Q: What is the relation between the vyakta and the avyakta? – M: How can there be relation when they are one? All talk of separation and relation is due to the distorting and corrupting influence of ‘I-am-the-body’ idea. The outer self (vyakti) is merely a projection on the body-mind of the inner self (vyakta), which again is only an expression of the Supreme Self (avyakta) which is all and none. I AM THAT: 62
Q: I see you smoking! – M: Exactly so. You see me smoking. Find out for yourself how did you come to see me Smoking, and you will easily realise that it is your ‘I-am-the-body’ state of mind that is responsible for this ‘I-see-you-smoking’ idea. I AM THAT: 62
Q: There is the body and there is myself. I know the body. Apart from it, what am l? – M: There is no ‘I’ apart from the body, nor the world. The three appear and disappear together. At the root is the sense ‘I am’. Go beyond it. The idea: ‘I-am-not-the-body’ is merely an antidote to the idea ‘I-am-the-body’ which is false. What is that ‘I am’? Unless you know yourself, what else can you know? I AM THAT: 62
Q: How can I come to see myself as you see me? – M: It is enough if you do not imagine yourself to be the body. It is the ‘I-am-the-body’ idea that is so calamitous. It blinds you completely to your real nature. Even for a moment do not think that you are the body. Give yourself no name, no shape. In the darkness and the silence reality is found. I AM THAT: 64
Q: If I am of the nature of all-pervading consciousness, how could ignorance and illusion happen to me? – M: Neither ignorance nor illusion ever happened to you. Find the self to which you ascribe ignorance and illusion and your question will be answered. You talk as if you know the self and see it to be under the sway of ignorance and illusion. But, in fact, you do not know the self, nor are you aware of ignorance. By all means become aware – this will bring you to the self and you will realise that there is neither ignorance nor delusion in it. It is like saying: if there is sun, how can darkness be? As under a stone there will be darkness, however strong the sunlight, so in the shadow of the ‘I-am-the-body’ consciousness there must be ignorance and illusion. I AM THAT: 71
Q: Sir, let me first come to know well my own inner space. – M: Destroy the wall that separates, the ‘I-am-the-body’ idea and the inner and the outer will become one. I AM THAT: 71
Q: My own spiritual experience has its seasons. Sometimes I feel glorious, then again I am down. I am like a little boy – going up, going down, going up, going down. – M: All changes in consciousness are due to the ‘I-am-the-body’ idea. Divested of this idea the mind becomes steady. There is pure being, free of experiencing anything in particular. But to realise it you must do what your teacher tells you. Mere listening, even memorizing, is not enough. If you do not struggle hard to apply every word of it in your daily life, don’t complain that you made no progress. All real progress is irreversible. Ups and downs merely show that the teaching has not been taken to heart and translated into action fully. I AM THAT: 71
Q: How can a speck like me create the vast universe? – M: When you are infected with the ‘I-am-the-body’ virus; a whole universe springs into being. But when you have had enough of it, you cherish some fanciful ideas about liberation and pursue lines of action totally futile. You concentrate, you meditate, you torture your mind and body, you do all sorts of unnecessary things, but you miss the essential which is the elimination of the person. I AM THAT: 71
Q: How does the person come into being? – M: Exactly as a shadow appears when light is intercepted by the body, so does the person arise when pure self-awareness is obstructed by the ‘I-am-the-body’ idea. And as the shadow changes shape and position according to the lay of the land, so does the person appear to rejoice and suffer, rest and toil, find and lose according to the pattern of destiny. When the body is no more, the person disappears completely without return, only the witness remains and the Great Unknown. The witness is that which says ‘I know’. The person says ‘I do’. Now, to say ‘I know’ is not untrue – it is merely limited. But to say ‘I do’ is altogether false, because there is nobody who does; all happens by itself, including the idea of being a doer. I AM THAT: 79
Q: I can see that the basic biological anxiety, the flight instinct, takes many shapes and distorts my thoughts and feelings. But how did this anxiety come into being? – M: It is a mental state caused by the ‘I-am-the-body’ idea. It can be removed by the contrary idea: ‘I-am-not-the-body’. Both the ideas are false, but one removes the other. realise that no ideas are your own, they all come to you from outside. You must think it all out for yourself, become yourself the object of your meditation. The effort to understand yourself is Yoga. Be a Yogi, give your life to it, brood, wonder, search, till you come to the root of error and to the truth beyond the error. I AM THAT: 81
Q: I feel my hold on the body is so strong that I just cannot give up the idea that I am the body. It will cling to me as long as the body lasts. There are people who maintain that no realisation is possible while alive and I feel inclined to agree with them. – M: Before you agree or disagree, why not investigate the very idea of a body? Does the mind appear in the body or the body in the mind? Surely there must be a mind to conceive the ‘I-am-the-body’ idea. A body without a mind cannot be ‘my body’. ‘My body’ is invariably absent when the mind is in abeyance. It is also absent when the mind is deeply engaged in thoughts and feelings. Once you realise that the body depends on the mind, and the mind on consciousness, and consciousness on awareness and not the other way round, your question about waiting for self-realisation till you die is answered. It is not that you must be free from ‘I-am-the-body’ idea first, and then realise the self. It is definitely the other way round – you cling to the false, because you do not know the true. Earnestness, not perfection, is a precondition to self-realisation. Virtues and powers come with realisation, not before. I AM THAT: 84
Q: Obviously, I am not all-pervading and eternal. I am only here and now. – M: Good enough. The ‘here’ is everywhere and the now – always. Go beyond the ‘I-am-the-body’ idea and you will find that space and time are in you and not you in space and time. Once you have understood this, the main obstacle to realisation is removed. I AM THAT: 92
Q: From the beginning of my life I am pursued by a sense of incompleteness. From school to college, to work, to marriage, to affluence, I imagined that the next thing will surely give me peace, but there was no peace. This sense of unfulfillment keeps on growing as years pass by. – M: As long as there is the body and the sense of identity with the body, frustration is inevitable. Only when you know yourself as entirely alien to and different from the body, will you find respite from the mixture of fear and craving inseparable from the ‘I-am-the-body’ idea. Merely assuaging fears and satisfying desires will not remove this sense of emptiness you are trying to escape from; only self-knowledge can help you. By self-knowledge I mean full knowledge of what you are not. Such knowledge is attainable and final; but to the discovery of what you are there can be no end. The more you discover, the more there remains to discover. I AM THAT: 93