It is true that life is interactional, life is experiential. Experience is primarily in the level of the senses. The senses interact with the objects – the moment we get up early in the morning or any time we wake up the first thing that takes place is our eyes get open and you see your body, the bed, you see the roof, the walls. From then on the interactions start. When there is a sound you hear it, when there is a smell you smell it. Not that every time there should be a sound or there should be a smell. You don’t taste except the time when you have some food; otherwise our tongue is keeping quiet. The skin also does not unnecessarily touch. Now I am having a feeling of touch because the wind is blowing. Otherwise there is nothing for the skin to touch except the dress we are wearing. So primarily it is audio-visual. Audio-visual. Mostly it is visual and next, close to it is audio. That is why ‘audio-visual’, this expression or phraseology has come because of that. We have five senses. Out of the five, two alone are constantly and repeatedly acting.
So our life is interactional. Though the interactional level of life is in the senses, the senses by themselves cannot interact. They have to be employed by the mind. The senses by themselves cannot feel it in full. The actual experience is arising, emerging, in the level of the mind, inside the body. Is it not? Whenever you see are you seeing in the level of the eyes? The eyes are used for seeing but the actual image formation, imprint formation is taking place in the mind. Because the senses do not have the power for it.
See, the cornea from a dead body is taken and grafted to a living body. Then the cornea which is unable to see in a dead body begins to see there. The cornea that is extracted obviously is lifeless. It is inert. Inert. Insentient. So it is just like a mirror. It reflects. So this cornea which is inert, dead matter, it is extracted and then grafted to a living, blind man. So it begins to see. In the dead body it has no effect. So what exactly uses this cornea is something different from the body. So it’s very clear that the senses are inert. Inert. The inert senses become animated because of the life element or life’s presence in us.
So in that level suhka-duhkhas are getting formed. If you are able to evenize these sukha-duhkhas in your mind, don’t be addicted to sukha and don’t be resentful about duhkha. Allow both of them to alternate in their own manner and you take a loftier position. The sukha-duhkhas like waters in a lake or tank will enable you to learn swimming and remain afloat. Keeping your nose above, waving your hands and feet. Similarly make sukha-duhkhas the waters and you start swimming there. So there will be no trouble. This is what he says.
To strengthen that position, I don’t want you to miss this point – strengthen it – he presents the philosophy. See it is not just that you practise sukha-duhkha samattva. No. He questions whether there is anything like sukha as different from duhkha. Are the sukha-duhkha formations really there or what is the truth? In order to arrive at it, he applies the hard-core philosophy. What is that philosophy?
Don’t think that this philosophy started with Krishna, though Bhagavadgeeta is a dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna don’t think that the substance of dialogue is fully owned by and patented by Krishna. It is not Krishna’s patent. Already he has said, is going to say quotations from Kathopanishad. Perhaps quotation from Mundakopanishad is there. He also refers to Brahma-sutras. “Brahma sutra padais caiva hetumadbhih viniscitaihi...” the rational and logical Brahma sutras also have determined this, he makes a reference. He makes a clear quotation – Ubhayour api drshto’ntas tu anayoh tattva darsibhih - the people who are experts in analysing and arriving at the supreme Truth, they have said this. Whatever he says is their statement, “not my statement” he says. What is that?
N’asato vidyate bhavo, n’ aabhavo vidyate satah
Bas! 16 letters the whole proposition is over. Simple 16 letters. ‘Asatah bhaavah na vidyate’ The word asat and sat, these are two words after all we use two words to indicate two propositions. Sat means ever present. Asat means not so. In other words, sat means the real and asat means the unreal. Now we are using two propositions called the real and unreal. And he defines them. He defines them by showing the difference between them.
Na bhavo vidyate satah. If something is real, it will never become non-present. It will never become absent, non-existent. If something is real it continues to be real. The definition of real is anything that is present in the past, present and future alike, is called real. Anything that is not so, simply dispose it off as unreal. It is quite possible and it is true that you may not find anything real in this world. Therefore the real does not die, the concept called real always remains there. Real means eternally present, changelessly present. In the past, present and future alike. On the other hand, whatever is not so is unreal. So he says, abhavah satah na vidyate – the real never becomes absent. And the unreal never becomes present. In other words, the unreal never comes into expression, never comes to manifest or display itself. The real on the other hand never becomes out of expression. It never goes out of expression. The difference between the two – Ubhayoh api antah tattva darsibhih drstah – the people who are adepts in searching for truth, in searching for the supreme truth, they have already ascertained that this is the difference between sat and asat. Is it clear? The real will never cease to be present, the unreal will never be present. So what is the choice now? Real alone is there. But the real never becomes absent. Apply the test of the real to anything in this world including your own personality. Tell me whether any indication is there that it is real? Because the characteristic of the world is that it is changeful. The world exists only because of change.
Kalidasa puts it very nicely ‘kshane, kshaneyam, navataam up iti, tadeva rupam ramaniyataayah’
Moment after moment, it becomes new, puts on a new shirt. This is the real nature of beauty and attractiveness. If anything is to become attractive, it has to put on a newer and newer form every moment. The earth is not where it was a moment earlier. You are not able to see anything, either the stars or the moon or the sun, uniformly for one or two minutes. Our cells are transforming. Whatever is called beautiful will have to be constantly transforming and putting on a new coat. This being so, the world is changeful and changefulness being not a characteristic of real, can you say the world is real? At the same time, is it not there? Unless it is there, how do you refer to it? So it is very much there to refer to and experience. But when the experience is analysed properly, we find that it does not conform to the standard of being real. It does not fit itself to be called real. At the same time you cannot refuse it. It is there when you are feeling it and you are experiencing it. So what shall we say? It is not sat. At the same time you cannot dispose it off as asat.
Now you apply this to the sukha-duhkhas. You say I am happy. And after some time you say I am unhappy. That “I am happy” is not always present, “I am unhappy” is also not always present. So what is present? Something should be there. What is that? “I AM” is there. That “I AM” appears to be as happy and appears to be as unhappy. As many times as happiness and unhappiness come, neither of them invalidates, negates or obliterates ‘I AM’. Only the happiness leaves and unhappiness comes. Now, what becomes unhappy and what becomes unhappy? The I and AM, that is what becomes happy and unhappy. The I AM continuing in both, you clearly understand the real element is the I and the AM. AM is only the verbal description of I. So the I is the real sat. And that sat puts on the appearance of happiness and unhappiness.
Say the mind becomes happy and unhappy. The mind substance and the mind content remains the same. Happiness or unhappiness are colours or conditions it puts on. Once you are conscious of this you will find if you start handling sukha-duhkhas in this manner, the intensity of sukha will grow less and less, less and less. The intensity of duhkha also will grow less and less, less and less. So the degree, the impact, the duration, the level. In all these you will find a progressive reduction or decline. If your sukha is weighing 5 kgs now and duhkha is weighing 15 kg, you will find very soon the 5kg will become 4.5kg and the 15kg will become 14kg. Because they are not real! You become so much tagged onto the real, that AM and I, AM and I, AM and I, the substance of the mind, the substance of the mind, you become more and more conscious. What is becoming happy in me? I feel happiness, this happiness doesn’t come from outside, my mind is feeling happiness. My dear mind you tell me which part of you is becoming happy? Mind alone can become happy. What is this mind which becomes happy only to become unhappy afterwards? How is it? Are you somersaulting? You ask the mind, do you somersault to become happy and unhappy. How can the same substance like a chameleon change like this? I have only one mind ever since I know and the mind becomes happy and unhappy. What is this happiness? Who or what is becoming happy?
Suppose the mind has become happy, can it ever become unhappy? We have become a man or a woman, we don’t change. Milk continues to be milk. Ice continues to be ice. Water continues to be water. Vapour continues to be vapour. The air is not changing, earth is not changing, fire is not changing. What is this? How is it that the mind alone changes? So either you’ll have to say the change is wrong, or what becomes changeful is wrong. You have to come to one conclusion. There cannot be two things – real and unreal. Either the real is there or the unreal is there. But the unreal cannot be. Unreal cannot be coming into expression at any point of time. And the real cannot go out of expression at any point of time. So in your I AM Happiness you tell me what is the real element? Does it ever shrink or swell in happiness? Does it ever shrink in unhappiness? If I AM, (I continue to be) I AM. I can never be I AM NOT. It can never be otherwise. And these are not my words Arjuna, right from the beginning in our country this point has been thought of. We were very high inquirers, our intelligence, IQ level was very high. We were never afraid of knowledge, we were never afraid of inquiry. We were always very diligent, persevering, exclusive, ceaselessly, amazingly so. Now you tell me whether the sukha-duhkhas can be called real or unreal?
So the sukha- duhkhas are not real, at the same time you are feeling them. So what is it? We are taking something to be sukha and something to be duhkha. The sukha-duhkhas by themselves being transitory cannot be real. Then what is real? Search within that and you will find something promotes and brings about sukha-duhkhas. The thing that becomes sukha, the thing becomes duhkha, the more and more you are conscious of this, you probe into it, submit your alternating experiences to this kind of a subjective inner spiritual rational analysis, you will find sukha-duhkhas will lose their density and mutual difference. That is why they say, the knower of Truth will not be surprised if one day the whole oceans become dry and show their bottom. Nor will they be surprised if Himalayas and the Alps become molten and disappear. There will be nothing to be surprised (about).
Are you surprised when you become hungry? Ooh I’m hungry!! Suppose you eat food and get appeased, oooh I’m appeased! We are getting hungry and we are getting appeased. Every day we are doing it. We are not unduly happy when we become hungry. It is very natural. Usually I have some food and then come. Today I did not because after my recording I had my food by about 3 o’clock so I am not hungry and cannot have any food. So I will take it afterwards. So I came here without food. So, to be hungry is very natural. To be appeased is very natural. When you blink your eyes do you feel happy or unhappy? Our lungs are heaving, are you happy or unhappy? When you have respiration, breathe in and breathe out, breath in and breathe out. Are you happy or unhappy?
The intensity of happiness reduces and intensity of unhappiness also reduces because poor fellows are not real! The moment you are conscious of reality and unreality, we find that they are unreal. As unreal they have no existence. Then whose expression is sukha-duhkhas? They are the expression of ‘I AM’. The self in you. It is the self, like a kaleidoscope, whooooo, it gives you a certain picture. It appears to be different. The substance that appears to be different is the same. Like a prism, it shows different types of brilliance because of the different cuts, yet the substance is the same. So it is the same I and AM substance that appears to be sukha and appears to be duhkha. When and how long? As long as you carry the delusion. ‘I am happy!’ because of a second factor. ‘I am unhappy!’ because of a second factor. Arey you are a fool! How can you become happy or unhappy because of another? See, you and the other are two different items. I am here and you are there. How can you make me unhappy? Still we become unhappy.
So you start questioning, questioning, questioning, and inquiring, not as a heretic person. Questioning means inquiry. That we are taking life not in the sensory level, we are taking it to mental level, mind level and taking it to the intelligence level and submitting the sukha-duhkha experiences into a clear examination, evaluation and appraisement. Then you will find sukha-duhkhas are not worth bothering about. I am a fool if a chase happiness and I am a fool if I complain about unhappiness. Absolutely fool. This is elevating the mind from the sensory level to the mental level. Elevating it from the mind level to the intelligence level.
You know, Rama was very young and on the day of his coronation his step mother Kaikeyi suddenly called him and said “No coronation for you! Go to the Dandakaranya for 14 years. My son Bharata will be crowned. Speak to me nothing. Start.” Kaikeyi thought Rama would cry and weep. He said “Only this much? This is all the demand and it is because of this my father is lying and crying? For the sake of Bharata I can give everything including my wife Sita. Give me only some time, I will go and talk to the palace people elder to me, my mother and the others, I will persuade them and take permission and make them agree and then go. So before the sun sets, Rama will have left Ayodhya” he said. He did not cry, he did not resist. You tell me what will you do? If you are Rama and you are asked to go to Dandakaaranya for 14 years?
In America and here, whenever I ask this question to children, one boy will get up and say ‘I will go’. Everywhere. When I ask children, one of them gets up after some time and says ‘Swamiji I will go’. Generally people below the age of 10 years. See you know why? This is not a sensory response. This is not a mento-emotional response. Response is from the level of the intelligence. Rama first of all went and told his mother, the mother started crying and weeping as you can imagine. 15 minutes or so he must have spoken to the mother. The mother said, “I am very sorry my dear son, as a son as I know you, you have to go and you will go, this is the right step. I am wrong. I cried because of my weakness. So please go ahead this is the way any true son should do. I will be here, you go with my blessings. Let 14 years pass off as 14 months. I shall be here to meet you when you come.” But poor Dasharatha. Everybody in the palace told Rama, don’t go! Put your father in prison and assume the throne. Everybody said including Vasistha. But Rama held his ground. Can you tell me, at what level of life he said it?
We are trying always to elevate from the sensory level to the emotional level, then to the rational level. The level of wisdom. See, the mother also agreed –“ I cried because of my wrong, your path is right, this is the way you should do”. The change was bought about. Arjuna also was crying. By the time Krishna said this Arjuna was not in a crying mood, he was in a very receptive mood. He is intellectually very alert. That is why he is presenting one after another the philosophy. Every time Rama was forced by the palace members, his determination, his resolve, his exclusiveness, his purity, his commitment, his dedication, his perseverance, his choice - all of them only started swelling, swelling, and swelling. In the few hours that passed in the palace of Ayodhya, what Rama was when Kaikeyi said this and what Rama there was when he left, you will find a great difference in his inside.
My dear boys, please understand our mind is capable of taking to any level. Don’t think that we are bogged down, bogged down by the things of the world. As we are becoming greedy, we can also become dispossessive. Spurn, spurn wealth. That also we can do. People are ambitious. In the same manner as we are ambitious, we can also be dispassionate. How did Bill Gates say that all the money that I have taken, I will give away? Will anybody say this? We are all striving to earn, earn, earn, possess, possess, and this man says no! I will give it away. I have heard that there was somebody in Coimbatore, he used to say ‘ I am constructing for destruction’. He was constructing only to destroy, nobody can interfere with him. How can anybody interfere? And that maybe he was fabulously rich. You cannot interfere with a man. I construct a building, after one year or six months, I demolish it. Why did you do it? Because I wanted to promote the market and labour. The cement wallas should have some business so I bought cement, building materials. After that I destroyed it. So many labourers were employed. I will again construct. Money is to be spent so I am spending. Our mind is capable of assuming any kind of a height, dimension and magnitude. Don’t put any limits to the mind. We only speak about the negative qualities of the mind. Greedy, greedy, greedy. Possessive, possessive.
Was Rama possessive? Was Sita possessive? Was lakshmana possessive? Sita said “with you even the cremation ground excelling my palace Ayodhya, without you Ayodhya will be a cremation ground for me’. Rama persuaded that Sita should not go with him. Laksmana without asking anybody said, “If my brother goes to the forest I am close to him like the shadow.” And Sumitra sent a message “Go very well, from today onwards consider Rama to be your father and Sita to be your mother and the whole of the forest as Ayodhya”. Can you imagine a mother sending a message like this? Don’t think that it was restricted to Rama. The quality was equally present in Sita. It excelled even in Lakshmana. He did not consult even Urmila his wife. He simply decided, “I will follow Rama”. Urmila came into his life much later. Rama and Lakshmana were born together, the difference was only in a matter of seconds and they were growing together. There was very thick brotherhood between them. How can wife-hood or a husband-hood replace brotherhood? You are not able to foster both, that is your weakness. You don’t know. You are concstricting your mind “I am married, therefore I cannot be anymore a brother.” That’s what you say. But who told you that brotherhood should be sacrificed?
If you ask me ‘are you happy?’ No, I cannot say I am unhappy because happiness is the one way of responding to something agreeable, pleasant, good and well done. But it doesn’t send me to a spell of happiness, a thrill or an ecstasy. No. Whenever we do a job and the job is well done, Ok . If it is not well done, I feel, no not alright. But having done it well does not make me happy as such. There is no additional cup of happiness in my mind. We are supposed to work and we are working and the work is done with sincerity and it is well done. Very good. Sometimes, A shows me a letter which is to be signed by me. She brings me a letter, she has not placed the content of the letter properly. Suppose three paragraphs are there in a plain sheet. These three paragraphs should be set in a manner that the whole thing will look a balanced expression. So the left margin, right margin, the space left on top, in between, the size of letters of chosen. Where to put the date. See it should look nice. Earlier I used to tell her one time, now how many times you have redone it? 3 - 4 times before I say, OK nice. I am not unhappy or happy. Somehow we should do it in a proper manner. In a balanced manner. In a harmonious manner.
You know there is a printer. That printer came to the Ashram and said “Swamiji, we cannot print books to your specifications”. In a very nice simple language he said it. “We are printing books and we can print quite a lot, but we cannot print to your specifications!” Actually any printer will be happy if he does a good job. It is just like the birth of a child. It is to delightful to see, a book is well done, well printed. Its cover is good, everything is good. Sometimes I will see the balancing. You know how many writers are there, in one full page there will be only one paragraph. I said, please take it away! Somewhere put some paragraphs and show it to me. How can I read, it’s so monotonous to read, very tiring to the eye. So in one page you should at least have 4 paragraphs. Too many will not look nice. But at least 4 paragraphs should be there.
N’asato vidyate bhavo, n’ aabhavo vidyate satah
I want you to understand that when you start applying this, reflecting upon this, the real will never go out of expression and the unreal will never come into expression, so in the whole sukha-duhkha experiences apparently there is one thing that is real and the rest of it are all delusion. The one thing that is real, the rest of it is its delusional manifestation. Delusional manifestation. See we generally indicate it with this, it is called ‘alaat chakra’. Take a fire band, a post and light it with fire, then you go on circling, you will see a circle. Actually there is no circle. It is only a single stick. But it appears to be a circle. So in this case, it is an optical visual delusion.
The sukha-duhkhas are an inner delusion. At no point you become happy. At no point you become unhappy. You only remain the same. Otherwise you will have to say ‘when I become happy I was born. When I became unhappy I died.’ Can the ‘I’ appear in happiness and disappear in unhappiness? So the I AM continues to be I AM. But just like in this movement you find a circle visually there, but this cannot form a circle it doesn’t have the capacity to become, but it produces it. In the same manner our consciousness, by virtue of its own inscrutable power it puts on the appearential sukha-duhkhas, the transitory sukha-duhkhas. When you start analysing them, probing into them, you will find as they are strong and appearing now, they will become weak and disappearing then.
So the so called samattva which you initially take up as a practise, later on it becomes a characteristic of yours. Are you able to follow me? Now you have to struggle and you are looking at sukha and duhkha, sukha and duhkha thinking, ‘I am going to be equal in both, equal in both’, so the both are stressed now. The whole picture will change. You don’t have to look at them at all. You understand what is becoming sukha and what is becoming duhkha. When that substantial, that adhishthana, that substratum, when that starts shining, shining, shining, you become conscious of it. Automatically the appearential notes become weak, weak, and almost extinct.
They become extinct in your sleep. Every day they become extinct in your sleep. The man who was wakeful and was passing through happiness and unhappiness, happiness and unhappiness, happiness and unhappiness, suddenly he says no more. How? The man who was up and active, wakeful and reacting suddenly he says I am tired, no more, let us call it a day. Where are the sukha-duhkhas wiped off? The whole wakefulness is wiped off and next morning, I wake it up. So don’t think that the sukha duhkhas will linger, they will not. Will not. Will not. Do not. Do not. Cannot. In a state of illumination.......
N’asato vidyate bhavo, n’ aabhavo vidyate satah
Ubhayour api drsto’ntas tv anayos tattva darsibhih
Krishna for the first time quotes tattva darshi’s. And this verse appears soon after this sukha-duhkha samatva. Now it may be a deliberate practise for you, but you will find that the more and more you become inward, the more and more you become reality oriented, reality enriched, you don’t have to worry about the sukha-duhkhas. The spiritual nature of yours, will itself enfeeble the sukha-duhkhas. My dear boy do you understand what I say? You don’t have to fight with them. When you focus on that spirituality, that spiritualness will generally and definitely enfeeble the sukha-duhkha alternates. They will become lighter and lighter, feebler and feebler, lesser and lesser, thinner and thinner, until at last they become extinct. We cannot say whether they will or they will not, but our Shasta’s say that there is a state where you become so ... , people close their eyes and sit or open their eyes and see. In some of the books it is written that they simple live on the air they breathe. Our air contains nourishment. What is this air? It is taking fragrances from so many items and what is the fragrance? Fragrance we call them tan-matras, which is subtle particles of the product. Very subtle. So our air contains a lot of nutrition but normally our system cannot absorb it. We don’t have anything by virtue of which, stomach cannot absorb it. Elementary canal cannot take in air, but some sensitivity is there by virtue of which they simply are able to live on pure air, they say. Just like people in coma continue for a few days, these people also may have a spiritual coma, we cannot say.
N’asato vidyate bhavo, n’ aabhavo vidyate satah
Ubhayour api drsto’ntas tu anayos tattva darsibhih
I have spoken so much on this, like of which I have never done. It is not a question of our intelligence questioning, questioning every time. Your attention gets focused. Your attention becomes inward and it becomes focused not with literature. So to say, ‘I AM’, what is this ‘I’, what is this ‘AM’, where is it? These deliberations may not be there, but your attention becomes so subjective that the object emphasis becomes lesser and at one time the subjective infusion overwhelms the objective impacts. Subjective infusion overwhelms the objective impacts. We will recite this verse again. (END)