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Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
Last evening, when I was discussing during the course of the satsang session, the manner in which Krishna was evoking the intelligent response from Arjuna, I was mentioning – the very fact which Arjuna raised before him, the same subject was made a point of enquiry. What was that? “Grief is scorching the whole of my body and senses”, he said, “and I want to be relieved”. So, Krishna made the same grief as a point of enquiry. What does this mean?
Our mind is capable of producing, and it does produce a variety of emotions. All these emotions can be enquired into. There it was grief, so he said, aśocyānanvaśocaḥ, “You are grieving over something that should not be grieved at all!” In the same manner, you will find, all the emotions in our mind are subject to a spiritual or philosophical enquiry. When the emotions are favourable, perhaps, you don’t want to enquire. When they are unfavourable, unfriendly, then alone you want to treat them. But actually, all emotions are subject to the same enquiry. Once you enquire into the genesis of an emotion, you will find, you will reach the very source of emotions, and the emotions will subside. This is the simple truth.
I would like you to understand, from the view point of knowledge, that, when you come to spirituality, there are philosophically three important lines of enquiry. What are they? You enquire into the world as our scientists are now repeatedly struggling to do. What is that God particle present everywhere - this is their enquiry now. So, what is this world which is around us? We find substances which are solid, fluid, gaseous, different forms of energy and apparently space. Now what is that ultimate level of substances and the source? This can be an enquiry.
Another enquiry is – I say, “the world”. Which world? The world I see and experience. So in the perception of the world and the interaction with the world, does the world come first or I come first? I seem to be the first factor. Everything else follows this. So far as this ‘I’ is concerned, I don’t know where from it has come. I refer to something as ‘I’. But I don’t know. So, what is this ‘I’ reference? What is it referring to, denoting, this kind of a self-enquiry is another.
There is a third enquiry. What is that? All religions speak about a God, and God is the source of everything, controller of everything, and dissolver or destroyer of everything. So, God is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. What is that God, or who is that God?
One is a religious enquiry, another is a philosophical enquiry, or a scientific enquiry. The third is an experiential enquiry. Experiential enquiry into oneself is the spiritual one. Going into the world to find out the ultimate reality; that is a scientific enquiry. And who is God; that is a religious enquiry. My dear seekers, I would like you to know it. Underline the sentences and the information. Our Hindu dharma clearly says and proves, that all the three enquiries mean the same thing.
Whether you enquire into the subject, or the object, or whether you enquire into God, all these enquiries are, in the beginning level, they are different and various. But as you progress and progress and progress, you will find, all of them converge. And converge where? Converge into yourself!
God is a concept, and the concept is of a conceiving mind. In the absence of a mind and its power of conception, I don’t think there can be a God. Similarly there will not be a world unless there is an experiencer to experience the world. So, whether it is the concept of God, or the perception of the world, the concept has its genesis in the conceiving mind, the perception has its genesis in the perceiving mind. So, the religious enquiry recedes into a spiritual one. In the same manner, the scientific or philosophical enquiry also recedes into the spiritual one, and the spirituality is the one which is the source and terminus of everything.
I don’t know whether you understand it with the importance it deserves! At any point of time, an enquiry can only be of three kinds. What is this seen world made up of? Who is this God whom you are referring to, and seeking refuge under? And what is this ‘I’, which seems to be the genesis of my very life, experience, and interaction? All these will finally coil back to your own mind, your own intelligence, your own ego. Whenever I think, I become the thinker, and thought becomes an outcome of my thinking process. The thinking process proceeds from me and rests on me. So the thought outcome also will rest on me. So, there is nothing besides me, either as the thinker or as the thinking, or as the thought, the outcome. The three are seemingly different. In reality the content is the same!
This is what we call tripuṭi nāśa. Remind me this evening, I shall discuss this subject more, in connection with our sukha-dukha emergence.
Now can you remain firm, clear, and unshakeable, saying that “God is a concept, world is a perception or experience. Whether it is a concept or a perception, both have their genesis in me; my mind, my intelligence. I can remain without perceiving anything, without conceiving anything - that is what I do in my sleep. So, the concepts and perceptions, all can cease to be and they do … but, I don’t cease to be! Only when ‘I’ am there, their emergence as well as subsidence can be.
So the ‘I’ is the constantly present factor. The others are transitory, by any stretch of imagination. This ‘I’ is the subject and all the other things are objects. The object can be thought of, only when there is a subject. And the subject will ever be there, is ever there. In fact the subject and the object are actually a distinction, which the substratum substance brings about by its inscrutable power of ideation.
Actually there is nothing like an ‘I’. It is only a referral point. When I say, “I become ‘I’, the same ‘I’ when you speak about, you say, ‘Swamiji, you.’ ” As the ‘I’ is there for me as a referral point, the same ‘I’ becomes a ‘you’ for you as a referral point. So, what I call ‘I’, and you call ‘you’, and a third person calls ‘he’, all the three are only referral points. And all the three indicate a presence which is neither ‘I’, nor ‘you’, nor ‘he’.
When I say this, why is it that it becomes difficult for you? It is such a simple manner. I am saying ‘I’, ‘I’, ‘I’. But you are saying about the same person, ‘you’ ‘you’ ‘you’. So can I be ‘I’ and ‘you’ together. No! So, the ‘I’ is only a referral point to enable me, to enable me to sense, perceive, interact with. The same presence goes by the name ‘I’ for me, and ‘you’ for you, and ‘he’ for another. So these are only references, the real presence gives rise to these, but the actual presence is neither the ‘I’, nor the ‘you’, nor the ‘he’.
So all the three are distinctions, given rise to by the inscrutable power of this presence! They are only notional, notional! So, the subject, the object, and the other, all these three are notions which the one inscrutable presence gives rise to. Now you have to go beyond the distinctions and reach the very source. It is not a problem at all, either when you are pure minded and you have guru bhakti. Somebody tells you this and you must believe in him, you must have unflinching faith and acceptance, or you must have a very subtle, penetrating, reasoning. You may not understand, but you can have, still, a belief.
So, either this area has to be approached by faith, or it has to be ransacked by reason! You are free to adopt either! Whether it is by faith or by reason, the destination is the same. The discovery is not different. The realization is identical, uniform!
So there is one substance which gives rise to a threefold distinction, that triputi. It is just like an article shining in a different way, looked at from a different direction. The substance is the same. But because of the cut and the power, it appears to be different. The brilliances! So, the subject is the same, … same, … same. Only notionally, it brings the subject-object distinction and the interaction between the two.
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.