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Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
When I was walking in the morning from the first floor to the second floor, B. was coming, getting up the stairs, and she asked me, “I am doing meditation, I am also doing anusandhāna. I am having a little, little glimpse of the Self, if I can say so. But when is it going to be very clear?” etc. You know this is something that even 99% of the ascetics and sannyasins are, in reality, deluded by.
Meditation is necessary for discovering and realizing the Self. But by meditation, all the meditators are looking for some very special experience. But poor people do not understand what experience can they have. They can only have experiences which are sensory in character. They will see a light. They will hear a sound. They will have a feeling of touch. They will have some taste. They will have some smell. Normally these things are had interactionally with the objects, from the objects. Now this will be had alone. So they feel that there is something other than the body in the body. So it generates a certain faith. But what is the Self? The Self is not any one of these. Many people think that, “I am meditating and I will be seeing a flood of light. It is very, very exhilarating”. Is that Self? Not at all!
Self is that, by the presence of which you feel light, you also feel darkness. So, you tell me now whether the Self is light or dark. Similarly, the Self is that, by virtue of which you feel happiness and unhappiness, normal awareness and unawareness as in sleep and coma, unconscious state. So it is that by virtue of which everything is had. There are moments when you are happy; there are moments when you are unhappy. The happiness is felt by the Self; unhappiness also is felt by the Self. So can the Self be happy or unhappy then? Certainly not! The legs that run also walk. So, can you say that the legs are running or walking, or the legs can do both? In the same manner you don’t understand that you are already the Self. The Self is not to be generated. Understand what is already there. When you woke up, the wakefulness is felt. When you slept, the sleep will be remembered. When you dream, the dream will be felt. So, what is that source from where all the three are arising? Similarly all experiences, all knowledge, all doubts, all ignorance, everything is arising from the same Self. Now the question is you have to realize that there is a presence.
So I was telling her - It is not ten, hundred, or infinity. It is the zero. Can you understand the Self to be the zero? It is something like the śūnya ākāśa. We call it śūnya because no objects are there. But it is really
not śūnya. Because it is from that śūnya ākāśa, all the planets and heavenly bodies have come. So in comparison we say that it is śūnya. But, left to itself it is not śūnya, it is pūrṇa. But what is that? It is not that anything that you refer to.
A thought arises, it subsides. Another thought arises. It is that source from which the emergence and subsidence, both take place, both are facilitated. So, my dear Souls, unless you are very, very sharp, you will not be able to realize the Self. You can have some meditative experience and absorption. That experience and absorption is only a time bound development. But, you were the Self even before meditation, before absorption. And you are going to be the Self after that also. So, what is that presence, which is there before meditation, before meditative absorption, after meditative absorption, when you wake up, when you sleep, when you dream, when you have all the things that you feel.
It requires a lot of discretion to understand this. That is why most people, 99.999% people fail. Then you may ask, “Are we pursuing an unfruitful exercise?” Certainly not, because this science is so great and this experience is so magnificent that even if you have a very small, an infinitesimal part of it, it is so joyous, relieving, assuring, and fulfilling.
svalpamapyasya dharmyasya trāyate mahato bhayāt | (Bhagavad Geeta 2.40)
Even a faith in God, not to speak of realizing God, is wonderful in its effect. That is why people are after it. So I have to tell B. and all the Seekers, “My dear Souls, simply sit, find out what is present in you, what produces thoughts, thereafter what makes the thoughts subside, what creates various emotions, what generates knowledge, what generates doubt, what generates a state of void.”
Everybody will say after meditating, “Swamiji, I reached a state of blank”. What do you mean by blank or blankness? Is there anything called blankness? Scientists will say that vacuum is not there. Then how can there be blankness? When the whole visible universe is dissolved, the whole universe in pralaya, goes into a state of dissolution. When everything is dissolved, what will be there? In our present language, it is nothing. If it was nothing, how can the universe again evolve from there? So is it nothing or is it the source of everything and all? Now, you describe it as nothing and lose your game. “O, Swamiji! It is not nothing, it is the source of all that is going to be and that is.” Now this shift from nothing to the source of all things - that is where the intelligence plays its part.
ayamātmā nityasiddhaḥ pramāṇe sati bhāsate |
na deśaṁ nāpi vākālaṁ na śuddhiṁ vāpyapekśate || (Vivekachudamani Sloka 531)
Shankara says in Vivekachudamani – This Atma is nityasiddhaḥ, you don’t have to produce it, you don’t have to create it, you don’t have to reach it, you don’t have even to understand it. It is there. It makes you understand. So, is it not understanding?
pramāṇe sati bhāsate - If you have the keenness of intellect, the sharpness of intellect to understand it, you understand.
na deśaṁ nāpi kālaṁ na śuddhiṁ vāpyapekśate - It does not depend upon either deśa or kāla, or even the so called purity that you refer to. No, no, no, it is a question of your having the sharpness and the faculty to observe it.
Is there not a presence in your body?
If there is a presence, why don’t you realize it?
It is there - otherwise you would have been dead. You are not dead. So you are alive.
What makes you alive? Something within the body.
What is that?
To realize it, if you say, “I am unable to”, I can only say, please go on praying, praying, and praying till eternity. I am not discouraging you, but I am telling you that the approach of the seekers is not at all perfect, it is far from perfect.
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
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