mind, all the impurities they show up as mental noise and noise in your voice, noise in your behavior and the body. Body cannot sit, the person speaks too much. You cannot understand what they are saying, and the mind is noisy. How should I stop my mind? No, don't stop your mind, purify the mind. When your car is making noises you don't trash the car, put some oil there, clean it up, service your car, now it runs nicely, silently.

Question: Does intention protect?

Yes, intention will protect you. Ritualize your intention, make it stronger, make a show out of it, like it is the most important thing in the universe and it will protect you. So intention is like petrol of this engine of maya, without intention nothing happens. I call it spiritual intention. Can you hold that intention? No, you need a lot of training, your intention comes and goes like anything else in your mind, cannot hold a single thought, cannot hold a single state of the mind, how can such a person hold an intention? Tantrics can hold the intention for 10 years, 20 years and so on, how much training that needs? A lot of training and to be frank I don't do all these things, there's no need, there are more ways to get the intention to work, that I'll tell you some other time, it is a secret. Occult is all occluded, occult is all secret, if it is not kept secret it won't work.

Question: I believe if your aura is strong, no black magic will work on you?

See, belief is a very useful tool in tantra and we avoid believing anything on the path of knowledge. I say don't believe, belief is ignorance but probably in tantra you need a little bit of belief. There we use belief and imagination as tools and when the work is done we drop it. So I don't know about aura and all but if you are living a pure and simple life dedicated to spirituality and truth, no black magic will affect you. Actually you affect the black magic, this is the secret. If a tantric with a bad intention approaches you non-physically, he will be transformed, not you. This happened to so many people actually, if you are lost in a world somewhere, never-never land and you encounter evil there and if you are pure, if you are a spiritual seeker seeking the truth and you have a tradition behind you, you have a guru and you have a pure mind, you are not evil, then you will find that they run away first, evil entities. As soon as you appear in that world they will leave the place, now you see the importance of purification before you take up the occult practices. You need to be pure, you need to be glowing with pure positive energy. Now you can go to any part of this whole manifestation, explore the whole of the maya and you will be protected. Do you need any equipment or rituals to protect yourself? No, newcomers need them because they don't have that strong aura.

Your purity is reflected in your aura. If you have anger, if you have fear, if you have all kinds of mental afflictions, delusions, illusions and beliefs of all kinds that I project there and any evil thing there can hook on this. They get a hook there to insert their claws in it, poetically saying, but it is possible. The problem is in you, that is the bottom line. “Somebody did this to me” - the problem is in you, you are not pure, you are not carrying your gun, now the bad guys get a chance, you are not shielded, now anybody can kill you, especially those who are doing the spiritual work in other worlds, they need a backup and they need a protection.

It is like you land a team of soldiers in a terrorist country, do you go there without any gun and do you go there without any bulletproof shield or do you go there without a helicopter standing by on the border and a backup team, do you do that? No, this is a very sophisticated operation that you do. “Let me go down there, I want to rescue my grandfather, he is stuck there” - I get these kinds of nonsense requests all the time, “can you help me?” “Why do you want to go to the world of the dead?” “I love my grandfather so much, I think he is suffering there, can you send me there?” I said “yes, I can send you there but I cannot bring you back, do you want to do that?” And when I tell them that it will take 20 years for you to prepare for this little task, they never call me back, they never send me a message, they want to do it in 20 seconds somehow. Immense amount of ignorance in this world. Purification is going to take 20 years, believe me or not, and then you are given a deeksha in tantra, still the guru does not believe you really. He will give you something to play with for a few lifetimes and when you pass all the tests you will be given a real job, there you will learn something, nobody is ready to do all these things.

I remember that I have been doing this since many lifetimes but purification is still needed. I know there are impurities there which can land me in trouble. I keep my area very limited, it is only for knowledge and it is only for helping somebody, that's all, no other tantra is allowed here. Actually I have done my own classification of tantra which you can see in the Hindi video series on my Hindi channel. I am planning to do it in English, don't worry there will be English content so you will get the basics there.

Question: is there a need to protect oneself?

Just like I said, if you are living a pure, ethical and sattvic lifestyle, you are not running around killing people and insulting them and making enemies and destroying your environment or willy-nilly killing animals and birds, caging them and all this, then you don't need to worry, then you don't need to protect yourself, that is the protection. There will be shields around you, the evil will run away from you because they know that they will no longer remain evil because of your influence.

Impress them with your will, do not get impressed by somebody's will. What is this will? Now I am using western concepts here and it is the same thing as spiritual intention, sankalp. Impose your sankalp on others and you will be protected. Don't become a slave of the society or people, and I will go one step ahead and say - don't take impressions from your own parents or brothers, sisters, husbands, wives etc. Impress your will and you will be protected. Generally a seeker does not need to do all these things but if you are in occult then it's a different life. Everything must be a secret. Tantrik never takes orders, tantrik gives orders. It's a totally different way of being. A tantrik cannot be called a human being, a different creature, almost like an alien, you don't understand what they are doing, you don't know where they are, you don't know how they think and what kind of technology and powers they have. A tantrik is an alien and he's actually ready to leave this world anytime. He is showing up in this world only because of some karmic residue. As soon as that is over, gone, you will never find a real tantrik in this world.

Question: Please throw some light on people's struggle with procrastination.

You are not interested in doing the job or you're not interested in carrying out your everyday responsibilities because you are not doing something for which you're born. Now you can give it a word like Swadharma or Entelechy or whatever you want to call it, the end goal, your life goal. I simply say “life goal” or sometimes it's a spiritual goal, you don't have a goal at all. 90% of the population here in this world has no goal or the goal is slapped on them. Like, you need to become a lawyer, you need to become a doctor, a lot of money in this field, you need to become an MBA, why? Because they are the rich people, you need to become rich. When you do these things which are not your life goal, what happens? Procrastination. you don't want to do it, you're lazy all the time, you're sleepy, your mind does not work, the intellect does not function and you fail at everything.

Why has that happened? You don't know your goal, somebody else has imposed their will on you. You are a slave and now your life is hell. When somebody asks me, whether I should do this practice or should take up the path of knowledge, I ask them, what is your goal? What is your will? What do you want? Usually I start like this, when I'm talking to you, tell me what do you want? Tell me what is your wish? Some people start crying when they hear me, because they have a lot of expectation from me that he is a guru, he will just fulfill my wish and they start telling me their worldly wishes. I'm not doing well in my job and I'm not doing well in my family and all, but yes that is okay, tell me what is your wish? What do you really want to do in your life? Are you born here to do a job? Are you born here to reproduce and raise a family and all? We need to do all these things. We need to eat and sleep and maintain a house, pay our bills, but we are not born here to do that only. How can somebody even think about this? They spend their whole life doing this, survival, or biology only. These are the necessary for survival because we are in this state now, we are in this world with a physical body, it has a requirement, it must eat, protect, reproduce, yes, these are the needs but that is not our goal, and if you are not on a path which takes you to your goal then this will happen, you will struggle in your life.

Those who are doing that for which they are here, which is their prarabdha, which is their karmic allotment for this life, they are happiest. “No, but he does not have a big car!”. No, he was not born here to buy a big car, that would be a stupid thing to do, but probably he is singing, he is painting, probably he is exploring other countries and exotic places. He is the happiest person in the world. A mountaineer is climbing Mount Everest. Does he say that I am procrastinating? I don't want to go to the next camp. Does he say that? Immense joy, immense energy, ignores all the risks, no oxygen there, no food. Procrastination? No, it's not possible there, there is no place for it. But you are living in a rich country with all the facilities of life and you don't want to do your nine to five job. You are not happy in the family. The family is boring. Why is that? Don't know what your goal is.

Some people ask me, please tell me the goal. I say, how can I tell you the goal? And remember, if I tell you the goal, you will walk towards it just because you have some respect for me but you will give it up very quickly. I know this from my experience. I give some goals to people, but they don't do it. Now, it's a waste of my time. Their time also. They will say yes out of respect. Yes, please guide me, I don't have goals and then they don't walk on it. So, I don't give any goals. I ask for a goal. You give me the goal, I give you the path. I will tell you how to reach that goal. So, get a goal. Nobody will give you a goal. If somebody gives you a goal, you will drop it, most probably.

Yes, there are some very good gurus who know your past. Like, they have been with you since many lifetimes and they know your goal. They know all your desires, all the hidden ones also. Sometimes I say to some people that I know you more than you know yourself and they're puzzled. “What do you mean? You have some powers or what?” No, I don't have powers. I have common sense. I can look at the person and I know what they want. Sometimes I avoid people for no reason because this structure, the multi-layered structure, has immense powers already. It knows. It can sense things which your waking sense organs don't sense. Ordinary people are not sensitive. You need to sensitize this instrument, sharpen this instrument. This is the only instrument you have. Mind-body, instrument. Make it perfect.

There can be many goals, but you take the most important one and you act on it. Now, what is the amazing thing? That people are born here and they don't know why they are here. That is amazing, isn't it? How is that possible? You go to the next city and you don't know why you are in the city. You just roam around in the city, wasting your time, wasting your money and eating the garbage that they serve on the city streets. Now you complain that I am aimless. I cannot do anything. I have no energy to do anything. Yes, you have already wasted everything. You are running after distractions. Relations, money, social status and playing ego games. Let me show him how big I am. So distracted, aimless.

People expect that they will go to a place and somebody will tell them. Magic will happen, a booming voice from the blue that, look, you are born here to do this. No, it will be tears, it will be like a blissful feeling etc. In some cultures, there is something called the spiritual journey where the person who has forgotten why they are here is sent on a journey. Go and search. Where should I go? Go east, they will say. Just head in the east direction till you reach that mountain and live there for seven days like this, the teacher will say. The shaman will say, especially in the South America region. And they stay there without talking to anybody, without any distractions and probably with a little bit of food and water. And they come back as a changed person. Now they know why they are here. It's amazing.

We also have the tradition, it's called pilgrimage and people have turned it into a pile of garbage. They go to the pilgrimage, the spiritual journey to get their wish fulfilled. Misuse of pilgrimage. All this tradition has been lost. Actually, I also prescribe it, I call it the Manthan or the churning, I send people on this pilgrimage but not out of their house. That is dangerous these days. You need to go into your mind, where else will you find your goal? Go into your heart, there is your goal. That's why it's called an inner goal. Inner longing, your innermost desire. It is not to be found in pilgrimage in some temple somewhere, or forest. Yes, these things were designed to take you deeper within you. When you go out there, you go within. But that is lost. So we have the other option now. Go directly within. I have given you the techniques to do the Manthan also. I have given you the example questions and it's like brainstorming only. There is no difference. You don't need to do all the rituals. You can do the rituals if you want. Who can stop you? This is India, isn't it? Everything is decorated in all curvy things. Nobody does it straight.

Yes, if you find that there is an absolutely wonderful ritual for churning, do it. I am not against rituals. I am against the empty rituals where you do only the rituals, not the real thing. What is the use of that? You ask me if you want. I never started in my life till I sat down and wrote down what I want in my life. And then I took a path. Then everything was smooth. Then everything happened as it was meant to happen. It happens automatically actually. I know that it is all written. It is a movie that is simply playing in front of our eyes. If we expect something else out of this movie, it becomes unwatchable.

Session 97

Question: The list of signs of ignorance is staggering. How reliable are those for survival?

The list of the means of ignorance, or sources of ignorance is very long. And the ways in which it affects the person, that list, the signs that somebody is an ignorant person is also very substantial. But the question is, are those reliable for survival? Now it is obvious that they are not reliable at all. Ignorance of any kind is not a good thing for survival. It is absolutely a disadvantage when it comes to spiritual knowledge or even scientific knowledge or any other kind of knowledge. Even for survival you need a lot of knowledge, you need skills, you need social skills, you need a little bit of knowledge of how society works and how people behave, where to get the food, how to grow the food and all the technologies needed for survival. So if there is ignorance then survival also suffers. This is what is actually seen. Nothing works in your life if there is a lot of ignorance. If there are no skills you don't get any jobs. If you don't know what kind of people are around you, you don't get a good relationship. If you don't know how to behave properly in a society then everybody becomes an enemy or they don't like you and they cause problems for you.

Ignorance, even of the worldly kind, leads to a lot of suffering, dissatisfaction, failure, frustration. Even bodily diseases and mental diseases are caused by ignorance. Why? Because you don't know what to eat, you don't know what is human food and you don't know what things to avoid, what causes disease, health and hygiene, exercising, these are not known. And then there is mental hygiene and mental exercises. They are not really taught to anybody in your schools. Like what movies to avoid, what movies pollute you, what kind of YouTube videos make you stupid, whom to listen to, whom not to listen to, what kind of job is good for you, what is not good for you and all these things. So ignorance is a no no, it should not be there. Even if you are not a spiritual seeker it should not be there. Your survival will be compromised by that.

They are not reliable, you cannot rely on ignorance. If you see the sign of ignorance in a person, what is my advice? Stay away. They are not going to become knowledgeable simply because you tell them that you are ignorant. It never happens. They suffer and they fail and then they try to look for a cause of their failure, suffering. And then they ask the right question and that is the right time to answer. Look, you have this and that kind of belief or superstition or something else. You don't have this kind of knowledge and that kind of knowledge. Get it now. Drop the beliefs. That is the proper time.

If you see the sign of ignorance in somebody, do not try to fix them. It is not possible. They will become your enemies. They will take it as an insult that you call them ignorant because an ignorant person does not really know that he or she is ignorant. They think, I know everything. I am the smartest actually. There is something interesting that those with more knowledge always doubt their knowledge. But the fools are always sure, they do everything with perfect certainty. So that is seen in the ignorant person. Ignorance is like a blanket on them, making them totally blind. How ignorant am I? I don't know. If you already know that you don't know some things, you won't remain ignorant for long. So what do we say on the path of knowledge? Seeing your ignorance is the end of ignorance. Guru does exactly the same thing, shows you your ignorance. Especially on the path of knowledge, we show ignorance by asking a question. Sometimes I ask people, who are you? And the first thing they tell me is, my name is this. How do I show their ignorance? Not by telling them, look, you are a fool, no, he will never talk to me. I ask the question that, if your name is changed, who are you? I am a man, I am a woman and so on. It goes on like this. So the ignorance is shown by asking a question. If you really want to show somebody that they are ignorant, simply ask them a question very respectfully, and it may not work actually, very confidently they will answer you something which they believe. If you want, you can counter that, just like I gave an example. I don't think there is a need to do even that. There is no need to do that unless you are affected by that person in some way.

Let's say they are your parents, who are forcing you to do something against your will. Then you can counter them, oppose them, show them that they are wrong. If it is your own child, you can try to clear their ignorance and so on. Generally if people are not surrendered to you, if they do not respect you, they will not take your advice. Now everything should be clear, like why do we expect some qualities in the student and so on.

Question: Can you please explain exactly why memory is an illusion? I am having trouble understanding.

Because it changes. The answer is very simple. Whatever there is, is a memory and it is changing. Now you will say, no no, I wanted to ask about my memory, which has my name, my phone number and all my skills and all the events that happened in my life and so on. That also changes. 90% of your memory is gone now and I won't say memory is gone, I will say your recall is gone. 90% of whatever you have done in your life, erased, the recall is not there. Sometimes you get it, but mostly you don't get it. So that is how we can see that I am not the memory because I never feel that I am reduced to 10%. It is not possible. I always know that I am 100%. Does not matter if my memory goes away.

Now that is the common sense definition of memory, but what is the proper definition of memory? Non-physical, non-mental structures in the existence and the smallest structure is binary structure which is changing from one state to another, and it forms many patterns, that is called the vibration, and the vibration forms many patterns and sometimes the patterns stabilize, they become standing waves kind of patterns, they stand there for a while. It will change because it is a vibration, vibration is nothing but a change, binary change, up and down, like a sine wave, like a pendulum. So for a while the pattern of vibration maintains itself and that is what is perceived, nothing else. That is what is perceived and that is what is called the memory.

Another name for this thing is mind, but since we saw that mind is usually used for other things like thinking and deciding and all those intellectual things. This definition is very confusing for an ordinary person that - everything is mind. My table and chair don't look like my mind, and so on, it is very confusing. So I use the word memory. Now that is also confusing. But when I explain it and people know things like computer memory and books, a book is a memory and so on, they can probably understand. But you will need to go through the technical stuff there to understand what is a memory and you will find they are slowly changing patterns, they stick for a while.

Why is it an illusion? Because it is changing and therefore it is false. There is no substance there, the memory is empty. The memory and its processes form what is called the layered structure of memory. The layered structure of memory is the whole of the manifestation, we are parts of that layered structure, the individual people, they are part of the layered structure. So whatever is seen is this layered structure which is totally an illusion. The structure has taken a form which is the human form among infinite kinds of forms. In the human form there appears a special structure which is called a sense, sense organ and that structure limits all the vibrations that are coming from its environment. We experience that limited amount of vibrations. So in this way whatever is experienced is very limited and constructed out of the vibrations. Vibrations themselves are false but whatever we experience is totally false, that means the vibration is not experienced actually.

What do we experience? The irreducibles which are the form taken by the existence, that's all we experience and that is why it is an illusion and that which is real, that which is the substance, that which is the essential nature is never experienced. The true nature is never experienced. It is empty, that's why we cannot experience it, it's not possible to experience it. It is possible to be it. How to be it? You are already that, there is no other way to be it. Just recognize that I am that eternally. Whatever is appearing is an illusion that is neither me nor the actual existence, the actual existence is emptiness with infinite amount of potential, that is what is the definition of All That Is. Everything can be defined as emptiness which has infinite potential and it is witnessing Itself. The potential appears to itself, it becomes, it assumes the form of a potential thing. The forms are actually potentials, they are not real. How to understand all these things? That is why we have the whole program.

Now I can show you by a simple experience of the clay and the pot. Essential nature of the pot is clay, the mud or whatever you want to call it, china clay and the name and form is non-essential because the clay can become any name and form. The clay can become brick, the clay can become a statue, you can scatter it as dirt, that is also a form. The pot has no independent existence. That's why we say it has a dependent existence, it depends on the clay. You cannot go to the shop and ask the shopkeeper - please give me the pot but I don't like clay, I don't want the clay with it. The shopkeeper will say it is the finest clay, it is the china clay, but you say no I hate clay, it is dirty, I want only the pot. Is it possible? Is it possible to take away the pot from the clay? No, there is no independent existence of the pot but you can take clay. Actually when you buy the pot you are buying the clay. So the pot is not real, it does not actually exist. The clay has taken a form and the form and the substance exist together. That's why we say the experience and the experiencer exist together because experience is the form, experiencer is the essence of existence.

Experiencer is fundamentally emptiness and we say that the experience is also emptiness because nothing is seen, nothing separate is seen apart from the experiencer, nothing else comes out of the experience. When the experience comes and goes, what remains is the experiencer, that is the essential nature of the whole existence. When the pot is broken, what remains is the clay. When the clay is formed into the pot, it starts as clay, then the pot appears for a while, then it breaks, it becomes clay, dirt again. Before clay, in the end clay, in the middle clay only. You cannot take away the pot. Remember, the pot does not exist independently, it appears for a while to be the pot. Similarly, before experience, emptiness, end of experience, emptiness, middle of experience, emptiness only.

I usually show an example of a tomato, the tomato is made from air, can you imagine that? The tomato is formed out of air and water, a little bit of water and minerals from the soil and mostly it is air. You will say how is it possible? Carbon dioxide is taken from the air and it is mostly carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, soil and air and then it becomes a tomato and if you keep it for a few days it turns back into soil, water, air. Amazing thing isn't it? In the middle it appears as a tomato, you can eat it, it's good for survival, healthy food, but it does not exist!

Can you have a tomato without the air, water and soil? I don't want to eat these things, I don't like carbon dioxide for my dinner and no I don't want soil for my lunch, you will say, it's not healthy. So you eat the tomato, but what are you eating? Air, water and soil. And what are they? Everybody with a little bit of science education knows that these are only vibrating patterns of energy, there is nothing there, you are eating vibrations. Now you will say that leaves me hungry, I don't want to eat vibrations, they are empty, I will remain empty stomach, but the magic happens here. You are still alive, even after eating the whole emptiness, nothing else, you are still alive, how is that possible? It's an illusion, your whole life is an illusion, all the tomatoes in this world are illusions and so are all the potatoes, onions and your house, the gold ring that you have, your parents, your father, mother, husband, wife, your children and your bank balance, it is all emptiness. That is a shock, isn't it? Especially the last one, it is zero. How are you alive? You are an illusion itself, this body-mind is an illusion and the illusion appears for a while, the illusion appears to do something like this, eating tomatoes and all and then it disappears, what remains is the emptiness, nothing else remains.

So if you fast forward the tomato rotting process, just forget about the tomato growing process, you know it already, you fast forward it like a video, you play it in a fast speed and if the tomato disappears in 5 hours, you will think that it is a strange tomato, it's a fake tomato, I want my money back because it has disappeared in 5 hours, rotten away, but you will still manage somehow. You can eat it while it is fresh in 1 hour, don't wait for 5 hours. Again, if you fast forward the time of the tomato only, not your time, only of tomato, then you will find that probably it rots away in 5 minutes, now you put the tomato on your dining table, go back to get some water or a spoon, come back and there is dirt and water and air, it smells bad and you say what happened to my tomato? You won't believe your eyes, you will say that it was not a tomato actually, and you will probably think I am going mad somehow. I don't know where the tomato is or somebody is playing a prank or joke on me.

If you fast forward the time again in which the tomato rots in 5 seconds. Put it on the plate and it's gone. Now you will be surprised at what is happening to you. Tomatoes don't do this, they don't become dirt in 5 seconds, you will say. So let's fast forward it even more, now the tomato disappears in 5 milliseconds and now even before you can see it, you won't even perceive it, it's gone. Remember, everything has happened as usual, I have only changed the time of it, I fast forwarded the movie. But how is it possible that simply changing the time, simply the way we perceive the time has shown you the illusion of tomato completely, very convincingly, there is no tomato you will say.

Like in that movie Matrix, that little child bends the spoon and then says, just realize that there is no spoon, amazing line in that movie and people don't realize what it is actually, they need to see the tomato rotting. How is it possible? I simply told you that the tomato is speeding up, and now it becomes illusory. You will see that when you slow down the rotting, it remains in the memory for a while, your memory, the memory which you are using to perceive, tomato remains in the memory and that gives you an illusion of stability. It is unstable, yes it is going, it is impermanent but the memory gives you an illusion of stability, that oh yes it stays for 5 days actually if I put it on the table, it will not rot for 5 days, let’s say, but simply speeding it up, which means simply changing the memory, your memory, you change yourself a little bit so that everything speeds up and now the same mind, same person, same intellect, your intelligence is not altered, don't worry you are not going mad, same tomato, same process, same laws of physics, they will prove it convincingly that there is no tomato. Isn't it mind blowing?

There are things that are going so fast you don't see them, like the radio waves your mobile tower is radiating and all the neutrinos and whatever hell is happening in this universe, you don't see it, you see only a tiny bit of it and that is also an illusion, whatever you see is an illusion because the senses react to it, the memory produces an illusion of stability and that is how everything is illusion. Another thing is when you dream in the night, the whole dream is produced from a memory and it is an illusion, the whole of your dream is an illusion. How do you know that? Not when you are in the dream, at least not in the unaware dream, you know only when you wake up or you know only when you gain awareness in the dream that it's all fake. Right now right here we are in the dream, like the child says in that movie that remember that the spoon does not bend, it is you who bends, he says it like this, exactly same thing, it's the very famous saying in Buddhism that it is the mind that changes, not the spoon, not the tomato, the mind changes.

What is mind? Memory and its processes, what is tomato? Memory and the process of rotting or whatever is happening, it is the mind that changes or it is the memory that changes and whatever changes has been then said to be an illusion, it is false. These things are presented in such a mysterious way that you will never understand in your whole lifetime but when I say it like this you get it in an instant. I give this tomato example to everybody who wants to know the maya or the illusion, I provide this example. This is how it is, you call it anything, memory, mind, vibration, whatever you want, call it anything, naad, brahmanaad, all these words are there but it is an illusion, it can appear as anything and then it disappears, this is the whole story of the whole existence.

Question: Are memories not needed for our survival?

Yes they are needed. How do you know who you are? If your memory is removed, you probably won't be able to survive, you will become like a baby. You will know how to talk and walk and even eat, whatever we call as instincts are just memories, like the baby knows exactly how to breastfeed, nobody teaches the baby, how is it possible? There is built-in memory, it's called ROM, read only memory in computer science. When your PC boots up, it knows what to load and from where to get the information. The baby knows how to get the milk, the baby knows when to cry, somebody talks loudly, the baby starts crying. So we need memory of some kind to exist. The whole body is a memory, the body is a layer in the memory structure and everything else is a memory, so whole life, all of that which you call alive is a memory. Our day to day memory is also the same non-physical, non-mental thing, but we distinguish it, and that which we use for survival every day in the waking state is called the local memory. We are experiencing the local memory, now in the dream state you experience some bigger memory and in the projected state you experience even bigger memory. In the death state you experience something else totally and it is possible to experience any kind of memory including your current memory.

I can experience what is there in your memory, actually it has become my day to day experience, I see it as my memory. When I experience somebody else's content they appear as my content. How do I distinguish? Because it is so foreign to me and it is very fuzzy, I don't have that ability right now, I don't have that special power but someday it will become strong enough. I know people who can do that, so it is possible. Why can't you see what is in the other room? Why can't you see what is behind your head and why can't you see what is in my mind right now? What desires do I have? What kind of knowledge I am having in my mind or what is going on in the thinking process? You don't know all these things because your experiences have been limited to the local memory.

Why is that? So that you can survive properly, if all these things start coming into your local memory you will confuse them with your own thoughts, your memories and then the organism will die very quickly. You will go mad actually, the body knows how to live but you will go mad. So that is why there is this limitation. How to go past this limitation? Change your state of mind, change the state of the memory. How to do that? There are techniques, I have given you many techniques, go and listen, everything has been told to you. I gave you the technique to go there, I give you the vehicle to go and see yourself, this is the path of knowledge, very straight forward, very clean, no pretension here, no mumbo jumbo here.

Question: Does memory play any part in our consciousness or unconsciousness?

I don't know these words, consciousness and unconsciousness, I never use them, so you will need to define what is that and then probably I will be able to answer it. If by consciousness you mean the waking state, like how do we feel right now and unconscious is the sleeping state or the anesthesia, like the doctor gives you when he is operating, then the memory is actually a part of the experience, not of the experiencer, I will say, I cannot answer it like this. In the waking state, memory is needed, but the memory is needed in all states, even if you are unconscious, the memory stays there because when you come back to consciousness, you gain back your ability to perceive, the memory is still there. So yes, it plays a part, without memory you won't experience anything and you will never know that there is consciousness or unconsciousness. But if you want to know what memory is and all, you will need to follow my terminology, you will need to follow the content in that order which is presented, there is no consciousness or unconsciousness in my teachings.

Question: How do we know everything is emptiness?

Emptiness means that there is no substance at all. The experiencer has no substance, it is empty, the experience has no substance, it is empty. Existence is nothing but the experience and the experiencer, taken together. There is nothing else in existence, there is no third thing, and so existence is empty, and that is what is emptiness. Just like I told you, the tomato does not exist, which simply means that there is simply Emptiness.

How did it appear? There is a possibility of it. That is why we don't call it nothingness, we call it emptiness. There is a possibility there. It appears as empty to the intellect. How is it possible that tomato is there but it's not there? And the explanation is emptiness. And how will I know emptiness? You cannot know it. It cannot be perceived in any way, it cannot be experienced in any way, so we will never know it. Then, what to do? You are the emptiness. Be the emptiness. Being is more important than knowing. You need to be the emptiness, realize that I am the emptiness. I am this experiencer. The light that is shining on all the illusions, I am that light.

Question: What is nothingness?

There is no such thing actually. It is a concept only. In the very first lesson I say, nothingness is impossible. All there is, is existence. There is always existence. Whether it is empty or not empty, that's not the issue here. Nothingness is impossible. It is a concept in the mind. It is a cooked up concept. It is our imagination only. There is always something. To know that there is nothingness, someone needs to go there and check whether there is nothingness or not. Why? Because on the path of knowledge we require evidence. Evidence comes from direct experience and logic. So you go and check whether everything is nothing or not and you come back with the report. Look, I checked everywhere and there is nothing. But then you are there. This experience of checking is there. This experience of telling the others is there and there are others. So how come it is nothing? So probably you checked something else. Probably there is nothing there that you expected. But then other things are there. So there is no nothingness. It's not possible. There is always something. And that is why we say there is always the experience and the experience, they are eternal. By always I mean timelessly. Not like an infinite amount of time. No, there is no time also. It's completely empty. So there is no nothing, only something. And this something is eternally empty. However, there is an infinite amount of potential there. If you remove the potential from the emptiness, probably it will become nothing. Remove the potential from the emptiness and nobody remains to say that it is empty.

Who will say that my essence is empty? Who will say I am the experiencer? Nobody. If you remove that potential. So remember, our knowledge is based on the illusion. That's all we know. We know only the illusion. We never know the truth. So all our knowledge takes the form of negative knowledge. What is negative knowledge? That which I have believed is wrong - This is negative knowledge. What do you gain on the path of knowledge? No knowledge, only destruction of beliefs. And you are left empty, the way you are. Your pure nature is returned to you after cleaning up. You were pure before, you are pure now also. Whatever impurities that were gathered as ignorance, they are cleared. Nothing at all is gained. So this process is possible only because there is a potential for experience. Otherwise, this is not possible.

So there is no nothingness. It is only an idea. It is belief. That means it is wrong. It is not possible to prove that there is nothingness. You say there is nothingness and these words prove that there is something. It is impossible. That is what we call self-evident. Existence is and it is self-evident. There is something. Experiencer is self-evident. Experience is self-evident. They are so fundamental that they do not need proof. What needs a proof? Where there is doubt, whether it is there or not. These gods, they exist. Now you are doubtful. These people exist. My name is this. You are doubtful. What if my name is not that? And so on. Everything can be doubted but not these fundamental things. As you progress on the path of knowledge, you will find that all experiences are illusory, it becomes certain and it is only the existence that is taking the forms, appearing as manifested potentials. These things are made certain on the path of knowledge. Probably you can say that is what I gain on the path of knowledge. Nothing else is gained.

Question: How to erase unnecessary memories?

If they are unnecessary, why do you want to erase them? Leave them, they are unnecessary. Use the necessary. But, I will tell you one thing, there is no erasure of memories, they cannot be erased. Why? That which is not there cannot be destroyed. Remember this formula, that which is not there cannot be destroyed. People say how to kill my ego, how to kill the person etc. Look at the person. Look at the ego. Is it there? When you do this introspection, let me find out what is ego, you will find only thoughts, feelings and emotions and all these things that go on in the memory. Names and skills and whatever garbage is stuffed in your mind by the society, you find only that. Religion, caste, nationality, race, whatever you think is you, including the body. You never find a person, you never find the individual, which is also called the ego.

Can you destroy it? If you can find it, can you kill it? No. Similarly, if the memory is an illusion, just like we saw just now, can you erase it? No. It is not possible. You erase things and something else will appear there. Mind fills it up with something. You can do that experiment. Actually, people have done that in psychology. You tell them a story and you remove a little part of the story, which does not explain something, leaving the story incomplete. After a few days, you ask them the story and the mind has filled in stuff there. You can do that experiment. Mind fills in the memory, which shows that it is perfectly fake. Whole of it is unnecessary actually. Throw all of it and you will survive nicely. Actually, you survive happily if you kick it out.

How do you do that? You say it's not mine. Memory is not me. Done. Erased. Now it is not mine and it is happening. Who cares? Rain is happening. It's not mine. Then why should I worry about erasing it? So there is an ignorance there that the memory is me, memory is affecting me and the memory is mine. I own it. No, nobody owns it. There's nobody to own it. It's not affecting you. It is affecting itself, isn't it? Experiencer is not getting affected by the activities that go on in the memory structure. The whole of the layered structure is simply perceived. It is simply experienced. Nothing happens to the experiencer. Whatever happens, happens in the memory and that is also perception. So it is also an illusion. Your actions/reactions and whatever is happening, is all false.

Do you want to erase the false? Do you want to erase that which is not there, not yours, does not affect you in any way? No. What is the reason for your question? Ignorance. You don't know who you are. Or probably you forgot. Why is there a question now in your mind? You already know who you are.

Question: Does keeping pets come under bad karma?

You need to see how the pets are kept. You need to ensure that they are not tortured. Remember, if you are caging the pet, the pet does not like it really. Even if you make it a gold cage, it does not like it. Even if you take him out of the cage for a walk, does not like it. Because while walking, he is thinking about going back in the cage. You can see the sadness when you order your dog or whatever in the cage, or you put the bird in the cage. It is not the pet itself, but how you treat that animal, how you treat that creature, that is good/bad karma.

You have an aquarium, and the fish does not mind really. Fish does not care where it is swimming. This little “pond” is also okay for it. It is getting the food and all, does not complain, because the whole life of the fish is taken care of. But the fish also has instincts, like probably the fish wants to reproduce, lay eggs. And there is only one fish in the whole aquarium. Now it is a torture. You are not letting the creature live its natural life. Put more fish there, put more creatures, greenery, and then it is okay. But it is not valid for big animals like mammals and all, cows, buffaloes, goats, dogs, cats, and birds also. Birds are very intelligent. And anything that wants to be free, if you put them in cages and tie them up, put them on leash and make them do stuff which is not really their life. Like you make the horses pull the carriage. Not really their job. Or you make the elephants lift the logs of wood or do the construction work. And this is not their life. Now it is all bad karma.

Yes, if you put some food, the dogs come and they eat it, and you can play with the dogs and then they go away. Well, it is okay. It is fine. You feed the birds and put some drinking water for the bird, and the birds come and they fly away. Fine. It is okay. You let the peacocks roam in your garden. Fine. Let the monkeys climb your mango tree. It is good. There are things like this here where I live. I consider them as my pets. Without caging them, they are living with me. Only thing is I don't want them inside my house. I am the one who is caged. They are free. So that is not bad.

It is all my opinion on good and bad karma/actions. Otherwise, you can simply discard whatever I said, you can construct your own ethics. You can construct your own ethical and unethical things. And then as you sow, that you reap. That is the karmic law.

Question: How do you realize what is happening here is a dream?

Realize that everything, all the experience appears out of memory and then you can actually call it a dream. What is a dream? It is an illusion. So realize that the whole of your experience is an illusion, just like we did right now in front of you. All that we perceive, all that we think and do is a big illusion only. And another name for illusion is a dream. That's all it means.

Who is dreaming? No one. That is another thing. Even your night dream is not dreamt by you because you are a part of that dream. That character which appears in the dream does not know who is dreaming it. What is the reason? Nobody is there. You get up in the morning, you get this thought that I was dreaming. But this “I” is just the ego. It is a false person. I never dreams. The “I” is the claim that whatever happened in the night was done by “me”. It is not possible to do that. There is no me as a separate individual. There is no individual, you can say in short, or the ego is a creation of the mind. It is not real. There is no dreamer. Even your night dream and this dream which you call your life, waking state, is not anybody's state. It is only a state. Nobody is dreaming it. There is nobody.

Question: How to control unwanted thoughts while walking on the path of knowledge?

It's very easy, bring in the awareness. What is awareness? Awareness is the knowledge of my true nature. How to know your true nature? Self-realization, realize your true nature, that you are this experiencer, unbound, eternal, emptiness, bliss, love, realize that you are that. How to realize that? Walk on the path of knowledge. “I don't know how to walk on the path of knowledge”. Get a guru, everything is arranged for you. You take it, it is free, it is there since many thousand years. What are you waiting for?

Awareness is the key. It will control not only your thoughts, it will control all the layers. Through awareness, you get the control of your thoughts, your memories, your desires, what should be done, what should not be done, your intellect, your emotions, your feelings and the most important, your body. Your body is not in your control, you don't know what to feed the body, you don't know how to breathe properly, you don't know how to maintain the body. None of the layers is being maintained properly. You don't know how to maintain your nervous system also, you are feeding it coffee, tea, that excites it and you are feeding it alcohol or drugs and they simply damage the whole nervous system and you call it fun, you call it high, you call it life and some idiots call it successful life. I am rich therefore I will damage my body, let's damage my nervous system today. Why? I got a contract for a million rupees.

So they are not only animals, they are retarded animals, animals never do that, they never damage themselves. So there is no control at all. It's kind of difficult to call them a human being, isn't it? A life without control, simply a machine just running wildly, whatever way it runs, cannot be called a life. Only a spiritual seeker is alive, the rest are zombies, that's what we say, you must have seen the zombie movies you see, their eyes are missing, their nose is missing, one hand is missing and one leg is broken, they are just hungry for blood. Still they walk, their talk is not talk, just growling, they want to kill each other and they want to recruit more zombies by biting normal people and that is how your society is, just a crowd of zombies, walking dead. Only after realizing what you are, you become a human, probably you become God. I am Brahman.

There is no human, it's all God and how to do that? It is very simple actually, take refuge in the Guru because you don't know what is the path of knowledge. You don't know any scripture or any book or whatever, you won't be able to read it, you won't understand it. “I will just watch the videos.” You are welcome, be my guest, you will fall asleep after the second video, that is guaranteed, only the Guru will take you beyond the zombie land, only Guru can rescue you, nobody else.

Question: What we do in dreams becomes karma too?

Yes, and the fruits are experienced in the dream state only, that is the good news. You do something wrong to somebody and they will beat you up in the dream, but there is nothing to worry, you can wake up and enjoy your life without getting beaten. Now don't be so happy, don't be so quick, there are some dreams which can carry over to the waking state. Like you get a horrible dream, it's a nightmare and you will see that the effect of the dream remains for the day, at least for a few hours. It is going to affect the mind for a while, if you remember the dream then there is a karmic effect there, you probably won't feel good that day, all the time you will recall the dream. This is very normal, and happens to everybody.

But there are dreams which are very special, like the Guru appears in the dream and instructs you, go and donate 5000 to this person who needs it badly and his suffering and his spiritual growth is affected because he does not have money, go and do it. Your Guru says it like this in your dream. What do you do? You wake up, ok it’s Guru's order, drive to that fellow, ok take 5000. What has happened here? The dream has turned into a karmic action in the waking, it's very rare. Actually there are some stupid people who will act on their dreams, like - “last night I saw that I am going to get in an accident today if I go to my office”. Everybody gets these kinds of dreams, fear manifests in the dream, “probably I will not go to office today. Who knows if the dream is that kind of dream which comes true”, and they don't go to the office. What has happened here? The dream has affected the waking state, the karmic residue is still lingering because it is so important for that person. If it is important for you, it will definitely become a karmic issue for you. If it is not important for you, it does not stick to you.

Session 98

Question: Until you introduced the concept of energy, Shakti, I was beginning to think that the domain of duality, experience in the experience, Shiv and Shakti, in non-dual thinking they merge into experiencing but in the domain of duality, experience is the passive unchanging Shiv, no qualities and experience is the dynamic Shakti with infinite names and forms, constantly changing, may be I am wrong but these are just two ways of saying the same thing.

First of all, I will give you a suggestion that never mix two philosophies. Who knows what they are saying, there is no guarantee at all that the correspondence will be good. But I have done that in my videos and I have said that it looks like the experiencer corresponds to Shiv and the experience corresponds to Shakti. That is very approximate. Very similar to Advaita but it is not 100% accurate to say that.

In Shivism they have completely personified form, at some point the correspondence breaks but yes because truth is the same and everybody gets it from different paths, you will find a little bit of similarity. So Shivism is also a non-dual path but the duality is more important there than non-duality somehow. Not only that, there are two sects of Shivism now, the Shiv and Shakti sects, so they are totally different now. They have totally different ways of explaining Shakti because the Shakt people are not going to appreciate or make the Shiv as absolute or the ultimate, they will say that the Shakti is the absolute, Shakti is the ultimate and Shiv becomes something else and in proper Shivism, Shiv is the absolute, the unchanging one and the Shakti becomes just an appearance. Nothing has remained pure in this country.

Question: In deep sleep how does the experiencer function and what does it experience?

Generally we know about deep sleep only once we are awake and assign the peaceful feeling after waking up to being in deep sleep before waking. But what happens in deep sleep and what does the experiencer experience there? It is very easy. In deep sleep, the experiencer experiences sleep, what else is there? The problem is, there is no awareness and there is no memory of what was experienced, and there is nothing important to experience, there is hardly anything to experience. So there is no need of awareness, there is no need of memory and the body is also resting, nothing is mostly happening and so you say I don't know what happens there because usually nothing important is happening. But if you cultivate awareness in deep sleep then you will see that there are things that are happening there. Just like your normal dream is boring when there is no awareness, sleep is boring when there is no awareness. When there is awareness, your waking, dreaming, sleeping, everything becomes interesting. Death, birth, everything has a new meaning now. Even your waking state will look as if it has a new meaning.

So for an ignorant person, sleep is boring, nothing happens there, there is nothing to experience. For an awakened person where there is awareness, everything is interesting like a child, you can study sleep and all those things. So how to know something about sleep? And the answer is very easy. There are only two means to know, either you experience it directly or you use your logic. What does the logic say? Experiencer simply is witnessing whatever is there. If there is nothing, it is witnessing nothing, you can say that also, logic goes there. But it never happens that there is nothing. The logic also says that experiencer never changes. So it remains what it is in the sleep, the states of the mind change, everybody knows that.

There are more states there but probably you don't know about them. So we skip them, we do not say anything about them because how can we prove it? If I say it, I must prove it. So this is what the logic says. The logic says that the experiencer cannot go away because there is nothing there to go away. Logic says the experiencer cannot appear because there is nothing there to appear and the logic says that the experiencer is the entire existence, it is the existence that is experiencing, so existence cannot go away just because one fellow fell asleep. That is very logical and your direct experience is also something like this. Nothing unusual happens to the experiencer. Those who have not cultivated awareness, they can use logic as the means of knowledge about the experiencer and the state of sleep. Those who have cultivated awareness, they are so aware that there is no sleep, there is turiya, there is the fourth state always and the question about sleep disappears. There will be no sleep, or you can say there will be an eternal dream. How is that possible? What about waking? No, waking is also a dream. The background is sleep and on this background there are bubbles of dreams that happen. So your life is just one bubble in this huge background of sleep.

Question: As there is one experiencer which sees all the experiences, what does it actually see? In normal sense I would see my limited surroundings but there are many individuals and all have the same experiencer. So what does it actually see? Is it a mixture of all experiences or is it only existence with no apparent experience at all?

The experiencer is seeing whatever is appearing, the answer is very easy. What is appearing? Names and forms, illusions. You must be thinking that there is an experiencer which is a combination of all the people there. Whatever the people are seeing, the experience must be a combination of all the experiences. But it is not like this, this is our fantasy, it is not possible. Experiencer is seeing only that which you are seeing right now, right here, there is no other experience. Remember, it is all mind created. People are perceptions, people do not perceive, you must know that.

We think that people are perceiving and people are experiencing something. If I add all those experiences that will be the experience of the experiencer. No, that is fantasy, it is never like this. There is no combined experience of all the minds, there is nothing like this. It is always an individual experience, limited by the senses. Everything else is imaginary. Sometimes I say that the experiencer is experiencing everything. But what is everything? It is just blackness, it is just emptiness, that is everything. But is that really happening? No, that is not happening. What is happening is that which is in front of you.

Can the intellect understand these things? No, the human intellect understands only the limited illusion, that is its domain of functioning. Can your limited intellect take the point of view of the entire existence? Is it even possible? Nobody knows these things. Remember the existence is unknowable. Experiencer is unknowable. Experience is unknowable. What is knowable? Whatever appears here, whatever appears to the individual, that's all can be known. And whatever appears in your waking state, that is our domain of evidence. So the unknown is a very big part, the known is very small. And whatever is known is nothing but an illusion.

Now what is the meaning of being on the path of knowledge if you don't know anything? It is very simple. On the path of knowledge we don't get knowledge. We simply remove ignorance. Whatever imaginary beliefs and wrong concepts are there in the mind, they are removed one by one through direct experience and logic. That is all. You will never know what existence is. You will never know what is the point of view of all the minds combined etc. etc. You can guess a little bit, but it's useless. What is known is that existence is experiencing itself in a limited and illusory manner. End of knowledge. Nothing more to know. That is your first chapter, isn't it? There is nothing more to know. Even if you try for a thousand years, you will never know more than this.

So why are there these questions? Because it has not been realized that there is nothing to know. The intellect has not realized that it cannot know all these things. It can only drop the knowledge. There is nothing to know there. How will I see all the experiences? There is no experience. It is an illusion. There is only potential. How will you know all the things? It's not possible, it is unknowable. After knowing what I am, after self-realization, the job of the intellect is over. Now you park it in your garage. Do not put it on the road in neutral and start pushing the accelerator. It will never go anywhere and it will jam all the traffic behind it. Your engine will run, consume petrol and become hot. That is the intellect. After the knowledge is gained, there is no use of intellect. Now you need to go beyond intellect. How to go beyond intellect? You're already that.

Question: If an incident is happening but there is no experiencer there to see it, does that event really happen? Suppose 100 people die in an accident but there is no viewer, not even a single insect, animal or creature to testify that such an event can be known to me? Did it all happened in my existence?

When you say it happened, that means it was known by somebody. If there is nobody to know it, nobody to watch it or witness it, is there any question of asking whether it happened or not? Who is going to ask whether it happened or not? Will there be a question? Nobody has seen an event. Now is there anybody remaining who will ask about it? If nobody has witnessed any event, will anybody ask this question?

Let me give an example, suppose somewhere there is an outburst of lava, volcano outburst, and nobody is witnessing it, but there are after effects, that means somebody has witnessed the after effect. And then they can conclude that there was a volcano. Doubt is cleared. You are imagining a scenario and then you are imagining a question on that. You can imagine anything, like there are flying pink elephants in my backyard. Now whether they eat peanuts or do they eat mushrooms? What is the answer to this question? It's all imagination. You are imagining that, let there be an event which nobody is watching. Now there is nobody who will ask this question. So the question was imagined. Now the answer is also imaginary. Never ask imaginary questions. Only if it is your direct experience, you should ask about it.

Question: After knowing the reference to emptiness, the previous push to know has gone. Now the normal day to day activities and knowing activities, both is just a choice, no difference, not too much inclination for running after knowing, more and more reality, almost all states are experienced already and now the craze of mysterious spirituality is going to be lost, this seems imminent, existence is unknowable.

Why are students on the path of knowledge not doing all these crazy experiments and all, they will lose interest very quickly. Why is that? The same phenomena, when you eat sugar, now the apple is not going to taste good, the apple tastes bitter if you eat it after eating a sweet. So you know the ultimate and that it is your everyday experience, that is the ultimate, you find that the experiencer is your everyday witness, which is already witnessing whatever appears, you get everything here and now, obviously you will lose interest in everything. Perhaps there is a tiny bit of interest in you to find out all these exotic states. What happens when I tell you about the senses and I tell you the non-physical nature of everything? You can see that your current experience is exotic, isn't it? It should not be here and that it is the best movie possible, there is no other experience which comes even close to this one, the waking state.

Why are you running after all those blurry experiences? Nothing is visible, no knowledge is gained, you are even more confused. What is real, what is not? When I tell you that look, all the experiences are false, now are you going to run after strange experiences? You are seeking the truth, somebody tells you to look in that direction, no truth, Are you going to go in that direction? No. Why do we keep discussing all these things? Because, it is somehow useful for those who have not encountered emptiness. The thing is that probably, hopefully, I will be able to use this knowledge in my daily life. They want to use this knowledge as a perfume to spray on the cow dung, but it is not meaningful. So those who do not reach the ultimate, for them we have other paths and it is interesting, it is not totally boring, I won't say that it is useless, it is useful sometimes. You are not reaching the emptiness and you are not losing interest in the world and you are not renouncing the world, now we need to do some kind of treatment there, therapy there, and now these things, they appear on the scene, the mysterious stuff, the occult, the kundalini and even meditation. Why do you want to meditate? Are you not in eternal meditation already? Shift your position of the ego, shift the “I” to the experiencer, now I am meditating eternally all the time. But what are you doing? You are trying to make the mind meditate, which it will never do, and what if it does, it is an illusion, the outcome is nil, zero, absolutely useless.

So in this way, once you are on the path of knowledge, you are going to lose interest in all these things. Sometimes you think that they are useful, but they are useful only as a device to bring you back on the path. Who uses them? Many gurus use them actually, not the students that much, students are not allowed to do all those crazy experiments, but gurus are doing miracles and gurus are doing all that, even the guru field is doing a lot of stuff. And I see only one utility of that, if you are lost on the path, there are some things that can bring you back on the path. Occult is one of them. If you are totally engrossed in the desires, okay then, create your world, fulfill your desires, come back here, then continue your program, wherever you left it, that is the only use. “I need that experience”, and one day, guru gets tired of it, “Okay take this experience, are you happy now?” “Yes I am happy”. “Continue the study” - this is how it is used. So, it is a sign of progress, if you are losing interest in that which is not necessary. If you find that it is necessary, okay use it, who cares. When I tell you that this whole world is a dream, now will you want to have a dream which looks real? No, you enjoy this one.

Question: Experience advanced analysis - for an experience to occur, the senses must sense a pattern and relay the sense data to the memory, the memory then must compare the sense data to previous inputs to generate experience. Must I assume that any experience that is encountered even if it appears new, for example the sensation of flying in lucid dream is not actually being experienced for the first time, that is local memory at the level of a lucid dream is familiar with the sensation of flying even if it seems new? I ask because, if this is true, would it not mean that theoretically there is nothing new to know since universal memory contains all the possibilities?

I agree with your last sentence, there is nothing new to know and the universal memory contains all the possibilities, yes. Now, what about the local memory, that is the memory of the individual, what happens there, if there are no impressions there? The experience simply impresses as it is, it forms a raw memory of that experience and it is not interpreted, hardly any interpretation there, but it forms an impression, probably it is not meaningful for that individual, probably the intellect there cannot make head and tail of it, it is there, it gets impressed, that is very natural, nothing else can happen.

Now the next experience is then compared with this one and the next one and so on, it builds up the interconnections, which is what we call knowledge. Now the lucid dream, it is very interesting because we do not remember all the dreams, so probably there was an experience of floating or flying or something and it got impressed on that memory somewhere, the dream memory and when you became lucid you saw that I already know these things. Actually my experience is that, when you do all these things it looks very familiar, you walk through the wall and it looks like that I have done this a thousand times. It is this amazing feeling and there can be two explanations for it, that it has already happened many times for the individual or that we are not in the individual memory now, that is more probable. We are not in the waking state kind of memory where the waking state experiences are being recorded. We have left that area in the memory, we are in some other memory where all these experiences were already impressed and due to the attractor, nature of the mind, that law, simply the attention was drawn to that area. Remember, when you are beyond the individual memory, what governs the experience? The desires. And that experience occurs. It is already there in the memory, so it is simply experienced. Everything is already there and our attention drifts into those areas in the memory and they are experienced.

Now, I know it's not going to be so satisfactory, so you will need to do the experiments and check what happens, when you fly in the lucid dream. You will need to experience it, like go into the lucid dream mode and check, fly and you check, does it look familiar? Is it like you have done it many times? Does it look like you have already done it or is it so strange that nothing seems familiar there? You cannot interpret that experience now, if it is like this that means it is a new one, but if it looks very natural, it has happened so many times and you can conclude that you have left the individual memory there. It is some other area of the memory where you are experiencing that thing. So yes it is a little bit complicated

Question: The occult only seems to be talking about the concepts that poorly point to the removal of ignorance, it seems that the occult teachings only try to sound important by repeating the concepts over and over and also by glorifying the concepts with wild ideas and theories?

Well, that is the occult, it is overly decorated, instead of simplifying they are trying to make it complex and there is a reason for that - they are trying to keep it secret instead of spreading the knowledge and that is what I don't like about the occult. It is science and so it should be like science, you should teach it to everyone. Now there is a reason for that because everyone is not ethical, everyone is not going to use it for good. But when you keep it secret it becomes corrupt. So we have no way out of this thing.

Like science has done it, they will teach you how to make the dynamite, they don't bother to teach you the ethics of it, you can make the dynamite, mix nitrogen and whatever is there, now you can use it to do the mining or you can blow up somebody's house. The scientist is not concerned and nobody blames the scientist for that. If you do the same thing in the occult field, I don't know what can happen, nobody knows what will happen. I don't know what is the reason for that, you do an occult experiment and make it public, now all the hell will break loose on you including the gurufield, they will kick you out for doing that. So the occult will remain like this, it will remain occult, that means hidden and you will need to go through all these loops and the twisty curvy path there, roller coaster path to get into the occult. Ordinary people are not allowed there, entry is banned. So after 10 years you get to the real master and he teaches you something, how to produce fire from your mouth and things like that and they are completely useless. So yes the theories have also become corrupted and all. I am trying to reveal some things but I think it's not working because it is something which is practical. You cannot simply write down things and expect it to become knowledge, no it's not possible, anyway I am trying that.

Question: If the same experience is experienced by a group of people, does that mean that the same karma they made to experience that karma in manifestation, as a personification I am only experiencing that incident, what is universal memory part in this?

Actually there is something called the racial karma, in Sanskrit I called it jati vritti which is the karmic impressions associated with a group of people. Probably that's what you are asking. Karma of the whole race, like the human race or the karma of a country, particular tribe, particular caste or even your society, particular city and your family, there is the family karma, everybody knows that. You are trapped in that family since many births. There is something like this that when you are in a group, whatever they do becomes the group karma and you get the fruits along with other people. So that can be proven very easily. Two groups are fighting the war and you belong to one of the groups, you elect a group, like you say, I belong to this group and the other group attacks you and kills you. You have not done much here, you simply associated yourself with that group, this is my country, this is my race, that was your karmic bondage there and whatever the group suffered, you suffered.

So what do we do here? We dissociate ourselves from all these groups, all these communities and whatever they have formed. Collectively, I call it “society”. You need to come out of society, if you want to break free of tribal karma. That is the proper translation of the jati karma. Tribal karma is your association with the tribe that causes troubles for you. So that's why we instruct the student to not do anything good for your tribe or your community or your caste or country. Leave them all, because as soon as you do something, good or bad, whatever, you will pay the price for that, it gets written in your account. So never do that, never do good for society.

Now probably I am the only one who is saying this so boldly, clearly, but believe me, it is there in all the scriptures also, it is called uparati and probably there is an English word for that, detachment from the society, not doing anything for the society, your family, your greater family or whatever it's called, united, or combined family or whatever it's called. Never do that, do not serve the country, do not serve your community, do not elect your president, you will get trapped in that forever and you will suffer all that which the whole group suffers. So cut yourself off from the world, world is not for us, whatever happens there is not my concern.

But worldly people don't really like this talk. Look at this, another level of bitterness there, nobody likes it. No, you are a spiritual person, you should help everybody and all, okay then, do it, but do it with total detachment, do it as your personal project. “He belongs to my caste and I must help him” - now get ready to get reincarnated 50 times in the same caste. Isn't that a problem now? Yes, now it is a problem. We detach ourselves from the world, there is no need to attach. Don't belong to any group. You will say, “I am on the path of knowledge, it's a group and satsang”. Just kick it out completely. Kick out your tradition, there's no need to attach to the tradition also. “No, I belong to Advaita Vedanta tradition”, no, there is no such thing. There is only the truth. The traditions are created by ignorant people.

A seeker has no country, no race, no religion, no caste, no family, no family name. Look at these things, they are not yours, they are given by somebody else. Whatever you call as your name is not your name, it is given by somebody else, whatever you call as your surname is actually a mandatory thing that somebody imposed on you, even your father and mother were not free to assign your surname. Do you see the bondage we are in? You cannot choose your name, you cannot choose your surname, you cannot choose your caste, nationality or anything. Probably you can, but it's very difficult, especially if you belong to a race which does not look like somebody in the other country, it's very difficult. You will face racism in that country, if you don't look like those people. So look at the bondage here. In India the girl marries a boy and her name is changed, she gets a surname of the boy, why not reverse? Look at the bondage here. Nothing is yours, it is all a trap, it is all something which is the burden that you're carrying. This is your tribal tendency, this is your tribal karma that you're carrying on your head, there is no real need.

So, guru snatches everything, including your name and surname. It looks like that everybody gets the surname of Anand somehow, Nithyanand and Sadhanand and Divyanand, but that is not really necessary. Sometimes I do that, sometimes I see that there is too much attachment with the name and surname and whatever, it is cleaned off by giving them another name. Nowadays the society is in a bigger bondage, but this was very effective in the old days, because there was no passport and there was no driving license, there were no tax returns and whatever, there was no birth certificate also. So the guru used to simply rename the student and everything is gone now. But can you do that now? It's not possible now, your passport and your driving license will become useless and somebody will say that, he is cheating because he has changed his name, he is hiding his real name, probably he's a criminal or somebody, because only criminals hide their names, only hackers, they open an account with some other name, “good/ethical” people use their real name on Facebook.

So it's a big trap, it's a big bondage. We need to break out of it. I'm doing it, whenever I find somebody who deserves a name, I give them a name and there are very intelligent people here who don't use their name which is given by somebody else. At least in the field of spirituality, you should assume a spiritual name, which is your own, which you like, which does not have this stamp of race or surname or whatever it's called. It is all arbitrary, so we get rid of all this, we kick out all this dirt from us. Especially those people who put their real picture here, still a lot of identification with “my face”, is it really required? Do you really need to show this face here on a spiritual forum like this? No, actually if I really pick you, I'll change everything that you do. I'm going to change everything, but it rarely happens. Rarely I find a surrender of that kind, where the person or the student allows this. He's going to leave the guru, but he's not going to change his name, it's amazing, isn't it? Which is slapped on by somebody else. You will hear all these things all the time, still we don't realize how important it is to break all these bonds.

Question: I agree 100% because just by not doing bad, you are doing good, usually more than those who purposely and proudly try to be helpful to the world and others.

Exactly, just don't harm anybody, non-violence. What else do you want? You don't need to do anything more than that. If everybody becomes non-violent, stop harming everything, including the rocks and the trees and the rivers and all, oceans, air, water, don't damage all these things, including animals and humans obviously and also gods, don't damage the gods. Humans can do anything these days. So if you don't do that, won't it become heaven overnight? It's not going to happen, don't worry, but it will theoretically. So by not harming anything, you are actually helping.

Question: So we will get good karma of the group or family too, that's why most gurus make groups and they try to uplift new persons with their old sadhaks?

You are absolutely right, because I can get the bad effects of the group, if the group is doing something good, you get the good effects. Like, if you are born in a rich country, without doing anything you get the money, without doing anything you get the property, education, security and whatever, that is your good karma that you were born in that family or in a good country. What happens then? As soon as you get good fruits, you are bound there forever, it is a golden cage, where you are now trapped. Now your next birth is going to be in that country, next one, again that country, even the same family, next one, neighborhood, in that country.

Now, you know what happens to countries? Countries don't stay, the vibration affects them also, the cycle, the pendulum swings and after five or ten births, now that country is the poorest country in the world and everything is corrupt there. It is a war zone and you are dropped there from the sky, you take birth there. Now it is payback time. What do we want? We want a good experience, we don't want a bondage, we don't want to be bound to the group. We want a good experience and it is the universal law that you cannot have the good experience forever, the law of polarity. Those who know all these laws, those who have gone through the program, once you know the laws, you will not fall in the trap of a group or family here, because they don't remain the same.

Do you know any family that remains in the same status for more than 100 years or three or four generations? Nobody, even the greatest kings have disappeared. What happened to their 100th generation children, who knows? They're begging somewhere on the streets. Do you want to form a bond with that family which is impermanent? No, the seeker is very opportunistic actually, the seeker is a very “self-ish” kind of person. We don't want bondage but we want a good experience, so you bound yourself to spirituality, you make the spiritual intention to be always born in a family which is spiritual in nature and which is prosperous enough, but not ultra rich, which is good enough, provides you food, clothes and shelter and a good life. You make only this much intention, not about the group, not about the family, not about the caste or race. Your intention must be that please let me take birth in a spiritual family always, where my needs are met, I don't struggle too much to get what I want, my desires get fulfilled - you intend only this much. Now it does not matter whether you're born in Africa or Australia or Antarctica, as long as you are on the path of knowledge you are happy. Make your intention very specific that I want to be in a family where the parents are educated and they are following the path of knowledge, even one of the parents, mother or father, no problem and you take the help of a guru or the guru field and check what is going to happen to that family while you are alive there, while you are spending the time there. It should not happen that your parents get killed in the accident, you ensure things like that and you take birth there.

But you can see it's completely useless, it sounds too artificial. So on the path of knowledge what intention do we have? Only one - let there be no birth at all. And now these laws of the mind will take you to that goal, let there be no birth and now your births may happen, if they are required. Which will be obvious, as there's a lot of karmic stuff there. If they are required they will happen only in such a way that you always come out of the karmic dirt, you always encounter somebody who is on the path of knowledge and you always get the same knowledge and your awareness comes back and after two or three births you're born in awareness.

There are many examples like this, Ramana Maharshi everybody knows. There are many. Now it is easy for you, next time you will die in awareness and then there won't be any birth. Even with the karmic load you can bypass human birth, you choose another world to fulfill your remaining desires or exhaust your karma and don't come back here.

Question: What about performing family rituals? Is the only way to detach and participate?

If you are dependent on the family, you detach and participate. If you are independent, get out of there, why are you doing that ritual? Out of respect for the parents, out of respect for the elders, we do it. So do it, there is no harm, but do not get involved in it, do not expect fruits from the ritual or do not believe in them, most of them are just superstitions. So yes, if somebody died and you need to perform the ritual, go and do it, there's no harm in that, but do it with detachment. Because you don't want to hurt the feelings of your family members and you want to appear normal, not crazy, you do it. But the best thing is to get out of there forever, don't do that which you are forced to do by any means, emotionally or physically or even through compassion. Forced compassion is not compassion, you really don't want to do the ritual, your teacher told you to be compassionate, that does not work, you are not going to get the fruits of that compassion. It is artificial, so if you are dependent, do whatever is needed, don't break the expectations of your family and if you are independent, refuse.

Question: What is your spiritual name?

Tarun is my spiritual name. Doesn't it sound spiritual? I have so many names, I forgot how many, they are all spiritual for me.

Question: I'm missing bliss for many lives, life is full of sorrow? I'm bliss now, that's my nature, I'm laughing now, how is this impossible happening?

It is not impossible, it is imminent, it is the only destination, everybody is reaching there, you are there now. Everybody is reaching there, they have their own paths and they have progressed on their path variably. I mean, not everybody has progressed the same way, so everybody is reaching the bliss state. Don't worry, it is the only possibility, where else are you progressing?

Question: Lots of breaking and remolding you are doing and for some reason it feels uncomfortable.

When a surgery is done on your body, it feels uncomfortable, doesn't it? But you are cured forever. That is what the guru does, it feels very uncomfortable, like the ego is now gone, the ego struggles, struggles and then dies, poor thing, but now there is bliss. So yes, if the end is good, all is good. After listening to these teachings, after going through the program and after attending the satsangs, you feel peace of mind, you are in a bliss state, your awareness is high and you get all the knowledge and all your questions are answered, then don't worry, the bitter pill is working.

Session 99

Question: I know all the answers are there in my upcoming sadhana, though I require some knowledge about my mind which I think will benefit me in getting into a situation that allows me to continue my sadhana. So I ask you this, I imagine a lot of things, fantastic stories and I write good poems. But when it comes to logical thinking, my mind goes to sleep. I see it has my mind not there at the moment.

Logical ability is not a requirement on any spiritual path except on the path of knowledge. If you lack logical ability, if you lack the interest to learn it, if you lack intelligence and there is no interest to develop in that direction, then you need to choose a path which does not require any kind of logical thinking or intellectual methods. So as you said, your imagination is good, so I think the path of energies, the path of Shakti or the path of devotion will be best for you.

If you want to progress on the path of knowledge, then you will need some basic skills like the ones that are mentioned in our video on the qualities of the seeker. Those qualities are a must. When you start on the path of knowledge, we simply assume that you have all these qualities, that's why you are taking the path. If you are taking the path without having those qualities, then you know what's going to happen. It will be a failure. You won't understand anything, the guru won't take interest in you because the guru knows the end result and it will be a waste of time for you. And there are some qualities that cannot be developed, like the interest or the will, the curiosity, these things are built in. You cannot make somebody curious by training them. You can encourage but not so much. But some of them can be developed and one of them is the logical ability. You can learn the logic, it is not difficult. I have done that and if you have an imaginative mind, it is actually going to help on the path of knowledge. It is not a problem.

The problem is lack of interest in training the intellect. I have seen this is a major problem. People want results without training the intellect on the path of knowledge, which is not really possible. I would suggest that you go and get the training first, train yourself, discipline your intellect to think in a particular way which is required on the path of knowledge. It is a very logical, consistent and rational kind of path where there is no place for imagination, fantasies and beliefs. We require evidence for everything. These other things, although they are very useful qualities of the mind, they do not provide us with any evidence. So very sharp intellect, very sharp logic is required and I have learned my own logic, not through books but by following my teachers. How do they think? How do they say everything? How do they prove everything? What evidence do they produce? How do they counter the cross-questioning? How do they clear the doubts of everybody? I simply observed all of them and I learned it by simply following the teachers. I never opened a book of logic. But because of my background, science and mathematics, I never had a problem with understanding logic. I can detect anything which is illogical very quickly. That is a skill that everybody on the path of knowledge should have.

I sometimes jokingly call it the BS detector. You need to detect what is BS and what is truth. What is logical, what is rational and what is cooked up noodle soup. You should have that ability. Otherwise everybody will fool you in the name of spirituality. The BS detector must function in any seeker. I am saying - any seeker, not only on the path of knowledge, anybody, even in worldly matters it is very helpful to be logical. You will see that those who are successful, they are highly logical and rational and they have a very good attention span. They can attend to matters, they can finish everything quickly, they decide in one second, their decision making is so fast and so on. These are the qualities that are required.

If you don't have them, then you have two choices, either you change the paths to something which does not require this much thinking and intellectual process. Where it is more like doing, silencing the mind and letting the process happen or you should cultivate all these qualities, come back on the path of knowledge. It can take one or two years, no problem at all. It is like trying to climb a mountain without the proper gear. You don't have a helmet, you don't have the hooks, you don't have the hammer, your shoes are not nailed, now it is impossible to do that. These tools are required to climb the mountain. Who would climb the mountain without these? So that is why I said that development of these qualities is a subgoal for any seeker on the path of knowledge. There are many qualities that are required, like minimalism. You need to keep the time aside for your thinking and contemplation, meditation practices and satsangs etc. If you don't get time, if you don't have even five minutes in your life, forget about it. All these qualities are essential for success here.

Question: How is existence itself non-existence?

You can say that only poetically, existence cannot be non-existence, but existence can look like non-existence, because for the intellect, it looks like non-existing. Why? Because the intellect can know only the illusion and the existence has nothing there. When it is known that it is whatever appears here, whatever is experienced here is an illusion, the intellect concludes only one thing, that there is nothing there. It is perfectly empty from the point of view of the intellect. So the intellect says that existence is, but there is non-existence in it. That is why it has been called the Shiva. Shiva means it is not there. That is why whatever appears is called Maya. It also means the same thing. That which appears but is not there. That is why the experiencer is called the Nirgun, quality-less. Which means it is there, but it cannot be detected, nothing detects it. So that is why we say all these things are there, but they are beyond intellect. Intellect knows only names and forms. Intellect knows only that which appears, it functions there in its limits.

Although we can purify the intellect to arrive at the truth, that is what we do on the path of knowledge. It is a process of purification, it is a process of subtracting, letting go, cutting off, destroying. It's all negative words. Whatever remains there, then shines and that is called self-illumined. Which is an old word, which means that it is self-evident. That is the basic quality of truth, isn't it? What is the truth? Which you don't need to search. You don't need to prove it. You don't need an instrument. And you don't need to write a big book to explain what is true. This is the best quality of anything that we can call truth, that it is self-evident. That is what we call self-illumined. It shines by itself, it does not need any other light to be seen. Poetic words. You don't need evidence to prove the truth. So that is why the path of knowledge is so short. The path of knowledge is not even a path, it is just a few statements, that's all. You don't need to do anything to get the truth, no effort. That is why we say it is an effortless path.

If you are making an effort to get the truth, you are chasing after something else, not the truth. And why can't you see the truth? Because of preconceived notions, which I call beliefs. You have assumed things about the truth and that is why that which is in front of you cannot see it. The truth is only one line, that there is one existence which is experiencing itself in illusory and limited forms. And you will see it is exactly like this. Do I need to write a book on that? Do you need to do practices? Do you need to stand upside down every day so that you see the truth? No. All you need is a clearing of your beliefs, that it is something else. And then that's why it requires intelligence and logic because we use them as tools to cut down the ignorance. When all the ignorance is shattered, it is destroyed, burnt away, you see this simple thing which is right here, right now. The truth is present every day, every second. That which I am is here and now, the illusion, it is there, the existence never goes away and everything else is covering up this simple truth.

Projection and covering. Who does that? You, by you I mean the mind, you as the human, you do it to yourself and why does that happen? You are not born ignorant, you are born as the existence is actually, illusory, limited, experiencer, that is what existence is. Empty. You are born like this, the form appears like this and then society or other ignorant people install this conditioning in you. By the time you grow up, you are completely corrupt, completely ignorant. So knowledge is like becoming a child once again. That does not mean that you become a helpless, stupid and egoless person, no. You become a mature human being with all the human qualities and all. The human qualities will grow ten times in you. You remain as pure as a child. It is going back to innocence with maturity in a fully functioning human, fully accepting what is. Illusion? Yes, I accept it. I am not a person? Accept it. I am the experiencer, well, the best thing in my life, I am the existence, I am the Brahman, now I don't need anything, complete satisfaction, complete bliss, complete freedom, that can happen in one day.

Actually, I have seen this happen in one day. I need to only take one hour session, in one hour everything can be shown. All the ignorance that the society has stuffed in you since many years or you can say many births also, it takes only one hour to dismantle all of it. I have seen this happen, I see it happen every day actually, why is it not happening for some people? Too much ignorance and lack of qualities of the seeker, they are not ready for letting go of ignorance, their mind is still running behind some other things, but after letting go, their mind is trying to accumulate something, there are such big delusions there, that even the guru cannot help it, the guru needs to wait and see, prescribe this thing, prescribe that thing, that's all can be done. And when the student is ready, well, all the ignorance falls away in one day.

Question: What is the secret of choosing a male body or a female body by experiencer? Why are most of the enlightened people in history are males?

The first thing is that the experiencer does not choose, the experiencer does not do anything, the experiencer has no desires of any kind, it does not take any forms. The experiencer is formless. These bodies of whatever kind, they are simply appearing, they are appearances, there is no male, there is no female, they are just illusory pictures. There is no body. You should understand these things. And then these questions will disappear, there is no secret here, it is all right in front of you. Now, you can ask, why is it appearing like this? No reason at all. Because there is a potential, there is a possibility, all possibilities are appearing, it's not a big deal. Why are most of the enlightened people in history males? Who cares? They are all one, they are all beyond human, which means the gender does not apply there. The body has a gender, and the body cannot be “enlightened”, whatever that word means. You know that the bodies appear, who cares if enlightenment or whatever happened in a specific body. Gender is for the body. That which knows has no gender. These things are not applicable to the highest. The ultimate has nothing, no bodies.

If you find this question troubling, what does that say? That says a lot about your condition, that you are giving too much importance to the bodies and the genders, male, female, that's all is in your mind, that is somehow important for you. It is not important at all. What is important is, know your essence, forget everything else, never give any importance to males and females, they amount to nothing. You are the highest, you are the existence, and all these forms and various funny looking things appear here for a while, they are not important. So become big, don't remain small and narrow, don't limit yourself to this type of body, that type of body. This body is just a monkey which has lost its tail, it should not be more important than that. It is just a pile of organic matter, who cares if it is male or female.

Those who have lost their path, they will search for the answers to these imaginary questions which do not matter. Without knowing the experiencer, if you ask something about it, it is going to be a disaster. You should ask these questions like - what is experiencer, does it choose or not, what is a body and so on. Start from the basics. If you know the basics, such questions will never arise, probably that is why the people in the program do not ask that many questions, their questions are silenced immediately.

Question: In one of your videos you mentioned the assumption that everybody else is ignorant. Only I know everything is a form of ignorance and a corrupt mind, but that's a fact. How can we deny the fact? We can accept the fact, but how will it lead to corruptness of mind?

Everybody is ignorant, well, that's not true. There are very knowledgeable people and “I know everything”, this attitude is only stupidity because there is no knowledge, there is nothing to know really. The wise man always says that - “I don't know anything. I cannot find proof of what you are saying”. That is what the wise man will say at most. So that's why I say that the path of knowledge turns you into an agnostic. The agnostic never says I know everything. The agnostic says exactly the opposite. I don't know anything. And what is the difference between the ignorant and the agnostic? Ignorant person says I know everything. You go and check any ignorant person, they are kind of very confident about what they know. Agnostic is never so confident, always uncertain. “Okay, probably you have the answer, show me the answer”. And when shown the answer, he laughs because that's never the answer. There is no knowledge in existence. It is empty, there is nothing to know.

You can see it like this, most of them are ignorant. Saying that I know will put you in the category of the ignorant. Sometimes I say this thing, come on the path of knowledge, you will know everything there is to know. That is only half true, isn't it? You will know everything there is to know. What is this everything? Everything says that I am everything and there is nothing to know about me. I can be everything. And since people don't understand these things, you say that. You serve them whatever they can digest.

There are old traditions, like they say, come on my path, I will make you immortal. I will merge you with God and so on. People understand these things. They know what this is. And when they come on the path, what do they show? You are not the body. So what remains is immortal. They are kind of disappointed because they wanted the body to be immortal. But some are happy that their ignorance was destroyed and they forgive the Guru for just making it so spicy and cheap. Guru's do that. I told you so many times, Guru's lie a lot. They are big liars, but that is for your good. That is for your benefit. I will merge you with God and they say you are God. Now, you wanted to be you, plus you wanted to see somebody else as God. Then you wanted to become that, but no. That was ignorance. The Guru takes away the ignorance. Now there is nothing to know, nobody to meet, nowhere to go. I am God now, whom should I worship? No one and thus everything is taken away from you. Now what is there to know here? Nothing. Can that person say, I know who God is? No. Can that person say, I know the recipe to become immortal? No. Nothing to know. So those who think that everybody is ignorant, they are themselves ignorant.

Question: If darkness has to become light, something has to burn. That's the only way in the physical world. Light happens, something has to burn. Guru is a torch, he is burning. If you want to know what it is you should burn too, am I correctly understanding?

I know what you are saying, it's kind of very poetic, very beautiful, very nice. So this burning that you mentioned is the desire in the guru that everybody should get the knowledge. Everybody should become like me. This is the desire and the guru is burning with this desire and that is why the light spreads, that is why he is speaking. Everybody gets this flame, like one lamp lights the other lamp. So yes, very nice, you understood that thing. And the burning you can say also is letting go, burn down your ignorance, cut down your attachments, burn them down. So guru has already done that, you need to simply follow, very easy.

Question: Thanks for sharing the knowledge, I learned that I never learn enough, so I should think, feel and behave like an experiencer.

She is saying that I should think, feel and behave like an experiencer. But you already know that the experiencer does not think, feel and behave, the experiencer is simply witnessing, experiencing and that is what you should do, witnessing, that is the only practice. Do that which the experiencer is doing, which means it's not doing anything, it is just watching, just looking, you should also be that. The experiencer is blissful, you are blissful, never let anything affect you and these so-called qualities of the experiencer then shine into the mind and they seep into the deeper layers, that is my advice. Do not do things because you are projecting the activities of the mind on the experiencer. That shows that there is still some doubt about the experiencer in your mind, it shows that the knowledge has not happened completely, otherwise nobody will use these words with the experiencer like “behave like experiencer”, the experiencer is not behaving in any way.

So what can we do, we can be the experiencer. How to be the experiencer? You are already that, realize it and be that, don't be that which you are not. It is impossible to be the mind, if you are still taking the point of view of the mind, like “I should do this”, that is the point of view of the mind, that means the realization has not really happened. So meditate more on the experiencer, who am I, what am I doing, am I feeling or thinking, do I need to do all these things, think about such things. And instead of concluding stuff, you should ask the question, “should I think like experiencer” or even more basic question, “whether the experiencer is thinking anything” or an even more basic question, “am I the experiencer”. You should start there, do not start with the conclusion that I should think, feel and behave like the experiencer, this is only an assumption, you should ask very basic questions, am I the experiencer, is it thinking or not, is it feeling or not and who is that, who says that I should do this or that, am I that and if I am not that, does it really matter what it says? Questions like this, very basic, if your basics are confused, then you will come up with things like this, what should I do now, am I the experiencer, he said, should I try to become the experiencer, no, that means the knowledge has not happened. Ask more basic questions first and then I will tell you what to do.

Question: Are the mind and intellect different or they are overlapping sometimes and may be different also?

In our terminology, there is no mind, there is memory, the memory is a layered structure and intellect is one of the layers. These layers are made up, they are concepts only, conceptual, they are made based on the functionality that is found in the memory. And then what is mind? The mind is all of it, everything combined can be put in the word “mind”. Because English has no specific words, we dropped the word mind as it is very confusing. I use words, memory and processes. There are thousands of processes, we group them together and these groups are called layers. So there is a group of processes that does logical, rational thinking, analysis and planning, decision making, right and wrong, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, these processes are going on in a layer, that is what I call the layer of the intellect.

Similarly, there are other layers in the mind or you can say memory, like emotions, feelings, what feels good, what is my like, what is my dislike, all these things, that is the layer of the emotions. There are more layers like nervous system, action-reaction, pleasure-pain, reward-punishment, there are even more lower systems like the control system, functioning of the muscles, bones and there are lower systems like the organs, the whole body and there is even lower like the matter and you can go even lower like the vibrations and unmanifested. It is a layered structure. There are higher layers above the intellect, the layer of awareness, the individualistic layers, the causal body and then the non-individual, merged memories and greater memories in the greater neighborhood and the universal memory and then the unmanifest. Whatever is at the bottom is actually found at the top. So if you are interested, go through the video series on the path of knowledge.

Question: Feeling of being experiencer comes for a very short time, but when it comes it washes all the pain, ego and unnecessary unwanted thoughts.

Very good. Now, all you need to do is go systematically so that your awareness stays for a longer time. Follow the procedure and if you are not interested in the procedure, you simply make a spiritual intention that let there be awareness all the time. I am the experiencer, let me be the experiencer all the time. Who has this intention? It is the mind obviously, it is a thought in the mind, it is a desire in the mind. Experiencer does not want to be experiencer. There is no one there and it is what it is, it does not care too much. The mind has this problem that I do not remain an experiencer. No problem then, you make this spiritual intention, hold this intention very strongly, write it down somewhere, repeat it often. This is called remembrance, remember, hold this very strong intention to remember. Like when you are asked what your name is, you already remember it, you know what your name is. Do you need to do any practice to remember your name? No, it is just stamped on you, it is impressed on you so deeply that even if you are sleeping, somebody calls your name, you wake up. Similarly, you need to remember what you are all the time. Somebody says who you are, well, you need to tell them that I am Brahman and let them laugh for a while.

Question: Why does our intellect keep on jumping from one path to another on our way to self-realization?

There can be two or three reasons. The first is lack of faith. Now, when I say this, everybody will jump from their chair, well, how is faith important on the path of knowledge? You told me not to have any faith. There needs to be a little bit of faith to even start. Like, you are traveling in a new city and you ask for directions, where is the street number this or where is the office of this company and they tell you, okay, take right. Now if you don't have faith in that person who is a local person, who knows the territory, then you will never turn right and then you will never find out whether there is your office there or not. You will never find it out. So that much faith is okay, “I will try that which was told to me”, that is called faith. You simply believe it, “okay, I will try it”.

Guru tells you that do this, number one, do that, number two, do something else, number three and you lose faith after number two. You say, okay, the Guru is telling me this but I am not seeing that for which I am here. It can be any goal, any spiritual goal. He told me but I am not seeing it and then you lose faith there. It is not going to happen, I am not going to try it and then the mind jumps from one path to another. Does not go all the way to check what the Guru has said. Does not go all the way, loses patience, that is one thing.

And there can be other reasons that you are on the path and in between you find it is not suitable for you, it is not working. So these can be the reasons and I am not saying it is bad, everybody does that. Everybody does the Guru shopping, let me try this Guru, trying various paths because it is natural, try out some things. Spend two or three years on Guru shopping, go from one shop to another, check the product and then buy it, try it and if it does not work, you need to go and try something else.

Some people say that, why don't you please tell me who is the best Guru in the world, I will simply go there. The Guru is not one size that fits all. And getting a Guru is like a love affair. Can I tell you to go and marry somebody because I like that person so much? You should fall in love and then you decide to marry. If you are in India, somebody else decides whom you should love and whom you should marry, how many children you should have, whether they should be boys or girls, somebody else decides, isn't it? So that is a very tragic thing here, but at least we should not do this in spirituality.

Everybody's free to decide their path, everybody's free to decide their Guru and if you don't love the path, if you don't love your Guru, don't stay there. You need to fall in love, otherwise it is so boring, otherwise it is a burden. I tell you to be in awareness all the time, it is a burden now, why are you travelling on that path? And I have seen that some people pick a path and they go and follow the Guru, why? They have no other option, that's why. “No sir, I don't know anybody else, please initiate me on the path of knowledge”. I say, I will do that, but what if you are unable to follow me? Because, before seriously taking somebody, I test that person a lot. I never send them back without giving anything, but I am testing them, I am looking at them. What are they doing? Are they coming back? Are they asking meaningful questions? Are they asking about male and female and gods and demons only? I keep checking like this. Are they taking interest in the proper path of knowledge? What is the truth? What is knowledge? What is ignorance? What is dependent existence? And things like that. I keep checking and then only I say that you are initiated.

Why are they following me? Because they have nothing better to follow and sometimes I tell them directly that you are wasting your time here, don't come here, it's very direct. But if I see that the person is very sensitive, like they won't accept this thing, I keep them around for a while and when there is no progress, I tell them, look, probably you don't like this path, probably there is no progress here for you. Why don't you try this other path there? And they again ask me, please tell me the name of the guru, but I never do that. I always say, the one whom you like is your guru, the one whom you love. That does not mean that you love the guru as a person. You love what he is teaching, not the person. And yes, after a while if you find that it's not worth it, you can leave it, there is no rule about it. So it's okay to jump. If you are not gaining anything, but if you do it too many times without actually following the directions, something is wrong.

Question: What is the procedure to sustain awareness for a long time?

The procedure is to be established in the knowledge. The knowledge of the self, which is also called the self-realization. Follow the procedure to get to the self-realization, and once the self-realization is there, the awareness will automatically arrive. And like I said, all you need to do is remember, remember that which you have realized. That's very easy. You need to know only once who you are, you need to know it, you need to realize the self only once, or if you are in doubt, you do it once or twice. Once you are convinced, the evidence is in front of you, like I said, it should be self-evident. And it does not take a lot of intelligence. You don't need to be a mathematician or a logician to see something which is in front of you, which you are. It takes a little bit of effort, that's all, and then simply be that which you have realized. This is the procedure, so hopefully you will do that. How to get self-realization? Walk on the path of knowledge, and how to walk on the path of knowledge? Ask your guru, very easy, he will spoon feed you the path of knowledge.

When you get everything at one place, you are very fortunate. Why are you going to go and search for anything else? I say this is the final, I say this is the ultimate, I say you will never find anything more than this. You are the existence now, what else you will find after this? And that should be the end of your seeking, now what are you seeking? Which guru will tell you more than this? And yes, the evidence is there, then what else do you need? An intelligent person does not need too much evidence, I have seen this. A little bit of common sense, yes, I am this, yes, existence is always found as experience and the experiencer, and the experience is false, so I am the existence. See, it took only 10 seconds. An intelligent person requires only a hint.

Too much active mind can cause problems for the basic knowledge, but once the basic knowledge is there, you can let your intellect run and anyway it wants to run. Now you can do the hair splitting analysis and we have already done that. Now basic analysis, advanced analysis, then the analysis of Maya and the analysis of vibration, the mathematical formulas, we have done all that. That sounds like a theory, but no, it's not a theory. I am describing your direct experience only, with the help of the intellect, which is logical ability. I never give you theories, there are models, but the models also point to something which you can witness, okay, it is all, intellectual, I am somebody who likes to do things, okay, then you are given things to do, keep doing forever if you want it. I mean, isn't this program whole and complete already? I have impurities and all, I am sick and I am weak, okay, that is also covered there. How to fix this layered structure so that you are ready for the knowledge. And the gurufield makes you complete in every way, so it is also there in the program. That's why I say, the path of knowledge program is the only one in the whole universe, which is whole and complete, which takes you to the ultimate, within six months it can be done. Basic knowledge, two days.

Question: I felt empty and incomplete and was searching for something without even knowing what I was searching, book after book, course after course, practice after practice. My mind and intellect was running wild, then I found Guruji via YouTube, everything clicked. I am still progressing with the program. The path of knowledge is the full and complete package.

Yes, it is a full and complete package. It looks like I am patting my own back, I am doing my own marketing, like my product is the best, but no, I myself have not found anything like this and that is why it was created, otherwise if there were anything like this, I won’t take this trouble. I am very lazy, I don't do all these things. I saw that there is nothing like this, so it is my attempt and we are improving day by day thanks to people like you who have helped me a lot and he is still helping me, all of your feedback is actually improving it. I am also learning because, I am not an expert in these things, I know a few things and I keep talking about those things like mad, non-stop, but this is the first time I am doing it in an organized way and I am also learning, so let us see what happens to this program in coming 5 years, hopefully. I am trying to improve, there will be new content, the mistakes will be cleared, mostly. The Hindi part is now very old and it was not produced that nicely, the English one was produced very nicely, the English one has less mistakes and is broken down into more logical parts, we need to work a lot on the Hindi one now, which will happen soon.

Question: A spiritual seeker always finds himself or herself isolated in the world, does this mean he is on the right path?

Yes, if a spiritual person finds himself or herself involved in the world, something is wrong, isn't it? Why is the spiritual seeker involved in the world? Isolated in the world, yes, right, this is the right way. You are not in the world, somehow living in the world, yes, that is right, that is the proper way to live.

I can give you an example, you need hot water for bath, now you are living somewhere in the corner of a jungle, let's say, and you need wood to make fire and heat the water so that you can have a nice hot bath. So you go into the jungle, you get some firewood, broken wood, and then you go to the river, get some water, burn the wood, heat the water, get your shower, you are done. Now, do you go and live in the jungle there, because there is a lot of wood there, or do you go and stay in the river, because there is a lot of water there? No, you come out of that thing, you go there only to get your needs fulfilled and then you come back to your house, in your hut or whatever. And that is how a seeker is living in the world, you go in the world, get your needs done, come back to your house, which is your spiritual practice, which is your spiritual path, that is your home. The world is not your home, it is just a place where you get the firewood and water.

Can we leave the world completely? No, it is not possible, you will die. So you use it, you exploit the world for your needs, and by exploit I don't mean that you damage it, take whatever is needed from there, give them back, pay them some money or do some service, it happens automatically and then you stay away. Do not even try to mingle in the world, they don't like spiritual people and the spiritual person doesn't like them. Those who are in the family situation, they know it very well, who else is going to oppose your spiritual practice? Nobody, strangers have nothing to do with your crazy stuff, your own family is the biggest hurdle. You need to somehow isolate yourself because spiritual practice is your personal matter. Nobody knows what is going on in your head, just act in the world, you need to do the acting, you need to be a good actor to survive here. While you are interacting, you be a worldly person, talk about the news, talk about the share market and the price of the dollar and whatever they like, whatever garbage they talk, talk that and then come back in your room and engage yourself in the satsang videos, the program or the books or the enlightened masters, that is your life.

Question: Can you share your spiritual journey with us?

That is what I am sharing, whatever I talk about here in the satsang or the videos, it is my journey only. What is happening is, you are getting the essence of it, you are getting the juice of it, not the fluff, because I don't want to bore anybody else here, there are many people here, probably they are not interested in what kind of stupidity I have done in my life, so you are most welcome to ask me personally. If by spiritual journey you mean the personal stuff, not the spiritual matters, then only those who know me personally, they come to know, otherwise nobody needs to know all that useless stuff, you need to know what I learnt, that is what you are getting, isn't it?

Question: As you mentioned, there is knowledge of the body in the dream state, what is the difference between the two states?

The difference is in the memory, if you are getting the experiences from the waking memory, then it is the waking state, if you are getting the experiences from the dream memory, it is the dream state. In the waking state, the experience is mostly of the physical world, physical body and the senses in the body. In the dreaming state, the experience is of a dream body, dream senses and the dream world, that is the only difference. How come I know about the physical world and the physical body in a dream? There is a bridge between these two memories, that is what I call the memory bridge. What about daydreaming? Daydreaming is actually coming from your waking memory only and it is called imagination, that is just recall of the memories or mixing of the memories. Night dreaming is something different.

Question: You mentioned that, when there is going to be a change in spirituality, when you are going through the spiritual path, the ego will create obstacles in your path, how can we prevent that from the ego creating those types of obstacles?

When you receive knowledge, there are going to be changes in your mind, which is the layered structure, nothing can stop those changes, it is very natural. The old structures will start falling away and these changes can appear as symptoms in the body-mind, which is the layered structure only. How to prevent it? Nobody can prevent it. Yes, we can reduce the effect, we can make it less disturbing, less painful. First, if you don't have the knowledge of what is really happening to you, then the ego will be the first one to react with fear. Knowledge calms down the ego, okay, it happens, you say. There can be sensations in the body, you will be extremely sensitive to people, there will be some changes in the food and all that. When you are listening to the satsang or the talks and all, there will be all kinds of phenomena that happen. So you get the knowledge first, that it is very normal and it is temporary, the changes are not going to happen forever, not so drastic, and once you know that this is normal, the fear goes away and with fear the resistance goes away. That means you should let it happen, it is all okay.

Why do you even want to stop it? It is for your good. We say that the evolution of this entity, this creature, has speeded up a little bit. Knowing this will make your journey very smooth. Why do they happen first of all, why should it happen, why should it be painful? And it is because of impurities, the more impurities this mind-body structure has, more purification will happen, which means there will be more trouble for you, it will be uncomfortable. We proactively remove the impurities. There are many kinds, unfulfilled desires, or suppressed events, or diseases, or ignorance, very firmly held beliefs, which are stopping purification, stopping changes from happening. We proactively try to remove them, and that is what I call purification. Everybody does it in their own way, and because on the path of knowledge, there is no purification practice at all, the recommended way is to just let it happen, but I saw that it is not working, that is not really satisfactory, so we borrowed from the yogic domain, we borrowed the purification practices from the Kundalini and the yoga traditions, and that is what has become your step number 6.

Old wise men, ancient people, they came to know that everybody has impurities, and if you don't remove them, there is no progress, there is no knowledge, there is no realization, that is what they saw. On a case by case basis, I see impurity and I try to fix it in the beginning only. I have done that, I am doing that for many people actually. I see that there is a potential, the person is interested in the path of knowledge, but there is something very tiny which can be removed by any means, and then we do it, that immediately fixes the problem. Sometimes in one day it's gone, sometimes it takes many months, and then it's gone, and the progress happens, then the changes take place smoothly. The changes can resemble Kundalini symptoms or other yogic symptoms, sometimes Siddhis appear, extraordinary events happen, but they are all just side effects, that is not our goal, our goal is purification, our goal is not manifestations of the powers, they happen, and they will happen in all the paths, every path, because the change happens in every path, otherwise why will you take up the path, if you don't want to remove your ignorance and all, there is no point.

Changes in the layered structure of the mind produce symptoms, and if they are not painful, we leave them. They are not going to last, it's not going to stay forever, only if it becomes painful that I cannot stand now, or I am feeling dizzy, or this desire is troubling me, it's not letting me progress further, it's not letting me become aware, we do the needful, and the student progresses. So don't worry, you don't need to be very apprehensive about it, it will be taken care of. Usually in 90% cases nothing unusual happens, because they are open to the change, and there is not much impurity there, their worldly life is taken care of, their relations are good enough, if not good, they are not troublesome, and their desires are mostly fulfilled, so nothing happens. It's all very smooth, but in a few cases extraordinary things happen, and then I need to put all the effort there to clean it up.

Sometimes the teaching and cleaning goes side by side, because I see s/he is not progressing, and then I suggest something, and sometimes if there is no hope of gaining any knowledge, I tell them to purify even before joining the program, or even before watching the videos. Sometimes there is no hope, I tell them to take some other path, because now I cannot also do anything, if you push the person on the path then disaster can happen.

Session 100

Question: If there is oneness, what hinders me from feeling a pinprick on a paper compared to my body? Is it possible that if one is established in oneness, he will feel a pinprick on an inanimate object as strongly as he feels it on his finger?

Well, there is some basic ignorance here. The human body has a different constitution than the piece of paper. Even a child knows this. The human body has sensors in it. There is a nervous system. There is a brain. There is awareness and so on. There are feelings and emotions and memories. It is the most complicated structure in this universe, the human body. And a piece of paper is just an inert matter. So how is it possible that if you damage the paper, feelings will be generated there? How is it possible? Is there any sense there? Is there any nervous system, neurons, brain in the paper? There is no system to sense anything. What is the pinprick? It is a sensation of pain and we need a full system to experience that pain. No experience is generated like this when you damage the paper. You damage the body and you know what is generated. It is an extreme kind of experience. Differentiate between different kinds of experiences and structures. That is the basic thing here. Inanimate objects do not feel, do not produce any experience of feelings or emotions or thoughts. This should be like primary school teaching.

By the way, it has nothing to do with oneness. Oneness simply says that there are no two. The differentiation of the experience and the experiencer is mind created. This is the definition of oneness. It has nothing to do with papers and bodies and pinpricks.

Question: Why is binary change represented by a sine wave?

Binary would mean only two states, but sine wave or any other vibration generally is a continuous vibration which can take values between zero and one. Vibration is an abstract concept. Not to be confused with our typical understanding of waveforms. First of all, there is no vibration. There is no point in analyzing it like this. It is our hypothesis, a theory. We use the concept of vibration to explain our experience, which is illusory. Vibration is just a concept over the illusion. So no point in dissecting it too much. There is change and there is a smallest change and that smallest change is called vibration and then we propose that everything is made out of the smallest change and that is the only thing to realize. That's all. There is no need to worry about the waveform of the change because it is not there. If it were real then we would find out the waveform of the change. It's not there. It is science, remember.

It is a convenient hypothesis which explains our experience and it explains everything beautifully from the matter, physical world to the awareness. All the ten layers can be explained by vibrations. You don't need any other science after this. It can be converted into technology by using the concept of vibration. It has a very nice use in occult sciences. What is vibrating? You find there is nothing. It's emptiness and then sometimes you say emptiness is vibrating. But that is wrong. What is less wrong is saying that emptiness has possibilities and these possibilities are being scanned in the form of vibrations. When the movement is perceived in the possibilities then we can say that there is a vibration there. But you can see that it's not satisfactory. When you go to the basics of the illusion, you will see that we know nothing. So we cook up something to explain our experience, to explain the illusion. And vibration is just one attempt. It's a very ancient theory actually. So there is no point in worrying about sine waves, triangle waves or square waves.

Are there states in between the vibration? No. There are no states. Remember it is non-physical, non-mental, non-procedural and all kinds of “non’s” are there which I have explained in the video, the characteristics of the vibration. A sine wave would represent a physical phenomena which is continuous in nature. There you can say it is going through many states. But we are not talking about that. We are not talking about a representation of physical phenomena. We are talking about a cyclic wave, a circular wave. Now it will be very difficult to imagine it. It has exactly two states. We do not say anything about the transition from one state to another. So it is an abstract concept. You will never find a vibration and you will never find a sine wave. Now we can use this concept to form the wave patterns which I also call the patterns of vibration. And when these patterns appear stable for a while, semi-permanent, we call it a memory. As soon as we arrive at the memory, now everything can be explained as a pattern in memory. Simulation in memory. Zeroes and ones. Like I said, the vibration is binary. Binary wave.

Now sometimes I draw it like a sine wave because there is no other way to draw it. You can draw it like a square wave. That is also what I have done. I have shown you the various representations of the vibration. But remember, the sine wave has no components. The sine wave is pure. It has no other component. It is purely circular. But the square wave or the triangle wave or any other wave has sine wave components. If you analyze the square wave using Fourier analysis, you will find there are infinite sine waves in a square wave. So it is a poor representation of the basic vibration. The best representation of the basic vibration is a sine wave. It is a circle. And I have shown an animation there where I said that the sine wave is a point that is traveling on a circle. If you stretch out the trajectory of the point which is going on the circumference of the circle, you will get a sine wave. And that is the whole mathematics of it, e to the power minus i theta or something. That is the representation of the circular form. That is the minimal representation.

Our minds cannot go smaller than that. Smaller means cannot be more minimalistic. Mathematics has no other way to represent a circular function, circular wave. This is the simplest. So we adopt it and we see that Fourier analysis now produces beautiful patterns of all kinds by combining various sine waves of different frequencies and amplitudes. You can produce anything, any pattern there. Remember I am not saying object. I am not saying shape. I am not saying matter or atoms. I am saying patterns. The patterns are non-physical, non-mental. We do not arrive at physical until there are crystals. Even the atoms and molecules, they are not really physical. They are just energies. When the crystals are formed as repeating patterns, the senses can grasp it and now it becomes physical. Now your eyes and ears and touch and taste, they can grasp it. You cannot taste an atom. You cannot see an atom. You cannot hear the atom. It is almost non-physical. Our instruments capture it as measurements.

So it is amazing that once we arrive at the crystal or the mineral layer, remember our 10 layered structure, there is a layer called the mineral layer, you can properly say it is physical. There you will start seeing the waves and all. There is solid, liquid, and all other kinds of states. There are two more states of matter. So five states total. These things are just mathematics. Mathematics that represents the change that we are observing is science. There is a potential which has not become anything which can be perceived or grasped by our intellect or senses. It is unexpressed. It is unmanifested. So we say there is a sea of memory which is not being perceived. It is a dark memory. And what is the cause of that? There is potential which is unexpressed.

Question: Emptiness is too potent. It engulfs everything. It consumes everything. What to ask and what to say before everything emptiness appears. Guruji, it is my feeling that every form of spiritual exploration ends in emptiness. Please comment.

Well, what can we say about emptiness? It is empty. That's all. And the problem is that it is not really empty. It is full of potential. Not even an inch of it is without any potential. There is so much of something there that you cannot call it nothing. But all of that is something which is densely packed in one zero-dimensional point that is empty. All of it. Infinite potential is packed in a zero-dimensional point of emptiness. Now you can see that it goes beyond our intellect. So we remain silent when it comes to emptiness. Because whatever I say about emptiness and the potential, it will be totally wrong. Because it is coming from the intellect, it will be totally wrong.

Don't worry about explaining the emptiness. Don't worry about explaining the potential in it. And just be it. How to be it? Realize that I am already that. Emptiness which has infinite potential. I am appearing to myself in infinite possible forms. Don't try to explain it. Be it. Enjoy it. What do you need to know more? Knowledge is also an illusion. If you get the knowledge of emptiness it will be because it is possible to have knowledge of the illusion, not of the truth. You can even say there is no truth. The emptiness or the advaita, the non-dual existence has no truth in it and nothing is false there. Because when everything is possible then what is false? Nothing. What is impossible is nothingness. But that is also possible because it is empty. It is almost nothing. So the intellect stops working here and that ability falls short in analyzing the emptiness. And I have also not done any analysis. I simply said that existence has all the negative attributes. So it comes out to be completely empty of any attribute. Nirgun, quality-less. That is my nature. And whatever appears we simply call it false. We declare it as waves on the ocean. The essence comes out to be the water. And that's all. We are happy with that. I am totally happy with it. Surrender there. Accept. Accept that it is unknowable. If you are feeling or you are thinking or you are searching or seeing an emptiness, it's a waste of time.

There is no thoughtless state on the path of knowledge. There is a state called awareness. Under which all the thoughts, emotions and desires and activities of the body mind can happen naturally. We do not go into a thoughtless state. It is stupidity. It will just make your mind dumb. It will reduce your intelligence. Thinking is our natural state, not thoughtlessness. State of the body is highly active. Even in sleep, the body is highly active. Do we want to stop the activity of the body? What kind of intelligent person will want to stop the activity of the body? From the human point of view the body is a gross layer. It is just one layer. But do we want to stop it? It will be dead. You stop the heartbeat, you stop the breathing. Dead in no time. So why do we want to stop all other layers?

People complain that I have a lot of negative emotions. How can I stop all the emotions or the negative emotions? We don't want to stop them. No intelligent person will stop it. There is a layer in between there which I call the nervous system or reward and punishment layer. And there is something called pain in those layers. The sensation of pain. Do we want to stop the pain? No. If you get burnt or you hit yourself with a hammer on the finger, you want to know that there was damage. You want to sense it. My coffee cup is hot. We don't want to touch it. It produces pain which is very important to keep us alive. Do you complain that I want a life but I don't want pain? There is no life without pain. Something goes wrong in the body, the body signals you with the pain. Pain is a signal. You can meddle with the nervous system and you can reduce it. But do we really stop it? No. Only in special circumstances like surgery or if the pain is unnecessary, like your tooth is aching, it is damaged but keeps aching. Now the doctor says okay till I drill there, you will need to take the painkiller, relief from the pain. It is not that we are not avoiding the damage there. “I will keep taking painkillers for the rest of my life”. No, we never say this. We want the nervous system to function in a healthy way. We want the emotions to function. We don't want to become a robot without any emotion and we want all thoughts to be there. We don't want to become a dumb donkey there, thoughtless animal.

Similarly we don't want to stop the reincarnation also. We are not in a hurry. We know it will stop one day. There is no liberation on the path of knowledge. You know that you are already liberated. You know that you are the universal mind already. You are God already. Now what do we want to do after that? Nothing at all. It is all perfect as it is. What is imperfect? The ignorance out of which such kind of questions are coming. Ignorance is the problem. Otherwise everything is perfect here. And sometimes people say ignorance is also okay because that is just one state. That is just one of the steps in evolution. Ignorance will also not last. There is innocence before ignorance and as soon as the intellect matures a little bit, becomes a teenager intellect, there is ignorance. You can say that a human is a teenager kind of entity where it has an intellect but does not know how to use it. And then you become a spiritual seeker and matured being. In between these times, while the maturing is happening, there is ignorance. And after that there is no ignorance again. After that there is knowledge. It is as good as innocence because knowledge is not really knowledge of anything. It is the destruction of the previous ignorance. So you come back to your original state. Therefore ignorance is also a necessary step. This is a process of growing up. We don't want ignorance but ignorant people are fine. Because everybody is ignorant at some stage. And some people mature quickly because they get a good direction. They get good instructions, good gurus and they mature quickly. They don't spend too much time in ignorance because ignorance means suffering. Suffering forces us out of ignorance quickly. Suffering is also our teacher. Suffering is also a necessary step. If you don't suffer you will never think about knowledge or improvement or anything. So all these things are just perfect. We should leave them as it, accept whatever is and progress forward.

Question: Why does time appear to go at a faster rate in dreams?

As you know time is derived out of change and change is a comparison of memories. Dreams are formed out of a different memory than our waking memory. There is an overlap but usually that dreaming memory is not active in the waking state. That memory has more change in it, you can say. The dream memory is changing quickly. And that is why in whatever experience it produces it appears that a lot of time has passed. More change means more time. And compared to that the greater memory which is also called the physical world is changing very slowly compared to this other memory where the changes are faster. So it looks like time has slowed down in the physical world.

What kind of memory is producing that experience? In 10 minutes of sleep you will sometimes see that 10 hours of dreaming has happened. It goes so fast. Anyhow the time is not faster. It is distorted. That is my experience. The time is distorted in the dreaming state. It goes fast in the projected state. That is my experience. It goes so fast that if there is an overlap between the greater memory and whatever state you are in, in the projected state, sometimes it overtakes your normal time and you end up in the future. That is where we get the dreams or experiences of the future kind. What is called visions or premonitions. It is possible. It is because the memory is timeless. Time is an illusion. So sometimes it changes so fast that you end up in the future.

Those who want to do time travel and all, they need to be in the projected state. It is all mind. Time is mind. Mind is time. So when you manipulate the mind, you manipulate time. As you go higher in the layers, there is a greater distortion in the time. The causal body, a very special case, exists in many timelines. That is what I have called the parallel evolution. You can imagine it, I cannot prove it but it is possible. There is a possibility that whatever you call a human birth is only a projection. If you check the diagrams that I have given, how the layers are projected in various worlds, it is only a projection of the physical body in the physical world. We cannot call it physical really, it is non-physical. The body is prepared by the greater memory and the causal body connects to it. But it is not happening in time. So it is possible for the causal body to connect to some other physical body in some other time. It can do that. It can connect to something which is in future according to this body, according to this waking state. So the causal body evolves, achieves all these powers, so called powers, they are abilities only. They are a natural consequence of evolution. And now you see that the causal body is projecting into many worlds. At many times, there are parallel incarnations going on.

How do we know all this? Well, it is only a guess actually. It is only a story. But why do I tell you these stories? So that the ways to explore all these things open up. You can explore in these directions. And it actually explains many phenomena like the twin flame phenomena. People are very fond of this thing. I don't know why. Where one causal body has taken two incarnations - One male and one female. And they appear within the same city or same country or whatever. Same time. So it speeds up evolution. Because now you can fulfill your desires nicely without any problems. Or sometimes they are two causal bodies belonging to the greater family. They appear together in the physical form. Both of them interact and evolve through mutual interaction. That is what is happening in so-called families. There is a genetic connection in the family. There is a causal connection. Karmic connection. It is very complicated. So I don't go too much into it. And eventually people will start asking for proof, evidence. And then I keep saying that your experience is your evidence. My story is not evidence. You can take it as a theory that okay this can happen. Everything is possible in this illusion, this is not a big deal. And it is within the laws of the memory.

Question: So if we go to the other lokas, the higher we are the slower time goes.

Not slower, faster. Many years pass when you are in the higher lokas. When you come back here, only a few minutes have passed. So you can say it is faster. Higher means faster. Because the rate of vibration, the frequency of vibration is higher in the higher world. So called higher lokas. But I only say that time is distorted because time is a meaningless thing. Slow time is meaningless and fast time is also meaningless. What is meaningful is the memory and our experience. That's all. Our experiences are timeless. They are always happening in the present. Notice that. It is always present no matter which world you are in. Our experience is timeless - that is meaningful, nothing else is meaningful. So evolution is happening in time, we say. We go step by step. But no. All the evolutions have already happened. Now we are replaying it. It's like the whole of the movie is already there. We are watching it go by. Depending on what state we are in, it flows, it is seen as going faster or slower.

You should keep in mind the levels of truth here. At the highest level nothing has happened. Below that everything has happened at once. No time. Below that the laws are there and so there is time. But it is distorted. Like for the causal bodies. They can manipulate time. And below that it is regular. Once you are stuck in a world, you obey the time there. Because the memory is formed in a specific way there and the memory gets constrained by the changes that are happening in the world there. We compare time with other worlds only when we compare the memories. Wherever we think is our home becomes our standard of time. But remember there is no home for us. Remember the levels of truth here. The lowest for us is the physical world, where time is concrete, it is solid, it looks real. It is happening regularly here. And it is happening so slowly that you don't even notice that it is an illusion. It is done so nicely. Like a perfect architect has created this perfect building. A very good artist has drawn a perfect picture. And then you are lost in the picture. You say that I didn't even notice that it is paint and canvas. I see what the artist is showing me. You are lost in the painting. It is like a perfect movie. A very talented director has directed this movie - The physical world. There are many worlds like this.

We don't even notice that it is a movie. We are lost in this art form of the illusion. So that is why sometimes, many times I repeat, Maya is the best director in the universe. She is the best director, writer, producer, whatever. And the audience is also a product of the Maya. She has created all the audience, viewers also, to watch it. Or you can say there is only one thing that watches this show. That is me. I am the only witness of this show. So it is all created for me, by me. You can become poetic here because now science does not work. Now your logic is lost. Nothing seems to work. Only poetic language, artistic language works here. There can be anything in the illusion. You don't worry about all these things. If I say this goes slower here, this goes faster there, you will find a world exactly opposite of it. This is possible. There are hardly any rules in the illusion.

Question: Past events and dreams both leave an impression on memory. Sometimes past events also seem dreamlike and sometimes dream events are reality. How to differentiate between past events of reality and dream events?

There is no difference between what you call reality and what you call a dream. Remember there is no reality. It's all an illusion. It's all false. Dreams are a different kind of false and the physical waking state is a different kind of false. We call them states. We don't call them realities. If it is changing then what is the meaning of “reality”? Meaningless. So the only reality is the experiencer. The experience is unreal. No matter what the state is, your waking state is unreal, dream state is unreal, projected state is unreal, death state is unreal and all the states are unreal. So what do you want to compare now? Because they all leave an impression on the memory because memory is all there is.

I give an example that a tiger attacking you in the dream does not really kill you. You simply wake up. Similarly, you cannot eat a tomato which is in your memory right now. This is my favorite example to show that memories are unreal. You imagine a tomato or you recall seeing a tomato, it is in your memory. It's just like a real tomato. Juicy, red, shiny but you cannot eat it. It's in the memory. But everything is in the memory actually, therefore everything is unreal. Now, what happens to all your relations and whatever happened to you in the past? Somebody insulted you, somebody loved you and somebody said this and somebody did that. What happened to all those events? They are in the memory. And just like you cannot eat a tomato which is in your memory, it is false, these other events are also false. Now remember, the whole of your life is just a memory. Whatever you call “my life”, where is it? In the memory. And the whole of it is false. When you live your life in the memory or in the past, that means you are living a false life. You are imagining being alive while being completely dead.

What is the right time to live? Present. There is no other time. Only present. You need to live here and now. Life is happening here and now. What are all these things in the memory? Garbage. Who knows if they happened or not. It looks like a dream. Faint pictures in the memory. Do you give a lot of importance to that? It is like surviving on a tomato which you remember. Is it possible to survive like this? No. You need to buy a fresh tomato. Make a fresh tomato soup. Put a lot of butter in it. That is satisfying, isn't it? Present one is satisfying, not the one in the memory. What happens when you live your life based on your memory that I was like this, I did like this, he is my relative and I married this and I divorced this? Stupidity. That's not your life. And you will notice that a lot of people are living in the past. Their memories are their lives and so their lives are fake. That is what we call karmic bondage. It is simply being bound to the memory.

What is karma? It is simply memory. The Sanchita and pre-allocation, what are these? They are memories. What do memories do? They produce desires. Because memory is an active vibration. Memory is not something which is written in stone like it is lying there inert. No, it is an active vibration. So these vibrations radiate out in the form of desires. We call them desires. They are radiation of memories. Memories are not static. The “willing” happens and they produce actions and the actions produce your life and the life produces more memories. So we are trapped in this cycle, the karmic cycle.

How to get out of there? Realize that it is not me, first, and it is not mine. I have nothing to do with these memories and whatever they produce, impulses of desires, and you are free. Realize that you are already free and then you come into the present. The memory is false, so you have no other option to go to. There is no future also. The future is a projection of the memories only. So whatever you are left with is the present moment and we say that it is not time. We say that it is an eternal moment. Present moment is not a small amount of time that is happening now. No, that is also memory. We say timeless. I am timeless. I am eternal. Whatever is moving is an illusion. I am not moving. I am eternally present. This is what I call real life. Everything else is passing memories. Everything is a dream.

There is an experiencer and there is a series of dreams. There is no other reality. This is mind blowing. It is a reversal. You thought that the experiencer is unreal. It will die someday. It was born someday. The experiencer, which is I. You thought that the world and everything else is solid and real. It will stay there eternally. It will stay forever. The truth is exactly opposite of it. You will stay forever. You are eternal, timeless and everything else will come and go. And it is already gone. It is already as good as not existing because it is impermanent. It is change. It is flowing. It is a flowing dream where nothing is meaningful. Nothing makes sense. It is all an illusion.

You can see what the Maya does. Maya reverses the picture. You need to reverse the picture and then you are finally living in the truth. That is what we call living in the knowledge or being aware all the time. Be aware of what this is. Live in awareness all the time. That is what all the gurus say. The awareness is not in the past. The awareness is not of the past also. It is the present. Come back to the present moment. That is where everything is. That is where the reality is. I exist only here and now. I do not exist anywhere else. They are all illusions. They are all memories. This is called awareness. When you live like this, you will say there is only life. There is nothing else. It is blissful now. Is this creature struggling? Yes. The creature is a part of the movie. Now let it play its role. Maya is directing the movie. Maya knows how to direct, we don't. We are simply witnessing, we don't know anything. There is no knowledge in the experiencer. It is pure innocence.

Question: Would it be correct to say that time is just a concept? Computational assumption done on change in memory structure by conscious entity for its own utilities. In reality, there is no such thing as time. If yes, would it be correct to say most of the meaning derived by the conscious entity is always computational, probabilistic in nature?

Well, the first part is right. Time is a concept only. It is there for the reason of survival. It is tightly bound to the physical world. You can see the rotation of the sun or the moon or calendars and clocks. It is bound to the physical world. Why? Because your survival happens in the physical world. Why is time dependent on the physical world? Because that is where the life of this creature happens. The human creature. When this restriction is not there, the time flows in whatever way it wants to flow.

But your second part, most of the meaning derived by the conscious entity is always computational and probabilistic in nature. I actually don't understand what you are saying, but the meaning is assigned to events and concepts based on their utility in survival. Remember, meaning is something like reason or purpose, if such and such thing is important for my survival, it becomes meaningful. So again, I will say the meaning is assigned to the things that assist in survival. Otherwise, they are meaningless. You have six eggs in your fridge. It is meaningful to count them. But there are six trillion stars in the sky. Meaningless. We don't worry if one trillion stars disappear. Not going to affect me anyway. So as we go away from things that we utilize in everyday life, they become more and more meaningless. They become purposeless. You can observe this thing. You can do introspection or you can do a direct observation, do a survey. How many things are meaningful, purposeful for you and you will find they always relate to survival. As soon as it is unrelated to survival, it becomes meaningless. That is how the meaning is formed from experiences. Experiences are categorized as meaningful or meaningless depending on how much utility, how much useful they are for survival of the creature.

Question: If everything has already happened in memory, does free will exist?

The definition of free will is that it is an ability of the creature, the ability of the human being or any other animal to act independently. And no, it does not exist. There is no such ability. And it does not exist even if things have not happened. If things have already happened, then there is no choosing, there is no willing. And if they have not happened, then also there is no free will. The creature is nothing really. The creature is an illusion. It does not “will” anything. It is a puppet of the “wills” that are already there. There is willing, but there is no one who does willing. It happens automatically. It is the memory in motion. The memory is taking many forms and out of necessity, it moves or acts. The necessity is to survive, there is no other willing. You can as well call it as free will. It is free to survive and will. You can say it like this. But there is no individual there. There is no person. So independently of whether it has already happened or not in the memory, free will is like a useless concept.

Question: Very often people say that morals and values of people in society are decreasing. What about the spirituality of people?

That is also decreasing, I think. It looks like people were more spiritual and more aware in the past and now they are just slaves of consumerism or materialism or whatever you call it. Degradation has happened in society. And about morals and values, I would say that it is always like this. It is always the same. 90% is garbage. This is the rule here. 90% of people are immoral, either they have no values or are opportunistic, no ethics, nothing. Whatever they know is taught to them in schools or by their parents. They have nothing of their own. And 99.99% of people are not spiritual. One in a thousand, one in a million and in some countries zero, none of them are spiritual. They don't even know what spirituality is. They think it is some kind of religion, worship or something, blind faith, superstition. That's what they think is spirituality. So it is a complete disaster as far as I can see.

The world is in a very bad situation. Sometimes I see that we know some things. We have realized some things. That means we must be super lucky to have come across this knowledge, to have adopted the spiritual lifestyle. One in a million, really. It's very rare. And I know it is difficult. When you are surrounded by mud, you cannot remain clean. It is impossible. From nose to feet you are drowned in mud. Even the “spiritual” people, they have a material component in their life. You cannot stay away from society. You need to earn money. You need to marry and have children and you need to pay tax and do some job, become a slave of a filthy rich person. This is the situation of the society here. You need to marry somebody, become a slave of your husband and do the housework and produce a lot of children. That's what your mother-in-law wants. So even if you are spiritual, there is a component in you which is non-spiritual. Only one who has completely rejected the world is spiritual. And that is also not possible if you have a body.

So what is our aim here? Get rid of the human form. And then you can call yourself spiritual. Now you are a spirit. There you become 100% pure spiritual. That is also called deva-yoni or the higher-birth. Existence in the light body, non-human, super-human, para-human, whatever you want to call it. That becomes our immediate goal of life. Well, in the field of spirituality you will see that it is one day's job to get rid of the suffering, one day's job to become enlightened and self-realized and what not. But this leaving, letting go of the human body takes some time. Sometimes it can take many births, many cycles of incarnation and then it is dropped. So on the path of knowledge we don't worry about these things. We say it is an illusion and then we proceed with the illusion. And any spiritual person knows that no matter what the time is, the world is going to remain like a pool of mud. So the only thing you can do is get out of here. Don't try to fix it. It is a pile of garbage. Don't try to spray perfume on it. It never works. It rots and rots. Just get out of there.

Question: As you said it is all a dream, an illusion. But for survival we need to use these memories of past and present. Suppose if in present anger is required to push some work, how to produce that energy with the knowledge that all these past memories are an illusion? Basically how to perform karmas, our duties. Conviction or a person will become just unwilling to do anything, devoid of energy.

That which is necessary happens automatically. I have never seen anybody who has become devoid of energy. I have never seen anybody who has no conviction. Actually, I have seen the reverse, that spiritual people love to work. They do exactly that which they love to do. And they are busy 24x7. You will say no, somebody is meditating in a cave, he is not busy. He is busy meditating. He is doing something with complete conviction, with complete dedication. It is very hard to sit in a cave, you can try it. You won't be able to sit there for more than 5 minutes. Night comes and mosquitoes and snakes and who knows what, then you will run away from there. But he is doing it. That is what they want. That is what their passion is. So a spiritual person is highly passionate about what they are doing. Only thing is they are not doing what a worldly person is doing. The worldly person is lazy. The worldly person is working in darkness. What drives the worldly person are random desires that are slapped on them by society. You need to earn a lot of money. You need 50 cars in your garage. Now he runs and runs and runs. Do you call it energy and conviction? No it is stupidity. Is he doing his duties? No he is wasting his life. Only a spiritual person knows what to do and he does it beautifully. Anything that is done in awareness is meaningful, purposeful and has some value. If it is not done in awareness, even if it looks like he runs like a train all day, it is stupidity. It is a waste of time, a waste of human life. So just like everything else, truth is completely opposite. Whatever is necessary for survival will happen. Not only that, whatever is your passion will also happen.

I never see anybody in my life who is spiritual and is lazy and just lying there. And if they are like this, they are not spiritual. They have no knowledge actually. They have no spiritual goal and so they are not working towards that goal. You will find the complaint is exactly opposite that I don't get time for spirituality. I don't get time to listen to you. I don't get time to write the articles, notes. I don't get time to meditate. And some people will say I don't have time to be aware. Because that is another work for them. They don't know what awareness is. Because they are so busy. It is hard to find somebody who is just sitting after they become spiritual. Or they are trying to educate others. Just like things that I am doing. I am busy 24x7. I am actually more busy than a person who works like a donkey. And everything happens. I know there is no free will like I said. But everything is happening, isn't it? The willing is there, the work happens. I know there is no action also. I know there is no karma either. But it is happening, isn't it? The secret is that nobody is there to do anything. It all happens. Once you accept this, it continues to happen. Once you see this, it happens smoothly. There is no anxiety there.

So this question also comes out of ignorance. You need to travel on the spiritual path to experience what happens. Do not assume things about the spiritual people or the spiritual path. That is the only mistake they make. No, I don't want to go on the spiritual path. Why? I need to earn money, you know. I need to feed my family. I have duties. I have relatives. I have children. Well, it never stops. You know the world is an illusion, you are spiritual now, but nothing has stopped in your life. Actually, you became more busy. Now you have the satsang to attend. Now you have videos to listen to. Now you have discussions going on in the chat. And it is now a hurricane. It is a cyclonic life. There is no time to sit. When you sit, it is work. It is your duty to sit and look at your thoughts and whatever. Mindfulness. Look at your emotions. There is more work now. You need to be liberated from human birth and all. Big job has been given to you by the Guru. You are not working towards your liberation, the Guru will say do something.

A worldly person is free from all these things. What do the worldly people do? Survival. Actually, survival is the easiest thing in the world. You drop some seeds in the soil. Seeds grow. Eat them. Eat those fruits or whatever. Greens. Survival is done. So what are they running after then? There is water. There is air. There is everything that the body needs. Lots of women. So what are you running after? Complete darkness there. That which is the easiest has been made the most difficult. That's why I say that minimalism is the characteristic of a seeker. You will find that if you leave things, let go of your work, let go of stuff, your life becomes actually less painful. Less suffering, more peaceful, more time. More things can be done now. More meaningful things can be done. Let go of that which is unnecessary. Unnecessary objects, unnecessary jobs, unnecessary relatives, unnecessary friends or activities. Whatever you call entertainment is just rotting your mind. Let go of all that. Now there is a lot of time, there is a lot of energy. Now you can achieve all your spiritual goals and if you find a good path and you have good guidance, good guru, everything is smooth now. Peaceful, relaxed. Even if you are doing so many things, you are relaxed. You are in complete awareness because this worldly stuff is not troubling you that much. The more you are engaged in the world, more is suffering, less is time. More fatigue, diseases, who knows what. Less you are involved in the world, the more peaceful you are. Blissful. That is why the seeker goes away from the world. Lives away from the world. Does not interact too much. But we have a worldly component. Cannot let go of the world because there is a body. We are tightly in the system now. This is called the tribal karma. We are born in the tribe so we have the tribal karma to express. Express it a little bit and get rid of it. So I can go on talking like this but you get the point.

It's a long message from Sandhya, I have realized the thought is not there. When I started observing the thought we found that it is not there. Just like when we start observing or start paying attention to any object. Slowing. It starts to disappear. We find it is nothing. Likewise thought is an object of the mind. Present only. When we are not aware of it. Not paying attention to it. It continues to build and give rise to many other thoughts. However, when we start paying attention to it. Distance between the thought and my awareness is created. We find it is not there. There is nothing there.

Absolutely, there is nothing there. Thought is an illusion and yes it is a mental event and if it is necessary. If an action is necessary. You don't even need to think the action happens without thinking. So what do I say that thought is a ripple of the action. Like the boat is going and it leaves ripples behind in the water, thoughts are like this. The desires appear and turn into actions and they produce the ripples of thoughts.

So when something is necessary it happens without thinking. There is no need to think. If there is thinking you pay attention to it. It goes away as if it is just spurious. It is just an extra thing that is happening in our minds. Actually there is nothing much to think about. When I say you need to think, you need to think logically and all, what does that mean? You need to be like that. That is what it means. Being logical produces a logical thought. You will see that the action has already happened in the mind and thought is like a ripple. It simply repeats whatever is already there in the memory. So when I say think about it, decide about it and next day you find that there is already a decision there. There is already something in the memory. Now it starts appearing as a thought. I have decided to do this. These are all egoic thoughts. I have done this already. I have this desire already. They are just ripples there.

Whatever must happen happens without thinking too much. If you are thinking that means there is something already in the memory, it has already happened. So wise men have said that those who think don't do and those who do they don't think. Being is more important than thinking. If you be in a specific way, your thinking is going to reflect your being in that way. If you are intelligent, all your thoughts are now intelligent. It is not possible to think “intelligent thoughts”. The way you are is producing those thoughts. It is like this. They are kind of ripples in the memory. That is why it is very easy to get rid of them. Just become aware and whatever is necessary remains in the memory, whatever is unnecessary is erased.

So usually you will find that people complain that I have a lot of negative thoughts and a lot of hate or anger or whatever. These thoughts keep producing the emotions. Just like she said that they produce more thoughts and so on. More recalls happen. More memory appears and life slips into illusion, falls instead of being in the now. Why are there negative thoughts in us? Because there is a negative memory somewhere. You are negative. That is why you are producing negative thoughts.

What is the solution? Handle that memory nicely. I won't say erase it, it is not possible. You twist it so that it produces positive thoughts instead of negative. How to do that? Attach a new memory to the old memory which turns it into positive. That is also called forgiving. See how beautiful it is. Forgiving is a process where we take the old negative memory which is producing negative thoughts, suffering and odd behavior like you go and want to kill that person, fight with that person, and you twist it and say that I have nothing to do with this thought. I have nothing to do with this memory now. Probably it was my fault, it was my karma that I got attached to this person and it produced a negative memory there. Negative experiences led to negative memory. You twist it 180 degrees and now whenever the negative thought plays back the forgiveness associated with it also plays.

Remember it is a vibration. All the associated vibrations play. Not only you remember the negative, you remember the positive also. The positive overcomes the negative if that is your intention. So everything is there but there is no suffering now. It looks like a lot of occult things are going on here. That is how we fix the mind. That is how we heal the mind. Forgiving is like a bandaid on the wound. It heals automatically but forgiving heals it completely and quickly. Because all the memories are connected. All the vibrations are affecting each other. So your doing this produces an effect in the world. Produces effect in the other memories, other individuals. Now you are in proper occult.

Question: We need to be in awareness sometimes. I get confused. I just want to know what is that I need to be aware of.

You need to be aware of this knowledge all the time. Remember that. Whatever was told in the self-realization about who you are, your true nature and all. Keep that in mind all the time. Remain in that awareness. And there is a transformation that will happen. Transformation will happen in all your mental layers, the layers of the memory. They will be refined, and you will change, your world will change, your life will change, everybody around you will change. Your cat and dog will also change. It is a miracle.

That is one thing and the second is oneness. You need to be aware that everything is one. There is no individual. Self-realization also says that there is no individual and the oneness also says that there is no division of experience and the experiencer. There is no boundary between the experience and the experiencer. It is one continuous field of experiencing and then you also keep in mind that it is all empty. Whatever is experienced is an illusion. So that will cause more transformation.

So what is awareness? Being in the knowledge. What knowledge? These three things are basic. First, what is my real nature? The experiencer. I am the experiencer. Second, what is the nature of the experience? It's all an illusion. It's all fake. It's all false. Pictures. And thirdly, not only that, the experiencer is the experience also. There is no boundary, no division between the experience and the experiencer. Just like there is no division between the claypot and the clay, there is no division between the ornament and the gold. Cannot separate them. There is no division between the wave and the ocean. Cannot separate the waves from the ocean. It's all one. One is non-essential and the other is essential. Like the wave is non-essential because it's changing, it can be anything. It can completely go away also, the essential thing is that which remains which does not change e.g. water.

Gold takes many forms, it can become any ornament, any jewelry, but the gold never changes, the shape changes or the jewelry changes, that is non-essential. But it's always found with gold. Similarly the clay is always found in a form, even if it's a pile of mud, it is clay. The pile of mud is the form there, so it can take any form, but the form is always found with the substrate. What is my substrate? The experiencer. But the experience is always found with the experiencer. It is one and the same thing, me only, but the non-essential component.

These three things are important, experiencer, experience and existence. Existence is also called experiencing. So keep this knowledge in front all the time, everything else should be in back and that is staying in awareness. Also called remembrance, also called awakened state, also called enlightened state, buddhahood, there are so many names, you need to be in that state.

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, Gemini 1.0 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