New Age

ISHWAR PURI

Old Path

New Age
Old Path

Published by: ISHA

All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without
the prior written consent of the publisher.

Copyright @ 1985

ISBN: 978-0-937067-04-8

Introduction
The Institute for the Study of Human Awareness
encourages individuals to know and understand themselves in
the manner of the Socratic theme of Know Thyself. This
knowledge permits us to understand others and the world in
which we live. The institute provides resources which lead to
the investigation and discovery of ones real self.
These publications are compilation of taped lectures by
Ishwar C. Puri. Due to the varied formats and lecture subjects,
some information may be repeated. We hope that you would
experience the love as if you were there, and we invite you to
experience the reality of your being.

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We are constantly learning. When we are ready to learn,
we never stop learning. The only time we stop learning is
when we become unwilling to learn. If we say that we know
everything, we stop learning. It is so unfortunate that people
who are just on the threshold of a break-through in realizing
their true self and their potential, block entry to that
knowledge by assuming that they know all, already. In order
to avoid that kind of personal catastrophe, it is best to always
keep the doors to knowledge open. Let knowledge flow as it
comes without being hindered by any conditioning already
adopted by your mind.
We have a very subtle computer built into our heads
which is called the human mind. This computer functions
much like other computers, and it will give you output,
inferences and conclusions based upon the input you give the
computer and the logic process that is built into it through
prior conditioning. But the conditioned mind, although it
functions like a computer, is slightly different from other
computers in that it prevents any action you might take to
destroy the computer. If you buy a computer from a store and
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dont like it, you can throw it awaythe computer will do
nothing. But if you try to throw away this computer called the
human mind, it will put up a stiff battle, a real fight to win. It
will try to show you that you cannot vanquish this computer.
For its own survival, the human mind has developed a
conditioning which is called the misidentification of the
human soul. As human beings, we derive our consciousness
from the soul, but we have forgotten that there is a soul and
have begun to consider that the mind is the human being.
When I first came to this country to study at Harvard, I
was surprised to be asked the silliest of questions by serious
students of consciousnesswhether there was, indeed, any
difference between the human soul and the mind. I heard
lectures by these serious students who would say, I am
talking of the soul, or the mind or whatever. They spoke as if
it did not matter whether they were talking of the human soul
or of the human mind. When things come to this pointthat it
doesnt matter whether you are talking of the human mind or
soulyou have then sold yourself to the mind. The mind has
now won that battle because the mind can take over and say to
you, Now, come on, you must follow me. Then one follows
the mind, losing ones own self and the potential which exists
in the human soul.
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For many years, I devoted a large part of my lecture time
to distinguishing between the mind and the human soul. I will
repeat some of that lecture material to show you that the
human mind is not the human soul and that our real self is the
soul. What is the difference? The mind performs three
functions in the human body and human personality. First, it
picks up sense perceptions from the various sense organs that
are fixed in the bodythe sensory perceptions of seeing,
tasting, smelling, hearing and touching. It interprets them,
gives meaning to them and creates a world of relationships.
This part of the mind is called the sensing mind because it
senses what is around it. It senses or perceives through the
sensory organs. The mind receives this data and then gives
meaning to it. This is sometimes called the lower part of the
human mind.
Then we have the middle part of the mind, which is the
most important part of the human mind and the one we have
to deal with as students of self-realizationas students of the
explorations of the true nature of the self. This middle part of
the mind is called the thinking and reasoning mind. The
thinking and reasoning mind operates ceaselessly, day and
night. It operates whether we are awake or sleeping. It

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operates from the time of our human birth until the time of
our death.
This part of the mind which thinks continuously, thinks
in any language. It speaks this language in our head. As a
child, it speaks the blah, blah, blah of a childthe syllables a
child hears and gives meaning to. As we mature, the mind
picks up the organized languages of English, German,
Japanese, French, Indian, or whatever language we speakit
doesnt matter as it will speak words of any language. We say
that these are thoughts passing through our head. What are
these words? These words that the mind speaks are no more
than phonetic symbols, sound symbols, which get their
meaning from the association of ideas we have with those
sounds and other experiences in life. Therefore, the mind
connects with external experiences and uses this process in a
way which we call thinking. The mind also associates images
with these thoughts. Whatever you happen to think about, the
mind draws a picture before itself and you can see what it is
thinking. This capacity of the mind to think results in a
continuous activity, a stream of images and words passing
through our head.
The mind also performs the allied function of reasoning.
Thinking generally goes along with reasoning. What is
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reasoning? Reasoning is the application of a logic built into
the mind by conditioning from past experiences. When we
become educated a logic develops in the mind. Every
interface that this computer has with the world around us
gives it a new conditioning, a new logic. The combination of
all of the logical processes that go into the mind make it a
reasoning mind. Therefore, the thinking process becomes
integrated with the rational process and the mind begins to
reason.
This reasoning or logic is performed by the mind in two
waysas students of psychology would know. The logic that
the mind applies is of two kindsthe deductive logic and the
inductive logic. In the case of deductive logic, the mind
makes a statement in thought and then proceeds to deduce
something already contained in that statement. The mind
might say that this wall is made of wood panels, therefore a
small portion or part of this wall might also be made of a
wood panel. This syllogism, or this method of rationalizing or
reasoning, is called the deductive logic of the mind.
In the case of inductive logic, the mind sees part of the
premise and induces what could be the whole, or what could
be beyond that which is present in its own statement. In doing
so, the mind is left in a state of uncertainty.
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The mind, using its reasoning and thinking faculty, is
either not gaining any new knowledge or is gaining
knowledge along with a sense of doubt and uncertainty. That
is why, if you look at your own life, you can see that all of the
doubt and uncertainty that has crept in has come because of
thinking. Nobody has had any doubts until they began
thinking about something.
The third part of the mind has been referred to as the
creative mind. Actually, it creates nothing except new patterns
using the same elements of perception that have been picked
up by the lower mind. Journeying in the same stream of
reasoning, which is the middle mind, the perceptions are then
put into creative patterns and we say that this is the creative
mind. It creates nothing except some new patterns, and yet we
believe the creativity comes from the mind.
The mind performs these three functions of sensing,
thinking and reasoning, and of creating only in the framework
of time and space. The same three processes also follow the
laws of cause and effect. Sometimes the mind is called the
framework of time, space and causation. When the experience
of human beings is framed like that, we call it the mental
experience. This is all that the mind does. There is no other

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function that the human mind performs that cannot be
categorized into these three areas that I have just described.
If this then is the human mind, what is the human soul?
And what does the soul do while the mind is employed? The
human soul provides the motive, operative power for
everythingit is the life principle; it is vitality; it is
consciousness and the source of consciousness. If you were
not conscious, neither mind nor senses nor body would work.
Therefore, the human soul, which provides consciousness,
continuously performs its own functions.
There are three functions that the human soul performs
that cannot be performed by the mind. The first function of
the soul is to gather intuitive knowledgeintuition. This is
the gut feeling or sudden hunch, that sudden flash that comes
from nowhere. It is not logical nor does it come in any length
of measurable time, and it does not come in any particular
location in space. This spaceless, timeless, causeless bit of
information or knowledge that flashes into our being or
consciousness comes from the soul. It cannot come from the
mind; so intuition is a function of the human soul.
The second function of the human soul is love. Love is
the ability of the human being to identify with another, to

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have the same feelings of another, to forget the self and
become the other person. This is not possible with the mind.
You must have noticed that love is a universal experience
because we, universally, have souls. Having souls, we
constantly identify ourselves with others. Then why do we
lose that experience of love? It is because we start thinking
about it. The mind has the capacity to destroy the experience
of love but has no capacity to create love. This function
belongs only to the human soul.
The first function, that of intuition, can also be destroyed
by the mind. When an intuitive feeling comes to us, we throw
it out by thinking about it. We say, Thats not possible, thats
not logical, it doesnt make sense, or we decide it is not a
rational thing. We throw out the intuitive knowledge, the basis
of true knowledge that comes from the soul.
The third function of the human soul is the aesthetic
function, the ability to experience beauty. When we human
beings experience beauty, it is a function of our soul and not
that of the mind. Mind cannot create beauty. Contemplate or
think about an experience of beauty and you will destroy that
experience.

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If you were to look out of your window one morning and
see the beautiful layout of naturethe trees, a pond and the
blue skyyou could enjoy something of the totality of that
picture. It gives you a sense of beauty and a joy that goes with
beauty. And then you start thinking about it. You might say to
yourself, Now, just what is creating this beauty? you begin
analyzing with the mind, Is it the tree, the color of the leaves,
or is it the blue color of the sky? The mind continues
analyzing and, as you continue thinking about the beauty of
this scene, the beauty becomes less and less. The more you
think about it, the more you destroy beauty.
Imagine, here is the human mind which we have taken
as our best friendindeed, we think that we are that mind
and this same mind is constantly destroying the natural
functions of the human soulthose of intuition, love, and of
beauty. In the process, we destroy the very basis of the joy
and bliss that arises from our being. We are souls; we are
automatically in a state of joy and happiness. We dont have
to learn how to be happy. We dont have to learn how to love.
We dont have to learn how to acquire knowledge. We have to
unlearn the mental process that comes in the way of our
natural functions. If we could stop thinking at this moment,
we would have a natural sense of beauty, love, joy and
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happiness which would require no learning. The difficulty is
that we cannot stop thinking; therefore, we have to deal with
the mind in a different way.
First of all, it is most important to recognize that we are
not the mind. If we do not recognize this fact, we cease to be
human. We dehumanize ourselves and make ourselves like a
machine when we think we are the mind. The mind functions
no better than a machine. Human life, with the functions of
love, intuition and beauty, is not a mechanical function at all.
These functions of the soul cannot be performed by the soul
when we think we are the mind. The potential of the soul is
lost because we are in the company of a strange companion
living right inside of our headwho keeps on advising us all
of the time. The mind takes us away from the path of
discovery of our own self.
All of the religious traditions have given us the same
message: to go within and find out who we are. Recently, I
visited the headquarters of the Theosophical Society in New
York and observed on the walls, the pictures of all of the great
religious leaders of the world. Below the pictures were their
original messages. I was surprised to see that there were so
many Masters who had set up so many religions, but what
surprised me most was the fact that the message of all these
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leaders was the same. The message was to be a human being
and to find your own potential within the selfa simple
message. These leaders who had established traditions leading
to various religions had said the same thing: The Kingdom of
God is within you. You are within yourself. Be human and
you will find out everything.
What is the difference between a human being and an
animal? The difference is that the human being has the ability
to take a particular way, a particular path. The human being
has the feeling and experience of a free will that no other
being has. Those of you who have studied comparative
religions and those who have studied metaphysics will
recognize that free will is a unique experience available only
to the human being. All of the gods and angels that fly about
have no free will because they have instead the knowledge of
what is going to happen. If you were to have knowledge of
what is going to happen tomorrow, of what you will do of
your own free will tomorrow, then you have no free will
either. Human beings are blessed with ignorance and still feel
that they can decide what they will do tomorrow. This very
feeling of free will distinguishes human beings from
everything else created in this universe.

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Animals go by instinct and are like machines. They
operate by responses built into their systems. If human beings
also became strictly instinctive and did not use their free will
for a greater evolution of their own souls into a selfrealization, they would be no better off than animals. Indeed,
when you see so many human beings functioning like
machines, you wonder where the human being has gone.
Once a question was asked of me, What is the
qualification for one to be self-realized, to be God-realized, to
find God? I said that the only qualification was to be human.
If you are really human, then you are already divine. If you
have the capacity to be a perfect human being, if you use your
free will towards perfection, towards learning and a greater
awareness of yourself, you are then already a divine person.
So a perfect human being is automatically a perfectly divine
being. You dont need to seek a special divinity. To be divine
is not a state of scholarship or learning. You cannot read more
and become divine. You cannot listen to more sermons and
become divine any more than you can read more books and
become more human. To be human or divine, you must
expand your own awareness into a greater knowledge of your
own selfwhich is your own soul. A mechanical reliance

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upon our minds dehumanizes us and, therefore, takes us away
from any divinity that is possible.
So, when you study the history of religions you will find
that single message shining forth: be perfect human beings
and find the reality of your own Creator within yourself; for,
indeed, there is no greater Creator outside of yourself. That is
the message. If you wish to find truth and reality, you will
find it within the self. So go within. It is only those who come
before us and say, Go within whom we can recognize as
truly spiritual beings and spiritual Masters.
Those who would come and draw us out to rituals,
ceremonies and business, and the collection of funds are not
truly spiritual people. Spiritual people are those who push us
back into our own reality within our own selves. A great
Indian sage spoke in this country eight decades ago at the
World Congress of Religions. When Swami Vivekananda
spoke there, he addressed this question. He, too, said that
reality is within us. Everything that we see outside is
illusionit only looks real, but is not so. Then he put forth a
very interesting question. He said, I have been telling you
that everything you see about you is unreal, illusion. That
means that I, too, must be an illusion because you are seeing
me about yourself. That must also mean that my words are
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illusion. My message is illusion, so why am I giving you this
message knowing that I am an illusion, as are my words and
my message? He answered his own question by saying, It is
true that what you see is an illusion. My words are also
illusion, but there is one difference between this one untruth
and the rest of the illusion. The whole of illusion draws you to
itself and makes you believe it is real. It captures or captivates
you in illusion forever. This illusion of myself, however, takes
you back into your own self and makes you find the reality.
This was the message of all religions. This is the
fundamental message of all Masters and leaders who have
ever walked upon this earth. I think the Theosophical Society
did a great job in collecting this wisdom from various parts of
the globe and displaying it in one place to show mankind that
there is only one message: be human, go within, and find the
truth. Dont get cluttered up along the way by the mind and a
mechanical process. When people try to go within, the mind
puts up a battle and does not let you go within so easily. The
old way was to overcome the mind and go within. I have
heard that this has been the only path since the beginning of
the earthto go within to find the truth. However, this way
has been discarded, thrown away because nobody knew how
to go within.
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There was once an old lady living in a village in India.
She was looking for something in the street under the
streetlight in her small village, when a young man passed by
and asked, Maam, have you lost something? May I help you
find it? The old lady answered, Yes, I was sewing a piece of
garment with my sewing needle, and I have dropped the
needle. I am looking for it now. The young man asked to
help, and she said, Certainly, please help. So the young man
also got down on his hands and knees and began looking for
the needle. After a while, the man asked, Maam, just where
did you drop the needle? She said, I have dropped the
needle in my house. The man asked her, Why, then, are you
looking for it out here in the street? The old lady said, But I
have no light in my house. It is dark in there.
This is what we have been doing with the message to go
within. All the messages of all the religious leaders have said
to go within, the truth is within us. We have closed our eyes to
go within, found it was dark in there, and we began to go
outside to find the same truth. Are we not doing that? Why are
we looking outside? Because the inside is dark. We go
anywhere and everywhere outside. I find that we are going on
pilgrimages, to churches, around the world, to the Himalayas,
and to India to find the wisdom of the East. People go
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everywhere except within themselves, and therein is where
the truth is found. The truth is within and we carry it all about
while looking for it on the outside. We laugh now at that old
lady, but this is what we too are doing. We are looking for
something in the wrong place, and so very far do we travel.
Some have asked me, Please tell me of some good
place where I can go and find the truth. I have told them
where they can find a good place, but that they cannot go
anywhere to find it. They then ask, Why not? I answer
Because that place is where you are. If you go anywhere
else, you will not reach it. The trouble is that we still
continue to go elsewhere, we dont stop. Look at the
functioning of the human mindit continues to drag us along,
never stopping. We make visitations at this place and that
place, and we visit everybodys house except our own, which
is behind the eyes. In our visits to everyone elses home, we
leave our own home asking, Where is our home? We have
lost it. It is a strange situation, as we are carrying our own
home with us. Why are we doing it? Because when we close
our eyes, it is dark inside and we cannot see. Yet, every
religion, without exception, says that within yourself shines
the light that you cannot find outside.

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Some religions went beyond this. They have said that
only within this physical body can you find the light that
shines beyond the suns and the moons. The Bible says,
When thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of
light. We are not talking of some other body, but of this very
body of ours. Those who have tried to go within and have had
a glimpse into their own soul within this body, have seen the
lightthe likes of which does not exist anywhere else.
When the religious leaders and others close to them,
found that people were forgetting the message to go within,
they began to build replicas of this great church or temple of
the living God. They began to build replicas of the human
body, the human temple, and they called these places of
worship temples, mosques and churches. They made domes
over these structures much like the top of the human head
with steeples that resembled even the headgear worn at that
time. They gave them the same shape and then added candles
for light. Many traditions called these lights the unending
flame or the eternal flame. Those who used candles used a
very large supply of candles to ensure a continuing, unending
light. They provided a light that would never fail, forgetting
that the light we carry with us never fails.

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Those who had heard the inner music, the beauty of the
Lord, within their heads, knew the sound was reverberating
from within. They knew, indeed, it was the Lord. They had
read and understood Saint Johns gospel which begins, In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. The leaders knew that was the Creator and
that all things were made by him.
We can go further into tradition and see that another
book was written centuries before the Bible. The four Vedas
contain the counterpart of Genesis and they say, In the
beginning was the Sound, and this Sound created all that was
to be created. Yet another great tradition, the Islamic, found
it was the Bani, the Sound in the sky, that created all things.
Others would say that it was the music of the spheres, the
Logos, the Holy Ghost. So many words for so many
traditions, all saying the same thing. There is the great
resounding power that can be heard; it is audible and
continually moving. This is the basis of all creation. Go,
harken within. Listen to it and you will see the light and hear
the sound within yourself, without going anywhere.
But what did we do but forget. We began to play music
and sing and dance outside, forgetting that the eternal music
within never stops. We began to place bells in every place of
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worship throughout the world, to sound like the bells in the
temple of the Lord within our bodies. We used the same kinds
of music and the same kind of light, and yet we did not catch
the message. The light and sound are universal in every
religion throughout the world. Soon, nobody went inside to
see the significance of these symbols. So much was taken
away by the external symbols that we began to invent even
more symbols, more rituals, more ceremonieseverything to
keep us outsideand the mind was exceedingly happy. The
mind was assured of its survival.
It is only when we overcome these things and go within
ourselves that we find reality and overcome the mind. The
more we stay with these external ceremonies, rituals and
symbols, the further we go away from our own selves.
Therefore, the message is simple and clear: Find the truth.
Find the path, the light, and the real sound. Discover the
sound that is not an outwardly audible sound, but a creative
soundthe creative resonance that sustains the melody of the
universe. Find it within yourself. That is the path. I suggest
that you go back and read about the path as expressed by
anyone. Old or newit is the same path. The path is that truth
that is within us and can be recognized by the light and sound
that accompanies it.
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If you are lost in a forest and you want to go back home,
how will you go? If you are lost in a desert in the dark of
night, how will you know where to go? You might look about
and see the lights of a town and say, I can see the lights from
a town to follow safely. Then you might hear some sounds,
and you can follow them. Light and sound have been a guide
for human beings on this earth for many, many years. Many
people lost in darkness, have found their way with the light
and sound. Why then, cant we use the light and sound to go
within ourselves and pierce the darkness that is there? What
creates the darkness? Someone has said, There is no
darkness, but only ignorance. When we have knowledge, we
get light enough. What makes the darkness when we close our
eyes is the fact that when we close our eyes, we are not inside.
We are still trying to peep outside. We are so accustomed to
looking outside that we are unwilling to look inside. We have
forgotten how to turn our attention to ourselves. Our attention
continuously flows out to experiences in the world outside of
this body. Our relationships come from this body. We forget
the soul because this is the only awareness we have.
Consider that we make the simplest of mistakes, such as
calling our clothing that of ourself. Suppose that I were to say
that this jacket is mine. Please call it Ishwar Puri. You would
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laugh, but that is exactly what we are doing. We call our
bodies in a similar manner as though they were us. Even in a
name, the body is no more than a garment. We see people
wearing the garment then taking it off. The cemeteries are full
of testimony to the fact that we threw away our garments.
Since the beginning of the world and until now, we have
shown that this garment cannot last. The spirit never dies. We
get this message that the spirit never dies and that the body
does not last, yet we continue to call this garment by the name
of the person whose spirit speaks to us. A simple mistake?
What greater mistake can we make? There is a simple
statement in English which says, What is mine cannot be
me. It is very simple. If this is my jacket it cannot be me
because I am using it. This is my house, so I cannot be the
house. I can only use it. Is it not logical? Is it not valid to say,
also then, that this is my body, therefore it cannot be me? Is it
not valid also to say that this is my mind and, therefore, it
cannot be me? Obviously, we are using both the body and the
mind, but we are not that which we are using. So who are we?
We are the ones who claim that this is my body, my mind, my
jacket. That is our consciousness claiming to use these things.
Yet, when someone calls us by the name given to our body,
we respond as if the entire spirit is called by that name.

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I make a further mistake when someone asks, Who is
this child with you? I answer, This is my son, and this is
incorrect. The correct statement would be, This is my bodys
son, which indeed he is. The spirit occupies the body only
temporarily, and the son is the product of the body. In
claiming he is my son, I am misidentifying myself with my
own garment. This is my son, this is my wife, and this is my
housethey all belong to the body, to the cover. The entire
set of relationships that we form in this world belongs to the
physical body, which is not going to stay with you. The
physical body is not the real you; therefore, none of these
relationships, none of these people, and none of these
properties around you are yours. How can you claim that they
are yours? When a person dies, that is the first moment of
truthwhen this person finds that nothing he thought was his,
can go with him.
Let me tell you of Alexander the Great. Alexander
conquered many countries and finally ended up in India. He
had made so many orphans and widows by killing their
menfolk in his great conquest of the world. He had amassed
huge fortunes and carried all the jewels laden on his camels
and his horses. When he was about to die, he called for his
doctors and told them to take all of his wealth in exchange for
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restoring his health and life to him. The doctors had said that
they could not do this for him, that it was Gods will for him
to age and die. Alexander said, What! I have collected all of
this wealth and can pay any price, but I cannot get life nor can
I take it with me? The doctors told him that this was so and
that the collected wealth would now be used by others, as he
would go on without the wealth. Alexander was shocked at
his sudden knowledge and declared that, when he was to be
buried, his hand was to be left sticking out of the coffin to be
seen. His hand was to be seen out of the grave in order that all
persons could see that Alexander the Great went to the grave
empty-handed. And so he was buried like that. He realized
that nothing goes to the grave with us. Alexander also said,
And I have caused so much cruelty to others in amassing this
wealth and so much treasure, only to find that none of it is
mine. Even my relatives are not mine, nor are my people, my
kingdom, my body nor my wealth. What is mine? What was
mine I gave no attention.
The spirit that is our ownthe spirit that is the self
how much attention have we given to it? Have we ever cared
for it? What have we done about it? And it is the natural
source of intuition, love and beauty. How much have we
practiced love? The path of love is an integral part of going
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within because it is integral to the realization of our own soul.
If we come to know our own soul, we will know what love is.
How much of love have we shared? Have we really been
willing to share love with others? When we share love, we
become someone else. Love is the capacity to identify with
someone else. Love is not a case of saying, I love you;
therefore, do this for me. This is an ego trip. I want this. I
have done so much for you and I love you is said by many.
This is only the I and it is not love. This is ego. Whenever
the I asserts itself, it is ego and not love.
There are also attachments which we have created with
our mind. The mind cannot love and, therefore, finds a
substitute in attachments. What is attachment? In this case, it
is simply growing together, being attracted to each other.
When people become attracted to each other, they mistakenly
call it love. It is not love, but attachment. Attachment causes
pain when people come together and then are separated.
When they come together again, there is again happiness. But
the happiness is only temporary, and they are not truly one. In
attachment, at best, they can only be together. It is only love
that gives oneness. Attachment provides togetherness, and
many people mistake one for the other. Do you see the
difference? In togetherness, the I remains.
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New Age Old Path

Look, for example, at the number of people who daily
repeat the words, I love you. Every day, everywhere, people
repeat this expression. If they dont repeat it, then they are
asked to say the words. People will ask, Dont you love me?
Tell me so. Another will answer, Yes, but yesterday I told
you that I loved you. This person might well be asked,
Well, say again today that you love me. Why is this so? The
former declaration of love has already been written off? The
love is gone? For some, after five minutes, they would have
you say it again. They wish to be sure. What kind of love is
this? I have also seen a situation where one says, I love you,
then the other says, I hate you. So the first one then too
says, I hate you, too. This is love? This is nothing more than
pain-giving attachment.
We can better describe love as when neither the I nor
the love is known to you. Only the otherthe you is known
to yourself. When you can think of nothing more than the
other person, then you are in love. It is when you have
forgotten yourself and have transposed your attention to the
beloved, that you will know love. It is when your feeling of
the beloved alone is important and when you are entirely with
the beloved, then you can know love.

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New Age Old Path

How often have we loved? When we love, we are caring
for the spirit. We are then caring for something that truly
belongs to us. This will outlast the end of the physical body
and it will truly outlast even the end of the world. If we have
that love, and we express it by being the other person, then we
have built something that goes with us even after death. Have
we done this? Even when the flash of love comes, because of
natures gift to our soul to love, we destroy love by using the
machinery of the mindthinking and logic. We use selfinterest, ego, effort and struggle. All of these elements are
attacking the very basis of a natural asset and wealth that we
can accumulatethat which is called love.
How much time have we spent in forgetting the I and
placing ourselves in the others place? What is a simple
method by which people can experience love? The answer is
to just become the other person to whom you are talking.
Imagine that you are the other person and feel that you are
that person. Imagine what he or she is thinking. Imagine what
he or she is expecting or finding. Become that other person
and you will experience love.
But if you say, I love that other poor fellow. I love that
poor child. They are very sad and I want to give something.
Then the ego will never let you see love beyond the I of it.
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New Age Old Path

How can you patronize love? Love therefore, is the only thing
that takes care of our ego. When we dont care for love, how
can we say that we are exploring our own real self? Our own
self consists of nothing but love. Have you heard the
statement that God is love? Have you also heard that love is
God? Both are truths. They are not said just to make us more
loving and kind to one another. They are absolute truths. If
you can experience love and become someone else who is the
object of your love, then you have experienced God. You have
then experienced your innermost self and the function of your
own soul. It is so powerful.
People ask, Is there an answer to the problems of the
world? There is one answer, Yes, the power of love. Is there
any answer to the violence of this world? Yes, the same
answerlove. Is there any answer to the individual problems
and worries that we have? Yes. The answer is love. Is there
any problem, any difficulty, or anything that cannot be
surmounted? No. Everything can be surmounted. There is
nothing known to us which cannot be surmounted with the
power of love. Love is natural to us. We go with our mind to
cast the doubt and uncertainty of our minds upon others. The
others suspect us also, in their turn. Love is then the casualty
in the process.
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New Age Old Path

People who use their minds too much are always
suspicious, doubtful and uncertain. They are always wanting
to be sure. When someone offers them real love, they will ask,
How can I be sure? There must be a catch to this. There must
be something up their sleeve. In some lectures that people
give on love, they say, Take a flower and go and give a hug
to the one you love. Any man who has not done this in the
past, who then takes a flower and a hug to his wife, will cause
her to ask, What is wrong? What have you been up to
today?
Why is this so? Because the mind will put her on another
track immediately. This is the nature of the mind. You can
make the best gesture out of love, and if the mind is being
used, it doesnt respond. But if you put yourself in the
position of not worrying about the flower, the hug and the
kissing, or any of the external rituals and acts, then something
else will happen. Put yourself in the position of thinking about
the other, think as if you are the other person, and that person
will be drawn to you. Try it. Tomorrow morning, go out into
the world and meet everyone as though you were that person.
You will find no bad people in this world. Where have they
gone?

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New Age Old Path

Everyone says that the world is full of wicked people. I
have traveled around the world more than forty times, and I
have met thousands of people. All were good, loving people.
So where are all the bad guys hiding? And how is it that I
meet so many good people? I meet people full of kindness,
smiles, and love. Where does this come from but from their
own souls? Fortunately, there is no body without a soul except
the devil. All human beings have a soul and have the
goodness and love within them, provided that you meet them
with your soul. If you meet people with your soul, you will
meet their soul directly. The love and the soul within you are
so powerful. They alone can take care of the ego and the
mindeven of others. Dont try to teach this and involve the
mindit will not work or succeed.
Thirty years ago I had a very interesting experience
when I was lecturing at a college in India. There was a class
of students and professors assembled and I had been asked to
speak on the nature of the self. For the benefit of the scientific
community, I spoke in depth of the latest experiments in
which others had determined a way in which to measure the
weight of the astral body. When the physical body dies, the
life principle that goes on, or continues, has a weight. The
experiments had concluded that even when the body was
29

New Age Old Path

tightly sealed or enclosed, there was a loss of weight when the
body died and the astral body departed. I went deep into these
questions of the nature of the self. I took this group into the
ultimate levels of the real self beyond senseseven beyond
the soulto the totality of consciousness. When I took them
to this level, they were so overwhelmed that one young
student stood up and asked, Sir, please tell me how much of
what you have told us today is from your own experience, and
how much of it have you read from books? And I answered
him by saying, Young man, whatever I said that has gone
straight into your heart and made an impact there was from
my experiencethe rest was from books.
That is what books can teach us. Books can teach us
scholarship and words. New words and phrases and the ability
to write even more new books, but books cannot give us love.
They cannot give us intuition and the knowledge of our own
self. Books can never give us the true spiritual experience.
Indeed, the intellect that becomes so developed by scholarship
becomes a stumbling block to our discovery of our own self.
Therefore, when you find people having difficulty in finding
and retaining love, ask them if they are reading too many
books.

30

New Age Old Path

Not so long ago, a man from Harvard University came to
a lecture where I was speaking for the Spiritual Frontiers
Fellowship, and he asked me to give him a short-cut. He had
been so engrossed in the study of the self with the reading of
books, but he said that he had gotten nothing and only wanted
an answer to his search. I told him that I would give him a
real short cut. I told him to go and pack up all of his books
and to dump them into the river, that he would begin
improving tomorrow.
For him, the books were the stumbling block, because
they were placing more and more of the intellectual apparatus
and concepts in front of him. Concept can never be reality.
Concept differs from the real thing and that is why it is called
concepteither it precedes or succeeds the real thing, but it
cannot be the real thing.
Many people confuse reality with their concepts. They
say that they know their own soul because they have a
concept of it. How can one know the soul with only a concept
of it? Concept is only an intellectual process, a mental process
that blocks us from the experience that need not be rational at
all. The true spiritual experience of the self transcends reason.
It is not bound by the logical framework nor does it follow
cause and effect. So how can we have concepts and still
31

New Age Old Path

expect to overcome the process? These concepts are not an
aid to realization. Concepts are an obstacle or blockage to
realization of the self. Concepts are an aid to understanding
and not an aid to experience. Understanding has a very
strange role in self-realization.
Once I was present at a very unusual meeting with a
spiritual Master in India. Someone had come to him and
asked, Master, I have been reading all these books. Tell me,
am I doing the right thing? The Master replied, Yes. Read
all of the books that you have and then go and get some more
books and read those also. Later, I asked the Master why he
had told the man to read more books. The Master told me that
some people will never take the next step until they have
exhausted their mind.
Intellect is such a thing in that it will not stop interfering
in our path to self-discovery unless it can be brought to say, I
give up. Therefore, go ahead and read, drive your intellect to
such effort. Drive it against the wall and into a corner. When
the intellect then says, No more! This is beyond me. I can do
no more. Then one can take the next step. Then one can
come back to the path of effortless love. Come back to the
path of realization, that of being the self. The path of
transformation requires no effort at all, but we will not accept
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New Age Old Path

the effortless way until we have found the futility of effort.
The mind is so crafty that we can bring to it any argument and
it will respond with the element of effort until effort has been
exhausted.
People hear of effortless meditation and say, I am going
to try very hard for effortless meditation. That is what the
mind does. We are going to chase the dog from the room, so
we catch the dog by the tail. We begin to strike the dog with
his own tail and expect the dog to run from us. Likewise, the
very mind we are trying to overcome is the same one we
employ to do it. Similarly, we add more bricks to the wall that
we are trying to escape.
What are we doing? How can the mind help us to
overcome the mind? It doesnt happen that waywe must
exhaust the mind. The spiritual path indicates to us that we
must go through the process of the mind. We must first study,
think, become confused, and struggle. Finally, we will just
throw up our handsbut only when the mind gives up.
Otherwise, the mind will never give up. It is when the mind
gives up that the soul comes into its own. It is then that you
find that you are not the mind, but someone else.

33

New Age Old Path

In this body, we have the entire universe, the entire
creation. We carry it with us in the human body. The mind,
the soul, and the Creatoreverything is inside this body. But
if we identify our self with any one of these, then we fail to
recognize our own reality. When we find that the body is not
our self and we wish to discover the real self within, how do
we check on this? What is the reality? One way, of course, is
to kill the body and see what remains. This is the simplest
way, but if we do this, we are not likely to come and tell
anyone else of our discovery. Therefore, the second way is
better and requires that we dont kill the body, but we
simulate death. This method has been used in every path
throughout the world. It is the experience of death while
living. Saint Paul once said, I die daily. Every tradition,
every religion, and every discipline asks us to die while living
if we wish to discover who we are, besides this body. We
experience death while living by simulating death.
One of the great spiritual leaders from India, Raman
Maharishi, got his entire spiritual wisdom and enlightenment
when he was lying sick on his death bed. His attendant had
gone shopping and left the swami alone. The swami, being
only a simple man, thought to himself, Oh, my God! I am
going to die. There is nobody around even to give me a drink
34

New Age Old Path

of water. What is going to happen to me? The swami became
very afraid, as he felt he would die alone. It then occurred to
him, Why am I afraid to die? After all, what can happen to
me? Should I die, this body will become rigid. The swami
then stiffened out his arms and legs as in death. He then
opened wide his eyes and stopped his breathing. He continued
to think to himself, My eyes will open wide at the time of my
death. I will become rigid and my breathing will cease. Now,
if this is what will happen to me, why then, am I speaking so
loudly to myself in fear? Who is this who is speaking more
loudly than before? I have simulated death and I have become
more alive than ever before. That was the beginning of his
spiritual realization.
The consciousness that can assert its presence, even
when we simulate death, must be something other than the
body. Practitioners of meditation have refined this process
even more. They tell us not only to simulate death in the body,
but to do so by losing consciousness of the body. Go beyond
the stiffening of the limbs. The Lord has given us a wonderful
gift called human attention. Attention enables us to choose our
experiences. This ability of ours, allows us to draw our
attention to one thing and, thereby, withdraw the attention
from something else. What will happen then, if we were to
35

New Age Old Path

give our attention to our own self within and ignore the body?
The attention would be withdrawn from the body and into our
own true self. What would happen if we were to simulate that
we were a conscious being within the body, but not inclusive
of the body? If we gather our attention into that simulated
self, the conscious self, we will gradually become unaware of
the body. At first, we will not know where the hands and feet
have gone. Then our limbs and the body trunk will be gone
from our awareness. Our entire body will cease to exist in our
awareness and we will become very much more alive and
conscious.
Try it out, anyone can do it. All of the practitioners of
meditation do it, and it is called dying while living. You
remain still very much alive, but unconscious of the body and,
therefore, discover what you are besides a body. When you do
this, you will find that your ability to see, taste, touch, and
smell remains intact. This is because we have yet another
body. You can walk about in this lighter body and talk, see,
touch, taste, and smell without the physical body. All of the
physical sense perceptions remain intact, even without the
physical body.
When we allow the attention to return to the physical
body, we find that we are experiencing these sights, smells,
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New Age Old Path

tastes, and touch because of this other body and not because
of the physical body. The power of sense perception belongs
to this other body, but since we are using the physical body,
we then misidentify the capacity to perceive with the physical
body. What a great discovery one can make merely by dying
while living. When you find this other body, often called the
sensory body or the astral body, you will wish to go further.
You will ask, Is this astral body really me, or is there
something even deeper beyond this discovery? You have
only to die while living in the astral body. Again, you simply
withdraw your attention from the sensory perceptions of the
astral body and place your attention onto the self within, the
self that claims that these are my senses. When you withdraw
attention to the core of that astral body, you will find that you
can become completely unawareunconscious of the astral
systems and sensory systems. You will become completely
unaware of the sensory perceptions and still hear, see, and
grasp mentally all of these things.
You will find that the mind outlives even the sensory
building. That means that the mental or causal body that
causes this experience is even deeper than the astral level.
There is no difference, really, between the mind and the
causal body. The mind, when it encloses us, is called the
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New Age Old Path

causal body and, when it is applied and we dont see the
causal body, it is called the mind.
Now, what would happen if you were to allow the mind
to die while the self remained conscious? If the self that is
using the mind says, Let me withdraw my attention from
thoughts, from reasoning, and withdraw the attention to the
self, then you become unconscious of the mind. When,
through this process of deep meditation, you become
unconscious of the mind, you will become more conscious of
the self than ever before. For the first time, you realize that
your consciousness was not dependent upon the mind, the
senses, or the physical body. Anyone can do this, provided
that you go in the right direction, the right pathwithin and
not out ward.
If you continuously place your attention outside of
yourself, how can you then have any of these experiences?
The moment you reverse this direction to the right path,
within yourself, you can have the experience of existence
without the physical body. Then, by doing without the sensory
body, you can be more alive than ever. And by doing without
the mind, you can be ever more conscious than before. Then,
for the first time, you have a legitimate claim - a right to say,

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New Age Old Path

I know who I am. I was never the mind; I was never the
body and the senses. I am the soul.
However, when you come to this point and say, I am
the soul, you are still not the total soul. Who is it that is
claiming to be the soul? Someone is still asserting, still
claiming as much as one would claim a body. You cannot be
the soul, either, at this point. So now what is left for us to do?
We have taken off all of the covers, all of the outer garments,
and still there is something saying that it is the soul. Who is it
that has the soul? What part of consciousness is still left that
is being deluded from the soul? The last unseen and subtle
cover that keeps us separated from the true self is called the
cover of individuation.
What makes us an individual soul, that is itself unreal?
When this individuation, this individuality, is also removed by
drawing

attention

to

pure

consciousness

rather

than

individuated consciousness, you will then find that there was

always but one consciousnessthe total consciousness. There
never were so many, but we have created the illusion of the
many levels of consciousness to have the experience of a
dramatic creation. It is immaterial what you call it, whether it
be totality, God, or total Consciousness, there is only one,
single, undivided, indivisible Consciousness. It is here that
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New Age Old Path

you have thrown aside the last of the illusions and found that
everything that exists, everything that has been created is you,
the self. It is only illusion that has created the walls between
one another.
The question arises, if you were to have even a glimpse
of this higher experience, do you think that you could remain
the same person thereafter? Can you, after this experience, not
love, laugh, and enjoy all of creation? Can you ever see any
enemies around you after this experience? One of the mystics
in India was once asked whom did he like and whom did he
not like. He answered, How can I like or dislike anybody
else, when there is no one else? Where is the other person?
The truth is that there is no one else. And when does this
knowledge come to us? When consciousness of the human
being, which is available to each of us right now, can
transcend the covers which it thinks is the self. We will see
this when we can rise to our own totality, our own reality,
through these stages. When we can say that we are selfrealized. Then we can see that there is no difference between
the self and the Creator because there is but One. There were
never two.
When I was very young and was taught the Way, the
path to my fathers home, a strange philosophy was
40

New Age Old Path

propounded. And that was: You are a soul, a drop from the
ocean, separated from the ocean. Try hard to go back and
merge with the ocean, which is your Father, full of love. I
thought to myself, Good grief! Today, I am a drop and I have
a personality, an individuality, and I am supposed to go and
merge with the ocean? It will make no difference to the ocean
to have one more drop and I will lose everything I have. What
kind of game is this? The spiritual path is no good. I should
not lose all that belongs to me in merging with an ocean to
whom it makes no difference or consequence.
But I was wrong at that time, and those who believe that
we are like drops of the ocean, separated from the ocean, are
also wrong. They are wrong for the simple reason that if a
single drop is taken from the ocean, the ocean is no longer a
total ocean. If it is no longer a total ocean, it is no longer God.
Do you realize that God is totality, with nothing missing or
separated? If any part happens to escape, it not only destroys
God but it destroys everything. It destroys totality. Therefore,
as I grew up and better understood the path, I found that it is
true that I am a drop. I am a drop in the ocean, but I have
never left the ocean. The truth is that I am a drop of
consciousness in the ocean of total consciousness, but I have
never left the ocean. And what did I leave? I left only the
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New Age Old Path

awareness of being the ocean. See now what happens? If I am
already in the ocean as a drop of that ocean, and the spiritual
path takes me back into my awareness, I become one with the
ocean. The drop enlarges its personality to its truth or totality
which is the total ocean. When I learned this, it immediately
made sense.
Go and look at the ocean and see if it is anything but
drops. Are they not drops all placed together? How big are the
drops? Are they not as big as your awareness will make them?
Look at them as tiny drops and they will be tiny. Look at them
as big drops and they will become bigger. They become larger
and larger and become one entire drop. The whole ocean
becomes but one large drop. It is the awareness, the expansion
of awareness, the realization of the totality that gives you the
truth. Therefore, the spiritual path is not a path that takes you
anywhere else but into your own totality. And as you leave the
illusion of your covers one by one, you discover the truth.
Large numbers of people are coming to me today with
invitations to come to new organizations related to New Age
movements. They say I have brought them a message for the
New Age, but actually its an old message in a new package, a
new container. Call it the New Age, if you will, but it is the
same path and the same message. Every age needs it, and the
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New Age Old Path

New Age needs it more than ever before. We have reached the
brink of being overwhelmed by the mind. The mind likes
analysis, and analysis means a breaking down, and breaking
down means violence. The soul likes synthesis and peace and
oneness. The New Age needs the Old Path more than ever
before. I hope that anyone of us who is given attention by the
New Age will rejoice in the fact that the turn of the century
will see a real New Age, when we give up the pursuit of the
mind and return to our own souls. And we will then, through
the totality of our own souls, know everlasting love, joy,
beauty and happiness.

43

For a list of further publications, recorded lectures, or for

more information, contact:
Institute for the Study of Human Awareness Inc.
PO Box 991
Palatine, IL. 60078
E-Mail: [email protected]
Phone: 847-312-3060
Fax: 888-201-1030

Ishwar Puri is an international

traveler and lecturer on a wide
variety of subjects. Each of his
eloquent presentations is made
without reference to notes and
includes art, religion, human
relations,

science,

philosophy,

human

awareness,

consciousness, and many other subjects. The lectures are

motivating, enlightening, and reflects the highest flight
of philosophy and human understanding.
As founder and principle speaker for the Institute for the
Study of Human Awareness, Ishwar Puri continues to
donate to others his time and activities through this nonprofit organization.

Published by: ISHA

ISBN: 978-0-937067-04-8